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| #1chonenJan 27, 2010 10:29:14 | I have played in general fantasy for most of my gaming career. I have recently joined a Star Wars campaign which is a bit different. I have been tihnking about Modern games for awhile and only briefly got to play in one a few years ago. It has always been hard to wrap my mind around how combat encounters are supposed to work. I know and agree that RP should be the focus but many players enjoy and expect combat. But the moment a gun is fired then cops would immediately descend and the heroes would contantly have to explain why there are numerous bodies laying around. Which brings me to another point. In a modern setting you don't really have "monsters" which are "okay" to kill. Also the Wealth system seems interesting, and lets say you have a Smart hero who is a professor. It would seem hard for PCs to keep their jobs in the middle of a campaign while they are out and about. It seems like the heroes would become unemployed very quickly. The easiest fixes for combat seem to be to introduce supernatural/fantastic elements that include "monsters" and wonderous items beyond normal means. And instead of having normal jobs they are employed by some "agency" that does that contracts "special agents" for wonky missions. I think alot of this has to do with bewing so used to the normal fantasy mindset and not having something to base it on. I will be a first time GM exploring a system my friends haven't really used. I have lots of ideas for games and could very well do a supernatural game that is fantasy modern, but was curious how people dealt with more standard modern settings. And I think the question comes down to, what is the party's goal? In D&D it is glory, adventure/exploration, saving the world, defeating an evil dude, destroying a powerful magical artifact, stopping an invasion. What would be goals/motivations for the average Modern group? Thanks, Chance ^_^ |
| #2rustam1Jan 27, 2010 11:47:26 | Well, how about starting with the free pre-made adventures, read through them (start at the bottom and work your way up). This should help you understand how encouinters work and hopefully answer most of your questions. Moving players from the stereotyped DnD, dark-ages, hack-n-slash to the "now days," no alignments, "cover is good" mode of play can be very daunting at first. However, stick with it and you'll find it just as fun. |
| #3Master_VegaJan 27, 2010 13:52:47 | You make it sound as though the cops are omniscient when they aren't. Sure, if you kill someone in public without a lawful reason (IE: self defense - at least if your game takes place in the U.S.) in a modern setting, you're prettymuch screwed. Take the right precautions and eliminate your target out of the way, however, and things get a little more difficult for investigators - especially if the PCs have no connection to the target. Also note that if you place the game in a crime-heavy city, your PC's will be able to get away with offing a badguy a lot more easily than in one of the "top-ten safest cities". Maybe the city your campaign takes place in has a General Ripper as the chief of police, who will look the other way if the PC's are trying to bring down a crime family that's been plaguing the city for a long time. As for employment, unless your campaign is military or government oriented (in which case the party calling for the PC's aid will take care of things with their normal work place), generally campaigns leave plenty of time for the PC's to go to work. Adventuring is something you do on your off time in this case. Once the adventure gets more time-intensive, you can introduce difficulties with work if you want. Usually it's more of a pain thank actual fun, though. Just my two cents. |
| #4TheRealOrionJan 27, 2010 15:16:36 | "Realism" is the wrong way to address this question, though. d20M isn't real. We know this. It's an RPG approximation of an action movie, and action movies are nowhere close to being real either. If I believed what action movies told me about America, I'd assume that there is currently a gun fight going on between a coke dealer/mobster/supervillain and a cop/vigilante/veteran on every street corner of every city in the US (of course, if I believed what American movies told me, I'd also think there were only three cities in America: New York, LA, and Gotham). Make no mistake, realism is neither the goal nor a good way to think your way through a modern game. Instead, genre is the way to think through it. What happens in action movies? How does, say, Michael Weston evade discovery by the police? When did the A-Team smack up against local cops? The answer, in most cases, is that the police were just conveniently not there because having them show up immediately would ruin the action plot. Go with that. Have them always just show up just as the fight is winding down anyway. Introduce a nosy police detective who's "on to" the PCs. He or she can be a secondary foil for them, one that they can't just shoot until it goes away. Don't think of the police presence as a problem but instead as a storytelling opportunity. |
