Fluff N Crunch

In celebration of the release of the new movie, we decided to put our model for hacks & mods to the test by working through the a version of 2d20 to use for a Ghostbusters game. You can read Chris' notes and our combined ideas on his blog right here .

We do a deeper dive into this one than the PG...spoiler: it's a good book.

I think the episode title does the trick. We'll address the GM's Guide in the next episode, and in greater depth.

Chris wanted to select a game system to run a homebrew Supers game with his family, and he wanted it to be simple and streamlined for them, and varied and detailed enough to keep him interested as GM. That's a tough needle to thread, and so we decided to discuss it to try and reach a solution. I think I might have won him over, and in a future episode (this was recorded in July before his vacation...

We like the properties published for 2d20, but there are plenty of settings and genres that Modiphius doesn't publish for - so we decided to think through how to reskin, hack, modify, or convert to use some version(s) of 2d20 with other settings. You can read the notes, cleaned up, to which we referred in the episode here . We will add more to that page over time as we revisit this topic in future...

Threat, also known as Doom and some other names in different 2d20 properties, is an essential element of the game for the GM and if you're not using it well, you're not going to get the most out of the system. In this episode we discuss three categories of Threat, as we see it, and give some experience-based advice about how to understand and use it. We mentioned a few of the quickstarts, and thos...

We discuss the newest book for STA from Modiphius and how GMs (especially) will be able to get a lot of mileage out of it, even if you've no interest in playing in the Expanse.

Although the mechanics are still stock 2d20, running starship combat is a lot more involved than that at the personnel level, and requires a more even burden of GM and player knowledge requirements. In this episode Chris and I work through two rounds of starship combat, stopping throughout to comment on how the rules work and how they evoke the right feel at the table. We recommend that, to get th...

We decided to treat all four Quadrant books in one review, discussing what is and isn't in each and how each can fit into different types of Star Trek Adventures games. And then I tried to convince Chris that Voyager is pretty good, and we agreed and provided clear evidence that Wesley Crushed is annoying.

Here's a brief update on our change to our publishing schedule - we're going weekly!

Herein we discuss what's in and what's good about the Command Division book for Star Trek Adventures, with commentary aimed at both players and GMs.

In addition to a generic conflict resolution system - the basic 2d20 mechanic with a few tweaks - Dune offers five different versions of that system, intended for use in story-specific situation: dueling, skirmish combat, espionage (break-ins and sabotage and such), intrigue (social conflicts), and warfare ("send the horse! full attack!"). Herein we discuss what we like, don't like, and are confus...

Chris has a physical copy and I have the PDF...so what do we think of Modiphius' 2d20 version of Dune? This is a highly narrative implementation of the rules, closer to John Carter of Mars than Star Trek, so we're going to see a different kind of feel expressed...or so we assume.

Herein we discuss why it's tough to model some settings and genres in TTRPGs.

Herein we discuss how combat works across the 2d20 games, building on our discussion of the metacurrencies - Momentum and Threat, in particular - and how central they are to gameplay.

Herein we discuss Momentum, Threat, and Determination, player and GM metacurrencies that appear in all 2d20 games, albeit sometimes with different names. These currencies are what give 2d20 it's cinematic dimension, through which players and GM can shape situations in ways that are mechanically coherent and make sense for the story.

We've both run a lot of 2d20 games and confusion always comes up around the core mechanic for players new to the system. Herein we discuss how it works, what it does, and give some indication as to why these are all good (really good!) things.

Chris and Jeremy introduce themselves in this first episode and discuss their gaming backgrounds, interests, and current work.