I don't know why I like this version of 5E, I just do.
It is quirky, strange, cool, different, and it mechanically breaks down the 5E design into a series of interconnected modules. This is a vertical slice of 5E; instead of doing the traditional class-and-subclass thing, they tear the game's internals apart while keeping it at the same level of power and balance as the original. As a result, you get this interesting mix-and-match system where many of the subclass choices exist outside of the class, and it is a really ingenious design that reduced the typical 5E bloat we see from expansive listings of subclass powers (most of which we never use). I would love to see a fantasy version of this game, since the character building is on a step above most 5E implementations, with cross-class archetypes being used instead of subclasses.
Modern weapon damage is also kept under control, with class abilities providing the damage boosts rather than overpowered modern weapons. It seems counterintuitive, but the entire 5E design hinges upon class abilities being the force multiplier, so it makes sense. Less skilled people will not be able to use modern firepower to its full effect, and what matters is the warrior, not the weapon. If you want a modern gun simulation, play GURPS.
Many 5E science fiction designs tend to fail to land for me, being oddly specific, one-note, or just feel like "D&D in space." This has more of a Shadowrun meets Moebius vibe going, and it can sort of be generic "Heavy Metal" science fiction anywhere you put it. It has a default setting, but really, you can throw this at any homebrew "futurepunk" setting mixed with fantastic races and have it work. It works with realistic races and with fantasy races in a science fiction setting. If you wanted to use this with a "Starfinder" type setup where the game's initial promise was "fantasy races in space," this would do that just fine.
This delivers "D&D in space" while maintaining its own unique, gritty, dirty, and broken future aesthetic, whereas many other games are too "Mass Effect"- clean and sterile. That "plastic future" aesthetic is the bane of many games and TV shows, covering up a great moment of societal change with plastic wall panels and slick-looking Hollywood laser rifles in bright white molded plastic shells. That "plas-fi" future is the state selling you hard on giving up basic human rights for the honor of living in a future where everything is covered up in a slick plastic shell and veneer of social order.
Dirty science fiction leaves room for individuality and personal freedom, and even early Star Wars knew this. The future is dirty and mostly broken down, but you can find honest people among the mass of criminals and downtrodden. The white plastic stormtroopers are state symbols of fascist control. Massive defense projects promising world domination are inherently evil. If you never knew New York or LA in the 1970s, right after the Vietnam War, you don't know science fiction.
In this light, Mass Effect-style science fiction that is overly militaristic and clean comes off as some defense contractor hype video for a multi-billion-dollar weapons program for corporate welfare. Modern Star Trek almost always falls into "plas-fi," and it does not know what it wants to be. Like many IPs, including modern Star Wars, it has no place in today's world since it speaks to no one.
There is no message or pain; the false future sold to us by the architects of the Vietnam War, the promise that military force would solve everything, was a lie that got millions killed. Is that message resonating today, or has the machine taken over the messaging? Modern Hollywood is the machine; it can no longer make science fiction or compelling dramas that speak to the human spirit. Hollywood is a generation waiting to die, destroying the world on its way out the door. You can't speak to the future through an aging group of bitter creators dragging you into their graves.
This is why YouTubers' movies are decimating Hollywood, and there will be a science-fiction answer, likely soon. When you fail to speak to people, they will find ways to speak to each other on their own, and your IPs and properties will be excluded from the conversation. This is also why Marvel, DC, and Star Wars are failing. The original sin that created them is fading from memory.
I hate to speak like that, in such dark and broad-brush terms, but you need to understand the underpinnings of Star Wars, and most of the science fiction IPs came from a world that promised us floating cities, flying cars, and daily rockets to Mars in the 1950s, which ended up in the Vietnam War of the 1970s and the failure of the Dream State. That is a 20-year promise of tomorrow, well within a lifetime, sold hard, and it crashed and burned.
Reality set in.
And Hollywood is echoing those same promises of the rockets to Mars and flying cars, and the pen-and-paper industry writes games to echo that failure. Fantasy in this context isn't escapism; it is morphine meant to dull the massive pain of living in today's world. This is where D&D 5.5E is right now, removing any sense of hardship, pain, or triggering content to purify the numbing hit of painting its players as false gods. D&D 5.5E and the world it presents is a painkiller, safe, and corporate-friendly, and it won't upset Wall Street.
The cyclops are fortune tellers. The lizardfolk are eco-defenders. Orcs are character options. Any mention of people enslaving or slaughtering others is wiped clean. Any semblance of playing in a harsh and bitter, Conan-like world is gone. Death and failure are near impossible. D&D as a fantasy game feels dead and numb.
Modern D&D is a fantasy painkiller without a prescription. It is acetamino-fantasy.
Ultramodern 5E is still very much a "dirty" game, science fiction that smells like burnt oil, lived in, unclean, and broken. It manages to restructure and rebuild 5E into a unique, subclass-specific free framework that delivers on the 5E build process. A lot of 5E compatible games either deliver the traditional "dozen page long" heavy class designs full of subclass options. Here is a paladin, and here are 32 pages of paladin subclasses bloating the game to infinity and beyond, most of which you will never use.
D&D 5.5E is a distraction by design.
Ultramodern was designed in an age of system hacking 5E, and of trying new approaches to that monolithic framework, trying to tear it down and make it a better system for science fiction, diverse occupations, and character types. The dream of hacking and remixing 5E died around 2020 when the streamers took over, and the system has been design-stagnant until Shadowdark rolled around.
There is no starship combat; instead, a mecha system gives the heavy-metal vehicle a combat hit. It is a lot like the original Star Frontiers in this regard; it is just a "ground pounding" science fiction game that focuses on personal action, and you could conceivably use "any science fiction naval wargame" as your ship combat system. Frankly, this is a better option, as many science fiction RPGs fail horribly at delivering ship combat. The only exception to that is Stars Without Number, which does a good job of delivering the ship combat goods while keeping the system light and approachable.
The game also has its own magic system, combining all sources into one, and delivering a "spell point" style system that works well for universes that mix magic and "space magic." It avoids the tropes of the D&D 5E spell list and delivers a good selection of powers that build on the system's strengths while remaining simple and usable.
If you ever wanted a 5E spell, put it in a one-shot artifact or scroll, and be done with it.
Ultramodern 5E is a different design ethos from a different time, when 5E was still much more of a "currently hacked" system, constantly remixed with homebrew. In late-stage 5E, 5.5E set in rigor mortis, cementing many of the design expectations, with massive subclass collections and monolithic class designs. 90% of the subclass options in 5E you will never use. Ultramodern opens them all up to you while keeping the base-class designs focused and simple.
For a science fiction 5E game, that works for me, reducing complexity and the number of pages read while opening up the character design system to a box of Legos I can assemble any way I want. This is the version of 5E where I could take a random "fantasy race guide" and throw them all into a science fiction setting, delivering on the promise of "magic and tech" that many games failed to deliver in the past. From Dragonstar to Starfinder, a lot of games have tried, but very few have endured, Starfinder being one, and on the 5E side, Ultramodern 5E feels like the answer to that system.
Perhaps that is why I still like this game; it approaches the massive problem of 5E's class complexity in a novel way, and remixes the rules into a framework that handles the dirty, post-fantasy-world sci-fi that I like.
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