Has anyone here played D20 Modern? I just want to see what peoples' thoughts on it are?
I like it--we converted an old existing Star Trek FASA campaign to a d20 modern variant utilizing the d20 future supplement. It's very cinematic, even more so than D&D. Unfortunately, our GM gave up RPGs altogether after only a few sessions, so we haven't played it in about a year.
Things I like about d20 modern: massive damage rule, the prestige classes, the car chase rules, the total compatability with every d20 product, the action points and wealth system (very elegant mechanics)
Things I don't like: the core classes (a bit bland), all the emphasis on running a modern arcana campaign (I was shocked to find dozens of spells and the mage class described in the d20 modern book). Heck, they have bugbears described in the d20 modern book...why would I want that?? If I want bugbears in a d20 campaign chances are I play D&D anyway so I don't see why they had to be included...lots of other D&D style monsters and classes in d20 modern as well.
However, there are lots of 3rd parties supplements out there to make your game as gritty and realistic as you like.
The d20 modern core book is pretty comprehensive and if you're willing to invest some effort into campaign prep, you don't really need to buy anything else...that's real nice.
I did buy the d20 past (mediocre) and d20 future (pretty good) and d20 apocalypse (mediocre) supplements. D20 future tries to do too much by covering every possible aspect of SciFi while mastering none, but it is well written and if you're planning on running a semi-futuristic modern campaign, it's worth picking up, but isn't necessary.
D20 past and D20 apocalypse try to cover way too much territory with the word count they were alloted. Avoid them and pick up something with more focus from a 3rd party publisher.
I'm tinkering with a d20 modern campaign right now in my spare time when the mood strikes me. Our campaign got put on hold while we concentrate on D&D, but when we need a break from D&D, I'll run d20 modern for a few months until our batteries are recharged.
Having said that, I think it's a great game system for one shots or for a gaming day of something completely different.
I haven't tried it myself, but after Farewell2King's recommendation I may take another look at it. I allowed myself to get annoyed with it after looking through it just because of the art direction. I dunno, a little garish for me. I was expecting something a bit grittier looking and less manga/comic book style. Not to say there's anything wrong with that kind of art direction, it's just not what I had in mind at first. I am actually interested in the rules themselves because I've wanted to try running a post apocalyptic Fallout style campaign. With Mutants and Ghouls as playable races. Maybe I'll get to do it someday. Let me know what you think if you end up trying it, Lord Eisen.
I like the d20 modern as well as Star Wars d20, which I found out is the basis for the Knights of the Old Republic x-box game.
The d20 Modern character classes seem a little bland and many gamers I know have a problem with it. but with a bit of imagination you can develop any charcter type in a modern setting you can think up.
Thier is a lot on developing an Urban Arcana campaign, think D&D fantasy in modern, instead of a medieval setting. Very interesting but a hard sell for gamers on my island.
The prestige classes are very cool, from mages shamans to media stars to gunslingers and martial artists.
The best thing is it is easy to teach anybody who has played D&D. I like the d20 resolution system and it works for D&D and the d20 modern. If you are looking to make a modern setting for a role playing session then grap the d20 modern book. With some work, you can acomplish any style of game, espionage, conspiracy, modern horror.
For me the hard sell is selling the core classes to players as a starting point for developing characters. The core classes are based on the six abilities so thier is a strong, fast, tough classes and so on. Multi classing is wide open. I think the problem is the lack of specific core character class or arch typical, fighter, rogue, barbarian etc. To me that just means players need to imagine a little more and develop thier characters in play.
I haven’t actually played it, but I have read through a good portion of the book and I have to agree with F2K and Sir Kiakillah that the core classes are a little boring. This was brought up in my gaming group and we found that with just a name change things become much more palatable. Playing a Mastermind is a lot more fun than playing a smart hero. The new names we came up with are as follows (to the best of my memory)
Fast Hero: Dare Devil
Strong Hero: Bruiser
Charismatic Hero: Face Man(Woman)
Tough Hero: Brute
Smart Hero: Mastermind
Dedicated Hero: Street Crusader
My opinion is that a good piece of gaming and being a good GM is packaging. If an idea is presented well, a lot of the imperfections can be glossed over and even good ideas can be seem much better.. For instance, one of the Gms in our group managed to scare the player of a 20'th level paladin with a bunch of skeletons. Of course the Paladin could have turned them into bonemeal by flaring his nostrils, but the description was so vivid the player started looking for the quickest way out of there. I’m not saying that this was a bad encounter to begin with, but the way it was presented made it a whole lot more interesting than “hey, there’s uhh *rolls dice* 5 skeletons coming at you, roll initiative I guess”.
