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Greetings gang,
I left Dundracon with a renewed interest in the d20 system and its various campaign settings. I picked up a copy of Spycraft, which I really dig, and ordered a copy of Conan which I am pretty sure I am going to dig.
I read reviews about a few other products that captured my interest, and wanted to know if anyone has any experiance actually playing in these settings.
Midnight (www.rpg.net/reviews/arch...9/9252.phtml)
OGL Cybernet (www.rpg.net/reviews/arch.../10122.phtml)
If you have actually played with either of these settings let me know what you thought about them, good and bad.
</rant>
I left Dundracon with a renewed interest in the d20 system and its various campaign settings. I picked up a copy of Spycraft, which I really dig, and ordered a copy of Conan which I am pretty sure I am going to dig.
I read reviews about a few other products that captured my interest, and wanted to know if anyone has any experiance actually playing in these settings.
Midnight (www.rpg.net/reviews/arch...9/9252.phtml)
OGL Cybernet (www.rpg.net/reviews/arch.../10122.phtml)
If you have actually played with either of these settings let me know what you thought about them, good and bad.
</rant>
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Mon, February 23, 2004 - 11:54 PMI've bought Midnight. Never played. Seems interesting. Spycraft is good for equipment, but I prefer d20 Modern.
Urban Arcana expansion for modern is REALLY good IF you leave out the Shadow BS, the Drow w/machineguns & all that. Basically it's a poorly thought out ShadowRun world (hence my belief why they called the 'other realm' Shadow) but some the world isn't up to par.
DragonStar also looks really good. I keep tryng to play at a convention, never have. And lastly, d20 Cthulhu. :)
I've also bought Darwin's World (really unusual) and some other books, but never played.
Ray, you're a great GM! heh heh
PEACE -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Tue, February 24, 2004 - 4:37 PMI can chime in on DragonStar.
DragonStar is about as over-the-top as you would expect it to be. My RPGA dragonstar character as a human ranger and at level one had a 27 AC most of the time ( he tended to drop prone as much as he could since most combat was ranged ) and was at +7 to hit with a 4d10 damage weapon with a 300 ft range increment.
If you are looking for a serious plot driven game, DragonStar would not be a good choice, wait for the d20 version of Traveler.
If you want Dwarfs-In-Space then this is the game for you. It lacks the often tongue-in-cheek silliness of SpellJammer and compensates for it by giving your characters big enough weapons that you don't wait for you opponents to come out of cover, you shoot through the cover and have enough damage leftover to kill them.
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Thu, February 26, 2004 - 1:11 PMDude, I didn't know you had Midnight. I was going to be picking up a copy tomorrow.
d20 Modern is cool IMHO, but I freaking LOVE spycraft. Im gonna be running a demo at a local game store in March in fact.
I also just got my copy of the new Conan RPG yesterday, and I have but one word.
WOW.
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Thu, February 26, 2004 - 9:43 PMUh, could you be more specific in your praise?
The Conan novels/stories are fun little reads, and the setting is pretty cool. But what makes the rpg worthy of a "WOW" though? -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Fri, February 27, 2004 - 8:50 AMI'll do my best.
Im still reading though it btw. The initial WOW was based on production value. It is simply a gorgeous book. That helps make the $50 price-tag easier to stomach.
Thus far it seems that the game does a good job of making the game better suited to pulp Sword and Sorcery then high fantasy standard DnD.
I'll post a complete review once I finish reading it (some time next week).
Here are some links to very well written revies:
www.rpg.net/reviews/arch...0/10116.phtml
www.enworld.org/reviews/index.php (free registraion needed now) -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Sat, February 28, 2004 - 5:31 PMChecked out the reviews, and did some scrounging around the conan.com site and it looks like your "WOW" was most definately justified.
Actually went out looking today for a copy but no luck. Going to have to head across town to a bigger game store to find it, I think.
Anyways, I am impressed by the way they have changed the OGL mechanics to make it more of a Sword & Sorcery kind of thing. The revisions to the magic system sound interesting and I like the sound of the changes they made to the combat system.
Let me know how it actually plays if you manage to get a game going.
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Tue, June 28, 2005 - 9:33 PMI have bought OGL Cybernet, and now I sort of wish I hadn't.
They only published 2/3 of the game! They allude to rules and sections that are not included, only some of which are available for download on their website. Overall, while I was impressed enough at a glance to buy the book, 'sloppy' is the word I would use to describe it. Our group made some characters, but never got the urge to play it afterwards, even though we have enough to do so. They have some nice ideas, but that's all that I got from it. I can see why they went with the Wealth system, but without having seen it in use firsthand, I'm rather cynical about it...anyone used it?
