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

[Jim Hague]

Austin, you say?

Just Kidding,
Flynn

I know you're on the Austin Posse list, Flynn. You can always contact me there, y'know.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I like True20, but it wasn't the best fit for my main game (which is D&D fantasy). While you could tweak things and use it for just about anything, I think it works especially well for grittier and "alternate" (i.e. not D&D-style) fantasy, and for various modern games. If you're after D&D-style fantasy, you're better off with a D&D-style system (e.g. Castles & Crusades, BFRPG, OD&D, AD&D, B/X, etc), IMO. However, True20 was a very good fit for some fantasy-history mini-campaigns I ran (e.g. Vikings, Greeks, etc).

At first, I thought True20 seemed more rules-light than 3E, but after playing it a bit, I changed my mind. It's a bit more streamlined, but it's fiddly in different ways. An excellent system, though.

 

[Nikchick]

I find it odd that a very public cancellation of the line was announced if the line was planned as finite from the start. Perhaps it was, I don't know. I do know that its cancellation was very publcially announced. In my experience, you don't generally need to cancel something that was never envisioned as ongoing.

I must object to this bit. Can you please point me to the announcement you're thinking of? Back in January of 2006 Pramas made one mention of Blue Rose "coming to an end" in the context of the third book in the series coming out. We meant that in the same way that one might say, "The Harry Potter saga is coming to an end with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in the series." We said often and repeatedly that Blue Rose was meant to be a three book set. In fact, shortly after Chris's 2006 New Year's message I responded to clarify that we were not "killing" the line. An excerpt:

1. Why are you killing Blue Rose?!
We're not "killing" Blue Rose. It was always conceived and designed as a three book game, as a small and self-contained line. We only ever announced three books for the line, we've never planned, announced, or even hinted that we would ever release anything other than a three book set. The books remain in print, we're continuing to sell them, we're continuing to use them to provide a gateway product for lovers of the romantic fantasy fiction genre to introduce them to roleplaying games. The product cannot achieve that objective if we add on book after book after book and endlessly expand the line: it was never intended to serve that purpose. This is the same reason we didn't release the book as a D20 supplement that required the D&D Player's Handbook: it is a self-contained game that is focused specifically on the emulation of the romantic fantasy genre.

2. But don't people want more? We've seen people using Blue Rose for all sorts of things besides playing in the world of Aldea!
It's true, traditional gamers have been very willing to embrace True20, the system that drives Blue Rose. However, releasing more and more books for Blue Rose both dilutes BR's effectiveness as an introductory product for non-roleplaying fans of romantic fantasy-style fiction (which is what it was designed for and the role we want it to continue to fill) while still not meeting the needs of traditional roleplaying fans who embraced the system but not the genre. Instead, the True20 Adventure Roleplaying line is the where you'll see us taking Blue Rose's system in all sorts of different directions.

3. If you're killing Blue Rose, it must have been a failure, right? You wouldn't kill it if it didn't suck.
We're not "killing" Blue Rose. It was our second best selling line in 2005, and the core book was our #2 SKU, behind only the Mutants & Masterminds rulebook. It won critical recognition, including three Silver ENnie awards last year (among them Best D20 Game) and an InQuest Gamer's Choice nomination. It is not going away. We did not announce that we were taking it off the market, we announced that we were releasing the last of the three planned books.​

Just wanted to clear that up. Again.

Nicole

 

[Karl Green]

I ran a fairly long Fading Suns game with it and it worked out GREAT. I wish it would have continued as I had a lot of plans for it, but we had some real-life problems with one person dropping out of gaming all together when he got married, one moving away and one going freaky on myself and the two remaining players...

Anyway if I ever get a chance to run it again I will totally use True20 again.

 

[Thomas5251212]

I'm curious about a comment in a couple places that Tr20 isn't suited for "action fantasy"; is that because of the slow recovery times sans healing magic? If so, I'd think that wouldn't make it any more badly suited than, say, any incarnation of Runequest. If it's something else, could someone elaborate?

