A disclaimer: Yes, I know I stated on the IRC room that I would not be reviewing this product. I changed my mind.
What The Game Is About: d20 Modern is based on television shows and movies that happen in the real world, or a reasonable facsimile: The A Team, Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure, Back To The Future, Blue Streak, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Halloween, Indiana Jones, Law And Order, Martial Law, Robocop, The Running Man, SeaQuest DSV, Walker: Texas Ranger... I could go on and on. The game itself discreetly mentions in various places Alias, Big Trouble In Little China, James Bond, Reign Of Fire, Wild Wild West, and The X-Files as inspirants. If it's almost plausible in today's world, d20 Modern's got ya covered.
First, to dispel a misconception. The d20 Modern game is not a sci-fi Dungeons & Dragons. That's the reason that I mistakenly bought this game. And it turned out to be a lucky mistake.
For simplicity, I will be reviewing this game by chapter (excluding such non-chapters as the Introduction and the glossary and index). Then I will add the miscellany (notes worthy of mentioning not included elsewhere) and a final verdict.
Chapter One: Characters
The attribute system is the same one as we've been familiar with since the birth of the hobby: three physical stats, three mental stats. The average is 10, higher is better, lower is not. Each stat has modifiers, which makes high stats better than low stats without letting high stats get out of hand (as in GURPS). Pretty reasonable. It quickly goes over what each attribute means and how to generate them, then dives into the classes.
The class system used in d20 Modern is a class system for those who don't like class systems. People are not organized by what they do, but rather by what they are good at doing. There are six types of hero, one for every basic attribute: Strong, Fast, Tough, Smart, Dedicated, and Charismatic. The names might not be the best, but they get the job done. For example, the iconic Strong hero, Russel Whitfield, is a firefighter; the iconic Tough hero, Moondog Greenberg, is a biker; the iconic Dedicated hero, Lily Parrish, is a politician up-and-coming; and so on. It's really very elegant, and with free multiclassing as levels go up, you can branch off in any direction you want while still keeping it simple enough for the new players to keep up.
Another cool thing with d20 Modern is the idea of talents: basically, feats that only one kind of hero can take. These are some really cool abilities; for example, a Strong hero can push himself further than everyone else, a Tough hero could gain Damage Reduction and shrug off any mere mortal punch, a Smart hero can develop a plan of action that gives everyone on his team better odds, a Dedicated hero can sense trouble brewing and stay cool when it boils over, and a Charismatic hero can call in favors and fast-talk her way out of any danger. Every odd numbered class level, you get a talent, and every even numbered class level, you get a class feat. This is in addition to the two feats at 1st level and the cross-class feat every third character level. None of the abilities seem too overpowered, but they do amaze.
After the classes come the occupations. These are what brings the bread home for your character; these grant you a few class scores, a Wealth increase (from 1 to 6), and a background. These 'occupations' are also pretty broad. There's not really too much to say about them; they'll provoke neither woos of amazement nor jeers of disgust. They do their job quietly.
Allegiances are d20 Modern's reaction to D&D3's Alignments; they describe where your loyalties lie, with the most important allegiances listed first. For example, an altruistic yet self-serving social worker would have 'good, self' as allegiances; although he's always looking for an angle where he can better his position, he considers the needs of others above his own needs. Alllegiances have almost no effect on gameplay, at least where the dice are concerned; it's a useful roleplaying tool.
Next is the Wealth system. Wealth is basically a skill that allows you to buy things. The good part is that it's well implemented. If you move your campaign from (say) the U.S. to Japan, England, Australia, or any other place in the world, you won't have to do endless conversions of price tables; the relative cost and your relative buying power are the same. However, the bad part is that Wealth, to begin, is randomly generated: 2d4 occupation bonus bonus if you have any saleable skills bonus if you took the Windfall feat. No other part of character creation is randomly generated. WTY?
