Renegade announces new editions of Transformers, GI Joe, and Power Rangers RPGs, using D&D 5.5E instead of Essence20

Renegade is ending support for its Essence20 game system, in favor of Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E. Today, Renegade announced it was planning on publishing new editions of its Transformers, GI Joe, and Power Rangers RPG systems. However, the new editions will not use the bespoke Essence20 game system created by Renegade. Instead, the new editions will use a modified version of Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E. Renegade will also release Essence20 to 5.5E conversion guides for free on their website at a later date. Update: Renegade said on their Discord that they were ending support for E20 releases because sales were insufficient to continue with the system.

Renegade will release a BackerKit crowdfunding campaign for the new games, with Transformers and GI Joe running first and a Power Rangers BackerKit coming at a later time.

The Essence20 line seems to have been popular for Renegade, as they've been publishing content for all three licensed properties (as well as My Little Pony) since 2022. All three properties are licensed by Hasbro, which of course also owns Wizards of the Coast, the maker of Dungeons & Dragons. One could speculate that Hasbro could have pushed for a change to their big games system, but one could also argue that Renegade is looking to expand their playerbase by switching from a bespoke game system to a system with a massive existing playerbase.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

Part of the fun of TTRPGs is the players rewriting the canon to add their own ideas, no matter how crazy they are. My intention was never a KP 2.0. but something more family-friendly and focused into comedy, like a sci-fi version of magical girls/mahou shojo.
I am talking about some optional rule for humans workings as Transfomers' sidekicks, in a way like familiar for wizards.

Let's imagine this idea for a campaign. The world is a dystopia ruled by Cobra (secretly controlled by an alien cult from the shadows). Then a group of teen girls (Emily Anders, Kelsey Ace, Lily Parker, April Swanson and Chloe Rose) find a shinning crystal. These are cybertronian sparks, and the great surprise is thanks these some vehicles become the reincarnation of autobots. Now our little group of brave heroines have got a blessed power that allow them to start a rebelion against the Cobra distopian dictatorship. (OMG! I have just mixed George Orwell's "1984", G.I.Joe, Pretty Cure Glitter Force and Transfomers!!)

Magic is canon in Transformers universe but not used by Cybertronians.

My suggestion for Power Rangers is this like a portal fantasy. The difference is here PCs can choose the time to face the villains. Let's imagine an attack of foot minions when the heroes are in weeks of the final tests. Maybe the scriptwritters of the TV show wouldn't dare but some Game-Masters would do.

Other idea for a campaign is a group of teenages were exploring a supposedly haunted mansion and they don't find true ghosts but a couple of children. These are survivors of a humans vs machines war in the future. How could they travel toward the past? Here then the plot becomes a little creepypaste or new-weird fiction style "Backrooms".

Or a planar gate has been discovered and when our heroes explore they find a post-apocaliptic world... but not a standard zombie outbreak but an invasion of "star döpplegangers" (a creature from d20 Menace but here they are "dire wraiths". The good new is there is a great ally, Rom, the Spaceknight. The planar gate was created accidentally as a secondary effect when the native population used teletransportation technology to evacuate during the alien invasion of the dire wraiths.

* Could the rules of the power rangers to be rewritten for a magical girl/mahou shojo version of Equestria Girls/My Little Pony?

* Would be possible a sourcebook about Action Man? How would be Visionaries, Robotix or M.A.S.K. in Gamma World?

 

[Mecheon]

Keep on gatekeeping man, you're doing great!

Saying "Something based on a series should be reminiscent of the series" is gatekeeping. Alright mate, sure, then I guess series bibles are the biggest gatekeepers around?

I think people would say that a Dungeons and Dragons edition that's set in the far future and removes wizards, fighters, clerics, elves, dwarves, magic entirely, dragons, dungeons, and combat entirely to instead be about high speed racing wouldn't feel much like Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[Agamon]

A Transformers RPG should be able to turn into a truck RPG.

The physical book should be able to turn into a toy truck

 

[Anthro78]

Saying "Something based on a series should be reminiscent of the series" is gatekeeping. Alright mate, sure, then I guess series bibles are the biggest gatekeepers around?

I think people would say that a Dungeons and Dragons edition that's set in the far future and removes wizards, fighters, clerics, elves, dwarves, magic entirely, dragons, dungeons, and combat entirely to instead be about high speed racing wouldn't feel much like Dungeons and Dragons.

The problem is that with a brand like transformers, you're not dealing with a series. You're dealing with a dozen series, each with its own idiosyncrasies and specifics. A lot of compromise has to go into building a game that can speak to as many of those series as possible. Arbitrarily saying 'because I don't enjoy series X, it shouldn't be in the game' is gatekeeping. You can certainly express your opinion on the series, but fans of that series are still fans of Transformers, even if it's not your thing. They deserve to have their favorite parts represented just as much as you do. Fandom has room enough for everyone.

