Customer Reviews

d20 Past: A d20 Modern Supplement

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I bought this manual for the same reason as most of the other reviewers did-to learn how to translate d20 modern rules into an era that didn't involve hi-tech machinery, high FX, mecha or starships. In my opinion, the book is very worthwhile and I am glad I purchased it. Like other d20 modern campaign settyings and sourcebooks, d20 past advertises itsself as a campaign background and not a manual; or cook book. I think that is why it has gotten such low reviews here. Both d20 core rules and d20 future are gaming manuals with complete rulesets a nd introductions to the d20 system. Supplements that followed the core book were all labeled "campaign background" because they are just that: a new environment into which an adventure or campaign may be placed. This is certainly true of d20 Future Tech (d20 Modern Supplement) and d20 Cyberscape : A d20 Modern Supplement (d20 Campaigns: d20 Modern). Both of those books are thin and offer the same amount of information drawn from the d20 future manual.

Perhaps d20 past suffers because there is no other low-tech supplement ythat makes its information as useful as the future tech books. Comparing this book to product's like Steve Jackson's GURPS Low-Tech and GURPS WWII: Weird War II, it is somewhat clear that what GURPS needed two volumes to do, WoTC attempted to do in one relatively thick magazine. D20 past will not hold your hand as you devise new campaigns for your groups, but it will set you on the right course to doing so by yourself. I gave this product five stars because its presentation and style are excellent and the book accomplishes what it claims to.

This d20 Modern supplement is exactly what you'd expect. The book is divided into time periods and each one has all the info you'd need to run a campaign or scenario in that time period. Each period also includes a couple of Prestige Classes to go along with that time period. It also does a good job of keeping you informed of what items are appropriate for each time period. For instance, the weapons charts tell you what year each weapon was first used, thus if you are striving for chronological accuracy, you'll have no problem.

Like most of the WotC D20 supplements, this one is well laid out, with good presentation and art. That being said it is even more of a niche book than D20 Future. If you are planning to run a D20 campaign set in the past than it may prove useful. Be forewarned though that its page count seems to be lacking. What is here is pretty good but really its not enough to justify the price. Even the descriptions of the different time settings are far too little.

I BOUGHT THIS FOR MY GRANDSON AND HE JUST THINKS THAT THIS IS THE BEST BOOK HE HAS GOTTEN IN A WHILE. HE REALLY IS ENJOYING THIS THE THE ONE D20 FUTURE. HE LOVES THEM BOTH AND GIVE THEM BOTH 5 STARS.