R U Playing?

[scourger]

no

I do not play or run d20 Modern games. Even though I read most of the d20M SRD online, I bought the book for 1/2 price at a used book store and have considered reselling it. Here are the reasons.

I love d20. By that I mean d20 D&D. My first RPG was D&D. I played many other games, always learning a new (proprietary) game mechanic. When 3e came out, I found it was a vast improvement over previous editions. The d20 fantasy market exploded, which wasn't really of interest to me since I prefer a core D&D game. I really didn't need much past the PH, DMG, MM & Dungeon Magazine.

Then, the d20 market expanded with games in non-fantasy settings. I bought many of these. I have several favorites as a DM. DragonStar is great because it is sci-fi fantasy. WOTC should never have let Star Wars get beaten to the market by that game. My players didn't embrace it as I did, but I still like it even though it feels played out now. Judge Dredd d20 is also a great game for similar reasons. That setting allows everything from espionage to cops & robbers to post apocalyptic to space opera. Again, on the solid chassis of the D&D d20 game that I already knew & loved. I buy all the supplements even though I only use the core book and the adventures. Omega World is probably the best d20 game I own. It is simple and elegant. And it is based on d20 D&D. I am also a big fan of the FFG Horizon Line, especially Spellslinger, for similar reasons.

I ran the Spycraft Lite game. It was okay, but I just not enough to captivate me. I have also played Call of Cthulhu and Wheel of Time, but they didn't last. Too much change just for the sake of change.

Then came d20 Modern. Here again, WOTC should never have let Spycraft beat it to the market. I looked at it and found some interesting bits. But overall, why should I learn a new game at this point? D20M presents just enough change to be different for no really good reason. I just don't see the point. Even if I did want to run d20M, my players wouldn't go for it. They all prefer D&D to other games, even other games based on d20 D&D like the ones I've mentioned.

So, the issue really is that D&D is the lowest common denominator. There isn't much time, money or effort left for other games for us since we are all busy professionals approaching middle age. I have the broadest interest of all my gaming buddies, and even I can't really get into d20M.

All that being said, I will laud your product Weekend Warriors. I have seen blurbs for it for some time, and I played it at a convention just last weekend. It was really fun. I would love to run it as a Judge Dredd scenario one day. I think you are on the right track producing adventures of that caliber. If you produced a mini-campaign with little or no new rules and a few connected adventures, I think you would have a winner.

 

[Album Cover X]

I'm pretty much gonna echo what some others have been saying... I'd love to play more modern RPGs but I don't because of time and some in my group are strictly D&D players...

I've played Spycraft in previous groups and had a blast and would like to play that or d20 modern sometime again... but right now its just D&D and I'm ok with that but I do get that itch every so often

 

[WingOver]

I really like D20 Modern. I bought it when it first came out. I like the pseudo science stuff like the "Moreau" races. I like the classes. It feels neat and clean.

I mentioned DMing modern with my group, and one guy in particular was really jazzed up about it. I got a lot of ideas from watching shows like "Alias"... It would be fun to come up with ideas drawn from real world events and inject some future tech.

Unfortunately, D&D competes for time, and the group has more D&D related books than D20 modern. (In fact, I think I'm the only one with the Modern manual).

Another problem is that its difficult to come up with a D20 Modern adventure for a group of players. When you look at most spy-type thrillers, they usually involve one superhero spy (James Bond, Alias). Where do the others fit in? Unless you want them to play mercenaries, soldiers or something (Predator).

 

[pogre]

Modern games are one-offs for my group. They are not sustainable for me. I like the system though and I like what Grim Tales did with it even more. Anything out of fantasy will continue to be unusual one time type things for us though. My players are begging me to run Unknown Armies, but it just does not hold my interest.

 

[resistor]

I find that a modern setting just fails to appeal to me. At all. Not that I didn't like things like the movies you suggested, but I have never seen someone successfully transform a modern movie into a modern campaign.

I like playing in campaigns where everything can be customized. Playing in a modern setting (or even a strictly historical one) severely limits that because there are things that Just Don't Work (tm). One of the great things about fantasy is that, while people might have some preconceptions, there's no right or wrong. When you get into history or modern you get into situations where there is a right and a wrong, and people know which is which.

