Why True 20?

[Uthanar]

Hi there all. I am a long time gamer, and have been playing D20 products since their premier. My wife in fact was GMing the week that 3rd Edition came out, and we had a great time with her making everything up back then since it was only the PHB. Ah...memories.

Sadly, as the years have gone on we have been unable to play very much due to health problems that my wife has had. Last year we got our gaming group together for the first time in like 3 or more years and tried 4E...sadly we disliked it. Since that time we have come to find it moderately palatable through our play in LFR.

Our dislike of 4E after all the hype that was put onto the system (and it was something that most of us looked forward to) we all lost enthusiasm for 3.X games. Pathfinder we have found to be exciting, but I felt that it chose to stay far too close to the 3.X rules and get caught in a lot of the same problems.

We are now looking to try and start a truly regular game. For the past months we have been goofing off with Living games and other fun activities on the weekends when we get together. At the moment I am running a L5R game for the group, but am aware of the deadliness of the L5R system, and don't find it likely that the group will want to deal with a lot of the Asian society limitations for their constant game, but for the time we are having fun.

Before we started playing L5R as a group, we had a talk and many of us voiced up that we didn't have a desire to play 4E as a home game (I feel it is suited for LFR, but is a poor design for anything that puts any focus on Role Playing), and most of us were tired of the 3.X games that we had played for most of the time since it had come out.

Before 3.X came out, my wife and I played ADnD mostly, but also a lot of other games. Going down to the local game store and looking around I truly see the lack of games outside of WotC and White Wolf control. It is certainly a different world than it was a decade ago.

I have kept up with a few other games over the years since 3rd Edition came out, but since my wife and I weren't playing anything after her health decline a few years ago, I dropped all RPG purchases other than a few interesting WotC products.

I am looking for a game that would be worthwhile and fun. I looked at some of my friends M&M books as well as True20, and the two things seemed to be interesting to me. I have only skimmed through the books, but the similarities in the two systems are pretty obvious to me. I have a long history of reading Hero Games books (but only a very few play experiences with them) and the similarities in M&M to Hero Games was apparent.

I'm wondering why True 20 instead of M&M. Certainly M&M is designed for Super Heroes, but it doesn't seem like it would do a bad job at emulating a lot of other genres, maybe that is just the Hero-phile in me. T20 seemed to be a more restrictive version of the M&M line (not saying it is true, I only did a skim through the books).

I'm wondering from people here why to look at T20 instead of M&M, or other games. If folks have good things to say about M&M I would love to hear them, or other game systems that I might want to poke in and look at.

Like I have said, I have a lot of 3.X experience under my belt, as well as White Wolf games from years ago, and a number of random systems here and there. Thanks for any replies and thoughts that you wish to share.

Uthanar

[ValhallaGH]

I like True 20. It's one of the best systems I've come across for a number of game styles. It's fairly simple, fairly straightforward, and only suffers from some of the D&D silliness found in the 3.x SRD (monster types, distance penalties, weapon range increments, etc.).

Your reaction to M&M is pretty spot-on. True 20 will do a number of genres really well, and can be kludged into doing just about any genre. Mutants & Masterminds, however, will do any genre (at least in a mediocre manner, usually better than that) with little to no system adjustment; in my experience, what adjustment is made is purely for style and flavor purposes.

The primary differences between the systems are power assumptions, and system deadliness.
Power Assumptions: M&M, because it was intended to let mortals and gods be on the same team, has hard limits on PC power. These limits have the side effect of encouraging players to meet or get close to the limits, giving you a fairly consistent idea of the party's overall and individual power.
Simply set the campaign at the Power Level that represents the sorts of characters you want to see folks play (PL 15 is major deities like the Olympian god Hades, PL 10 is a city champion, PL 6 is a SWAT team, PL 8 is the elite of military special ops, PL 4 is cinematic police officers) and have fun. Just watch out for the universally problematic abilities (unlimited invisibility, teleportation, assorted forms of mind rape, being too generous to super-speed characters, incorporeality, etc.) and you'll have a blast.
True 20 has no such limits, which allows for certain combinations of feats, powers, abilities, traits and equipment to be flatly better than other combinations. Certain character builds are better than others, and much better than the "expected" power level. This makes it difficult to judge encounter difficulties without intimate knowledge of the party builds.

