Will Modern need a revision too?
- Thread starter hellbender
- Start date
Heap Thaumaturgist
First Post
Oi.
Well, -I-, for one, love D20 Modern. It's so ... workable. It's simple, fast, usable, fun, and flexible. It may not immediately be the _thing_ that somebody wants it to be, but moreso than anything I've seen in a long time, it can be that quickly.
Some people don't like the Basic Classes setup. Psh. Honestly? They haven't playtested it then. Most people say you have to take several levels in anything to BE anything you want to be. Then they haven't playtested it, I say.
At first I thought the BCs were a little odd and not particularly useful. But then I GMed a few games and had to help people create some extremely varied characters. And I fit them all in at first level. With Starting Occupations and Basic Classes you can do pretty much anything. I'm running a large game with ten people. They're running "themselves" as characters. I have six Smart heroes, and none of them overlap. I have two Dedicated Heroes who are as different as night and day. I've got an intellectual Tough hero. One of the Smart heroes is a military guy.
As for the art being Kids' Stuff ... here's my take on that.
Uh. Yes. Why? Because 34 year old hardcore gamers from the 80s AREN'T who Wizards needs to SELL to. The original poster went out and bought the game even though HE DIDN"T LIKE IT just because he needed the rules to play something he did like. The hardcore gamers are going to buy the games for reasons other than where the art is aimed. If it lets you play another game you like, you'll buy it. If you like the rules, you'll buy it. If you like a setting ... you'll buy it. You have disposable income the AVERAGE gamer doesn't.
I say Average because the major audience they've been aiming for since 3E has been A Younger Audience ... because 2000 hardcore superdorks that have been playing since The Red Book are NOT going to allow a corporation to survive. If the people reading this message board ALL went out and bought a copy of D20 Modern ... it'd die. Same with D&D. The real buying power comes from NEW audience, new blood. Young blood.
D&D and D20 Modern cater to the grizzled veterans among us, but they're also designed to catch new kids. So if some kid walks by Urban Arcana and picks it up because there's a hot drow elf chick on the cover in baggy pants and a knit hat holding two nines like she knows what to do with them and he says: "Dude, that's cool." then it has accomplished what it set out to do.
If 20 kids pick it up because there's a stret-cred kid on the front and 2 old farts say: "They've made it a game for punks and hooligans, I say!" then it has succeeded.
I, for one, totally looked past the art. I'm certainly not running around in baggy jeans with a Linkin Park t-shirt, but I understand that the marketing should be aimed at those kids. Because kids are the money-maker. Wizards knows this with Magic and with PokeMon. There's a whole load more of them, for one thing.
I wasn't totally enthused with Urban Arcana, either. Too much D&D In Manhattan. I DID like SOME parts of it, though, so I bought it. Because I'm like that. And now I'm running several dark-magic dark-fantasy type games. No drow elf chicks running around with ninemils and bugbears with sawed off shotguns, but if that appeals to some kids on the corner who buy it and keep the games coming ... huzzah huzzah huzzah.
For me, it's about the MECHANICS ... and those are top notch. They're not Perfect Realism In A Book, but they're very functional, very versatile, and very EASY. I like easy. I don't like searching for obscure rules. I like having it all stored up in the ol' brain, which is easy to do with D20 games. I like being able to whip up a character sheet, explain the game for five minutes, and start running with a total and utter greenhorn gamer who has never touched dice before. And have it work. And have them become a regular gamer for it. I like that.
D20 Modern's Wealth system is the opposite of wonky. It is ... wonderful. Hoi. I love it. It seems odd, till you play it. Then you realize ... it's so simple. It DOES model the real world very well. Extremely well for ONE NUMBER and a dice roll. You want to buy something ... it's a roll. Just one.
