Modern20 holds a distinction for me. Most of my reviews thus far have been almost entirely positive. Why? Because they were of games I was already interested in, owned and was sure I would like before I purchased them. Foreshadowing things to come? A bit, but it's not all bad so let's get this shindig started!

If I were to sum up Modern20 in one statement, it would go like this: D20 Modern revised. This game follows the D20 Modern SRD very closely, deviating in a few key areas and adding a few subsystems. D20 Modern to me was a mediocre game at best (with some good ideas) and Modern20 aims to improve it, but ends up not changing enough.

Basics: This game uses the D20 ruleset. The gist is roll a d20, add your modifiers and compare it to the difficulty of the task. You also get a few Action Dice you can use to modify rolls.  If you're familiar with D&D 3.x or D20 Modern, you'll be very familiar with how the rules work.

You build your character by generating attributes, with 7 different ways to generate ability scores. You assign them to your Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Higher abilities mean higher modifiers. Characters gain new levels at the discretion of the GM, which is a cop-out as they suggest you look up other D20 games if you want an experience point system.

Overall, it's standard D20 stuff.

Character Creation: You create your character by choosing your background, career, hobby and character class. This is where the design gets a bit fuzzy. Backgrounds and careers are VERY similar in concept, in fact all of the backgrounds could have been consolidated and taken an extra step out of character generation. Backgrounds give you a few skill affinities and your starting wealth bonus. Your Career gives you your Feat Bonuses, in which if you pick certain feats they are improved for your character based on the career he's chosen, as well as 4 ranks in the career's skills.

Your hobby is basically 4 ranks for free in one skill which is also unnecessary and could have been consolidated by adding 4 more skill points to the starting character classes.

Each of the classes is tied directly to an attribute, like D20 Modern: The Speedfreak is Dexterity, the Tank is Constitution; you get the idea. Your character class determine your favored skills, your bonuses (Attack, Defense and Reputation) and saves (Fortitude, Will and Reflex). Classes also give you access to that classes specific feats. Basically class abilities have been turned into Feats with that specific  class as a prerequisite.

There is also one glaring omission: No GM section, sample adventure or even general advice on what you're supposed to do with this game. Not much of a problem for me, as it's basically compatible with any D20 Modern supplement, but for players new to D20 or RPG's in general it basically renders the game unplayable by itself.

The New Stuff: There's some very cool additions and changes to the skill system. There's also some terrible decisions made in the realms of combat.

Opposed skill checks are gone, replaced by Targeted Skill Checks. Basically the only people making skill checks are PCs. Add 10 to the target NPC's opposing skill and that's the DC for the check. A simple and elegant streamlining of the system.

Skills have been consolidated and they've added a couple of pretty sweet new additions. The Unarmed, Armed and Firearms skills replace just about all of your basic combat feats. Increasing ranks improves your base damage (for Armed and Unarmed) and improve your penalty for multiple attacks. This is the most inspired section of the book and definitely worth cribbing for any modern D20 game.

For combat, added in are hit locations, which when combined with firearms damage spells out 1 shot kills for most characters below 5th level or so at least 10% of the time. Basically you roll a d20 after you've hit to see where and it applies a multiplier to your damage( from x1/2 to x2). Of course with an increase in character levels means multiple attacks and more called shots, so it seems the combat tends to go to those with initiative and firearms as players are doing 20+ damage with every hit. Using the optional injuries system is even more of a pain in the ass, as it adds another die roll and a bunch of new modifiers and persistent effects to track with every hit your character takes.

Presentation: So the book is laid out like a Wizards of the Coast book. Two Columns interspersed with artwork illustrating what's been written on the page. While there are a good amount of tables, the game could have used a couple more, like the afore mentioned experience points and one for ability modifiers, these are just minor gripes.

It's cartoony art style belies it's very gritty and deadly mechanics. The art style is unified and, I think, represents a Modern action adventure style quite nicely. Artwork is frequently used and representative of the text. My only gripe, and it's a minor one again, is there was no representative art for all of the player classes.

Overall the book tries it's best to emulate it's big brother at WotC. Besides a few aesthetic anomalies, it's absolutely readable and absolutely playable.

