And if so, should it?

Like most of you, I'm super excited about the upcoming Genesys RPG. I love all three flavors the Star Wars RPG, and the Narrative Dice System as well. The system truly brings a new dimension to tabletop roleplaying, one I'm very happy with.

Thinking about how character creation is laid out - selecting a Profession, then a Specialization - in Star Wars, I think it's done fantastically well, in the particular realm of Star Wars. But I'm wondering how it could/would be applied to a generic system. How do you think FFG will accompish this?

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It all begins with character creation. Genesys allows you to create a character using four different archetypes that can be applied to many different settings. These archetypes provide the basis for your character, whether they are a skilled laborer or a haughty intellectual, an aristocrat or average human. These archetypes can be found as different jobs in a modern setting, or as a different species on an exotic alien world. Next, your character selects a career to give them a greater focus. This career can be generic, like an entertainer or trader, or be more setting specific, like a knight or mad scientist. From there, your character develops their special skills and talents before diving into the narrative dice system of Genesys .

It mentions careers but not specializations, though that could be information that is forthcoming. The class system is being preserved in some manner.

(First off, I somehow missed that part of the description!)

From what I'm reading, it sounds like archetypes will replace professions...but maybe races (fantasy) and species (futuristic/alien), to? And it almost sounds as if careers/specializations take some of the place of professions. That's...interesting.

The "four different archetypes" that can be applied to different genres is interesting, too. I wonder if they'll revolve around the strong/smart/quick/charasmatic ideals?

It seems more like archetypes will be the replacement for the races of the Star Wars rpg, selecting a race was the first step of character creation there too and it seems to fit the same mechanical function for "providing the basis for your character". Since we know there are four and from the descriptions I would guess they are something like: "Physical", "Smart", "Social" and "Generic" (with better names of course). This could easily be expanded out to work as different fantasy and sci-fi races.

As for the Careers, I think they will work like Specializations, so you get one starting talent tree and can "multiclass" into others as in Star Wars, cutting out the middleman of Professions entirely. The book will probably provide a list of generic Careers as they describe, Entertainer and Trader being two of them and then one or more for each of the 5 basic settings they describe: Knight for Fantasy and Mad Scientist for Steampunk, for example.

What I am really wondering is how they are gonna handle special powers, the Force system could be adapted (it would need to use the regular dice in some way) to work for some types of powers and genres, but would not work all that well for others. I don't like it for a fantasy magic system, but it would be excellent for psychic powers.

The way it reads to me you will still pick a sort of general archetype, but then gives me the feeling it will open up avenues from there. So less Careers, same # of Specs/Talent access, is the feeling I am getting.

What are the four archetypes? Tank, Support, Ranged, Melee?

On 28.6.2017 at 2:01 PM, Blackbird888 said:

It mentions careers but not specializations, though that could be information that is forthcoming. The class system is being preserved in some manner.

Sounds like they go with an open talent system + careers for career skills, while the archetypes might be related to basic characteristic distribution and a few free things ... which would somewhat related to what species are in star wars. But I am just speculating, plenty of ways to handle it.

I hope they figure out a way to work careers and talent trees into the character. I will go to my grave saying that ranks in skills is nice and all, but the really fun bits are the talents. I would have to find a sad penguin avatar if they dumped that mechanic.

Meanwhile I would be rather happy. Imo skill synergies work much better than talents for those narrative dice. But I am biased in this ;-)

I agree with Desslock on this one. I like talents, and think they add some nice flavor to the characters. We played WEG d6 Star Wars for a couple decades and one of it's biggest problems was that by the time you got to high experience levels everybody's character sheets started looking very similar, and functioned similarly. For example, Every Jedi had a Light Saber Skill, and all used it the same way. Having different talent tree's really differentiates the fighting styles. Similarly a face type character would always have the same skills, and mechanically function the same. In FFG Star Wars there's a real difference between a charmer, a politico, and an agitator.

I'm sure a talentless system could work, but I prefer talents.

What if they provide a long list of "Soecialisations" in the form of Talent Trees in the generic rules section. Then in the Theme there are a number of "Careers" which provide a list of each Specislisation they contain.

So the Soldier/Sharp Shooter in one Theme is the Hunter/Bowman in another. The Technician/Mechanic in one is the Craftsman/Blacksmith in another.

In this way the entire feeling of a Specialisation changes depending on the Theme it's in and the others it's paired with. I would not expect all Specialisations to be in every Theme either. In SW there are 36+ in each of the 3 lines yet a total of almost 100. I definitely don't expect that amount of content but it highlights my idea.

