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HistoryOfOmniSystem

The Omni System is based on the Talislanta system which has evolved from the first 1987 release of Talislanta

Talislanta System

The Talislanta rules system, called at various times the 'Action Table System', the 'D20 System' (before the term was used by Dungeons & Dragons) and the 'Omni System', is very simple relative to other role-playing game systems. Characters are defined by Attributes and Skills, the numerical ratings of which are added to the roll of a single twenty-sided die when a character attempts an action. The final number resulting is then looked up on an Action Table, giving one of five possible results: Mishap, Failure, Partial Success, Full Success or Critical Success.

For most of the game's history, character creation was handled by offering a list of archetypes to choose from. Early editions of the game offered several dozen archetypes, expanding to over a hundred in later editions. Each archetype represents an adventuring personality particular to a certain culture with such colorful names as "Cymrilan Rogue Magician", "Jaka Beastmaster" and "Mandalan Mystic Warrior". Each archetype offered all relevant information needed to start playing the character including Attributes, Skills, apparel and equipment and, after making a few personalizations, was ready to begin play right from the book. In an aspect unusual among role-playing games, little attempt was made to balance the archetypes, and many were clearly more or less powerful than others. The rationale being that it was more important to present characters that were faithful to the setting than mechanically equal. In the fifth edition, a more traditional character generation system was introduced to create balanced characters, but critical response was mixed.

Omni System

With the licensing of the Talislanta and Atlantis? settings by Morrigan Press? and the publication of the new version of both games and settings, the system was 'spun off' as a standalone system called Omni and was first published in (insert date). Morrigan then used various modified versions of the system in the following systems:

• High Medieval (date)
• Terran Trade Authority (date)
• Talislanta 5th edition (date)
• Atlantis 2nd Age (date)
• (add more)

The system was also licensed to (insert publisher) who used a version of Omni in their SF-fantasy roleplaying game Hellas? in 2008.