Essence20: The New RPG System Which Powers Hasbro Licensed Games

Renegade Game Studios announced last year that it would be making official tabletop RPGs of various Hasbro properties, including Power Rangers, GI Joe, and Transformers. This week, they revealed the d20-based Essence20 game system which will power those games.

RPG For Power Rangers Coming

D&D's owner, Hasbro, owns a lot of properties -- and Power Rangers is one of them. They also have partnership with Renegade Game Studios, which has made board games for them in past. Next up? An official Power Rangers tabletop RPG, powered by the D&D 5E rules! There's also mention of G.I. Joe...

www.enworld.org

Elisa Teague from Renegade spoke to Forbes about the system.

“The Essence20 Roleplaying System is a d20 based system that uses what I call a ‘fashion plate’ system for character design, drawing from three aspects: what type of person are they, what is their function as part of the team, and what experiences have they had in their life prior to becoming a hero?”

The system has three elements: Origin, Role, and Influence, and uses different dice for different skill levels.

"When rolling Skills Tests and Attack Rolls, a player will always roll a d20 plus the applicable die for the type of roll they are making, resulting in a total that must exceed the Skill Test’s Difficulty in order to succeed. Essence20 also includes a ladder mechanic, where if a character has specialized in a particular Skill, they may roll their Skill Die plus every other die type under it, choosing the highest die result to add to their d20 roll. A critical success is made when any Skill Die shows its highest number, giving a huge chance of rolling crits, mathematically, and of course, then being able to roleplay those epic results in the most heroic way possible!"

GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony RPGs Also Confirmed For 2021

Renegade Game Studios and Hasbro confirmed to Forbes that GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers will be coming as official RPGs, following the already announced Power Rangers tabletop roleplaying game. While they were hinted at in their press release this week, it hadn't been confirmed that...

www.enworld.org

In Power Rangers, characters don't die. They can be defeated and taken out of combat, but the threats they face are not lethal. The core book covers the period of the show when Zordon was the Power Rangers' mentor. The main villains are Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa.

This weekend, at Renegade Con, they will reveal more information.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If I can ask and I hope to be enough polite:

Any new about My Little Pony, and any sourcebook about any forgotten franchise? Inhumanoids, for example.

Will Essence20 easy to be adapted into d20?

Leveling-up and enemies with Challengue-Rating/XPs reward? Or the stats of the enemies and monsters frm Essence20 to be translated into d20 System with a right XP reward/Challengue Rating level.

Will they be kid-friendly for parents playing with their children? Will be rules easy to be learnt by the pre-teen players?

 

[Weiley31]

I cannot wait to do a G.I. Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony, and Power Ranger Crossover Saga!!

 

[darjr]

Thanks. I couldn't remember if it was WoTC or a different company. I remember claims (which turned out to be kinda true) that Saga was a way to test ideas for D&D 4E.

Yes, and they had several UBER Star Wars fans including Lisa Stevens, and also eventually Rodney Thompson (also creator of SWRPGNetwork and the HoloNet Forums )

 

[Troy70]

I can't wait to get my hands on G.I. Joe RPG.

 

[Voadam]

I'm happy to field any questions you may have about our new and exciting upcoming RPGs

Do the new games use D&D style AC and/or saves?

Do the new games use levels and level based hit points?

How mechanically similar will combat be to 5e in general?

How closely compatible is the intention for using things like bad guys from the worlds in a 5e game?

How closely compatible would starting characters from the different lines/games be mechanically? Would a starting transformer and a starting power ranger and starting etc. be generally comparable in combat or do they start at different power levels?

Thanks

Thanks.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

Sounds neat but a d20+ another die plus possibly a cascade of dice and keep the best of the non-d20 and look for max on each of those dice is going to be slower at the table than d20+ mod and look for a 20.

I see your point, but I think dealing with massive sneak attack damage math can be much worse.

 

[KS_Collector]

Renegade Game Studios announced last year that it would be making official tabletop RPGs of various Hasbro properties, including Power Rangers, GI Joe, and Transformers. This week, they revealed the d20-based Essence20 game system which will power those games.

View attachment 142854

RPG For Power Rangers Coming

D&D's owner, Hasbro, owns a lot of properties -- and Power Rangers is one of them. They also have partnership with Renegade Game Studios, which has made board games for them in past. Next up? An official Power Rangers tabletop RPG, powered by the D&D 5E rules! There's also mention of G.I. Joe...

www.enworld.org

Elisa Teague from Renegade spoke to Forbes about the system.

“The Essence20 Roleplaying System is a d20 based system that uses what I call a ‘fashion plate’ system for character design, drawing from three aspects: what type of person are they, what is their function as part of the team, and what experiences have they had in their life prior to becoming a hero?”

The system has three elements: Origin, Role, and Influence, and uses different dice for different skill levels.