| #5narukagamiJan 27, 2010 17:53:12 | realism is neither the goal nor a good way to think your way through a modern game. I disagree completely. Its perfectly fine to work towards realism if thats what you're into, and d20 Modern is perfectly capable of achieving it. My group and I have had a lot of fun with gritty, realistic games. |
| #6rustam1Jan 27, 2010 18:09:54 | realism is neither the goal nor a good way to think your way through a modern game. ah, well, maybe for more experienced d20 Modern rpg-ers but for new players it's probably better to go with the "Last Action Hero" style and work toward "Die Hard" or "Leverage" then later still move to the grim-n-gritty realism. |
| #7TheRealOrionJan 27, 2010 18:30:40 |
Okay, I'm going to take this on as a point of debate, because I do think that, given the game's design, that you're really dead wrong. I don't begrudge you the style of play that you prefer, and I'm genuinely happy to hear that you and your group are having the experience that you want. Huzzah and mozel tov. Seriously! But... d20M is not, at base, a realistic RPG. We've had threads on this topic a few times, I think. HPs aren't realistic. Saving throws aren't realistic. Separating Strength and Dexterity or Intelligence and Wisdom into discreet categories isn't realistic. Capped damage on firearms isn't realistic. Action Points aren't realistic. Hell, paying 2 skill points for mastery of a whole language is totally unrealistic. Most of those rules are, however, very much in tune with popular action cinema and television. Good guys can take bullets all day, but bad guys drop like flies. Good guys can shoot the wings off of a bee, but bad guys can't hit the side of a barn with a cannon. Good guys resist the effects of poisons through sheer heroicness, but bad guys and no-name bystanders fall over at the first whiff. D&D and d20M have been honed over the decades to match a particular set of expectations; they became more and more like the adventure fiction we all read and watch. It has a certain character, and therefore so do our games. I would add, also, that "gritty" gaming is emphatically not "realistic." It's just more violent. It's another sub-genre of storytelling. The conflation of "realism" with "violence" has always been spurious, but it comes up over and over again. What qualifies as "realistic" changes radically from one context and one era to the next (e.g., materialist realism, historical realism, psychological realism, socialist realism, minimalist realism, etc.), and that's strong evidence that "realism" is a genre and not in fact a resemblance to reality. You can introduce to a game discreet elements of storytelling that are commonly associated with the conventions of "realism" (e.g., sex, violence, death), but that does not necessarily put you any closer to objetive reality. It just puts you closer to a particular genre of "realism." Therefore, I say, just find the kind of action/adventure film that you want to emulate for your game, and then try to institute house-rules that match it and tell a story that mimics it, but don't fool yourself into thinking that you're doing anything "realistic" in the process. |
| #8narukagamiJan 27, 2010 22:31:36 | Ah, yeah, I see what you were getting at, I misunderstood your intent. (I guess I didn't fully read things, plus was rushing to post since I noticed I was almost late for a class :P) Agreed, d20 Modern isn't inherently built to be realistic, that's true. But its realism level is also in how you present things, even if it remains inherently unrealistic at heart. I think the problem with the term "realism" is that people tend to take it as "100% adherence to the laws of our real-life world." It does not (always) nessecarily mean that. "Realistic" can also mean "lower levels of the unrealistic," and can honestly be interchangeable with "believable." Magic, elves, and talking monkeys can be "realistic," in a sense, if they have a coherent reasoning that remains consistent within the context of their setting. (Personally I prefer something more creative than the lazy "its magic" excuse, but that's just me :P) The assumptions people make towards the term "realistic" is what caused the whole "verisimilitude" usage to become prominent on these boards in the first place. |
