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ken-do-nim
2009-06-17, 03:05 PM
Anybody still playing d20 Modern? It seems that WOTC has abandoned this system, but I was wondering if it has a dedicated following nevertheless. I never got to play it, but I always wanted to. I'll probably try Alternity instead though, since I have more supporting material for it.

derfenrirwolv
2009-06-17, 03:11 PM
My campaign is alive and kicking.

Dark matter is a very good supplement to really kick off a modern campaign.

Then just look up "conspiracy theory" on google and bam... 10000 adventure ideas.

I plan on putting the adventure notes online soon, which is more work than running them in the first place since i mostly did them out of my head.

Comet
2009-06-17, 03:16 PM
I always found d20 unsuitable for playing out stories in other genres than the default heroic fantasy (and arguably unsuitable for even that, but thats another can of worms).
Is this true? How much does d20 modern differ from D&D&all?

Vortling
2009-06-17, 03:20 PM
d20 modern is very different from any version of D&D. It's closest relative in the d20 universe is Star Wars Saga Edition. Additionally it's much more generic than any other d20 game out there.

Xallace
2009-06-17, 03:26 PM
I've got a few d20 Modern books (d20 Future...) hanging around somewhere that I'd love to get some use out of. My first Table-top RPG was d20 Modern, and while it isn't my favorite system ever, it's always going to have a special place in my heart.

B0nd07
2009-06-17, 07:19 PM
The first game I DMed, or in this case GMed, was a Modern campaign. Since then, I've been running hybrid D&D/d20 Modern campaigns, which has been working pretty well. I seem to be the only one in my group interested in running a Modern campaign though.

As for new WotC material, I don't think we're going to see any. At least not any time soon. If we do, it'll probably be in a few years after they get 4e fully established and based on 4e rules.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-17, 07:37 PM
I found d20 modern fairly fun, but the lack of realism was annoying. Sure the massive damage rules made some guns scary, but peashooters like the colt .45 (2d6 dmg, if I remember) were impossible to take people down with. This made melee rather tasty. I played a d20 apocalypse character who was tough6/thrasher2, who was virtually immune to gunfire and commonly charged groups of gun-wielders armed with a longsword and a riot shield.

qcbtnsrm
2009-06-17, 08:13 PM
I have only played in one campaign and while fun it resulted in one of the most rediculous moments of any game I have ever played with.

We were playing in a 30's Mobster game and the group ended up with (for some wierd reason) three professional boxers as PCs. A Strong, a Tough, and one that mixed the two classes. (We also had a Fast, a Smart and a Charsimatic.) We ended up getting into a real messy fight. Everyone all mixed together firearms blazing away. And the boxers took over and Dominated. We all had Combat Reflexes, and Improved Unarmed Combat. So everytime anyone pulled a trigger they provoked an AoO. And with us boxers mixed up, that meant that we were taking like 3-5 actions a round due to all the provoking.

It was all so blatently unrealistic it kind of took us all out of the moment.

Grynning
2009-06-17, 09:16 PM
Very few modern systems handle firearms well, a quick search on this forum will demonstrate that it's very difficult to balance guns and keep them realistically scary. SWSE makes blasters decently threatening compared to melee with the assortment of feats and the damage threshold rules, I would suggest incorporating most of SWSE's hp/damage/combat rules into d20 modern if you have both systems. Just make normal guns do as much damage as the blasters in SWSE and voila.

D20 modern is not at all bad on its own, and while WotC may not be printing new stuff for it, both my FLGS and the local Borders still stock the books. I've only ever played a few (heavily houseruled) games of it but I enjoyed it.

mr.fizzypop
2009-06-17, 09:36 PM
Very few modern systems handle firearms well, a quick search on this forum will demonstrate that it's very difficult to balance guns and keep them realistically scary. SWSE makes blasters decently threatening compared to melee with the assortment of feats and the damage threshold rules, I would suggest incorporating most of SWSE's hp/damage/combat rules into d20 modern if you have both systems. Just make normal guns do as much damage as the blasters in SWSE and voila.

D20 modern is not at all bad on its own, and while WotC may not be printing new stuff for it, both my FLGS and the local Borders still stock the books. I've only ever played a few (heavily houseruled) games of it but I enjoyed it.

My group actually considers the firearms damage not very realistic, we found that the CoC ones were better.

