D20 Modern games

[Prak]

I'm not *entirely* certain why I'm going down this road... familiarity, perhaps.

d20 as a system for a combat heavy modern-set game could, conceivably, work, eh?

Now, D20 Modern, obviously doesn't work, for... many reasons.

First of all is the classes. I'm not sure that even the concept, one base class for each ability score, works. The question is, what would?

[angelfromanotherpin]

First of all is the classes. I'm not sure that even the concept, one base class for each ability score, works. The question is, what would?

[Lago PARANOIA]

d20 as a system for a combat heavy modern-set game could, conceivably, work, eh?

No.

Low-level combat in d20 modern is really lethal between equally or even mostly-equal components. Playing by the rules with vaguely optimized opposition, a team of four PCs should be dead by level 4.

Making it worse is the huge abundance of trap options, especially at low level. Like 2/3rds of the feats not only do not help you much but they convince you towards stupid options. Like being in melee. Or increasing your reputation. Making it even worse is the abundance of universal empty levels. Seriously, these are the only acceptable builds in the game:

Your first three levels are in Fast Hero, unless the game is going to end at level 4 or 5 and you want to get into a BAB +3 class then you can do Strong Hero. If you're running a game with Maj-stats you can get some mileage out of ONE of your party members being a Smart Hero or a Wise (or whatever) Hero but 90% of the time you want your levels to be in Fast Hero.

With that settled, you have a narrow band of acceptable builds to choose from.

- Holy Slayer Charger. This is a pretty simple build. You take Supernatural Critical, Power Critical, the unarmed line of feats, and stack all of that shit onto one attack which you are fucking smiting with. This build only really works if you're playing a game with high stats due to the extreme MAD. But you can one-shot the toughest enemies in the game, even in Urban Arcana.

- Druid. They kind of chew at low levels, but that spiritmeld thing gets pretty damn large. They also have a smattering of useful spells, too. Pretty much the best out of the spellcasting classes.

- Psionic Agent. Psionic Agents get a nice helping of powers that synergize really well with shooting people in the face such as teleportation, invisibility, and flight.

- Gangster. It's almost like being a 3.5E rogue, only you get a light kick in the shins.

- Scientist. Not the one in the basic book, but the one in d20 Past. You can get access to all of the spells in the game. Spells in d20 Modern mostly chew, but it's something.

- Soldier. If you're playing without errata and with Maj-stats, these guys rock. Remember than in d20 modern, before the errata, you can complete a full-round action without being restricted to partial actions. If you abuse this with extra action shenanigans you can give your party pretty large bonuses without being too out of the fighter.

- That captain class from d20 future. A lot like a soldier.

- Shadowslayer. If you have brain-damage and want to go melee-only, this class has your back. Hell, it's only slightly worse than gunslinger even if you want to just use guns--until level 10, where they get a ridiculous 'I win' ability.

- Acolyte. Acolytes aren't all that great, though they're the best out of all of the non-druid spellcasting classes and come with Divination, Hold Person, Wall of Stone, Raise Dead, and the cure line of spells. If you can cheese your turning DC (which is actually pretty hard to do in d20 Modern) there's a PrC in Urban Arcana that lets you turn pretty much anything as long as you have the action points.

You would in all seriousness be better off taking 3.5E or even 4E and adapting the names of shit towards a 'modern' setting. It is seriously a lot less work than having to rewrite 90% of the feats, spells, classes, advanced classes, races, and prestige classes presented by d20 modern.

[erik]

I saw at Gencon one booth had ads saying they were making an RPG for The Laundry (england's magic MI-5 or whatever), but it wasn't competed/released yet.

I don't know anything about Cubicle7 or what engine they are using, but if they're not morons then they might be creating a nifty modern-fantasy-cyberpunk RPG. I give them props if only for choosing good setting material.

[PhoneLobster]

Hey... is this an opportunity for me to advertise that last thread in which I did a scathing and hilarious review of much of d20 modern's character classes.

Because you know, I love doing that, I'm far too enamored of my own writing.

Anyway, if you were going to do a quicky d20 hack to run modern type games you would basically be at least AS well off if not better off to do it without using any actual brand name d20 modern material whatsoever.

Basically you need to adapt or whip up some character classes, feats and an equipment list vaguely in keeping with say, Races of War or something and you'd have SOME sort of action/modern game. It wouldn't be great but it would be somewhat modern and somewhat d20.

You could even skip out on changing the spells, or just add a few that let your wizard have blue tooth connectivity or something stupid.

And yes, you COULD have character classes themed off the six core attributes with a strong support for multiclassing as your main (if not ONLY) character classes. There was nothing wrong with that general idea, only the entire implementing of it. Even modular talents is a workable idea, just really badly done in d20 modern.

