I recently had the pleasure of reading Beach House Games' new roleplaying system: "Prime 20." Over the years I have introduced literally hundreds of people (usually young people) to roleplaying and one of the biggest hindrances to their understanding has always been cumbersome rules. This rule system comes in at a slim 32 pages making it quite user friendly. The author of the game, Tim Beach, emphasizes fun and flexibility for both the players and the gamemaster and his rules are set up to facilitate that for those who are willing to accept them at face value. I think this game system would be a great one for new players and a gamemaster who already had a modicum of experience or at least was well read with a vivid imagination.
The system uses only a single d20 although Beach does give options to those who might prefer to use six-sided dice instead showing that the author is as flexible as he would like the users to be. The game purports to be usable with a wide variety of settings: fantasy, pirates, ninja and wild west to name a few; and the author promises future books to add details to these settings. The basic book contains 6 player character races and 12 monsters that may oppose them. There are two characters sheets which could be easily copied.
this does not appear to be a game for the many "rules mongers" out there. Mr. Beach keeps it as simple as he possibly can and it makes this system a breath of fresh air. The only detracting elements were a number of typing/editorial errors (I counted 6) none of them a disaster which I am sure will be corrected in a later errata. I wish Beach House Games good luck with their new system and look eagerly forward to future books dedicated to the Prime 20 system
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