Vehicles is a True20 supplement in PDF format from Reality Deviant Press.
Green Ronin’s True20 tries for a “toolkit” approach. The core rulebook is intended to be useful for games of all genres, and has to cover a lot of ground. As a result it can’t cover all areas in detail. One area in which it is particularly lacking, in my opinion, is in vehicles rules – especially in my favourite genre, space opera.
I was pleased to see that Reality Deviant Press were bring out a licensed True20 product covering vehicles. I have some of their other PDFs, which I liked a lot, and the previews for the product looked very interesting. I received a review copy after responding to the request for reviewers in the Open Call section of the ENWorld message boards.
Vehicles is a 61 page PDF, including the front cover, credits page, two page table of contents (linked to the main document for easy navigation) and two page OGL.
I like the full colour front cover, which features a modern tank and a rhinoceros drawn cart crewed by orcs. There might be a UFO trailing on behind; its hard to tell as the title gets in the way. There is a fair amount of art inside. Its in black and white, which is a shame as most of the pieces are very evocative and I imagine they’d look great in colour.
One of the things that appeals to me about True20 artwork is the juxtaposition of different genres, and Vehicles is no exception. My favourites were the duelling biplanes on page 5 and the Napoleonic warship that takes up the whole of page 14.
It is divided into six chapters. Two chapters of rules, three chapters of vehicles split by era – low tech / fantasy, modern and future, and one chapter for the Narrator on using vehicles in True20 games.
Somewhat unusually, at least in my experience with PDFs, it includes a 3 page index. I think this is a very useful feature, especially in a PDF since it isn’t taking up a limited number of physical pages that could be used for something else. Looking for the torpedo bomber? It’s on page 33.
Chapter 1 contains expanded vehicles rules, and is pretty crunchy. There are rules for running abstract vehicle combat. The Narrator is encouraged to use common sense throughout, which to my mind is a perfectly acceptable approach in True20; other systems may discourage such “GM fiat”.
It also includes ways in which skills can feature in a vehicle encounter – those bad guys who were always leaping out of exploding vehicles in the nick of time in the “A Team” had clearly maxed out their escape artist skill whereas hotwiring cars needs a disable device check.
Chapter 2 covers vehicle feats. True20 grants a four feats at first level and a feat every level after that, but even so there are already far more feats available than any character could hope to take. This chapter offers a modest seven feats (plus a revision to the Vehicular Combat feat in the True20 core rules) for those who want to be hotshot pilots or drivers. (Two general, four expert and one warrior/expert.)
Some of them allow you to add your Reputation bonus to Drive checks or vehicle attack rolls. This is the first time I’ve seen this particular mechanic used, although maybe it appears in other True20 products I am not familiar with. It seems a bit odd to me, and I’m not sure what I think about it. However, if you are running a game in which you want Reputation to be important (maybe something similar to The Fast and the Furious) then these feats could be useful.
Now that we’ve got the rules out of the way, its time for the meat of the book – the vehicles themselves. Chapter 3 is fantasy / low tech vehicles, of which there are 30 – 10 animal drawn chariots / wagons / carriages, 19 boats (including galleon and galley already in True20 core book) and 1 siege steamer (an armoured siege weapon which is manhandled into place and then fires a burst of steam at the enemy) plus an arbalest, ballista and catapult to mount on them.
My favourite is the Carriage of the Gothic Lord, a luxury heavy carriage which has supernatural qualities, enabling it to move as fast as a light carriage. “Advising the carriage driver of your destination is futile, for he already knows where he is taking you.”
It would be nice to have pictures of all these vehicles, instead of just a handful, but I suppose that would be impractical.
The chapter, and also the next two, ends with some story ideas, which are not much use to me, - I’ve got the ideas, I just needed the vehicles! Chapter 3 also has some supernatural abilities you could give your vehicles, such as Blinking or Energy Resistance. (For complete rules for endowing items with supernatural abilities you’ll need the True20 Companion.)
Chapter 4, Modern Vehicles, is divided into Industrial Age, Golden Age and Modern Age vehicles. No dates are given for each era, which is a shame, but there are loads of land, sea and air vehicles, and also some basic spacecraft; far too many to list here.
We also have more vehicle mounted weapons – from Industrial Age gatling guns to Golden Age anti-tank guns to Modern Age … well, gatling guns, actually, but now firing depleted uranium.
I am very impressed by the sheer number of vehicles in this chapter, which has the usual cars, warships, fighter aircraft and such, but also includes trains, zeppelins, helicopters, submarines and hovercraft.
There are also quick and easy rules for technical superiority, use of radar, stealth technology and more.
Then we move on to what I am most interested in – Chapter 5, Future.
It is split into Near Future (hoverboards, moon base shuttles etc.) and Sci-Fi (space destroyers!) There are plenty of vehicles, and a wide range of types. I was expecting the usual space destroyers, space fighters and freighters, but there are also space elevators, vacuum trains, powered asteroids and anti-grav terrestrial vehicles, together with laser cannon to mount on them.
There are short and simple rules for tracking through hyperspace, sensor ranges, deflector shields and more.
Chapter 6 is a short chapter of ideas for using vehicles in games. It includes a suggestion on how to run dog fights, which I liked, and advice on how to give all of the heroes something to do. Some of it, such as the customising vehicles section, seemed obvious to me, but others may find it useful.
All in all, Vehicles is an excellent resource for adding vehicles to a True20 game, and its pretty much all open game content.