Also you might want to restrict the level range to something in the lower d20 tiers. I'd go about 1-10 or so but really you could easily do I dunno, 3-5 or something, and do it better by doing so.

[Prak]

PL: That's kind of what I was saying. The d20 system could probably work fine with a modern setting. The D20 Modern published material is terrible.

I was thinking, earlier, of running a kind of urban fantasy demonic invasion fight for the earth deal, and wondered if d20 could do ok, keeping it modern day, of course.

So I was really just wondering what kind of concepts would be needed, or maybe it'd be a loose "ok, what's your character concept? *gets answer, goes home and pounds out a class, comes back nest day* Ok, here's a class that fits it"

[Username17]

So I was really just wondering what kind of concepts would be needed, or maybe it'd be a loose "ok, what's your character concept? *gets answer, goes home and pounds out a class, comes back nest day* Ok, here's a class that fits it"

That works actually. I mean, it's never going to come together as a game, but it would be perfectly playable as your game. Especially if you had enough humility to admit that you made the Pet Detective class underpowered compared to the Demolition Expert and had enough player support that you could negotiate playtest-related patches mid-stream.

But you'd probably be better off starting with some kind of actual modern game like Feng Shui or even :shudder: Storyteller.

Now that is an interesting idea for a class-based modern RPG. You'd need some sort of engine of course, and the computer game is very focused on continuous actions while the RPG would have to be based on distinct declarations, but it could work.

I don't know anything about Cubicle7 or what engine they are using

Cubicle 7 mostly publishes other peoples' stuff. Most notably a new edition of SLA Industries, which is a Cyberpunk knockoff you never heard of or cared about from the early 90s, and Qin, which is a well regarded indie French martial arts game. Mostly they publish things that roll 2d10 one way or another.

Their latest offering is the latest Dr. Who license game. Which seems pretty similar to the old Dr. Who license game, in that it still has a 2d6 RNG and has stats that go up to 6.

-Username17

[cthulhu]

Everyone making classes for anything should have to read the thinking behind the TF2 classes.

Always focusing on

A) How can we keep the player involved?

B) How can we set up the class so they are guided towards good game play for themselves and the rest of the team?

C) How can we reward them for good play?

D) Role protection and differentiation - every class should be a unique gameplay experience.

It's good stuff - from the developers commentry.

A class is a bottled up experience, designed to be unique relative to the other classes in the game.

A player who is getting tired of one class can switch to another class and get a fresh experience.

They allow us to cater to players with a variety of different skills and desires.

Beginning and advanced players can have fun together; cautious cerebral thinkers, strategic defenders, and twitch firing adrenaline junkies can all find their niche.

Team Fortress 2's class design decisions enable us to have a larger number of player abilities in game, while still keeping a single player's decisions down to a manageable level.

Much of this stuff is obvious, but it's all important!

[Koumei]

SLA Industries, which is a Cyberpunk knockoff you never heard of or cared about

Harsh. I really like SLA industries, particularly as Contract Killers. Sure, when the DM decided to kill everyone off so he could run his stupid SLA Trek idea, that sucked, but until that point it was awesome.

Prak: make sure you allow people to SMS exploding runes to each other, or Rickroll people to a Symbol of Insanity.

[Prak]

Prak: make sure you allow people to SMS exploding runes to each other, or Rickroll people to a Symbol of Insanity.

I see no problem with that, provided characters can get ahold of those spells.

[erik]

I see no problem with that, provided characters can get ahold of those spells.

Other than that unless there is a ubiquitous defense against them, then people would be idiots to ever answer their phone?

Why not let webpages upload the same spells while you're at it?

[Prak]

heh, I was being a bit facetious. Concept wise it's awesome, but you're right. people would be idiots to answer texts or emails.

On the other hand, I'm thinking more of high powered Hunters game (but minus most of WoD's monsters), or, I guess, Supernatural, where the occult isn't well known, and most of the people with magic are monsters that won't generally be using technology.

Maybe one monster of the week is a demon who appears in a fine suit, but a featureless green face, Guy Fawkes mask pulled to the side, and he's the demon of technology, and can literally spam with explosive runes and rick roll with symbols of insanity and tasha's hideous laughter, but he's a one off.

[TavishArtair]

I see no problem with that, provided characters can get ahold of those spells.

Other than that unless there is a ubiquitous defense against them, then people would be idiots to ever answer their phone?

Why not let webpages upload the same spells while you're at it?

Per the spells, the writing (in this case, code) discharges after one use. So it would only affect one visitor to a webpage, or run out after a certain number of hours (thus only affecting visitors for a brief duration to a webpage).

