5 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

You can't just have 52 pick up with the Talents, at least not specifically with many of the ones in SW. They are simply too powerful and to be able to just pile them up without some kind of limiting purchase/number/class restriction would be OP as ****. PCs would move from session 0 to retirement in no time at all.

It's easy to limit. Simply make them more expensive as you get more of them. The talent trees ate just annoying really and if a talent can't stand on it's own with any other talent without being overpowered, then it's a design flaw in the talent - like Anatomy Lesson.

4 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

You can't just have 52 pick up with the Talents, at least not specifically with many of the ones in SW. They are simply too powerful and to be able to just pile them up without some kind of limiting purchase/number/class restriction would be OP as ****. PCs would move from session 0 to retirement in no time at all.

In D&D, I stopped awarding XP and simply informed players when their characters level. In the Pathfinder game I'm in, same deal. Same could be done in Genesys.

That said, you do have a point regarding talents not being freely purchasable, but I'm not sure any of us were arguing that they shouldn't have prerequisites. We were just contending that they shouldn't have a 4x5 spiderweb grid of arbitrarily connected talents that you have to traverse to get to the two or three you really want.

If you base a talent tree directly on a skill as DarthDude suggested, for instance, at the least you could impose a minimum skill level for a given talent. Likewise, you could designate reasonable prerequisites.

Yeah, I really like the idea of Talents having skill and other Talent pre-reqs. The issues I have in EoE with the talent trees are a) the seemingly arbitrary need to have precisely 20 per specialization and b) the bizarre and seemingly arbitrary spiderweb of connections.

We'll see soon.

I have no idea how exactly they are going to structure the Talents and Skills.

I am reasonably certain there will be a structure of some kind as it's all balanced around their dice mechanics with an eye towards steady session by session character progression.

I'm also getting the distinct impression based on this archetype method that the structure will vary somewhat from setting to setting.

I am also convinced a system where anyone can buy anything they want, and as much as they want, balance is poop.

The Talents as written would make that untenable, power levels would spike too quickly.

1 hour ago, 2P51 said:

I have no idea how exactly they are going to structure the Talents and Skills.

I am reasonably certain there will be a structure of some kind as it's all balanced around their dice mechanics with an eye towards steady session by session character progression.

I'm also getting the distinct impression based on this archetype method that the structure will vary somewhat from setting to setting.

I am also convinced a system where anyone can buy anything they want, and as much as they want, balance is poop.

The Talents as written would make that untenable, power levels would spike too quickly.

There are two main problems with some of the EotE talents.

1. Many of them are boring bonuses to skills.

2. Combinations of several talents get out of hand because of bonuses without restrictions.

A talent that allows you to add your intellect to your damage is boring and pure nonsense. Talents should be specific in nature, so they apply to specific situations. Talents that give a flat bonus without requiring specific circumstances are badly designed to be honest. Lets say you can add your intellect to your damage. Then it should require very specific circumstances. The way they Seem to have handled the design process is to just add different bonuses for no apparent reason, instead of designing the talents based on the following interresting questions "what does it do? When does it apply? And how can we express those things through game mechanics?" Lets say you want to design a specific fighting style. You don't just add a bonus to a skill or to damage. You could create a CQB style and give a bonus when in tight quarters against someone who does not have that talent. Talents should be interresting and just because you have a talent that allows you to add cunning to your damage does not mean you automatically need a talent that lets you add your intellect to your damage.

Every talent should be interresting, specific and specialized. That also means that it should not be possible to combine two different talents that give a bonus to the same thing. You may buy two talents that give a bonus to the same thing, but they do so under very different circumstances. If you know both kung fu and boxing, you would not be able to make an attack that is both boxing and kung fu at the same time.

Passive bonuses that does not apply to specific situations are the worst really, and there are quite a few of those.

The best kind of talents are the ones that allow you to do something special, a specific special move, that is not possible with the normal usage of a skill or weapon.

So being really smart and knowing precisely where to shoot someone or something to inflict maximum damage is non sense? Funny, because I find that more plausible than being a good dancer or sneaky at poker as a means of adding damage to an attack......

8 hours ago, 2P51 said:

So being really smart and knowing precisely where to shoot someone or something to inflict maximum damage is non sense? Funny, because I find that more plausible than being a good dancer or sneaky at poker as a means of adding damage to an attack......

