questions about campaigns in d20 modern

[yoippari]

I don't actually have the modern book yet but I have questions for those of you who play with this system.

First off, how is adventuring handled? For example do you usually play a soldier or some one similar who has an excuse to go out and shoot people, or a civilian who is caught in a gang war.

Secondly what are the campaign settings generally like? I can see a post apocalyptic fallout style campaign (hey, that might be a fun setting) but does any one run a modern (as in post 9-11) game, in america (or what ever country you are in)?

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

I don't actually have the modern book yet but I have questions for those of you who play with this system.

First off, how is adventuring handled? For example do you usually play a soldier or some one similar who has an excuse to go out and shoot people, or a civilian who is caught in a gang war.

There are many different types to play, way too many to list here. Here's some basic ones...

Men in Black: Fighting with or against the Men in Black, where the MiB's either are protecting the world from aliens, or are sinister agents of a secret government.

Against the Machine: The government has gotten hideous, and has moved to a complete despotism.

After the Bomb/Germ/Gas: Everthing is gone, and it's catch as catch can.

Year of the Zombie: It's flesh eating time, baby!

Guarding the rich/powerful: Just what it says. It's Hollywood and Power Suits at it's best.

Blood in the Boardroom: Corporations use mercenaries all time. Sometimes even in the US.

Workin' for da May-ahn!: Working for a government office, like the Homeland Defense Agency, Department 7, Depeartment of Shadow Security, Anti-Terrorist units, SWAT Teams, etc.

Easy to come up with adventures. Watch the news. Pick up the paper. Buy something like The Weekly World News.

Secondly what are the campaign settings generally like? I can see a post apocalyptic fallout style campaign (hey, that might be a fun setting) but does any one run a modern (as in post 9-11) game, in america (or what ever country you are in)?

However you and your players are comfortable.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I don't actually have the modern book yet but I have questions for those of you who play with this system.

First off, how is adventuring handled? For example do you usually play a soldier or some one similar who has an excuse to go out and shoot people, or a civilian who is caught in a gang war.

Secondly what are the campaign settings generally like? I can see a post apocalyptic fallout style campaign (hey, that might be a fun setting) but does any one run a modern (as in post 9-11) game, in america (or what ever country you are in)?

The D20 Modern Core Rulebook presents three campaign models for contemporary settings. All three of them include FX (magic or psionic), but to a different degree.
There is a 4th one that didn´t make it into the book, but was presented online or in a magazine - Genetech. It didn´t use magic, but genetics (think of DarkAngel) as special ingredient. It is now also contained in the D20 Future book.

Each of the settings presents a place were "heroes can go and work for", called Department 7. Whatever this Department is part of is basically the DM´s decision, but the assumption is that the Department 7 knows about the supernatural aspects of the world.

But there are other campaigns possible. You could have a group of private investigators, a group of mercenaries or whatever else you like. I think, for long-time motivation and a broader scope in adventures, it is good if the characters aren´t just mercenaries, they should have a personal relationship to the "job" or the adventures they take.

In one of our campaigns, we had a Special Unit 2 campaign based in Germany (Berlin). Our characters were average people (more or less), who just happen to stumble upon a supernatural event. At the same time, the police decided to create SOKO 27, a special unit to investigate supernatural events. We became the first members of it.
In another campaign, we were basically hired as a mix of mercenaries and private investigators, even though we didn´t all have a militiary/law enforcement background.

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Masada]

I created a campaign based on the core rules "Shadow Chasers" concept which is similar to X-Files. The PC's were just ordinary folks that happened to see things others didn't (supernatural monsters). In order to protect themselves and the community they hunted down monsters and killed them. Recently they discovered a group of real vampires. The vampires are organized similar to Mob families.

One of the first things to decide on a campaign setting is how much FX do want. Full-on magic, ritual magic, no magic? Monsters, no monsters? Etc. A setting with a little supernatural is pretty easy to move along because you can always add in the fantastic and that drives the plot. A no FX campaign is harder (IMO) since you have to be pretty good at making believable organizations and villians. But harder doesn't mean less fun by any means. Low combat games involving investigations or bouty hunting are great. If you really like guns and combat, then remember that a good chunk of the world is not as civilized as the US. The Solomon Islands (in the Pacific) have been a lawless state for several years. There is no government there just the power of the warlords in the area--a great setting for modern piracy and high action. There are Super-Spy settings and Super heros. D20 Future was just released. So you can add space travel, aliens, robots and cyberware to your setting list.