The problem with the open talent system is that everyone then goes back to min maxing and trying to get the best possible mix of talents for that concept , to do that in the Star Wars RPG , you have to buy a significant amount of specs and waste a lot of xp , instead of spreading out your xp among a select few and letting the specialization lead you to your specific build.

Example my F&D character started out as a Warden , I had a specific plan in mind (he is big on anti-slvery coming from a slave race - Nikto) but as time went on I found myself protecting other people so I bought into protector and let him develop some things along that path , he has now lost his mentor and some would say stabilising force in his life and has only just picked up the darker talents in warden (Fearsome etc) , Im letting the game dictate my path, and not some idea of doing the best damage , or eaking the last bit of defense out my armor (although being able to run around with 9 soak isnt bad)

You can circumvent this cherry picking by offering talents with flavor based on skills and your skill synergies. Which means you pick those talents most for flavor while having access to several options for good talents.

edit: On top you don't really need filler talents either.

edit2: Though you are right that people will build based on their character concept, at the other, taking your example her, can you buy those darker talents ALWAYS based on story and character development and are able to adjust your build better to your character development. You become more flexible, which is directly countering the singular min-maxing approach, because you can pick up useful things along the way.

What FFG did with Black Crusade and Only War could work. Everyone starts out with a certain archetype and one or more further specializations to provide some focus at character creation. From there, go in whatever direction you desire, but understand that initial choices make certain picks of talents/skills/whatever easier/cheaper, and certain others will be harder. Also of course keep in the pre-requisites, which I think makes a ton of sense.

One thing they could introduce and expand on would be the Signature Abilities in the splat books for Star Wars. Those are high powered abilities and could make a great fit for high Sci-Fi and Fantasy games, as well as Superhero type abilities. Difficult to earn, but could be quite worth the cost.

20 hours ago, Split Light said:

I like talents, and think they add some nice flavor to the characters. We played WEG d6 Star Wars for a couple decades and one of it's biggest problems was that by the time you got to high experience levels everybody's character sheets started looking very similar, and functioned similarly.

I sort of agree with this, but the problem is that the reason this is so is because the talents and talent trees are fairly strongly tied into the flavor and feel of the specific setting. I just don't see genre generic talents working well at all.

6 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

I sort of agree with this, but the problem is that the reason this is so is because the talents and talent trees are fairly strongly tied into the flavor and feel of the specific setting. I just don't see genre generic talents working well at all.

I think that ends up becoming the question: Will Genesys be more of a generic system (like Savage Worlds ), or more of a toolkit (like Cortex Plus or Fate )? Are you supposed to be able to use the rules straight out of the box to do whatever you want, or are you supposed to be able to use the rules to build the set of rules that you want?

I'd really like a "classless" system. One of the things I didn't like about EotE or AoR was spending points on lame talents, mostly the "remove a black dice when doing this specific thing in regards to this specific skill check." In my group it even became a joke to insist something was going wrong so a black dice could be included in the check so we could toss it out. Is it nice to have a rank or two in those types of skills? Yeah, but I don't like having to spend a week and a half worth of XP just to take a dopey talent so I can spend even longer to get the talent I actually wanted.

Honestly, as the game progresses, the ability to advance stagnates and pulls to a halt. It becomes increasingly expensive to do any sort of advancement, even going into other trees to get low level things (or just get closer to the character concept you are developing) becomes increasingly cumbersome.

With a classless system, alot of the slog and waste could be cut. But as mentioned previously, that does leave people to min-max more easily.

On 6/30/2017 at 11:09 AM, Forgottenlore said:

I sort of agree with this, but the problem is that the reason this is so is because the talents and talent trees are fairly strongly tied into the flavor and feel of the specific setting. I just don't see genre generic talents working well at all.

I concur.

But I can see a way that works as a middle ground. The talents have trees, based upon prerequisites; The careers specify which talents, but don't have specific trees. Kind of the way it works in the 2d20 games by Modiphius. (Their reward cycle is bad, but that's the only really major flaw I find with their engine; it is, however, near fatal.)

5 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

[...] the 2d20 games by Modiphius. (Their reward cycle is bad, but that's the only really major flaw I find with their engine; it is, however, near fatal.)

I want to try one of the 2d20 games one of these days, so I'm curious - what does that mean? Is it a problem with the Doom and/or Momentum mechanics, or with the XP system?