![cityscape-945432_960_720[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/mVv4KdE.jpg "cityscape-945432_960_720[1].jpg")
How does one properly play out a modern day setting? I've been thinking of it but came to the thought that it will be uneventful for the most part, so then I came to think of how to make it interesting for players.
So how do you make modern city settings interesting and enjoyable if it's not something already fun like Velocity?
Make conspiracy theories real and play to secret societies ruling through rogue cabals
>>46225426
The big thing I've noticed about most games set in the modern day is that the PCs are regular people with good intentions rather than heroes of legend so the stories tend to be a bit simpler or at least less "epic" than what is found in most fantasy games. I'm not familiar with Velocity but to imply that a game set in a modern city would be inherently uninteresting is incredibly short sighted. It's not like there aren't hundreds of interesting and enjoyable movies, books and TV shows set during the modern day.
If want to get really simple with it you can just take a D&D adventure and replace everything with a modern day equivalent so
>Adventurers are tasked with defeating an evil guild leader
becomes
>Mercenaries are hired to assassinate a corrupt CEO
Hell, google "weird news headlines" sometime and try to not get inspiration for some scenarios.
>>46225683
pic related
>>46225683
I too enjoyed The Secret World. Well, most of it, anyway.
>>46225426
There's plenty of sources for inspiration since most action movies, spy movies, and so on, take place in the modern world.
I think people find modern settings hard because
1. There's not as much travel/exploration, especially if everything takes place in one city. Even if you're moving around, you have cheap air travel, cars, etc. You can't have the traditional LotR hiking adventure, or jetting around the galaxy like Star Trek.
2. It's harder to imagine the traditional RPG staples like dungeon crawling, or killing dozens of people every session, when you have police and such breathing down your necks.
In general, the more chaotic and dangerous a place is, the easier to set a game there. So assuming you live somewhere that isn't a complete shithole, you shouldn't use your own environment as a reference point. It's easier if your game takes place in a third-world environment, or a first-world environment in the middle of a huge crisis.
Look up the stuff that was reported happening in New Orleans during Katrina (some of which was inaccurate, but still good inspiration), then ramp it up. Natural disaster, viral pandemic, economic crisis - anything that causes chaos is good. It gives both you and your players more freedom, it means plenty of enemies to fight, and lots of problems that need solving.
>>46229187
Another way to handle it is to make it so the PCs are in a position where dealing with the proper authorities present challenges rather than game breaking/ending situations. Games where the PCs are cops, government agents or criminals are good for this and they can be set pretty much anywhere in the modern world.
>>46225426
Saint's Row 2: The Tabletop Version
>>46225426
Pulp Fiction.
>>46229038
I fucking loved the Secret World but if I was god of nerdy wish fulfillment
Oh would I have made that game waaaay better
>>46225426
You need to set the scene well. One problem with a modern setting is transportation: cars expand your players' options in what they can do and where they can go. So you need to conversely make your setting smaller. Instead of two villages, ancient mines, lonely mountain and the swamp between them all? An office building--just one.
Restrict your settings, and give your players a reason to be in them. They can still fuck off to wherever and do plenty of other things, but the places where you adventures take place? Restrict them to areas smaller than you would restrict a fantasy RPG.
That's what works for me, at least.
These all sound good, but what if it is all taking place in one city? Does that change the scope of how it will play out?
>>46229697
>Does that change the scope of how it will play out?
Yes.
>>46229697
In some ways the challenge is too much stuff, rather than too little. A big modern city is more populated than the average fantasy country and far more complicated. Like any RPG it might be best to flesh out a few places, and everywhere inbetween in just "wilderness", even if it's wilderness crammed with millions of people and thousands of buildings. Like any RPG wilderness, you're not going to detail every rock and tree, but your players might encounter some "monster" (muggers, homeless people, etc) while going from place A to B.
You don't have to play a combat-heavy game, but if you are - every building is a potential "dungeon" if it's full of people who want the players dead (and for old-fashioned dungeon crawling there are always subway tunnels, sewers, catacombs, etc). Breaking into buildings is the modern version of exploring ancient ruins, as long as you dangle a mystery in front of your players, make them want to solve it, make it hard to reach and make it rewarding when they do, it's just as good. The scale is different, but the concepts don't have to change much.
If you'd find it helpful I can dump some d20 modern maps like this.
>>46225426
>I've been thinking of it but came to the thought that it will be uneventful for the most part
Try leaving your house every once in a while. Goddamn.
