Introduction
Because this is my first review for RPG.net, and I am not active in the forums, I thought I would introduce myself. I have been playing roleplaying games for 24 years. Amongst the gamers I associate with, I think I am likely the biggest gaming nerd in the group. I buy more books, read more RPG stuff on the internet and write a lot of gaming material (although in a sporadic manner, meaning I finish few projects). I think more about RPG crap than anyone I know.
Back in the late eighties and early nineties I bought new game systems constantly. At that time, I had some familiarity with most of the systems out there, either via owning the product or borrowing it from someone else. These days I do far less of that, as over the years I am finding fewer new systems or settings that really grab my attention, and few settings that either pique my interest or strike me as substantially different than what has come before.
My own preferences in RPGs is rules-medium systems. I like consistent, simple mechanics but with plenty of supporting rules that can be used when known or approximated quickly during play when you have no desire to slow down the action or drama. I like games with plenty of character options supported by the rules, but are easy to pick and choose.
I have a wide range of playing styles that I find fun. I enjoy games that focus heavily on roleplaying and story, but can also find fun in crunchy combat games, a la typical D&D, where I get to flex my character’s abilities frequently and test my knowledge of the rules (as long as such games also have a decent story to follow).
And, finally, I like universal systems. While I do believe that there are settings out there that are best run using the system provided, due to heavy integration to the rules, I also believe that this is not true for most settings. I also like to create my own settings, and so a universal system is handy. Unfortunately, these days, there is no universal system for me; I don’t really like any that are currently available.
Now, on to the review.
The Summary
True20 Adventure Roleplaying is a generic d20-based system designed to run a variety of settings, from fantasy to sci-fi to modern. It uses a more simple version of the d20 System than many d20 games out there, leaning more towards fast action and simple character creation. It uses both levels and classes, like most d20, but manages to make them more flexible than most.
The Book & The Look
True20 Adventure Roleplaying is a 224 page hardbound book. It has a full color cover and B&W inside pages. The book seems sturdy enough, like it will hold up to the wear and tear seen at most gaming tables.
The art on the cover is decent, but I didn’t like the green background. Also, the True20 logo looks kind of cheesy, like someone threw it together in PowerPoint. The internal art varies in quality and style, but overall I would say the art is of average to high quality. There are a few pieces I found wanting, including the art for the roles (i.e. classes). I know some of the art is recycled from other Green Ronin products.
The layout of True20 is serviceable. I think they went a little “line crazy” with column-wide underlines for two different tiers of headings, plus they use solid blocks of black with reversed out text for feat, power and skill headings, which doesn’t work well with pages filled with feats and such. But, overall, the layout works well enough and shouldn’t get in the way. True20 has a large index and solid table of contents, which is always nice.
For those who care, True 20 is primarily made up of open content. Very little is product identity within the main rules.
Ability Scores
True20 forgoes the differentiation of ability scores (Strength, Intelligence, and so on, as standard for d20) and modifiers. No more does a character have a 15 Wisdom and a corresponding modifier of +2. Instead, the modifier is the score. So a character might have a Strength +2, Dexterity +1 and Charisma -3. Human average is zero. This makes complete sense, and is a route most future d20 games should go. It cuts through the middle man. It does slow down ability score advancement (+1 per 6 levels instead of +1 per 4), but makes every point count.
Initial scores are non-random. The default is 6 points to spread around, with negative scores giving back points. To be honest, this seems much to generous, in that higher values are easy to obtain, especially since some abilities are still not as valuable as others (such as Wisdom and Charisma). I’d rather see the higher values cost more points, such as +1 - +3 costing a point apiece, with +4 being 2 points and +5 being three points. Easily house-ruled, though.
Backgrounds
A background is a grouping of benefits used to represent some aspect of the character’s, well, background. It is a vague concept with very specific rules on how they are created and with very specific examples. All the samples are fantasy races, and more specifically, approximations of the D&D versions of generic fantasy races. In theory, backgrounds could be regional or factional rather than racial, but other than the specific rules for what a background can contain, there is little guidance. The guidelines do talk about placing supernatural powers in the background, but given how powers work and are chosen, it seems confusing. I am not so sure you can just give a background a power or two without fudging things.
