/gengen/ - Genesys General

My progress on HERCs is stymied by a lack of proper sources and descriptions. I don't have the Starsiege games, and thus don't have access to a database. When I did Tribes I relied very heavily on two different Tribes wikis and my own personal experience with Tribes 2 and Tribes: Ascend.

If you know of any database or PDFs of old Starsiege manuals that would give me reliable intelligence on HERC models and weapons, I'd be very grateful, and my work would continue at something faster than the pace of a paraplegic snail.

Iv been a Stargate Autist in the past. I'll hunt over the weekend.

Apparently, a chainsword is called a "rotorsword" in the world of steampunk.
>Melee (Heavy if you must clarify), +3 DAM, Crit 2, Encum 5, $400, Rarity 7
>Cumbersome 3
>Inaccurate 1
>Pierce 2
>Sunder
>Vicious 2
Fuckin' A.

Which Star Wars RPG talents have no Genesys equivalents?

I don't know how exactly how many Star Wars talents are out there, but there's definitely way more than what Genesys Core provides.

That said, here's a PDF going over every single official talent between both the Star Wars games and Genesys Core, including some additional homebrew talents at the end for good measure. The structure between them is so seamless you wouldn't be able to tell unless the document told you.

How you GET talents is very different in Genesys compared to Star Wars, though, but that's a different topic.

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So, what sort of tier would a talent that adds boost dice to a specific action be.

Depends on how niche the bonus is.

What did you have in mind?

1 probably, if the action is specific enough.

The lack of talent tree creation guidelines was my biggest disappointment in Genesys.

Because Genesys doesn't use the talent tree anymore. Now it's the much more freeform talent pyramid.

There's a section on creating talents. If you want to make a "tree" then that's a bit outside the scope of the game but is fairly obvious without a guide.

A talent tree would just be a group of talents that sit outside the freeform talents are for something specific like a class, magic, or character type. So the talent creation guidelines should be plenty enough, then just hone the talents into a specific intended theme and tie them all together into a tree.

So it's more like a very specific bundle of talents you throw at an archetype or skillset and say "unlock at your leisure"?

Sure. Think what a talent tree is in every other game. Let's look at the closest game: Edge of the Empire. In there talents are all just grouped and attached to a "class." The talents have a central thematic element to them (e.g. rogue, gunner, etc.) but otherwise are no different from just a pool of freeform talents.

You can even make the top ones slightly more iconic or powerful just to make the tree worth investing in over other things, but otherwise it's not really different.

There might also be a barrier to unlock a tree (e.g. choosing a class and having to pay XP for a new class).

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Whats the best way to start off a group of new players?

If you're the GM, make absolute certain you have a strong idea of your setting and what skills, talents and equipment are fitting for your game. Without them, palyers may be liable to come up with their own silly shit and try to browbeat you to get what they want because "I thought you said this game handles everything, right?"

Ease your players into the Narrative Dice System. Explain the symbols, give them a couple examples. Show them the basic things they can do with the extra symbols, like recover strain or get an extra maneuver. Once they get a handle on it, you can start really showing it off and how it can contribute to more narrative effects. Players are more willing to engage the dice and narrative once they know they have things to fall back on and are encouraged that it's okay to contribute.

tl;dr - Have a strong setting before you present your game, and ease your players into the dice.

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My group and I tried genesys yesterday and we didn’t really like it. We found it slow and clunky and the advantage/threat mechanic felt useless.
Maybe we just didn’t get it? Can you sell me on the things you like about this system? Not looking to debate, just to read opinions.

Spending advantage and disadvantage is the hardest obstacle to overcome for a lot of people. What problems did you have specifically? My group took a while to understand that just because they failed it wasn't a complete loss, which sounds like something you might relate to?

Fuck I hate phone posting. What I like about Genesys :
My group primarily play Call of cthulhu and World of Darkness. But if we do something different, we use WoD to do it. Genesys is a better way of doing this, but largely streamlined. I don't have to introduce new mechanics and rules for new systems in the game, it all comes down to the dice. Once we understood that, gameplay got smoother and smoother. I was homebrewing gear and enemies on the spot, and if I ever found myself running a shitty combat (we've all been there), I had rules to hand that let me and the players make it interesting and fun again. Genesys flows very smoothly because you're always throwing the same type of dice (unless you get a critical injury). Past the hump at the beginning, it's smooth sailing that let's everyone involved play the game they want to play.

