DINO-PIRATES: True20 In Action

So at last weekend's Con-Fu convention here in Vancouver I ran the inaugural playtest session of DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND, using Green Ronin's True20 system. Thought I'd share some observations on building and running True20 adventures.

First off, building adventures is orders of magnitude easier in True20 than in d20. Putting together the big bad, a 9th-level spellcaster, took, honest to God, twenty minutes. From concept to finished statblock. I can't imagine doing that in d20. I was able to spend nearly all my adventure design time on writing, coming up with cool locales and characters, and very little developing stat blocks. Converting a couple of creatures from d20 was a snap.

Gameplay itself was similarly a breeze, although I wasn't properly prepared to keep track of bad guy's damage tracks and that got a little confusing at times. Remembering fatigue save DCs for power use got a little troublesome as well.

Some of the rules in the book are very poorly explained. Damage and Recovery in particular are very hard to grasp, and there seem to be contradictory rules scattered about. Still haven't quite got it all sorted in my head. Likewise it's unclear to me if a Fatiguing power that's being Maintained draws a Fatigue save each round or what. I've buzzed the True20 forums for answers, and have gotten some, but it's annoying that the book doesn't explain these concepts very well (I don't seem to be the only one confused).

And the "official" character sheet is RIDDLED with errors -- no space for Defense, no space for "Combat Bonus", but spaces for "Melee Attack Bonus" and "Ranged Attack Bonus", which aren't even part of the game.

But the system is solid and easy to run off-the-cuff. I played in a Feng Shui game the day before and True20 is right up there for smoothness and ease of play. Good fun.

Anyone else got thoughts on this system?

i've been thinking about picking it up, but wanted to hear some feedback first. I pretty much love anythign Steve Kenson writes.

I haven't made up my mind on switching over to T20.

Mistakes on the character sheet, lack of material and rules confusion doesn't really help a DM trying to introduce the system to a group thats already having a fine time with D&D 3.5.

There's something about using a stripped down system to emphasize roll playing and not munchkinism, but I'm going to wait for True Sorcery and True Bestiary before I spring this on my regular group. I am incorporating some of the rules (collapse of similar skills & melee hit using Dex not Str) when I run a game for my kids in the next week.

I'd say give it another six months of supporting materials and I can confidently say if I'll be using it fulltime.

-bento

I also thought about incorporating the Dex to attack rule. And i like the concept of the Damage Saves, and i REALLY like the idea of True Sorcery. The Psychic's Handbook is one of my favorite alternate magic books, and a dedicated fantasy book with those rules woudl be ideal. I agree though, rules confusion sort of turns me off.

Barsoomcore,
But tell us about the 'game' itself. What happened??
We are dieing to know!


YS

I'll challenge the "lack of material" criticism, though. Like I said, converting existing d20 creatures is a total breeze. It's no harder than, say, hand copying the statblock from the MM into your adventure text. Seriously, it takes a few minutes, that's all. At least for the four or five creatures I translated across it did. Piece of cake.

So there's plenty of material out there, says me.

The game itself was hugely fun. The first combat knocked two-thirds of the party unconscious in the first round, but they managed to prevail anyway. They found themselves on a Flash Gordon flying pedestal arena combat thingummy, ended up jumping the lava chasm and mind-crushing giant monkeys into helping them strike down the SLAVE QUEEN herself. VERY fun.

I'll be running more DINO-PIRATES sessions around and about. Whee!

True 20's sweet. The next time I run a modern-type game or a no/low magic game, I'll probably use it.

The damage kinda' annoyed me actually. I don't know why they didn't keep it more in line w/M&M2e just to keep it simple, and y'know, not confuse me by being just a little bit off. I also don't like that the wounded condition includes two other conditions: shaken and stunned. Shaken is a fear effect/condition too, so that's extra weird.

If I ever get around to running it, I might just port in the M&M damage track at the risk of being slightly deadlier.

Nebulous said:

I also thought about incorporating the Dex to attack rule. And i like the concept of the Damage Saves, and i REALLY like the idea of True Sorcery. The Psychic's Handbook is one of my favorite alternate magic books, and a dedicated fantasy book with those rules woudl be ideal. I agree though, rules confusion sort of turns me off.

Click to expand...

For clarity, the current True 20 magic system in based on the Psychic's Handbook. True Sorcery includes a new magic system for use in True 20 as well as Iron Heroes and Thieves World. It is essentially an expanded version of what is found in Black Company Setting NOT Psychic's Handbook.

True20, schmoo20! I want that setting, and I want it now, dammit!

Yes, sir, coming right up, sir!

Or, er, well, um, soonishly. We hope.