All that said, don't waste money on Digital Burn, either. Not a stand alone product, and not really complete either. Not enough detail about the system provided to run a decent game, IMHO.
I have a few factors biasing me against both products, not the least of which is that we haven't actually played either one. So they sit on my shelf as reference material...expensive reference material...
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Tue, June 28, 2005 - 10:48 PMI have played Midnight, as a mater of fact it is the only way i can get one friend of min to play D20. I like it all right the heroic paths are great. I am not a huge fan of pre packaged campaign settings so i mainly use it to steel from for my own worlds. I don't like the magic system in it as much as i like the standard system.
I would also suggest checking out the stargate D20. It is from the same people who did spycraft and uses some of the same ideas. It is probably the best modern/ sci fi I have seen in D20.
Hope that helps out somewhat. -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Thu, July 7, 2005 - 11:23 AM> [Stargate] is probably the best modern/ sci fi I have seen in D20.
What about d20 Future? It's ... certainly open enough! HA HA
I like the expansions from Polyhedron --> Iron Lords of Jupiter and Dark Sun series. (Tried combining, didn't work well -- but it was b/c I abused my players by having NPC's who were too psionic, I think.) I love those Polyhedron expansions!
(Look for the .pdf's of various Dungeon mags on any filesharing app, if you want 'em.)
I've got Midnight, don't like it. Bought d20 Apocalypse, hoping that's good. Got Darwin's World, kinda like it. Also Polyhedron "Omega World" which was pretty coolio too -- but more of a Beer & Pretzels game.
What about Star Wars? If you 'drop the Jedi' and perhaps include Psi, Clerics, or Magician types, things could be fun, no?
Last comment --> I'm one of those dorks that loves Dragonstar. I didn't like much of the world, but I enjoyed the tech ideas. The main complaint was that future weaponry & stuff was so overpowered... But you'd think it would be, right?
(Always looking for d20 Modern gamers in SF/Bay area!) -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Fri, September 2, 2005 - 12:32 AMI was a huge fan of the original d10 7th Seas. If you got all the books (I didn't) I expect it would run you about 300$.
The d20 conversion for the 7th Seas game, Swashbuckling Adventures has all that lore squeezed into one little book. It think it is the standard for the new books that are basically made of Prestige classes. A decent number of pre-3.5 rules are added, but it is still a great 3.0 for those stalwarts (like me) who are still holding a hard heart against the 'Unecessary update'.
I have seen all the other d20 variants, and with the exception of the Aeon cycle and Cthulu, which I must be fair, are very, very well done, I consider SWBA d20 to be the best. If you don't mind a fantasy conversion...it sounds a bit like you are trying to scratch a futuristic itch. :) -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Thu, September 8, 2005 - 3:11 PMI like d20 modern as well, it is actually easier to introduce new players into.speeds up actual game time
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Thu, September 8, 2005 - 5:28 PMMy experience with the D20 system (Dungeons & Dragons) is that it simplified a lot of the roles (ie no more looking up things on exponential based cahrts). The difficulty was converting characters from 2nd edition to 3.5 as characters are infinitely more complex in 3.5. To convert you basically had to redo the entire character pick out all the skills and such. Classes in 3.5 are not quite as defined as in 2nd ed. therefore you can have a fighter with thief abilities, which wouldn't be allowed in 2nd ed. unless the character was multiclass.
The System I like is Call of Cthluhu in that it is a very basic system and focus the game more on roleplaying and plot lines raher than combat and tactics. I first played at Nerdfest..er..Dundracon and soon thereafter a friend who works for Chaosium gave me enough game materials to play until the sun goes nova. Now all I need to do is find the time and a few players.
Cheers,
Gregory -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Sun, September 11, 2005 - 3:26 AMnova, huh? color me jealous..so you need a few friends who have time, more to the point..lol.. comflicting schedules seem to the the norm sadly enough. -
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Re: Looking for comments from d20 system players.
Fri, November 11, 2005 - 2:07 PMI really like d20 Modern & Future & Urban Arcana & DragonStar & a few others. Don't love D&D 3.0 or 3.5, but I've played 'em.
Generating NPC's is not the easiest task, though.
The d20 Polyhedron 'minigames' that were briefly in Dungeon magazine were incredible. You can buy those or grab the pdf's on the web. "Iron Lords of Jupiter" and "OmegaWorld" were 2 gems, and also the "Dark Sun" special issues.
The main weakness w/d20 is classes, IMHO. I think the 'Prestige Class' concept (PRC's) is weak, making characters overpowered w/o any items.
Ialso don't like all the rulebooks that can come into a game. I like 'cleaner' games w/less books and more roleplaying...
But one core book and a few little splats, well ... I can handle that. :)
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