You can get the free QuickStart (QS) PDF here (includes a very short adventure: Wormsign).I watched a streamed game at ModCon 2020, an online convention. That flowed very smoothly, but it was run by a GM well-versed in the game system.
I've run and played Star Trek Adventures and Conan 2d20 which uses the 2d20 system.
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After reading the QuickStart, I had enough problems with the rules that I had to Google search various aspects of the rules and look in the full core rulebook for clarification. I found some, but not all the answers I was looking for.
When you read some of the examples, there are no die rolls, only nebulous references to the rules. It were as if the rules were still in flux and no concrete examples were written into the rule book. And once the rules were solidified, no one went back and updated the book with concrete examples. So, even when I'm reading an example, it doesn't explain anything. It's a non-example example. In various forums, I also found contradictory advice by the game designers.
During play, more questions came up. Quick searches in the rulebook yielded no answers.
After a day of searching for answers on the web and rereading the rules, and thinking about the system design, I figured things out.
The designers wanted to create a single system, a universal system, to resolve any type of conflict. They list 4 Forms of Conflict: Dueling, Skirmish, Espionage, Warfare. From small scale, up close dueling, all the way to satellite view of armies sieging a fortress. This is a great idea.
The problem is that they needed an all encompassing term to name various things in the conflict, so they called these things Assets. In a Duel, the Assets are weapons and armor. In a Skirmish, individual Mooks (generic unnamed bad guys) and equipment. In Espionage, spies, informants, spy tech, blackmail info. In Warfare, whole armies and fortresses. So, depending on how close your camera to the action is, the Asset can range from a single weapon to a whole army. This was not explained very well in the QS or core book. (I finally found the extensive list of Assets p.189-215, which was not clearly explained on p.164).
Characters have Drives and Skills.
Drives: Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, Truth.
Skills: Battle, Communicate, Discipline, Move, Understand.
Like in other 2d20 systems, you add the two to create your Target Number (TN). Roll 2d20. Each d20 can generate 0 to 2 successes. 1 = 2 successes. 20 = Complication. If you can reasonably use your focus, then a die roll <= Skill is 2 successes. A die roll <= Drive + Skill, 1 success. The number of Successes you need is the Difficulty Number (DN).
The game is trying to be more character driven, so you may pick any Drive you want to pair up with your Skill. Min-Maxers will always try to use their best Drive (Drive with highest score). What is the drawback? Your character may become predictable and your enemies might take advantage of this in the future. What is nice about this is that all action is rooted in a Drive. So, all action is story driven. Why are you fighting (Battle) this person? The answer is based on the Drive you are using. When you are speaking to someone (Communication), what are you trying to convey? Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, Truth?
Characters have no Hit Points. You win or lose an extended contest based on your Battle if it's a physical fight, Communicate if it's a social contest, Move if it's a race, etc. In some systems, your Skill is your Hit Points, but in this system, it's a temporary track. Your Skill does not degrade during the contest, so you just keep track of how much damage you've taken, it's more like temporary fatigue during the contest. Once the contest is over, you throw away the temporary track. If you did pick up a Complication, it would stay until you resolve the Complication.
This is nice because a physically strong (high Battle) but weak willed individual (low Discipline) can not be easily defeated in Battle, but can easily be swayed.
When you Move an Asset, you can move normally (1 zone), subtly or boldly. Moving subtly or boldly requires a Difficulty 2 test, but if you succeed, you get some benefits. p.166 Move.
During a Skirmish, the PCs were attacked by a bunch of Mooks. Mooks go down after one hit. Combat is still a contested roll, but it looks like if you beat your attacker, you can't do damage to your attacker, but only gain Momentum. Defenders gain Momentum with extra Successes; Attackers do damage and can either spend 2 Momentum to do +1 damage, create a Trait (2 Momentum), or bank the extra Momentum. Any successful attack takes out a Mook. A successful attack does 2 damage + the Quality of the weapon used (in the QS, that's 0 including the NPCs). Spend 2 Momentum and do +1 damage. This is the damage Mooks will do to PCs. This means most PCs can take 2-3 hits before being defeated. They can then Resist Defeat once per scene, where they can spend 1 Momentum & gain 1 Complication and stay in the fight. The next time they get hit though, they will be defeated and be out of the fight. Being defeated does not necessarily mean death. It could mean being knocked out or captured.
The issue I had was that I had 12 Mooks. Did all 12 Mooks get to attack? The answer is yes, but it would be unfair if they all targeted a PC and took each PC down one at at time. So, I would generally spread out the attacks. Maybe if a PC turns out to be a massive combat monster would they realize this and focus fire. During combat, individual PCs can intimidate enemies and make them flee or surrender instead of physically fighting them. That is always an option. So, you can have a battlefield with a Bene Gesserit cowing some Mooks while a House Soldier cuts some down and a Courtier bribes others to turn traitor.
How do range attacks work? If you are in the same zone as your target, you can just shoot. Otherwise, +1 Difficulty (need another success). To get rid of this range penalty, you must aim in the other zone by moving your aim to the other zone; this takes an action. The rulebook calls his Moving a ranged weapon asset.
I wasn't sure if you get a contested roll against ranged attacks until I found an example on p.175 Attacks, Defeat, and Using Assets: "Nasir drops the other thug in their zone with his pistol in another contested test." So, range attacks are also contested rolls. This makes sense if you get to take cover or dodge Maula Pistol darts. The darts aren't like bullets with very high velocity. Even with a Personal Shield, you can still shoot the target if you're in the same zone and push the pistol slowly past the Personal Shield and then fire. The Difficulty is 2.
Another use of Momentum is to Keep the Initiative. Spend 2 Momentum and either you get another action (+1 Difficulty, needing an extra success) or you can let one of the other PCs go right after you. To prevent abuse, once you Keep the Initiative, at least one enemy gets to act before you can do this again. This isn't in the Common Uses of Momentum section of the rules, for some reason it's under Action Order in Basics of Conflict.
In combat, we overlooked creating Traits (2 Momentum). Instead of doing 1 extra damage (2 Momentum), you can create an advantage that stays throughout the scene. Against a large number of Mooks, it would be good to find a choke point (+1 Difficulty to be hit) or a defensible wall (can't be shot with range weapons). Once this trait is created, the Mooks can overcome it with bypass choke (2 Threat) or punch holes in wall (2 Threat). This creates more story during the combat.
In other 2d20 systems with damage dice, special d6s, you roll damage and on 5s & 6s, you score Effects that are weapon specific. Since this system doesn't use damage dice and does a set amount of damage, they've added Traits and Assets that can be created with Momentum during your attack. This reduces the number of dice needed and makes Effects more story based.
In 2d20 systems, you always want to fill your Momentum pool, so you can buy extra dice in clutch moments. This happens when a PC with a high Skill + Focus succeeds in a task, so that PC generally buys an extra 1d20, get excess successes and puts the extra back into the pool.
One issue is that to get your Momentum pool going, you want more dice rolls. For a game trying very hard to tie in storytelling into the system, it does heavily rely on dice pool accounting. This takes you out of the storytelling mindset.
Overall, there was some good design for this game, but it wasn't written clearly. There are lots of gaps in the rules. I fear the books were rushed to print to meet the movie release deadline. The rules need to be revised for clarity.
For me, the jury is still out whether I would recommend buying this RPG. Try out the free QuickStart, watch some how-to-videos, Google questions that you have. Proceed with caution.
For me, the jury is still out whether I would recommend buying this RPG. Try out the free QuickStart, watch some how-to-videos, Google questions that you have. Proceed with caution.
Dune won a Gold ENnie 2022 for Best Writing.
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