Review of d20 Past - RPGnet d20 RPG Game Index (original) (raw)

Considering the fact that the precursors to role-playing games are wargames, and that most wargames are historical recreations meant to simulate actual battles as accurately as possible, some might find it either ironic or just plain odd that role-playing games with an historical bent tend to fail or fade away. Sure, there are games that take place in the past, but there is almost always a fantastical angle to such a game. Whether it's zombies in the Old West or superheroes in World War II, it seems that we cannot just play a game where we recreate actual people in actual places without adding some comic-book goofiness to make it interesting.

The advent of d20 Modern did very little, if anything, to alter this time-honored convention of mixing fantasy and history. The new book in the d20 Modern line, d20 Past, likewise makes no attempt to buck this trend. Although three separate historical settings are presented in this book, none of them is supposed to be seriously historical. Pocket dragons, mummy curses and mad science all push history to conform to fiction. If you always wanted to use d20 rules to be a pirate with a very small dragon instead of a parrot, this book may be just what you need. If, on the other hand, you wish to play an historically accurate setting, you might want to keep looking.

Introduction

This two-page intro discusses different campaign models and progress levels to use in a game using d20 Past. Because the discussion is so short, there is not much upon which a reviewer could comment. Essentially, campaign models are your settings (monster hunters or sorceress pirates), while progress levels describe the state of the world (Age of Reason or Industrial Age).

Chapter One: How Real Is Your Past?

This chapter presents a few alternatives and some food for thought. It begins with a short essay on differing views of history in general - is history progressing toward perfection, or degenerating into chaos? Is history predestined by an outside power, or manipulated by a few powerful figures? Or is it all just random chaos, with everything happening by coincidence?

After that interesting but short piece, the book discusses different modes of playing historical games. The first is the strict historical model, which adheres closely to known events and people. The second, semihistorical, allows characters to influence and redirect history. Several sub-models are included here. Self-correcting semihistorical campains assume that history is ultimately self-correcting, and if Edison had not made the light bulb, someone else would have. Diverging games follow history up to a point, and then the wheels fly off and the continued face of history is anyone's guess. Finally, blended history and fiction games (such as nearly every semihistorical game every made) allow for the fantastic to be present extensively, where Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty might team up to fight Dracula and the Frankenstein monster.

The rest of this chapter is devoted to describing considerations that are important for historical campaigns. Elements such as lifespans, gender roles, literacy and communication were all vastly different in the past, and d20 past does a good job of reminding the reader what differences are important.

Chapter Two: Rules Components

This chapter is devoted to rules addenda that modify and add to those in d20 Modern. A few pages on starting occupations address how these occupations in d20 Modern would need to change based on the progress level of the game. A reduced entertainment industry means that celebrities are different, and the truly blue collar occupation does not really come into its own until the Industrial Age. These differences are discussed in just enough detail to allow players to translate d20 Modern to the past.

While occupations may be generalized, skills are addressed directly. For example, any skills related to computers are essentially useless, while driving means something completely different in a 17th century campaign aboard sailing ships. The skills in d20 Modern are updated (or downgraded, depending on how you look at it) to fit d20 Past.

One thing that is an important difference in an historical game is the types of weapons. While a Tommy Gun might be found in a pulp game, no historical game is going to include an automatic shotgun or rocket-propelled grenade. A decent list of older weapons is included here, along with some good discussion on the different types of ammunition and loading techniques.

Finally, this chapter discusses vehicles in history. The most impressive part of this section, and possibly the most useful thing in the book, is the section on ship-to-ship combat. These rules may not be the most accurate sailing ship rules available, but they do at least provide a way to play out those pirates battles at sea.

Chapter Three: Age of Adventure

If you have ever read Seventh Sea, you know what this chapter is about. The Age of Adventure is swashbuckling adventure in the 17th century. The concept could not possibly be unfamiliar to any gamer - sea drakes and sirens, pirates and musketeers. The idea is not at all new, but this is the d20 version. Unfortunately, that's not really new, either.

There is a shortage of useful information in this chapter. There are four pages of setting background, and the only really original thing is the French Departement VII, which employs adventurers to protect the interests of the king against pirates, traitors, schemers and the supernatural.

There are a total of seven monsters that would work with an Age of Adventure campaign. While they are good monsters - the drake, dragonet, siren, and seadevil all compliment a swashbuckling game - they are not enough. Certainly we can pull monsters from other books, but this shortage does not adequately supply a DM with a decent bestiary.

The musketeer prestige class is exactly what it sounds like. The elite guards of the king of France make great player characters, and the class features do an excellent job of emulating these swordmasters.

The other two prestige classes are less impressive. The sorcerer is almost obligatory in a campaign like this, but I fail to understand what the fairly benign shaman is doing here. Witch doctors might fit in the barely-settled islands of the Caribbean, but unless your game takes place in North America, the wolf-friend shapechanger seems out of place.