Caveats: The layout of the Strong class starts off promising: An excellent picture of a Strong iconic hero in the left column of the left page, the heading "Strong Hero" atop the right column of the left page, and the description taking up the next three columns. But for some reason, the text for the Strong hero is only 2.5 columns long, but the text for every other hero type is 3 columns long. That means that the descriptions for the other five types of hero start with a half-column on the right side of the previous page, then take up all but the last half-column the next two pages. A bit of white space could have made your book a lot more pleasant to read, WotC!
Another problem is with the Strong class. The roles that immediatly come to mind when you think of a Strong hero (athlete, thug, sportsman) are the same as for a Tough hero (athlete, thug, sportsman). At least the other five basic classes are interesting...
Chapter Two: Skills
The skill list from your other fave versions of d20 are still here -- which means that it's a mixed bag. The resolution of skills is excellent; take your total skill bonus after all modifiers (which are all calculated before gameplay), add 1d20, see if you beat the Difficulty Class. If you aren't being rushed and you are trained in the skill in question, you can take 10 instead of rolling; if you have enough time and equipment to do everything right, you can take 20. A simple, Fuzion-like resolution system that's the best point of the d20 system.
However, the list of skills is a different matter. For example, some skills are divided into many parts (For example, having Balance, Jump, and Tumble skills instead of a simple 'Acrobatics' skill, and dividing a simple 'Mechanics' or 'Electronics' skill into Disable Device and Repair). Some skills are too broad ('Computer Use' for programming, operating, and hacking). And some skills really, really should have been left back in DnD3 (Decipher Script). There are improvements -- the organization of 'Craft', 'Knowledge', and 'Perform' skills, for example, define specific skills instead of leaving them as 'generic' skills -- but I think the authors wouldn't have hurt anyone if they had made the d20 Modern skill list a little less compatable with the other d20 games.
Chapter Three: Feats
Feats are binary skills -- you either know it or you don't. Again, some of the feats should have been left back in DnD3 (Blindfight, Cleave, Improved Bull Rush, Sunder weapon proficiencies) and some of them leave you wondering how the heck they came up with them (Frightful Presence?). But in general, this section is cool. Unarmed-types benefit from three feat trees (Brawling, Combat Martial Arts, and Defensive Martial Arts); gun people get such feats as Double-Tap (fire two shots for 1.5x damage) and Skip Shot (rebound a bullet off a nearby wall, at -2 to hit and 0.5x damage). Social types would benefit from Renown (everyone knows your name) and Windfall (you win the lottery; a wealth bonus increase, plus a bonus to Profession checks made every character level to improve your Wealth). And all characters can benefit from skill feats, which give you 2 to two certain skills and so can let you exceed normal level limits for that skill.
Chapter Four: Equipment
Forgive my verbosity; equipment is a large chapter in the book, so it deserves extra attention.
The rules start with rules for shopping around and finding what you need. Again, there's a random element that could have been excluded: buying an item equal to or less than your Wealth score reduces your Wealth by 0, buying an item from 1 to 10 points higher than your Wealth or buying an item with a purchase DC of 15 or higher reduces your Wealth by 1, buying an item from 11 to 15 points higher than your Wealth drops your Wealth by 1d6, and buying an item with a purchase DC 16 to 20 points higher than your Wealth reduces your Wealth by 2d6. Besides that silly 'automatic loss of Wealth' rule, couldn't the creators just used 2, 4, and 6 instead of 1, 1d6, and 2d6? That way, we could have avoided situations where a person with a Wealth of 12 is bankrupted on an unlucky roll because he just bought a car (a car averages DC 30, just in his buying power, but with a loss of 2d6).
Anyways, after the shopping rules, come a few other gear-related rules: concealing objects (basically taken from GURPS), buying restricted or illegal objects (either make a seperate, expensive, purchase for the proper license, or increase the cost of the item for a non-registered black market version), requisitioning equipment (use your level instead of your wealth, but you must return the item in question later), and selling things (again a silly bit of random-rolls).