On another board somebody was getting their panties in a knot about "it doesn't model the real world, oh my lord, what about paying for my cable every month, what about this, what about that?" I said: "Well, take one payment, find it's Wealth score, add three, that's it. No need to do anything after that." Just pulled it out of the air, it sounded right ... not good enough for him. So I sat there and patiently explained the idea behind Present Cash Value Of A Perpetuity. Which is the effective "today value" of a payment you make for eternity or a payment you recieve for eternity. Using today's average inflation rate and the prime rate from last week (it changed recently, I think) I figured a perpetuity at about X8 or so of a payment. Which would actually be +6 wealth. At ANY rate, it took me several hours to explain a concept to this guy that I grasped immediately ... you don't NEED to have continual number-crunching finances for a game. That's open to abuse. Credit cards and loans and payments and inflow and outflow and, in the end, it's a real pain in the kiester. Something large CAN be bought by somebody with a low wealth score, through loans and whatnot (representing taking 20 and/or getting aid from another character), and a one-time purchase price CAN simulate payments or the purchase of something with cash-on-the-barrel. In the end, they're both really the same thing. By turning it into a simple number and a roll, WotC saves me hours of time and it actually simulates realism better than most would think. Unless they thought about it for a while.
Wealth Score actually simulates realism about ten times better than most "I have X credits" systems because everybody just has their credits and the credits only depleat when they buy a gun, apparently. And they have to amass X credits to buy a starfighter, they can't get a loan, all their money comes from killing space monsters, nobody has a job ... etc etc.
*shrug*
So for me, the system works. Everybody has their opinion.
--fje
Well, -I-, for one, love D20 Modern. It's so ... workable. It's simple, fast, usable, fun, and flexible. It may not immediately be the _thing_ that somebody wants it to be, but moreso than anything I've seen in a long time, it can be that quickly.
Some people don't like the Basic Classes setup. Psh. Honestly? They haven't playtested it then. Most people say you have to take several levels in anything to BE anything you want to be. Then they haven't playtested it, I say.
At first I thought the BCs were a little odd and not particularly useful. But then I GMed a few games and had to help people create some extremely varied characters. And I fit them all in at first level. With Starting Occupations and Basic Classes you can do pretty much anything. I'm running a large game with ten people. They're running "themselves" as characters. I have six Smart heroes, and none of them overlap. I have two Dedicated Heroes who are as different as night and day. I've got an intellectual Tough hero. One of the Smart heroes is a military guy.
As for the art being Kids' Stuff ... here's my take on that.
Uh. Yes. Why? Because 34 year old hardcore gamers from the 80s AREN'T who Wizards needs to SELL to. The original poster went out and bought the game even though HE DIDN"T LIKE IT just because he needed the rules to play something he did like. The hardcore gamers are going to buy the games for reasons other than where the art is aimed. If it lets you play another game you like, you'll buy it. If you like the rules, you'll buy it. If you like a setting ... you'll buy it. You have disposable income the AVERAGE gamer doesn't.
I say Average because the major audience they've been aiming for since 3E has been A Younger Audience ... because 2000 hardcore superdorks that have been playing since The Red Book are NOT going to allow a corporation to survive. If the people reading this message board ALL went out and bought a copy of D20 Modern ... it'd die. Same with D&D. The real buying power comes from NEW audience, new blood. Young blood.
D&D and D20 Modern cater to the grizzled veterans among us, but they're also designed to catch new kids. So if some kid walks by Urban Arcana and picks it up because there's a hot drow elf chick on the cover in baggy pants and a knit hat holding two nines like she knows what to do with them and he says: "Dude, that's cool." then it has accomplished what it set out to do.
If 20 kids pick it up because there's a stret-cred kid on the front and 2 old farts say: "They've made it a game for punks and hooligans, I say!" then it has succeeded.
I, for one, totally looked past the art. I'm certainly not running around in baggy jeans with a Linkin Park t-shirt, but I understand that the marketing should be aimed at those kids. Because kids are the money-maker. Wizards knows this with Magic and with PokeMon. There's a whole load more of them, for one thing.