Three adventures are provided at the end of the chapter, to allow players to get a feel for the campaign. The first, entitled Pieces of Eight, is a treasure hunt in the Caribbean against pirates. This adventure is uninspired, and more or less follows the exact plot you would imagine.

The second adventure, the Diamond Necklace Affair, is decidedly more interesting. It plays off a scandal that occurred in 1785 involving Marie Antoinette, a cardinal, and some very inappropriate gifts. In this adventure, the new musketeers must prove their character and ability before they are invited to take action against a scheme to cause trouble in the French court.

The third adventure is interesting, if a little short. Essentially, three villains live inside a volcano and eat the sacrifices that the village below sends up every year. When the heroes arrive and stop a sacrifice, the three baddies come to town to set records straight one way or the other.

Chapter Four: Shadow Stalkers

Monster hunting in the nineteenth century is the theme of Shadow Stalkers. Whether in the Old West, Victorian England, or the remote corners of the globe, the characters face down mummies, zombies, werewolves and vampires. The world does its best to turn a blind eye to the supernatural, while heroes battle Baskerville hounds and Hydes. The setting has intense promise, but is not presented in enough detail.

A few pages of background detail are all we get to grasp the feel of this setting. Department 7 is nonexistent, although the Fellowship somewhat takes its place as a group of monster hunters. The Order of the Crimson Dawn makes a great society of villains, but I would have loved to see lots more here.

In a setting about hunting monsters, it would seem almost mandatory that there be several new monsters. Instead, we have two - the Baskerville hound, which is essentially a hellhound, and the Hyde, a new template to make any person or creature seriously bipolar.

The frontier marshal is an interesting prestige class, but I believe he is a little too focused for a game like this. Unless you plan to hunt monsters exclusively in a small part of the American West, you probably want a character with a little more versatility.

The mesmerist prestige class might be that more versatile character, with limited psionic ability and a tendency to attract monsters. The spiritualist might also work, if you want to use divine magic to battle the forces of darkness.

The two adventures here are desperately cliche. The first, Desert Tomb, involves exploring an Egyptian tomb and fighting mummies. The second adventure, Dead Men's Hands, is about a supernatural threat to a poker game in a California boomtown. Both adventures are horribly cliche, and have been done absolutely to death (no pun intended).

Chapter Five: Pulp Heroes

As if we did not already have enough redundant material, chapter five presents a d20 version of what is probably the third most popular gaming genre - pulp heroes. A few pages of setting material are presented to familiarize the ignorant about the precepts of the pulp genre, and if you have any understanding of the pulps, you need this less than you need a motorized Elmo doll.

There are precisely no new monsters in this chapter. Granted, the pulps were more about human villains than monsters, but a few monsters might have set this particular setting apart. Instead, we are given three pages of Nazis. No Arabian assassins, no mobster gunmen, no aliens bent on conquest - just three pages of German bad guys.

The flying ace, gangster and scientist prestige classes might not have been all bad, but to be honest, by this point my mind was beginning to ice over. I've read a lot of pulp games, and understand exactly what these are supposed to be. There is nothing new here and nothing original. The book adds invention feats to make these feel more d20, but the fact remains that this has all been done many times before.

The two adventures are the redeeming point of this chapter. A New Drug may be a silly name, but this adventure in Hong Kong is not. The characters stumble across a poppy-derived drug that has terribly insidious side-effects and end up fighting aboard a steamer in a Chinese harbor.

The second adventure, Fountain of Youth, is not as good, but still not completely boring. It features Nazis, as all good pulp games should, and an Indian Jones-style trek through the jungle for a powerful prize.

Observations and Summary

I have to admit that while I found almost nothing redeeming about d20 Past, this is a good-looking book. In fact, I liked the art in this book more than most Wizards products, and that's saying something. My favorite is a painting of a startled Abe Lincoln bounding out of his theater chair as Mary Todd grapples with John Wilkes Boothe. The siren is also very nice, and I liked the Nazi steam-powered warrior.

The book, on the other hand, felt like an exercise in futility. The settings are trite and unoriginal, the information provided is too brief, and the adventures were mostly very flat and uninspired. While I am impressed with what d20 Past was supposed to be, I was disappointed in what it is.

I cannot recommend this game to most gamers. If you are completely unfamiliar with the genres presented, and really want to play one of these types of games, I recommend you look for one of the third-party settings available. This book is too short to relay the information you need, and too overpriced to mine for ideas.

Style: 5 - I think this is my favorite visual presentation of any Wizards of the Coast book since the core 3rd Edition rules.

Substance: 2 - While there are several good ideas here - the Shadow Stalkers campaign has promise - nothing is developed enough, and the book is too short to justify the cover price.