>What is Genesys? Released in November 2017, Genesys is a pen-and-paper generic system and toolkit by Fantasy Flight Games, using a refined version of the system presented by their Star Wars RPGs (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, Force and Destiny). Its central mechanic is the Narrative Dice System, using pools made of specialized dice to create narrative results. fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/genesys/
As mentioned in passing in the news, there's some new information on the release of Realms of Terrinoth, Genesys's first official setting supplement for their Runebound (fantasy) setting.
It's however official you want it to be, but it's something.
Christian Mitchell
We're back baby!
>You roll to sneak into the military bunker. The Nazi guards outside can only see as far as the light of their cigarette butts will allow them to. You take a boost die. You've followed a trail of ritualistic killings that seem to end at Kommander Ibensteppe inside the bunker. Even before you pass the fence, you feel as though you're being watched. A murder of Crows circles the bunker, eyes glowing like rubies. Take a setback die.
>2 Successes, 1 Triumph, 3 Disadvantage What happens?
Easton Howard
Fate has delivered you a golden opportunity. Directly in front of you in the small room ahead, you find the Aryan Whore of Babylon herself, der Kommandant Ibensteppe, in her cold beauty. She's in a small war room of sorts, poring over maps of the region and completely engrossed, her back turned to you. In a rare moment of weakness, she is by all accounts alone and completely vulnerable. However, fate doesn't intend to make this easy. When you rounded the corner into the hallway leading to this war room, you didn't spot the small phalanx of three German troopers coming in from the opposite hallway. It's only now that you hear their boots thump in lockstep behind you, cutting off your original escape route. They will surely be upon you shortly. But this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity before you. You could potentially cut off the head of the snake, right here, right now. Pop her in the head with your pistol or slit her throat with your bowie knife, and that would be it. You would have to deal with the guards setting upon you, though. Of course, you could escape through the vent overhead if you don't like your chances. You'll avoid being overwhelmed by Germans, but you won't get a chance like this for a good while; if it's any consolation, you'll at least put the fear in her that she was this close to a one-way ticket to Niflheim.
If you commit to the assassination, you'll receive two Successes and an Advantage guaranteed on the sneak attack, but you risk the guards catching you in the act and setting themselves upon you.
End der Kommandant here and now, or live to fight another day. Think fast.
>Setting Steampunk/Dieselpunk >Situation Piloting check to maneuver your team's zeppelin through a dusty narrow mountain pass (presumably to keep a low profile) >Results 1 Success, 2 Threat
What are some custom archetypes or careers you guys are making? I'm talking full design. I'm reading through the GM toolkit chapter and would like to see what folks are putting together for point of reference.
These are the Archetypes for my Vampire the Requiem conversion. I'm a little unsure about some of their special powers, since some are definitely more powerful than others and I wasn't sure if I'd deducted an appropriate amount of XP for them.
Don't forget you can give an archetype drawbacks that give them extra XP.
John Ross
You make it tidily through the mountain pass, but to your surprise you find it not so Dusty anymore. Buffeting winds have kicked up a small dust-storm and you take a setback die for visibility and operating until you clear the Dustclouds.
Michael Miller
I did think about that also. But the closest I could relate to was the Nosferatu being so fucking ugly, and it made sense that that would give a boost to Coercion and a setback to everything else. The inbuilt boost to that made me think extra XP was a bad idea.
Jason Long
Funnily enough, the Loathsome you gave the Nosferatu is extremely close to the sample Fearsome trait the book provides. >+Setback on Charm, Deception, Leadership and Negotiaton checks >+Boost on Coercion checks >Neither applies when interacting with members of their own species
Justin Johnson
I won't say it was my own idea. I liked the idea that Nosferatu are all stuck being ugly together, so I thought they'd get a passive boost to interacting that way.
Charles Taylor
Makes sense.
Luke Myers
Roll Charm, with the intent to seduce her. I will purify her with the glorious dick of Freedom.
Tyler Williams
I'm pretty sure it'll take more than that to seduce a Nazi commander.
