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Community license and resources are up. https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/pages/2d20worldbuilders
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Jan 11, 2023 18:16
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CitizenKeen posted:Community license and resources are up.
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Jan 11, 2023 18:25
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They take a flat 20% of sales. Hm.
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Jan 17, 2023 08:21
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I'm not really sure what they expect people to create with this, honestly. It seems to come down hard on any content that would apply for their RPGs based around licensed IP (specifically Star Trek I guess because CBS is so litigious), the thing is literally *all* of their RPGs are based on licensed IP. John Carter is public domain I think, but pretty sure nobody plays it, and the Conan RPG has been sunsetted. Or do they just want people to take their 2d20 system and make entire heartbreaker homebrew games out of them, not necessarily 3PP for existing stuff?
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Jan 17, 2023 08:30
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Leperflesh posted:They take a flat 20% of sales. Hm. Drone posted:I'm not really sure what they expect people to create with this, honestly. It seems to come down hard on any content that would apply for their RPGs based around licensed IP (specifically Star Trek I guess because CBS is so litigious), the thing is literally *all* of their RPGs are based on licensed IP. John Carter is public domain I think, but pretty sure nobody plays it, and the Conan RPG has been sunsetted. A couple notes. (They've been pretty communicative on their Discord, in Twitch "office hours", and on rpg.net.)
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Jan 17, 2023 17:33
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The best part of 2d20 is the way the designers mechanically systemize the themes and settings of the licensed IPs. In Star Trek shooting your phaser builds Threat. In Dune Gurney Halleck can recite a poem to build Momentum, and play a cool dueling minigame in a one on one fight. Take away the theming and you've got a serviceable generic system, but not one that really stands out against a background of other generic systems.
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Jan 17, 2023 18:53
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I like it! Successes, multiple dice, a GM pool and a party pool, etc. I think the different games show how the base system can be added to to add that theming you're talking about. I don't see 2d20 as a truly universal system - I don't really "believe in" universal mechanical systems, because the mechanics always impart some kind of flavor and are therefore not suitable for any game which shouldn't have that flavor - but I don't think that's a problem exactly. It's just that creators should select 2d20 if it will suit the game they are trying to build. The 20% thing just struck me because it's close to the number a lot of people were complaining about last week re: wizards OGL leak. e. I updated the OP to link all the 2d20 games currently listed on their site, including COHORS, Fallout, etc. and also to the new worldbuilder's program and SRD. Let me know if there's anything else you guys think should be in the OP. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 19:13
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mellonbread posted:The best part of 2d20 is the way the designers mechanically systemize the themes and settings of the licensed IPs. In Star Trek shooting your phaser builds Threat. In Dune Gurney Halleck can recite a poem to build Momentum, and play a cool dueling minigame in a one on one fight. I mean, I wouldn't build it as a generic system. I don't think they sell it as that, either. The SRD reads like the Cortex Handbook (though with stronger defaults). "Here's how you build your genre-specific version of 2d20." I don't think of 2d20 as comparable to something like Savage Worlds or Genesys. I think of it more as a crunchy Pbta/FitD, where each game relies on a similar core mechanic, but does its own thing in a unique way. I don't think the World Builders programs change any of that. I do think we'll see some people publish games using 2d20 that don't lean into their genre, though, just like we see weak-rear end versions of PbtA.
