What do you want for D20 Modern?

[Morgenstern]

Re: Realism in Modern.

I think the simple plea of 'realism' in d20 Modern isn't asking for real life gaming but more towards realism as apposed to fantasy. Bugbears and elves have no decent place in a 'modern' setting, or at least they shouldn't. There are plenty of fantastic non-real things that have a modern feel that beholders and ogres just don't.

I would like to see a monster manual with Modern monsters. Supernatural stuff can work. We still feel that ghosts are still around today, undead like Night of the Living Dead zombies or grotesque abonimations of Resident Evil and Silent Hill are 'modern' monsters we can deal with.

Had a wonderful discussion about those over on the Spycraft board . The posters got together and wrote up the results of the discussion, and we should have it up in the resources section very soon. Some neat takes on zombies (scary alternate version of DR!), a whole feat tree for the power of faith (light and dark), some departments (Spycraft's version of races) like Vatican Inquisitor, and even some bundles of gear.

Not something we were working on ourselves, but the market was clearly out there. I'm a huge fan of Resident Evil and the new Hellsing anime series, so it was neat to see that kind of thing neatly slotted into the existing rules.

When dealing with the occult and such in a modern setting fits into D20 more than giants and dragons...

I don't want to see magic like casting magic missile but I do want to see magic artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders.

Give me a Book of Lost, Ancient, and Occult Artifacts and I'm a happy camper.

Mystic power in Shadowforce Archer (a setting book for Spycraft) is a Feat-and-Skill system, with rites (minor magics) and rituals. It draws upon collective belief, so it favors the cult leader over the solo-spy, but some of the prestige classes can still build up substantial power for performing invocations by themselves. The iHand of Glory threatbook greatly expaned upon this with more feats, rites, and rituals along with the Wheel of the Year (adding effects for trying to work magic at different times of the year) and 4 prestige classes giving you a real leg up on mystic power if that's your shtick . There is a Mystics Lite free download availible on the site (www.SpycraftRPG.com) if you're interested and want to look for things to import back to your game.

As to historical artifacts, lets see~

Shadowforce Archer: Beowulf's Hilt, Dream Catchers, The Feather of Ma'at, The Gordian Knot, Guan Gong's Halberd, Marduk's Signet, Mjolnir, The Necronomicon, Quetzalcoatl's Thorn, Rod of the Scarab, The Rosetta Stone, Sedna's Knuckles, The Tears of Gethsemane, and The Wheel of the Ancients.

Hand of Glory: Excalibur, Hanuman's Tattoo, Hugin, The Nemean Mantle, The Spear of Destiny, Syrinx, and Yasanaki on Magatama.

The Shroud of Turin is discussed in our downloadable module 'The Shroud'. I think the Ark is still packed in a crate down in the Agency's warehouse last I looked .

Aliens can also work. Couple of different alien types like your standard 'grey' Roswell stuff all the way to Predator.

Aliens and government cover-up go together like peanut-butter and chocolate . Have to get someone working on that .

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

A d20 Modern setting that was resplendent with over-the-top Hong Kong action flick action would be great.

You could add fantasy elements to this too, with Warlocks and Mystic Warriors and other such goodness.

I'm drooling in anticipation of d20 Modern: Gamma World. If it's as good as it sounds like it's going to be, I can forgive this damnable Green Folk oversight.

I'd love to see d20 Modern: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, if someone could pick up that license. Does Palladium still have the license?

I want to see the other Alternity campaign settings! Star*Drive and DarkMatter were cool, and they'd fit well into the d20 Modern rules. Even the laughable Alternity StarCraft could be turned into a good d20 campaign setting, I'll bet.

A straight up d20 Modern Western would be great, a la Boot Hill, and I'd love to see a Weird West version. (Deadlands d20 wasn't
that bad, was it?)

 

[Katowice]

World War I & II

Mafia (like "Sopranos")

Hong Kong Action Movies

Cyberpunk

Shadowchasers (as a fully developed setting)

Dark*Matter

 

[Desdichado]

RE: a pet peeve of mine is the assumption, in my opinion clearly mistaken, that most people play RPGs for escapism. I see this tossed around quite a bit, but it hasn't been my experience at all. Sure, some folks do, but just as many, if not more, in my experience, play RPGs for the opposite: to confront (albeit in disguised terms) things that are considerably beyond what we would actually want to see in real life and deal with it in a fictional setting.

Other than that, I agree with you, though: d20 Modern is fairly cinematic (although more gritty and dangerous than D&D and Spycraft both) and I'd like to see things like Dark*Matter converted into Modern, or expansions on ideas that are just hashed up like GeneTech and PSI.

Oh, and Velenne, what do you have going on in Detroit? Those of us who live here now (although I'm a native Texan -- who's the weather down there these days?) are curious what you've done with the place. I'd be glad to give you any ideas or descriptions of places I been and things I've done too, if you want.

 

[Henry]

Ruin Explorer: Long time no read! Glad to see you here, because unless you've been posting in some of the smaller forums, I hadn't seen you.

Now: regarding a "hot-spots" source materials: I think such would be a great idea. GURPS, while doing a fantastic job, does not have perfection cornered with their books. For one thing, just as Ruin Explorer said about Afghanistan, information changes. What was current 5 years ago, is no longer current. There's always room to try a better mousetrap.

Further, not to turn this into a political discussion, but the Afghanistan region today is still rife with violence and unrest. Common people seek to rebuild, and more urban areas are in fairly stable control, but the coutryside still has its share of splinter cells and small-time warlords - it's the reason why there are still US and UN forces over there now. So there's plenty of material for a source book of some type. The real problem is handling it in a sober and non-judgmental matter, and being able to do it justice.