With True20 being designed for play in multiple genres, its background and racial rules seem very underwhelming and underdeveloped. It can cover the basics for many games, it’s true, but won’t cover much beyond that. The rules do not allow for the creation of a background that is notable more powerful than the others.
Roles
The majority of d20-based systems make use of character classes, and True20 is no exception, although it calls them “roles” for some reason. Unlike most d20 systems, though, True20 does not try to represent all possible options with a large array of classes. Instead, True20 has only three of them: adept, expert and warrior. These three classes are designed to be generic and flexible enough to cover most character concepts, regardless of genre.
All three of the roles have a core ability, each of which revolves around the spending of Conviction points (more on those later). All three have advancement in combat, saving throws (the standard D20 Fortitude, Reflex and Will) and in skill points (although it refers to ranks in skills directly, rather than actual points). Each class has one good save and two poor saves. Experts get to choose their good save, Warriors get Fortitude, and adepts get good Will saves.
Note that True20 does not use hit points, and your ability to withstand damage does not automatically improve as you level up, so there is no differentiation in classes in that regard.
All classes get four feats at first level and one feat per level thereafter. Each role has a list of specific role-only feats, plus anyone can choose from general feats. So if you want Attack Specialization, you need to take a level of warrior, since it is a warrior feat. Note that not all combat feats are warrior feats. Many are general feats, so you don’t have to take levels of warrior to be a decent combatant.
Overall, the classes are flexible, and with multiclassing being free and unpenalized, you can mix and match to taste. If you consider only the warrior and the expert, it shouldn’t be too hard to create just about any character you can imagine that doesn’t have powers, especially if you start characters at about third level or so. All classes get at least 4 skill ranks per level, so warriors are not hamstrung as they are in D&D. While people who hate classes are still going to be unhappy, I think most people will be able to work with the system without too much hassle. The connection of level to combat ability can make for some odd results at times, though. For example, the expert is designed to be both the “rogue” of the game, a la D&D, as well as the generic highly-skilled type, like a modern game’s gearhead, with an array of technical and computer skills. Both, though, will have the same basic combat ability (+15 to hit over 20 levels), which isn’t always going to make sense.
The odd man out in this is the adept, and through it, the power system. The primary ability of the adept is that they can acquire powers in place of feats. Note that this is the only way to acquire powers at all, as far as I can tell. This means that the class serves no purpose in campaigns that do not involve supernatural powers. It also means that you cannot make a character with only one or two powers they are quite good at without extensive multi-classing into the adept class, which has poor combat ability. Want a psychic soldier that gives up some feats and skills for a powerful psychic shield? Sorry, can’t do it without severely limiting his combat abilities, because the potency of a power is tied directly to adept level.
The adept seems designed to represent those who focus on powers, like a wizard or dedicated psychic. This hinders the flexibility of the system for campaigns where such powers are available, and seems at odds with the flexibility of the other two roles and the system in general.
Personally, I wish Green Ronin had made True20 either a system with one general class with multiple feats per level for things like improved combat ability or saves, or gone with a simple level + point-based system. Given that the True20 author is also the author of Mutants & Masterminds (a classes point-based system), Steve Kenson, I am moderately surprised there is no option for this. If I run a True20 game I will be using a point-based classless system I created for d20 Modern, which should convert over well enough.
Skills
There is not much to say on skills, really. Skills are rated in ranks, and ranks + ability score is added to a d20 roll and compared to a difficulty to determine success. The array of skills is not that different than most d20 systems. Some skills are condensed into single skills (Hide + Move Silently = Stealth, and Spot + Listen = Notice, for example). There are no class skills in the game, so any role can take ranks in any skills.
Most skills have a listing for challenges, which are ways to improve the use of the skill, with a corresponding increase in difficulty. For example, Gather Information has this challenge “Discretion: While seeking out news and information, you keep a low profile. You increase your Gather Information check Difficulty by +5, but you avoid leaving any clues about the information you seek. If your check fails, you may be detected as normal, but you still avoid spreading clues about what you seek.” The concept is interesting, and seems like they could help with giving focus to skills in the game (as compared to combat ability).
