True 20 - Who here has played it, and what was your experience?

[Jim Hague]

So far, my experiences have been nothing but positive:

*Playtesting a swashbuckling setting that PZP is putting out, it works great. Fighting styles can be replicated, and we've tested a lot of material out of the Companion (Mythic Archetypes rock, by the way)...it slots a lot more smoothly than many other d20-derived games.

*In my personal Global Frequency campaign, it's worked great. There's enough cinematic feel to keep things moving, but it's also gritty enough to make the campaign suitably deadly in terms of fights. I'll go against the flow here and say that it does modern espionage/military/technothriller, and it does it well.

*It's also working well for my Fallout-derived PA campaign (And in a plug here, if you run PA, I highly advise you pick up the Darwin's World material that Chuck puts out). Again, suitably deadly without being too 'realistic'.

*I'll also say that a couple of playtest games for a swords and sorcery setting we're working on very much captured the feel I was going for, which was in the Robert Howard vein. I honestly think it works better than the Conan d20 stuff, and I like that book.

 

[jdrakeh]

I have played it and tried to run The World's Largest Dungeon with it. True20 ended up being more work than D&D, despite claims of being easier and/or more streamlined. Spell effects were subject to be recalculated with each casting, converting monsters isn't as simple as the core book says it is (to wit, they actually expanded the rules for converting monsters in the True20 Bestiary), etc.

Ultimately, I found True20 to be more streamlined and versatile than D&D where character creation is concerned, though I found it to be less streamlined and intuitive where combat and magic are concerned during actual play. Similarly, I found that its claims of easy compatability with other d20 products are greatly exaggerated (conversion requires a fair amount of work).

 

[Kunimatyu]

I have played it and tried to run The World's Largest Dungeon with it. True20 ended up being more work than D&D, despite claims of being easier and/or more streamlined. Spell effects were subject to be recalculated with each casting, converting monsters isn't as simple as the core book says it is (to wit, they actually expanded the rules for converting monsters in the True20 Bestiary), etc.

Ultimately, I found True20 to be more streamlined and versatile than D&D where character creation is concerned, though I found it to be less streamlined and intuitive where combat and magic are concerned during actual play. Similarly, I found that its claims of easy compatability with other d20 products are greatly exaggerated (conversion requires a fair amount of work).

Yeah, but dude, you had the most singularly weird take on the magic system that I've ever seen, including all the new posters on the True20 boards. Most people use Elemental Blast + Widen Power to make fireballs, for instance, but you came up with this giant Fire Shaping Move Object monstrousity...

I will say, however, that True20 can be less intuitive at first, mostly due to all the additional combat options PCs have. Grappling, disarming, sundering -- all can be done by a basic character who spends a little Conviction and rolls well. In addition, there are some new basic manuevers, like Finesse Attack, Offensive Stance, etc. That being said, however, I (and my players) like having those options available, as opposed to requiring a feat for everything.

I've not had any huge compatibility issues at this time, but using the Bestiary rules has work well for monsters, and I've converted a good number of feats and even skill tricks with no problem.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah, but dude, you had the most singularly weird take on the magic system that I've ever seen, including all the new posters on the True20 boards. Most people use Elemental Blast + Widen Power to make fireballs, for instance, but you came up with this giant Fire Shaping Move Object monstrousity...

And AGAIN, that was done with the Quick Start Rules. Also AGAIN, that particular problem was alleviated with the full rule set, athough the complexity of having to recalculate effects per instance of spell usage was still present (merely not to that degree). For you and anybody else who would reference that other thread, please stop misprepresenting my past posts. Thanks!

 

[bento]

I have played it and tried to run The World's Largest Dungeon with it. True20 ended up being more work than D&D, despite claims of being easier and/or more streamlined.

I don't think I'd first use True20 to replace the D&D ruleset for a D&D game. If I want to run dungeon crawls, D&D works fine. While I really like True20, my current group meets to play classic-setting D&D, and the 3.5 rules work fine.

When I want to run a game that's a degree or two away from D&D fantasy, True20 is more flexible than expanding D&D into something that feels constrained.

For example - my asian fantasy game used Avatar the Airbender as inspiration. Rather than using D&D 3.5 classes for samurai, shugenja, ninja, etc., we used the 3.5 classes as jumping off points. Two players could build ninjas as different as Naruto and Ninja Scroll. The samurai turned himself into more like Yojimbo, using sense motive and bluff more than intimidate and the edge of his sword. The True20 magic system, which limits adepts to fewer powers but the ability to use them more often, really works well for elemental magic users. And I could run a combat encounter pitting the band of heroes against twenty or more foes easily with the minion rules.

Playing a typical D&D game with True20 doesn't give the game the opportunity to show off its strenghts. But next time you want to run a non-D&D-like fantasy game and stretching D&D would be a lot of work, you should look at True20.