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Jan 17, 2023 19:27
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CitizenKeen posted:[*]They've been pretty vocal that they expect/want people to make stuff for/using/as their IP based games with the serial numbers filed off. Want to make a game about optimistic space science and diplomacy using the exact same rules as Star Trek Adventures? Knock yourself out. Want to make an adventure for this game (or any other compatible game <wink wink>) about a warrior species obsessed with honor who fly in cloaked ships, and the pregenerated characters for this adventure are a plucky, womanizing captain, a logic-obsessed first officer, and a grumpy doctor? Sounds great! This was the sticking point for me, but it looks like they've revised some of the language in their announcement. I distinctly remember an early version of their FAQ that had a much longer version of this current text: quote:What can’t I use in my 2d20 World Builders product? The earlier version of this included another qualifier that was something along the lines of "...or material that could be reasonably assumed to infringe on copyright held by someone else." Which for me meant filing the serial numbers off wouldn't be good enough. But nevermind, this doesn't seem to be an issue! My opinion has changed a bit then. 2d20 is a great system and I'm excited to see if someone could churn out Generic-rear end Fantasy 2d20 or Pretty Much Traveller 2d20 with some degree of success. Drone fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 19:28
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Drone posted:This was the sticking point for me, but it looks like they've revised some of the language in their announcement. I distinctly remember an early version of their FAQ that had a much longer version of this current text: Publishing a rough first draft is kind of Modiphius's modus operandi. Ninja Edit: I think the not-so-secret story behind those changes are two-fold:
Not ninja enough. CitizenKeen fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jan 17, 2023 |
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Jan 17, 2023 19:34
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CitizenKeen posted:Publishing a rough first draft is kind of Modiphius's modus operandi. God I know. I put off buying the physical STA books for like 2 years after the game came out because the first PDF versions were borderline unreadable for all the errors.
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Jan 17, 2023 19:37
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CitizenKeen posted:I mean, I wouldn't build it as a generic system. I don't think they sell it as that, either. The SRD is the generic core rule book The SRD posted:This System Resource Document serves is to serve as a central reference for the “core” of the 2D20 System, as well as several common genre-specific modifications, to be used both internally by Modiphius writers and designers, and externally by licensees and affiliates. It will also serve as the basis for a setting-neutral Core Rulebook. I’ve never played a 2D20 game but I have Fallout and Star Trek and they both look great. Seems like the perfect system to give the feel of a TV show or movie. I also like how the players can do things to make success probable but then will have to deal with the consequences. I mean that’s RPG gold right there.
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Jan 23, 2023 04:46
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Big sale going on: https://modiphius.us/collections/january-2023-sale/ I'm considering picking up John Carter and/or Dishonored, any experience with either of them?
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Jan 23, 2023 13:38
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Just bought Dishonored at MSRP yesterday, alas. Good to support my FLGS? But I'll take a couple Conan and John Carter books I don't have. Thanks for bringing this up.
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Jan 23, 2023 15:19
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Doctor Zero posted:The SRD is the generic core rule book I'm going to disagree. 2d20 is not a generic system. Nor is the SRD. The 2d20 SRD is a toolkit with which to build a system. It sounds like they're going to use the SRD to make a generic core rulebook, which you could absolutely do. If I invite you over to my table to play a Savage Worlds game set in [Established Universe], characters built with core rule book only, you know what you're likely getting into. You can make a character. Same goes for GURPS or HERO or Fate. That's what makes those "generic" systems. If I invite you over to my table to play Cortex Prime, set in [Established Universe], core rulebook only, you don't know enough, because I haven't shared the rules with you. What attributes are we using, etc. There are too many unknowns because you don't play Cortex Prime out of the box, you use it to build system. I've taken to calling the distinction a "toolkit" versus a "system", but I don't know that we have a phrase for these rules frameworks that use some common building blocks to build different systems. (Like Year Zero, or PbtA, or FitD.) The same goes for 2d20. If I tell you to make a [Star Wars/Mass Effect/Skyrim] 2d20 character for my game, that's not enough for you to go on. I haven't told you what system we're using. BTW, I hadn't seen their plans for a generic set of core rules for 2d20; if they're actually doing that that's going to be pretty solid. Thank you!
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Jan 23, 2023 15:31
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So I caved in on the last day of the sale and bought pretty much the entire Conan line. I have a group that's never played, and apart from the quick start demo mission I've never GMed it. I'm not going to be insane and learn/teach everything all at once, so what are the key "this really makes the game sing" books I should add to the core rules?
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Feb 2, 2023 02:09
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Modiphius announced The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad for Dune 2d20. I expect that the glossary of Great Houses will be larded down with worthless garbage from the prequels, but the parts that the designers got to write themselves will be good, and the mechanics might even be worth saving. This is the only thing that could convince me to run more of Dune 2d20, so I'm cautiously optimistic.
