What strange or oddball campaigns are you using d20 Modern for?

[Dana_Jorgensen]

What oddball campign am I using D20 modern for?

I have adapted my favorite old skool '80s anime to D20M, Sonic Soldier Borgman. It was Kia Asamiya/Mitichaka Kikuchi's first full length series work, and a very obvious influence in the creation of Silent Mobius.

Borgman starts in the late 90's, as the millenium rolls around, with an unnamed city being destroyed in a very unnatural catastrophe. The Yoma world (a sort of shadow world/alternate dimension of japanese mythology and horror stories, populated with all manner of monster out to subjugate or destroy the human world). Dark clouds swirld, the earth trembles, red lightning flashes through the skies, and to top it all, four giant rhinestones (Yes, the script said rhinestones, but they're giant, rough-hewn diamond-shaped crystals), each the size of the empire state building, materialize above the ground and are dropped on the city. Fast forward 30 years. The ruined city is rebuilt as some manner of UN project, Megalo City, protected by the International Police. The yoma have reawakened and are once again trying to take over the world, starting with this particular city. The cops can't handle it, and that's where the borgmen come into play.

In the intervening years since the city's destruction, a failed space exploration program was developed to send men to mars. The project involved experiments to convert willing human subjects into cyborgs. By the time the space program was cancelled, three cyborgs were successfully created and left jobless. With the reappearance of the yoma, they found themselves employed once more as high-tech monster hunters by night and.... elementary school teachers by day. Honest, it's the truth!

Anyway, that sums up the first episode. The rest of the series involves a rather video game-like plot of monster stomping and boss fights. Technically, it is probably a bit too advanced for D20M, thanks to the transforming and teleporting technologies that supply the borgment with their equipment. That aside, it is a pretty low-FX sort of series, aside from the monsters. Even the magic is minimal, with the yoma relying on their own techology base to fight, rather than using magic like one might expect.

Like I said, it is old school, doesn't involve anything outlandishly "anime" as to require reference to something like BESM D20, and it will provide a campaign setting that will last most of the next year with regular gaming sessions. And while it isn't outright strange for a campaign, you have to admit, it has one of the most oddball backstories you'll see for quite some time.

Now, all I need to do is get my hands on the VCDs for the sequel, Borgman 2058.

 

[Doc_Souark]

I was going to do a D20 take-off on the tremors movies/ TV show but I couldn't find the monster stats. I really suck at monster design

 

[Wraith Form]

My wacky campaign concept for d20 Modern is a noir-driven romance between semi-secret transistor-tube-headed robots (male and female) that fight against giant, walking, talking switchblade knives (a la Pink Floyd's The Wall movie--ya know, the hammers?) that want to secretly destroy all life by cutting the fabric of reality with their giant Blade-Heads (tm)and secretly legalizing badminton. All this is in SECRET, shrouded within a veil of SECRECY. So SHHHHHHH.

What?

Badminton is ALREADY legal?

Ahh, sh!+.....there goes 5 YEARS of campaign design, right down the toilet. I guess I'd better call up my players and tell 'em the game's off for Friday, hunh?

 

[Dark Wolf 97]

Wow my Modern campain seems positivly dull when compared to some of you guys.

It is sort of a mixture of D&D Planescape and Shadow Chasers.

And a question - does Wizards plan on releasing a Shadow Chasers Campain Setting, like they did with Urban Arcana?

 

[Wormwood]

Hardly the most original idea (in fact I think I stole it from thisvery board--apologies may be in order)

League of Reagan-Era Gentlemen

It's 2003, and the world is facing a mysterious enemy who is either
a) an alien invasion force,
b) a time-travelling madman,
c) an occult monster who can control the spirits of the dead, or
d) all of the above.

So a collection of greatest minds and most able warriors of 20 years ago are assembled to investigate and do battle against this hidden menace.

Government Liason (NPC):
Dr. Buckaroo Banzai, former head of the Hong Kong Cavaliers.

