A true D20 game system? Has anyone ever thought about trying this?

5ekyu · Feb 25, 2019

dnd4vr said:
I was chatting with a couple guys in my group yesterday and we came up with an idea. I am certain others have had similar, so this probably isn't anything "new", but I was curious about it and wondered if anyone had ever tried it.

The idea is this: DND with no dice except the d20.

Ability scores: point-buy, standard array, or random by a table using the d20.
Money: average + d20 or max, or maybe something like anything from 2d20 to 10d20?
Attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks all use d20's already.
Damage is always average, so you wouldn't roll for it. If you wanted it random, you could do something like d20-10, d20, 2d20, etc. however you want.
Spells could work in a similar way.

Now, personally, I know a lot of players like rolling different dice, so I am hardly saying I think this is the future of DND or anything, I'm just curious if anyone ever tried something like this idea?

Mnm true d20 etc uses only 1d20 and have for years.

Henry · Feb 25, 2019

Yeah, True 20, based on Mutants and Masterminds, both use only a d20 as the only die in the game.

https://greenroninstore.com/collections/true20

There’s an SRD for it:

http://www.darkshire.net/~jhkim/rpg/srd/srd_true_romantic/index.html

Don’t think that’s the official one though.

ccs · Feb 25, 2019

I've heard of this or similar.

But not rolling would not fly with myself or the people I play with. Heck, myself & most of the others even prefer to roll our stats.
The thinking is this: There's no real risk involved in playing D&D. So why settle for ok/average when you have a chance to roll GREAT?

As for speeding things up? No point in my circles. There's no quota as to how much we need to get done in a session. So when quitting time rolls around we take a picture of the map/minis (if needed) & pick up where ever we left off next week. "Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."....

And then there's the question of why?
All that'd happen is that we'd invent some new way to randomize stuff using only d20s - instead of using the perfectly good & working system we've had all these decades. Lot of pointless work for the same result we already get.
Now if I were designing & selling an RPG in the 70s-90s when everyone had to be mechanically different or get sued.... Then there'd be a point to that work.

Horwath · Feb 25, 2019

Yes, you can do it.

But for me personally, the d20 is the biggest problem of D&D or any d20 system.

The dice has too much spread and is totally unreliable for game mechanics.

I made a variant where only one or more d6's are used for everything.

3d6 is by far superior to the d20 for attacks/saves/checks, but we can't have that in core game because tradition/legacy/grognards

DND_Reborn · Feb 25, 2019

I'll check out the True d20. Thanks!

Again, as to why? Well, there are times in my game where I would like things faster and simpler. Of course it won't be for everyone. Personally, I like having the extra dice myself. But it would be something different to try so we'll probably give it a whirl.

I've never thought of a problem with the spread of the d20. It is basically percentile with 5% increments. If you switched to 3d6, doesn't that mess with the range of things since your max is only 18 and not 20? I made a system a LONG time ago that used 4d6-4. Each "6" on the d6 was treated as "0" and the other numbers were added together. I liked it then because you could actually get a result of 0, which was utter failure and the range still goes up to 20.

Oofta · Feb 25, 2019

I guess we've done this for some people by simply telling them to use averages. Some people aren't great at math so we just worked with them to figure out average damage for all attacks. We round up, so it's a slight advantage. All they have to do is look up their attack(s) on their sheet, roll a D20 and look up the number.

We also used it for some high level spells that take just way too many dice. Yes, it lowers randomness of damage, but not that much. We've always used averages for HP.

It speeds up the game and is something I've considered suggesting for my next campaign. No major changes to the rules, just average everything that isn't a D20. The game flows more smoothly and speeds up combat and can help immersion. Not for everyone though.

5atbu · Feb 25, 2019

HeroQuest only uses the d20, but that's quite a different game..

5ekyu · Feb 25, 2019

Horwath said:
Yes, you can do it.

But for me personally, the d20 is the biggest problem of D&D or any d20 system.

The dice has too much spread and is totally unreliable for game mechanics.

I made a variant where only one or more d6's are used for everything.

3d6 is by far superior to the d20 for attacks/saves/checks, but we can't have that in core game because tradition/legacy/grognards

Or maybe because not just legacy but reasoned preference.

1d20 beatsx3f6 hands down for consistency. A +1 is 1 in 20 more, is an additional 5% and not maybe negligable or much more than 5% like 3d6 does.

They can both produce the same basic probability ranges - just assign the right DC to get the same odds more or less but 3d6 has inconsistent modifiers.

Ran many many years of 3d6 games btw - but the 3d6 were not a plus just a tolerated flaw in design.

The Crimson Binome · Feb 25, 2019

When I attempted to simplify some parts of 5E, while writing Gishes & Goblins, the one die I couldn't get rid of was the d4. Adding a d4 to the d20 roll is a small, but meaningful, buff. I wasn't willing to excise Bless in the name of simplification, or make it the only instance of adding a random +2 to a check, so I kept it there and expanded it out to cover similar effects.

(Wild mages can also use a d6 or d8, but if you're playing a wild mage, then I assume you like rolling random dice.)

WaterRabbit · Feb 25, 2019

Horwath said:
Yes, you can do it.

But for me personally, the d20 is the biggest problem of D&D or any d20 system.

The dice has too much spread and is totally unreliable for game mechanics.

I made a variant where only one or more d6's are used for everything.

3d6 is by far superior to the d20 for attacks/saves/checks, but we can't have that in core game because tradition/legacy/grognards

2d10 would be much better at modeling D&D combat than 3d6 -- that's GURPS territory.

Also, I doubt that grognards would have a problem with dice that create a bell probability over a flat probability. Just make sure you pronounce grognard correctly if you are going to throw it around.