But anyway, I don't know how good d20 modern alone is, but I'm in a d20 apocalypse campaign that is actually quite interesting.

derfenrirwolv
2009-06-17, 10:59 PM
So everytime anyone pulled a trigger they provoked an AoO. And with us boxers mixed up, that meant that we were taking like 3-5 actions a round due to all the provoking.


Why weren't the shooters taking 5 foot steps back?

If you managed to corner them all into the walls so they had no where to go, congratulations, you had a freak setup and good tactics that favored you. Those sort of circumstances/skill deserve to be rewarded by pounding some serious badguy jaw

On the other hand, if the dm was forgetting to have everyone take 5 foot steps, it was a simple but common mistake by the DM, not something that indicates that the system is inherently broken

What messes up firearms more than anything else is... the size of your kitchen table.

let me explain. At any reasonable scale, the people with guns and the people with melee are going to wind up fairly close together, much closer than current day gun battles, most of which you're lucky if you can even see your opponent.) simply because 1 inch= 5 feet. Most people aren't using the SS harry truman for a gaming table, so at most you're looking at 3 feet = 36 inches = 180 feet= 3 rounds of moving, tops. At the slow rate of fire, thats only 3 bullets for most folks.

So yes, melee is powerful. But the idea of the game is to be FUN. Not real. If it was realistic, you'd do 2 or 3 adventures tops before everyone was dead.

Origomar
2009-06-18, 12:48 AM
Never played it, but I've heard it is even more complicated.

Ryacko
2009-06-18, 01:00 AM
I find most systems have trouble balancing technological improvement in weaponry, along with character development. Having nerds running around who can take more hits than the average automobile...

Too bad I never got to play d20 modern. I was looking forward to playing d20 apocalypse (D&D adventuring in a world of chaos and monsters minus the fantasy).

The sample d20 adventures on wizards seemed to D&Desque. It's as if they took D&D adventures, and just put them in a modern setting.

Sebastian
2009-06-18, 03:12 AM
I found d20 modern fairly fun, but the lack of realism was annoying. Sure the massive damage rules made some guns scary, but peashooters like the colt .45 (2d6 dmg, if I remember) were impossible to take people down with.

Well, on a critical those are 4d6, if you use double tap is 3d6, beside ina normal D20modern campaign you don't have magical healing. Wounds stay with you for a longer time. You don't just shrug 2d6 like they are nothing.


This made melee rather tasty. I played a d20 apocalypse character who was tough6/thrasher2, who was virtually immune to gunfire and commonly charged groups of gun-wielders armed with a longsword and a riot shield.[/QUOTE]

which is both genre appropriate and fitting to that class's strengths. AFAIR though/trasher is the nearest thing to a barbarian in Modern. :)

If someone is interested, RPgobject made Modern20 which is essentially unofficial d20 modern 2.0. I didn't read it but it is supposed to have fixed the more glaring problems of d20 modern like unarmed combat, for example.

Decoy Lockbox
2009-06-18, 08:14 AM
which is both genre appropriate and fitting to that class's strengths. AFAIR though/trasher is the nearest thing to a barbarian in Modern. :)

Thats ironic, because the character was actually supposed to be something of a modern day paladin. He called himself "Sir Malhavoc of the Lower Phoenix Area" (the game took place in the ruins of Las Vegas), and his mission in life was to restore chivalry in the post apocalyptic age. He refused to use guns, preferring to fight with swords or axes. Also, he occasionally suicide bombed things, but always survived due to his crazy hp and dr. For example, we were attacked by a horde of zombies, and Sir Malhavoc decided to bravely lure them away from the rest of the party. As the horde engulfed him, he drew a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, and simply held it in his hands. The zombies died, and he lived :smallbiggrin:

Callos_DeTerran
2009-06-18, 11:36 AM
Thats ironic, because the character was actually supposed to be something of a modern day paladin. He called himself "Sir Malhavoc of the Lower Phoenix Area" (the game took place in the ruins of Las Vegas), and his mission in life was to restore chivalry in the post apocalyptic age. He refused to use guns, preferring to fight with swords or axes. Also, he occasionally suicide bombed things, but always survived due to his crazy hp and dr. For example, we were attacked by a horde of zombies, and Sir Malhavoc decided to bravely lure them away from the rest of the party. As the horde engulfed him, he drew a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth, and simply held it in his hands. The zombies died, and he lived :smallbiggrin:

That is the sort of thing d20 modern encourages in it's action-adventure core, not counting in horror/supernatural horror (Dark*Matter and Shadow Hunters), Espionage (Agents of Psi), or modern fantasy where you can take a gatling gun to a dragon (Urban Arcana).