PC Team
Dr. Egon Spengler, sole surviving 'Ghostbuster'. Currently under long-term care at Miskatonic University Psychiatric Hospital.
Dr. Martin Brundle, son of Seth Brundle and rumored possessor of his father's terrible curse.
Colonel John Rambo, Vietnam war hero and domestic terrorist.
Bosco Baracus, former mercenary, currently on death row for the murder of H. M. Murdock.
Lydia Deitz, famed witch with a special connection to the world of the dead.
Daniel Larusso, master of Miyagi-Do

Scott Howard, lawyer (and former 'teen wolf').


I've been trying to shoehorn it into d20, but after a couple of weeks of frustration I'm very seriously giving GURPS or Unisystem Lite a try.

I'll keep y'all posted if anyone is interested.

 

[Maethras]

Currently, the only d20 Modern (Set in modern times.. there is one medieval game using the rules) campaign I'm involved with involves..

A semi-secret private organization (with secret activities), the similar government organizations in cooperation or competition with them, and extraterrestrials.

Earth has been visited in the past by alien spacecraft. Occasionally, one of these bad boys has crashed. Even more rare, they've been shot down. This organization and certain governmental organizations have been racing each other to grab up these artifacts for years. They've also attempted for years to back engineer the darn things, with very little success.

However, they have managed to figure out how to power certain key systems and, eventually, how to get them to, more or less, operate. If they then take this sleek, high tech and shielded space craft and crudely cobble on many times its mass in 'Earth developed' technology and parts (controls, life support backups, maneuvering backups, banks and banks of computers, armor, storage space, weapons, etc).. they have what amounts to a far more crude-than-the-original, but functional, space-faring vessel. Activating the more 'controlled' parts of the ship such as any weapons they may have and Faster-Than-Light travel remained elusive for a while. Not only the system for operating it, but figuring out, in an enormous universe with little information, where the hell to go anyway. Needle in a Haystack. You know.

Faster-Than-Light travel was figured out. The ship has a requirement of a Psionic Navigator who uses the ship's systems to enhance his ability for one (and only one) specific purpose. They fly out to a certain distance away from the home planet. The telepath takes the ol' navigation seat and sends his mind out. Since psionics (and by extrapolation 'thought') essentially travels instantaneously in d20.. the telepath probes across the reaches of space for 'pockets' of thought. A planet with, say, six billion people on it certainly qualifies, as do some much lesser populated worlds. A skilled navigator can even key into nonsentient thought activity. Anyway. Navigator and the Pilot work together to input this data into the ship, and the ship leaps off into faster-than-light travel.

This has the benefit of leading any spacefaring mission to a very potentially earth-like world (since there's life there, there's a higher chance of being earth-like than just throwing darts at a star map) and leading to places of extreme interest (potential dangerous peoples, threats, resources, and allies). It also has a much higher chance of taking folks to Where They Really Don't Wanna Be.

These organizations explore, some occasionally exploit, and most are on the lookout for anything Out to Get Us. While highly advanced species are out there (that's where we got our ships), they haven't been met in actual space as yet. With what few and crude resources Earth has, they wouldn't hold much hope for actual space *combat* anyway, if it came down to it. General rule of space combat If An Enounter With An Advanced Race Goes Awry is to try very very hard to run away, even though it probably won't help. However, Earth has discovered some interesting facts about these advanced members of alien race(s).

They have been kidnapping people, looks like. And other stuff. Our genetic code has been seeded on other worlds. Humans are already *out there*, often Ala SG-1, working for someone else (or were originally working for someone else). As often, they are the subjects of what appear to be experimentation with that genetic code or perhaps simple evolution away from the baseline human. There are divergent animal species as well, and either original examples, or something very reminiscent, of primitive human species such as Neanderthal out there. Some of these humans and human-like people have become pretty advanced, some haven't. Organizations have allied with some and warred with others. Many of them *work* for these organizations now, providing military manpower and crew for ships (conveniently untraceable crew, too. Noone on Earth will miss a few thousand people who die if they don't exist, some of the crueller organizations might say).