Green Ronin’s True20 tries for a “toolkit” approach. The core rulebook is intended to be useful for games of all genres, and has to cover a lot of ground. As a result it can’t cover all areas in detail. One area in which it is particularly lacking, in my opinion, is in vehicles rules – especially in my favourite genre, space opera.
I was pleased to see that Reality Deviant Press were bring out a licensed True20 product covering vehicles. I have some of their other PDFs, which I liked a lot, and the previews for the product looked very interesting. I received a review copy after responding to the request for reviewers in the Open Call section of the ENWorld message boards.
Vehicles is a 61 page PDF, including the front cover, credits page, two page table of contents (linked to the main document for easy navigation) and two page OGL.
I like the full colour front cover, which features a modern tank and a rhinoceros drawn cart crewed by orcs. There might be a UFO trailing on behind; its hard to tell as the title gets in the way. There is a fair amount of art inside. Its in black and white, which is a shame as most of the pieces are very evocative and I imagine they’d look great in colour.
One of the things that appeals to me about True20 artwork is the juxtaposition of different genres, and Vehicles is no exception. My favourites were the duelling biplanes on page 5 and the Napoleonic warship that takes up the whole of page 14.
It is divided into six chapters. Two chapters of rules, three chapters of vehicles split by era – low tech / fantasy, modern and future, and one chapter for the Narrator on using vehicles in True20 games.
Somewhat unusually, at least in my experience with PDFs, it includes a 3 page index. I think this is a very useful feature, especially in a PDF since it isn’t taking up a limited number of physical pages that could be used for something else. Looking for the torpedo bomber? It’s on page 33.
Chapter 1 contains expanded vehicles rules, and is pretty crunchy. There are rules for running abstract vehicle combat. The Narrator is encouraged to use common sense throughout, which to my mind is a perfectly acceptable approach in True20; other systems may discourage such “GM fiat”.
It also includes ways in which skills can feature in a vehicle encounter – those bad guys who were always leaping out of exploding vehicles in the nick of time in the “A Team” had clearly maxed out their escape artist skill whereas hotwiring cars needs a disable device check.
Chapter 2 covers vehicle feats. True20 grants a four feats at first level and a feat every level after that, but even so there are already far more feats available than any character could hope to take. This chapter offers a modest seven feats (plus a revision to the Vehicular Combat feat in the True20 core rules) for those who want to be hotshot pilots or drivers. (Two general, four expert and one warrior/expert.)
Some of them allow you to add your Reputation bonus to Drive checks or vehicle attack rolls. This is the first time I’ve seen this particular mechanic used, although maybe it appears in other True20 products I am not familiar with. It seems a bit odd to me, and I’m not sure what I think about it. However, if you are running a game in which you want Reputation to be important (maybe something similar to The Fast and the Furious) then these feats could be useful.
Now that we’ve got the rules out of the way, its time for the meat of the book – the vehicles themselves. Chapter 3 is fantasy / low tech vehicles, of which there are 30 – 10 animal drawn chariots / wagons / carriages, 19 boats (including galleon and galley already in True20 core book) and 1 siege steamer (an armoured siege weapon which is manhandled into place and then fires a burst of steam at the enemy) plus an arbalest, ballista and catapult to mount on them.
My favourite is the Carriage of the Gothic Lord, a luxury heavy carriage which has supernatural qualities, enabling it to move as fast as a light carriage. “Advising the carriage driver of your destination is futile, for he already knows where he is taking you.”
It would be nice to have pictures of all these vehicles, instead of just a handful, but I suppose that would be impractical.
The chapter, and also the next two, ends with some story ideas, which are not much use to me, - I’ve got the ideas, I just needed the vehicles! Chapter 3 also has some supernatural abilities you could give your vehicles, such as Blinking or Energy Resistance. (For complete rules for endowing items with supernatural abilities you’ll need the True20 Companion.)
Chapter 4, Modern Vehicles, is divided into Industrial Age, Golden Age and Modern Age vehicles. No dates are given for each era, which is a shame, but there are loads of land, sea and air vehicles, and also some basic spacecraft; far too many to list here.
We also have more vehicle mounted weapons – from Industrial Age gatling guns to Golden Age anti-tank guns to Modern Age … well, gatling guns, actually, but now firing depleted uranium.
I am very impressed by the sheer number of vehicles in this chapter, which has the usual cars, warships, fighter aircraft and such, but also includes trains, zeppelins, helicopters, submarines and hovercraft.
There are also quick and easy rules for technical superiority, use of radar, stealth technology and more.
Then we move on to what I am most interested in – Chapter 5, Future.
It is split into Near Future (hoverboards, moon base shuttles etc.) and Sci-Fi (space destroyers!) There are plenty of vehicles, and a wide range of types. I was expecting the usual space destroyers, space fighters and freighters, but there are also space elevators, vacuum trains, powered asteroids and anti-grav terrestrial vehicles, together with laser cannon to mount on them.
There are short and simple rules for tracking through hyperspace, sensor ranges, deflector shields and more.
Chapter 6 is a short chapter of ideas for using vehicles in games. It includes a suggestion on how to run dog fights, which I liked, and advice on how to give all of the heroes something to do. Some of it, such as the customising vehicles section, seemed obvious to me, but others may find it useful.
All in all, Vehicles is an excellent resource for adding vehicles to a True20 game, and its pretty much all open game content.