Summary: In the end it wasn't the most fun game to play as combat seems random and quite a bit too deadly. However, the skill system is very clever. Everything else is status quo ( i.e. removing Talents and adding class feats is a zero sum change, same with backgrounds/careers). I actually like Modern20 much more than D20 Modern as a total package. Unfortunately, just like it's inspiration, Modern20 is a handful great ideas stuck inside an overall mediocre ruleset.

Hey, thanks for taking the time!
 
Even though the game wasn't entirely your cup of tea, I think you did a good job explaining why you liked what you liked and were "meh" about the other stuff, such that someone reading the review could make their own decision after reading it.

If anyone has any questions about the game, I'm happy to answer them.

Chuck

Shit, I wish I would have thought about that skill change for NPCs back in 2000. That's pretty slick.

-=Grim=-

Quote from: GrimJesta;227709Shit, I wish I would have thought about that skill change for NPCs back in 2000. That's pretty slick.

-=Grim=-

Yeah it is.  

Also, I like the idea of Hobbies being separate.  It adds a bit of flavor that could be easily overlooked during standard skill point allocation.  

Anyway, always glad to see more reviews here.  

Pete

Quote from: KrakaJak;227682For combat, added in are hit locations, which when combined with firearms damage spells out 1 shot kills for most characters below 5th level or so at least 10% of the time. Basically you roll a d20 after you've hit to see where and it applies a multiplier to your damage( from x1/2 to x2). Of course with an increase in character levels means multiple attacks and more called shots, so it seems the combat tends to go to those with initiative and firearms as players are doing 20+ damage with every hit. Using the optional injuries system is even more of a pain in the ass, as it adds another die roll and a bunch of new modifiers and persistent effects to track with every hit your character takes.

I would like to point a couple of things about this point, on the subject of Modern20 being more dangerous than a typical d20 game.

First, there's a slight inaccuracy in the review, on the subject of "more attacks leads to more called shots". Making a called shot is a full attack action, so while a high level character can make a BETTER called shot (since his Firearms skill and BAB will be higher), he is still only making one carefully aimed shot.

Basically, I wanted to give an advantage to the character who took his time lining up a GOOD shot, rather than just spamming the fire button on his gun as often as possible.

Second, in my experience it's not actually MUCH deadlier than typical d20. A bit yes, but not as much.

For example, there is a 2 in 20 chance of inflicting double damage on a successful attack, with a random shot to the head or throat. There are also one hit location that increases damage by 50%.

However, there are also hit locations that inflict LESS damage. Looking at the hit location table, there's are three hit locations that inflict more damage, 4 hit locations that inflict less, and the other 13 hit locations inflict normal damage.

But d20 Modern has critical hits with firearms, that trigger on a natural 20. So in standard d20 Modern, there's a 5% chance of inflicting additional damage.

In my experience running the game, the hit location table doesn't radically shift this balance, unless the PCs take a full round to make a called shot, the good hit location rolls tend to wash with the bad.

Another point to make would be that armor in Modern20 provides Damage Reduction. So wearing body armor can reduce that damage.

Now Modern20 weapons provide a damage BONUS as well, inflicting an average of a half die to a die more damage. The Colt Python, for example, inflicts 2d6 damage in d20 Modern, and inflicts 2d6+6 damage in Modern20.

However, this bonus damage is reduced by range.

So basically, you can see there are conscious choices at work in the game to reflect Modern combat.

At point blank range, the damage bonus from a firearm and the damage reduction from body armor will cancel out (more or less). This means you don't want to get shot at point blank range even if you ARE wearing body armor.

You want to stay as far away from someone with a gun as possible.

Also, clearly, being shot at point blank range, without body armor, is a Very Bad Idea (TM). This is by design.

I wanted to make guns matter, while also giving PCs ways to protect themselves. If you're medium level, wearing body armor, and are smart enough to use cover and stay out point blank range, you have a better than average chance of coming through a firefight alive.

To me, those things are features, not bugs.

Obviously, your mileage may vary and I can respect that the choices in the game won't be for everyone.

Chuck

I totally agree that other people's MMV.

I could provide an overview of my group, or a play by play of our test session if you'd want Chuck.

I trust that you played it, and don't really have a problem with the score. As I said to you privately, I thought the review was well-written.

I just wanted to provide some insight into why I made some of the choices I did in my response.

Chuck