| #9red_letter_revengeJan 28, 2010 5:54:39 | One thing I'd like to add, before I get to my attempt to answer the OP's question: combat in D20 Modern is incredibly lethal to first level characters, at least in my experience. So it's usually a good idea to start characters at 2nd level, minimum, at least from a character survivability standpoint.. Back closer to the topic at hand, A modern character can be motivated by many of the things that a Fantasy character can, be it wealth, fame, or personal honor.. In a globe-spanning conspiracy plot, the party might be uncovering and stopping the power-plays of some secret order of some sort, ala the standard fantasy "save the world" plot.. or that could be scaled down to a more street level approach, and become a "save the neighborhood" type deal.. of course this assumes a "heroic" stance from the party, more mercenary parties might simply want money, and by extension, better loot. I gues what I'm getting at, is that it depends on your players, and the characters they make.. a party that has a large pecentage of "goodie" types, like uncorruptable cops and such, could easily be drawn into a plot based around the idea of a "rescue" of something/someone/someplace, just to suit their personal honor, and other groups or character types could also be pulled into that same set of events, but the light at the end of the tunnel is different.. Hopefully this rambling wall of text has some sort of helpful material contained within.. |
| #10TheRealOrionJan 28, 2010 14:06:03 | One thing I'd like to add, before I get to my attempt to answer the OP's question: combat in D20 Modern is incredibly lethal to first level characters, at least in my experience. So it's usually a good idea to start characters at 2nd level, minimum, at least from a character survivability standpoint. On that note, which is a good one, switching from fantasy to modern means rethinking your notions of violence and lethality. The average person in a stable, internally-peaceful nation (e.g., France, Japan, Canada, etc.) is far less likely to consciously want to kill anyone, for fear of legal reprisals, and even more importantly, they're less likely to have the willingness to do it. The average American or Spaniard or Pole just doesn't have a killer instinct. Many do, but the average don't. To my mind, that means that a lot more combat in the modern world should be in non-lethal damage; far more people have "Brawl" than they do "Combat Martial Arts." The former is "I know how to win a fist-fight." The latter is "I know how to kill with my bare hands." Those are very different things. You're also totally right about the personalities of the PCs. I have nothing to add to that other than to simply agree with you. |
| #11red_letter_revengeJan 28, 2010 15:11:42 | An example of a surprisingly lethal encounter is as follows.. (I was a smart hero at the time, and wasn't at all geared for fighting yet) PC's (party of four) chase the future big bad evil guy from his first big event, whatever that may be. Somewhere along the way the BBEG pays off a trio of street toughs, gang-types who want to make some quick cash, to stop the PC's from following. They are armed as follows, guy A has a Lead pipe, guy B has a bat, guy C has no obvious weapons (but has an "ego pistol" in his waisband, a big handgun like a .44, or a machine pistol like a tek9.). Chances are, one of your average beatsticks (I know, it's stereotyping, but still, someone in most groups tends to just like fighting things), is going to jump in and start thumping heads. He'll take a few hits from the bat or pipe and probably win out, with the rest of the party's help. But, once things start going badly for Mr. ego pistol, he's more inclined to use it. Probably on the biggest, scariest member of the group. Mr. Beatstick. Since he's already probably recieved a beating, Mr. beatstick is very likely to DIE if hit with a decent roll on a 2d8 damage weapon, or a good one for a 2d6 because of the D8 hit dice he's working with, he's probably only sitting on something like 10-11 hp to start with, that is if he has a 14 or 16 CON. One gun, one shot. All it takes to make a level one character go byebye. |
| #12TheRealOrionJan 28, 2010 19:37:56 | You know, it's not just the high-damage/low-HP problem. It's also the problem that there's no such thing as Healing Potions. D&D has had that mechanic in it for decades; d20M does not have it. It makes a huge difference. I've decided that as a GM, I'll just forcibly put more non-lethal than lethal damage into my games, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense in the moment. I think of it like watching a martial-arts movie. Yes, there are people with guns, but they don't tend to use those guns nearly as much, or at the very least, they don't tend to have gun fights. Someone pulls a gun, and everyone else just puts their hands up. Perhaps part of the problem is also PCs running head-long into fights without thinking about the consequences? |
