d20 Modern is a modern fantasy role-playing game system designed by Bill Slavicsek, Jeff Grubb, Rich Redman, and Charles Ryan. The system's core rulebook was published by Wizards of the Coast on November 1, 2002; by 2006, ten additional supplements were released. The game is based on the d20 System and the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset. It includes various campaign settings along with the tools to build campaigns in modern/contemporary settings.

History

Wizards released d20 Modern in 2002 while the company was overhauling its Star Wars role-playing game. Wizards then expanded on the game, developing one of its settings into a sourcebook, the Urban Arcana Campaign Setting (2003). Wizards then extended this development of d20 even further, with the science-fiction game d20 Future (2004) as well as the historical game d20 Past (2005). Wizards ended this line in 2006 by updating their classic campaign setting Dark•Matter for d20 Modern.

Mark Theuar, for the gaming magazine Fictional Reality, wrote that he would "highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to play in a modern day rpg" and that "the interior artwork has sort of a graphic novel feel to it and it works very well for this setting". He highlighted his enjoyment of the section on guns and that "combat is similar to Call of Cthulhu d20 meaning that you can get dead real quick. [...] My favorite aspect about the world background is that we're already living about 90% of it. As a GM all you have to do is fill in the last 10%. It's not like building or learning a whole new fantasy world from scratch". Green wrote that "rather than force players to keep detailed records of every purchase a character makes and bank record he accesses, the d20 Modern designers created a single abstract quantity called 'Wealth' that determines how easy it is for a character to acquire equipment and resources. Players roll against the difficulty (which incorporates cost and availability as well as legality) of acquiring a good, and their wealth may change as a result of the roll, representing in the abstract the loss of assets".

Legacy

Charlie Hall, for Polygon, stated that "back in 2002, d20 Modern helped to breathe life into third edition Dungeons & Dragons, expanding the tabletop role-playing game into a far more contemporary setting — less swords and sorcery, more ninjas and automatic weapons". This new wave included hundreds of third-party publications alongside the additional ten d20 Modern books Wizards of the Coast released. Appelcline wrote that "Sword & Sorcery was probably the most noticeable, with their licensed version of Gamma World (2003-2004), though they covered their bets by saying the books could be used with D&D 3e or d20 Modern. But, many other publishers put out large d20 Modern lines. Some of the most notable were Adamant's Thrilling Tales (2005-2007) and Mars (2006-2007) line, Green Ronin's varied d20 Modern rules and settings, which culminated in Damnation Decade (2006), and Mongoose's new editions of the classic Macho Women with Guns (2003, 2005)". Polygon called Everyday Heroes a "spiritual successor" to d20 Modern.

See also

  • Alternity
  • Star*Drive
  • Dark•Matter
  • StarCraft Adventures
  • Darwin's World
  • Dungeons & Dragons
  • Gamma World

References

  • Modern System Reference Documents