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Feb 2, 2023 02:16
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Nevermind, god drat
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Feb 2, 2023 02:31
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rydiafan posted:So I caved in on the last day of the sale and bought pretty much the entire Conan line. I have a group that's never played, and apart from the quick start demo mission I've never GMed it. I'm not going to be insane and learn/teach everything all at once, so what are the key "this really makes the game sing" books I should add to the core rules? I'm gonna say if you and your whole group are unfamiliar with the game, you could just use the core rulebook. Each of what I'll call the "themed supplements" below add a gazeteer style overview of an additional region on the map, some character options set to a particular theme, and some GM resources for running adventures and various enemies for that theme/region. If your group can choose a theme, it can make sense to add in the rules from that book. For example, Conan the Pirate obviously adds some nautical-themed stuff: character archetypes, castes, talents, stories, gear, sorceries. And then it also adds stuff for the GM: some events, encounters, enemies, some rules for pirate organizations, some rules for ship combat, carousing events, and so forth. If your players want a piracy campaign, definitely use it; if they just want to go on a sailing trip as one game night of a campaign, use it as a GM resource. If one player in a game not about piracy/sailing wants to have a sailorish background, you could borrow an archetype from the book and ignore the rest... but also they could just play a Pirate out of the core book and call it a day. Do that to avoid having more books you might need to bust out and reference in the middle of a game night. This generally applies to all of these themed supplements. There's ten archetypes in the core book and along with all the background and skill and talent options you already have quite a lot of flexibility to sink your teeth into as a gaming group. I made a big mistake when I ran my PbP game here on SA and just told the players to use all the expansions available in the character builder. It made for some excessively random stuff across the party, too many references for me to look up and figure out what the hell the characters even were, and no cohesive theme. The themed supplements are:
Exiles is based on the video game, providing the familiar structure of character options and GM stuff drawn from that setting, and Kull is for adventuring in the age before the one Conan lives in. In both cases you absolutely can bring the character archetypes and at least some of the setting info into a regular Conan game, so you don't have to intentionally avoid them or anything, but they don't really fit the "thematic" pattern of the other Conan the X books, but some of the character stories won't make sense in a regular game, the setting info isn't useful otherwise, etc. so I'd just avoid these unless you're short on ideas and want to mine them for a few. Or if you just want to run a game in ancient Atlantis! Addendum: Tsilkani posted:This is a late response to this summary (which is really good), but one thing you might find useful in the Conan the Exiles Sourcebook even if you're not using that setting is that it has expansive rules for crafting buildings and settlements that could be useful for any sort of campaign where you grow beyond simple wanderers. Tsilkani posted:There's also some stuff in there about map exploration and survival rules... basically everything you'd need to do a Westmarches hexcrawl in Conan. There's also some supplements that are generally more focused on giving the GM options:
Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 21:15 on May 4, 2023 |
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Feb 2, 2023 06:57
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mellonbread posted:Nevermind, god drat Were you using the right website for your region? They have separate domains for US and EU.
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Feb 2, 2023 07:11
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Cross-threading:CitizenKeen posted:Some variants of 2d20 use the damage mechanism for... everything. Similar to a clock. Which of the 2d20 systems do this, do we know? I think it's a really cool system!
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Feb 4, 2023 02:21
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Drone posted:Were you using the right website for your region? They have separate domains for US and EU. Whatever, it dropped the shipping rate closer to what you'd expect. Would be nice if they just had one portal that assigned shipping cost when you entered your location into the Country field. Maybe they have two different webstores because the sites operate under different regulatory regimes. When you order the book you get access to a PDF of the sample adventure which will be included with the splat. The intro says it takes place after the "Emperor's Great Spice War", which according to the wiki is from the Brian Herbert books. As I expected, the prequel bullshit is here in spades. But the intro also says the adventure "relies heavily on architect level play" which is encouraging. Dune 2d20 is supposed to let you play as the leaders of a House, and use side characters for street level missions where it wouldn't make sense to bring a Duke or a Master of Assassins. But the corebook does not provide a ton of support for this premise other than rules for creating the supporting characters, and none of the other published modules appear interested in exploring the concept. More discussion when the actual book drops.
