True 20 - Who here has played it, and what was your experience?
- Thread starter molonel
- Start date
I'm reading some of the excerpts that were posted on Green Ronin's website.
How do you feel it compares to d20 Modern for the purposes of running, say, a Spec Ops campaign?
Would Blood & Guts 2 fit better into d20 Modern, or True 20? (I mean, aside from the basic classes, for example?)
How do you feel it compares to d20 Modern for the purposes of running, say, a Spec Ops campaign?
Would Blood & Guts 2 fit better into d20 Modern, or True 20? (I mean, aside from the basic classes, for example?)
Vigilance
Explorer
I think it would depend on the type of special ops campaign you wanted to run.
Even with armor, a character in a True 20 game can get taken down by a single shot.
I've given some thought to how I'd convert Blood and Guts and I think it would work well.
For the Old West campaign I've run, I really like the absence of armor. That makes a single gunshot wound serious business and I've crafted a gritty campaign around that.
In the modern era, a well equipped soldier (with heavy armor) can survive quite a few hits from gunfire if he's lucky. I also think the autofire rules are far superior to those in d20 Modern (not that that would be particularly hard).
So I'm confident in saying I think it would work well, but I haven't run a lot of modern military adventures yet.
Even with armor, a character in a True 20 game can get taken down by a single shot.
I've given some thought to how I'd convert Blood and Guts and I think it would work well.
For the Old West campaign I've run, I really like the absence of armor. That makes a single gunshot wound serious business and I've crafted a gritty campaign around that.
In the modern era, a well equipped soldier (with heavy armor) can survive quite a few hits from gunfire if he's lucky. I also think the autofire rules are far superior to those in d20 Modern (not that that would be particularly hard).
So I'm confident in saying I think it would work well, but I haven't run a lot of modern military adventures yet.
Gundark
Explorer
I'm not sure how well True 20 would do with modern military campaigns. Could you do it? sure. To be truthful there are other games that handle the genre better.
That said I played a fantasy session with True 20, I have to say that having someone around who can cast a cure spell is essential. At first I was a huge fan of Damage saves....now....I don't know.
That said I played a fantasy session with True 20, I have to say that having someone around who can cast a cure spell is essential. At first I was a huge fan of Damage saves....now....I don't know.
Kunimatyu
First Post
I've run it in the following settings:
alternate fantasy Old West
alternate 1820s New Orleans crime drama
Firefly's 'verse
Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green and normal
Epic Greek myth
Pirates of the Caribbean-style setting
and I've seen it run for:
alternate-history England with vampire hunting
and I've played it in:
a Starcraft setting
Let me know if you have any questions about any of the settings, how they worked, etc.
alternate fantasy Old West
alternate 1820s New Orleans crime drama
Firefly's 'verse
Call of Cthulhu, Delta Green and normal
Epic Greek myth
Pirates of the Caribbean-style setting
and I've seen it run for:
alternate-history England with vampire hunting
and I've played it in:
a Starcraft setting
Let me know if you have any questions about any of the settings, how they worked, etc.
Vigilance
Explorer
Gundark said:
Yeah, the damage save definitely made it harder on me to plan adventures. You have to allow ample time for rest after each encounter, since a single hit could be deadly by the luck of the die.
That's why I qualified my answer for "a certain type" of military campaign.
In running d20M, I find myself much better able to plan encounters and pace the adventure, knowing if the PCs can handle another encounter, by monitoring their hit points. In True 20, you don't really have that luxury.
In short, I think a True 20 game would need to be somewhat more combat light.
Still, there's some ways to ameliorate this. Armor helps a lot, as I mentioned, and there's also the Surgery feat I created for my Old West True 20 book, that can allow a faster recovery from injury, within reason.
You can ameliorate this by either cutting the time for Recovery checks, or using the "escalating Toughness" option -- or the Surgery feat, which really ought to be in there anyway. Also, for making the transition from D&D with HP, I'd suggest using the Alternate Damage System -- http://true20.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1536 -- from the forums. And as I've said before, the True20 forums are among the most positive, friendliest rpg boards you can find.
Aus_Snow
First Post
+1jonrog1 said:
Currently running Blood Throne (a setting from True20 Worlds of Adventure, also now with its own book proper, the Survivor's Guide to the Age of Blood), and it's a lot of fun.
Will possibly run 'true cyberpunk' at some stage.
Haven't tried the system as a player.
bento
Explorer
I've run a historical horror (ala Brotherhood of the Wolf) oneshot and asian fantasy. In both cases there weren't rules covering specific areas, but it was easy to take similar rules in D20/D&D and convert them over. I had to do this with early gunpowder weapons and feat trees for Shugenja class charaters.
I think the looseness of the ruleset opens players up to more creative tactical play. There's no AoO to worry about, and grappling is more streamlined. Since magical system is "generic" I had players coming up with some pretty fancy things rather than fire and forget a list of spells.
My players liked the greater amount of customization that they have in character creation. Players are no longer "forced" to take class feats they won't use or suffer from getting no new feats when they level up. They didn't like how damage took its toll, but you have to introduce them to conviction points and how they can be used to pull their fat out of the fire.
I liked that the system subtly encourages players to think encounters through rather than killing and levelling up. The GM holds the power for when players level up their characters, so their focus shifts from "when will I get enough XP?" to "I want to finish this adventure." Foes don't "disappear" when they hit 0 HP, they get incapacitated, and if you wait around you can interrogate them. This helps provide me with opportunities to have the captured NPCs give information that propels the plot forward.
I liked the minion rule and now I no longer dread all the time spent when players combat 2x or 3x the number of foes. I like the nature of damage - when you get hit and take damage there SHOULD be some consequences to your wounds.
I know that many of these things I have the ability to houserule into a D20/D&D game, but its so much easier when it's already written into the system. Rather than be thought of as a GM running a heavily houseruled game of D&D and the players some how feel "cheated" that I'm not playing it RAW, we're just playing True20 and having a fun time.
I think the looseness of the ruleset opens players up to more creative tactical play. There's no AoO to worry about, and grappling is more streamlined. Since magical system is "generic" I had players coming up with some pretty fancy things rather than fire and forget a list of spells.
My players liked the greater amount of customization that they have in character creation. Players are no longer "forced" to take class feats they won't use or suffer from getting no new feats when they level up. They didn't like how damage took its toll, but you have to introduce them to conviction points and how they can be used to pull their fat out of the fire.
I liked that the system subtly encourages players to think encounters through rather than killing and levelling up. The GM holds the power for when players level up their characters, so their focus shifts from "when will I get enough XP?" to "I want to finish this adventure." Foes don't "disappear" when they hit 0 HP, they get incapacitated, and if you wait around you can interrogate them. This helps provide me with opportunities to have the captured NPCs give information that propels the plot forward.
I liked the minion rule and now I no longer dread all the time spent when players combat 2x or 3x the number of foes. I like the nature of damage - when you get hit and take damage there SHOULD be some consequences to your wounds.
I know that many of these things I have the ability to houserule into a D20/D&D game, but its so much easier when it's already written into the system. Rather than be thought of as a GM running a heavily houseruled game of D&D and the players some how feel "cheated" that I'm not playing it RAW, we're just playing True20 and having a fun time.
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