Some of the organizations spend a lot of time with these people, forging bonds and training them with what technology they can (Modern technology, mostly) to help prevent or at least slow any threatening incursions onto their respective territories (and, primarily for us, Earth). They also often work to stop anything that looks like a Genetic Weapon being bred (monstrosities being designed for a crude/cruel form of warfare), or the harvesting of key resources. And, of course, they do their best to beg/borrow/steal advanced technology from anywhere they possibly can.

That's really the best they can do at the moment against the most advanced of species out there. Their contacts with other, less advanced species are mixed. Ranging from friendly to outright hostile. (Our last mission was to rescue the last few survivors of a planet-bound outpost from a throng of maurauding modified Formian (from D&D) aliens (kinda like Starship Troopers, in a way)).

Furthermore, ... this post has gotten wayyy too long. I'm ending it. Here.

 

[Wraith Form]

A semi-secret private organization (with secret activities), the similar government organizations in cooperation or competition with them, and extraterrestrials.

So, you're saying....what? That it's all in SECRET?!?



[To be fair, all kidding aside, it sounds like a pretty cool idea!]

 

[Maethras]

So, you're saying....what? That it's all in SECRET?!?



[To be fair, all kidding aside, it sounds like a pretty cool idea!]

Heh! Yes. They are a secret subdivision of the Department of Redundancy Department.

On top of that, they're pretty secretive.

.

 

[JPL]

On my list of "Things I'd Like to Run"

1. Victorian protopulp - steampunk.

2. Challengers of the Unknown meets the Destroyer meets Buckaroo Banzai. Modern day pulp-scifi-action with a team of colorful scientist-adventurers.

3. Unknown Armies d20. Except don't tell anyone it's Unknown Armies. Just keep it urban, gritty, and weird, and let the players figure it out gradually.

4. Seventies blaxploitation / kung-fu / cops. Just so I can show off my record collection.

 

[Psychotic Jim]

Wow. A lot of good ideas here! I may have to steal Wormwood's League of Reagan-Era Gentlemen idea. The psionic faster-than-light space travel idea could be used in a lot of games other than d20Modern too.

Anyway, for my tentatively titled "fantasy-mech" game, I'm ripping off the background plot and setting from the video game Vandal Hearts and mixing it with a little flavor from Chinese, French, and American history and legends as well as a few anime influences. I'm having a fantasy world, one that used to be a normal high-fantasy, sword-and-sorcery world like in typical D&D. However, the world experienced a quasi-Renaissance/Industrial Age with the invention of the science of building robots and mechs powered by magic. Since magic was formerly the tool of the elite spellcasters, society became more and more reliant on this technology-like magic and less and less on the traditional forms of magic.

During this time (or a little before) the Heavenly Dynasty fell into corruption. It had ruled for several thousand years since the Great Rebellion against some unknown evil whose name has been lost to time. But some time during the Dynasty's long and successful rule, the nobility lost their way and sank into decadence. The emperor became weak and secluded from the real world. The nobles started to overtax and the underpaid militias soon turned to banditry to make a living.

Eventually, there was a Great Revolution that, through many long and hard struggles and wars, that eventually overthrew the Dynasty. A republic was then set up 20 years ago with the help of the new magical technology. The old, oppresive laws and codes were abadoned, and a Council was set up to govern the empire for the common good.

However, not all of the old problems is gone. Some of the Revolutionaries are little more than demagouges that used the Revolution to gain power. Some look for revenge on the old royalists, and oppress them and cluster them together in ghettoes. Bandits still prey on the weak. The Republic seeks to establish order in a land of chaos, and struggles to build a sturdy foundation.

This is where the players come in. They are some of the new recruits of the Internal Security Forces, acting as protecters in this bold, new, political world. They are equipped with mechs to protect the world from those who would defile it, as well the lingering effects of the waning magical energies of the Arcane Age and the evil that was put down long ago. It is not by anymeans a time of apocalypse or out-and-out anarchy, but rather a time of great uncertainty and unrest under the veneer of a time of great progress. Will this new Republic be struck down for betraying the Heavenly Dynasty, which for thousands of years held the Mandate of Heaven to rule?

I plan on using Urban Arcana and Mecha Crusade as well as various fantasy d20 stuff if I ever get the game running.