Apathy Blogs

Last week I mentioned True20 as a possible alternative to 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. This week I took a closer look at True20, and I’m not certain if that really is the case. Not to say that True20 is a bad system, but it definitely doesn’t feel like D&D. I would say that it is a good system if you want a light rules set that is easily customizable to any setting. I will admit when I first glanced at it, I felt it didn’t have a lot of substance to it. I saw it as a set of rules that formed a solid basis, but needing a little more to make it feel complete. After closer examination however, I find that isn’t the case. It comes with four sample settings in the back of the book which help fill out the game. They are useful not only as settings in themselves, but as guidelines to help you tailor the rules to suit whichever setting you decide to use. Of course there are quite a few settings books also published for the system, so there is plenty of material to work with should you decide to invest in the system. I myself plan on examining Roma Imperious, an interesting alternate history setting which has also been published using the Iridium lite system.

One of the things that stands out about True20 are the Roles. The basic book has only three Roles, which take the place of the many classes of D&D. There are Adepts, which have a weak attack bonus progression, that can be customized to be any character that draws upon supernatural powers. If you want to be a psychic, wizard, alchemist, mad scientist, or shaman, Adept is the role for you. There are Experts, which have a moderate attack bonus progression, and can be anything from thieves, doctors, or priests. And of course there are Warriors, which have the best attack bonus, and are the soldiers, mercenaries, gladiators, or bounty hunters of the world. Each of these roles can be customized by different archetypes, which are usually setting specific, that open access to certain feats or skills. The intent is to have a simple core mechanic that can be styled for many different character types. It is a fairly elegant system, and keeps things rather balanced.

Combat is another thing that is quite a bit different from the game’s d20 roots. Instead of weapons doing a variable amount of dice worth of damage, everything is represented by a damage bonus. Characters don’t have a hit point total, they have a list of injury states. When someone is hit in combat, they roll a saving throw with the difficulty modified by the damage bonus. The amount they fail determines what injury state you receive. So if you just barely miss your save against a fist, you’ll just be bruised. If you fail by a lot against a laser pistol, you will be seriously injured. Since injury states have penalties attached to them, this can lead to a slow wearing down of a characters defenses. Extremely tough characters may be able to simply shrug of many light blows, coming away from a fight completely unscathed. I also noticed the removal of attacks of opportunity, which tends to make it easier to run combat without miniatures. This can be a pro or a con depending on your taste in gaming.

Overall, I like the system and think it holds a useful niche. If you want either a more gritty or a more cinematic game than D&D, True20 can work for you. If you are looking for a more skill based role-playing system, with a light rules set that emphasizes story over mechanics, this game is worth checking out. If you are mostly happy with 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons and simply want a refinement but not the complete overhaul that is 4th edition, I’ll be looking at the new Pathfinder RPG from Paizo next which may be more your style.

Apathy Rating: 3/5