What you end up with is something that uses familiar d20 conventions but with a different approach. There's easy conversion between the two and instructions are given, so it should be possible to take all that existing support material and use it with this.
This interests me because I'm one of those people who don't get on well with D&D, substantially because of its detail-oriented approach, but I do like to be able to use published material to save work. A ruleset condensed to under 100 pages appeals much more than one approaching 300. Of the competing generic rulesets out there, the one that I know is Savage Worlds. After looking through True20 I think SW suits me better (though True20 gets brownie points for being cheaper). It's kind of the same problem I had when D&D3 came out: it's better than what came before, but would have been better still if it hadn't needed to keep so many links back to historical D&D.
Anyway, let me give you a rundown of what's in here so you can get an idea of whether it'd suit you. Overall appearance is good - layout is clean and legible, though a little cramped. Body text is a point or two smaller than ideal. There are no graphics. It's all about conveying lots of information in a limited space.
Chapters
Introduction - basic concepts, familiar from d20. Die rolls are d20 + modifier(s) vs a target number. There's a list of standard difficulty levels, which would certainly help to run fast and loose rather than flipping to skill write-ups all the time (though examples are given there too). Circumstances usually give a +2 or -2 modifier. A little bit about combat and saving throws.
Hero creation - same old six attributes, but instead of rolling a score that's only used to generate a modifier, you go straight to the modifier and buy what you want with points. Modifiers are -5 to +5, and going negative gives you more points to spend. For some reason attributes are called abilities (and, while I remember, GMs are called Narrators).
It is basically a class and level system, but instead of lots of very specific classes there are three "roles" to reflect the overall emphasis for your character: Adepts are about knowledge and supernatural powers; Experts are about lots of skills; Warriors are about fighting. All the special abilities classes usually get are hived off as Feats, and everyone gets 4 at 1st level and one per level thereafter, so you can customise pretty freely. The differences between the roles are general combat ability, saving throw modifiers, number of skills known and access to specialised feats. You also get free choice of skills. There's no fiddling about with skill points - you either have it (at level + 3) or you don't. You can multi-class in much the same way as usual, taking levels in different roles. (By the way, there's not a whiff of "races". Apparently these were handled by packages called Backgrounds in Blue Rose, but those don't appear in True20. Be human and like it.)
There's also some new, more story-oriented stuff. Each character has a Virtue and a Vice - pretty much nicked from Storyteller, though the examples are just lists of straightforward personality traits like Thoughtful and Cynical. Conviction is a key thing for the game: a pool of points which you spend to do stuff like re-rolls, stabilising when dying, acting faster and, funkily, gaining a Feat for one round. You get a point back each day, and by acting according to your Virtue or Vice. Your maximum Conviction goes up with level from 3 at 1st to 12 at 20th. I'm not sure why, except that it's a very d20 thing to do. You also have a score for Reputation, reflecting how well known you are: if an NPC recognises you and makes a check (quite hard) using your Reputation you get a positive or negative modifier for interactions with them (depending on what that rep is). It depends on role and goes up with level.
Skills - so, you either have 'em or you don't; they're always rated at level + 3 (plus attribute). Each role gets a certain number at 1st level. To get more or to specialise in the ones you have, take the appropriate Feat when you level up. True 20 boils the skill list down to 25, described in this section. They're standard D&D3 fare, reflecting that rather than adhering to any setting, and will do the job. Combat, as usual, is not skill-based.
Feats - stuff you can do that's out of the ordinary. There's a decent number: a general list for everybody to use, and ones specific to the three roles. Adepts can do funky stuff with aspects of their powers; warriors can do more damage in combat; experts can be nimble, tricky and well-trained. As usual, they're all pretty modest on their own, and often quite tactical/numbery (though there's enough that are less so to regard it as a degree of progress). Few have prerequisites - they've avoided the tree structure to maximise opportunities for customising characters.
Supernatural powers is the catch-all for any weird stuff - spells, psionics, etc. You get rules for using them, then 12 pages of descriptions. There is no summary table listing the powers like we see for the skills and feats - that would be very useful for seeing what's here at a glance. You gain a power by taking a Feat, and your ability for using it is the standard level + 3 (+ attribute).
You can use powers as often as you like - there's a big change, right there - but most are fatiguing and if you use lots within a short time you'll tire yourself out. (Hey, that's a good idea. I wish I'd designed a magic system that worked like that. Oh, wait...) This works through a Will save based on the power's rank - but it looks like power rank is a relic of the design process, as I can't see any other reference to it. One would assume it means your adept role level + 3, but that would mean as you gain levels the same power becomes more fatiguing. This needs fixing.
A few example powers: Beast Link, Dominate, Fire Shaping, Illusion, Psychic Shield, Suggestion. If you used these rules to make a fantasy wizard, compared to D&D you'd get a much smaller number of more versatile powers that you could use more freely. A starting adept could be capable of impressive stuff; a more experienced one can manage higher levels of the same thing more easily and have a more versatile repertoire. If you're keen on balance, there is an issue caused by removing spell levels in that some powers are more powerful and/or versatile than others but cost the same to acquire.
Equipment - Wealth is measured as an abstract rating, and when you want to buy something you compare its cost rating to your Wealth and possibly make a roll to see whether you can afford it. Stretch your resources and your Wealth goes down; sell some treasure and it goes up. This will please groups that aren't interested in detailed accounting and bug the heck out of avid shekel-counters. But the game is pretty explicitly pitched more at the former than the latter anyway. There's over 5 pages of info about weapons and armour, showing the D&D roots by detailing damage, cost, weight etc. for many specific types. Then there's another 5 pages for general goods and services. This should set you up pretty well for a fantasy setting, but nothing specific is listed for other genres. Each time you level up you use a key skill for your profession to generate a variable Wealth increase - unfortunately there's some aambiguity about how this is supposed to work. Equipping starting characters doesn't seem to be spelled out anywhere either - there's a brief reference to starting Wealth, and I guess the assumption is, "Now use these rules to buy what you want". Warrior types are likely to scramble to increase Wealth so they can get decent kit.