Deadliness: You really have to try to kill a non-mook in M&M (excepting Disintegrate); anyone can die in True 20 if they fail a random toughness save by 20 or more (difficult but not unheard of).
True 20 also has more of a "death spiral" than M&M due to the presence of the Wounded damage condition (-2 to attacks and checks). As a side note, the extra damage conditions seem to make the True 20 damage track more difficult for players to grok than the M&M damage track, despite essentially the same game mechanics.

I like True 20, and I think it will do some settings better than other systems (True Star Wars / True Force are still the only Star Wars games I want to play in). That said, for general utility, M&M is my go-to system.

Good luck, and I hope you and your gang are happy with how it works out.

[Baduin]

M&M is undoubtly much better game than True20. For one thing, it is a finished and complete game. True20 is rather a collection of mechanics and ideas. It doesn't guarantee any kind of balance. A GM must make his own game out of it - SF, Fantasy, historical, Wild West or whatever else.

On the other hand, it is rather simpler to convert things from D&D and D20 games into True20.

M&M has one weakness. Since it started as a superhero game, it assumes that equipment is so to say build in into characters. It would have some difficulties with powerful equipment which can be used by any character. Those difficulties could be quite easily solved - but the important thing is that they have not been solved in published books.

Also, ranged attacks are so much better that it makes little sense to have melee attacks.

[barsoomcore]

Yeah, what they said. Well, minus the expertise with M&M -- I know almost nothing about it.

But I don't think of True20 as a game in and of itself. It's a bunch of rules that work together well, but have very few dependencies on each other. This is what makes it so much fun, for me -- because you take virtually any portion of the system and start chopping it up into bits, without worrying too much about what that might do to the rest of the system.

d20 had that to some degree, but True20 is really the ultimate kitbasher's game. It's a toolkit for building games with, and I love it for that reason. I've never played a game "out of the box" -- I always need to houserule and tinker with things, so T20 is perfect for me.

[Kairos]

I'm a big fan of Green Ronin's product lines -- they're all top notch.

M&M and True20 are very different games with different feels and different goals. I love them both for different reasons. M&M, like any good superhero game, can encompass a variety of genres, although it was designed primarily to emulate Silver Age comics, and does that best. If you don't mind the up-front crunch in character design, M&M is a good bet. Another feature of M&M that strikes me is that it allows you to design the character you want and run him/her right away instead of building up levels to get there.

I like True20 mainly because it's the D20 game I've always wanted: light, flexible, and adaptable to a variety of settings. For my part, I won't be "upgrading" to 4E mainly because I've got a sagging shelf full of 3.x books that I can convert to True20. I think if you liked 3.x (which it sounds like you did), and money is an issue (it is in my house), then True20 might be a good fit.

You can't go wrong either way, I think.

[SimonCollins]

I am a long-time gamer too and enjoyed a rebirth of my RPG interest with the launch of 3.0. As splatbook followed splatbook my interest waned and, like you, I have been underwhelmed by 4e. In my personal opinion, the 4e rules point one in the direction of combat/strategy/rules (although one is of course always free to not go in that direction). I wanted a ruleset that pointed more towards story/drama/roleplaying.

I was determined to seek out a system that encouraged these aspects and that I could still use all the books I had bought for 3.0/3.5. I looked at such systems as Simple 20 http://miscellaneousdebris.sitesled.com/gamefiles/simple20.pdf, Microlite 20 http://microlite20.net/ and Castles & Crusades http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=28543&it=1. However, by far my favourite was True20 - designed by Green Ronin, who have become my favourite game company over the years, mostly compatible with my d20 products, and the use of Conviction and Nature really point the 'Narrator' and players towards story, drama and roleplaying.

There are still some unnecessary d20isms clogging the system, and the damage track takes a bit of getting used to but as has been mentioned by other posters, it is a great toolkit RPG to tweak to your own requirements.

I haven't played M&M (superheroes not my thing) so can't comment but was very interested in the Warriors & Warlocks option book released recently and hope to give this a go at some point.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[gwb83]

Great answers thus far, I agree with it all. Since you have so much experience with d20, then I think you would be comfortable with T20, IF you want to take the time to mold the system to your style and setting.

The advantage of M&M is a tighter set of rules and a game line that is much better supported. It seems like there are plenty of options to make the system grittier if needed. I've used it for some "low-powered" sci-fi scenarios (power level 5-6) and it was fine for us. M&M has been my favorite system since it was released.