These were just some names we came up with that helped the classes feel better for us. It also steps away from the implication that all characters will fall into the heroic template. Not that this is a huge complaint, but I like leaving classes morally ambiguous if possible (gives the GM and players more options to work with). If any of you have any other ideas for names, I would love to hear them.
Played a couple for about a year, You have to put some thought into the campaign setting as theres not a standard "forgotten realms" or "Greyhawk" coming to the fore yet,but with a little discourse with the party about setting, some imagination, and Google earth, D20 modern is a very satisfing experience.
I played in a d20 Future game for a while, and while the experience wasn't the best (due in large part to shoddy DMing) I found that the system behind the game is pretty ok for the most part.
The Tough Hero is by far one of the least impressive base classes I have ever seen. Average Base Attack, Good Fort, d10s, and 2 bsp combined with a mediocre talent selection. Their Damage Reduction is potentially awesome, I'll grant, but they'll be putzing around in a base class at seventh level (or spending feat slots on "tough plus") to get 3/-. On the other hand, the Smart Hero really appealed to me, being a skill focused, purely intelligence based class (as opposed to the rogue, for whom intelligence is generally at best a second string skill).
The Advanced Classes are, in general, pretty nice. The Infiltrator, for example, gets the ability to wield an ashtray as a potentially lethal weapon.
As F2K noted, the D20 Future book really tries to cover too much stuff in not enough space. It's worth a look, though, and had some of my favorite features. The Gadget options allow you to customize your weapons and tools, for example. You want that gun to get through metal detectors more easily? Fine, but it'll add (I forget how much) to the DC for your wealth check. Urban Arcana had a good selection of sharpy pointy implements, for the more melee oriented combatants.
On the whole, it's a pretty decent game, but Modern as written just isn't really my style. I figure that if I wanted to deal with the real world, I wouldn't be playing a game.
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We started an Urban Arcana game, slightly modified. I.e., DnD races are a staple in the "modern" world - none of this "special sight" to see shadow creatures stuff.
We didn't get far until the DM got called off to more important things, like Iraq.
In any event, I enjoyed the taste, purchased the D20 Modern Core Rulebook, Urban Arcana and Critical Locations ... and am waiting for another game to start up.
(My wife wants to play a "Sex and the City" meets "Sopranos" campaign, but we've yet to sit down and get rolling.)
Is WoTC still printing d20 Modern?
I ask because I notice that it is not available for sale here at Paizo.
Nope, it went out of print at the same time as everything else they put based on d20. When they switched to 4th, everything else went away. Fortunately, a lot of the d20 Modern books are pretty cheap when you find them used.
I am playing in a d20 Modern campaign currently that is set in the mid 1800s. Before this I currently ran a modern campaign for about a year and a half. I thought the classes were a bit bland as well so I made a few adjustments to the game and it worked out well.
- gestalt characters
- vitality/wound system
- fractional BAB
- no XP give
The gestalt characters allowed the players to make pretty much the exact characters they wanted to play. Vitality and wounds made the game a little deadlier (when you get shot, it should hurt!). Fractional BAB gave the party some fighting ability. Removing XP allowed me to throw whatever I wanted at the group without worrying about how fast the party would advance.
It worked pretty well from the DM standpoint and the players seemed to enjoy the game as well. I think we may be taking a break from d20 Modern after this current campaign and going back to 3.5 DnD. I think the next campaign I run will either be using Savage Worlds or Rogue Trader, neither of which I have played before.
For the record, the full MSRD is in nicely HTMLized format here: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Modern_System_Reference_Document
I've played some d20 Modern and I own the books. Overall, I enjoy the system but there are too many skills, in much need of consolidation, and too many weapons (10 guns with effectively the same stats).
The power level is also a bit low--great if you want underpowered or "gritty," not so if you want to simulate cinematic action heroes, where characters will need to be very high level to represent those kind of characters.