I wasn't totally enthused with Urban Arcana, either. Too much D&D In Manhattan. I DID like SOME parts of it, though, so I bought it. Because I'm like that. And now I'm running several dark-magic dark-fantasy type games. No drow elf chicks running around with ninemils and bugbears with sawed off shotguns, but if that appeals to some kids on the corner who buy it and keep the games coming ... huzzah huzzah huzzah.
For me, it's about the MECHANICS ... and those are top notch. They're not Perfect Realism In A Book, but they're very functional, very versatile, and very EASY. I like easy. I don't like searching for obscure rules. I like having it all stored up in the ol' brain, which is easy to do with D20 games. I like being able to whip up a character sheet, explain the game for five minutes, and start running with a total and utter greenhorn gamer who has never touched dice before. And have it work. And have them become a regular gamer for it. I like that.
D20 Modern's Wealth system is the opposite of wonky. It is ... wonderful. Hoi. I love it. It seems odd, till you play it. Then you realize ... it's so simple. It DOES model the real world very well. Extremely well for ONE NUMBER and a dice roll. You want to buy something ... it's a roll. Just one.
On another board somebody was getting their panties in a knot about "it doesn't model the real world, oh my lord, what about paying for my cable every month, what about this, what about that?" I said: "Well, take one payment, find it's Wealth score, add three, that's it. No need to do anything after that." Just pulled it out of the air, it sounded right ... not good enough for him. So I sat there and patiently explained the idea behind Present Cash Value Of A Perpetuity. Which is the effective "today value" of a payment you make for eternity or a payment you recieve for eternity. Using today's average inflation rate and the prime rate from last week (it changed recently, I think) I figured a perpetuity at about X8 or so of a payment. Which would actually be +6 wealth. At ANY rate, it took me several hours to explain a concept to this guy that I grasped immediately ... you don't NEED to have continual number-crunching finances for a game. That's open to abuse. Credit cards and loans and payments and inflow and outflow and, in the end, it's a real pain in the kiester. Something large CAN be bought by somebody with a low wealth score, through loans and whatnot (representing taking 20 and/or getting aid from another character), and a one-time purchase price CAN simulate payments or the purchase of something with cash-on-the-barrel. In the end, they're both really the same thing. By turning it into a simple number and a roll, WotC saves me hours of time and it actually simulates realism better than most would think. Unless they thought about it for a while.
Wealth Score actually simulates realism about ten times better than most "I have X credits" systems because everybody just has their credits and the credits only depleat when they buy a gun, apparently. And they have to amass X credits to buy a starfighter, they can't get a loan, all their money comes from killing space monsters, nobody has a job ... etc etc.
*shrug*
So for me, the system works. Everybody has their opinion.
--fje
Ranger REG
Explorer
Yeah, the art kinda sucks! I mean, where's the mullet? The spandex? The girl's hot pants? And big hair Duran Duran fashion?
Kids these days. You know our society is failing when they listen to a white rapper. I mean what's next? A redneck basketball player becoming the next NBA Slam Dunk king?
This public service message has been paid for by the People of Radical Norms.
Kids these days. You know our society is failing when they listen to a white rapper. I mean what's next? A redneck basketball player becoming the next NBA Slam Dunk king?
This public service message has been paid for by the People of Radical Norms.
jaerdaph
#UkraineStrong
Once you kids have kids of your own, especially teenagers of your own, you'll catch up again with pop culture by default (whether you want to or not).
This is how I know who Fifty Cent and Lil' Kim are. That and by the decibel level.
Anyhow, I'll be In Da Club if you need me...
Edit: fixed spelling according to "hip-hop" rules.
Edit 2: My father insists I tell you this is how he knew who Boy George and Culture Club were. ( But I still think he would have bought "Colour By Numbers" anyway if he didn't have me).
This is how I know who Fifty Cent and Lil' Kim are. That and by the decibel level.
Anyhow, I'll be In Da Club if you need me...
Edit: fixed spelling according to "hip-hop" rules.
Edit 2: My father insists I tell you this is how he knew who Boy George and Culture Club were. ( But I still think he would have bought "Colour By Numbers" anyway if he didn't have me).
Last edited:
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