| #13rustam1Jan 28, 2010 21:39:29 | yeh, how about some "bad guys?" check out this stuff and specifically these 100 NPCs .doc (if you can't open .doc ask and I'll port them to .rtf and send you a link) [sblock Example Hitters:] Mo-Mo (16): 2nd level Fast Mook/3rd Level Family Associate/Wiseguy/1st level Soldier: Str: 12/+1, Int: 10/+0, Wis: 14/+2, Dex: 15/+2, Con: 9/-1, Cha: 11/+0, Defense 18, 38 HP, Attack Bonus: +5, Fort: +3, Ref: +3, Will: +1, Skills: +7 Hide, +7 Move Silently, +7 Bluff, +6 Knowledge (streetwise), +5 Sense Weakness, +5 Destroy Evidence, +4 Drive, +2 Shake Down, +6 Sleight of Hand, +5 Sense Motive, +3 Exploit, +5 Disable Device, +6 Intimidate, Feats: Simple Weapon Proficiency, Brawl, Personal Firearms Proficiency, Advanced Firearms Proficiency, Good Earner, Weaknesses: Stressed, Paranoid, Talent: Increased Speed, Know Respect, Balls, Absolutely Loyal, Respect: 560, Bank: 80, Wealth Bonus: +4 (Mo-Mo has several stress-related illnesses, but claims to love life in the gang. He checks and rechecks things.) Weapon of Choice: TEC-9, 9mm machine pistol, D2d6, 40ft range, 20 mag. C.J. “Bully” Brown (20): 2nd level Strong Mook/3rd Level Family Associate/Wiseguy/1st level Soldier: Str: 17/+3, Int: 10/+0, Wis: 10/+0, Dex: 12/+1, Con: 15/+2, Cha: 9/-1, Defense 15, 40 HP, Attack Bonus: +5, Fort: +5, Ref: +1, Will: +2, Skills: +7 Bluff, +4 Knowledge (streetwise), +5 Run a Brothel, +7 Beat, +6 Sense Motive, +3 Exploit, +3 Hide Motive, +6 Destroy Evidence, +3 Sense Weakness, +6 Intimidate, Feats: Simple Weapon Proficiency, Brawl, Personal Firearms Proficiency, Improved Brawl, Streetfighting, Legendary Rep, Weaknesses: Violent Temper, Aggressively Dominant, Talents: Ignore Hardness, Know Respect, Balls, Absolute Loyalty, Respect: 570, Bank: 0, Wealth Bonus: +4 (Bully has been bullying the kids in the gang since he could walk. He likes to hit people, even people he likes.) Weapon of Choice: brass knuckles, TEC-9, 9mm machine pistol, D2d6, 40ft range, 20 mag. Derrick Jenkins (19): 2nd level Fast Mook/3rd Level Family Associate/Wiseguy/1st level Soldier: Str: 14/+2, Int: 11/+0, Wis: 12/+1, Dex: 15/+2, Con: 13/+1, Cha: 13/+1, Defense 18, 44 HP, Attack Bonus: +5, Fort: +3, Ref: +3, Will: +1, Skills: +6 Hide, +6 Move Silently, +11 Bluff, +6 Knowledge (streetwise), +4 Sense Weakness, +5 Escape Artist, +8 Climb, +3 Sense Motive, +3 Exploit, +3 Hide Motive, +5 Disable Device, +7 Intimidate, Feats: Simple Weapon Proficiency, Brawl, Personal Firearms Proficiency, Advanced Firearms Proficiency, Athletic, Weaknesses: Oblivious to Danger, Violent Temper, Talent: Increased Speed, Know Respect, Balls, Absolutely Loyal, Respect: 580, Bank: 0, Wealth Bonus: +5 (Derrick likes to climb into homes and rob them. If he has time in combat, he’ll climb to a better vantage point unless driven to attack early.) Weapon of Choice: TEC-9, 9mm machine pistol, D2d6, 40ft range, 20 mag. [/sblock] oh and what I've done in the past was to allow a PC to spend an Action Point to automatic stabilize. |
| #14narukagamiJan 28, 2010 22:41:08 | The ease of dying at 1st level gets balanced out when it becomes nearly impossible from about 5th onward. |
| #15chonenJan 29, 2010 14:09:19 | The realism (verisimiltude, heh I like that) discussion was very interesting. The game can only achieve so much and then there is the question of how much realism you want in the first place. Bogging your game down with trivial and not so fun aspects isn't necessary. As long as the GM and players on the same page it should work out. I still find it hard to think of how the characters can keep a job while "adventuring", other than them becoming literal weekend warriors. But I am sure I will work that out. I am also unsure of what type of "loot" to dole out in this setting. I don't want to make them walking weapons lockers, but there is always cash and technology I suppose. And I will have to chunk the idea of +X equipment in favor of varying degrees of quality. Still it will be harder to give "special abilities" to items without magic being present. Would giving a player some fancy tennis shoes that give +1 Reflex Save be an appropriate item? I can definitiely see how not having potions can make things harder for the PCs. Why does it become so much harder to die 5th and beyond? is that because damage doesn't scale up with HP very much? Using action points for auto-stabilize seems like a good convention. Action points are still an odd concept for me since you only get them when you level and are permanantly used up. Some GMs go a very long time before leveling up the party while others practically hand out a level a session. Not that I have used the base classes enough to become tired of them. I was just curious of there are expanded talent trees for the base classes somewhere? I don't recall hearing about thyat from the supplement books that are available, but perhaps since the game has been around for so long there might have been some community developed and approved trees. I'll have to look into non-lethal damage some more. it makes sense that people wouldn't always resort to that level of lethal violence. I need to see how the interplay of non-lethal and lethal damage works (for instance being shot in the arm and then being punched in the face). But beyond the crunchy bits of rules and etc. I need to make sure to focus on story and making the game enjoyable for the players. And beyond this being a new system and setting I've gotta get into a GM mindset. Thanks for all of your help and comments thus far. ^_^ |