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Feb 4, 2023 03:24
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Drone posted:Were you using the right website for your region? They have separate domains for US and EU. lol, I wondered why the poo poo I bought during the January sale was so expensive to ship. I didn't sweat it too much, because I made up for it with discounts on 15 books, but still.
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Feb 4, 2023 03:53
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Leperflesh posted:Cross-threading: I first encountered it in STA. I don't recall if it's in the three previous games. It's in the SRD and Achtung! Cthulhu. The phrase you're looking for is "extended task".
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Feb 4, 2023 05:01
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CitizenKeen posted:I first encountered it in STA. I don't recall if it's in the three previous games. It's in the SRD and Achtung! Cthulhu. The phrase you're looking for is "extended task". Seems like it's not in Conan, or at least I can't find it.
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Feb 6, 2023 02:37
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Leperflesh posted:Seems like it's not in Conan, or at least I can't find it. No, looks like it's in Star Trek and then better implemented in A!C. It basically puts non-combat on equal footing with combat. Since Star Trek isn't about combat, it gives the scientist/engineer a way to "roll damage" in a fight. Turns out even in a game about combat (A!C), it's a great system.
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Feb 6, 2023 03:38
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Going to need a third Kallax cube.
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Feb 9, 2023 04:07
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CitizenKeen posted:Going to need a third Kallax cube. I had no idea the Infinity RPG was popular enough to warrant all of those splatbooks  Gonna finish out my STA collection this year at some point... still need to pick up Utopia Planitia, Shackleton Expanse, the two adventure books, and the Disco guide (meh). How is Dune doing for them anyway? I only have the core book and have been meaning to check back into things, especially now with the Landsraad book, but I feel like my chances of finding a live group to play a Dune game are really low.
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Feb 9, 2023 09:16
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Drone posted:I had no idea the Infinity RPG was popular enough to warrant all of those splatbooks I don't know how it's making money. A friend of mine who is into the wargame went all in on the Kickstarter. We ran a year-long Infinity campaign but he didn't love it (Infinity had some weird hiccups, like all armor being [CD], PCs having a variable number of lifepaths, and the infamously rough structural editing). He offered to sell me the line (save the core book, which he kept and I already had) for $40. It was very much a monkey's paw situation. Absolute deal, but it opened up the question of "Maybe I could own all of 2d20?" I've already blown through a year's TTRPG budget picking up Conan (I only had the core book at the start of the year) and all of JCOM (I had it in PDF). There's one more book in the line promised by the Kickstarter. I suspect Modiphius will be done then. I wonder if they're actually making money on Infinity, or they're just fulfilling a Kickstarter obligation gone slightly awry. Dune seems to be trucking. It's not a Dishonored/Fallout situation where they seem to be one-and-done. Dune got Sand and Dust, the "Dune is all about Arrakis, if we're being honest" sourcebook, a recent campaign book Masters of Dune (a campaign book picking up after the Agents of Dune starter adventure), and the forthcoming Houses of the Landsraad (a "Dune is more than Arrakis" sourcebook for those who aren't following, which is pretty exciting).
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Feb 9, 2023 15:08
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CitizenKeen posted:There's one more book in the line promised by the Kickstarter. I suspect Modiphius will be done then. I wonder if they're actually making money on Infinity, or they're just fulfilling a Kickstarter obligation gone slightly awry. What book is being waited on? As far as I know the line is done with the last shipment they sent out last year, and the beast is finally done, years overdue. I highly doubt they're going to make anything more for it.
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Feb 9, 2023 21:39
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Tsilkani posted:What book is being waited on? As far as I know the line is done with the last shipment they sent out last year, and the beast is finally done, years overdue. I highly doubt they're going to make anything more for it. I stand corrected. I was under the impression there was one more coming, but I was wrong.