Jace Butler
But have you got what it takes? Either one of you leaves that Bunker alive, or both leave with a spring in their step.
Andrew Parker
so how does this compare to savage worlds?
Noah Hernandez
The most obvious thing Genesys has going for it is the proprietary dice. It offloads a lot of the work in making the narrative by giving you additional variables to work with for any given check instead of a flat pass/fail result.
Genesys also has something of a pedigree behind it, as nearly the whole of the system (barring several refinements) comes from the popular FFG Star Wars RPGs mentioned in the OP.
As a toolkit, it provides lots of guidelines on how to construct and run your game in whatever setting your choose, from making your own archetypes (races), careers (pseudo-classes), talents and even skills, to providing supplementary rulesets like magic, vehicles and hacking. This will only further be built upon by the forthcoming setting supplements, the first one being Realms of Terrinoth - the book for FFG's in-house fantasy setting, Runebound.
That said, there's free dice rollers all over the place, including one in the OP. If you have the Star Wars dice, you can use those directly. It shouldn't be thought of as "system DRM."
Jaxon Price
Yeah, they even have the SkyJedi roller pinned on the official forums (and I'm pretty sure that's why it became part of the standard link dump). They're pretty amicable to people playing without buying the dice.
Levi Powell
I've been fusing a little bit of weaverdice into my genesys to build a superhero setting. Going surprisingly well. much more than i thought it would.
Any rules for kingdoms/domains/organizations? Say if running an organization and competing with other organizations would be a large part of the campaign, but you don't want to just leave it to the GM's whims, you want some mechanics that tell you how strong is an organization, how much influence it has, etc. and then you would use these stats and roll them for necessary situations just like you would for a character
A RPG based off of the Worm webseries written by the writer of that webseries.
Aiden Parker
Nothing for now. I'd imagine that sort of thing isn't really in the scope of the system, because then you're abstracting things far larger than a personal scale with things like advantage. "Well your Leadership/Negotiation roll got three advantages, so I...guess you do really well this quarter in addition to securing that new contract?" It sounds like it'd need a new system attached, I seem to recall something in WFRP 2nd edition about running businesses and that's the only frame of reference I have right now.
Matthew Williams
I made a Protoss race/archetype >Brawn 3 >Agility 2 >Intellect 2 >Cunning 1 >Willpower 3 >Presence 2 >Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn >Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower >Mind Reading: Protoss are naturally capable of beating witness to the thoughts of other beings. The earliest skill a young Protoss is taught is to filter these thoughts out of their own heads. A Protoss may glean the surface thoughts from any being within(?)meters. If the target resists or the Protoss wants to probe deeper they must make a willpower roll with a difficulty of one+the target's willpower. >Telepathy: Being naturally psionic and lacking mouths, Protoss speak communicate telepathic means. A Protoss may communicate with any being that speaks a language within (?)meters >Naturally Psionic: Protoss begin with one rank in the Psionics Magic skill and act as natural power sources for their technology, adding their willpower to weapon damage and shield values
Michael Thompson
Forgot >65 xp
Nolan Price
Nothing official, but if you wanted to get fancy, you could stat an organization just like any other character, complete with characteristics and talents and whatnot.
Jacob Martin
Advantages in that case could turn into additional opportunities that crop up and can be pursued. Threat or Despair could be losing certain assets that stymie your efforts.
Andrew Brown
>1 setback dice for nosferatu during social encounters 1 setback dice is too weak
Christian Perry
Genesys bonuses/maluses are bigger than you think.
Jason Rodriguez
I remember reading somewhere that 2 setback dice roughly equal 1 difficulty dice. Are you trying to tell me that nosferatu would only have half a difficulty dice extra when interacting with non-nosferatu? Because that's dumb
Cooper Sanchez
Would you say upgrading the Difficulty dice would do it instead? Not 2 to 3, but 2 to 1 purple, 1 red.
Ian Sanchez
Chancing a Despair on every time you meaningfully talk to someone? And all you get in return is a boost die on Coercion checks? Do Nosferatu really have it THAT hard dealing with people?
