Renegade Studios

 A Review

    I've had the luxury of picking up pretty much every one of the current e20 books by Renegade Studios -- including GI Joe, Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony. Because of the campaign I ran, I'll mainly focus on the first three, but you can expect that my comments would hold true for MLP as well. For this review I'll be using short form from time to time: GIJ: GI Joe, TF: Transformers: PR: Power Rangers, MLP: My Little Pony, and CRB for 'Core Rulebook'.

    So where to begin.
    Renegade Studios is using what they call the Essence 20 or 'e20' engine. Each of the game books uses the same engine, allowing for ease of play and of bringing one's characters from one setting to another (or fusing the settings together). Because of the order the books came out (I believe PR, TF, then GIJ) there are some slight bits of difference in the mechanics as Renegade got more comfortable with the engine and had a few more months or more under their belt to listen to comments from the players and game masters. Most of the differences involve weapon lists and how the character's background connects with the character, but such differences are not that big of a deal and a gaming group can decide just how they want to use the mechanics without any real trouble.

    The game is called the 'Essence' system, because 'Essence' reflects the character's attributes. There are four attributes: Strength, Speed, Smarts, and Social. These run from 1 up, with no perceivable upper limit. Rather than being how 'good' you are in a literal sense, each attribute instead provides a resistance and skills.  If you have 3 in Strength, you have 3 points to put into skills.  Resistance is 10 + attribute, so if you have a 3 Strength, your Toughness is 13. I'm using 'attribute' here, but they use Essence, so for example, you might get a +1 Strength Essence.

    Rolls are done using a d20, with bonus dice determined by how good of a skill you have. Skills run from 0 to 6, with an increasing die as the skill improves: d3, d4, d6, d8, d10, d12. If you get bonuses, you can exceed these dice, in which case you get 2d8, then 3d6, then an auto success, then an auto critical.
    Normally, to get a critical, you need to roll the maximum value on your skill die. If you're rolling 2d8 or 3d6, any die that rolls maximum produces a critical. If you have a specialty that applies to the roll, you roll all dice up to your skill rank, so if you have a d8 in Driving (Cars), you get to roll 1d20+1d3+1d4+1d6+1d8 when you are driving a car. Once you roll, you choose the best skill die to add to your d20 roll. Normally, you can't crit on a 1d3, but there are exceptions.

    Characters are built by choosing an Origin, an Influence, and a Role. Each Influence provides a benefit, and comes with an optional setback. You can take more than one Influence, but each Influence after the first causes the setback to be mandatory. Origin gives a baseline for who you are, and gives initial essence bonuses, health, movement speed, languages, and often a special benefit on top of that. Role, on the other hand, is your 'class', and determines your proficiencies, gives a few more bonuses to your Essence, a few extra benefits on top of that, and your class perks.

    Class abilities and 'feats' are called Perks. You have Role Perks, and you have General Perks. Each time you level, you are likely to get a Perk of some type, but if you have additional Role abilities, you may only have those increase. There is no multiclassing -- if you wish to change Roles, this usually takes a Perk, or you simply rebuild your character to some extent. There are General Perks for taking Role Perks from elsewhere, so changing Roles isn't really a thing you should be doing anyway. (Exception: Power Rangers. They have so many alternate types that you need to snag a General Perk for to swap into them.. Eg: White Ranger, Time Ranger, Shadow Ranger, etc).

    With sourcebooks, Faction is a thing, and you get an initial benefit from your Role and Faction.  Power Rangers have 'It's Morphin' Time', Autobots have 'Transform and Roll Out', and GI Joe of course has 'Yo, Joe!' -- all of which give some specific bonuses. Additional Factions include for example Sgt. Slaughter's team. Also with sourcebooks, you can now get allies who you can call on to back you up when the going gets tough -- though you need to do a few things to earn this backup - it isn't free.

    Okay, so what's my thoughts on all of this?
    First, and foremost, it reasonably captures the feel of the respective franchises. They do a good job of providing you with options to build the character you want to play. The sourcebooks are all very informative, and provide additional options, expanding on the setting and what players can do. The CRB is just that -- it's the core of the franchise, and deals with the bare bones while giving you enough to dig in and have fun. It isn't 'missing' much, really unless you want to get into the deep lore or go for something complicated.

