[True20] Is it for me?

[Hjorimir]

It should be noted that True Sorcery is not a True20 product. There are like two pages in the back of the book to help convert True Sorcery to True20, but it is meant as an alternative to the standard spell casting system in D&D.

In execution, I find that True20 is lighter than D&D, though that doesn't make it a rules-light system. It is far more streamlined though.



The things I love about True20 (the short list):

• Minion rules (less bookkeeping for the win)

• Faster combat (a removal of iterative attacks)

• Faster character generation while still allowing for plenty of options (NPCs can be made in a snap)

• The Damage Track (I never liked the idea of hit points; saying 'I'm wounded' means much more than saying 'I'm down 13 hit points'' when 13 hit points means different things to different people based on their total hit points...blah)

• Scaling Combat (I love that the better skilled you are at fighting means not only your ability to be hit but your ability to avoid being hit, which allows for Toughness to not need scaling meaning that at 20th level warriors are not leaping off of 200 ft. towers and shrugging; for all of their ability they are still human)

I could go on, but those are the highlights for me.

 

[barsoomcore]

In execution, I find that True20 is lighter than D&D, though that doesn't make it a rules-light system. It is far more streamlined though.

Yes. That's exactly right.

The primary advantage for me is prep time. I find generating high-level opponents for my d20 games VERY time-consuming. If I need to put together a cool 10th-level sorcerer-type of character, it can easily take me hours of prep time, selecting spells and magic items to ensure a fun, interesting encounter that offers a new challenge to my players.

The first adventure I ever put together for True20 had a big bad who was a 9th-level Adept. From concept to finished statblock took, literally, 20 minutes. I mean, I sat down, said, "I think this person is kind of like XYZ," and twenty minutes later I had the statblock all done. A few key magical effects were easy to put together out of the short list of powers, and I was done.

What it means for me is that I can spend more time just thinking up kooky stuff, since I know I can put together solid stat blocks at the last minute and won't have to do that mechanical stuff by the seat of my pants.

That, and the actual running of the game is smoother. Combat is WAY faster and less definition over the course of a round encourages more creativity per round, I find. There's much less "I hit, I hit, I hit" sort of thing.

Maybe that stuff is more the group I play with than the rules, though.

 

[bento]

That, and the actual running of the game is smoother. Combat is WAY faster and less definition over the course of a round encourages more creativity per round, I find. There's much less "I hit, I hit, I hit" sort of thing.

Maybe that stuff is more the group I play with than the rules, though.

This is one of the advantages to me. Sometimes a combat encounter isn't worth getting out the mat, fumbling through the miniature box and spending the next fourty minutes watching players decide how to move their minis just to fight some orcs. In True20 it's much easier to run combat with a hastily drawn map, in our imaginations, or if it calls for it, with the mat and minis!

The damage rules also makes it easier for me to describe combat results. HP system always seems so artificial - you're good until you hit 0.

The times I've played using True20, I've seen players get much more creative during their turns. I've seen combat-oriented players turn an encounter from a fight into a negotiation. With no XP bounty hanging in from of them, I've seen players much more willing to interrogate captured NPCs than go for the coup de gras.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Thanks for the replies folks.