d20 Trinity

[chuckro]

Once upon a time, White Wold had a gameline outside of the World of Darkness. It took place in the Trinity Universe and consisted of the pulp action game Adventure!, the superhero game Aberrant and the futuristic sci-fi game Trinity. In 2004, Sword & Sorcery Studios, White Wolf's d20-compatible arm, revised the three games into d20 versions, designed to be compatible with systems like d20 Modern and d20 Future.

I played the original version back in high school--I think oblvndrgn ran it--and I think I liked it better as a Storyteller game. They present a very in-depth metaplot with a fully fleshed-out world, a lot of possible antagonists and and political struggles, and a lot of interesting stories to tell. They present relatively few options for the standard D&D paradigm of going places, killing things and taking their stuff. At least, not that will really impact the major events around you--killing a small group of aliens or evil aberrants is good, but there are whole planets full of both. You'll need political action to actually save the world.

The class system looks pretty good on paper, basically allowing any mental-based character to be a psion and build up both their regular class levels and their psion powers. I'd have to test it out to get a real feel for the balance, though. Non-psions gain more of their class abilities faster and can put their better ability scores into physical stats, but I'm not sure that actually works out to a balanced party. (It might be necessary to rewrite the psi-score rules and declare that every PC is a psion.)

It also makes me wonder how the d20 version of Aberrant shook out, given that the original version used "taint" (mutating quantum radiation poisoning caused by using your superpowers) to keep characters in check. The Storyteller system was much better about plot-based character degeneration (insanity, physical mutation, harming your loved ones) as a limiting factor. D20 systems tend to need system-based balancing factors.

This will go on my list of "things to run at some point", possibly when I have the urge to run a sci-fi game, but all things considered, I'd probably rather have the original version of the game.

Comments

[oblvndrgn.livejournal.com]

I ran it, in my halcyon days of inability-to-adjust-on-the-fly. The game said the players could only use flechette ammo on the ship or you risk decompression, and the players asked, well, why are the torpedoes from the enemy ship just doing minor damage, but a gun inside would kill us all? I think I came up with one-sided armor. Yeah. I think I got rid of my original sourcebook though when I was cleaning out the last apartment, didn't think that you might want it.

I like sci-fi and mutants. In the original everyone was a telepath of one kind or another, and I'd say it kind of foreshadowed the five-paths-for-every-super that NWoD eventually used.