The official GI Joe, Transformers, and Power Rangers RPGs will be switching to the D&D 5.5E ruleset, leaving behind the Essence 20 system.
During this year’s Renegade Con (an online convention about all things Renegade Games), the company announced new editions of the Power Rangers, GI JOE, and Transformers RPGs. But with a twist, the new editions of these RPGs of Hasbro IPs will be using the D&D 5.5E ruleset, as opposed to the Essence 20 system. Here’s what we know.
Renegade Games Announces 2nd Editions And A Rules System Change
You can watch the whole con livestream up above. The salient part of the big edition change comes in at around the 1:06:45 mark, wherein Renegade announces that soon it will launch BackerKit campaigns for these 2nd Edition rulebooks. And that these new rulebooks will use a familiar RPG system.
Now, if you’ve played these at all, then you know that while the Essence 20 system bore some similarities to D&D 5E, it also had very much its own development path. Kind of like Pathfinder and D&D when that split originally happened. Or like when D&D also split and became D20 Modern. Same principle at the core, roll a d20, but the systems built atop that core idea diverged, often wildly. Now, however, it seems that 5.5E will be the core.
I would imagine that there will be some tweaks/reskinning going on with that. But it does seem that one of Renegade’s goals is to offer newer players a much lower barrier to entry when trying out any of the new editions.
“We’re excited to announce that second editions are coming for our Transformers, GI JOE, and Power Rangers roleplaying games. This second edition will use the 5.5E rules system, giving RPG fans a familiar foundation inspired by the popular ruleset used in D&D. The 2nd Edition core rulebooks will include a wide spread of character options, gear, enemies, eras, locations, and more.”
As Renegade later revealed in its Discord, as was posted on the RPG subreddit, a big part of the reason for the shift to 5.5E was a lack of sales for the other RPGs:
“The reason for our shift to 5.5E moving forward is because we didn’t see the sales to sustain continued E20 releases for Power Rangers, Transformers, or GI JOE. So ultimately, to feasibly continue making TTRPG titles for Power Rangers, Transformers, and GI Joe, we needed to shift to a model that supports better new player acquisition.”
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I think the hope is that the much bigger pool of 5.5E players will take an interest in anything 5.5E-adjacent. Especially since, with the transition to 5.5E, I could see a world where Hasbro pushes to have these games feature on D&D Beyond. It calls to mind that picture of Optimus Prime in D&D from the now-defunct Sigil virtual tabletop.
Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks is on record saying he wants more crossover products. But whether or not any of that is at work behind the scenes, the new editions will be launching in the next few months on BackerKit. So keep an eye out for new editions coming soon.
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