need help dunning a d20 modern campaign?

Question

I am running a d20 game with myself and two others i played d&d before but never ran a game i am kinda lost we have all the books we need but i don't know where to begin
basically what do i do to not make the game suck

Answer 1

The same concepts that work for D&D work for d20 modern. What changes are the nature of the stories and the mechanics and resources available to solve problems. Whatever skills you developed in D&D work here too.

D20 Modern has fewer published resources available, but there are some. Try running a published adventure first, and then let the creative juices flow regarding a follow up. Insert a couple of odd little bits to get the players involved in the creative process as well. You will end up with some observation about something that doesn't make sense or seems odd....now you have an idea for making your own adventure to answer that, as a follow up.

Consider some tried and true campaign ideas if you don't have something original. Consider an episodic story sort of idea, with recurring villains. "Maxwell Smart, here's your assignment this week..." sort of stuff. If you want something deeper or more complex, modify to suit.

A group of free adventures available for download can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=d20modern/oaa/full

Enjoy

Answer 2

There aren't a lot of D20 Modern books, but there are a lot of other systems that have 'modern' worlds. Look through them to get story ideas. Some common themes in modern campaigns:

Horror - Players are either innocent people roped into an unseen world or are part of a secret organization fighting the forces of darkness (Call of Cthulhu, Unseen Armies, Chill)

Spy - Players are spies (SpyCraft)

Police - Players are police or private investigators.

War - Set the campaign during one of the wars fought over the last 100 years. WWII, Vietnam, Gulf War, etc. The players are part of a small squad given special missions.

Supers - Players are vigilantes, perhaps with super powers, perhaps not. There are many Supers systems to draw from.

By the way, unless your campaign is VERY combat intensive, you might consider other systems to D20 Modern. GURPS and Savage Worlds are better for modern campaigns because they make for more 'rounded' characters then D20 does. Remember that combat in the modern world is much more lethal, a child with a gun can kill you (as opposed to DnD when the skill of the wielder is more important).