Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Although I have never played the first iteration of the d20 Modern system, the core of the game is based on the most well-known tabletop roleplaying game, Dungeons and Dragons. The difference is that d20 Modern isn’t all that concerned with wizards and their pointy hats, instead focusing on soldiers, brawlers, or computer engineers in the modern age. Everyday Heroes takes that original framework one step further, altering it to be more contemporary and relevant in the 21st century.
Everyday Heroes Overview
If you’re already familiar with the 5E rules for Dungeons and Dragons, then you will find yourself with a sturdy foundation for Everyday Heroes. Except instead of delving through treasure-laden caverns and fighting mythical creatures, the basis of the game is centered around the present day.
Now, I’m not familiar with every tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) out there, so just know that is where I’m coming from. With so many games out there to try, I’ve never understood it when people attempt to run a game that isn’t best suited for the system. For example, if you want to play a game focused on eldritch horror, then play something like Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu. Or if you want to try a Wild West sort of game then perhaps Deadlands is a good fit.
It’s important to understand the type of games that a given system supports. In the case of Everyday Heroes, the general vibe is somewhere between summer action blockbuster and slice of life adventure.
The character creation process is straightforward with a bevy of options at your disposal. Just like 5E, there are classes that narrow down the specialization of your character. However, there is even more granularity as you choose an archetype corresponding to one of the six base ability scores, and then your class is a subset of that choice. As a side note, I did find it funny that all of the Smart classes had a High complexity rating compared to the other archetypes.
There’s also a kitchen sink vibe that comes with making a character in the sense that you have your profession, your background, archetype, and class which all have a mechanical contribution to the end result of the build. I’m impressed with the number of options out there for you to truly build the character that you’re imagining.
Further customization is available during level ups, in which characters can choose from additional basic or advanced Feats. Coming from Pathfinder, Feats allow characters to specialize in ways relevant to backstory or the current situation of the adventure, and also allow for multiclassing if that’s something you gravitate towards.
Although the general flow of gameplay runs parallel to 5E, there are some necessary rules inclusions for games set in the modern age. For example, Suppressive Fire is an action that allows a player to lay down covering fire, forcing any combatants in the area to Dive for Cover or withstand the barrage of bullets. You also have rules for things like Rocket Launchers and Land Mines—the modern-day equivalents of magic missiles.
The latter half of the book is designed for the Gamemaster. This contains a lot of the standard fare like designing encounters appropriate to the level of the party and how much time it takes to travel using various methods of transportation. Hacking is another section that is bound to come up almost every session, and that’s covered here as well.
One part of the rules really jumped out to me because it showcases some of the attention to detail that was put into the game’s development: chase rules. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a Gamemaster who runs a lot of chase encounters—one party trying to lose or outrun another—because they can sometimes feel clunky. It requires a lot of improvisation or too much preparation making a web of possible outcomes for the hazards that you throw into the mix to keep things interesting.
There are a handful of tables and options for running Chase encounters that aim to simplify the entire experience from the GM’s chair. Between flurries of pigeons or suspicious law enforcement, it’s relatively easy to run chase encounters in the heat of the moment. I ended up whipping one together that ultimately ended in a crash, and there are even rules for handling those.
The final chunk of the book provides drag-and-drop NPCs and enemies of various kinds so that you don’t need to build them yourself. Many systems come with a monster book or a bestiary book, but since the setting of Everyday Heroes is built around the modern day, you’re mostly looking at variations on humans in different professions like military personnel or kickboxers.
Everyday Heroes: Who It’s For
As I mentioned above, I believe it’s important to play games with systems that support the story you’re trying to tell. For those people interested in playing a modern game with firearms, smartphones, and vehicles that don’t need to be roped up outside a saloon, then Everyday Heroes is right here. It does an intuitive job of morphing the rules of 5E—the most widely known and played TTRPG by far—to adapt the game to the present day. It’s a single 460 page book that covers everything that a player or the Gamemaster needs to know.
There are an array of Cinematic Adventures created by Evil Genius Games that use the Everyday Heroes system to support the stories mechanically. These adventures leverage well-known, existing IPs like Rambo and Kong, offering additional rules and character options that narratively fit those stories. This is a strength of the system for those interested in playing games in the worlds of their favorite franchises, but it could also be difficult to get other players onboard if they all haven’t seen the referenced works or don’t want things spoiled.
You can find the rules and options for these adventures rolled into the Vault Rules Compendium book, giving you access to that content without sifting through a published module. Cyberpunks rejoice! There are plenty of options for enhancements and augmentations that can grant bionic eyes, camouflage skin, and more. If the Cyberpunk RPG didn’t already exist, I’m sure that would be on the shortlist for this system.
Another intentional design choice worth mentioning is that the base rules only have characters reaching a maximum of level 10. This is far from the common standard level cap of 20 for similar games, but it really makes sense. It is incredibly rare for characters to exceed level 10 in 5E or Pathfinder. Campaigns either fizzle out or resolve before then, and many published adventures start at level 1. It takes a lot of playtime to hit that cap. Everyday Heroes grounds itself by offering realistic character goals and simultaneously negating the need to create content for ten levels that would only be experienced by a fraction of the playerbase.