Feats
Feats are character abilities that are not covered by skills or other traits. As with skills, there is only so much to be said about the feats in True20. Some key differences include:
1) Many feats do not have prerequisites (approximately 75% of them do not). Many of the feats with prerequisites in other d20 systems have none here, making it easier to craft the kind of character you want, with less planning ahead of time. This adds flexibility to the system, and I generally like this, but this also makes them a bit more “generic” in feel.
2) Many feats can be taken multiple times, with stacking or additional effects. This is not wholly new in the d20 system, but is more common here.
3) Feats are broken up into general, adept, expert and warrior. You can only take a role-specific feat at levels you take that role.
4) Feats replace class abilities, and so you’ll find feats for things like raging, sneak attacks, and so on.
I would say that ultimately, True20 has a decent selection of feats. Not so many to be overwhelming, but enough to make a variety of character types. Because you get a feat at every level, having some choice is nice. The most notable problem I can find is a lack of feats specific to higher level characters. There don’t seem to be many feats you couldn’t have at first level, much less 6th, 12th or 18th level. That means high level characters just take more of the same feats they always could. That doesn’t mean they aren’t more powerful, but it does strike me as being less satisfying.
Supernatural Powers
True20 has a chapter on supernatural powers. Powers range from weather control, elemental blasts and shapeshifting to psychic blasts, mind reading and levitation. I would say that it has a decent selection of powers and covers the basics, but isn’t likely to awe you with its choices.
In True20, the only way to gain powers is by taking one or more levels of the adept class. Adepts can gain powers instead of feats, which means an adept can have up to level + 3 total powers, if they acquire no feats at all. There are feats that modify powers, though, such as Widen Power.
Powers can be used freely, though some are marked as being fatiguing. Fatiguing powers require a roll to see if it fatigues you, with varying levels of fatigue and corresponding penalties to rolls. If you use more than one fatiguing power in an hour, the penalties for the using them increase.
As mentioned previously, this system seems like it would work well for psychics (especially) and decent for wizards (if you don’t mind the overall lack of spell selection), particularly if they are dedicated to that role. But, because potency is tied directly to adept level, it is difficult for others to get in on the power action without making major sacrifices or being ineffectual with many of the powers, especially at higher levels. Its system of fatiguing powers is also very specific, with no real way to tinker with the system to make it work for other things, such as spell points, without GM fiat. It would also be hard to have campaigns where everyone had supernatural powers without giving up other abilities.
So, ultimately, I find the power system useful and am glad its there, but don’t find it really lives up to my expectations of a power system for a multi-genre roleplaying game.
Conviction
All player characters in True20 receive conviction points (which is the only thing in True20 ever referred to as “points” I believe). Conviction points are the same thing as luck points, action points, bennies and so on found in other games. If I had to make a direct comparison, they remind me of a cross between Storyteller Willpower and Savage Worlds bennies. The connection to ST is especially close as each character has a virtue and vice, and following either of these returns conviction. Plus, you get back one per day otherwise, like ST Willpower. They remind me of bennies from SW in that spending one gets you a reroll.
Conviction points can also be used for other things, such as getting extra actions, dodging better, using feat you do not have, and activating a classes’ special ability. Adepts can gain the use of any power they do not have for a short period of time. Warriors can spend a point of conviction to erase their wounds. Experts can spend a point to get 4 ranks added to any skill—even one they do not have or requires training—for a short period of time. The warrior and adept special abilities are both nice, the expert’s is underwhelming.
A character’s pool of conviction starts at three and goes up one every other level. There is an optional rule to modify conviction via the character’s Charisma as well.
Wealth and Equipment
True20 uses a wealth rating for all characters to determine what they can buy, and seems to be very similar or identical to the one found in Wizard’s D20 Modern system. In order for a character to buy something they make a wealth check against the item’s purchase difficulty. For some odd reason a character’s wealth roll is modified by Charisma. I can see the rationale is some situations, such as car sales, but I can’t imagine my Charisma affecting how well I can buy a gun (at least, not in any of the gun stores I have been in). For items you can easily buy, there is a chance to skip rolls.
