Looken to Get Married

[LivingTriskele]

Dear True20,

Your readers may have trouble believing this, but I surrendered my RPG innocence at the tender age of 11. I’ll never forget that night—we lost ourselves between the passionate clattering of plastic colored dice on a hard wooden table. We didn’t stop until dawn. I’ll never forget how she came to me, wrapped in a bow with that TSR lizardman logo on her cover.

Since then we’ve managed to stay in touch, maybe more intimately than is wise. I keep telling myself that I’ve had enough, that it has to stop. You see, I know deep down inside that she’s not The One. But she keeps coming around and I’m weak. The next thing I know it’s three o’clock in the morning and we’re laying on my couch, surrounded by a heap of open potato chip bags, beer bottles and empty pizza boxes. It doesn’t help that all my friends have a thing for her.

She hasn’t been the only one, since those young, messy days, oh no. I’ve been around the block a few times myself. I used to be a player, but I’m not proud of it. Call of Cthulhu was easy and GURPS was always good for a quick one-nighter. Hero System demanded too much of my time and Ars Magica was a super genius—but I’m just a simple kind of guy. Whenever I was in the mood for a beating I’d look up Warhammer Fantasy Role-Play or RuneQuest. They were always happy to oblige. With Traveller it was over before things had even begun.

I’d become old and jaded. Then I saw her, sitting edge-worn and scuffed in the used section of the local game store. True20. I opened her cover and found that within she was solid, resolute, but also demure and romantic. I took her home and spent the rest of the night flipping through her pages.

But now D&D is knocking on my door again. She’s been around the block so many times and changed so many hands that I hardly recognized her. She wants to come in and stay, but I don’t know if I can let her in and maintain my integrity.

Tell me, because I’m not looking for another passing fancy. I’m the type of guy who needs to know his system is going to be around for a while.

Okay, so this is getting corny, but seriously—with all the pomp and gloss of 4th Edition what is the future fate of True20? It seems to me that between it and M&M, you’ve got everything anyone could ever want. But I don’t see a whole lot of supplemental material on the shelves. I hope it’s here to stay. I think that it could and should rival the popularity that 3.5 had. I’d support it myself for free if I weren’t a graduate student with an infant daughter to support.

[Darrin Drader]

Green Ronin has already covered the core support products for the system. After that, it's up to you to buy the support products from companies like Reality Deviant Publications, Reality Blurs, and others.

RDP just released Reign of Discordia, a book that I wrote which is the first in a new product line, and it has hit #9 at RPGNow! and is the first non-Green Ronin True20 product to be #1 in the True20 category there (or so I'm told). RDP has also released some other great titles for True20, such as Vehicles, Technothrillers, and Blood Throne.

Reality Blurs has done a setting called Agents of Oblivion, which is supposed to be going forward with its own brand soon as well.

The point here is that the only way True20 will be around to stay is if the True20 fans stay loyal and continue to support it and its support products with their dollars.

[LivingTriskele]

Hey congratulations! That's awesome news! I just went back to the local store and cleaned out half their True20 shelf. Pyramid Magazine just bought the electronic rights to a setting of mine, and when that money comes through I'll go back and get the rest of it.

[razorwise]

Hey congratulations! That's awesome news! I just went back to the local store and cleaned out half their True20 shelf. Pyramid Magazine just bought the electronic rights to a setting of mine, and when that money comes through I'll go back and get the rest of it.

Hiya and welcome to the fold!

Reality Blurs here. We've got Gearcraft available now as a PDF and goes into distribution in September and Mechagenesis will come out next month in PDF and goes into distribution in October, so we're still churning away on things. RunePunk: Steam and Shadow is a complete setting book that is essentially finished for True20. It's going through final edits, but the initial layout is done and art orders are in. I'll be running RunePunk T20 demos at both Origins and Gencon. More details on that as they reveal themselves. Agents of Oblivion has a lot in store for it. It's essentially written and I'll be running demos of it at the big shows as well. Things have just been shifting around a bit in the order of priority, but it's been extensively playtested and we're very happy with its development. There will be more reveals about it at Origins and posted thereafter I suppose.

Thanks for your interest!

Take care,

Sean

[barsoomcore]

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record around here, but honestly, DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND is coming, and it's True20, baby.

True20 for me is exactly what I love about gaming -- it's a great baseline on top of which I can tweak, hack and bodge to my heart's content, without ever really worrying about breaking too much.

d20 is a little fragile for me -- push it too far in some directions and it starts to fall apart. Also, hit points. T20 is more mungeable. And for me, a big part of gaming fun is making up rules and trying them out.

On the other hand, that makes me kind of a terrible customer for RPG companies since for the most part I have more fun making up my own stuff.

[barsoomcore]

And I have a ton of non-DPoNI products that I need to convert to T20 -- I think this system is a much better match for my original "mini-games" notion -- quick complete afternoons of gaming fun; just add friends!

[Father of Dragons]

Have you looked in the True20 Library thread? It lists all (or nearly all) commercially available True20 products, and there are more of them than you might realize.

[LivingTriskele]

Great! Thanks for the responses I'll check it out. I'm in the process of discussing True20 with my friends. They are... intrigued...

[saankiip]

But now D&D is knocking on my door again. She’s been around the block so many times and changed so many hands that I hardly recognized her. She wants to come in and stay, but I don’t know if I can let her in and maintain my integrity.

I am going through a bitter divorce with D&D at the moment.

[Darrin Drader]

I am going through a bitter divorce with D&D at the moment.

I'm currently going through a trial separation with her myself, but I'm finding her sister Pathfinder and her cousin True20 pretty attractive.

[Razuur]

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record around here, but honestly, DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND is coming, and it's True20, baby.

I can't friggin wait for this. Eversince seeing your signature on EN World years ago, I thought - he should publish that concept.

Rock on. Now I just need a date.

Patrick

[Razuur]

I'm currently going through a trial separation with her myself, but I'm finding her sister Pathfinder and her cousin True20 pretty attractive.

Amen brother, Amen.

[LivingTriskele]

I'm currently going through a trial separation with her myself, but I'm finding her sister Pathfinder and her cousin True20 pretty attractive.

Didn't Led Zeppelin have a song about this?

[LivingTriskele]

My break up with 4E is going to be long and drawn-out. I'm writing a 200-page mini-campaign setting for one of the 3rd party publishers going ahead with the new rules.

If I come back to this forum with silver cap on the back of my skull, telling you all to "join me it's bliss", well, you know what to do.

No but seriously, I'm happy for the opportunity. If and when this project comes to fruition I'll mention it here so that you all can check it out. Should translate over to True20 seamlessly (especially with my design notes .

Regarding spell-casting in True20, it doesn't look like there's a lot of options. Who here has utilized True Sorcery in their True20 games? One of my friends always plays a wizard, and if he's not satisfied, well...

[ValhallaGH]

Who here has utilized True Sorcery in their True20 games? One of my friends always plays a wizard, and if he's not satisfied, well...

I tried it once. Boy was it clunky. Damage scaled funny, there were spell points to track, and then there's the not-really-balanced nature of magic as represented in that system. All in all, I was highly disappointed.

However, other people have raved about the system (though I believe they were using it with one of the many hit point systems), having a great deal of fun. I guess it comes down to what you want in your magic (I want balanced fun; neat options that the warriors can't do but that aren't instant victory either; to one degree or another, all d20 magic systems fail to do that).