I was disappointed by the art in the base rulebook—not because it’s poorly done, but because the styles vary so wildly from page to page that it lacks a consistent style. You have some characters drawn in a semi-cartoony style followed by a hyperrealistic scene on the following page. This doesn’t detract from the game at all, but it’s much more immersive if a game book has a persistent art direction.
After playing through the game on a few occasions, I was pleased at how easily the players were able to get into the system, thanks to its 5E foundation. Experienced gamers will have no problem understanding the core concepts of character building and gameplay. It’s also really fun to play games in a time where characters can walk down the familiar streets of a city, making references that greatly enhance the immersion of the story.
Everyday Heroes: Cinematic Adventures
I’ve been able to preview and play around with two of the Cinematic Adventures—Kong: Skull Island and Pacific Rim. I’ll share my impressions on these modules as a concept, including comparisons between the two that I experienced.
The Cinematic Adventures start by presenting the background information for the IP, giving context to those who might be in the dark and a refresher to those who may have forgotten. This is followed by character options and rules that expand upon the base Everyday Heroes system, often in drastic ways. For example, the Pacific Rim book outlines the Jaeger mech rules including the mental syncing of the pilots, and Kong: Skull Island introduces non-human monsters and hunter rules.
Obviously these rules additions aren’t going to be compatible with every type of story that your gaming table wants to tell. You probably won’t be sliding mechs into your custom New York City beat cop thriller stories, but they open avenues to new kinds of stories. I would love to see someone mash together some of these concepts into an adventure where the players are being ripped from universe to universe, adapting to those worlds’ challenges and mechanics.
Layouts of the books are themed to the adventure, featuring more cyber-inspired elements for Pacific Rim and wilderness-adjacent visuals for Kong: Skull Island. My critiques about the juxtaposition of realistic art versus hand-drawn art leading to inconsistent art direction still, disappointingly, stand in both examples.
I did find that the overall layout of the Kong: Skull Island book was more pleasing, but in general I do prefer if all books throughout a given system line exhibit some consistency in terms of layout. All of the tables, headings, and fonts are formatted in different ways that work fine for standalone books but are less desirable for related books.
The focus of these Cinematic Adventures puts an emphasis on Cinematic first. From my limited experience, there is a lot more weight on the GM and players to bring narrative scenes to life within these pre-written modules. This realization helped me to appreciate the Everyday Heroes system as a whole, making the separation from battle maps and instead opting for a narrative focus through theater of the mind. Having a productive Session 0 to discuss the desires of the table is paramount to any successful gaming adventure, but laying the expectations from the start is especially beneficial with this system.
Pacific Rim Thoughts
The adventure for Pacific Rim was not exactly what I was expecting. It opens up in a fun way that allows players to immediately experience the mechanics specific to this module and feel like heroes—a primary theme for the system at large. Spoilers below, but the adventure takes an unexpected twist where it isn’t solely about ridding the world of kaiju.
After the initial battle, the rest of Act I is largely based on exposition and conversational data dumps. There’s a greater conspiracy going on around the experimental Catalyst tech that you use in the initial encounter, turning this adventure from a kaiju brawling simulator to a clandestine spy mission. The action picks up in the final Act, but there were definitely lulls that didn’t actively retain my interest.
I don’t see Pacific Rim having a ton of mechanical options for games outside of its narrative scope, but building out the Jaeger is fun gameplay that reminds me of building ships in Starfinder. There’s a GM Notes section at the end of the adventure that I feel like fits better at the beginning, reminding Gamemasters to play up the aspects of the game that the players find interesting. If all they want to do is fight larger-than-life battles against gigantic monsters, then emphasize that at your table.
Kong: Skull Island Thoughts
Compared to Pacific Rim, I was immediately drawn into the concept of the Monster Hunter presented in the Kong: Skull Island adventure. It hearkens to games like Monster Hunter World, Farcry, or even Horizon Zero Dawn. However, the majority of the adventure doesn’t actually take place on its namesake.
The one thing that the Kong: Skull Island adventure suffers most from is wordiness. There is so much text without a lot of separation or necessary formatting to draw attention to key ideas for the GM. For example, the bolded portions of text mostly reference skill checks, but I’d love to see some informational blocks for combat encounters that clearly outline foes, their behavior, and any relevant environmental considerations. Putting these things in a normal paragraph makes the flow of information more difficult to parse.
Everyday Heroes: Parting Thoughts
The Everyday Heroes system offers a wide array of options and rulesets to support your games in a modern setting.
Its strengths include a modular approach to ruleset additions, well-known IP integration, and how it smartly expands on the popular d20 framework of 5E. It puts the emphasis on narrative play, big moments, and ordinary people doing extraordinary deeds. Although it may be lacking in consistent art direction and GM-friendly adventure layouts, its access to familiar worlds will remain a big draw for many players.
You don’t have to be a wizard to be a hero.
Everyday Heroes details
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- Player count : 1
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- BGG Geek Rating: 7.625 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 4.0.
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Thank you! I kept thinking about getting this system. Now I know what to do. Excellent review.