In regards to what sources to see:

d20 Modern is a cinematic game: Ruin is definitely dead-on here. The kinds of things you should be looking at doing sourcebooks for is the kind of thing that defines genre TV programs:

Horror, Wild West, Private investigation, Sci-fi, Mercenaries (THE A-TEAM!) and similar genres. I can't think of a single modern day TV hero that can't be recreated with d20 Modern rules.

Heck, one of the things I did for fun about a month ago was to write up Colt "Fall Guy" Seaver in d20 Modern Stats! (I didn't get to Howie and Jodie, however.) Thomas Magnum would probably be some sort of Strong/Dedicated Hero.

So, TV Genres work well, as well as real-world info converted to d20 for easy use.

P.S. - You might also want to work on the rules for Automatic and Burst Fire as a free teaser release, because half of the d20 modern playing populace seems to be unhappy with the Autofire rules in the Core Book.

 

[tetsujin28]

Supernatural in Spycraft

Had a wonderful discussion about those over on the Spycraft board . The posters got together and wrote up the results of the discussion, and we should have it up in the resources section very soon. Some neat takes on zombies (scary alternate version of DR!), a whole feat tree for the power of faith (light and dark), some departments (Spycraft's version of races) like Vatican Inquisitor, and even some bundles of gear.

Way cool! I had only heard of Spycraft as a secret agent game, but I guess I'll have to check it out!

There is a Mystics Lite free download availible on the site (www.SpycraftRPG.com) if you're interested and want to look for things to import back to your game.

Hmm. Couldn't find that in the resources. Was I looking in the wrong place?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Jonas889 - Did you ever see Dark*Matter for Alternity? It's more or less exactly what you're talking about, and I think you'd have liked it quite a lot. It would be great to see it make a return for d20 Modern. I can certainly sympathise with your dislike of the Bugbears Bouncers, Hobgolin Pimps, et al, of the default d20 Modern. Frankly, I think it was laziness and perhaps a desire to convince D&D players to buy the book that made them make the book in that way.

Joshua - You're right, I'm making the situation far more black and white than it really is, I've been annoyed by people saying exactly the same thing, and I think you've got it right when you suggest confronting certain things can also be a big part of the experience. However, as you point out

Mistah - No, indeed, nothing that didn't happen, perhaps, though I doubt there were *quite* as many soldiers *quite* so young, frankly, even in the last days of Nazi Germany. It's not the specific incidents, it's the frequency, I think, and the fact that we are *not* looking at it from 60 years away, and we *cannot* easily pick out "Good" and "Evil" as we can with "Allies vs Axis".

I still doubt anyone would buy an African wars book, certainly of *modern* African wars, any more than they'd buy a genuinely realistic depiction of European wars 1400-1500, or whatever (it would be equally, if not more, full of horror).

Henry - Hey there, haven't been around for a while. I came to ask a question on another forum, looked at this whilst I was here, and it seemed interesting, so I joined in. Nice to know there are plenty of "Oldbies" still around!

You're dead right to point on the fact that you need to be very honest and non-judgemental to cover real-world topics well, and for all GURPS' frequent out-of-date-ness, I think this is one thing they generally achieve.

 

[tetsujin28]

GURPS Black Ops is also a hoot and a half.

 

[MythicJustice]

Re: Realism in Modern.

I think the simple plea of 'realism' in d20 Modern isn't asking for real life gaming but more towards realism as apposed to fantasy. Bugbears and elves have no decent place in a 'modern' setting, or at least they shouldn't. There are plenty of fantastic non-real things that have a modern feel that beholders and ogres just don't.

I would like to see a monster manual with Modern monsters. Supernatural stuff can work. We still feel that ghosts are still around today, undead like Night of the Living Dead zombies or grotesque abonimations of Resident Evil and Silent Hill are 'modern' monsters we can deal with. When dealing with the occult and such in a modern setting fits into D20 more than giants and dragons.

I felt the same way when we first started working on Dark Inheritance. We wanted to make a modern d20 setting that incorporated the occult and the supernatural but not the D&D varieties. Cults, demons, and otherworldy horrors are in the world of Dark Inheritance but not dragons, elves, and bugbears.

I don't want to see magic like casting magic missile but I do want to see magic artifacts like the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders.

Give me a Book of Lost, Ancient, and Occult Artifacts and I'm a happy camper.

We do use the d20 Modern magic FX but toned it down a bit by removing material components for spell casting and requiring foci instead. By limiting the level of foci the GM can easily limit the amount and type of magic in the setting.

Ancient occult artifacts were something that we knew we had to have. I'm really excited about Sam Witt's Relic rules he wrote for us. No one has done something even close to the direction we've gone for magical items and I really think they involve the players more and come across as more "realistic".

Now that we're getting close to going to the printer be on the lookout for some previews in the next few weeks. Also check out the March issue of Campaign magazine. Dark Inheritance will be previewed in that issue and included is an exclusive advanced class, the Cult Leader.

 

[Davelozzi]

Interesting discussion. Some great posts by Ruin Explorer in particular, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't, but well argued regardless.

Also, as someone unbiased who doesn't work for AEG, I'd like to jump in and say that Morgernstern is right on in his assessment of Spycraft/Shadowforce Archer. SFA has a great take on mystic power that doesn't feel like standard fantasy magic. I was totally thinking Indiana Jones the whole time. The psionic rules are also well done and fairly successful at creating a different flavor than D&D psionics, although there are some 'attack' powers that a bit closer than I would have liked.