Planning a D20 Modern Game: Test Trial?

[Rhea Izar]

So, this is going to be my very first game that I am going to DM. I'm setting it in the Apocalypse in our small town, and my players will be playing themselves. The Sickness is a world wide pandemic that has wiped out over 3/4 the world's population in a single year. Just as everything was looking at it's bleakest, a meteor shower struck several parts of the world, the rocks raining fire and destroying some cities. A strange orange mold is growing in these crash sites, and strange things are happening to the sick...

Basically, this mold releases a new gas that interacts with the air born virus that originated in the South American rain forests. It renders it ineffective, eliminating the Pandemic, but those who are sick, after they begin to feel better, begin mutating.

So I'm going to be rolling up random mutations, but I need some help with things I can put into my game for the players to face. I will be getting maps of our area and map out what's there and what isn't. Military has become law, and there are several places set up for medical aide. Supplies are delivered to the survivors once a month, and if you have had The Sickness and gotten better, you are immune to it, and pretty much enlisted to serve if the Military can get their hands on you. All nurses are enlisted as well.

There isn't much left, as you can imagine. Biker gangs, religious nuts, red necks, most old and young are dead, families ripped apart, trenches full of bodies, you get the picture.


UPDATE:

Okay, so now I need some people who would be willing to be my guinea pigs test subjects for my game. It will take me a little while to get the reading finished and set up the thread, but I think it would really help me understand the game more.  

[Vorastrix]

well, the longest lasting game i ran was d20 mod...course it was also Urban Arcana, so a lil different.....

the obvious first question is what are you running, i mean, are you allowing aliens, magic, psionics, etc?...

oh, i'd be willing to help to, i have plenty of the books...  

[Rhea Izar]

Well, I've got the D20 core rule book, future, past, and spy for weapons. The mutations will range and be very different, so I can incorporate aliens, psionics and magic-like abilities. My players are going to actually start the game right before they go through the mutations, which they don't know about. They will gradually appear as my players work to survive.

Edit: I also haven't completely read all the books, it's completely new to me, so as you can imagine, I have a lot of work to do  

[Vorastrix]

well....i was thinking, i could be an alien (Fraal pg. 21 cool that escaped from a secret research facility when the sickness spread...

or were you hoping on all humans, becuase i would be fine with that...an alien would be fun tho X3  

[Rhea Izar]

Well all the characters are human, but they can take on characteristics of aliens in the books as mutations. I'm not planning on running it here, it's in real life, I was just hoping for some ideas on what kinds of things might take place in the post-apocalyptic world. I haven't really played anything beyond a few games of D&D. Ideas for mutations would be great to help me out.  

[Rhea Izar]

Hmn...you know, now that I think about it...it might be fun to run a test trial here so I can get the basics down...I already know all about role play, but it's the stats and combat and things like that that I have to learn...would you be interested in helping me, Vora?  

[Vorastrix]

uhhhh...sure...not sure in what way though

also, you can see a list of mutations on page 202 (Future) but i doubt you will like the mundaneness of most of them

and there is also an apocalypse campaign setting book you might want to into  

[Rhea Izar]

I've read part of the apocalypse book, that's where I came up with my plot, and I intend to write up my own list of mutations.

As far as helping, I would like to start up a test game, I just need some test subjects to play it. Might take me a little while to get everything around, and I may have some questions to help me along...but would you be interested if I set one up?  

[Vorastrix]

oh, heck yeah X3  

[Rhea Izar]

Awesome! Okay, first task, why don't you write up some mutations that you might want to see? You won't get to pick your own, but if there are some fun ones, there will definitely be a possibility of you getting them.

I know for the starting characters, players will be starting out as 'heroic' versions of themselves. Since this is online, you can use an alternate persona, but it has to be as close to you as possible. I'm not sure about the level, though, and I know I have some home brew rules that my friend wrote up for me. He was our DM, but wants to play, so he's trying to teach me how to DM.