Endless possibilities...

 

[ledded]

Our main game, Medallions, features a set of normal people with little in common who have been thrust together by circumstances they dont quite understand to face various supernatural events. We have loved the premise, basically being a group consisting of a down-on-his-luck Private Eye, a college grad student, a evangelical preacher, a comic book shop owner, and a librarian, who have come together to oppose threats to the city they live in (mostly). We're not very well equipped, have no sponsor, and have to be careful not to attract the wrong kind of attention from the police and other, more nefarious individuals.

Check out the story hour link in my sig, the first few pages will give you an idea as to how the campaign was set up.

Also, we went from that campaign into a one-off that I designed for a side track to give our main GM a break, which is a d20 Modern based WWII Superheros game that has been a lot of fun ("We were like gods once..." story hour). There's no end to what you can do with Modern.

 

[takyris]

Stuff I've played with d20 Modern:

- A military and scientific team working together on a mysterious island
- A special investigative unit of the Bureau of Indian Affairs that checks out paranormal crimes a la X-Files
- A group of bad-mutha martial artists who are brought to an isolated island by a megalomaniacal bad guy to compete in death matches

Generally speaking, there are two big ways and one little way in which you can get a group together:

This is our job: On one level or another, the PCs want to do this, trained to do this, and are meant to do this. They can all be some sort of soldier, some sort of cop, whatever. This way makes motivation easy but flexibility hard. You can have a guitar-playing psychologist on your Marine Corps zombie-killing unit, but he probably isn't going to fare quite as well as everyone else... and it might be a stretch to work him in.

D'oh: People are thrown together by chance (plot), fate (plot), or circumstances (plot), and have to work together, even though they come from different backgrounds. Ordinary people who suddenly find zombies wandering through their town, or a bunch of people in a coffee shop when the coffee shop swirls through a dimensional nexus and comes out in fairyland. Whatever. This makes flexibility easy (Dedicated/Charismatic with no combat feats? Sure!), but motivation is a bit harder, unless the GM shoehorns people into things. This doesn't mean that the GM is bad -- in this scenario, it's the GM's job to mostly force the team together at first. The drawback to coming together this way is that some people are going to try to game the system. "Yes, Marine Martial Arts Specialist Hendricks was in Starbucks, getting his mocha, and he just happened to have 12 tear-gas grenades, night vision goggles, and his Mastercraft +3 leather jacket with him when that dimensional vortex hit... gosh, is this going to be a combat-focused game?"

And the little way:

Not working together: This one is sort of for political campaigns, campaigns where you've got very experienced players who are really comfortable getting nasty in-character and keeping it friendly but competitive. Sort of think "Babylon 5", if people got to play Sheridan, Londo, and G'Kar.

Let's take a scenario in which a fictional city begins to have weird crimes, and multiple groups slowly realize that the Fey have entered the world, and pixies and elves and unicorns are doing weird stuff:
- An archaeologist wants to track them down to figure out what they're doing here, what dark purpose they serve.
- A cop wants to get these new monsters off the streets by whatever means necessary.
- A local crime boss wants to get these things off his turf, or at least come to an alliance that gets them out of his bidness.
- A District Attorney wants to get the truth out there, get the Fey to be treated like anybody else, which means not just killing them on sight, but fitting them into his idea of order.

These folks don't really need to work together. Sometimes they'll be joining forces -- the D.A. and the Cop stopping the Fey from kidnapping children and putting the humans who helped them behind bars, the Crime Boss and the Cop gunning down a dangerous Fey monster, the D.A. and the Archaeologist trying to figure out where they're coming from with street smarts and arcane lore.

And sometimes, the Crimelord will be trying to gun down the Cop, who's trying to shake down the Archaeologist for information but being threatened with an Internal Affairs investigation by the D.A, who is also trying to figure out whether to use the Crimelord as a scapegoat in the crimes the Fey have been committing...

You can do other variations -- like "The group that is not really suited for the adventure but has some other reason to be there" (for example, a travelling a cappella group that keeps running into attacks by the undead, who, for some reason, really really hate a cappella) -- but I think most stuff can go into one of those three categories.