| #16Master_VegaJan 29, 2010 14:22:20 | There are additional talent trees in the Future Player's Companion. There are more than a few broken aspects of that book, however. You have been warned. :P Also, the non-lethal damage rules in D20Modern aren't great. If you have a constitution score of 10, it is utterly impossible for the average human to knock you out with any number of punches, even with a critical hit. The Brawl feat makes this less of a problem, but the system still sucks. For nonlethal damage in my games, I have every hit inflicted on a character reduce his massive damage threshold by one for the purpose of threatening knock-out. Every time the character has to save against unconsciousness, the DC for the next save of that nature goes up by 1. This makes nonlethal damage rather similar to a professional boxing match. It normally takes forever for someone to go down, but you'll eventually get there. With a trick or two (brawl/improved brawl), you just might take him down after a couple of punches. |
| #17red_letter_revengeJan 29, 2010 14:55:40 | On the topic of characters staying employed, and to a lesser extent a way to cope with lack of instant healing, core D20 modern is far more downtime intensive than D&D, things like hospital stays and work taking up more of the character's life than the actual adventuring... "loot" in my core modern games tend to boil down into one of three things: little homebrew things that a player can't just buy (or maybe some little mastercraft bit of kit), money, or contacts. Your example of the tennis shoes fits nicely into the first category, cash doesn't really need an explanation, and you can never undervalue knowing someone who can help a character do/get something they need or want. I've never really had problems with character-threatening encounters until around level 9, but characters do get fairly freakishly durable beyond that point, walking down enemies who are burst firing AR's down a long hallway and such. So I have, on occasion, capped the amount of HD a player can have, so while their level may still go up, and they get all the other perks, they can still be threatened by a wider variety of things... but I don't recommend anything so drastic unless you have a really hard time of it. |
| #18TheRealOrionJan 29, 2010 15:43:11 | I could chew your ear clean off with regards to the concept of "verisimilitude." It's a big part of my doctoral dissertation (which I defended in September, so that's "Doctorrealorion"), but I more or less covered the concept. Basically, "realism" is a conventional genre, just like any other. That's why I try to think of RPGs in terms of what genre you want, including one of the many realisms, as opposed to "resemblance to reality." Anyway... Down time actually solves a whole lot of problems at once. Unless your PCs are Professional Good Guys (or Professional Bad Guys, if you're into that sort of thing), then they're snatching bits of "adventure" here and there. A big, intense series of games might take place over a week, during which time the PCs call in sick and then come back to work injured all to hell. You also can't push Modern PCs too much further than a week because they just can't take the pounding. I find the best way to think about this is like a series of movies instead of like a TV show or a full-time job. In "Action Movie," a random group of Good Guys gets pulled into a plot to blow up a local landmark. In "Action Movie 2: Actionier!," we meet that same group, now good friends, about 18 months later, by which time they've all healed up from their injuries. You can simulate this in a fun way by having your games in partial real-time. So let's say you start your game on September 1st and it lasts five gaming sessions. That narrative ends on October 4th, but it takes up only about 10 days of in-game time. Then you start your seccond narrative arc on October 11th, but for the PCs, five weeks have passed, during with they healed up and even levelled-up. I always forget that non-lethal in Modern works totally differently. I'll be honest with you; I just use the D&D non-lethal rules. You take enough of a beating, eventually you go down. |
