Today was a Sunday.

I'm not usually the guy working at the store on Sundays.

Two guys came in today, they looking around a bit, then concentrated their focus on the D&D 4/e and SAGA STAR WARS area. After a few minutes they walked over to me and the older of two asked me :

 "Have you got any copies of D20 Modern or something like it? "

I told him that D20 Modern has been out of print for awhile now because of WotC's shift in focus to 4th edition D&D.

HIM: " Oh, okay. Is there some system like it, besides doing GURPS  where I could maqybe do all sorts of backgrounds and settings? I want to do a Stargate sort of things that mixes in modern weapons and some D&D kind of stuff too. "

Alright, so he knows about GURPS.......but he's thinking D20.

ME:  Um, well GURPSD and HERO system are maybe the two most well-known systems for doing all sorts of backgrounds.  (LIghtbulb above Ed's blinks on)..I think I have something publisshed by Greenb Ronin that might work for you..MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS maybe?.. No waait ...um  here it is - TRUE 20."  That last sentence or so I said while guiding him to the Green Ronin area of our RPG books.

He starts looking at it .
 Him and his buddy .
I go to help out a few browsers. (Amazing on a slow day - when two people show up to browse to liven things up, 3 to 4 more show up aolmost immediately)

The two young guys come back to my counter.
They are still mulling things over.

 They ask me a little bit about GURPS after noticing that we have a few copies of GURPS 4/e Lite on the counter top.

I do tell them about a competing game store locally that has a lot of used and pout of print game books (Yottaquest in Mt. Healthy) where they might be able to find a copy of D20 MODERN if their hearts are still set on that. Also there is thye possibility that HALF-PRICE books might have a copy of it.

  They also ask me what the GURPS core books are . So I show them CHARACTERS and CAMPAIGNS. The two of them look those over.

They decide to grab a copy of  GURPS 4/e LITE and look that over at home and come back after they've made some decisions.

Now - WHAT would you guys have advised them to do ?

 Also notice - I did NOT push GURPS on them. They already had heard about it. The older one said he had played an older one about 10 years ago . (He would've been likely 12 or 13 back then)

- Ed C.

If you see them again, you might tell them that the d20 Modern SRD is still available for free on the Wizards site. It's not pretty, but it's all the rules.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20/article/msrd

Brian

Sounds like you were giving them a reasonable range of options.

The 2 things you need to know is do they prefer complex realistic game mechanics or do they like to abstract mechanics and concentrate on story, and what do they actually want to do in their game.

Other things they might care to look at are Savage Worlds and Rifts. You can also do quite a lot with the New World of Darkness corebook if you think a bit outside the box.

Of course, as a storekeeper you are a bit constrained by what's in stock, although I notice you're the professional sort who recommends other stores which might be useful. They also might care to look at one of the big online stores such as Paizo and DriveThruRPG, the latter in particular has PDFs of a lot of things you cannot get in print any more.

GURPS 3e was really great for modern stuff, probably my favorite system ever for modern, with some good sourcebooks to support it.  

GURPS SWAT is great and the author really knew his stuff, had actually done quite a bit of shadowing with the Portland SWAT.  He runs a yearly con game up in Portland, and between him and the GM it was such an eerily accurate experience I thought they were all real cops at first, except the one creepy fatbeard.

I think GURPS 4e has pretty much screwed the pooch as far as being new player accessible though, if you're not already a hardcore GURPS fan, it's not for you and was never designed to be.  

Just don't go D20 Modern, whatever the hell you do.  Dear God, that was an abomination unto the Lord.  If you're really dead set on D20, Caesar Slaad won't shut up about Spycraft, and he seems a trustworthy enough source on such things.  

Spy Craft's computer hacking rules made me and my gm want to blow our brains out. We ended up hand waving all the comp hacking with skill checks and I spent all of my feats on Tae Kwon Do.

Quote from: Cranewings;393296Spy Craft's computer hacking rules made me and my gm want to blow our brains out. We ended up hand waving all the comp hacking with skill checks and I spent all of my feats on Tae Kwon Do.

You know, it sounds crazy unless you think about it, and it is still fairly abstracted and has that "cyber-combat" feel, but I still think the old 2e Shadowrun hacking rules are probably the closest thing to something that moderately maps to how real networks operates while still making for a fun gameable system.

Unfortunately, if I have been informed correctly, they apparently butchered all that in 4e so none of that counts anymore.

For my unpublishable, home brew rip off system, I heavily stole from old Shadow Run. I wrote the rules a long time ago and might have changed them back away into something else, but I did copy some of them at some point.

I remember really liking them. I've never gotten to play real Shadow Run.

Guys,....look again at the OP.

What would you do - if you worked in a brick & mortar game store?
(Not a pdf recommendation room)


- Ed C.

another option could be modern20, which is essentially  a third party d20 modern 2.0 (or 1.75).

Not sure what you're asking here. I can't see how you could have handled it any better than that. They asked for a.product you didn't have and not only did you offer a similar alternative system, but you also told them where they could find the product they were looking for at another store. This alone would have ensured me coming back to your store in the future.

Even if they hadnt asked about GURPS (a game i have no interest in whatsoever) I see no reason why you couldn't recommend it. Its not like they asked for d20 Modern and you suggested Exalted or Capes or something.

Pete

True20 was a reasonable suggestion.

d20? Check
Multi-genre? Check

Even though it isn't d20, you might have mentioned Savage Worlds.

Omni system ?

If you can find copies of them, CORPS or EABA.  And I really hesitate to suggest this since the company has a problem with proofreading, but Cortex has some potential.  Overall, Gurps was the best choice currently available.

Quote from: SionEwig;393431If you can find copies of them, CORPS or EABA.  And I really hesitate to suggest this since the company has a problem with proofreading, but Cortex has some potential.  Overall, Gurps was the best choice currently available.

Damnit you're right!! I should have mentioned the CORTEX system - since we do have it on the shelf from time to time.

 Think I went with TRUE 20 first as a recommendation because the browser/customer had already expressed an interest or preference for D20/OGL. As D20 MODERN is out of print now, TRUE 20 was the closest thing I could think of that might cover that same turf for him.

Also more than a handful of you guys on here with more D20/3.5/OGL than I have D20 said good things about TRUE 20 in the past.


- Ed C.

Omni system is similar to d20.
EABA is nifty and a slim volume at that.