Starsiege* Autist. I found the manual:
f001.backblazeb2.com/file/TRIBES-LIB-1/SS/StarsiegePilotGuide.pdf
>Pages 96 to 160 contain vehicle, weapon, and equipment stats
>This is all I can find, any real details on the hard numbers of the game have been lost to time.
>But really you just need basic concepts to port over to Genesys as the two systems are so radically different

So how's the dark heresy conversion coming?

we might try to do a pirates of the caribbean style campaign next (but its not anytime soon)

most things can be used as is from the corebook, creating new careers is easy, operating is used for sailing. some more specific things that ive thought about:

-all firearms take a maneuver to reload, add a talent that lets you suffer strain and reload as an incidental

-there is magic, but only divine and primal, and much more restricted

ship fights is gonna be the hardest part to convert. ship weapons are mostly different calibers (9-pounder, 12-pounder, etc.), carronades (short range and inaccurate) and long ones (long nines etc.). ship models are anything you can think of (corvette, frigate, man-of-war) and slap fitting stats on them.

some bigger changes i thought about is that system strain represents both "systems" such as sails, and crew. if you lose too much crew i.e. strain, you add black dice on gunnery and operating checks. medicine checks can be used like mechanics checks to restore system strain

another thing is different ammo types for ships. canister shots only deal strain but have shorter range. chain shots deal component criticals (e.g. rip sails -> reduce speed). explosive shots are inaccurate but gain the burn quality.

if you wanna playtest it i can make a quick pdf, then i can see if its shit or not

I've not played a game with the system yet, but from what I've seen, it's much as says: EVERYTHING (except Critical Injuries) is handled by the same dice mechanic, which cuts down on a lot of overhead. It's been mentioned several times, but learning the dice and what they're capable of is probably the hardest part of the system. Once you get over that hump and realize what they're capable of, everything is just gravy after that. It makes checks more than just pass-fail, and Advantage/Threat/Triumph/Despair is much more than just spending to recover strain or get to cover if you let it. Passing a check but having a couple advantage means a GM says "Well, on the bright side..." On the other hand, passing a check but rolling a Despair means the GM says "You did it, but you're still going to have a bad day..."

>Success w/ Advantage
"The door is open! You even managed to do it in less time than you thought!"

>Success w/Triumph
"The you have opened the door, and cloned the key so you can now unlock all the doors on this floor"

>Success but Threat
"You have opened the door, but it took you awhile, and you made some noise. You should probably get out of here fast"

>Success but Despair
"The door opens! The enemy commander is on the other side. Have fun."

>Success but Despair w/ Triumph
"The door opens, and reveals the enemy commander. You have just enough time to punch him in the face and run, or slam the door shut again."

>Success but Despair w/ Triumph
"You open the door only to come face to face with the enemy commander and owner of the keep. Fortunately, he doesn't see you coming, and there's a long flight of stairs going down just behind him. If you want him to have an "accident," this is your best chance.

I like this example, could we do some more?
>Success with advantage
Nobody sees you as you slip past the gate, a passing group of monks offers you the cover you need to cross the street into a darkened alley
>Success with triumph
You slip through the gate, overhearing a merchant arguing with a guard, money changes hands and his cart rolls towards the guild masters Hall, with you secreted inside.
>Success but threat
You pass through the gate, as you do however, a woman nearby cries 'Thief!' as a man rushes past you, dropping a purse at your feet
>Success with despair
You pass through the gate, a surprise inspection awaits the most recent visitors, and the guard captain expects to make some extra money from it
>Success with triumph and despair
Entering the city is easy enough, you pass through a small hatch and enter the square. Not everyone is so wise though, a secreted Vampire has been found in a gypsy caravan in the gatehouse. As guards rush past you, you wonder what this means for the heist in an hours time.

That just feels like a level of magnitude, though. The extra dice ought to feel like an extra windfall for you, not merelyhow well you pass (which is already reflected by the number of Success symbols you get). I guess I could see that getting a free ride to your destination instead of having to work your way there could count as a Triumph, but how does Success/Triumph/Despair suddenly translate into a Vampire?

Good, check out the pastebin, Lots of progress for a while but now I think it has slowed down.

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This looks tremendously familiar. Mirror's Edge?

It appears to be concept art for a Mirror's Edge character, yes.