Caleb Hill
While I am not familiar with the setting I do recall Nosferatu being forced to not interact with the outside world as to not break the masquerade, as they are easily mistaken for monsters or something of the sort
My opinion is that perhaps Nosferatu receive minor social penalties when interacting with vampires, and major ones when interacting with non-vampires?
In the case of non-vampires, throw as many challenge dice as you can at the Nosferatu everytime they try to interact with a non-vampire socially, or hell screw the dice, give an automatic Despair every time a Nosferatu's face is visibly seen by a non-vampire
Adrian Rogers
>give an automatic Despair every time a Nosferatu's face is visibly seen by a non-vampire
I wasn't sure. I agree that a Setback seems a little tame, but I don't want to artificially increase the difficulty by adding 2 difficulty, since that cheapens other tasks that would be 4 difficulty because "lol it's as hard as that time the Nosferatu tried to buy a car". Typically you're right. In Requiem, Nosferatu are either so hideous to behold that they can cause people to freak out, or they look entirely normal and it's more of a six sense that drives people away, sort of like an Untouchable in 40k. I don't particularly want to have separate rules for interacting with Mortals and Vampires as that just creates bloat, and avoiding bloat is the main reason I'm doing this port to begin with.
Joshua Flores
>bloat Additional rules to better represent a setting is not bloat. I guess if you don't mind not faithfully representing nosferatu, then it doesn't really matter.
Nicholas Bennett
Just do it with the original ruling you have, and if you think it doesn't get the point across, you can up the penalty further (and give him some extra XP to compensate). As mentioned, the book has an almost-identical archetype trait listed, Fearsome, and that's just a setback on everything but Coercion, which gets a boost. A big burly were-tiger dude in space would definitely be Fearsome compared to everyone else: he'd have it hard talking to anyone other than his kin if he's doing anything other than intimidating people.
Landon Fisher
Genesys operates mostly on the "Keep It Simple, Stupid" (KISS) principle. Replicating the rules of the setting should not be conflated with replicating the rules of the system you're converting. If you're trying to convert a system as-is directly into Genesys, you'll end up with that Shadowrun hack listed in the OP pastebin, and that is DISGUSTING to look at because it makes zero effort to conflate to Genesys's standards and falls flat as a result.
>Genesys operates mostly on the "Keep It Simple, Stupid" (KISS) principle No, Genesys is a toolbox for GMs to use to craft games that fit their own game needs.
Chase Lee
post more war council art
Chase Cox
I think it's one of those things I'll mull over for half a day and then flip a coin on. I can see the merit of upgrading the difficulty, but then would you downgrade the difficulty on Coercion checks? But then I can also appreciate that a simple "add a setback die, or add a boost instead if it's Coercion or you're amongst kin" is an easy solution, but perhaps not as interesting mechanically/narratively.
My main problem with VtR and why I'm converting it is because its rules are so horrendously bad, poorly formatted and generally unfit for purpose. If there's 3 different rules for one thing, spread out across 6 pages in two different chapters, I want to take the essence of that rule, distil it into one dice roll and call it a day.
Cameron Williams
Fuck it, I'm away until Sunday and only phone posting until then. nofile.io/f/EDSGgu3PEm4/Vampire the Requiem - Genesys hack.pdf This is what I've got so far, it's generally for my eyes only so things aren't clearly explained because I have them scribbled in margins of my notepad. It's not finished and needs many rewrites and expanding. But I think the core of it is there, I'd appreciate any critique and i'll check back in the morning before I head out.
Yes, because that’s covered by the “mostly.” By all means do what you need to make it work how you need/want it to, but step 1 of adding any new mechanics should be “could this already work within the base rules,” which 90% of the shitty home brews really need to ask themselves.
Benjamin James
Step 2 would probably be “did Star Wars do it?”
Sebastian Myers
That's a running trend right now, yes. See if the Star Wars games didn't already handle something first.
Cooper Thompson
It’s because until RoT and the other setting books drop, we don’t have any other metric by which to measure anything, except the scant few examples in the core book which don’t amount to much.
