What needs adventures?

[grinning_loony]

As I see it, one of the main problems with some of the non-fantasy settings out there, like d20 Modern and Mutants & Masterminds, is a lack of adventure support. This seems a little strange, as there are more d20 fantasy adventures out there than you can shake a dice pouch at. But one reason I've never started a d20 Modern campaign is because I would have to come up with my own adventures, and I just didn't have the time. The WotC webpage has been throwing a few up there, and there are a few on RPGnow, but still not too many. Even worse for Mutants & Masterminds, as far as I know. I imagine d20 Future will have the same problem. Compounding the d20 Modern issue is the fact that because the setting is so open-ended (do I have magic in my campaign? Psionics? Displacer beasts?) that an adventure may need substantial revision to be appropriate for my (or anyone else's) campaign - much more so than most fantasy adventures.

So, what so you folks think? Is this really a problem, or do most people have time to create their own adventures? If solid d20 Modern (and Mutants & Masterminds and other non-fantasy) adventures were available in electronic format, for, say, $3 or so, would you buy them? Would that make you more inclined to run a campaign for those settings? What if print adventures were available?

Thanks!

-Luke Johnson
Freelancer

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm using D20 Modern but haven't run my own "original" campaign for just this reason. (I did run a Star*Drive adventure.)

My players wanted to run a vigilante adventure, so I decided to buy Haven: City of Violence to do so. (I forgot to wait for the D20 Modern version )

I did so because I don't know that much about gangs, crooks and the like - the book taught me a lot. However, it didn't come with adventures.

I tried to use Alternity adventures but ran into a problem. The only supported settings were Dark Matter, Star Drive and Gamma World.

1) All investigative adventures, which is great, except all depended on FX. It's very hard to rewrite any of the adventures to not have FX.

2) Again, depend on high-tech. I nearly bought an adventure off of SVGames, but the last scene required an alien artifact a-la Nightfall at Algemron. I liked that series of books, but the alien artifacts was way too much like a Deus ex Machina. I found a few Star Drive adventures were really good, but are hard to do in a non sci-fi setting.

3) Gamma World is post-apocalyptic, which doesn't really fit in a Modern setting.

So, I'm looking for an actual Modern setting, with only one piece of luck (Haven) plus a very small number of the WotC free adventures on their website. I may also go for Blood and Guts, but that presents it's own problems:

1) My players aren't that interested in that. (I am, though.)
2) Virtually all the non-FX Modern stuff I see is military stuff. It's great, but I'd like to see some branching out.

There seems to be an attitude that you don't need a Modern setting or adventure because you're already in the real world, ignoring the fact that not everyone is an expert on everything. (Like a newspaper put it, one person may be able to hook you up with a black market gun dealer, whereas his fellow high school student standing next to him has no clue how to do that. I'm the second student here.)

So, if anyone makes such a Modern series of adventures, you've got yourself some sales.

PS I did buy D20 Columbia and New Glory Naval Base because both had non-FX adventures in them. Both weren't sold as adventures, but at least the former has an actual Modern campaign setting to go with it.

 

[Turanil]

Personally, I improvise very much when I DM. Plus I am always disatisfied with
commercial adventures. Thus I don't need to buy modules, and only spend 1 to 3 hours to vaguely determine what the adventure will be.

Concerning d20 Modern, I just ordered Menace Manual (since it now sold at 13$ on Amazon.com), so I will have a bunch of NPCs stats (well, I hope so) ready to use, sparing me to have to do them by myself. Then, I just wait to get d20 Future plus Transhuman Space, as well as some stuff found on the Internet, and I will be ready to begin a game without bothering about the lack of print adventures.

 

[takyris]

I think that too many of the published adventures I've seen for d20 use a D&D-style encounter system. Okay, they're going to find this thing, go here, fight these guys, get a clue from these guys to go to those guys, fight those guys, and BANG, climax. That's a perfectly acceptible adventure format, but having nothing but that is a bit annoying.

I made and ran a mystery that I thought was fun (the players seemed to like it), which involved a lot of quasi-random encounters and crime scene investigation. There were sessions where no damage was dealt, and when bullets finally flew, it was shocking, the change in atmosphere. Very fun.

 

[trancejeremy]

If you can find them on ebay, old Bureau 13 adventures work reasonably well

 

[scourger]

Modern mini-campaign

I would be more interested in a d20M mini-camapign. That is, a series of connected adventures. The closest I've got is Gentlemen's Agreement for Spycraft. A high-powered super-spy mini-camapign would be great.

The general problem with d20M for me & my players is that it is too different from D&D to be easily portable; and yet it incorporates so many fantasy elements as to feel like present-day D&D. We live in the modern world, why would we want to play in it? Unless, of course, we could play a role like James Bond. Then it might be cool.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Anyone ever felt like creating a Modern adventure (series) here? We could make it available as free PDFs, mainly as a GM-tutoring tool.

PS I've seen some very good adventures, although the number of total adventures I've found is small. I haven't received D20 Columbia or New Glory Base yet (they're in the mail) but so far Adelie 14, Operation Winterkill and a Three Kingdoms adventure look really cool.

 

[takyris]

I'm leaving my online notes up for folks, but I hadn't planned to start giving it out as a URL until I'd gotten a few more episodes under the belt. The notes are for multi-shot sessions that can stand alone if necessary -- they all take place in a low-and-unprovable-FX environment (think X-Files). I've got a mystery and an increasingly violent defend-the-town-from-evil-bikers scenario right now...

 

[Byrons_Ghost]

I haven't heard of New Glory Base, what sort of book is it?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

It's actually a map book, but it has some NPCs and an adventure written in both non-FX and FX formats. (I'll ignore the FX stuff.)

It's in the mail, so I haven't seen it yet.