Im kicking around an idea for a space Opera game. Any advice?

There's an entire chapter for space opera in the sample settings section of the core book. Start there and see if that answers any questions.

What sort give us the pitch user.

I havent had a chance to actually run a game yet, but have the book and dice. One thing Ive found hard to make sense of are those edge cases when you roll and you get something like 1 failure 1 advantage. Or Three threats, no success, but a triumph.

Now I know we can read the book for an idea on what to do, and many of these decisions vary from game to game, but how about we post rolls and have people suggest what they would do with the roll.

Roll Improv Workshop example:
>setting:
Fantasy
>What caused the roll:
Player swam across a heavy current in an underwater river to reach the other side.
>Final Result of roll after cancelations:
1 Triumph, 1 Dispair, 0 Success, 1 Advantage
>What would happen?

And the idea here isnt the most 'correct' answer, but to generate examples that can give GMs and Players ideas.

Then we save all this shit and add them to the sticky. Perhaps include a new ' dice interpretation scenario' at the start of each new thread.

thoughts?

>Failure
Bad news: you couldn't ford the river and must retreat to your side.
>1 Despair
Worse news: In your attempt to ford the river, you were carried several hundred meters down river in the rapids. You bounced off a few rocks along the way. Take a few strain damage and a level of damage to your armor.
>1 Triumph
Good news, though: you've found a bend in the river that is much shallower and easier to cross. Plus, you're not dead and you didn't lose anything, so that has to count for something.
>1 Advantage
And for what it's worth, your unexpected trip down river was much faster than you thought, so the time you lost is minimal.

This user actually shows a good example of how to handle the results overall: a good way to get used to working with the symbols is to resolve each result one at a time. Success/Failure is the base, honestly the largest narrative effect since that decides if the base goal was accomplished or not, so start there. Then bring in the Triumph/Despair effects if you get any because they have the next largest effect on the outcome, narratively, counting as successes/failures as well as being able to trigger advantage/threat effects that would require multiple symbols. Then top it off with the Advantage/Threat effects, since its possible these symbols will have a relatively minor or great effect on the narrative depending on how many you actually end up generating, they're a bit of a wildcard.

You can do Advantage/Threat and Triumph/Despair in whatever order, as long as it makes narrative sense. But yes, the book advises that one of the best ways to get a handle on the dice and teach it to others is to walk through the dice and explain each bit of the results as you get to them.

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Something beyond the pcs control that will influence upcoming events in a good or bad way, pui is bad kids.

>pui
?

Posting under influence

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GONK

Just noticed something. If the check is a combat check, there's an order of operations (success/fail, then adv/triumph, then threat/despair). Been playin since EotE and assumed that applied to all skill checks, but it's never called out anywhere.

Is there specific language user? What page?

In Genesys, it starts on p102.

>Still second place in bestselling Titles

Wtf

What did he mean by this?

Have there been any other big releases over the new year? I'm not surprised it's doing well honestly

Genesys has finally been unseated as the #1 bestselling RPG since its launch on DriveThruRPG. The game that finally shunted Genesys to #2 is Stars Without Number: Revised Edition.

Yes, there is an order of operations for combat checks, if you consider the list of steps in completing a combat check to be an order of operations.
>Success/Failure
>Advantage and Triumph
>Threat and Despair
>Reduce damage, apply to wounds, check for Critical Injuries

No shit.What they fix?

Ask them, not /gengen/.

I mean, if you don't mind trying a Star Wars game in Genesys.

Ya I see it! I missed it the first time reading through.
I would guess the needed structure of combat calls for an order of operations. For out of combat checks, results can be interpreted in any order as to keep the narrative flow (though most people would tend to look at successes first)

>Setting
Space Opera
>Scenario
Astrocartography check to discern an ancient star chart that might lead to hidden treasure
>Results
2 Success, 1 Despair, 2 Advantage

Let's hear it.

Sell me on GeneSys. Also why was the fastplay so different from the core?

Genesys claims the FFG Star Wars games as pedigree. We got special proprietary dice that takes a lot of the heavy lifting out of developing narrative and giving more nuance to check results, which interestingly makes the games eaiser to grasp than FATE or the PbtA games.

>success
You can read the star chart of the ancients, and locate the system you are looking for.
>2 advantage
Favorable astral winds/wormholes will allow you to reach the system faster than normally.
>despair
You failed to translate the chart's warnings about the system's automated defenses.