| #19chonenFeb 10, 2010 9:35:22 | I have decided to take one of the advice of one of the first replies about the free downloadable modules. What I noticed though was that of the 3 low level modules (~lvl 3 or so) all had supernatural elements. Dealing with the Shadow from Urban Arcana. That is cool and I definitely see how it is easier to make scenarios with an injection of Fantasy like that. But I am unsure of how the heroes and everyone else in the world is supposed to perceive this weirdness. The first module called "Le Chien de L'ONYX" has some dead bugbear thugs early on that the police find. But I have no idea what the ramifications are of them being found. Are the police used to this, what will happen with their findings? But I guess that is ultimately for me to decide. Coming from the D&D fantasy setting maybe it would be an easier transition to start with Urban Arcana settings. Once I get comfortable enough I can always treat a standard non-Urban Arcana world as a different setting where the players would have different characters. I do have a couple Modern related questions/problems that could be a challenge to me 1. It would seem like having access to cell phones and the internet would circumvent alot of barriers. They can get it contact with a wide range of people at any time. And can skip knowledge checks in favor of Google*which isn't 100% reliable I know, but still). 2. Unless you have a group that is composed of Private Investigators, Law Enforcement, or Secret Gov't Agency how often would you be armed? Level appropriate encounters would be much more deadly if no one has access to weapons such as guns. 3. And once they had guns/weapons they would have to have permits. Couldn't travel on planes very easily. Some would be hard to conceal such as a PC taking up the Archaic Weapons Prof and carrying a sword. These are considerations that just didn't come up as much for me in D&D (although there were times where the party wouldn't be armed). ::edit:: added question 3 |
| #20Cyber-DaveFeb 10, 2010 11:27:24 | The ease of dying at 1st level gets balanced out when it becomes nearly impossible from about 5th onward. That doesn't actually balance anything out. That just makes the game broken both before and after 5th level, but for very different reasons. Ideally, a well designed system will never have a high chance of character death, but will always have a high chance of bringing you to death's doorstep. The game should "feel" lethal without actually being lethal. That way the game can feel "realistic," while keeping to the narrative trope that the protagonists tend to "win," or at the very least survive. d20 Modern is pretty terrible at achieving that sort of narrative. 4e actually does a fairly good job of it. A character's health yo-yos a lot. Character's often feel like they are at low health, when in fact they are just a moment away from getting another HP surge from an allies ability to grant another character the ability to use a healing surge. Character's also often get knocked into an unconsious state. At that point in time players are sitting there going "oh no, if I fail three saving throws I am dead!" But the chance of statistically failing three in a row isn't great. Its not impossible (like a 5+ level character failing a death saving throw). I mean, there is a 45% chance of failing any single throw. Its just that failing 3 in a row doesn't happen often. As a result combat feels dangerous, but doesn't often result in character death. Saga edition does a really good job of it. Like d20 Modern characters have an inflated amount of total static hit points. Like Modern the hit points don't yo-yo much. You have what you have, and that is it. Once per day you can use a second wind, which works like a 4e healing surge, but that is only once per day. However the condition track does a great job of getting the "feeling" of lethality across. Taking more damage than your damage threshold (which isn't that hard) and you automatically drop 1 or more steps down the condition track. The condition track yo-yo's the way 4e health yo-yos, and imposes penalties to all defenses and d20 rolls. It "feels" like you have been hurt when you drop down the condition track. I actually like the mechanic more than I like the 4e mechanic. In 4e, you still don't really suffer an "pain" until you are uncontentious and out of a fight, same as d20 Modern. In star wars saga the condition track does a great job of getting the feeling of pain across mechanically. And like a character in pain, a character that has taken condition hits needs to spend a few actions "catching their breath" so that they can keep operating. Its not a forced loss of actions thing. Its more of a "if you have taken condition hits, you really want to spend 3 swift actions to move 1 step up the condition track as soon as possible" sort of thing. As for lasting pain that you can't just breath away, that is what persistent conditions are for... Anyway, the point of my ramblings is this: depending on what you are looking for out of your d20 Modern game, you might want to look to the Saga or 4e health rules for some ideas on house rules to fix d20 Modern. d20 Modern's HP/health/healing/dying/and injury rules are pretty terrible. They can also be house ruled to something better without too much effort. |