I'll get the rules around and such as I'm building the rp so that we can get characters made, but that mutation list needs to be made up first.  

[Vorastrix]

well, would they all be advantageous, or can they be detrimental....or mix an match?...either way, it could have something in relation to their personalities or something...  

[Rhea Izar]

I am going to use most of the ones from D20 Future, writing up a combo of the minor and major ones and use those as choices. It will all be random, and a few can affect their personality. I'm also going to add drawbacks to each mutation. After I have a list, I'll generate random numbers to find out what they get.

I'll write some up here shortly, that may help.  

[Rhea Izar]

**Acid Generation: Ability to create acid through the palms of hands or body.

****Animation: Power to bring inanimate objects to life or to free a person from petrification.

**Aquagenism: Ability to create water out of nowhere.

**Aquakinesis: Ability to move and manipulate water.

**Biokinesis: Ability to control biology. Biokinetics can heal, alter their body composition and other things relating to the living body.

*Chlorokinesis: Ability to control or animate plant life.

**Clairvoyance/Premonition: Ability to see visions of the past or future.

*Cloning: Ability to make a duplicate or duplicates of yourself.

*****Conjuring: Ability to think of something and make it appear in your possession.

***Cryokinesis: The mutant ability to create and manipulate ice.

***Danger Sense: Ability to sense personal danger. A limited form of clairvoyance.

**Deflection: Ability to deflect other powers away from you and back to the original person.

**Elasticity: Ability to stretch parts of your body out in an elastic fashion.

**Electricity Generation: Ability to produce and channel electricity.

**Electro-Mental Ignitions: Ability to establish a mind link with someone through the hands and electrifying them and destroying their mind.

**Empathy: Ability to sense human emotions. The owner also has the ability to alter emotions or transmit their own onto others later on.

**Energy Absorption: Ability to absorb energy when used or in use.

**Energy Beams: The ability to generate or transform various forms of energy into a "solid" or concussive beam of energy.

**Energy Waves: Ability to create a huge amount of energy in one attack. Used to kill many attackers at once.

****Fear Amplification: Ability to find another's greatest fears and amplify it - sometimes bringing it to life to destroy them or drive them to insanity.

*Flight: Ability to fly. This goes for with or without wings.

***Force field Generation: Ability to create force fields around one's self or around multiple people.

**Geokinesis/Terrakinesis: Ability to move or summon the earth/ground with one's mind and energy.

***Gravitakinesis: Also Gyrokinesis Ability to manipulate and/or generate gravitons and gravitational interactions.

***Healing Touch: Ability to heal another person if they aren't dead yet.

**Intangibility: Ability to pass through another person or object, or even enter another person or object.

**Invisibility: Ability to become invisible, or unseen.

**Juvenation/Shapeshifting: Ability to change your appearance.

**Levitation: Ability to hover in the air.

*****Magnetism Manipulation: Ability to mentally and physically use magnetic waves of energy to draw on metal and metalloid objects.

*****Mimicry: Ability to copy the powers of another.

***Mind Blast: Ability to overload another's mind causing pain, memory loss, loss of consciousness, vegetative state and/or death.

*****Mind-Control: Ability to mentally suggest thoughts and actions to a life-being.

**Molecular Combustion: Ability to speed up the molecules so that someone or something explodes.

**Molecular Dissipation: Ability to cause solid objects to lose their molecular cohesion by absorbing the energy in their atomic bonds.

**Omnilingualism: Ability to decipher any language.

***Optical Thermodynamics: Ability to expel a beam of heat or destructive energy out of the eyes.

****Possession: Ability to take over someone's body; depending on how powerful the being is in the victim's body for too long they can kill their victim.

*Photographic Memory: Ability to recall the past with great accuracy and in seemingly unlimited volume.

***Photokinesis: Ability to control, generate, or absorb photons, (particles of light).

****Power Negation: Ability to cancel out mutant powers.

***Probability Manipulation: Ability to alter probability, causing unlikely thing to happen or likely things to not happen.

