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Back in The Day I was a huge fan of d20 Modern. I loved the idea of building heroes based on their abilities rather than on the traditional "class" roles of D&D. I felt the individual menus of schticks assigned to each ability score class were evocative of action films and fast-paced adventure. I loved almost everything about it- almost. Skill Points got fiddly. The feat trees were frustratingly complex in some cases, especially as they applied to ranged combat. The ranged combat rules had issues- holy crap was automatic fire a pain. Base Attack Bonus was also an issue- with "fast" heroes not quite as good at martial arts as one might thinkk... Fast forward a couple of decades and we have Everyday Heroes. Boom.
Everyday Heroes fixes my issues with d20 Modern, and does it with its' own flair. It's not a direct clone, with classes closer to roles than the ability score-based classes of the older game. That being said, each class has a very similar set of abilities unique to itself, and three subclasses to further differentiate characters. A dazzling array of team roles are possible with this structure, each fine-tuned by choices. With the 5e mechanics for skills and attack bonus some of the fiddly nature of the old d20 system is streamlined by almost 20 years of game development. Combat now runs smoother, character management is easier, and the game maintains or exceeds the flavor and excitement of the previous incarnation.
This Quickstart Guide is enough to get a feel for how Everyday Heroes runs, though some of my comments are based on the playtest draft of the full rules with all the intended classes and options. This is well worth a look and a download, and an afternoon's one-shot or two. If you like what you see, and I certainly did, the full version promises to be the spiritual successor to d20 Modern to handle all sorts of modern action film games, and perhaps more. With the licenses for modules based on things like Rambo, The Crow, and The Highlander you can get your action film on, sure, but they are also planning modules for things like Kong: Skull Island and Pacific Rim, showing that this game can do sci-fi mecha/kaiju action and pulp/horror as well. This game has the potential to be my go-to set of modern rules.
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