As for fire arms not being too realistic, small arms fire still does as much damage as a regular greatsword (In D&D) without the user having a strength bonus at a range. Maximum of 12 damage, which for an ordinary means making a Massive Damage Save or going into shock and dying. I don't think very many people remember that, unlike in D&D, your massive damage threshhold is your Con score, or your Con score+3 with Improved Threshhold, which is a number far easier to reach. Take one of the above fire arms. Add in double tap, a standard feat for any gunslinger, and you are up to 3d6. Maximum of 18 which is enough to force a massive damage save from any character below fourth level (Without Improved Threshhold) and most of those who haven't maxed out Con and put their stat bonuses into it. With one feat, you can force a Massive damage save if you roll well on damage and instantly kill the opponent.

All just by putting two bullets into them instead of one. Which is fairly realistic to me. Don't look at the damage for a firearm, look at how well it can put you into shock, which a fair bit of them can without double tap.

As for it being dead, it likely is yeah. But only in the sense that no more books are being made for it. I still run variants of d20 modern on the Giant's forum fairly regularly, and plan to continue so.

raitalin
2009-06-18, 11:51 AM
d20M is actually my favorite game system. I really love how..."blank" it is. You can project any setting on to it, and it does a pretty good job of simulating all of them. I imagine GURPS is better at it, but theres no way I could get my group to learn a new system.

And, yeah, I think if firearms aren't scary in your D20M game you probably aren't using them right.One of the things I really love about the system is that the guns and MDT rules make it freaking *scary*.

Yes the system is completely dead and almost surely won't be revisited. I think partially because it tries to invade the GURPS market, which is pretty thoroughly entrenched and partially just because it was never as popular as D&D or Star Wars. I'm happy just having the complete system as is though, but I would've like to see d20 Spectaculars; the super-hero supplement that was scheduled and never made it.

Zincorium
2009-06-18, 01:48 PM
Here's the thing of it:

D20 Modern wasn't marketed like other D20 games WotC has made. Rather than the splatbooks containing specific settings, like Eberron or Forgotten Realms, they contained entire *genres*, sometimes more than one in the same book (like D20 past).

The impetus, like vanilla D&D or many third party games, is on the GM to create a setting specific to the game and then play in it- even though they have setting ideas in the books, they aren't playable without the GM actually filling it with stuff.


On a weapons note:

.45's do not reliably put people down with a single bullet in real life, I don't find it strange they take a few to put people down in the game.

A 12 gauge firing 3 inch shells will. But it only does an average of 2 more damage. Fix shotguns somehow or advise your players not to use them.

D20 future sucked in terms of new equipment, but the modification rules were pretty cool as long as the GM is paying attention to prevent abuse.

ken-do-nim
2009-06-18, 02:16 PM
d20 Call of Cthulhu is another dead game. That didn't even get any supplements like d20 Modern did, and AFAIK only one module (Nocturnum). It is really too bad that these games weren't more popular, though I'm glad that some folks are still running d20 Modern.

Froogleyboy
2009-06-18, 02:21 PM
I'm running a d20 modern campaign at the moment. I love the system

Uin
2009-06-18, 02:25 PM
I recently bought a bunch of d20 Modern stuff on the cheap. I've run a Norse Mythology game so far, hoping to take advantage of d20M's solid but not overpowering magic.

hiryuu
2009-06-18, 02:36 PM
Our group did thusly with shotguns: Slugs do 2d10 damage and have a range increment of 30. Shot does 5d4 with a 10 foot increment. Each increment beyond the first takes away 1 die and gives +1 to your attack roll (yes this means someone more than 50 feet away from you takes no damage, although they are annoyed by the hot lead pelting them and getting in their shirt). Shoot someone normal in that first range, and on average damage rolls, they will go unconscious or die ~75% of the time. You can double-tap with a double-barreled shotgun.

Man, it annoys me to no end that they canceled d20 Spectaculars.

9mm
2009-06-18, 03:03 PM
Some of my favorite gaming moments took place in D20 modern; its far from dead, but it needs a creative gm.

