http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/07/12/sdcc-15-john-carter-comes-tabletop-gaming/

Anyone familiar with this "2d20 System"? As a longtime Barsoom fan should I be dreading this or should I be squealing like a little girl?

Modiphius gave Conan to WFRP 3e and SW:EotE designer Jay Little, so I am a bit skeptical.

The 2d20 system is an inherently Narrative RPG system with Out of Character mechanics that force choices made by the player completely divorced from the character's Point of View.  These mechanics are not optional, they are central to the game mechanic.

There is a metagame resource (in Conan called Threat) which the players can choose to use to get extra dice.  Normally you roll 2d20, but can get extra dice - but every dice you get adds to the GM Threat Pool.  The Threat Pool is what the GM uses to invoke special abilities of enemies as well as let NPCs break the rules of the game to do cool story-based things (like guards will react to an alarm in 3 rounds, less 1 round for every Threat spent.)

With only two dice, and extreme difficulties requiring 5 successes, you are relying on getting extra successes from Skill Focus (which means you not only roll under the target, but also under the Skill Focus rating, which then counts as two successes) or from Chronicle Points, which are Fate/Bennies/Effort, the standard extra die type of player mechanic.  Without Threat or Chronicle Points, you can't get 5 successes.

Yeah Rule Zero, etc, but the game is set up so the GM cannot do certain things unless he spends Threat and his supply of Threat is dictated by players wanting extra dice.  You want to do something not normally possible for you, you can, but you give the GM tools to fuck with you.  It's a typical story-based narrative "Players choose how to make things interesting through metagame mechanics not by roleplaying." system.

They also have stuff like ranges being listed in "narrative zones" instead of actual measurements, character resources being unlimited unless some story effect has them run out, all the standard "let's have the PCs play the authors of this story instead of the characters" rules.

Basically, they want to be the new Cortex.  Use a core narrative system modified for each licensed setting.

When I play a Conan game, I want to make decisions like Conan makes, not like Robert E. Howard makes.  Unless the 2d20 system is radically altered you'll get your chance to roleplay Edgar Rice Burroughs come Christmastime.

Ah, fuck. What a disappointing announcement. I'd love to pick up a JC Rpg... but not one using that system.

this makes me really sad. I will continue to run it in Savage Worlds.

Quote from: CRKrueger;841489The 2d20 system is an inherently Narrative RPG system with Out of Character mechanics that force choices made by the player completely divorced from the character's Point of View.  These mechanics are not optional, they are central to the game mechanic.

There is a metagame resource (in Conan called Threat) which the players can choose to use to get extra dice.  Normally you roll 2d20, but can get extra dice - but every dice you get adds to the GM Threat Pool.  The Threat Pool is what the GM uses to invoke special abilities of enemies as well as let NPCs break the rules of the game to do cool story-based things (like guards will react to an alarm in 3 rounds, less 1 round for every Threat spent.)

With only two dice, and extreme difficulties requiring 5 successes, you are relying on getting extra successes from Skill Focus (which means you not only roll under the target, but also under the Skill Focus rating, which then counts as two successes) or from Chronicle Points, which are Fate/Bennies/Effort, the standard extra die type of player mechanic.  Without Threat or Chronicle Points, you can't get 5 successes.

Yeah Rule Zero, etc, but the game is set up so the GM cannot do certain things unless he spends Threat and his supply of Threat is dictated by players wanting extra dice.  You want to do something not normally possible for you, you can, but you give the GM tools to fuck with you.  It's a typical story-based narrative "Players choose how to make things interesting through metagame mechanics not by roleplaying." system.

They also have stuff like ranges being listed in "narrative zones" instead of actual measurements, character resources being unlimited unless some story effect has them run out, all the standard "let's have the PCs play the authors of this story instead of the characters" rules.

Basically, they want to be the new Cortex.  Use a core narrative system modified for each licensed setting.

When I play a Conan game, I want to make decisions like Conan makes, not like Robert E. Howard makes.  Unless the 2d20 system is radically altered you'll get your chance to roleplay Edgar Rice Burroughs come Christmastime.

You make it sound like another system where the metagaming can be ignored if you are immersed enough, which is good enough for me. Though I'll reserve judgement for after I try their Conan game.
In the meantime, Savage World's Mars is going to remain more than adequate!

Quote from: CRKrueger;841489The 2d20 system is an inherently Narrative RPG system with Out of Character mechanics that force choices made by the player completely divorced from the character's Point of View.  These mechanics are not optional, they are central to the game mechanic.

