Blast From The Past: d20 Modern

It's like GURPS, but not as good... And that's being nice...

One of the more famous pictures from the book

What feels like a lifetime ago, the folks over at Wizards of the Coast put out the 3^rd (and 3.5) edition of D&D using the new “d20 System.” It was a real revolution in gaming at the time. So, to expand their market (and profits), they created a “modern” version of the d20 system. And people hated it. I understand why, but I still think it has it's uses. And there's some really good ideas, and source books, in the mess.

Let's start with classes. Unlike traditional D&D, the basic classes are based on the six basic stats. So, you have the Tough Hero class, the Charismatic Hero class, the Dedicated Hero class, etc. However, one of the things that made 3.5 so good was the easy multiclassing rules, so you could create a ton of different combinations. Fast/Smart hero, Charismatic/Strong hero, etc. These basic classes offer you a bonus feat every other level and a Talent in between. These Talents have three different “trees” for each class, which means that two characters with the same class can go in vastly different directions.

Beyond the basic classes, there were Advanced Classes and Prestige Classes. When you add in the Advanced and Prestige classes, you can make a character focused on exactly what you want them to excel at. This gives you great customization for your characters. And for the enemies the GM wants to make. The Advanced classes include things like the Martial Artist, Soldier, Hostage Negotiator, Daredevil, Personality, Gunslinger, and so on. The Prestige Classes are used by the various settings to give you “FX” (as they call them) like magic and psionics.

The game also adds in a ton of adapted monsters from D&D in a modern setting, which leads to some hilarious images. They also added in a host of new monsters, many of which are unique to a modern setting. There's also a great chart for random monster weaknesses.

The dreaded Living Dumpster, an original monster idea

In the core book, there's three different settings: Shadow chasers (a setting inspired by things like the X-Files and Buffy The Vampire Slayer), Agents of PSI (inspired by the concerns about the “next stage of human evolution”), and Urban Arcana (an Urban Fantasy setting that got its own source book that I'll cover at a later date). Each of these settings include Department 7, which is either part of the government or a private corporation, that the heroes are suppose to be a part of. The settings include their own rules, or FX, the aforementioned Prestige Classes, and so on. Each of these settings does feel unique and interesting, but there's just so much else to take in that they don't really get the space needed to flesh them out. I would have rather not had any setting and then had them release the setting books right after the core book.

Of course, you could ditch all of this and do your own thing. The settings were really just a suggestion or a starting point. You could mix and match the psionics and magic and run wild. Or exclude them entirely and run a game set in a less fantastical world.

Before I go much further, it's time to talk about the elephant in the room. If you know anything about D20 Modern, or read any other reviews, you've probably heard mention of the Wealth Bonus system. It's a real problem. It is, quite frankly, the reason why D20 Modern didn't really take off. You see, the creators of the game thought that the modern world wasn't like D&D, where you would keep track of your horde of gold. Instead, in the modern world, we have credit cards, loans, and the like, so they wanted to reflect this as a game mechanic. That's right. It's a mechanic. You make a roll against your Wealth Bonus to see if you can afford something you want. And if it has a DC of 15 or higher, you can lose one point of your wealth. Yes. Seriously. It was probably one the worst ideas they had for this game. To increase your Wealth Bonus, you had to take ranks in the Profession skill and/or burn feats. This is asinine in the d20 system, where skills and Feats are critical to character survivablity and usefulness. They talk about how you can reflect financial rewards as a one-time bonus on a Wealth Bonus roll, but it's not really thought out and there's no mechanics for it.

I know how you might be thinking that it isn't that bad, but this system is the worst. It was such a terrible, terrible idea and they kept using it in their expansions (except for one). I've heard about conversions, and even tried my hand at it, but I haven't been able to figure out how to handle it. In the Call of Cthulhu d20 conversion (which used the D&D d20 system), they just gave every character a few thousand dollars and that was it. And that's what I usually do. Or, I steal for something else. Because there's no real good way to work around it. Thankfully, there is a conversion chart in the book (originally intended to convert real money to their horrible Wealth Bonus) and you can use that.