The firearms all have a quirk: All damage is listed as 2dX, with the die size roughly related to caliber: from 2d4 for a Walther PPK or Skorpion to 2d12 for a M2HB or Barret Light Fifty. The reason for this isn't clear at first, but is perfectly explanable: instead of having new players multiply damage by 0.5, 1.5, or 2.0 for the various special attacks, you just add or drop dice. For example, when making a Burst Fire attack, you can add 2 die to the roll; so a burst fire with an Uzi changes the damage from 2d6 to 4d6 -- doubling the damage but easier to do math with. The data for the weaponry seems to be based largely on reality, when it comes to range increments, damage, and size -- the descriptions of the weapons in this chapter show that someone on the design team has a gun fetish.
The rules for explosives and other such 'splash damage weapons' are interesting; they seem to be just complex enough. The majority of the rules for throwing grenades is rolling a die to see what corner of the tile the grenade bounced to. Melee weapons are almost the same as you've known in every other d20 game, so I won't go into them. The one change is that medieval weapons are now more expensive than they are in fantasy games. Armor is as in DnD3, adding a bonus to your Defense. Again, the authors would have lost no love from us if they had dropped some fantasy features (the Maximum Dex Bonus), but improving Defense instead of using 'damage absorption' as in Spycraft keeps combat from slowing down.
My favorite section is Improvised Weapons; you deal damage based on the object's size. For example, swinging a bar stool around (Medium size) will deal 1d4 damage, while picking up a soda machine and chucking it at someone (Gargantuan size) does 2d6 damage. It's the best system for improvised weaponry I've seen yet.
There are a dozen pages of 'general' equipment and services; there's nothing to note here, except two nice rules. Buying a used version of anything costs 1 DC less; buying a luxury version of anything (a car with all the options, or a fancy restauraunt meal) costs 1 DC more.
Finally, there's the vehicles. All the vehicles are pretty simply defined; however, most of the civillian vehicles noted are among the most expensive cars on the road -- Lamborghinis, Jaguars, Mercedes, and Aston-Martons, but no Subarus, Hondas, Saturns, Kias, or Mitsubishi among them.
Chapter Five: Combat
Considering d20 Modern's hackkenslash lineage, you'd expect combat to be complex. Actaully, it's over in a page in a half; the Combat Basics are all you need for a normal game. Attacks Of Opprotunity, Flat-Footed, and all other such DnD3 rules that have given gamers headaches, are all optional rules. Also, the complex rules are illustrated with the same flair as the rest of the book, so even if your normal gaming group doesn't use them, you can have them pointed out and explained quickly to you if ever you're invited to a game that does use them.
Also included in the Combat section is Vehicle Combat. I've never run a vehicle combat myself, so I don't know how well these rules compare, but they seem to be 'just complex enough'.
A trivial caveat with the vehicle combat system: One of the illustrations has a picture of a biker on a motorcycle, a sawed-off shotgun in each hand. On her head she wears a US bandana; on her pants she has an embroidered Canadian patch. C'mon, whose side is she on?
Chapter Six: Advanced Classes
Advanced classes are specializations of basic classes; each basic class has two related advanced class (although you can enter from any class if you meet the prerequisites). The twelve advanced classes are all profession-based, like in DnD; each has special abilities that can be had nowhere else. For example, only the Techie can create masterwork objects, only the Gunslinger can use action points to increase weapon damage, only the Daredevil can spend two action points on an action, only the Negotiator can make a jaded thug calm down and listen, and so on. The idea of these classes is to allow your players who want to be 'the best gunman in the world' or 'the most popular person in the world' to do so, but slowly and and steadily; since it will be fourth level before you can take an advanced class, and the best abilities are at the 10th and final level of these advanced classes, it will take them 14 levels before they can be a true threat to campaign play-balance -- and the time in between character creation and level 14 should give you plenty of time to find limits to all your players.