I have no idea what the 2d20 system is like. Never read it, played it, nor seen it played, but I found your review very entertaining. So on the one hand I hope your review is accurate since that makes the entertaining informative and the review even better, while on the other hand I kind of hope your review is total crap, because holy hells does that 'game' sound awful. :jaw-dropping:

Isn't there one or more John Carter (with serial numbers filed off) games available now? ISTR a game called Mars and while searching for it I saw someone mention an OSR thing called Adventures on Mars.

Quote from: CRKrueger;841489The 2d20 system is an inherently Narrative RPG system with Out of Character mechanics that force choices made by the player completely divorced from the character's Point of View.  These mechanics are not optional, they are central to the game mechanic.

There is a metagame resource (in Conan called Threat) which the players can choose to use to get extra dice.  Normally you roll 2d20, but can get extra dice - but every dice you get adds to the GM Threat Pool.  The Threat Pool is what the GM uses to invoke special abilities of enemies as well as let NPCs break the rules of the game to do cool story-based things (like guards will react to an alarm in 3 rounds, less 1 round for every Threat spent.)

With only two dice, and extreme difficulties requiring 5 successes, you are relying on getting extra successes from Skill Focus (which means you not only roll under the target, but also under the Skill Focus rating, which then counts as two successes) or from Chronicle Points, which are Fate/Bennies/Effort, the standard extra die type of player mechanic.  Without Threat or Chronicle Points, you can't get 5 successes.

Yeah Rule Zero, etc, but the game is set up so the GM cannot do certain things unless he spends Threat and his supply of Threat is dictated by players wanting extra dice.  You want to do something not normally possible for you, you can, but you give the GM tools to fuck with you.  It's a typical story-based narrative "Players choose how to make things interesting through metagame mechanics not by roleplaying." system.

They also have stuff like ranges being listed in "narrative zones" instead of actual measurements, character resources being unlimited unless some story effect has them run out, all the standard "let's have the PCs play the authors of this story instead of the characters" rules.

Basically, they want to be the new Cortex.  Use a core narrative system modified for each licensed setting.

When I play a Conan game, I want to make decisions like Conan makes, not like Robert E. Howard makes.  Unless the 2d20 system is radically altered you'll get your chance to roleplay Edgar Rice Burroughs come Christmastime.

Wow, that sounds awful. Oh well.....

Quote from: Arminius;841532Isn't there one or more John Carter (with serial numbers filed off) games available now? ISTR a game called Mars and while searching for it I saw someone mention an OSR thing called Adventures on Mars.

There's a Mars game for Savage Worlds that could easily be used to run a John Carter game with little tweaking, and Revelations of Mars just came out for Hollow Earth Expedition. RoM probably isn't quite as close to John Carter but it still draws a lot of inspiration from those books.

Quote from: AsenRG;841529You make it sound like another system where the metagaming can be ignored if you are immersed enough, which is good enough for me.

You're not so lucky. It has metagames for the metagaming! It does play better than it reads, but that is damning it with faint praise:p
On the upside, Modiphius seems to know their fluff and the 2d20-system can be easily exorcised and replaced with system of choice if you're the tinkering kind.

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;841472http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/07/12/sdcc-15-john-carter-comes-tabletop-gaming/

Anyone familiar with this "2d20 System"? As a longtime Barsoom fan should I be dreading this or should I be squealing like a little girl?

kind of a niche setting/system. People will collect the game anyway.

Quote from: baragei;841547You're not so lucky. It has metagames for the metagaming! It does play better than it reads, but that is damning it with faint praise:p
On the upside, Modiphius seems to know their fluff and the 2d20-system can be easily exorcised and replaced with system of choice if you're the tinkering kind.

I can do it with Fate, and I'm pretty sure I can do it with this, too.

Besides, I've played and run more Exalted campaigns in other systems than I have in the original one. Given that each campaign used a different system, guess I'm the tinkering kind!

Quote from: Arminius;841532Isn't there one or more John Carter (with serial numbers filed off) games available now? ISTR a game called Mars and while searching for it I saw someone mention an OSR thing called Adventures on Mars.

Warriors of the Red Planet

http://warriorsoftheredplanet.blogspot.com/

I think there were a couple Barsoom games for d20, since at least some of the novels are in the Public Domain in the US. (I think John Carter is trademarked, though)

Yeah, I was thinking of that one along with the one from GM Skarka/Adamant (which has both d20 and SW versions, I think).

I chatted briefly with the author of WotRP at DunDraCon a couple years ago. Nice guy, and I liked his art.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to have generated a whole lot of a paper trail. Aos gave it a good word. I think it would get more attention if there was a PDF.