Aye I imagine these generals will remain quiet until Terrinoth lands and then we'll be flooded with "5e or Genesys?" Until we get more basic content and guidelines it'll just be hacks of other systems and settings.
Jeremiah Sanders
>"5e or Genesys?" Oh, that'll be an interesting one.
Dominic Jackson
I imagine a lot of set careers with set Heroic abilities. "do Martials have enough ways to spend advantage?" I want to cry
Note that the editing done in that picture was done elsewhere. The generator will give you a 3D map, but it'll be grayscale with the blue for water and stuff.
Christopher Young
Is it easy to make a map from a birds eye view and print it out either on multiple pages or a single large one (like going to a printer or whatever)
That's the shit i'm going for. but this is hella cool, if not super slow loading.
Wyatt Cox
Wouldn't flying a Zepp be operations?
Asher Garcia
You're right. Piloting (Agility) is for small ships, and Operating (Intellect) is for big ships like capital ships.
Charles Barnes
How'd you get a view of your city like that? Not the colors, but that view?
Henry Reyes
You should be able to freely zoom in and out and adjust the camera.
Jose Garcia
I'm interested in trying out Genesys, but the special snowflake dice are really turning me off of it
What are the advantages of both the system and dice over GURPS, Savage Worlds or FATE
I'm not trying to bait or anything, I actually want to get into Genesys, but I don't have enough money to throw around willy nilly
Daniel Perry
See and . The dice are the central crux of the system that pulls it all together, but there are free rollers you can use. I don't have the dice either, and I'm still falling in love with the system.
Aiden Hernandez
When it comes to relative crunchiness of the system, it's more meaty than FATE but isn't nearly as granular as GURPS can be. There's just enough structure to do whatever you want and still have a good set of rules to fall back on.
Henry Anderson
The main thing about the dice is that they're used for everything in the system, and they aren't just a strict pass-fail like most other resolution mechanics. To borrow a brief summary from a previous thread: ===== Success and Failure are the core pass/fail symbols. They cancel each other out. Get at least one success, and the check is successful. The more you get one way or the other, the greater the magnitude. Advantage and Threat are symbols that represent additonal bonuses and maluses that are strictly incidental to the check itself. They also cancel each other out. Gaining a net advantage means that even if you fail the check, the GM gives you an "On the bright side..." Triumph and Despair are the rarest symbols, found only on the Proficiency and Challenge dice. They are effectively super-Advantages and super-Threats, in that they represent a major windfall or setback as a part of the check. They also count as Success/Failure symbols when determing a check's success, but their additional effects do NOT cancel each other out. You can pass a check, but the Despair symbol you roll means the GM gives you a "You made it, but you're still gonna have a bad day..."
For the record, it's a dicepool system. Here's how the dice break down. The typical dicepool for a skill check is built as such: >Take the value of your skill and the value of your attached characteristic (core stat) >The larger number of the two is the number of Ability dice you start with >The smaller number is the number of Ability dice you upgrade to Proficiency dice (i.e. replace the Ability die with the Proficiency die) >For checks with a set difficulty, add anywhere from 0-5 Difficulty dice >If it's an opposed check, use the same steps as above but with Difficulty and Challenge dice, and add them to the pool >Add dice (typically Boost or Setback dice), upgrade any dice that need it, downgrade any dice that need it, and remove any dice if needed; a lot of these come from circumstances or talents or other abilities >Roll that shit and interpret the results
>The more you get one way or the other, the greater the magnitude. Actually, more failure does not increase the magnitude of failure.
Alexander Gonzalez
Could've sworn it did. Ah well.
Jaxson Roberts
How do you feel about including Pushed Rolls from Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed.? Basically if a PC fails certain actions they may retry them but if PC pushes a roll and fails, they get an automatic despair, something like that.
A typical example of such an action is performing surgery.
Caleb Taylor
I don't like that you can't force a city on a coast, it seems to be rng if it's possible at all.
Is this is a demo, I wonder where the full version is though?
