1 hour ago, DarthDude said:

If it will be a 400 page tome like their average SW corerulebook, you'll easily cover the mechanics, skills/talents, a system for supernatural powers AND weapons/gear. In fact if its called magic, biotics, superpowers, weapons or whatever, the mechanics are nearly the same and thus wouldn't take that much space. The spells had qualities in the Runebound GenCon rounds you also find in weapons. If you have an universial set of (positive and negative) qualities, you can simulate absolutely anything. Open Legend does exactly this in just 140 pages (including vehicles, gears, etc) quite well. So I somehow doubt FFG won't be able to achive the same in thrice as many pages.

Honestly, if they publish a generic corerulebook, which would be virtually useless without splatbooks, it would be disappointing. Sure, there will be splatbooks to offer additional options and more depth, but the necessary stuff should be expected in the corerulebook.

And to properly develop a setting your going to need chapters on history, cultures and species, maps and geography (or Astrography), current events, major organizations and NPCs, guides on the types of adventures that can be had, possibly sections covering specialized equipment, in addition to whatever mechanical tweaks the system requires for a given setting.

Generally speaking your going to need 400 pages just to cover a single setting well enough that the GM doesn't need to do a major amount of world building before he even gets to adventure design.

15 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

And to properly develop a setting your going to need chapters on history, cultures and species, maps and geography (or Astrography), current events, major organizations and NPCs, guides on the types of adventures that can be had, possibly sections covering specialized equipment, in addition to whatever mechanical tweaks the system requires for a given setting.

Generally speaking your going to need 400 pages just to cover a single setting well enough that the GM doesn't need to do a major amount of world building before he even gets to adventure design.

The sector books in Star Wars have around 140 pages and do a pretty concise job of covering their subject. Take that model and give 20-60 more pages (if even), and I think they'll do fine.

Runebound as an example:

• Intro: 5-6 pages.
• Chapter 1: Regions of Terrinoth (50-60 pages)
• Chapter 2: History of Terrinoth (30-ish pages)
• Chapter 3: Playing Games in Runebound (20-ish pages)
• Chapter 4: Modular Encounters or short story (20 pages)

And now your up to 1000 pages to cover the 5 settings in the core book, without the game mechanics.

And Star Wars is atypical because it is so well known, they can get away with less detail.

The fact is that there is a REASON settings tend to produce several dedicated books. They are not going to be able to provide anything more than a very general overview of the 5 settings in the core book.

6 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

They are not going to be able to provide anything more than a very general overview of the 5 settings in the core book.

Are they even going to be settings? Or just genres?

42 minutes ago, CitizenKeen said:

Are they even going to be settings? Or just genres?

I guess blueprints. It wouldn't make sense to throw in mini-settings no one would actually play, when they already plan to do setting books (somebody already mentioned Android would be confirmed).

7 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

And to properly develop a setting your going to need chapters on history, cultures and species, maps and geography (or Astrography), current events, major organizations and NPCs, guides on the types of adventures that can be had, possibly sections covering specialized equipment, in addition to whatever mechanical tweaks the system requires for a given setting.

Generally speaking your going to need 400 pages just to cover a single setting well enough that the GM doesn't need to do a major amount of world building before he even gets to adventure design.

This corerulebook is expected to be the base mechanics, no setting tome. From a generic corerulebook I can expect to implement my own setting ideas from shows. I expect them to deliver generic guidlines, a generic set of rules, I can use. Take vehicles for example, if it is some 19th centure WW1 tank or a Star Wars landspeeder, there is technically not much difference. Both will probably use the same rules to create them and to pilot them.

As I already mentioned, I expect splatbooks on all those genres as well, but still I think a core rules book should have sufficent crunch to give the mechanics to create my own settings and classes within.

1 hour ago, CitizenKeen said:

Are they even going to be settings? Or just genres?

As I figure, it'll just be genre guides in the core book, maybe a couple of example race/career/whatever's in each. Then ready yourself for the slew of Setting books coming soon from FFG!

16 hours ago, lyinggod said:

Keep in mind that the Star Wars books are full glorious color which makes them much more expensive then B&W books. If they publish GENESYS in B&W, it could still be about $40 with 400 or more pages. By way of comparison a single hardcover 400 page B&W book published through Lulu is under $26. In bulk, using FFG's printers, it would be much cheaper.

It didn't look as thick as a CRB. It looked about 300ish pages.

40 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

It didn't look as thick as a CRB. It looked about 300ish pages.

Agreed; and with the price point of $40 plus FFG's standards in game books, I'm just about 100% certain the book's interior will be in color.

-100 pages or so, plus no Disney-tax can save some production costs.

51 minutes ago, DarthGM said:

Agreed; and with the price point of $40 plus FFG's standards in game books, I'm just about 100% certain the book's interior will be in color.

-100 pages or so, plus no Disney-tax can save some production costs.

It looked about the thickness of 5E DMG/PHB ish, so 300ish pages.

I agree, no Star Wars tax, all in house references saves a ton. I don't expect B&W either, generic art means no license stuff, so while I don't expect gallery quality imagery, I'm sure it'll be decent looking.

Well, if they use the artwork in the announcement article and product page...

Then it's colored, but not the full color used with Star Wars.