If I don’t go into too much detail here it is because my eyes glaze over when reading it. While I can see the system being useful in some campaigns where characters have consistent incomes or resources (e.g. Call of Cthulhu investigators, FBI agents, modern mercenaries), it doesn’t seem useful for games where character income is sporadic and specific, such as a typical “adventuring company” fantasy campaign. And, there are no other systems or guidelines for wealth. All items have a wealth difficulty, but no other indicator of cost, no conversion to dollars.
The list for equipment is fairly basic. It presents a decent selection of adventuring gear, modern and medieval, as well as vehicles and mounts, although there are no rules for vehicles that I can find. Where it really starts to fall down is in the armour and weapons section. The game gives nod to sci-fi with things like blasters, but has no ultratech armour. It has most of the typical D&D armours, but has few two-handed weapons. No greataxes or greatswords, for example, which seems rather odd. You can extrapolate such things from the given stats and the d20 Conversion appendix, but a more complete selection would have been nice.
Combat
True20 takes the typical d20 rules for combat and streamlines them. Attacks of opportunity, for example, are gone. Strangely, another thing missing is any form of multiple attacks in a round, barring things like two-weapon fighting or the cleave feat, which gives you another attack if you drop a foe. Even with two weapons, when you attack the same person and both hit, you roll only one damage roll, with a bonus. I have to say I am not to fond of this. While it would certainly speed up combat if everyone only has one attack, it seems rather unbelievable for some situations. I can suspend disbelief for melee attacks, but for some guns it seems silly. Why can’t I pull the trigger more than once with my .45 semi-auto pistol in a 6 second time span?
The single largest change from traditional d20 combat is that characters do not have hit points, and armour does not add to difficulty to hit. Instead, characters have different states, such as bruised, hurt, staggered, and so on. These states impose penalties, and can be cumulative. You can have multiple bruises, for example, and each adds a -1 penalty to rolls.
To determine if a given attack harms you, the defender makes a Toughness save, which is a Constitution check. A given attack has a difficulty of 15 + Weapon Damage + Other Stuff. Strength modifies melee and thrown attacks. If you succeed, no lasting harm befalls you. If you fall you suffer damage, with the degree of damage and corresponding state dependent on how much you fail by. For example, if you are making a toughness save against someone with sword and fail by a very small margin, you are hurt. If you fail by 5 or more, you are wounded. Fail by enough and you are dying.
The system distinguishes between lethal and non-lethal damage, and lethal damage bleeds over into non-lethal, so being seriously wounded makes you more susceptible to non-lethal damage, but not vice versa.
Note that the True20 damage system is based on the Mutants & Masterminds damage system, with only minor tweaks, so anyone familiar with that system should have no troubles adapting to True20.
Armour in True20 adds to Toughness saves. You can add up to Toughness via feats. But, your Toughness does not go up with level. This means in theory that a 20th level character can die in one shot from a 1st level character. In practice this is very unlikely, but still possible. In True20, characters get better at avoiding damage by default, not better at taking it. This is reflected by characters adding their combat bonus to their Defense.
I have mixed feelings about the True20 defense, armour and damage system. While I have not played it, the system does not seem easier than hit points. Toughness saves involve more math, damage requires more information tracking, and the different states of health all seem to have their own fiddly rules. I do think having more information on the heath conditions actually printed on the character sheet would help. True20 does have rules for mooks, though, so standard no-name types drop with one hit.
Armour works well enough, but it seems like it would break down in a futuristic campaign. Want stormtrooper-like armour designed to stop most small-arms fire? In a system with hit points and damage reduction, this kind of thing is easy. If typical small-arms fire does 2d6 damage, give the armour DR10. You can then give the next rank of weapon, such as magnetically-propelled guns, 2d8. In True20, though, in order to stop the 2d6 gun (about +4 or +5, in True20 terms) most of the time, you would have to give the armour a much higher bonus, because of the range of possible results from rolling a d20.
As an aside, an easy house rule is to call some armour “hardened.” Hardened armour is immune to attacks with a damage bonus less than its armour bonus. So a +6 suit of infantry light powered armour is immune to attacks with a damage bonus of +5 or less. This means a +5 handgun could only penetrate it on a critical hit (which increases the damage bonus).
