Mordern/Future 4e - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 alyss_dup Dec 25, 2008 10:33:41	So. I can't find a topic on this yet, which confused me. I'll start work on this, and would love to get as much of the community as possible along for the ride. Essential, I think of creating modern or future 4e as a reskinning process. Most of the work comes from the setting, and in some cases you don't even need to change the system at all (post-apocalyptic set at the right progression of things). Anyway, I'm garbling. Let's start with modern. The first thing we need to consider are races, and this leads on on to the question of whether we try to reproduce the fantasy races as human variants, strip them out entirely, or consider them minorities a la Urban Arcana. Method 1: The fantasy races are human variants. This method works best in a setting where the planet isn't actually Earth, merely a very similar place. Here we swap the fantasy names for something more modern, so eladrin become Penitese, the people of Penita. Alternatively, the comically racist method: stick with the Earth and just change the racial demographics. Greek people are Halflings. Whatever. Works, but feels very, very sillly. Method 1 does work, one way or another, but the former implementation of it kind of ruins the point of what's fun about a modern setting: creating a person that exists in our world. The latter method actually does the same thing, but to a lesser extent. Although it's still very, very silly. Method 2: Humans are the only race. It's what d20 Modern did. It's a very easy, very accurate to RL fix. Cuts out the nice optimisation that comes with the other races, but if you're fine with sacrificing that for the sake of realism then this is for you. Method 3: The fantasy races are rare and unknown of by the majority of the populace. For those of you not familiar with Urban Arcana, a splat book for d20 modern, the modern version of D&D 3.5, came out once upon a time in which people could cast magic and dragons existed and so on and so forth; the book was called Urban Arcana. So it was the modern world, but there were fantastical things in it. Most people didn't know about them, but the PCs did and spent most of there time killing them and taking their stuff. If you use this method, the fantasy races exist at the margins. They aren't known of by most of the modern world, and no-one would believe the crazy hobo that claimed they did anyway. This is a much better fix than method 1, but if you're going for total realism it doesn't work. Course, any of these methods is fine mechanically; even getting rid of all the dragonborn, dwarves, eladrin, elves, half-elves, halflings and tieflings in the world won't break the game. So just go with whatever works for you.
#2 alyss_dup Dec 26, 2008 11:28:00	Next, classes. Here we have a larger problem, if realism is an issue. Before we go there, I'll briefly cover the Urban Arcana approach to modern, becuase it presents less problems. Urbana Arcana approach: nothing required to be done. Clerics are clerics, worshippers of whatever modern faith who can literally produce miracles. Wizards are those weird people in bookshops who seem to get all over the shop in the blink of an eye. Warlocks are teenage girls who spend all their time in their room with the door locked, reading very old, very bloodstained books, and drawing on the floor with green chalk. Whatever. It's very easy to re imagine 4e classes in a modern world where magic really does exist. Total realism, or the Pan's Labyrinth approach, is hard. Cutting out the magical classes is an option in some classes because there's more than class with that role (clerics, paladins, warlocks), but we've only got one controller and it's a magical one: the wizard. Obviously, the wizard is rather too fantastical for the modern world. Our fixes to date are only homebrewed: ninetails excellent monk (link), which also covers any martial arts lovers' dreams. I could try to reskin the wizard entirely, but I'm a lazy, lazy girl and refuse to attempt it without help. So there, monk or nothing. Show Note that some view the controller to be the least important of the party roles. If you can't bear non-core material, and think you can manage without a controller, you might want to consider just giving up them entirely for the time being.
#3 mellored Dec 26, 2008 13:32:45	Method 2: Humans are the only race. It's what d20 Modern did. It's a very easy, very accurate to RL fix. Cuts out the nice optimisation that comes with the other races, but if you're fine with sacrificing that for the sake of realism then this is for you. For modern I would go with this one, yes you cut out some optimization, but humans in 4e are always considered good at any class. Alternatively, allow other races but just call them human, and elf is just a tall skinny human, a dwarf is a shorter stouter human, ect. This can break down with some races (how does a human breathing lightning? and genasi?) but can work with most. For future, you can easily get all your fantastical things back (aliens/cyborgs/genetic experiments, ect)
#4 alyss_dup Dec 27, 2008 3:34:57	True, though Urban Arcana was a very popular book among players of d20 modern.
#5 the_fae Dec 29, 2008 23:09:46	Urban arcana looked interesting but I never had a group to play it with. I'd suggest going the urban arcana route, races and all, because at least for modern you won't have to rework any of the material. Just throw in new weapons, armour, misc. items and change how ritual books can be stored. (ie. rules for them being stored as say tattoos or on a hard drive in video format) Note on the video format comment what I mean is that the instructions or the actual ritual was recorded for later use and can be infused with magical energy via residuum or special ways. It just popped in my head. When we get to future I will be ready to jump in and help because I actually wanted to convert 4e to a future setting but don't even know where to begin. One idea is that cyborgs and/or genetically engineered can work in a similar way to the Spellscarred in FR. If you don't have FR the Spellscarred is basically a multiclass only set of powers and a paragon path. These powers can only be accessed through the multiclassing feats.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

alyss_dup

Dec 25, 2008 10:33:41

So. I can't find a topic on this yet, which confused me. I'll start work on this, and would love to get as much of the community as possible along for the ride.

