Why so little D20 Modern Support?

[baileyrecords]

Lets be honest nearly everyone that owns D20 Modern will own D&D core books, but most people that own D&D core books won't own D20 Modern.

Not necessarily!

I don't own any 3.0 or 3.5 versions of any D&D books except for Oriental Adventures (which is a campaign setting unique to itself) and the 3.0 D&D Arms & Equipment Guide.

On the other hand... I own the d20 Modern Core rules, the Menace Manual, the Weapons Locker, ad Urban Arcana, plus I own several Spycraft titles and OGL CyberNet - all of which I mass together for adventuring ideas.

Basically, even though I enjoy fantasy - I prefer elements of the "real world" tossed in so futuristic or modern day RPGing is for me. The Oriental Adv & D&D Arms guides are used for archaic weaponry & belief systems for my modern & futuristic heroes & villians!

- Stratos

 

[Ranger REG]

Back to the topic, d20 Modern probably suffers the most because it took so long before it was released. By then, setting that could probably have been d20M (T20, Judge Dredd, d20 Afganistan, Spycraft, etc) were already released and established. Now d20 Future is released as d20M but in direct competition with the Star Wars RPG. That makes no sense.

I don't know if the timing was a disadvantage. The first two you have mentioned are sci-fi genre products, d20 Afghanistan wasn't particularly a hot sell (but the release of d20 Somalia using the d20 Modern core ruleset was deemed proper), and Spycraft is mainly an espionage-genre product.

As for d20 Future being in direct competition with Star Wars, I also truly doubt that. Star Wars is a hot property but that is only ONE aspect of the sci-fi genre (in this broad spectrum, it falls under "space fantasy"). d20 Future will attempt to provide tools so you can decide which aspect of sci-fi genre you wish to play: from hard to soft, from near-reality to fantasy. More importantly, d20 Future will be much friendlier toward third-party support.

I do agree with others that d20 Modern is fairly new compared to D&D long history. It will take time for this one to catch on.

 

[Bagpuss]

Not necessarily!

I don't own any 3.0 or 3.5 versions of any D&D books...

On the other hand... I own the d20 Modern Core rules, the Menace Manual, the Weapons Locker....

- Stratos

As I said originally "nearly everybody" you are one of the few exceptions to the general rule.

 

[The Overlord]

Hmmm...

Why so little D20 Modern Support?

Allow me to counter with "Why limit yourself to print products"?

Sure, there are maybe 10 or 15 print products on the market, but over on RPGnow, they list over 70 PDF products for D20 Modern. I even maintain a D20 modern checklist (including pre-D20 M modern genre D20 products) that has over 100 products on the list.

While that by no means can really compare to what probably amounts to 2,000 3e and 3.5e D20 products produced thus far, I wouldn't exactly refer to it as "so little", as the quantity outstrips many of the more popular game systems of the last 10-15 years.

Sorry I only do print products not .pdfs.

 

[Vigilance]

Sorry I only do print products not .pdfs.

There's still a fair number of books out there. Green Ronin prints TGM Modern books and just picked up Sidewinder. In addition RPGO prints its modern books.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "so little support".

It's not going to be as well supported as D&D, but that doesn't mean it's not well supported.

Chuck

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Sorry I only do print products not .pdfs.

Well, in that case, since you're an anachronistic SOB hung up on dead trees, you had no right to whine about a supposed lack of support to begin with. The support is there, you just need to get with the times. What ridiculous irony; someone who enjoys modern/near future genre gaming, yet insists on the use of paper in gaming products on that very subject matter...

 

[Prest0]

Sorry I only do print products not .pdfs.

Out of curiosity, can I ask why? Did you try one and get burned? Do you have a personal grudge against Acrobat? Did a PDF kill your family? While it's true there's some awful stuff out there, there's also some stellar work, too.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Sorry I only do print products not .pdfs.

Ahh yes, the old "I don't do PDF products" line.

I was content to keep my big yap shut until right about there.

Why?

Simple: PDF is cheaper, both on the publisher (who then often passes the savings on to you) and on you. If the book gets damaged, just reprint that page and put it in the folder.

Binder, and plastic sheets make a nice book. I have a Blood & "Modern" binder that contains every Blood & XXXXX products.

There was a good arguement for PDF products on the web awhile back, and personally, I don't think I'm too interested in listing all the pro's and con's from that article here.

Let's suffice to say, the "I don't like PDF's" crowd is missing out on a lot of good, quality material. With the quality of the last 4 print books I've bought, I'm happier, by far and large, with my PDF purchases.

As for Modern d20 Adventure Support...

QuickShots Mission File: Alpha (Urban Legends and Crappy Ghost Stories)
QuickShots Mission File: Bravo (Support for Urban Arcana)
QuickShots Mission File: Charlie (Supports the Blood & Relics Line)
QuickShots Mission File: Delta (Coming soon, supports Blood & Fists)

Right there is 80 adventures (Well, OK, 60 Adventures) and the line is constantly expanding, with roughly 15 to 30 days between each new release.

As far as NPC's go, look in your core book, there's a big list of Ordinaries in there, everything from terrorists to thugs.

 

[Prest0]

Well, in that case, since you're an anachronistic SOB hung up on dead trees, you had no right to whine about a supposed lack of support to begin with.

Damn, Dana. Calm down. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

 

[The Overlord]

There's still a fair number of books out there. Green Ronin prints TGM Modern books and just picked up Sidewinder. In addition RPGO prints its modern books.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "so little support".

It's not going to be as well supported as D&D, but that doesn't mean it's not well supported.

Chuck

Well I think there should be more support for then there really is, and lets face it D20 is like the bastard Redheaded stepchild. At this point I am considering selling the D20 Modern books that I have and be done with it.