Check Out Essence 20 – Hasbro’s New RPG Engine For Transformers, GI Joe, And More
Renegade Games recently unveiled a new RPG system that will bring Hasbro’s many worlds, like Transformers, GI Joe, and Power Rangers, to your tabletop.
If you liked cartoons and kids shows in the 80s and 90s then you are in for a special treat, thanks to Renegade Games, makers of a wide variety of RPGs, including My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and Kids on Bikes, also weirdly enough the current stewards of the World of Darkness. The treat in question? RPGs based around those halcyon days of Saturday morning cartoons that once existed solely to sell sugary cereal and articulated action figures.
At Renegade Con this past weekend, Renegade Games unveiled Essence 20, a new tabletop roleplaying game system that will be used to power a new line of tabletop RPGs all based in Hasbro’s various non-WotC IPs. The list is long, but the ones that lend themselves especially well to RPGs (conveniently enough they’re also the ones that have been announced) include GI Joe, Transformers, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. No mention was made of a Peppa Pig RPG, but rest assured it’s just a matter of time.
Earlier this week, Elisa Teague, Senior Producer of Roleplaying Games at Renegade, spoke with Forbes about the upcoming system. Teague revealed that the new system, called Essence 20, is a streamlined, d20-based system that plays more broadly than D&D. As she explained to Forbes:
“The Essence20 Roleplaying System is a d20 based system that uses what I call a ‘fashion plate’ system for character design, drawing from three aspects: what type of person are they, what is their function as part of the team, and what experiences have they had in their life prior to becoming a hero?”
What does that mean? Well you’ll have three key elements – Origin, Role, and Influence. Each of these will be represented by different dice which you will add to the roll of a d20 to see how you did:
“When rolling Skills Tests and Attack Rolls a player will always roll a d20 plus the applicable die for the type of roll they are making, resulting in a total that must exceed the Skill Test’s Difficulty in order to succeed. Essence20 also includes a ladder mechanic, where if a character has specialized in a particular Skill, they may roll their Skill Die plus every other die type under it, choosing the highest die result to add to their d20 roll. A critical success is made when any Skill Die shows its highest number, giving a huge chance of rolling crits, mathematically, and of course, then being able to roleplay those epic results in the most heroic way possible!”
All of this adds up for a fast-to-play kind of game that gets players right into the story of whatever they’re trying to play. The question is, will Essence 20 be flexible enough to deliver all of the worlds we’ve had teased so far and make them feel distinct enough? Or will it struggle with some of the same difficulties other broad-reaching RPGs have faced in the past? We’ll have to wait and find out.
The first game to use Essence 20 will be a Power Rangers RPG, but you will also soon see Essence20 versions of GI Joe, Transformers, and My Little Pony.
Happy Adventuring!
