What is d20 Advanced?

From D20advanced

In the d20 Advanced RPG, you take on the role of a character in any number of wonderful worlds. Whatever you can imagine, you can be, and any sort of game world you would want to play in, you can create. This book contains all the information you need to play the game. This Basics chapter provides a quick overview of how the game works. After you read it, flip through the rest of the book and see the various options for creating character. Then you can read through the following chapters thoroughly to see which options appeal to you the most.

1 Characters
2 What You Need to Play
- 2.1 Dice
- 2.2 Modifiers
3 Using this Book

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Characters

The characters you create to play d20 Advanced are like the heroes of their own comic book series, television show, or movie. Your character might be...

A master swordsman, a warrior of renown.
A great sorcerer who wields fantastic magic.
A cunning thief who survives on his wits alone.
A superhero from straight out of a comic book.
An explorer who doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty.
The pilot of an experimental futuristic space ship.
One of the last survivors on Earth after a zombie apocalypse, armed with only a crowbar and a shotgun against the undead.
A brilliant scientist whose brain is his greatest weapon.
A strange monster or alien from some far-off place.
A timid seeker of knowledge man was not meant to know.
A mighty psychic whose mind holds vast power.
A martial artist who has mastered unarmed combat.
A zany cartoon character ready for hijinx.
Or anything else that you can imagine!

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What You Need to Play

Here’s what you need to start playing the d20 Advanced Roleplaying Game:

This book, which contains all the rules to create a hero and play the game.
A copy of the character sheet (found at the back of this book).
A pencil and some scratch paper.
At least one twenty-sided die (d20). You may want to have one die for each player, or you can share dice.

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Dice

d20 Advanced uses (and takes its name from) a twenty-sided die—available at game and hobby stores—to resolve actions during the game. References to “a die” or “the die” refer to a twenty-sided die unless stated otherwise. The die is often abbreviated “d20” (for twenty-sided die) or “1d20” (for one twenty-sided die). So a rule asking you to “roll d20” means, “roll a twenty-sided die.”

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Modifiers

Sometimes modifiers to the die roll are specified like this: “d20+2,” meaning “roll the twenty-sided die and add two to the number rolled.” An abbreviation of “d20–4” means, “roll the die and subtract four from the result.”

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Using this Book

The best way to read this book depends on whether you plan to be a player or Gamemaster in your d20 Advanced game. The GM creates the world in which the characters live and controls all non-player characters (NPCs) such as thugs, bystanders, and evil villains, as well as the supporting cast. Each player controls a character of his or her creation, interacting with other player characters as well as with the world and stories created by the GM.

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Gamemasters

If you plan to be a d20 Advanced Gamemaster, you should familiarize yourself with the whole book. Start by looking over the character creation (Part I: Characters) and Chapter X: Gamemastering. Then read through Chapter VII: Combat, and familiarize yourself with those rules. You may want to run a few sample combats using the character archetypes in the book, just to get a feel for things. Then you can decide what sort of game you want to run by reading Chapter XI: Campaign Building.

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Players

If you’re creating a hero for a d20 Advanced game, Part I: Characters contain all the information you need to create your own character. You may want to consult with your GM before creating a character to find out what sort of campaign your GM is interested in running.

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Notifications

This book uses numerous icons to quickly draw your eye to suggestions, options, and potentially problematic areas.

Cinematic: This icon is meant to show you rules which make a game especially cinematic, and to make the PCs much larger-than-life.
Examining the Mechanics: This graphic highlights some of the design principles used in certain areas of the game, so you can better understand how to make such choices for your own game.
Gritty: This icon represents an option which will make your game grimmer and grittier, and make the PCs smaller and even more vulnerable.
Options: This icon denotes optional guidelines for other ways to handle a rule, or how changing it can affect your game.
Rule of Thumb: This icon shows helpful suggestions for how to quickly resolve a question without resorting to flipping through the rules.
Social Rules: This icon points out rules which are used to resolve social interactions, which you might not find appropriate for your style of play.
Tactical Complexity: This icon is used to point out rules which might be problematic because of increased tactical complexity during combat.
Warning: This icon alerts you to mechanics which might prove problematic for your game because they might be too powerful for your game.