Another option is Savage Worlds, which covers the same multi-genre territory as T20 and is easier on the GM (IMHO) in terms of house-ruling, adventure prep, and managing in-game action. There is a bunch of high-quality material available for SW too.

[Lord Lance]

I suggest Savage Worlds too. It blowed my mind, and maybe you'll come back no more.

If you want to stick to something similar to d20, M&M is another nice idea, and I liked more than True20, at the end. However, you need more time to prepare the game, as GM, while Savage Worlds is very fast to setup (and very cheap to start with).

[face_p0lluti0n]

I feel that True20 is a bit easier for D&D converts to learn quickly, and I think I would use it for new players in general unless I was running a dedicated Superhero game. The power system isn't as variable or broad as M&M, but the powers come prepackaged, which makes it far easier to bring "traditional" magic and psionic systems to the table, and easier to hand the players the book and have them immediately understand the power framework. I imagine building custom powers might be intimidating to a new player, especially for a non-superhero game still using powers (like a game that includes magic or psionics) For hypertech, superpowers, or anything further off the radar than the traditional fantasy visions of magic, I would strongly consider M&M. Just be aware that the customization in M&M is deeper and more modular, making it far more likely that a player won't really know what to do with what he or she is given.

[Spence]

Hi all,

New to the board and in the process of searching for a new RPG. I'm a long time gamer that completely departed the D&D universe when 3.0 came out. That left as my only mainstay the Hero System and that has been my primary game since. But with Hero changing to it Sixth Edition it has left me behind. Too many of its core rules have been changed, and even if they say it hasn't, you only have to read the new book to see they have. The entire 'feel' of the game has changed for me. I will not call it good or bad. Just different enough that it no longer works for me.

So I am moving on.

Interestingly after finding this thread, I have been considering "Mutants and Masterminds", "Savage Worlds" and "True20". Imagine my surprise when those three seem to be the most recommended for alternate RPG's in most of the boards I have been reading.

I bought the Savage Worlds rulebooks and a couple of their campaign worlds for samples.

I have also bought "Mutants and Masterminds" plus the PDF (need a dead tree version) of "Mecha and Manga". I haven't finished reading them though.

I have "True20 Revised" on order at my FLGS.

I haven't decided on a system yet, but I am aiming for my next campaign to be either a cinematic high adventure fantasy or a cinematic high adventure space opera, with influence from the many Anime I have enjoyed. And no, not all Anime must have giant robots. A game aimed more at the PC's standing against evil and saving the world rather than the standard fare of money grubbing.

From what I have read either SW or M&M could handle things, though I may have to pick up a copy of W&W to see examples of how they handle certain things. I'm older and just don't have as much spare time as when I was younger, so the M&M appeals because of what looks to be a large amount of available support. The available SW products are very well done, but don't seem to be going in the direction I am looking for. Between the two M&M looks like it may take less work/rework for me than SW.

Now I am wondering about True20. How would it stack? How different is it from M&M? From what I have read it could definitely handle regular epic fantasy like D&D, but how would it handle real cinematic high fantasy? Or if I was looking for gritty crunch factor, how would it handle a setting like the Malazan series. I don't think I would actually run a game based on it, a bit too dark and anti-hero for me, but a system that could handle the vast array of various powers and abilities, could most likely handle anything. Same question for SW and M&M.

And how well does W&W allow one to adapt M&M to a fantasy game?

A lot to ask I know, but as someone just reading through the various rules and such I am fishing for opinions from those who have actually run with the systems in question.

[ValhallaGH]

Hi all,

Welcome to the forums. I hope you enjoy yourself.

On to the answers....

I haven't decided on a system yet, but I am aiming for my next campaign to be either a cinematic high adventure fantasy or a cinematic high adventure space opera, with influence from the many Anime I have enjoyed.

How well True 20 will accomodate you depends on what you mean by "cinematic high adventure". True 20 does adventure, both high- and gritty-, extremely well. The largest difference between the two styles is how liberal the Narrator is with the Conviction awards. High adventure gives the PCs a lot of Conviction to use to instigate coolness while resisting misfortune. Gritty adventure is much less liberal with the Conviction awards, effectively restricting it to either instigating coolness or resisting misfortune.
Conviction can be viewed as a form of PC plot control. A player's ability to influence the story (either the specific events via better results or the greater arc through Narrator advice and other less-written-in uses) is represented by the character's current Conviction. As that wears away, the character's plot-protection is vastly diminished.