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Feb 9, 2023 22:46
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I'm still surprised that Star Trek Adventures got the Utopia Planitia book. (Mostly because there were a couple of Picard-era ships in there, and I thought Modiphius was very intentionally keeping the game line focused on 80s/90s Trek.)
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Feb 10, 2023 02:26
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Snorb posted:I'm still surprised that Star Trek Adventures got the Utopia Planitia book. (Mostly because there were a couple of Picard-era ships in there, and I thought Modiphius was very intentionally keeping the game line focused on 80s/90s Trek.) They got an expanded license recently (last year?) that included Picard and Discovery. They still don't have a license for Lower Decks or SNW (despite a book named such). So it's less an intentional focus and more a scope of the license. I really want them to get a license to Star Trek Online, but I doubt it.
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Feb 10, 2023 02:31
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CitizenKeen posted:They got an expanded license recently (last year?) that included Picard and Discovery. They still don't have a license for Lower Decks or SNW (despite a book named such). So it's less an intentional focus and more a scope of the license. Closest we're gonna get is Utopia Planitia; the Sutherland, Ross, and Odyssey class ships were from STO (and showed up in Season 2 and the Season 3 trailer for Picard.) EDIT: It annoys me slightly that the Utopia Planitia book acknowledges, yes, we're going into the 2390s and 25th century, but all they could (legally) do was mention Lower Decks and not stat out the California class from that show. Then again, it also annoys me that the ships in that book aren't in alphabetical order, but roughly service introduction date. Snorb fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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Feb 10, 2023 02:34
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Snorb posted:Closest we're gonna get is Utopia Planitia; the Sutherland, Ross, and Odyssey class ships were from STO (and showed up in Season 2 and the Season 3 trailer for Picard.) Modiphius has worked with STO for STA before on free resources, and they made MMO-based books for Conan, so I don't think an STO book is that unlikely. But probably after they get the SNW/LD licenses.
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Feb 10, 2023 03:10
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Navigating CBS's weird licensing and approval structure really limits them, I feel like. Jim Johnson (the project lead for STA at Modiphius) at a couple points over the years posted that CBS has to approve pretty much every single thing they do, and when they disapprove they won't always say why.
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Feb 10, 2023 09:26
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Speaking of STA, have any of you run or played the adventure A Star Beyond the Stars from the starter set? I really want to run some kind of nice and optimistic scifi for my group so I picked the box up, but using the neural parasites from that one TNG episode as antagonists gives the adventure kind of a weird horror spin. It also seems to be very linear from just reading it, but maybe that's fine in play?
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Feb 13, 2023 17:35
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Siivola posted:Speaking of STA, have any of you run or played the adventure A Star Beyond the Stars from the starter set? I really want to run some kind of nice and optimistic scifi for my group so I picked the box up, but using the neural parasites from that one TNG episode as antagonists gives the adventure kind of a weird horror spin. It also seems to be very linear from just reading it, but maybe that's fine in play? To be fair, the original series episode "Operation: Annihilate!" did skew towards the weird-horror direction itself, so ASBTS wouldn't be too far from the mark on that. Is your group new to STA? If so, I find "The Rescue at Xerxes IV" to be more optimistic, and shorter as well. It's the tutorial adventure in the main rulebook, for convenience; the stakes are limited to just one planet, but the conclusion can be pretty delightful and involves Solving a Problem the Star Trek way. (ASBTS is also a starter adventure, hence the linearity, so Xerxes IV may feel a bit similar.)
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Feb 13, 2023 17:56
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Check out the free Mission Briefs in the Modiphius store. There's about 40 adventures there. Less fleshed out, but all very non-linear.
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Feb 13, 2023 23:58
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Yeah, we’re all new to 2d20 so I don’t mind getting tutorialized at, I’m just struck by the way it doesn’t branch out at all. It reads almost like a video game walk through. I guess I could get the library’s copy of the core book and run The Rescue to establish the tone and then immediately swerve out with A Star? I don’t really feel like buying a big hardback for a game I might end up running twice. Good shout on the free mission briefs, I downloaded all of those!
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Feb 17, 2023 08:29
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