Playing the game - so, page 62 and we hit rules for 20 pages. Decent little sections on physical and social actions (though the 'Extra Effort' bit in physical is actually more general and should be somewhere else). Then we plunge into Fighting. This is where most of the d20ness is lurking: daunting lists of this and that option. I'm sure it's a lot lighter than the D&D equivalent, and explanations seem to "go in" without mental scraping, but the cramped layout really works against the book here, giving a feeling of density, and ultimately you're still dealing with a lot of concepts. For instance, "The five types of actions are standard, move, full, free and reaction." It makes sense at the end, but at the start you're just wondering whether you really want to travel into Tokyo at all.
Most of the stuff to do with mapping combats using miniatures is gone, but it does break action book-keeping down to the level of 5-foot steps. The stat dynamics are different from D&D: you use Dexterity to attack, with Strength reserved for damage, and Defense (the replacement for armour class) includes your base combat bonus plus either Dex for dodging or Str for parrying. Damage isn't rolled. Here's the big innovation in this section: a damage save, as widely acclaimed in Mutants & Masterminds, instead of hit points. As well as Reflex, Fortitude and Will saves you have Toughness, based on Constitution like Fortitude is but modified by different Feats. If you hit, the weapon's damage bonus (and Str if applicable) adds to the target number for a Toughness save, and the amount the target misses by determines how injured they are. Armour adds to Toughness rather than making you harder to hit.
Now I like the idea of damage saves - it's another element I used in my own system design. But the system presented here is significantly more complex than basic hit points would be; simplifying is not the reason to use it. There are separate but inter-related damage tracks for lethal and non-lethal damage, with 4 and 5 possible states respectively (Bruised to Unconscious and Hurt to Dead). Just failing a damage save puts you on the beginning of the track, failing it by a wide margin puts you further down, and taking the same again makes you a step worse. There's also a Fatigue track with 3 stages (sadly not appearing on the character sheet). Each damage stage has its own consequences in terms of lost actions, penalties to Defense, loss of dodge bonus, penalties to all checks, etc., and you're going to have to learn these; one doesn't lead naturally to the next, as in Storyteller.
There's a big long alphabetical list of possible actions and circumstances. Some of the entries in the list just shouldn't be there: if dropping an item is mentioned in the initiative stuff I don't need an entry to tell me about it. I'm going to be nasty now by quoting one of these. "Begin/Complete Full Action (Standard Action) - This action lets you start a full action (such as those listed on the Actions in Combat Table) at the end of your turn, or complete a full action by using a standard action at the beginning of your turn the round after starting the action. If you start a full action at the end of your turn, the next action you take must be to complete it." A little more editing, please.
The chapter rounds out with a useful list of hazards to inflict on PCs - acidy fallingy goodness.
Narrating the game - 3 pages of short but sensible advice on running games and using the system. I liked the box that says, "These are really the only things you need to know to run this". I'm not convinced about putting the note about how characters level up here... there are no experience points; when the GM decides it would be good for the story everyone gains a level. It's under the obscure heading of 'Heroic Advancement', so not that obvious in the contents. There should at least be a signpost to it where levels are first introduced.
Adversaries - info on how to stat creatures, and a few staple examples. These stat blocks are lighter than the standard d20, with a fresh spring fragrance, though some of that's down to layout. (d20 stat blocks are perhaps the number one thing that puts me off running it. I open the page and every one is like a lead weight on my heart. These, I can do business with.) Interestingly, there are mook rules: any minor character can be defined as a minion, which means any time it fails its damage save it's automatically unconscious or dead as appropriate, no messing around with damage tracks. Very good.
Appendices - the first gives extra stuff for modern settings: new or changed skills like Computer, a couple of powers and a few firearms and armour types. The second goes through conversion to and from standard d20.
Character sheet - nice clean layout, less clutter and box spawn than standard d20. One of the ways they do this, though, is by not listing the skills but leaving spaces to put them in. I sometimes find it helpful to have the list there if skills are fixed and few in number. As stated above, the fatigue track would be useful and there's certainly room.
Conclusion
There are some interesting innovations here, to be sure. The prime market would be someone who wants to have a D&D-type play experience but is rubbed the wrong way by certain aspects of the rules: in particular, they want to be a bit less tactical, a bit less crunchy and book-keepy, with a bit more balance between fighting and other forms of interaction but they don't want to move to one of those sandal-eating, lentil-wearing rules-light narrativist systems.
It's not an ideal buy for someone who wants A Generic System, though, unless they have ties to d20 and some of the above applies. If you have no prior allegiances it's likely that other "generic" rules will do what you want better. True20's kind of in a middle ground between light-and-fast and comprehensive, and it doesn't have enough support for non-fantasy genres. Yet. I suspect that Green Ronin will develop it further and iron out the kinks, so watch this space.
I'd also say that it could do with more polish. My impression is that fans were clamouring for a generic form of the rules so they published it in more of a hurry than perhaps they should. It's worth noting that the print version won't be out till early 2006. Anyone buying this from RPGNow would be well advised to leave a valid email address (my experience is that this doesn't always happen) because there's a good chance they'll be offered free updates as the product improves - this has already happened once, adding a version without black bars that ate ink.
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