... M&M could handle things, though I may have to pick up a copy of W&W to see examples of how they handle certain things.

W&W is a great book, but its value is really limited to pre-built baddies, and campaign advice. Mechanically, it has almost zero new material; instead it shows how you can cast one rank versions of some of the base powers as feats (Eagle Eyes: one rank of Super-Sense for Extended normal vision, as one example), or modify the Magic power array to work differently for different types of magic.
If you can't see how M&M can handle fantasy gaming then it's probably going to open your eyes. If you can already see how, then W&W will do little more than give you some additional ideas. (Good ideas, and I certainly don't regret acquiring it, but just some more ideas.)

Now I am wondering about True20. How would it stack? How different is it from M&M? From what I have read it could definitely handle regular epic fantasy like D&D, but how would it handle real cinematic high fantasy? Or if I was looking for gritty crunch factor, how would it handle a setting like the Malazan series. I don't think I would actually run a game based on it, a bit too dark and anti-hero for me, but a system that could handle the vast array of various powers and abilities, could most likely handle anything.

Again, it all comes down to how you're defining cinematic. I ran a session, for a bunch of new players, where their level 1 heroes (four of them) with no magical support assaulted and captured a keep guarded by 30 troops and 1 officer. A bit of planning, some luck, and a liberal use of Conviction allowed them to scale the walls, assault the barracks, kill the commander, open the main gates, and all survive. A couple of them were badly wounded (and I don't pull punches when I run things, they earned that victory), but they all survived and succeeded. If I'd been less generous with Conviction, and not using minions for all but the commander, they would have been slaughtered and it would have been little fun for anyone. As it was, everyone had a lot of fun, and I had a very easy time tracking it all.
If that's what you mean by "real cinematic" then your question should be answered. If you're going for something even more extreme then I can't answer your question at this time.

You can have a similar play experience with M&M, or Savage Worlds, but each will also be very different in their own ways.
If your setting is very powers-intensive then M&M is probably going to be the most successful, simply because it has an extremely robust power system, especially including the power creation system, already built in. True 20 and SW both have a more limited power creation system, but can get huge mileage out of their existing powers simply by changing some of the flavor text.
The major fault with M&M is the difficulty so many players have at building characters. Because they can do just about anything, and because they have to choose to impose limitations and flaws, many players take a dozen or more characters to really start making characters with mechanical depth (essentially, they don't think to attach the appropriate mechanics for the story and characteristics they are including anyway). That's not a flaw with the system, just the difficulty so many people have adapting to the different gaming philosophy.

As for taste of system, both M&M and True 20 (especially True 20) are defensively oriented systems. I mean that much of a character's efforts go into making themselves better at avoiding / mitigating harm rather than dishing it out. There is a lot of effort, on the receiving end, to mitigate an attack; Reflex saves, Toughness saves, and often Fort or Will saves. This can become a major focus of character builds, as well as meta-game tension.
In True 20, +0 damage can be enough to cripple (and eventually kill) a demon. Or a hero (eventually). Because every attack is (potentially) dangerous, characters focus much more on not getting hit, both through feat and power selection and through planning, than they do on dealing tons of damage. They also focus on resisting effects through successful saving throws rather than pouring on the pain. This aspect is relatively unique in the gaming world, at least in my experience.
SW is much more offensively oriented. There's very little that can be done when you're on the receiving end of attacks, so players and characters focus on the offensive side. The bulk of the system does as well. This is much more common in RPGs

I hope some of this babble was helpful, and I wish you good luck.

[bushido11]

As for taste of system, both M&M and True 20 (especially True 20) are defensively oriented systems. I mean that much of a character's efforts go into making themselves better at avoiding / mitigating harm rather than dishing it out. There is a lot of effort, on the receiving end, to mitigate an attack; Reflex saves, Toughness saves, and often Fort or Will saves. This can become a major focus of character builds, as well as meta-game tension.
In True 20, +0 damage can be enough to cripple (and eventually kill) a demon. Or a hero (eventually). Because every attack is (potentially) dangerous, characters focus much more on not getting hit, both through feat and power selection and through planning, than they do on dealing tons of damage. They also focus on resisting effects through successful saving throws rather than pouring on the pain. This aspect is relatively unique in the gaming world, at least in my experience.
SW is much more offensively oriented. There's very little that can be done when you're on the receiving end of attacks, so players and characters focus on the offensive side. The bulk of the system does as well. This is much more common in RPGs

I hope some of this babble was helpful, and I wish you good luck.