 

[beta-ray]

The problem is that with a brand like transformers, you're not dealing with a series. You're dealing with a dozen series, each with its own idiosyncrasies and specifics. A lot of compromise has to go into building a game that can speak to as many of those series as possible. Arbitrarily saying 'because I don't enjoy series X, it shouldn't be in the game' is gatekeeping. You can certainly express your opinion on the series, but fans of that series are still fans of Transformers, even if it's not your thing. They deserve to have their favorite parts represented just as much as you do. Fandom has room enough for everyone.

Yeah I'm pretty sure they will go with the current Image Transformers as a source, but broadly speaking, Transformers spans 40+years of "official" content and some of the Japanese iterations were wild.

I'm one of those non-hardcore fans (but still have been following things since the beginning) that would find it fun to mash Transformers and D&D together. Maybe some D&D versions of Beast Wars would be great to fool around with.

 

[mjprogue]

I know nothing about Essence20, not interested in these properties, but 5e was already popular in 2022, or even 2020 if you give them some time to develop their own system.

So while they may be switching due to popularity now, the question then becomes why they created their own system back in 2020/21 instead of using 5e back then already.

Probably because 5e sucks and they were likely hoping to get enough people with functional brains to try a superior system...any superior system.

But alas, the sheep only buy what they're told by the paid promoters.

 

[mjprogue]

It's all the same system though... That's what I don't understand... It's all d20, hit target number to succeed... Essence is no different than 5e, 5.5e, 4e, 3e, PF1, or PF2... It's all the d20 OGL system with some minor variants in regards to tracking the equivalent of hit points...

Except it's a lot different...and better.

They'll dumb it down to attract the brainless YouTube sheep crowd who only buy what they're programmed to.

 

[mjprogue]

That's a take.

The existing Essence20 system is an adaptation of D&D 5E.

Some folks prefer it to D&D, others don't. Shrug.

I doubt it has anything to do with the "boot". Sheesh.

Of course it does. Wotc buys lazy customers...which keeps any actual competition from being able to exist...despite D&D being pretty much one of the weaker games on the market going back thirty years.

 

[mjprogue]

Congrats to the games of Hasbro's toy properties moving to Hasbro's game property.

Its a disaster.

 

[Mecheon]

A lot of compromise has to go into building a game that can speak to as many of those series as possible. Arbitrarily saying 'because I don't enjoy series X, it shouldn't be in the game' is gatekeeping.

You do know what we're talking about, right? Because uh. Kiss Players is not normal transformers. I'm not talking about say, Energon and its production issue of a dub, nor Prime and its "Responsible for the cancellation of several television shows and nearly killing the Transformers line in Japan because its creators couldn't stick to a budget", or even Revenge of the Fallen and all of its messes. I'm talking about Kiss Players.

Let me give you a choice quote from the Transformers Wiki article about it:

When the basic concept of Kiss Players—"toys with figures of cute girls"—first surfaced, the reaction from the Western fan community was generally unremarkable, amounting to little more than a bit of good-natured eye-rolling and mutterings of "Those wacky Japanese...but if that's what it takes to sell the toys...", understanding that there is a certain subset of collector who enjoys such things. Besides, such a premise had been explored before in the short-lived Binaltech Asterisk line (in which the first toy in the Kiss Players series was originally meant to be released).

This reaction took a sharp turn with the unveiling of the Dengeki Daioh manga. Although not featuring any explicit nudity or sexual content, the comic consists of a virtually unceasing stream of images clearly designed to evoke various violent sexual situations, from the endless streams of viscous, white liquid that frequently splatter over the scantily-clad-to-nude cast members, to cowering, flush-faced, teary-eyed girls pressed against walls with their hips raised into the air, to the most (in)famous of all, the distinctive image of the Legion's blatant penis-shaped tongue, leaking goo from a goddamn urethra. Putting the cherry on this sundae of depravity, the manga employs an art style that uses proportions specifically and deliberately designed to make the vast majority of its female characters appear as though they are underage (despite the fiction identifying them as being at least old enough to drive). Subsequent translations of the radio dramas also revealed that the show's dialogue was loaded with sexual double-entendres, ranging from humor-based (Optimus Prime deriving pleasure from Marissa rubbing the rim of his gas tank) to grotesque examples blatantly evocative of sexual assault (a shrunken Autorooper forces its way into Atari's mouth and makes her swallow it, followed by her begging it not to "move too roughly inside" her)

If its gatekeeping to not want borderline pornography in my Transformers RPG, I have a feeling I'm not the only one gatekeeping

I'd like the Transformers RPG like the last one: Being a Transformers RPG with a whole bunch of obscure stuff and bringing obscurities like Paddles and Rails to a mainstream audience who aren't reading side-story novels from 2006 or the original rejected script of the original movie. Not stuff that would probably have the authors of the Book of Erotic Fantasy going 'yeah that's a bit much'