| #21TheRealOrionFeb 10, 2010 14:29:09 |
The "Research" skill assumes that you have access to a "library or database." Given how much the internet has developed since the core rules were written, I think having 'net access qualifies. Note, though, that that means that the PCs still have to roll their Research skill! Some people don't have google-fu. A table full of gamers is likely to also be a table of people who don't give their highly-developed 'net-searching skills a second thought, but you have to remind them that unless their characters cultivate that skill, then they don't have it. They might try a couple of google searches and come up empty. As for cell phones, "Oh no! There's no signal here..." Giving them cell access when you want them to have it and then taking it away when you don't is entirely up to you. Remember, now matter how much players might complain, it's your job to build tension, to create dangerous situations, to limit their knowledge selectively in order to make the story exciting. Do it well, and they will thank you.
That's up to the preferences of the table, I think. I love doing no-guns games. It means that if and when someone does step in with a gun, the fight basically ends. You can actually say "Uh, no, you stop now because if you don't, I will shoot you." That said, if you want gun-play in your game, then you can have bad guys drop weapons for the players to use, and then you can have the cops show up consistently just after the fight ends. It's a totally unreal conceit, but then so is table-top gaming! Just do what you group enjoys and hand-wave it away, the same way that most action movies do.
Then part of the game, for them, is finding effective ways to smuggle their weapons, like pretending to be professional antique dealers for example (a la the Highlander TV show), or to acquire weapons when they go somewhere new. That can be a whole element of a game, the enforcer character grumbling about how she doesn't get to bring her guns and will have to buy cheap, local crap when she gets to the mission site. All the problems you're anticipating seem to me to be marvelous opportunities to totally mess with your players, which is your job, after all. Think of yourself as Pippin Took. It's your job to get the party into trouble so that they then get to pull themselves out of trouble. |
| #22narukagamiFeb 11, 2010 2:16:13 | The ease of dying at 1st level gets balanced out when it becomes nearly impossible from about 5th onward. ... yes, thats the joke. |
| #23bone_nagaFeb 11, 2010 16:38:43 | If you want a good look at how real life and the supernatural might mix, take a look at the Dresden Files. I've stolen a lot of material from those books for modern and D&D games. Oh and for guns, realize that it is often easier to travel with weapons that people think. For example, I can't take a knife or gun onto a plane as carry-on, but I can have it in my checked baggage. Or you have a mostly non-metal (probably one shot) gun and the only metal is a spring and a firing pin that I easily manage to get through the inspection (ammo would still be a problem though). Or maybe part of the challenge is smuggling the guns. Or they have to acquire guns or other weapons wherever they go. In some cases, that might just mean buying or stealing one. Other times they might have to manufacture improvised guns, or take them from enemies. It could even be fun to have a couple Metal Gear type missions where you start off sneaking around because you don't have crap, but after you take down a few guards and pick up some weapons and armor you can start blasting. Or if you just don't want the players to have to worry about those issues, then don't make it a problem. Maybe they are government agents and authorized to carry firearms aboard a plane. Maybe they work for a wealthy private firm that contracts flights for them without those silly restrictions. Maybe they own their own little puddle jumper and carry whatever they want onto it. |
| #24backstabbistFeb 11, 2010 16:42:51 | Gordon Freeman didnt need to start a map with no stinkin guns, not while there is a sturdy Crowbar nearby WWGfD |
| #25bone_nagaFeb 12, 2010 0:05:30 | +1 to stabby. |
| #26trappedsliderFeb 12, 2010 17:13:56 | Gordon Freeman didnt need to start a map with no stinkin guns, darn right |