[JigokuBosatsu]

Two points:

I'd love to see a cool modern setting. What little glimpses of D20 Modern I saw were ridiculous. The Laundry RPG looks like it could be awesome... the source material is definitely top-knotch. Maybe I could convince them to do an adventure module of my novel, since the influence is definitely there, and I thank Stross in the afterword.

Second, what is that picture from? I'm pretty video game retarded. Keep going back to play Wasteland, how you do.

[Leress]

Second, what is that picture from? I'm pretty video game retarded. Keep going back to play Wasteland, how you do.

Team Fortress 2

[JigokuBosatsu]

what is that, i don't even

[Leress]

what is that, i don't even

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2

[Maxus]

what is that, i don't even

Team Fortress 2 is a multiplayer game involving with different classes having different weapons and abilities, with the idea of as much meyhem as possible.

Here's some of the trailers they released:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipYkuCZ2IYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfXcCkxV ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUMTsC7- ... re=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyNuriXG3BQ&feature=fvsr

[Prak]

Ok, so to work with the TF2 suggestion a bit...
Those classes are:

• Pyro
• Engineer
• Spy
• Heavy
• Sniper
• Scout
• Soldier
• Demoman
• Medic

For an actual table top rpg, I almsot think that might be a bit too simplistic. But it could certainly give us a place to work from. I'm tempted to go with some kind of aspect type of thing, rolling some classes together as different specs of a larger one, or making others specs of a class that allows a bit more flexible.

So, for example, you could maybe have the Military Special Ops class and could spec pyro, demoman, sniper or possibly heavy, or you could do a Techie or Academic class, and spec Engineer or Medic, along with other stuff, a Covert Ops class, with scout and spy as specs, and so on.

Would that work? Basically making classes groups of related professions, and when you pick a class you "spec" a specific profession within that group?

[Lago PARANOIA]

You may not even have to deviate from the base classes at all depending on the scope of the game. If you're playing Left for Dead d20 (which would be fucken awesome for Team Fortress classes) or Halo d20, you don't have to compress the classes.

If you're doing substantial amounts of advancement though and you keep the game mostly combat-focused you probably don't need to write up new classes. From what I heard from you, though, you would probably need to compress the classes like you said.

That said, some Team Fortress classes are just inappropriate for a tabletop RPG outside the limited scope of that game without massive retooling. Engineer, Spy, and Sniper are simply not classes you want to use as-is and the Sniper class will probably never be usable without deviating from the purpose of that class.

[Prak]

Well, keep in mind, I've never played TF/2, so I'm working on only the basest familiarity gleaned through video of playthrough with the scout's bat modded to be a horse dildo, and various Nerf Now comics (which do not involve equine sex toys)

[Parthenon]

Left4Dead would probably work better as a board game than a TTRPG.

Hmmm... making it up on the spot, you might have two teams- survivors and zombies, and everyone has random map/item/horde cards.

Then, the game goes in rounds, with the first part being everyone taking it in turns (survivors and zombies interspersed) to lay down a card, with survivors trying to put down more weapons or a safe house map, while the zombies want to add on more maps, or special scenarios, or a boomer or whatever. You may want to keep adding map tiles until you get two objectives, a survivor to rescue, and a safe house or something. Then some zombies get added, and you move on to the second part of the round.

The second part of the round would be moving the survivors around on the created board, killing zombies, moving to the next area, etc. You might be able to add leftover map tiles as you need them, whether adding respawn rooms or a sudden Tank in a corridor.

Other campaigns would be different add-ons with more map tiles or new enemies/weapons/etc.

Although I have no idea why you'd want to play this rather than the actual game.

---

How the hell are you supposed to have Halo d20? You either only get one class- Spartan, or you have such huge disparity in power that the game is retarded.

[Archmage]

I just figured that I'd point out that your theoretical zombie-movie board game already exists.

[Lago PARANOIA]

How the hell are you supposed to have Halo d20? You either only get one class- Spartan, or you have such huge disparity in power that the game is retarded.

You don't play as John or any of the Spartans. You play as his marine backup. Your missions are typically shit like 'rescue all of the Elites from death camps' or 'help defend Melbourne against a Jackal attack'.

Left4Dead would probably work better as a board game than a TTRPG.

You're right about that, though. What if you mashed up a bunch of other survival horror games into it as well? You know, a little bit of Resident Evil, a little bit of Silent Hill, a little bit of Galarians...

[Maxus]

Here's the Things Which Need Discussion:


1) Discuss how deadly getting shot by a gun or having a bomb go off nearby should be. Part of this will be figuring if the game should go up to 20 levels.

2) Discuss range and damage for guns and explosives and other fun asplodey bits.

3) What is the opposition/setting/game goal. Is this going to be DnD WITH GUNS! or is it going to be GUNS GUNS GUNS! or GUNS GUNS SCI-FI! or what?

Discussion is now in session.