Basically, I don't like modern or historical games because the suspension of disbelief is just too hard. In a fantasy setting or a futuristic setting, or basically any setting not recreating something I'm too familiar (modern, history), it's much easier to suspend disbelief.

 

[dead]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is d20 Modern a kind of "D&D in the future"? If so, then why doesn't it stay true to the core mechanics like Dragonstar does?

I haven't played Dragonstar or d20 Modern long enough to make a comment on their success or failure but this always had me wondering. I think the answer is probably because the d20 Modern designers wanted to make the game more of an "action cinema" game that they thought the core rules were incapable of acheiving.

Nevertheless, if d20 Modern didn't borrow from D&D; if it were a modern/fantasy game in its own right (like Shadowrun) but using the d20 system, then I might be interested. Alternatively, if it stayed true to the "D&D in the future" concept, like Dragonstar, I might also be interested (this would also allow for easy world-hopping from fantasy campaigns to modern campaigns).

 

[BASHMAN]

I love modern era RPGs-- but only in the Superhero Genre. And, class and level systems don't work for super heroes. If you wanna play superheroes, I'm sorry, but you need a point-based driven engine to make it work! Champions would be a good example of a system that works, and works well.

For a more rules lite option, I am currently working on developing my own homebrew Supers rpg into something marketable-- but I wanna keep a lid on it for right now!

 

[Razuur]

The whole D20 Modern thing can be kind of sensitive on these boards. Sometimes it seems that unless you love D20M, you get ripped to pieces. Each unto their own - and here is my opinion. So here goes!

1. I like the idea of D20 Modern. As a GM, I think that too much Unearthed Arcana material made it into D20 Modern, and vice versa. I wanted D20 Modern to be a generic toolkit, and D20 Modern had the Modern D&D theme throughout. I really disliked the addition of kobalds, Gnolls, and the like in the book.

2. The art. It just doesn't jive, with me or my players. It is almost anime., but not quite. And then when you add in gnolls in pimp outfits, it enters so far into stupid territory, in our opinion.

3. As a GM I appreciate the classes and how they are generic. All of my players think that they are just plain boring. They want classes like Soldier, Scholar, etc and so forth. That's what advanced classes are for you say - me too. but there si no telling them that.

4. My group prefers Spycraft's combat to D20 Modern's.

All of that said, I still like D20 Modern - I just don't love it. I must say that Mongoose's OGL books (Cybernet, horror, etc) use the D20M SRD and we *really* like them. but then they bring in "named classes" and tend to really bend the system to fit the genre.

I would like to see more D20M stuff, especially stuff that propagates the Generic toolkit versus the Modern fantasy.

My 2 cents.

Razuur

 

[Thumper3333]

If you have not jumped in the pool yet, I still would like to hear your comments.

Glen Maclanahan
12 to Midnight

I do not play D20 modern.

I am strange, but, I can accept a lot of un-realistic combat actions and such in a fantasy game, like DnD......it's fantasy.

But when I play a modern setting....I want realism, 100%. I play a currently out of print game called Millenniums End.....you may be familiar with the creator, Charles Ryan.

Millenniums End is gritty realism with easy game play. With one roll, I can determine if I hit, and if so where I hit, and with a slight cross reference, what that wound does to the target. Quick, and accurate. The game is based on percent based skill system which more accuratly represents modern settings than a class system.

I don't think D20 MOdern is a BAD game..........just not up to my standards for modern.

I do like the Stargate D20 book, since it crosses back into fantasy a little, it's almost ok on the D20 engine......though I would love to take the book and use the setting in an ME game.

 

[Cap'n Needles]

Huge D20 modern fan here. Of the 3 or 4 guys in my group that will run games, I handle all of the non-fantasy stuff for the most part (except for one friend who runs weird wars, another great game.) I find it rather easy to come up with adventures and stories on the fly (just glance at any magazine or newspaper), and find it a good system to use when you have a group of guys who likes to head off in about ten different directions at once. There is also enough third party support out there to keep you eyeball deep in source material. At the moment I'm planning a campaign that uses The Blood and Guts military rules, and it'll be very easy to start the whole thing off with 12 to Midnight's Weekend Warriors adventure. It's also nice to be able to incorporate a lot of topical humor into the stories and personalities of PC's and NPC's, giving a purpose to common game table banter.