Universal RPG's not Universal?

[Scribble]

you can have my d100... in 20 years when the darn thing stops rolling...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I use percentile die for rolling percentages.

My d100 I reserve for rattling like a rattlesnake- a warning to my players- or for throwing at players who didn't heed the warning!

 

[jonathan swift]

p.s. true 20 bugs me for the same reason gurps and WOD and the d6 starwars always end up bugging me... They only use one type of die... The others look so lonely sitting there on the table not being rolled...

See, that's the exact reason I like the resolution mechanics for all those games. Though True20 is my least favorite in that regard because of how linear it is.

But then my first RPGs were Mechwarrior and d6 Star Wars. This concept of using different kinds of dice still boggles my mind. But so do classes and levels.

And yet I love True20. It hits a sweet spot.

Oddly, so does Savage Worlds with its different die types.

 

[takyris]

Would "mutation" just be a new race, covered under the backgrounds section (mind you, this is based on one readthrough -- I'm by no means an expert)? I'm speaking of birth mutations, of course, not "Radioactivity has made me grow gills!" mutations, which would best be handled via talents.

If you're looking for tactical space combat, you seem to be out of luck until an expansion pack is related, but at least in M&M, the advice was, "Space travel moves at the speed of plot. Buy more ranks to increase your ability to move through the plot at the GM's discretion."

 

[Ranger REG]

Well put, Ace32.

Sadly I'm still using percentile dice (two d10s with one listing 10, 20, 30, etc) rather than a full-fledged d100. Besides, wouldn't a dice so big be reserved for giants and mechs?

*Shrugs*

It's what I use when I forget to bring my own bowling ball.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Bowling Balls make excellent Death Stars.

 

[jdrakeh]

I'm not a big fan of True20 but even I wouldn't say that it isn't truly universal -- it can do just about anything. That said, like many generic systems, some things that it can do, it doesn't do particularly well. Still, all generic systems have break points like this. For example, emulating D&D magic well was a break point for True20 in my experience and, while I can't say for certain, I suspect that it would handle 'supers' very poorly, as well (I think this because it makes no sense for GR to create a product that directly competes with their wildly successful M&M).

 

[Hjorimir]

I'm not a big fan of True20 but even I wouldn't say that it isn't truly universal -- it can do just about anything. That said, like many generic systems, some things that it can do, it doesn't do particularly well. Still, all generic systems have break points like this. For example, emulating D&D magic well was a break point for True20 in my experience and, while I can't say for certain, I suspect that it would handle 'supers' very poorly, as well (I think this because it makes no sense for GR to create a product that directly competes with their wildly successful M&M).

Well True20 and Mutants & Masterminds are very similar. I just think of MnM as True20 for Supers.

 

[bento]

I have a couple of problems with universal systems, which I've experienced both True20 and GURPS. The first is the amount of prep you have to do before you have the first game and the second is the blandness of the books.

My first choice as a GM is to decide what kind of adventure we'll be playing. In the case of the historical horror game I ran, I had to develop additional gunpowder rules which True20 has not covered in an official capacity. In GURPS it was selecting appropriate advantages/ disadvantages/ abilities my players could choose from when creating their characters.

With a system built around a setting or genre, the authors include only rules and options that work in their system. A sci-fi based game will have starship rules and a fantasy game will have magic rules. When I want to play a genre/setting that already has a great ruleset, I don't mind playing that, rather than spending the time shaping a universal system to fit the genre. When I run a dungeon crawl, we play D&D. BUT when I want to play an Asian fantasy game, I've gotten better results tweaking True20 rather than tweaking D&D.

BUT universal systems work well with groups that have a limited amount of time to learn the rules and love to jump from genre to genre. You see this with a lot of GURPS groups - hardcore sci-fi this month and swords 'n sorcerery the next. Smaller investment of time and money.

As for the blandness, I know that its difficult to pitch something to new players that has a very broad approach. If you flip through the 4th edition core GURPS books there are pictures of superheroes, knights, dragons, aliens, detectives and other genre-specific tropes. For a group looking for a system to only play horror games, the CoC books will have a greater visual appeal.

 

[jdrakeh]

Well True20 and Mutants & Masterminds are very similar. I just think of MnM as True20 for Supers.

They're very similar in many respects, though I don't think that the powers and classes of True20 are set up to 'do' supers nearly as well as those in M&M. My point was, I think that the limited utility of True20 in this regard was deliberate, for the reasons I mention (many other companies have long since established the foolishness of competing with oneself for customers).