Chapter Seven: Gamemastering
This is also a huge section, but since most of you either will not be narrating or will know everything in the section, I won't go through it. I'll just say that it's the second-best gamemaster section I've ever read -- and it would have beaten the first, Star Wars d6, if it hadn't taken itself so damn seriously.
Chapter Eight: Friends And Foes
There are two parts to this chapter: a critter-generator, with sample critters ready to go, and a sample NPC list. The creature creation system does its job well enough. The sample critters include some critters straight from DnD3 (illithid evangelists and kobold Navy SEALs), plus some new critters (new species of fiends that are so horrific Spawn would retch; 'puppeteers' that remind me of Yeerks and can do the same thing to human society; and Moreaus, furries with a harder edge, as well as the only nonhuman player character race in the game). Then come the supporting characters; for each dual-class combination, a character of 2nd, 5th, and 10th level, for a total of 45 people ready to go.
Caveats: One. With the monster part, the Tooth Faerie is considered a monster. He is armed with a spellcasting item. Okie, but I don't think any players are going to take 'the tooth faerie's fey wand' seriously. Two. The example for a 'Fast/Dedicated' supporting character is a taxi driver. The 2nd, 6th, and 10th level Fast/Dedicated heros are taxi drivers. Now, if you've been around the block long enough to be 10th level, do you think you'd still be a taxi driver?
Chapter Nine: Campaign Models
In the best move yet, there are three ready-to-run campaigns included with d20 Modern (all of which will be getting their own sourcebook, but none of which will be required). Each comes with an adventure and adventure hooks, and each comes with two advanced classes that are suited in power and flavor for that campaign.
The first campaign, Shadow Chasers, is either Chill or Buffy The Vampire Slayer, depending on whether it's serious or silly. It's all about the fantastic and the horrific interposing itself on our world, silently. I'll let this quote from the book speak for it: "Burgers. Cell phones. DVDs. A noise in the basement. The Internet. Flat-screen TVs. Pizza. A dark shape, wrong in every way, glimpsed from the corner of your eye. Notebook computers. Tacos. CDs. Sharp, rending claws that caress your flesh with ribbons of blood. Inline skates. Microwave ovens. Displacer beasts tearing chunks of dripping meat from your still-struggling body as you succumb to a slow, painful death..."
The two advanced classes are the Shadow Slayer -- take out 'shadow' and add 'buffy the vampire' and you know what this class is all about, except with maybe a two-handed sword instead of a stake -- and the Occultist, a person who walks both the Light side and the Dark side of the line, and uses knowledge to her best advantage to destroy the Shadow. The Occultist is a good way to ease magic into your campaign -- each level, she finds 'scrolls' that are one-use only, and she gains contacts with Shadow creatures every few levels. The Shadow Slayer is unique in that it actually gives us a reason to take levels in the Strong class.
The second campaign, Agents of PSI, is a wild conspiracy setting with optional psionics. The characters work for Department-7 (the Field Unit Investigation branch) of the Paranormal Science and Investigation Agency, aka PSI. Anyone can have psionics; just take the Wild Talent feat and you learn a 0-level power. Since I've never run an espionage or conspiracy game, I have nothing to compare this section to, but it seems like fun.
The two advanced classes are the Telepath and the Battle Mind -- but ignore these evocative names; they're misleading. "Exokinetic" and "Autokinetic" are more like it. The Telepath is the 'classic' psychic, in that his powers are primarily based on telepathy and telekinesis; his class talents include the ability to sometimes trigger abilities without paying for them, and to store extra energy in a 'power crystal'. The Battle Mind is a Rifts psychic, in that she gets all the 'kewl' powers, psychic armor and a psychic blade among them. By 10th level, she's got armor for 6 defense and slashing for 2d6 4 damage. Wowzers!
The final setting is Urban Arcana -- if you liked Dragonstar, Shadowrun, or XCrawl, you'll like this. Magic is starting to fuse the world once more, but people don't want to believe in magic. However, as the old maxim goes, "If a man talks himself out of believing in the tiger before him, the tiger itself will intervene in the discussion." And so, as the evidence becomes harder to deny and the incoming Shadow has yet to polarize along the lines of good and evil, the heroes have to step in. Yuan-ti cults, mind flayer mafia, teenaged goblin joyriders -- all the makings of a fun campaign.