Overall, I think the True20 system for combat works well, and is likely to run smoother and faster than typical D20 systems. Mooks should drop fast, even with only one attack per round. Having multiple named (non-mook) NPCs in a fight seems like it would be a pain for the GM, but otherwise seems like a smooth system.
Finally, I noticed that combat in True20 could be turned into a diceless or near-diceless affair for the GM. Instead of NPCs rolling Toughness saves, they have a Toughness difficulty of 10 or 11 plus normal Toughness modifiers. Attacking players roll damage equal to normal modifiers plus five (since base is for damage 15 plus modifiers). Players make Toughness saves as normal. Attacks could be done the same way, with characters making defense rolls, subtracting 10 from their defense and making it their defense bonus. This way the players make all the rolls against the GMs difficulties for both attack and defense. All the GM does is track NPC damage and make decisions on what they do. Nothing new to those who have read or played Whispering Vault.
Running the Game
True20 gives both rules for other things in the game, including basic rules on social interaction, as well as advice on how to run the game. The advice is rudimentary, and really nothing new to most. Not much to comment on here.
Monsters & Animals
True20 has most of the basic rules for monsters found in D&D, including classifications (e.g. undead, animals, dragons, aberrations, etc.) and abilities, allow you to build a variety of creatures. The rules and guidelines seem relatively thorough, which is nice. The selection of creatures is fairly small, and some more natural animals would have been nice (no large hunting cats, for example), but they do have a Bestiary product out.
Mini-settings
When Green Ronin was preparing to release True20 they did a setting search for mini-settings to include in the main book as examples of what could be done with the system. Four of the winners are included in the book. They are Caliphite Nights (Arabian fantasy), Lux Aeternum (Space Opera), Mecha vs. Kaiju (Gundam vs. Godzilla) and Borrowing Time (more of a rules idea to be added to other settings or modern games, about people who manipulate time).
I am not going to go into any of these, because most of them really failed to interest me at all. Borrowing Time was somewhat interesting, but in more of an academic sense; I am never going to make use of it. They are all very specific, and while most do contain some rules or other stuff that might prove useful for other settings, there really isn’t enough here to do much. I really couldn’t help but think of these mini-settings as mostly wasted space, that could either have been cut down to make the book cheaper, or space that could have been devoted to more rules, guidelines and information for making True20 fit a variety of genres, something the book needs much more of.
Final Summary
My friends and I often sit around and critique the movies we see and the RPG materials we buy, and they often point out that I tend to focus on the negative over the positive, and this sometimes gives them the impression I didn’t like something. Looking back over this review I think people might get the idea I didn’t like True20, so I think I should come out and make it clear: I like True20. I think it is a solid system and I can easily see myself using it. I would have to houserule some things, and convert it to a classless, point-based system, but otherwise I think it is a solid, smooth system and one of the better versions of d20 out there.
In ways, True20 strikes me as sort of a d20 version of Savage Worlds. Quick, streamlined (although not as much as SW) with basic rules that should cover a lot of things, including some supernatural powers. But, for many genres you are going to need to either put in some work or grab a supplement. True20 could do a campaign about psychic characters with little or no modification, but could not do superheroes as written, for example.
On many levels, many of my problems with True20 lay not with what is there, but with what is not. There are few guidelines for molding it into different settings and genres. There are few rules for working with the power system to reflect different needs. There are few alternative systems offered for things that seem very specific, such as how powers fatigue you, how wealth works or how to create different races of varying levels of power.
I also do not expect to see much support for True20, either. Because True20 is a d20 System game, that means you can use other d20 resources, but with the changes to the base d20 system implemented in True20, conversions may end up being difficult.
What I think True20 needs is a 2.0. Drop the settings, add more guidelines and rules for other genres, rework the power system to be more flexible, and then start releasing genre supplements: True20 Magic, True20 Fantasy, True20 Future, and so on. I really want a d20-based universal system with extensive support, and so far True20 seems like the best choice to be modified into such a beast.
Note that the Substance rating was not easy to decide upon. What’s there is good, it just needs more, with the chaff stripped away. If you like d20, and like the sounds of a streamlined version, and don’t mind spending money on a large book with a 70+ page chunk you may never use, think of True20 as having Substance 4.
Review Summary