"When rolling Skills Tests and Attack Rolls, a player will always roll a d20 plus the applicable die for the type of roll they are making, resulting in a total that must exceed the Skill Test’s Difficulty in order to succeed. Essence20 also includes a ladder mechanic, where if a character has specialized in a particular Skill, they may roll their Skill Die plus every other die type under it, choosing the highest die result to add to their d20 roll. A critical success is made when any Skill Die shows its highest number, giving a huge chance of rolling crits, mathematically, and of course, then being able to roleplay those epic results in the most heroic way possible!"

GI Joe, Transformers, My Little Pony RPGs Also Confirmed For 2021

Renegade Game Studios and Hasbro confirmed to Forbes that GI Joe, My Little Pony, and Transformers will be coming as official RPGs, following the already announced Power Rangers tabletop roleplaying game. While they were hinted at in their press release this week, it hadn't been confirmed that...

www.enworld.org

In Power Rangers, characters don't die. They can be defeated and taken out of combat, but the threats they face are not lethal. The core book covers the period of the show when Zordon was the Power Rangers' mentor. The main villains are Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa.

View attachment 142855

This weekend, at Renegade Con, they will reveal more information.

This is amazing, definitely one of the big surprises of the year.

 

[DemoMonkey]

Is there even a speculative release date for any of this?

 

[Umbran]

D20 + a skill die sounds a little bit like the Proficiency Dice alternate rule for D&D.

It sounds like classic Alternity to me. Funny that mechanic should show up again in this context.

Edit: I was scooped!

 

[Dungeonosophy]

Thanks Elisa, for offering to answer questions. Sorry for any snarky static here in our ENWorld community--there's always that sort o' thing.

Questions for Elisa:
(Though Renegade knows the IPs better than I, I'll include some reference links so that less-familiar readers could follow along.)

1. Will there be any sort of 5E two-way conversion document? Even if it's just a one-page appendix, or a web enhancement; and even if it's kind of an "eyeballed" sketchy method, it might be of interest to a lot of people.

2. What about also a Tails of Equestria two-way conversion document? (In collaboration with River Horse games)

3. First things first. Yet if Transformers, Power Rangers, and G.I. Joe do well, has Renegade considered adding other Hasbro licenses, such as Micronauts and Rom the Space Knight? Could the "less popular" IPs be bundled together into a Hasbro Universe RPG book?

Hasbro Universe - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

Hasbro Universe

The Hasbro Universe is the shared universe where various characters from Hasbro take place. Several versions of this universe can be referred on various media. Marvel Comics introduced Rom and the Micronauts in the Marvel Universe, making their comic book debuts. Years later, the Autobots would...

hasbro.fandom.com

Hasbro Universe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hasbro Comic Book Universe - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

4. Transformers has probably the most detailed, clear, and complex system for identifying and naming parallel timelines of any IP in the world! Does your game support multiple (or all?) Universal Streams, or is it set in a particular continuity?

Universal stream - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

List of universal streams - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

5. If the game features only one Universal Stream (continuity), is that a newly amalgamated continuity crafted by Renegade Game Studios? Or does it adhere closely to the continuity of an existing Universal Stream?

6. Do you have access to all Transformers IP (e.g. cartoon, live-action films, various comic book licenses, crossovers with Star Trek, etc.)?

7. To my knowledge, Power Rangers and G.I. Joe don't have official "Universal Cluster" designations yet, from the perspective of Vector Prime's nomenclature. Could you give them designations?

Universal stream - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

8. Since you're licensed by Hasbro, I wonder if you could sneak in an official designation for the D&D Multiverse, vis-a-vis the Transformers Multiverse? (Since the Start Wars Universe is referred to as Lukas, that might inspire a comparable name for the D&D Multiverse.) Lukas 577.25 Beta - Transformers Wiki

9. Will the games contain maps of the Transformers "Galaxy" and Power Rangers "Galaxy", as spatial entities? Y'all could really break some ground by crafting a beautifully detailed map of the Transformers Galaxy (at least as it exists in one Universal Stream), in the same way that the Star Wars Galaxy was evocatively depicted in the Star Wars RPG. Of course, the Milky Way Galaxy (and whether Cybertron is even located there) greatly differs in various Universal Streams. But don't you think the Animated Cartoon galaxy might be most "mappable", since it has named "realms" (e.g. Autobot Commonwealth, Decepticon Empire)?

Milky Way - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

10. Similarly, would it be feasible for your RPG to bring the Universal Streams (and "Multiverse," "Megaverse," and "Omniverse") into a visually graspable map?

Something like the Map of the DC Multiverse?: Unlocking the History of the Multiverse

Multiverse - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

Megaverse - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

Omniverse - Transformers Wiki

tfwiki.net

11. Will there be mention of how Transformers, Power Rangers, and G.I. Joe share a Megaverse? Since each IP would refer to this Megaverse using its own name (e.g. Transformers Megaverse, Power Rangers Megaverse, G.I. Joe Megaverse), what would the name be for this shared RPG presentation? The Renegade Game Studios Megaverse?

12. How about sneaking in a name for the M:tG Multiverse too? It's all one big happy Hasbro family right?

13. What about stats for Vector Prime?

14. And Unicron? (No, my fellow ENWorlders, not a "unicorn", nor am I wishing for a pony. hehe)

In gratitude,
-Travis H.