The two advanced classes are the Mage and the Alcolyte... what can I say? They're your generic RPG wizard and priest, toned down (no ressurection or wish spells) and brought into d20 Modern rules.
Caveat: All the included campaign models have at least some amount of the paranormal in them. C'mon, are stories too hard to write without orc heads to bash? I want Miami Vice d20!
Chapter Ten: FX Abilities
This chapter presents the bare bones of the D&D3 magic and psionics system, so you can create games with these elements without having to spend another $40. The spell list is your generic D&D3 game's, but with a few interesting extras; status is a second-level alcolyte spell that allows you to keep tabs on the condition and direction of your party, while ray of fatigue is a first-level mage spell tires an enemy out.
The magic item section varies the most of any part of the book. Some of the items were just ripped from the pages of D&D3 (ring of the ram, staff of fire, etc.); some of the items are just what your local fantasy campaign gadgeteer/mage would make if he had his hands on real-world materials (fragmentation grenades of distance and chemical light sticks of revealing? Well, if you're expecting invisible stalkers at your next rave, I guess these got you covered.); and a few are just too cool to believe (duct tape of repair, six demon bag). Are holy hand grenades and the fabled duct tape of ressurection far behind?
Caveats: For a moment, I had thought that the Alternity skill-based system of powers was going to be retained, and the idea of this excited me. Unfortunately, it wasn't. But FX is a good name for the abilities presented.
The item creation system is now much harder, both in cost and in XP cost... whether that's a good thing or no is up to the DM, but I found it a bit disappointing. A 'dial' system, like in Fuzion, for determining how expensive magic items are would really have come in handy here.
Miscellany
When it comes to style, the art is excellent, like a graphic novel's. The art is about 50-50 when it comes to gender ratio, and there are few examples of gratuitous skin or cleavage. Bonus points for that. However, there are some rather long stretches in which there is no art at all -- a point was lost from Style because of that. And the writing is too close to d20 canon (read: boring).
The book is not an Open Gaming License product. It's a pity; the OGL was a nifty bonus included with DnD3 and Spycraft, but it seems like WoTSR is dead set on producing good products (Sword And Fist, Defenders Of The Faith, even Pulp Heroes) in a normally OGL-using environment that are not OGL compatible. (Which might be a violation of their own license, but let's not go into legalities.)
The writers of the game have some pretty strong pedigrees: Bill Slavicsek has written Torg, Alternity (although I really wish he had taken Alternity's FX system with him), Star Wars d20, and Pokemon Jr. (OK, so maybe not perfectly strong pedigrees). Jeff Grubb is co-creator of Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms, two names we are all familiar with. Charles Ryan has worked on Deadlands and The Wheel Of Time. And Rich Redman has worked on the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons and Dark*Matter. If you happen to be a groupie of any of these writers, forget the rest of the review and go get this book: They won't disappoint you this time.
The game includes game elements from Call of Cthulhu d20, the Psionics Handbook for DnD3, Star Wars d20, and although WoTSR doesn't like to admit that they'd take from another publisher, Spycraft. Although I can't comment on the first two because I've not seen them, the latter two are fine products, so I'm glad they built upon those bases.
A note for all those who would like to try before they buy: At the d20 Modern website, you can see samples of the artwork, and the Modern SRD -- which contains all the crunchy rules of the game (just not the illustrated and explanatory examples, or the nifty free settings).
The Final Verdict
Of course, there will be detractors that will claim that because System XYZ does it better, d20 Modern has no valor. Just because one star is brighter than all the rest, however, doesn't mean the other stars don't also shine. d20 Modern is a well-thought-out effort, taking the system another step away from its wargaming roots and an excellent game of cinematic action. Bravo!
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