Yes it is nonsese and that is why most elite soldiers are former soldiers and not professors, Knowing where to shoot is the easy part, actually doing it is the hard part. Being a hunter I know that even the hunters I know who are mediocre shots know exactly where to shoot the animals. I hunt with my longbow and I can tell you that takes years of practice and my intellect is irrelevant - it's all about the shot. It's RPG logic, which is often close to real life nonsense anyway

BUT I wasn't calling it nonsense from a perspective of realism, but one of gameplay. General broad bonuses with no restrictions suck and are boring. There is absolutely no reason to create a Talent that just gives you a bonus to damage for no reason. If for instance the Talent was called wolfhunter and it allowed you to add your intellect when hunting canines and werewolves, it would be slightly better. It's not a great example but it does illustrate the point about talents being specific. Name, how it works and when or under what condition it works is tied together and also expressed through game mechanics.

Talents can also be specific as a result of different talents applying to the same thing, but only allowing the use of one at a time. Lets take brawl combat for instance. You may have two talents - boxing and kung-fu. Boxing gives a bonus to damage and a greater soak against brawl attacks, plus it allows you to activate KO attacks with advantage or triumph. Kung-fu on the other hand could allow counter striking or something else.

Some of the talents in EotE are quite bad, especially a certain combination of talents that allow massive strain damage. It's so easy to design non-lethal damage without having to use a pool like strain for that damage. This is certainly true in EotE since the only thing that can kill you is criticals, so wound damage is already non-lethal. Strain damage makes good sense for space ships, although I would not have called it strain.

1 hour ago, Gallows said:

Yes it is nonsese and that is why most elite soldiers are former soldiers and not professors, Knowing where to shoot is the easy part, actually doing it is the hard part.

Sounds realistic but then, how would you develope RP-wise a former soldier who wants to become a professor? What's about a plumber who wants to become a soldier and then a professor? Instead of constructing a tangled mess of restrictive guidelines regarding restrictive "lifepaths" with many if...thens it should be held highly flexible before becoming lost in a swamp of restrictive rules.

And then, it's RP and the characters are often supposed to be heroes. It's not meant to be realistic. In fictional worlds an academic can also be an elite soldier without any doubt and a magician on top of that.

If you prefer realism in your settings, houserule restrictions as any setting based on generic mechanics has to be houseruled one or the other way.

1 hour ago, Gallows said:

Yes it is nonsese and that is why most elite soldiers are former soldiers and not professors, Knowing where to shoot is the easy part, actually doing it is the hard part. Being a hunter I know that even the hunters I know who are mediocre shots know exactly where to shoot the animals. I hunt with my longbow and I can tell you that takes years of practice and my intellect is irrelevant - it's all about the shot. It's RPG logic, which is often close to real life nonsense anyway

BUT I wasn't calling it nonsense from a perspective of realism, but one of gameplay. General broad bonuses with no restrictions suck and are boring. There is absolutely no reason to create a Talent that just gives you a bonus to damage for no reason. If for instance the Talent was called wolfhunter and it allowed you to add your intellect when hunting canines and werewolves, it would be slightly better. It's not a great example but it does illustrate the point about talents being specific. Name, how it works and when or under what condition it works is tied together and also expressed through game mechanics.

Talents can also be specific as a result of different talents applying to the same thing, but only allowing the use of one at a time. Lets take brawl combat for instance. You may have two talents - boxing and kung-fu. Boxing gives a bonus to damage and a greater soak against brawl attacks, plus it allows you to activate KO attacks with advantage or triumph. Kung-fu on the other hand could allow counter striking or something else.

Some of the talents in EotE are quite bad, especially a certain combination of talents that allow massive strain damage. It's so easy to design non-lethal damage without having to use a pool like strain for that damage. This is certainly true in EotE since the only thing that can kill you is criticals, so wound damage is already non-lethal. Strain damage makes good sense for space ships, although I would not have called it strain.

If your intellect is irrelevant how did you learn?

If you need intellect to learn, surely Int 1 characters should have to pay more XP to gain new talents and skills?

For me the Post Apocalyptic Fantasy I have in mind is set in a potential future of modern day Earth!

Dwarves, elves, goblin, ogres, halflings, etc are all evolved from humanity with surviving humans being those who survived the cataclysm in massive underground shelters built after a very wealthy scientist was briefly stuck in that future and subsequently did everything they could to prevent that future only managing to postpone it until she was accidentally killed protecting her sole remaining grandchild.

So I'm thinking steam punk society with magic flourishing, trains or trams work in the only real remaining city, the closest thing to Drow are called the Yuesha because that's their usual battle cry.

So the ruins of pre-cataclysm settlements have much smaller villages making full use of the surviving amenities such as working plumbing, toilets, sewers that often serve as adventures because someone has to check them!?

Like the idea of using Faerun though!

?

1. Realism is not my thing as I wrote in the post. I meant nonsense from a gameplay perspective. It's not an absolute truth of course, just my opinion.

2. Intellect understood in the most commonly accepted sense is irrelevant when learning to shoot a longbow. You cannot think your way to Mastery of everything. A lot in life requires physical practice.