Callos_DeTerran
2009-06-18, 03:24 PM
Our group did thusly with shotguns: Slugs do 2d10 damage and have a range increment of 30. Shot does 5d4 with a 10 foot increment. Each increment beyond the first takes away 1 die and gives +1 to your attack roll (yes this means someone more than 50 feet away from you takes no damage, although they are annoyed by the hot lead pelting them and getting in their shirt). Shoot someone normal in that first range, and on average damage rolls, they will go unconscious or die ~75% of the time. You can double-tap with a double-barreled shotgun.

I had actually never even heard there was going to be a d20 Spectaculars. Was there any previews or such for it? And the fix for shotguns (as much as I loathe them) that I suggest is that with the point-blank shot feat, shotguns gain an additional +4 to damage and/or attack within 30 ft.

hiryuu
2009-06-18, 03:47 PM
They had a few discussions about it, some back cover copy, and cover art. It was even up on Amazon for awhile. I was planning to cannibalize large chunks of it for my campaign (since I'm using a lot of tribal mythology for my Modern games, and what we call "super powers" works a lot better for magic than d20's slot system), but I ended up having to just write a truckload of material for myself instead; namely, a new way to do magic so low-level characters have access and over ten new magic-using types.

Our reasoning for shotguns is that we didn't want them OMGdisgusting overpowered like one of the group members did, but didn't want them as something to be sneezed at, either. Really, a lot of damage from a gun comes from the skill of the person firing, which most people forget. A .9mm shouldn't be that scary to John McClane (which is what d20 Modern PCs are supposed to be modeling!), but a guy with training (Read: with just Point Blank Shot, Double Tap, and some cover, a mook becomes really worrisome and can take down a PC in one or two shots) sure should. Sure, some random punk can get lucky, and mechanics for that already exist. We just call them "critical hits."

Really, in a game where well-trained level 3 characters can punch through bank vault doors, dodge explosions completely while tied up and blindfolded, stand a reasonable chance of walking through a forest fire completely unscathed, perform surgery in a junkyard with a drill and a piece of glass (by taking 10, no less! +4 Wis, +6 skill, +2 feat, +2 healing knack (or +3 Emphasis!) -4 for not having the right tools, that's still +10!), answer the second hardest questions in science by taking 10 (+4 Int, +3 Savant, +6 skill, +2 feat = +15, DC 25. DC 30 is the hardest to answer DC in the book), or get access to top-secret information that the government doesn't even tell itself (look at the DCs for Gather Information and see what a Charm-using Charismatic hero can accomplish!), heroes who can survive a few hits from a gun isn't that unrealistic (also, people survive gunshots; the mortality rate is 22%, and the majority of those die in the hospital). In fact, since d20 Modern is supposed to be modeling action movies on the level of Sci-Fi Channel original motion pictures, Die Hard, Terminator, and Independence Day, I'm not surprised guns act the way they do.

TheThan
2009-06-18, 04:35 PM
I really like D20 modern, although it does have a few problems, guns aren’t quite powerful enough and non-lethal combat is ridiculous. What really sold the game for me was the generic classes, you weren’t pigeon holed into a niche. Because it gave you a blank slate, you could literally make any sort of game you wished to be, want an Indiana Jones style adventure game? You’ve got it. You have a hankering for some 30s style gangster action? You can do it. You wanna be secret agents? You can do it. the sky is pretty much the limit.

hiryuu
2009-06-20, 01:27 PM
Agreed about nonlethal combat; I'm not sure what the designers were thinking about when they threw that series of rules together. What I would like to have seen was a fatigue/exhaustion system for some things.

Say, you get shot/hurt enough to put you over your massive damage threshold. You succeed on your massive damage save, but you're fatigued for a few rounds thereafter, and if you get hit again, you'll be exhausted. In this way, you can still be knocked down a few pegs (but not out) and combat becomes just a touch more cinematic.

Narmoth
2009-06-20, 02:27 PM
I like d20 moderns generic character classes, although the traits are pathetic compared to the weapon dmg.
I think the skills should be available at the same price for all characters, so that's a homebrew I'd go with.

derfenrirwolv
2009-06-20, 04:30 PM
Non lethal combat is the only thing i had to houserule. I just went with it as doing subdual damage ala D&D.

I'm not much of a gun person, so i didn't feel comfortable doing anything with the shotguns, but there is NO reason in the system to use them.