D&D 5E Rebooting d20 Modern With Everyday Heroes

Evil Genius Productions is rebooting 2002's d20 Modern in the form of a tabletop RPG called Everyday Heroes based on the 5E ruleset.

Our first tabletop role-playing game is Everyday Heroes™ - a roleplaying universe set in the modern era. Inspired by D20 Modern, Everyday Heroes™ provides a complete rulebook on running campaigns in the current day or the near future. The book covers everything you will need to run a modern-day campaign. This includes modern new character classes that fit within the modern-day theme. It also includes professions (e.g., Fireman, CIA operative, Chef) and backgrounds (e.g., rich kid, military brat, gang member) to help flesh out your character. firearms and equipment, modern adversaries, and revised rules on car and foot chases.

The game includes 6 new classes (the Strong Hero, the Smart Hero, etc., inspired directly by the classes in d20 Modern), 18 subclasses (such as Marksman, Scientist, Commando), along with a ton of backgrounds, feats, and firearms and chase rules.

The team includes some of the original d20 Modern designers -- the company says:

"The core elements of Everyday Heroes™ are based on the Open Gaming License (OGL) for d20 Modern. Released in the 2002. d20 Modern was the first role-playing game set in the modern era. The core rulebook was quickly followed up by a series of expansions including d20 Future, d20 Past, and d20 Apocalypse. The rules were expanded with a series of sourcebooks including Urban Arcana, Weapons Locker, Menace Manual, and Future Tech. Have you ever written something and read it again a few years later? You might say to yourself. 'Man, I would have probably done that differently.' Well, there is no coincidence that many of the designers of Everyday Heroes™ are the same designers who created d20 Modern. This is their shot to take the work that they love and make it even better."

The team includes Jeff Grubb, Stan!, and Steve Miller (formerly of WotC).

Everyday Heroes is coming to Kickstarter in Spring.

Evil Genius Games

Evil Genius Productions creates tabletop roleplaying and board games. Everyday Heroes™, based on d20 Modern, is a 5e TTRPG for the modern world. Officially licensed games for The Crow, Pacific Rim, Kong Skull Island, Highlander, Universal Soldier, Total Recall, Rambo, and Escape From New York.

www.evilgeniusgaming.com

 

[Ghost2020]

There is Amazing Adventures 5e, and Spy Game for 5e.
I used to love d20 Modern, and I'd happily take a look at this.

 

[TerraDave]

View attachment 151205

Prestige classes replaced with subclasses. Shows the power of 5e as a base and a good sign.

I wonder if it will have cash? Should it?

 

[Evil Genius Games]

To be honest, I loved the idea of modern d20, but boy did it disappoint, especially anything above E6-style play (which forced multiclassing into annoying prestige classes). The best thing I remember about it was that it was the basis from which Spycraft evolved. The worst thing was it was used for Star Wars d20 (while not my favorite, Star Wars SAGA was much better).

I'm hoping this newer version incorporates 5E's bounded accuracy and the subclasses work better for the game. And that it doesn't have weird level/feat-gating with automatic weaponry.

Yeah, I agree with you. And I think 5e solves a lot of those problems. And I promise, the game won't have any weird level/feat-gating with automatic weaponry. If you want to pick up and automatic weapon and shoot your foot off, we're ok with it.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I could bet WotC is wishing a new d20 Modern, maybe testing with Gamma World, to publish adaptations of famous shooter videogames (Overwatch or Fortnite: Save the World for example) but the d20 system is not ready for a right power balance. I call this "Cobretti effect", because in Sylvester Stalone action movie "Cobra" the "night slasher", a psyco-killer, was too dangerous for a "survival-horror encounter" with unnarmed PCs, but later the main character, with enough weapons and ammo, was a true "one-man-army" killing all the evil cult of the new dawn. And not only high-tech or firearms. Driving a truck you can hit dozens of zombies. And enemies with firearms are too dangerous for the classis challenge-rating, for example a sniper from the top of a building. How can Capcom's "Street Fighters" character to defeat an Overwatch team? Or fighters from Mortal Kombat against the demons from Bestheda's "Doom". If you have played some battle-royal shooter you can guess the importance of the firearms. Do you remember the videogame "the Evil Within"? It starts like a survival horror, where the stealth is the key, and later the PC can become a true "one-man-army".

Other point is d20 Modern settings are easier to be adapted into action-live productions than D&D. Wan't there an action-live movie with Will Smith, "Bright", practically an ersatz of Urban Arcana?

* I bought several d20 Moderns, but d20 Future.

* This sounds like "WotC" saying "OK, you are allowed to publish this project with your own money, good luck, guys!" to break the ice.

 

[Aldarc]

It amazes me that it has taken 7+ years before someone got around to rebooting d20 Modern for 5e, which I genuinely believe will fit better with d20 Modern's design model than its original 3Era d20 System did.

 

[Morrus]

@Morrus or someone else at Enworld wrote the white text, so ask them if that was just a typo, as I am assuming they only meant the first modern day-set game using the OGL, not the first ever RPG set in modern times.

It’s a quote from the website.

 

[MaskedGuy]

Like these? First responders are definitely included in the ruleset!

View attachment 151212

Well at least pin up poster outfits are gender equal

(anyway this is going to be USA centric as with so many other modern day rpgs, isn't it? x'D )

But yeah, I don't like 5e, but I do think this might actually be fit for it, bounded accuracy does make sense in non fantasy context a lot.

 

[amethal]

I'm really confused by the line about being the first roleplaying game set in the modern era. I very clearly remember playing the old Top Secret back in the early years as a tween... and I'm sure there are plenty of other games published then. Maybe they mean first modern-era game using d20?

d20 Modern took quite a lot of ideas from Alternity, whose Dark Matter setting was in the modern day.

Other ones that come to mind are:

Call of Cthulhu - Cthulhu Now
Beyond the Supernatural
Vampire, Werewolf, Mage
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
James Bond RPG
Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Conspiracy X
Ghostbusters
Men in Black

Admittedly, for some of these you didn't have to play in the modern era, but d20 Modern itself had its Past, Future, and Apocalypse supplements. And whilst Vampire etc. are in the World of Darkness, which isn't intended to be our world, d20 Modern had Urban Arcana, Dark Matter etc.

For some of those, the "modern day" wasn't the early 21st century, but if you use that as the criterion then presumably Twilight 2000 and Millennium's End count!

And presumably GURPS doesn't count because it was intended to cover all eras/genres? Even though d20 Modern sort of wanted to do that as well.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Prestige classes replaced with subclasses. Shows the power of 5e as a base and a good sign.

I think 5E has a good power base for design, and like subclasses (instead of dozens of individual classes), but the lack of prestige classes in 5E design is a failing IMO. Prestige classes are a separate path your PC can take later on as opposed to early on (i.e. subclasses). Prestige classes also help mitigate the need or desire to multiclass, which many people feel is a down fall of the d20 design systems.

I wonder if it will have cash? Should it?

Unless there is a different meaning with modern d20 about cash I am not aware of, why wouldn't it? I mean most game systems have some form of monetary currency.

 

[amethal]

Unless there is a different meaning with modern d20 about cash I am not aware of, why wouldn't it? I mean most game systems have some form of monetary currency.

d20 Modern has an abstract wealth system, with a Wealth rating; rather than using actual amounts of money and saying you character has (say) 10,000 dollars in savings and a new rocket launcher costs 2,000 dollars.