Essential, I think of creating modern or future 4e as a reskinning process. Most of the work comes from the setting, and in some cases you don't even need to change the system at all (post-apocalyptic set at the right progression of things).

Anyway, I'm garbling. Let's start with modern. The first thing we need to consider are races, and this leads on on to the question of whether we try to reproduce the fantasy races as human variants, strip them out entirely, or consider them minorities a la Urban Arcana.

Method 1: The fantasy races are human variants.
This method works best in a setting where the planet isn't actually Earth, merely a very similar place. Here we swap the fantasy names for something more modern, so eladrin become Penitese, the people of Penita.

Alternatively, the comically racist method: stick with the Earth and just change the racial demographics. Greek people are Halflings. Whatever. Works, but feels very, very sillly.

Method 1 does work, one way or another, but the former implementation of it kind of ruins the point of what's fun about a modern setting: creating a person that exists in our world. The latter method actually does the same thing, but to a lesser extent. Although it's still very, very silly.

Method 2: Humans are the only race.
It's what d20 Modern did. It's a very easy, very accurate to RL fix. Cuts out the nice optimisation that comes with the other races, but if you're fine with sacrificing that for the sake of realism then this is for you.

Method 3: The fantasy races are rare and unknown of by the majority of the populace.
For those of you not familiar with Urban Arcana, a splat book for d20 modern, the modern version of D&D 3.5, came out once upon a time in which people could cast magic and dragons existed and so on and so forth; the book was called Urban Arcana. So it was the modern world, but there were fantastical things in it. Most people didn't know about them, but the PCs did and spent most of there time killing them and taking their stuff.

If you use this method, the fantasy races exist at the margins. They aren't known of by most of the modern world, and no-one would believe the crazy hobo that claimed they did anyway. This is a much better fix than method 1, but if you're going for total realism it doesn't work.

Course, any of these methods is fine mechanically; even getting rid of all the dragonborn, dwarves, eladrin, elves, half-elves, halflings and tieflings in the world won't break the game. So just go with whatever works for you.

alyss_dup

Dec 26, 2008 11:28:00

Next, classes. Here we have a larger problem, if realism is an issue. Before we go there, I'll briefly cover the Urban Arcana approach to modern, becuase it presents less problems.

Urbana Arcana approach: nothing required to be done. Clerics are clerics, worshippers of whatever modern faith who can literally produce miracles. Wizards are those weird people in bookshops who seem to get all over the shop in the blink of an eye. Warlocks are teenage girls who spend all their time in their room with the door locked, reading very old, very bloodstained books, and drawing on the floor with green chalk. Whatever. It's very easy to re imagine 4e classes in a modern world where magic really does exist.

Total realism, or the Pan's Labyrinth approach, is hard. Cutting out the magical classes is an option in some classes because there's more than class with that role (clerics, paladins, warlocks), but we've only got one controller and it's a magical one: the wizard.

Obviously, the wizard is rather too fantastical for the modern world. Our fixes to date are only homebrewed: ninetails excellent monk (link), which also covers any martial arts lovers' dreams. I could try to reskin the wizard entirely, but I'm a lazy, lazy girl and refuse to attempt it without help. So there, monk or nothing.

Show

Note that some view the controller to be the least important of the party roles. If you can't bear non-core material, and think you can manage without a controller, you might want to consider just giving up them entirely for the time being.

mellored

Dec 26, 2008 13:32:45

Method 2: Humans are the only race.
It's what d20 Modern did. It's a very easy, very accurate to RL fix. Cuts out the nice optimisation that comes with the other races, but if you're fine with sacrificing that for the sake of realism then this is for you.

For modern I would go with this one, yes you cut out some optimization, but humans in 4e are always considered good at any class.

Alternatively, allow other races but just call them human, and elf is just a tall skinny human, a dwarf is a shorter stouter human, ect. This can break down with some races (how does a human breathing lightning? and genasi?) but can work with most.

For future, you can easily get all your fantastical things back (aliens/cyborgs/genetic experiments, ect)

alyss_dup

Dec 27, 2008 3:34:57

True, though Urban Arcana was a very popular book among players of d20 modern.

the_fae

Dec 29, 2008 23:09:46

Urban arcana looked interesting but I never had a group to play it with. I'd suggest going the urban arcana route, races and all, because at least for modern you won't have to rework any of the material. Just throw in new weapons, armour, misc. items and change how ritual books can be stored. (ie. rules for them being stored as say tattoos or on a hard drive in video format)

Note on the video format comment what I mean is that the instructions or the actual ritual was recorded for later use and can be infused with magical energy via residuum or special ways. It just popped in my head.

When we get to future I will be ready to jump in and help because I actually wanted to convert 4e to a future setting but don't even know where to begin. One idea is that cyborgs and/or genetically engineered can work in a similar way to the Spellscarred in FR. If you don't have FR the Spellscarred is basically a multiclass only set of powers and a paragon path. These powers can only be accessed through the multiclassing feats.