Modiphius 2d20 System Opinions?

[Ruin Explorer]

Cortex is one of those systems that when people talk about it, my interest is piqued, but I have no desire to build a game from scratch using it. Maybe one day i will play it at a con, or find one of the games that used it as a core (there was a Marvel one I think, as well as Smallville and maybe Leverage?).

I built a Mass Effect RPG from Cortex - it's an excellent system - quite abstract in some ways but the output felt really on-point, and the players seemed to grasp it instantly (faster than I expected - it's always interesting when that happens). We didn't keep playing past a few sessions because one of my main players has an complicated hatred of Mass Effect and just refused to play it lol.

 

[aramis erak]

I will add one thing to be aware of as a GM: It is fairly easy to complicate up the game to crawl... and threat snowball... by excessive use of increased threat range as a scene-length complication.

Basically, unless you want to drown the players in complications, don't go beyond Threat range 2 (19-20=complication), maybe 3 (18-20).

 

[TheHand]

I ran a single STA one-shot with 2d20. We liked that the system encouraged teamwork among the characters and liked how the ship itself contributed to rolls, it felt very Federation. We didn’t like the effect dice, but that may have been due to our unfamiliarity with the game, and were happy that 2nd edition removed them. I bought 2nd edition but we haven’t played it.

It was fun, we might do another but no one felt strongly about it.

So while I didn’t hate the system and thought it made sense for Trek, I didn’t have enough love for it to want to check out the other games that use it. (Even though I’m otherwise a pretty big Fallout fan.)

Glad others have gotten enjoyment from it!

 

[RenleyRenfield]

TO me, it's perfect for the three I use. It might not be for Conan, but I have seen a lot of complaints about conan being too easy and players bouncing against the limits on momentum.

Just me thinking over how rolls have gone for us.... purely subjective here.... In how our games have played - this is not "a thing". in so much as "there is no standard of expectation of Momentum."

Since I mostly play Conan and Infinity and Dune I can only speak to those, but I am willing to bet what I am about to say applies to all = The GM is fully in control of Momentum flow based on Difficulty Rating 0 through 5.

What I mean by that is, if ever there was a time when players were sitting on 5+ momentum every roll, then welp up goes the DR (assuming I care). And if ever the players were struggling to get even 1 Momentum each turn, welp down goes the DR (again, assuming this is desired).

If ever there was a game that was easy to GM balance/fine tune = its Cortex ...lol. But if ever there was a #2 game that was suuuper easy to fine tune as play is happening - its 2d20. imho

thinking back though, I recall that keeping DR at 2 for most stuff, most any 2d20 game did fine. There were moments when a character was deep in their wheelhouse and items and so they could generate a lot of momentum but that was situational.

I think the biggest reason we don't see repeated anything = is due to the diversity of our play. We have one game session where important rolls are made for social, then whole scene of sneak, then whole scene of combat, then whole scene of city-building, then survival. the swings are important enough that characters see times every game when they are lacking skills and times when they are kicking megabutt... and all inbetween.

It may tie to player styles, too. I've had a few sessions where the momentum after the roll was over 10, so 4+ must spend. Biggest roll, 6 helpers, Computer, and every PC in specialty, with enough NPCs to zero out the difficulty. This was a torpedo attack on a Borg Cube... They got one free die, and used threat to get two more... (talent triggered, too, hence the threat spend) and thus wound up with, IIRC, 16 successes, for a 22 point momentum pool, and 16 must spend, on hitting the cube. They maxed out the number of hits, maxed the damage dice, rerolled the damage dice several times to get more damage out of said dice pool, and bought several conditions. When I finished the crits, the conditions were irrelevant... they popped it in one volley.

Oh yes yes, very good! That sounds like a blast!