2 minutes ago, Gallows said:

?

1. Realism is not my thing as I wrote in the post. I meant nonsense from a gameplay perspective. It's not an absolute truth of course, just my opinion.

Was only replying to the single sentence "most elite soldiers are former soldiers and not professors".

3 minutes ago, Gallows said:

?

2. Intellect understood in the most commonly accepted sense is irrelevant when learning to shoot a longbow. You cannot think your way to Mastery of everything. A lot in life requires physical practice.

It is you who draws the connection to realism.

At least in this single case...

But I do of course agree that many talents in EotE are redundant.

Just now, DarthDude said:

Was only replying to the single sentence "most elite soldiers are former soldiers and not professors".

It is you who draws the connection to realism.

At least in this single case...

But I do of course agree that many talents in EotE are redundant.

Yes well, it's a true statement that most elite soldiers are former soldiers. BUT the proplem is I only used that example to reply to a very specific thing in the post I quoted and when you reply specifically to that one thing out of context of what I replied to - it no longer makes sense

My connection to realism was a result of me responding to a post using a realism based logic, but in the same post I stressed that realism was not my concern.

Yes we are in agreement about the talents, which really is the main point. I think when people design their own setting, they can make it more thematic and cool if talents support the setting and the talents aren't just like the +1 D&D magic swords. Talents that are specific or situational are just more interresting - especially if talents become a choice of one or the other.

36 minutes ago, Gallows said:

Yes well, it's a true statement that most elite soldiers are former soldiers. BUT the proplem is I only used that example to reply to a very specific thing in the post I quoted and when you reply specifically to that one thing out of context of what I replied to - it no longer makes sense

My connection to realism was a result of me responding to a post using a realism based logic, but in the same post I stressed that realism was not my concern.

Yes we are in agreement about the talents, which really is the main point. I think when people design their own setting, they can make it more thematic and cool if talents support the setting and the talents aren't just like the +1 D&D magic swords. Talents that are specific or situational are just more interresting - especially if talents become a choice of one or the other.

Agreed

My main problem with EotE talents is the complete unstructured way they are distributed in a specialization. Especially talents with more than one rank which are in some cases to be had at 5XP, at 15XP and 25XP. Sometimes you get "powerful" talents at 5XP and comparably laughable talents as high end talents for 25XP. And you are often forced to meander through bloated specialization trees and purchase talents you don't want and are just a ballast.

And I always agree, talents should be rather thematically grouped instead of "erraticaly" mixed in specializations. Small thematically homogeneous talent trees with rising "power levels" would be ideal. Look at how Conan 2D20 does this very elegantly. Every higher tiered talent of a branch of a thematically related talent tree builds up on its lower predecessor talent.

For example the counsel skill has its own talent tree whose talents are directly related to the skill. The base talent is Quiet Wisdom and branches out in three branches. Each of this branches is in turn grouped in aspects of the skill. Thus if your aim is to purchase Overcome Dark Powers you can be ensured that the talents you have to purchase in between are not mere ballast but build up on each other thematically.

Yep Darth, the approach in Conan is brilliant. What I am doing in the project I am currently working on is simply to set the talent like abilities up with skill prerequisites. Some of them have more than one level, but buying the second level is not just more of the same, like an additional boost die - it expands the talent and how you can use it. Similar to Conan really, but without a tree really. You can however not buy all talents, so it becomes a choice. But Conan really is a brilliant example of how to do talents.

A skill like Sword could have five talents and two of those may be connected, so one is the basic ability and the other the Master ability. I like that when it makes sense, like a superiour parry giving you a defensive bonus, while the Master ability allow for a riposte attack on a succesful parry for instance. Those two talents are directly and naturally connected.

I think I'll have to buy the Conan book, for some inspiration.

10 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

For example the counsel skill has its own talent tree whose talents are directly related to the skill. The base talent is Quiet Wisdom and branches out in three branches. Each of this branches is in turn grouped in aspects of the skill. Thus if your aim is to purchase Overcome Dark Powers you can be ensured that the talents you have to purchase in between are not mere ballast but build up on each other thematically.

Why call those abilities "Talents" in the first place, when you're at it; a talent, per definitionem, is an inherent ability, not acquirable by training. Something like "Advancement" or such might term it better.

5 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Why call those abilities "Talents" in the first place, when you're at it; a talent, per definitionem, is an inherent ability, not acquirable by training. Something like "Advancement" or such might term it better.

If that's true, getting talents after character creation doesn't make a lot if sense. I think RPGs often use words and set of their own definition of what that word means in the context of the game. Like the Nights Black Agents using "cherries."

