Dimension 20’s New Free TTRPG Is… Different

[@qvinnyc]

This system is loosely based on Kids on brooms/ bikes, and then the season right after, they play a sort of Never stop blowing up - Kids on brooms mash-up that also seems like so much fun.

[@BonusAction]

I am watching that season next!

[@-cactus.raven-]

@@BonusActionit is so good. So many good moments/quotes

[@AndyReichert0]

duuuuuuude. that Blowing Up mechanic is genius.

[@BonusAction]

It looks so addictive, I can not wait to play it!

[@georgeyoung2684]

Necksnapper - 'harmlessly incapacitate' something is not adding up... haha

[@royalrosepetal]

Its very Batman where he does stuff that'll 100% kill them irl but he checks their pulse and its fine

[@danieldiaz143]

I agree that this system might not be good for long campaigns, but for medium length is not bad. I think that if the players blow their dice, they do become overpowered but that would encourage them to try even more absurd and outrageous actions, giving the opportunity to the GM to set higher dice rolls. This happened in misfits and magic 2, where Aabria set some DCs of 50 and of a 100, when the players wanted to do really godly feats.

[@bradleyhurley6755]

I think it works for a game session, maybe two. Too many more and you are going to quickly reach a d20 in every skill. Which might make you want to do some crazy things. But anything over 30 is so unlikely that it's just not worth trying.

[@danieldiaz143]

Oh, you're thinking in terms of DnD my friend. The season they played in Dimension 20 there was wild things such as driving to almost 5000 (yes, 3 zeros) miles/h. It was hilarious

[@DParkerNunya]

​@bradleyhurley6755 You don't get a choice. The dm doesn't set the DC until you have set yourself on the path of the action. If you say "I want to leap from this train and tackle that dude off his motorcycle" and the dm says "Stunt:16", you don't get to say nevermind. The system let's you get away with a lot, but backing out of your crazy idea because the numbers aren't in your favor is not one of them.

[@justinparry1621]

Great timing worthy of an 80s action hero. I just downloaded this game yesterday. I agree it's not suited to long-term term play (for over the top 80s action campaigns, I'd use "Shadow of the Century" or "Extreme Vengeance"). You might be able to run a 2-3 session mini campaign, though. Running the same characters through increasingly ridiculous sequels might be possible, too, if everything resets back to d4 after each "movie."

[@linamishima]

Totally going to try this! And the joy of a simple system is that it’s easy to run for new players. And it’s a rare case of meta ludonarrarive resonance - not only does the rules reinforce the theming (ludonarrative resonance), but the jank of the rules fits it too!

[@shadomain7918]

It's weird that they release this as "based on Kids on..." since those systems don't have an Open License. Maybe they figure they're safe since they're giving it away for free.

[@Jason_Bryant]

"Based on" is basically free advertising in this case. They're not using any copyrightable material from Kids on Bikes, gaming systems can't be copywritten or patented at all, and they've made so many changes to the gameplay that it's barely reminiscent of that game. There's no legal need for them to mention Kids on Bikes at all, they're just giving credit to the team that gave them the inspiration.

[@emmakane6848]

Brennan played in Candela Obscura on CR - in part created by Spencer Stark who also worked on Kids on Bikes - so probably has a relationship to the people who made the system. If there was an issue with them publishing it I think Dropout’s legal team would’ve stopped them.

[@douglashutt3283]

Thanks for the intro and info. Going to give it a go.

[@mdp720]

I don't know which episode it was, but during the season on D20, Brennan mentioned there was a problem with the game mechanics because it's possible to critically fail and still blow up to max because of how failure works. He alluded to it basically breaking the game and needing to address that. Did they fix this with the release version?

[@BonusAction]

If the issue is that say, you can roll a 1, but then still use collected turbo tokens to turn it in to a BLOW UP, then I think that is still possible... But to have that many turbo tokens available, it means you will have had to fail ALOT of times already.

[@Jason_Bryant]

Glancing over the rules, it looks to me like the game is exactly what was in the show. The main issue I remember was that the high level stuff wasn't tested much before filming, so the players found some insane synergies. Those things are still in the ruleset. If I were running this, I would make two home-rules 1) You can only double your tokens from double exploding once per turn. When combined with some of the other mechanics, this can lead to a loop where people are able to keep blowing up over and over, effectively using their tokens to get more tokens. Limiting it to once per turn would fix that. 2) No letting players be the GM on nat 20s. That was super fun in the show when trained improv comics were using it, but I don't think you can trust every table with that. Plus, the other nat 20 based abilities from that suite are great, but nobody will ever choose them because this ability is so overpowered.

[@SeattleFira]

Stoked for this vid 🎉

[@dontdononthings7265]

I want to use this system in my swn game where the characters will play an rpg with an npc gm

[@soldierbreed]

I've never been a fan of the blowing up dice mechanic. Feels too hard to accomplish. For me at least

[@mrfact9994]

I assume that's why the Tokens exist