 

[Jim Hague]

I'm curious about a comment in a couple places that Tr20 isn't suited for "action fantasy"; is that because of the slow recovery times sans healing magic? If so, I'd think that wouldn't make it any more badly suited than, say, any incarnation of Runequest. If it's something else, could someone elaborate?

Due to a non-scaling (barring taking Tough) Toughness save, it tends to be a lot deadlier than D&D. There's plenty of Powers in the core book that can heal damage, however, and recovery times aren't terribly slow either. Still, a bad hit can put you in the hurt locker in a core-only, default rules setting.

Personally, I think it works great for sword and sorcery style play a la Conan, complete with high cinematic stunts and such.

 

[buzz]

I played in a one-shot event, but have not read the rules cover-to-cover, so there's a caveat for ya. We were playing 1st-level heroes in a PA setting.

I found the Damage Save kind of klunky (as I did with M&M), the rolling for attack and defense felt kind of random/whiff-factor-y, the lack of AoOs made combat less interesting for me, and Conviction felt kind prone to the "trained monkey" effect. I.e., if you play to your Virtue/Vice, and if the GM notices, and if they think you did a good job of it, then you might earn a Conviction point.

One funny comment another player made was the "be heroic before bedtime" effect. I.e., since your PC will refresh one Conviction point each morning, they might as well do something heroic (i.e., spend Conviction) before the day ends.

I did like the mook rules, though. For a more drama-focused RPG, their existence made sense.

Anyway, it was a fun game, but I wasn't sold on it. I grabbed the PDF when it was offered free so I can take a closer look at some point. Overall, I'm waiting to see a second edition before I consider actually buying it.

 

[Hjorimir]

I'm curious about a comment in a couple places that Tr20 isn't suited for "action fantasy"; is that because of the slow recovery times sans healing magic? If so, I'd think that wouldn't make it any more badly suited than, say, any incarnation of Runequest. If it's something else, could someone elaborate?

Personally, I think the statement is nonsense. Try playing D&D without healing and see how it goes. Yes, a bad injury can bring down a character, but it is quite possible to defeat a well balanced encounter and not suffer a single wound too. You can run 'action fantasy' if you balance for it.

 

[Thomas5251212]

Due to a non-scaling (barring taking Tough) Toughness save, it tends to be a lot deadlier than D&D. There's plenty of Powers in the core book that can heal damage, however, and recovery times aren't terribly slow either. Still, a bad hit can put you in the hurt locker in a core-only, default rules setting.

Personally, I think it works great for sword and sorcery style play a la Conan, complete with high cinematic stunts and such.

So the premise is that relatively lethal games aren't suited for action-fantasy in some people's minds, then? That was what I wondered.

 

[Hjorimir]

I played in a one-shot event, but have not read the rules cover-to-cover, so there's a caveat for ya. We were playing 1st-level heroes in a PA setting.

I found the Damage Save kind of klunky (as I did with M&M), the rolling for attack and defense felt kind of random/whiff-factor-y, the lack of AoOs made combat less interesting for me, and Conviction felt kind prone to the "trained monkey" effect. I.e., if you play to your Virtue/Vice, and if the GM notices, and if they think you did a good job of it, then you might earn a Conviction point.

One funny comment another player made was the "be heroic before bedtime" effect. I.e., since your PC will refresh one Conviction point each morning, they might as well do something heroic (i.e., spend Conviction) before the day ends.

I did like the mook rules, though. For a more drama-focused RPG, their existence made sense.

Anyway, it was a fun game, but I wasn't sold on it. I grabbed the PDF when it was offered free so I can take a closer look at some point. Overall, I'm waiting to see a second edition before I consider actually buying it.

I love the conviction rules because they actually encourage the players to play within their character...unlike D&D's weak alignment system does.