Another famous picture from the book

Now that we're done with that, let's move on to happier topics. Like where the product line went after the core book.

After the core book, Wizards put out the Menace Manual. This gave you some quick-use NPCs, a host of new monsters to terrorize the PCs, and organizations. These organizations include real life ones (such as the FBI, CIA, and so on) as well as others that are for the various settings in the core book, as well as some that might give you ideas for your own adventures. One reason why this book becomes critical is because the various expansions make references to these groups, leaving you clueless if you don't have it. Clearly, they wanted to give you a Monster Manual but for the modern world.

The next book is the Weapons Locker. Printed in black and white, with no lore or adventure ideas, it is a massive list of modern weapons and a handful of new rules. And it is a great resource for people doing any sort of game in a modern setting, not just D20 Modern. Why? Because you can give enemies tons of different weapons that suit their setting. Plus, there's a ton of weapons you probably haven't heard of.

The next major source book is D20 Future, with a bunch of different settings and new rules. Not only are there rules for weapons, space ships, giant robots, and all that good stuff, but they also introduce the concept of Progress Levels (abbreviated to PL) which are very similar to the Tech Levels of GURPS. In fact, this book shows just how much Wizards wanted D20 Modern to become the new GURPS. And, in my opinion, had they not used the much, and rightfully, loathed Wealth Bonus system, they might have had a chance to pull it off. Since there's a lot of stuff in this book, I'm going to need to do a full review of it.

Another book that's interesting is D20 Past, which is pretty small but fun. It gives you some rules for lower Progress Levels, as well as some fun settings. There's an Age of Sail setting (but magic and dragon things), a Victorian precursor to the Shadow Chasers setting of the core book, and some good old fashioned Nazi-kiling Pulp Era fun. It also gives you rules and stats for older firearms.

The last book I want to talk about is Critical Locations. If you can find a copy of this book, and you run games in modern or future settings, BUY IT! It has maps for a lot of common places. Taverns, mansions, banks, office buildings, and other good stuff, it is a GM's godsend. Your characters want to start a fight in the neighborhood bar? You're covered. Need a map of a yacht? Boom. It's great. I cannot recommend this book enough!A quick tip: If you've ever wanted to re-create John Carpenter's The Thing, you can use the Star Doppelganger from the Menace Manual and the Arctic Research Station from Critical Locations.

I'll be honest, this is how I imagined the game before I bought it.

In the end, D20 Modern was an experiment. And it failed. Part of it was because they made one huge mistake: The Wealth Bonus. They made things better, especially for a modern setting, with adding in a cool little system of Action Points. Action Points gave you a bonus to any d20 roll that increased with your character level. And they powered some of your abilities. So, you could use them when life was on the line. But, you only got them when you leveled up, so you had to use them sparingly. So, powerful but balanced.

There were other mistakes. While multiclassing is easy, it can be confusing, especially for new players. Leaving magic and psionics as part of the FX system and only available as part of Prestige classes makes it a hard sell for people who wanted to do some Urban Fantasy. Part of that is because the magic is mostly about subtly and shadow (which I'll have to explore in my Urban Arcana review) and part of it is because there's just not enough space to give you everything you really need right out of the gate.

Thinking about it, I think the core game was spread too thin. Without a central focus, it can make things hard to get grasp. And, without knowing where the game should go, people are going to get confused. Is this an Urban Fantasy game? A dark conspiracy game (which were popular at the time)? Was it going to be the next GURPS? It really didn't know. It wanted to do everything and failed at it. If they had wanted to be GURPS, they shouldn't have put in the campaign settings, and let those be expansions to be released in time. If you ignore the stuff you don't want, fix the Wealth Bonus system, you've got a solid core of a game. I think it might be better to just use the D&D d20 system and drop the magic? I just don't know what to say. I like the game, but don't at the same time. I do think that there's a ton of good ideas here.