    As an example, PR is not going to bring in all the expanded universe stuff in the core rulebook.  You can be one of the normal Power Rangers, or a White Ranger, you'll have your Zords, and can round out your character with a few Perks, but you're not about to become a Time Ranger, a Shadow Ranger, a Purple or Orange Ranger, etc.
    With GI Joe, there's a bit less expanded universe stuff - there's Sgt. Slaughter, but that's about it for now. Additional stuff has started coming out, but it's still a bit young, so to speak.  Except for the Cobra sourcebook - that's added a lot.
    Transformers have triple changers in the core rulebook, but Combiners, Head Masters, etc, aren't out yet. There's a lot you can do with minicons, and with the new Decepticon book, you're getting into some incredibly interesting options for your characters, such as being able to make a Soundwave-type with a small army of minicons at your disposal.
    Power Rangers has the most sourcebooks already, and are rapidly getting more, to make up for the sheer amount of complex lore the franchise has. There's an upcoming book on the villains, which should introduce a lot more -- including some stuff on magic.

    The pace at which the sourcebooks are coming out suits my preferences -- there's a new one every 3 or so months, and sometimes more than one will drop a few days from each other. Renegade has a pre-order perk, that if you pre-order, you get the PDF free along with the physical book, and the PDF often drops two or more months before the physical book, giving you the chance to dig in ahead of time. It's a good system, and it helps them see the degree of interest (while affording to cover future books as well).  I've no complaints there.
    The sourcebooks are not cash grabs or throw-aways, either. Each one is filled with lore and options, while being light on 'new rules' - save for the Factions and Allies thing I mentioned earlier. As it stands, these games are being supported by Renegade quite well.

    And recently, they released a crossover book, allowing you to blend GIJ, TF, and PR, even allowing for interesting Origins, Roles, and Perks which fuse these options together. Very well done.

    So, what's the downside? Again, this is a matter of personal preference. My general motto is that the mechanics need to reflect the setting, rather than trying to focus on 'balance'. Balance is in the hands of the players and game master, and trying to pin balance to the mechanics makes the game too restrictive.
    The e20 engine can handle a lot, but the mechanics themselves lean heavily in the favour of game balance so that everyone is more or less on even footing.
    No, the characters are not on even footing. For example, if you're in a game with a lot of combat and you're playing Power Rangers, Pink Ranger is by far the most powerful character in the group. If you're going Zord heavy, Blue Ranger is by far going to have a strong edge. Some Roles are just stronger than others, and if the player is paying attention to General Perks, they're going to get even stronger to a level other players will not be able to keep up with.

    However, there's certain design choices which give me pause. Ranged weapons have a range in feet - and I feel these ranges are way too short. It tends to keep the game in about 50 to 100 feet of each other - even when you're pulling out tanks, and jets and bombers, and sniper rifles.
    Transformers has put a bit of a limitation on Cybertronian sizes - from human to 'big' like Optimus Prime, but so far they don't have combiners, and they don't allow for the Very Big Cybertronians. Give them time I guess? And Insecticons don't shrink down to insect size (see the comics). Mass Shifting is fairly limited - Soundwave isn't going to shrink down to normal tape player size, Megatron isn't going to shrink down to pistol size, Reflector isn't going to shrink down to human camera size, etc.

    But really, that's nitpicking. The game engine is interesting and solid, the Roles are interesting and solid, and the frequency at which products come out makes the game feel very supported, which is something I like.  (I can't stand the 'one book every 1-4 years' thing).
    Should you pick these up? If you're interested in the franchises, I'd say definitely. And I'm hoping other Hasbro properties come in - there's a few that I absolutely adore from my childhood that I'd like to see. Visionaries, Action Man, Micronauts, and M.A.S.K. are all on the wish list. We'll see what 2024 brings us.

General
Mechanics: 8/10 (a few oddities, but solid)
Playability: 9/10 (lots of options and permutations)
Ease:  6/10 (there's a number of things you really need to keep track of)
Lore: 8/10 (they're doing a good job giving you the feel of each franchise)
Content: 9/10 (the sourcebooks are frequent and not a waste, the core books are thicc with info)

Score:  80% -- well worth the price of admission.