 

[Vigilance]

Yeah. I also think JD is somewhat misreading the intent behind True 20's compatibility claims.

It's all relative. Something like WLD is going to be a BEAR to convert whether the systems are compatible or not.

But it would still be easier to convert WLD to True 20 than, say, Fantasy Hero or GURPs, so I think the claims of compatibility are justified.

 

[jdrakeh]

Yeah. I also think JD is somewhat misreading the intent behind True 20's compatibility claims.

I assure you that I'm not. Many people hyped True20 as a perferct alternative to the D&D 3.5 core rules when it was first released, talking about how incredibly simple it was to convert d20 System advntures to be used with it. This was the whole reason I picked it up.

But it would still be easier to convert WLD to True 20 than, say, Fantasy Hero or GURPs, so I think the claims of compatibility are justified.

Actually, it requires about the same amount of work as converting to Hero (or JAGS, for those interested in that system). As I discovered via my True20 experience, having a basic die roll mechanic in common does not imediately make two things compatible.

I haven't tried to run D&D adventures with GURPS, though since it is not an effects-based system, I supect that converting D&D adventures to it would be markedly harder than converting them to True20, Hero, and JAGS proved to be.

 

[Jim Hague]

I assure you that I'm not. Many people hyped True20 as a perferct alternative to the D&D 3.5 core rules when it was first released, talking about how incredibly simple it was to convert d20 System advntures to be used with it. This was the whole reason I picked it up.

So far across 4 campaigns, it's been that easy. It was even easier to convert the RnK system from 7th Sea, since the stats mapped almost directly. Seriously, while I'm not discounting your experience, I think it was atypical. I will say that True20 tends to be grittier, due to the Toughness save, so it's better suited for SnS style play. YMMV.

Actually, it requires about the same amount of work as converting to Hero (or JAGS, for those interested in that system). As I discovered via my True20 experience, having a basic die roll mechanic in common does not imediately make two things compatible.

Again, not discounting your experience, but judging the entire system by a skewed benchmark - and I say this having written over 75,000 words for WLD - is doing it a disservice. WLD is not a typical DnD experience, despite the best of intentions.

 

[jdrakeh]

Again, not discounting your experience, but judging the entire system by a skewed benchmark - and I say this having written over 75,000 words for WLD - is doing it a disservice. WLD is not a typical DnD experience, despite the best of intentions.

I don't think it's a skewed benchmark. To clear, the issues that I faced had nothing to do with the non-standard content of the WLD -- they had to do with the completely mundane stuff like spells, feats, and classes all of which work differently in True20 (spells and classes, in particular, are nothing like their D&D counterparts). This is stuff that many fans of True20 continue to represent as being easily converted on the fly. Now. . .

Unless they actually mean "These things can be fudged or handwaved as you go along", this has not been my experience and I know that I'm not alone here. Actually using the multiple sets of official conversion guidelines to convert creatures, spells, skills, feats, classes and other features of Standard d20 that don't map directly to True20 requires work. As I said, about as much work as conversions to Hero do*.

If anything, I think that many fans are misrepresenting the system as a cure for all ills, rather than honestly taking an inventory of those areas where it stumbles. That said, this is pretty typical behavior for fans. If you want an honest opinion of a game system, I've learned that the Fan (note the capital F) is the last person whom you want to talk to. As far as they're concerned, their Favoriite Game has no flaws.

And the truth is, all games have flaws.

*It requires roughly the same amount of time investment. This, incidentally, is why I now own Hero FRED again. I'm not a huge fan of Hero by any means, though I figured that if I was going to devote a considerable amount of time to conversions, I might as well go with the system that has more product support in terms of genre toolkits and settings.

 

[Vigilance]

If anything, I think that many fans are misrepresenting the system as a cure for all ills, rather than honestly taking an inventory of those areas where it stumbles. That said, this is pretty typical behavior for fans. If you want an honest opinion of a game system, I've learned that the Fan (note the capital F) is the last person whom you want to talk to. As far as they're concerned, their Favoriite Game has no flaws.

Ah, I see the disconnect here.

When you said the claims of compatibility were misstated, I assumed you meant the claims made by the design team, but you're referring to claims fans made in support of their system of choice.

I didn't pay much attention to those, so there probably was some hype.

Still, my experiences, which are just mine, but as someone who has converted three full-length d20 books to True 20 (Darwin's World, Blood and Fists, Legends of Excalibur), I will say that it was far, far easier to do than I expected.

That doesn't equal "you can do it on the fly and it won't be much work at all", which is clearly what you were hoping in attempting to convert WLD.

But, as an example, I found converting material from Darwin's World for d20 Modern to True 20 not much harder than when I converted d20 material to d20 Modern.

To me, that's a high degree of compatibility.