In this first True20 Companion Design Journal, Steve Kenson reveals what's in each chapter of the book and how to best use it to get the most out of True20.
True20 Adventure Roleplaying provides a complete set of rules for roleplaying, as well as four sample settings. True20 Worlds of Adventure adds five more settings for adventure in a variety of different worlds. Both books provide specific setting options, while the True20 rulebook provides rules for handling heroic-level characters in almost any world.
The True20 Companion fills-in the space between: it is for Narrators interested in creating their own worlds of adventure, or simply expanding upon the material found in True20 Adventure Roleplaying and Worlds of Adventure. The book is a guide to four popular roleplaying genres for the True20 system: fantasy, outer space science fiction, horror, and modern action-adventure.
The Companion takes more of a "do-it-yourself" attitude than previous True20 books, giving you the tools to create your own settings rather than providing pregenerated ones. You can also use the information in the book alongside existing True20 settings to expand and refine them, adding fantasy variants to Blood Throne or horror ideas to Razor in the Apple or Nevermore. You can even use the Companion as a guide to help you adapt your favorite roleplaying adventure setting for use with True20 Adventure Roleplaying, using the guidelines for the appropriate genre(s).
The True20 Companion provides a short chapter on custom-designing your own heroic roles, followed by four chapters on the major adventure roleplaying genres and suggestions for using the True20 system to create and run games set in them.
Chapter 1: Role Creation breaks down the structure of the heroic roles from True20 Adventure Roleplaying into its component elements and provides guidelines for creating your own roles from scratch. You choose the role’s Combat bonus, saving throws, skill progression, feats, and access to powers as well as defining the core ability to fill any niche in your game. The chapter also provides some sample roles, such as the martial artist and priest.
Chapter 2: Fantasy Adventures looks at the most popular genre of adventure roleplaying. With True20, you can create worlds of high magic, myth, and adventure, where heroes struggle against the forces of evil or simply try to survive from day to day. Chapter 2 shows you ways to vary backgrounds, races, and magic in a fantasy setting to get the feel you want for your game. It provides new heroic archetypes for legendary heroes, supernatural philosophies for fantasy powers, and a wide selection of weapons and equipment, including magical items.
Chapter 3: Space Adventures takes your True20 game to the stars with the science fiction genre. Here you can find varying technology levels, backgrounds and rules for alien heroes, expanded skills, and a detailed equipment-design system. It also looks at spaceships and other vehicles, as well as designing your own alien species and strange new worlds.
Chapter 4: Horror Adventures takes True20 down a dark path, showing you how to run horror-themed adventures in the True20 system and pitting the heroes against their worst nightmares. It offers backgrounds and roles such as the arcanist and the blessed, supernatural rituals, and rules for handling all the fear, terror, corruption, and madness you can throw at the heroes. It concludes with a set of frameworks for starting up your own horror series.
Chapter 5: Modern Adventures concludes the book by returning to the modern world. Here heroes can take on roles from action-adventure movies, going up against organized crime or working together as an elite commando unit. This chapter provides modern backgrounds and customized roles, rules for bartering on the black market, and guidelines for creating specialized equipment and building cutting-edge gadgets for spy and agent heroes.
Using The Book
The True20 Companion is intended as a supplement to the basic game systems in True20 Adventure Roleplaying. The book contains a lot of optional material, rules you can add on to the True20 system to achieve a particular style or to suit a particular genre. Don’t feel you have to use any of the options presented in the book, and you certainly don’t have to use all of them! In fact, you’ll find some options are mutually exclusive.
Sometimes the Companion does the same thing in different ways in order to suit a particular genre. For example, the equipment-building system in Chapter 3 is intended for advanced technology of the sort you’ll find in space adventures, while the customization system in Chapter 5 is aimed at modern technology and the gadgets from espionage fiction. Use whichever approach best suits your game.
One of the benefits of True20 is its versatility. If you want a space adventure series with fantasy races and supernatural rituals, by all mean, go right ahead! Mix and match options from this book to create the setting you want. The same is true if you want fantasy heroes going up against eldritch, sanity-blasting horrors from the dawn of time, or modern adventures within a secret world of fantasy beings and magic. It’s your world, so have fun with it!