d20 Modern, any fun?

[root9125]

I really want to run a d20 Modern campaign, but I tend to run sandbox games, and it's not got the normal plot hooks you'd see in a typical DnD adventuring world. Any advice? Does it require more, less, or about the same amount of planning? Is it actually fun at low levels, or should we start higher up?

[insert all the questions I should have asked, to which you know the answer, here]

[9mm]

can it be fun, yes. the trick is in the world building, because of the modern aspect, you have to set up the world that would allow suspension of disbelief.

[pffh]

I played it for some time and the two biggest problem we found were that at high levels you can take dozens (if not hundreds) of bullets before going down and the setting.
The setting thing was easily fixed by playing in our home city (our longest running campaign was set in a post-apocalyptic world) since everyone knew different useful places there.
We fixed the high level thing by boosting weapon damage (by adding one die (guns), adding two dice(explosives) and by increasing the die size by one(other then guns and explosives)), set the max level at 12 and started at level 3.

But yeah it's a fun system.

[Dragonmuncher]

I like the idea of playing in your home city.

[jmbrown]

At low levels it's pretty deadly (you're not exactly waltzing around in armor and a single bullet can kill you) while high levels basically turns the game into an action movie.

The Epic 6 rules (max level 6, you gain feats afterward) actually make for a decent film noir style. People aren't action heroes but they can take a few punches and dish out more.

[golentan]

D20 modern is very fun when you do it right. You can do a dungeon crawl (sewer/subway systems, or we once raided Area 51...), you can do noir, you can do sandbox (esp. strangers in a strange land type stuff). I really enjoyed a post apocalyptic trading game: Keep the caravan together, and trade between the few outposts of surviving civilization while fending off marauders, mutants, and radiation sickness.

You can do all sorts of things without any supernatural/pseudoscience stuff as well. Do a game about espionage, or cat burglars. A crazed cult who's planning to open a portal to hell through human sacrifice: but they really are just crazy (and armed). Mob wars. Things in the style of old radio plays (go dig some up if you feel it). Field researchers in the amazon (That gets nasty. You describe a real spider, and nobody believes you. You describe what it's real venom really does, and now they believe you less. And then their limbs fall off). War games. Adventure, whatever.

[Edwin]

If you are doing a d20 modern game, I'm so in.

My avatar will have a field day..

[GreyMantle]

For whatever reason, nearly everyone I've talked to has much more of a problem with the idea that getting shot makes you take 5 points of damage, but that you may have hundreds of hp, making that wound nearly meaningless, than they have with, say, the idea of getting stabbed.

It is for this reason primarily that a leveled system like d20M is perhaps not the most suited to running a modern game. If you're willing to roll with the leveled-ness, then sure (the system does have some significant mechanical flaws, but nothing's perfect, and you can work around/overlook them if you're enthusiastic or dedicated enough).

Personally, the appeal in playing a modern game, for me at least, lies in the frailty of nearly anyone, making organizations where no one person you're likely to encounter is a nigh-invincible boss monster far more dangerous than some random dragon. Fantasy games are all about being a mighty hero like Odysseus who is known worldwide, whereas modern characters are like Sam Fisher: still totally hardcore, but for completely different reasons. It's for that reason that I'd rather use the Shadowrun system, removing/altering the magic and technology as desired, or maybe GURPS to do a modern game.

[Shademan]

don't forget that hp don't neccessary mean how much damage you can handle but rather how lucky you are, and only the the last HD you have may be how many hits you can actually take.
ugh...late nigt...spelling is teh fail

[UglyPanda]

For whatever reason, nearly everyone I've talked to has much more of a problem with the idea that getting shot makes you take 5 points of damage, but that you may have hundreds of hp, making that wound nearly meaningless, than they have with, say, the idea of getting stabbed.

You're a bit misinformed. A level 10 character will have 80 HP or so and level 7 is considered moderately high in this game. Small pistols do seven base damage per shot, rifles and such do ten. And healing is quite slow*. It takes hours to heal as much as a D&D character heals in minutes.

*Unless you're playing d20 Future. There's a prestige class that can perform surgery in minutes.

[JonestheSpy]

don't forget that hp don't neccessary mean how much damage you can handle but rather how lucky you are, and only the the last HD you have may be how many hits you can actually take.

Yup, that's the most important thing to remember. All those shootout scenes where the hero fires into a storm of bullets without getting hit? In game terms, he IS getting hit, but has enough hit points that it doesn't affect him physically.

[golentan]

Also, bear in mind that your massive damage in D20 modern is your con score. So you can always die from a single shot if you're unlucky.

[NEO|Phyte]

Also, bear in mind that your massive damage in D20 modern is your con score. So you can always die from a single shot if you're unlucky.

Well, you don't DIE, you just drop to -1 HP. So you CAN die, but it's not a guarantee.

[Vorpalbob]

I find it is easiest to make an enjoyable D20 Modern post-apocayptic campaign than it is to use modern cities. The sheer amount of **** you have to think about is crazy for modern times, while in a P-A setting if the characters say "we go to (insert place)" and you have never considered they might want to go there, you can (especially in a Fallout setting) just say "It blew up". Of course, it takes some work to make it seem not like a DM Fiat, but you can always say, "You want to go through the area the natives told you was crawling with Mutants? Okay..."

Gah! stop babbling. Anyway, D20 Modern is a fun system, it just takes a bit more work. DM well enough, and your characters will feel like action heroes.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If you have a hard time swallowing the fact you can take as many bullets as you have HD, maybe you should switch to the Vitality and Wound point system. In that system your VP is derived just like your HP in a normal game, but is described as representing your character's luck/karma/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. Your WP is equal to your con score and represents your character's actual ability to absorb damage. You lose VP first then WP. Weapons don't get crit multipliers, instead when a critical hit happens the damage is applied directly to your WP. You run out of WP you die. Only major characters get VP mooks only get WP.

[NeoVid]

Nothing really wrong with D20 Modern, but its Spycraft setting, especially the Shadowforce Archer material, does it way better than the default. It even takes the standard, built-in troubles of the D20 system into account.

[kjones]

Spycraft is a system of its own, not a setting for d20 Modern.

D20 Modern is a fun game. The biggest problem comes when things don't work like you would expect them to in the real world - this is OK in D&D, since none of us live in a medieval fantasy world, but it becomes problematic when trying to model things that you can do in real life. (I'm thinking specifically of the driving rules, which seemed a little wonky the last time I used them.)

[Callos_DeTerran]

I can honestly say that d20 Modern is my favorite setting, with it's only contender being D&D 3.5. However, I almost always DM it so I can give you some handy advice. Yes, it does take a bit more work to DM it because the system is grounded in reality (to a degree) and that has to be taken into account. However, it's primarily a cinematic system.

For the problem of HUNDREDS of HP, two things to keep in mind. Hit points doesn't mean the same as getting injured (as mentioned above) and ALWAYS remember to take Massive Damage into account. Otherwise gun-fights really will seem to drag on forever and ever.

Also, you may want to house-rule the Point Blank Shot feat so that it provides a +4 to hit/bonus with shotguns to make them a bit more like people expect them to be.

As for planning...it does require a bit more. If you're not using monsters then that means needing NPCs, either do up a bunch of stock ones before hand or use the one's in the book and Menace Manual. The other big problem is maps and whatnot (or so I've found).

[Vorpalbob]

Originally posted by Callos_DeTerran
Also, you may want to house-rule the Point Blank Shot feat so that it provides a +4 to hit/bonus with shotguns to make them a bit more like people expect them to be.

Now this, I like. I'm gonna use that, mkay?