d20 Past: A d20 Modern Supplement [Paperback]

James Wyatt (Author), Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel (Author)

Book Description

Series: d20 Modern Supplement | Publication Date: March 1, 2005

New rules for running a d20 Modern campaign set in the past.

This new rules supplement provides everything players and gamemasters need to participate in adventures in the time period between the Renaissance and World War II, including new character options and rules for early modern firearms. It begins with an exploration of the historical period between 1450 and 1950, then provides rules for creating characters and campaigns that blend realism and fantasy. d20 Past also presents alternative campaign models, along with all the rules needed to play swashbuckling pirate adventures, Victorian horror investigations, thrilling Pulp Era escapades, and more, including three ready-to-play campaign modules.

AUTHOR BIO: James Wyatt won an Origins award for Oriental Adventures™. He has also co-authored numerous roleplaying game products, including the Eberron™ Campaign Setting, Sharn: City of Towers™, Draconomicon: The Book of Dragons™, and Book of Exalted Deeds™.
AUTHRO BIO: Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel is a managing editor for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. In addition to editing several D&D® books, she co-authored Underdark™ and Planar Handbook™ for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

JAMES WYATT won an Origins award for writing Oriental Adventures™. He has also co-authored numerous roleplaying game products, including the Eberron™ Campaign Setting, Sharn: City of Towers™, Draconomicon™, and Book of Exalted Deeds™.

GWENDOLYN F.M. KESTREL is a managing editor for Wizards of the Coast, Inc. In addition to editing several D&D® books, she has also co-authored Underdark™ and Planar Handbook™ for Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786936568
• ISBN-13: 978-0786936564
• Product Dimensions: 10.6 x 8.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,059 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could have been much better, April 9, 2005

By 

C. Bedford Crenshaw "the Rebel Rockhopper" (Indiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: d20 Past: A d20 Modern Supplement (Paperback)

I had high hopes for this book. Too bad it didn't live up. Once you see how skinny the book is, you will start to be concerned.

First, what the book does well. It gives a nice general overview on how to translate d20 Modern occupations, skills, and feats to less modern eras. The book also does the best job yet for showing how to have a d20 Pirates/1600's setting, complete with a sample adventure. The various advanced and prestige classes (Explorer, Musketeer, Shaman, and Sorcerer) for that era are also well done.

Sadly, once you are done with the section concerning 17th-century adventuring, the book drops down in value fast. Instead of giving general guidelines for the eras in question, d20 Past force feeds two campaign settings that are only moderately described. (It gives 24 pages for 17th Century, but only 16 for "Shadow Stalkers" (Victorian) and 15 for "Pulp Heroes" (1930's)) Outside of the rifles rules that were presented in the first chapter of the book, there is nothing to recommend getting this book instead of prexisting d20 books like Forbidden Kingdoms from OWC or Masque of the Red Death from S&S. The adventure models are weak for those eras, and the prestige classes are nothing special.

With nothing on how to deal with the Wars of the eras (Napoleon, American revolution, American Civil War, WWI), and the exceptionally-poor-for-WotC artwork in the book, the only reason to pick up this book is if one wants to do 1600's settings using d20 Modern rules. All others should look instead at the books I previously mentioned.

12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was hoping for, July 13, 2005

By 

Aussiefax - See all my reviews

This review is from: d20 Past: A d20 Modern Supplement (Paperback)

If you are looking for new classes, vehicle stats, and Open Gaming content, then this is NOT the book for you. I was hoping to find some good stuff in this title that I could use on a broader scale, but it's pretty much just bland and useless information. The kind of information you can easily find for free online. The only redeeming section in the whole book is the part on gun powder weapons, everything else is pretty much just a miss-mash of bad ideas.

What I was hoping to find were new character classes like: Pirate, Black Smith, Sailer, Merchant, Baron, etc. Instead all the book offered was a prestige class called Explorer and another for a Shaman. There are hardly any good stats for transportation devices or anything on inventions or inventing.

Finally, what little in this book that is usable is not part of the OGL. So, for example, all the stats on gun powder weapons cannot be utilized into another campaign book or resource book to keep rules standardized. This is irritating because the content is unoriginal and part of western civilization's history and should therefore be part of the OGL, not copyright protected.

Perhaps I was expecting too much, but I felt like a lot was missing and most of the information and content presented wasn't useful enough to make the book worth while.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Well, I bought it...., October 24, 2005

By 

V. Archer "ibble blibble" (free country, usa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: d20 Past: A d20 Modern Supplement (Paperback)

I admit I expected a bit more...

Three campaign models are discussed here in some detail - pirates, pulp fiction and...something else - gothic stuff, I think?

The equipment list and monsters are a bit skimpy, tables are reproduced, artwork is nice, but the whole seems to lack a bit. On the good side, it contains descriptions of all sorts of archaic personal firearms (now I can equip my post apocalyptic mutated badgers with gatling guns and pepperbox pistols - but I could have figured that stuff out anyway, I suppose). The Sailing combat rules are solid also.

I guess for the price its a good buy, but not quite what I was expecting.