So, I've been pondering the idea of developing an OSR Survival Horror ruleset in the style of video games such as the Resident Evil series. I have my own setting developed, and I know I want it to be based on the D20 system (honestly, RPG Pundit's OSR system just screams as the most logical choice). Where I am struggling is how to adapt that system to Modern, especially looking at Pundit's system.

I know he's done videos about modern classes in regard to The Invisible College, but it still hasn't answered my question of how to adapt the concept of something in the style of Resident Evil to an OSR setting, how to create classes that work within Pundit's rule system, etc. I have all the other sub-systems created and ready to go.

I just need some ideas on how to adapt the system to make it work for classes...

I don't know if this is a hot take, but OSR dungeon crawling already is a survival horror game. It's resource-focused, you have to decide when to heal vs. push on, avoiding combat is often more efficient than engaging in it, you're navigating a labyrinth and (often) finding a series of keys or items to progress. You get the idea. The difference is cosmetic rather than mechanical.

OSR-style classes are always a bit of an issue for more realistic modern or sci-fi games. Especially for something like Resident Evil, where all the protagonists have the same general set of skills. The Warrior-Mage-Thief-Cleric dichotomy doesn't work. What most games I've seen go for is a combat class, a skill class, and then a half-step between the two. Maybe you could add a scientist class if you can think of enough useful things for it to do.

Quote from: ForgottenF on January 25, 2025, 10:56:44 AMI don't know if this is a hot take, but OSR dungeon crawling already is a survival horror game. It's resource-focused, you have to decide when to heal vs. push on, avoiding combat is often more efficient than engaging in it, you're navigating a labyrinth and (often) finding a series of keys or items to progress. You get the idea. The difference is cosmetic rather than mechanical.

OSR-style classes are always a bit of an issue for more realistic modern or sci-fi games. Especially for something like Resident Evil, where all the protagonists have the same general set of skills. The Warrior-Mage-Thief-Cleric dichotomy doesn't work. What most games I've seen go for is a combat class, a skill class, and then a half-step between the two. Maybe you could add a scientist class if you can think of enough useful things for it to do.

Yeah, it's the classes that are making me ponder how to best adapt it.

Military / Scientist / Police / Civilian?

Back in 2002 WotC released d20 Modern, which addressed this problem. Making a class for every imaginable profession would just lead to class bloat, so they made professions into backgrounds. The classes are six, one for each ability score.

Honestly, the concept of classes doesn't make sense for modern settings. Fantasy is detached from reality, so turning Aragorn and Conan into their own classes doesn't feel unrealistic even tho it is. But since we live in modern times, we know too much about how real professions work to suspend our disbelief. It makes more sense to use a skill-based system for modern settings.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on January 26, 2025, 12:47:53 PMBack in 2002 WotC released d20 Modern, which addressed this problem. Making a class for every imaginable profession would just lead to class bloat, so they made professions into backgrounds. The classes are six, one for each ability score.

Honestly, the concept of classes doesn't make sense for modern settings. Fantasy is detached from reality, so turning Aragorn and Conan into their own classes doesn't feel unrealistic even tho it is. But since we live in modern times, we know too much about how real professions work to suspend our disbelief. It makes more sense to use a skill-based system for modern settings.

I'd agree with this take.

Even better; here's a link to the d20 Modern SRD so the OP can look for himself.

d20 Modern SRD

I'd agree with the general statement that classes are a less obvious fit for a modern setting, but frankly they're not a great fit for a medieval setting either, if the goal of your setting is to portray a medieval world. Classes are always going to be reductive relative to real life. Where they work a lot better is for genre emulation, because genres have character archetypes. So if the goal is to replicate the genre of Resident Evil and similar zombie action/conspiracy/horror fiction, then classes could fit.

That said, if you're going to do a game like this with the OSR-standard small number of classes, I'd aim for more generalized and abstract ones. You want each class to cover a fair few character concepts. I'd suggest Operator, Investigator, Criminal, Academic and Survivor.

Operator would be your direct combat class, and ideally cover commandos, snipers, swat officers, and similar. That's Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine. Investigator would be a skill/combat hybrid, and cover detectives, secret agents, corporate spies, etc. So that's Leon Kennedy and Ada Wong. Criminal would be a more directly skill-based class. I don't know if there are any criminal protagonists in RE, but maybe somebody like Deacon St. John in Days Gone would fit the bill. It feels like it has to be in there, since it fills a gap in the other classes. Academic would optimally cover not just scientists, but computer experts and potentially even politicians or lawyers. Anyone whose expertise is based on book-learning.

The problem with a general "civilian" class is that classes in an OSR-type game need to have something they do particularly well to justify people playing them. That's why I'd instead recommend Survivor. In RE terms this would be Claire Redfield and Ashley Graham, but there's a wider archetype in zombie fiction of the average person who gets thrust into extraordinary circumstances and comes out a hero. Frank West from Dead Rising and most of the Left 4 Dead characters (IIRC) would fit that archetype. I'd give this class the best hit die and saving throws, and then maybe give them class abilities revolving around courage and leadership. 

All of these ideas would rely on having some degree of customization within each class, but to my mind that's necessary if you're going to have a small number of classes anyway.