Maybe you discover your talent through training. You never know you have a talent until you try

5 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Why call those abilities "Talents" in the first place, when you're at it; a talent, per definitionem, is an inherent ability, not acquirable by training. Something like "Advancement" or such might term it better.

It's sometimes puzzling that different RPG use different terms for the same issue. You could also name talents abilities or feats. Talents is the term Conan uses for abilities.

Another example, what Genesys calls career is called archetype in Conan, What Genesys calls archetype would be homeland in Conan (as the only player-race is human).

10 minutes ago, Gallows said:

I think I'll have to buy the Conan book, for some inspiration.

Definitely worth the purchase. You can also get the free Quickstart Adventure first from Drivethru to get a glimpse of the mechanics. Should they ever decide to create a generic system out of Conan 2D20 it could be a worthy competitor to Genesys (which was actually not renounced by the lead Dev of Conan 2D20...btw, the Devs at Modiphius are answering rules questions themselves in direct contact to the fanbase. very laudable!).

I have downloaded the quickstart and was impressed with some of their ideas. The momentum idea is quite brilliant and their talent setup too. I'm using a dice pool system for my own project, after going through play test with several different systems. If you want a system with more than one axis on the dice (like success-failure and advantage-threat), it's really hard to do in a balanced way without specialty dice, so that's what I settled on in the end. Another great advantage of the NDS system is the effectively variable difficulty, that works better than hard coded difficulties, like having to get three successes to pass a test. Doing a system like that with regular dice is horrible, unless you want players to refer to tables after rolling the dice. The simplest way of doing it would be advantage on odd numbers, success on even numbers, 1 always being blank and the top number counting as two successes/failures. It could work, but you will not have the same options of fine tuning propabilities. Plus upgrading dice is a brilliant way to limit dice pool size.

I can see momentum used in games as both a positive effect and a negative effect. Like a paradox buildup when using magic for instance.

On 11/6/2017 at 0:36 PM, DarthGM said:

Remember when we had the time to learn a bazillion different systems for the variety of games we wanted to play? And had the time and mental bandwidth to keep all the rules straight?

No? Me neither.

I think that was back in the 90s for me when I was playing D&D 3rd Edition, Rifts, TMNT And other Strangeness, WEG Star Wars, FASERIP Marvel Super Heroes, and Mechwarrior. Oh, and Mekton, Shadowrun, and Earthdawn.

But then I was in college, and should have been studying instead of playing all those games. These days I am much more interested in learning one or two systems and using those systems to play the variety of settings I want to play in. That's where this, Savage Worlds, and FATE all come into their own. One rules set, a thousand different games. That's my future of gaming at any rate.

Well said Phil! I have this exact same problem right now! I am finally done with D&D 5e, campaign finished and I have no desire to go back to it. Were full on moving forward with EoTE, finally! I have been dying to play many other systems as well though, Call of Cthulhu, The One Ring, etc. Now, I DONT NEED TO LEARN THEM! I already told my group I will be converting 'Tomb of Annihilation' to Genesys! I am very much looking forward to this!

7 hours ago, Gallows said:

?

1. Realism is not my thing as I wrote in the post. I meant nonsense from a gameplay perspective. It's not an absolute truth of course, just my opinion.

2. Intellect understood in the most commonly accepted sense is irrelevant when learning to shoot a longbow. You cannot think your way to Mastery of everything. A lot in life requires physical practice.

But the Talent doesn't stand by itself. You still need to have a good physical stat with a good skill stat in order to succeed. It merely is a representation of someone who is really smart does things better.

To all those not agreeing, would you rather have the smartest brain surgeon in the world cut into your head or the dumbest one? If Intellect doesn't matter....

4 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

But the Talent doesn't stand by itself. You still need to have a good physical stat with a good skill stat in order to succeed. It merely is a representation of someone who is really smart does things better.

To all those not agreeing, would you rather have the smartest brain surgeon in the world cut into your head or the dumbest one? If Intellect doesn't matter....

Your example is very good. Just go look it up and talk to some actual surgeons. You'll find that what really seperates the great surgeons from the average ones is amazing hand eye coordination and a perfectly steady hand

Conan and 2d20 in general is really mineable for Genesys, since the core mechanics were designed by the same person.

I'm excited to see what Genesys has to offer, but I'll probably hack together a Conan style skill talent tree.

3 hours ago, gdotbat said:

Well said Phil! I have this exact same problem right now! I am finally done with D&D 5e, campaign finished and I have no desire to go back to it. Were full on moving forward with EoTE, finally! I have been dying to play many other systems as well though, Call of Cthulhu, The One Ring, etc. Now, I DONT NEED TO LEARN THEM! I already told my group I will be converting 'Tomb of Annihilation' to Genesys! I am very much looking forward to this!

Looking forward to your conversion you will surely share