But giving nuances to a narrative dice doesn't make it more difficult for the master? From a theoretically pov it's easy to narrate sucess or failures but "good, average and great" sucess/failures are harder to narrate effectively.

Before pointing "bad DMing" I'd like to say that GOOD masters/narrators are incredible hard to find shouldn't a system make it easier for him to do a decent job?

Or in practice the granularity makes it easier for the DM? If so, then why?

There's a big ol' chain of posts in the last thread that explains things better than I can reiterate here. Start at .

It makes it easier on the GM because it gives the players the power to create those narrative moments if they want, and the symbols show exactly the magnitude of the effect so there’s little argument.
I don’t know about PbtA games but Fate is very open and floaty about how to interpret the narrative effect of rolls, Genesys is more exact, and that restriction can actually make things easier, especially for people new to narrative-focused games.
Though on the other side of that getting adjusted to what 3 Advantage can do over what 2 advantage can do takes a little getting used to.

2 Success
>Identify a Star that seems to of the correct age and type to have hosted a lost civilisation
2 Advantage
>Dig a little deeper and have isolated the exact planet in the star system that would of hosted the Civ.
1 Despair
You have glossed over the notes as to WHY the Civ vanished, and how that might effect your life expectancy once you arrive

>It makes it easier on the GM because it gives the players the power to create those narrative moments if they want

This, Dice results are now a chance to both Players and GM to add to the world

So both feature an unknown danger that will fall upon the players when they arrive?
>You rememeber that Despair from when you read the star chart?
>You know how it didn't tell you about any defenses you might run into when you arrive?
>Guess what you found~

Keep in mind despair doesn’t always have to be an unknown danger that reveals itself later, it can have known and here and now effects.

That much is true, as shown in .

You could just ask your players what bad results should be. As long as you're not playing with nothing but That Guy, they'll at least have an idea you can use (or modify).

The game does encourage GMs to have their players fill in the blanks on what happens to them, especially the bad stuff. You have to ease them into the role first; let them get comfortable with the symbols, and start with small stuff like point at the spare Advantage and ask "What did you get from this?"

True.

For example:
>You mishandle the map as you put it away and damage it (Upgrade all checks by 1 using this map)
>An energy surge damages they systems circuits. When the map comes back online the record of the star is gone and cannot be further analysed (but you remember the details)
>(if using a public database) You leave a trace of your activities, someone (a rival) may become aware of your research and plan to follow

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>Dr. Wilson's Incomparable Miracle Tonic
>Encum 0, $200, Rarity 5
>Instantly increase wound threshold and strain threshold by 5 for the rest of the encounter
>Must pass an immediate Average Resilience check or suffer 5 strain on the spot
>Lose the boosted thresholds after the end of the fight; if you exceed either of your threshholds after the effect fades, you're incapacitated on the spot
That's a hell of a way to fluff a steroid or energy drink. I like it.

Drugs are some of the most mechanically and fluff interesting parts of SW. People should absolutely import this kind of thing to their GeneSys games where possible.

I hope the Alchemy stuff in the fantasy book has elements of it.

Isn't there a shitton of drugs and poisons in Star Wars?

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So what would large monsters be classified as adversary wise? Rivals for the most part?

Depends on how much of a pushover they are.

You could have a giant monster (increase their Silhouette) be a total coward when faced by a credible threat and run at the first sign of real trouble (read: exceed their strain threshold).

Really it is the level of detail. Rival for a one off/recurring/less-lethal beat. Nemesis that is either for recurring threat that is detailed, or something you want very lethal.

A rival is someone who is just barely at or below PC level and can put up a decent fight.
A nemesis is a central opponent for the PCs and is at minimum at the same level as them. The nemesis is the one you would fully stat out top to bottom, including Motivations and whatnot.

>Setting
Steampunk
>Scenario
Speaking with the local province governor to fund an expedition to some remote location (part of a more prolonged social encounter; social stat of your choice)
>Results
1 Success, 1 Advantage

Something a little more freeform here.

You succeed and get the funding (though the bare minimum). However, you do get a hint from the Governors daughters on a shadowy group willing fund such expositions... for a price.

Wouldn't talking to the governor be one of those things where you have to work him down until he finally agrees to provide the funding?

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This is true, I have to much Star Wars on the brain.