***Psychokinesis: Ability to move things with your mind without having to see the object.

**Psychometry: Ability to relate details about the past and/or future condition of an object, person or location, usually by being in close contact with it.

***Pyrogenism: Ability to create fire.

**Pyrokinesis: Ability to move and manipulate fire.

***Reconstitution: Ability to reconstitute one's body after it has been destroyed.

****Repression Feeding: Ability to "feed" off of one's repressed anger.

***Self Explosion: Ability to explode ones body mass and reform.

*Sensing: The mutant ability to hear and locate other people and mutants.

**Size Shifting: Ability to increase or decrease one's size, possibly accompanied by an increase or decrease in body mass.

**Solarkinesis: Ability to produce solar energy or heat. The power can manipulate living objects who take in the sun's energy to grow or fill with life.

***Sonic Scream: Ability to use one's voice in a manner of offensive and/or defensive ways.

**Sonokinesis: Ability to mentally manipulate sound waves.

*****Spontaneous Regeneration: The ability to regenerate from injuries in a short period of time.

***Sublimation: Ability to transform into a gaseous or mist form.

*Super-Speed: Ability to move faster than humans.

***Synchronization: Ability to copy and duplicate superhuman powers.

**Technopathy: Ability to control technology with the mind.

**Telekinesis/Telepathy: Ability to move objects with the mind, but only those you can see, and the ability to hear people's thoughts, and communicate through thoughts.

***Telekinetic Beam: A form of telekinesis using a beam to move objects.

**Teleportation: Ability to teleport oneself from one place to another. The different forms of teleporting are:
**Smoking - With smoke accompanying you
***Flaming - With flames accompanying you
***Blinking - To think of a location and be there in a blink of an eye
**Orbing - With bright lights accompanying you
**Black orbing - With dark orbs accompanying you
****Shimmering - The most rare form of teleportation, this enables the user to travel from one place or plane to another. i.e. the plane could be the astral plane (yes, it exists).

**Temporal Stasis: Another name for molecular freezing. Ability to slow down the molecules so that someone or something is frozen.

***Temporal Ice Stasis: The same as regular temporal stasis, but only with more of a kick, as it can literally freeze the enemy, with ice.

***Thermal Ball: A very powerful ball of energy composed of psychic and fire energy.

**Thought Projection: Ability to make your thoughts come to life through drawings, books, or just from your mind or memory.

**Weather Manipulation: Ability to create or summon weather from one's energy. Having the power of aquakinesis only lets you do this to a certain extent of weather dealing with water.

***Wind Manipulation: Ability to expose wind with one's appearance or manipulation.

**X-Ray Vision: Ability to see through objects. This can be seeing through walls, or thermal x-ray, or seeing the skeleton, muscles, or anything. However, it can be limited by lead, as few can see through it.

***Cloaking: Ability to hide yourself or someone supernaturally from others.

***Energy ball: Ability to throw high or low voltage balls of energy.

*Fire balls: Ability to throw balls of fire.

***Fire-breathing: Ability to breathe fire.

**Fire throwing: This is very similar to pyrogenism. The ability to throw streams of fire from your hands.

*Hovering: Ability to float in the air, though not as fast as levitation the floater can move in any direction.

**Illusion Casting: Ability to cast an illusion or mirage deceiving one's eye.

**Plasma Ball: Like an energy ball

*****Power Containing: Ability to contain someone else's power with your own.

**Sensing: The ability to hear and locate other people.

((Got this list from here, took out a few of the more powerful, as well as those with radiation, since there really isn't radiation in my apocalypse right now. I'll add more later))  

[Rhea Izar]

I'm going to be using some of the d20 future mutations as well, with their basic system of balancing out mutations with drawbacks. I'll use the list to come up with abilities.  

[Vorastrix]

ohhh, so when you said mutation, you meant like X-Men mutation....makes sense...