Why so little D20 Modern Support?

[Vigilance]

This is exactly how I feel as well. D&D is full of "D&Disms", and that's not necessarily a bad thing - it just doesn't come across as generic. I feel that Modern does however - no matter if I get inspired by Chuck's Blood & Fists or Sidewinder by Goeff and his posse it'll work terriffic.

Or mix and match! *whistles Kung Fu theme*

Chuck

 

[DeBracy]

Or mix and match! *whistles Kung Fu theme*

Chuck

Hehe... Of course! Why didn't I think of that?

 

[C. Baize]

I actually very much like the base classes in D20 Modern.

I find that when levelling up, I'm more likely to pick another base class, than to go with an advanced class... I just like them, a lot.

 

[Pramas]

I think a lot of publishers do look at the sales of D&D vs. d20 Modern (over a million core books sold vs. perhaps 50,000) and think they'd rather go for the wider audience. What really matters though is the number of active purchasers. While there are less d20 Modern fans, they tend to be more active purchasers because their game of choice has less support. Right now, a Modern fan can easily keep up with everyone support product that comes along, whereas that stopped being the case for fantasy d20 books in 2001. As Chuck said, less fans but also less competition. d20 Modern has been a lot better for Green Ronin than I expected honestly. I was ready to do Ultramodern Firearms and call it a day (funny, because I had the same attitude about Death in Freeport in 2000!), but we are happy to keep supporting the game.

Something that may have held d20 Modern back is the lack of an ass-kicking campaign setting that resonates with a lot of people. While there are umpteen things you can do with d20 Modern just using history and the real world, that approach puts the onus on the GM to do the research.

We are hoping that our upcoming offerings, the Red Star Campaign Setting and Sidewinder: Recoiled, will give GMs what they need to make the most of d20 Modern.

 

[Von Ether]

I require non-FX adventures (it's easy to edit FX out of some of the adventures, though).

From what I have seen, that is coming down the pike with Haven: City of Violence. It's non-d20 version covered everything from gritty to John Woo.

d20 Haven, but the info is lite for now.

Non-d20 Haven, where the meat is

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

From what I have seen, that is coming down the pike with Haven: City of Violence. It's non-d20 version covered everything from gritty to John Woo.

d20 Haven, but the info is lite for now.

Non-d20 Haven, where the meat is

Now these look really good. Maybe I'll be able to use it for PL 5 adventures with no magic, no psionics and no high-tech.

I'll probably drop the "drawbacks" right away (I know, that's a bit of a pre-bash, but every time I've seen a merit and flaws system it has failed) but overall this looks really good, like what you find in a lot of action movies.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

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.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I even maintain a D20 modern checklist (including pre-D20 M modern genre D20 products) that has over 100 products on the list.

Care to fill us in on your checklist?

In any event I just rediscovered my credit card, which I haven't activated yet, so now I can buy PDFs ... as soon as I activate it.

On a related note, a minor annoyance that I'm trying to overcome, which may scare GMs away: making D20 Modern characters is hard work. It's hard making pre-gen characters for newbs and it's hard coming up with a lot of NPCs, too, especially the unique ones. It's rewarding work, but, as I've said, hard. (Not only are there a lot of skill points to go around, but often you don't know what skills to buy.)

I'm currently on a spree of converting ALTERNITY adventures to D20 Modern and... it's a lot of work. (Maybe I should use mental classes less often )

 

[Bagpuss]

I couldn't disagree with this sentiment more (if I am reading you right).

You seem to be saying that D&D has a much larger potential market than d20 Modern (true). Then you take what seems like a small and logical step to say everyone should use D&D's engine to tap that market.

While this seems true at first blush it isn't the reality of the marketplace. The reason is that you are only looking at the demand side of the equation. Sales at their most basic level depend on demand but also supply.

When we at RPGO make a d20 modern book it has a smaller market. It also has a whole lot less competition.

Chuck

I think I mentioned that in my earlier post...

The problem there is the D&D Fantasy market is already flooded with products which cover pretty much everything, where as the D20 Modern market although the audience is smaller they are more desperate for product so anything published is likely to stand out more.

But you seem to be one of the few companies that see that. Most seem to go with the other side of it, which was my second post in this topic.

My other point is if you are writing say "Invasion Earth D20", you would be better off writing it so that any D20 core book can be used with it rather than just D20 Modern. Even if your rulebook is based heavily on D20 Modern, its probably better to repeat their base classes and whatever Advanced classes you need, than have "Requires D20 Modern to play" on the cover.

If you are just doing a modern type suppliment then linking it with D20 Modern isn't such a bad idea as it easier to stand out from other D20 suppliments.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Care to fill us in on your checklist?

The list is here: http://www.bakabanashi.com/mallfront/listings.php?category=6&sub=1&npage=1&sellerid=1