In my experience, I've seen M&M played very offensively and Savage Worlds played very defensively. Yes, M&M possesses more defensive traits than Savage Worlds (such as Saving Throws), but I see these as extensions of ability checks. When M&M (and, by definition, d20) requires you to make a Fortitude Save, SW requires a Vigor roll. When M&M requires a Will save, SW requires a Spirit roll (or Guts roll for fear effects). There is no SW-equivalent to a Reflex save, since there's none of that half-damage to area attacks stuff, which is seen only in d20-based (and pre-3e D&D) games.

As far as character builds go, just as you can build a tank or scrapper in M&M, you can build a tank or scrapper in SW. And as for doing things defensively, SW has its plethora of options, such as defense-oriented Edges, Defend action, Full Defense action, taking cover, spending bennies for Soak rolls (a real life-saver when you take massive amounts of damage), etc.

Even though it's not in the core set of rules, the most robust and comprehensive supers supplement for SW, IMO, is Dawn of Legends. In fact, aside from using SW mechanics and terminology, it's very, very, similar to M&M's powers system (ranks in a power cost X points per rank, extras add to cost per rank, flaws deduct cost per rank, power array [which they call a power network], variable power pools [which they call power spectrum], power combos [which are linked powers]). Power networks are structured differently from power arrays, though, as you buy slots for the network to insert powers, and powers can either be embedded (standard array power) for one-third of its cost or adjustable (dynamic array power) for one-half of its cost.

Even with this, though, you don't generally want to mix Dawn of Legends or Necessary Evil characters with other SW characters, as their Acrane Background Edge is so much more powerful than those found in the Explorer's Edition (I'd say that Necessary Evil's Arcane Background [Super] edge counts for 10 regular Edges), whereas with M&M, powers are the standard and not the exception.

[ValhallaGH]

There is no SW-equivalent to a Reflex save, since there's none of that half-damage to area attacks stuff, which is seen only in d20-based (and pre-3e D&D) games.

You've apparently never rolled Agility to avoid a grenade or other explosion. Or Spirit to not stick your head up into a burst of suppressive fire.

I didn't mean to say that Savage Worlds doesn't have defensive options. It does, as all good RPGs should. (Though your post seems to cover all the ones that are in the Explorer's Edition, so I have to wonder about that et cetera. )
What it also has is a normal emphasis on offense over defense. Which is what I was saying.


Good gaming.

P.S. Welcome to the boards. Have fun.

[true oni]

I first came across True20 when GR offered it freely for a limited time.

My memory of it is a bit vague now since I haven't picked up the book for a while now.

What I liked about it was the ease in which you could freely move between classes. I liked that there was only 3 "generic" classes for which you could build the character you had in mind. A lot of the 3.x rules were streamlined and it was easier to run than it's parent system. There had been a lot of comparison to Savage Worlds.

The thing that did bug me (but are pluses to others) were that there was no experience table (yes I know you could easily implement one yourself...), the powers section were not uniform (although that probably changed with revised ed), the wound system was more complicated than using hitpoints, and adding specific classes were not uniform (although the revised fixed that).

Over the years, it started showing its age with other systems overtaking its strength. For example, Star Wars Saga's chargen was just as fluid and the talents were very flavorable and fun to use in play. While building monsters were easier then D&D, Savage Worlds was even more easy.

Another thing was that I grew to dislike wound systems. Almost every system that had one seemed to make it more complicated. Savage Worlds was simply just too confusing (new players still get confused even after PEG revised it) and while T20 was less confusing, it was even more complicated than Savage Worlds.

Finally, hardcopy support for the line is minimum at best. At brick and morter stores, I saw very few support outside of GR. Contrast that with SW. 3rd party publishers seem to risk printing a few hardcopies to be distributed to these stores. Most 3rd party publishers seem to offer it only as a PDF or PoD. I don't like to buy PDFs and I like to physically look over the product before I buy.

So, for me, while I initially liked T20, I felt another system did it better.