Modern20 Revised

A massive update to Modern20 is coming, adding an estimated 20 pages to the size of the core rules.

And best of all, it's free to purchasers of Modern20.

Get the straight dope here.

Pocast Madness

Lots of podcast stuff for Modern20 fans this week.

First, the Accidental Survivors and me did a pocast totally focused on the game that went into some depth on the core rules.

Second, Chris and I held an advanced talk in which we broke down the early draft of my upcoming, full length Modern20 adventure, Modern Mayhem (working title). Hear me and Chris go over an early draft of our next product!

What Chuck does in his spare time part 2

This is actually a continuation of a post I made at my blog on the RPGObjects site. Since my wonderful blogging appears to have temporarily broken the site, we're back here kicking it old school for a bit.

So, what DOES Chuck do in his spare time you ask?

He writes the entire Diablo article for Giant Bomb, a wikipedia/video game review site.

First blog post at RPGObjects

So in a way this is sad but the only constant is change as they say.



For the time being, I'll put little posts like this one here to let folks know about the new blog, which will be one of many content offerings at the new RPGO website.



Eventually, some "classic" posts from here will be migrated over there, especially ones like the Modern20 and Supers20 previews that are product-y.

Check it out!

Modern20 Influences: Television

What TV Shows translate into great modern20 games? This list is by no means exhaustive, but it's some of the things I watch not only for adventure ideas, but just for inspiration when writing the game.

Also, the shows on this list are in no particular order. I think they're all great.

1. The Shield: simply put, the best cop show of all time, transcending even my beloved Homicide in Seasons 4 and 5, with guest stars Glenn Close and Forest Whittaker.

Also, unlike Homicide, which is a true procedural, something that doesn't make a good d20 game in my experience, the Shield is active. These cops aren't solving crimes during CSI montages in the evidence room.

They solve them by kicking down doors, running through walls (you heard me), punching dudes in the face and asking Miranda who?

2. Spooks: People keep telling me this show is getting worse, but 6 seasons in, it remains exciting, visceral and smart. This is what 24 should be. It's team based, and, even though there isn't quite enough dudes shooting dudes for MY taste, it's active which is the single best quality to look for when trying to figure out if a show will translate into a good game.

3. Dexter: This breaks one of my cardinal rules for media that I look to for game inspiration: it's not team/group-based. Still, this show combines brooding murder, CSI-like detective work and a vigilante serial killer.

4. Burn Notice: Burn Notice is sort of the bastard TV-child of MacGuyver and the A-team in that our hero, Michael Westin, uses brain more than brawn and our team of operatives always has a good montage to help them save the day.

A "burned" intelligence agent (of an unnamed agency), Michael Westin has settled in Miami where he does good for people with his friends, an ex-Navy Seal (played by Bruce Campbell) and an ex-IRA trigger-woman (played by Gabriel Anwar).

This show is great and constantly amazes me in how unselfconscious its characters are about doing the right thing. You might not think a spy, a SEAL and an IRA member would go around helping the good people of Miami every week and well, that might not even make any SENSE.

But it doesn't matter. Burn Notice is a TV show, and it's OK being a TV show.

5. The Academy: This Fox reality show about the LA County Sherriffs boot camp is constantly informative and entertaining, giving little glimpses into real police training.

Modern20 more dangerous?

The recent RPGSite review, by Krakajak, brought up some discussion and thoughts among my home group. Specifically, one point he made about combat being much more dangerous.

One point was made about called shots. Yes, they make things more dangerous, but not a lot. You have to be high level before you can reliably pull off head shots and even then, that's just an increased chance for double damage.

As opposed to multiple attacks, it seems that called shot and burst fire remain more of a wash than anything else. A stylistic choice.

You can do both at low levels (make a called shot, or find an automatic weapon and go burst fire) and you get better at both as you raise your ranks in the firearms skill.

A second point, brought up in the review, was the presence of Hit Location, and how the double damage it can bring randomly makes combat more deadly.

Now Modern20 has three hit locations (out of 20) that inflict more damage, two that inflict double damage, and one that increases damage by 50%.

However, there are FOUR locations, out of 20, that inflict half damage.

I'm more of a "gut" statistician than a trained one. I have a sense of how things will work in game and a good eye for balance when I'm running things.

Still, my gut tells me that a 15% chance to inflict more damage, a 20% chance to inflict less, and a 65% to inflict normal damage isn't that much more dangerous than d20 Modern's flat 5% chance of a critical hit inflicting double damage (with no chance to inflict less).

Finally, there were a couple of points my players raised that weren't raised in the review:

First, on the less dangerous side, there's the fact that armor in Modern20 acts as Damage Reduction.

Second, on the more dangerous side, is the fact that Modern20 firearms inflict more damage than their d20 Modern counterparts at close range, effectively enough to negate the damage reduction of armor (more or less).

And of course, if you dont have body armor, this makes a point blank firearm attack VERY dangerous in Modern20, especially with a chance for a headshot.

Of course, this is not accidental. One of my goals in Modern20 was to make gunfire at point blank range bad, and gunfire at point blank range without body armor a Very Bad Thing (TM).

I wanted players to respect guns.

But, my feeling, and my players agreed, is that if you were moderate level, wearing body armor, and able to keep the enemy from getting too close, that Modern20 wasn't much more dangerous than d20 Modern.

A little, but not much.

What do you guys think?

Modern20 gets another review!

Not quite as high a score as the other reviews, a 3 on a 5 point scale (the average score has been in the 4 point range) but still a well done review that explains enough about what the reviewer likes and doesn't (and why) to let the reader make up his own mind, which makes it a well done review in my book.

Check it out.