I DO like the idea of the base classes but with the understanding that d20 Modern is supposed to be a bit more generic and modular; the classes don't have a lot of fluff so it's easier to apply them to a variety of pulp, modern and science fiction settings.
OTOH, the mix of base and advanced classes is interesting but gets unwieldy--and I find sometimes that it takes dipping into three or four classes to build a concept the way you want it.
LOVE the occupations system and I actually like the wealth system, despite the fact that some don't (but I don't know why they don't like it).
I've slowly been working on a revision of it just as a way of passing the time and there's a lot of stuff I find that include some really cool ideas---and some things that just don't work as well.
I'm less interested in d20 Urban Arcana so I have little to comment on that except to say it feels awkward to have to start in a non-spellcasting base class before you can take a spellcasting advanced class. Frankly if I wanted to run "Modern D&D or Modern Pathfinder" I would just use the Pathfinder classes and incorporate modern skills, weapons, and feats.
LOVE the occupations system and I actually like the wealth system, despite the fact that some don't (but I don't know why they don't like it).
I think it was just too abstract for a lot of players. (They had been conditioned to doing detailed accounting trough their other gaming experiences.)
I liked the wealth system and the occupations. Yes, they were abstract but it solved the problems in games like Shadowrun where you have PCs earning and spending a million bucks to get new toys. In general, I usually try to limit the impact of money on my games by making other things more important.
The advanced classes are pretty neat and more balanced than some of their DnD counterparts.
The base classes kind of suck. They are too generalized and I usually started PCs at level 4- three levels of a base class and the first level of an advanced class. I usually gave additional bonus feats since it makes or breaks combat with firearms.
I really wished that more specific material was published.
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Im a big fan of D20modern, and find it much easier to adapt to situations in that game than it is in dnd, etc.
If you are setting the game in the actual modern world, then you, being as you live in it, already know the generl political atmosphere of whats going on, how the general public might respond to certain situations, etc.
In the group I used to game with, we placed all our games in St. Louis, MO, as it was the closest 'big city' that we had to where we lived, and which we were all at least somewhat familiar with. At one point, we decided we needed a coast line, so the beginning of the game began with there being a massive earthquake right down the Mississippi River that cut the continent in two.
I can understand some people saying that the core classes are kinda boring, and in all honesty, they are, but I see it as 1) covering the ground to make it so you can adapt it to many differnt types of potential settings that you can play with the game (past, future, Apocolypse, urban Arcana), and 2) it is supposed to be 'lower magic' and less 'fantastic' feeling than dnd, which this provides by making you work harder to get to the essentials.
If you think about it, just cause a guy in the real world has a temper and likes to fight, doesnt mean he is a barbarian. hes just got anger issues. However, if he focuses his 'training' in that direction, then eventually he could become it.
Wealth system, Occupations, Massive Dmg threshold (much better than dnd imo. Much more deadly), vehicle combat, and Reputation are all very nicely done, i think.
My suggestions: If you can get the Core, try it out. Loads of fun. Hold off on buying Past, Future, Apocolypse, and Urban Arcana until youve read through the pdf and you figure out if that is something you might be interested in running through your game.
Also: Technomage Advanced Class? A caster who's spellbook can be on his laptop/ phone/ PDA/ iPad? Epic.
The Urban Arcana, D20 Future and D20 Cyberscape made for some interesting videogame adaptations. We used those to play through variants of the Final Fantasy line and a heavily modified Shadowrun.
I cut my gaming teeth on D20 Modern. It was one the top games that I've played. Used the Urban Arcane rule set to play a chaotic-neutral dwarf that was crazy as a s**t-house rat. Now as I'm moving on to GMing, I've been looking forward to running a game using it, maybe an Inferno/Paradise Lost thing with guns.
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I've run a d20 Modern Game or three.
It was pretty interesting, and at some point I would want to run a d20 Modern game where everyone plays themselves (with maybe a bit more of a generous point buy) attempting to survive a zombie apocalypse Left 4 Dead/Walking Dead/Night of the Living Dead style.
My most successful game was a heist game, I had the players make 5th level PCs, and just set up a location and a McGuffin for them to steal. The quirk of the setting was that it was set in Green Ronin's Freedom City campaign setting for Mutants and Masterminds. They were just normal guys attempting a heist in a city full of superheroes.
Very fun.