The artwork looks nice to me. Nothing finished, nothing ready yet. Sounds like a world being created, a project, a blue print. You'll color the world like you want to. It's simple and elegant, like the system in general.

About the book size, with 300 pages, we can have...

• 40 pages to present the system (dices, narrative, skills, talents, equipments);
• 45 pages to Fantasy
• 45 pages to Steampunk
• 45 pages to Modern
• 45 pages to Weird War
• 45 pages to Science Fiction
• 15 pages to space (they already said that the Sci Fi would have 2 chapters);
• 20 pages to complementary rules;

Looks a good amount of material... let's see what we can do with 45 pages for each setting:

• 5 pages to present the ambient
• 5 pages to explain the races/species/archetypes of the setting (just examples, there are no need to detail each option, just the mechanical options)
• 15 pages to explain the classes/concepts/professions (just examples, like 4 or 5)
• 5 pages to custom talents and skills
• 10 pages to cover specific rules of the theme (spells, matrix, hacking, spirits, mutants, mega robots, space travel, clones, economy, etc.)
• 5 pages to specific equipments

13 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

About the book size, with 300 pages, we can have...

• 40 pages to present the system (dices, narrative, skills, talents, equipments);

Seems a little... light. Specifically, we need rules for building powers. It would be a terrible waste of space to have "psionics" in space and "magic" in fantasy and inventions in steampunk and mutations in Weird War, etc. The GenCon sheets indicate powers can be "built" - my gut is you're going to need a lot more space for core rules. I'd bet the setting material is closer to 20-30 pages per genre.

Depends on how succinct the book is. All things considered, the Star Wars RPG gets wordy at times. You shouldn't need two paragraphs to describe what a battle axe is, just give us the stats and rules and be done with it. Also, the art in the Star Wars books takes up a lot of room. While it is nice to look at, it also takes up room, sometimes entire pages.

23 minutes ago, Bellyon said:

The artwork looks nice to me. Nothing finished, nothing ready yet. Sounds like a world being created, a project, a blue print. You'll color the world like you want to. It's simple and elegant, like the system in general.

About the book size, with 300 pages, we can have...

• 40 pages to present the system (dices, narrative, skills, talents, equipments);
• 45 pages to Fantasy
• 45 pages to Steampunk
• 45 pages to Modern
• 45 pages to Weird War
• 45 pages to Science Fiction
• 15 pages to space (they already said that the Sci Fi would have 2 chapters);
• 20 pages to complementary rules;

Looks a good amount of material... let's see what we can do with 45 pages for each setting:

• 5 pages to present the ambient
• 5 pages to explain the races/species/archetypes of the setting (just examples, there are no need to detail each option, just the mechanical options)
• 15 pages to explain the classes/concepts/professions (just examples, like 4 or 5)
• 5 pages to custom talents and skills
• 10 pages to cover specific rules of the theme (spells, matrix, hacking, spirits, mutants, mega robots, space travel, clones, economy, etc.)
• 5 pages to specific equipments

I don't think you're giving nearly enough space for the game system. If it's set up at all like the Star Wars core books are (and it should be), at least half the book is just going to be rules.

In the AoR core rulebook (happens to be handy at the moment), pages 6-141 were Playing the Game, Character Creation, Skills, and Talents. That's 135 pages. Let's assume that we can pair those down a little, maybe cutting out...I'll be generous, half of those pages. That's 67-68 pages for that. That doesn't include Conflict and Combat (25 pages) or Gamemastering (40 pages). So if they're somehow able to cut those down to half size, that's still another 33 pages. So that's at best guess 100 pages just for the Narrative Dice system rules, and I'm still guessing it'll be more than that.

2 hours ago, Bellyon said:

About the book size, with 300 pages, we can have...

• 40 pages to present the system (dices, narrative, skills, talents, equipments);
• 45 pages to Fantasy
• 45 pages to Steampunk
• 45 pages to Modern
• 45 pages to Weird War
• 45 pages to Science Fiction
• 15 pages to space (they already said that the Sci Fi would have 2 chapters);
• 20 pages to complementary rules;

I doubt the game will be structured like that. If you look at a comparable game like Cypher System then a third of the book is focussed on character rules, which includes all the powers and special abilities. Each genre has eight pages dedicated to it, explaining how to use the core rules in a genre-applicable way. That's about one tenth of the overall page count.

I would expect a similar approach for Genesys; a core, flexible system for powers or abilities then separate guidance and example mixes to get you started on the genres. The setting books (when they arrive) will predominantly focus on 'recipes' for putting the core mechanics together to support the world, in addition to the 'fluff' of course.

Maybe the genre books will include further rules or new powers/ abilities but that is actually a poor way to make a long-lived game. GURPS 3e used that approach and it eventually caused big problems as subsystems and powers / abilities from different world books clashed. 4e took an approach of having as much of the mechanics as possible defined at the beginning and just using the genre books to provide 'recipes' using those rules, for the most part. Since Genesys is built off a fairly deep lineage (WFRP 3e and three lines of SW books) they can hopefully jump to a fairly complete set of powers on their first try.

I'm pretty sure they are going to leave a lot of genre detail to either sourcebooks or GM imagination and focus on mechanics, CHARGEN, with some basic stuff to jumpstart any genre.

I would have thought that each Theme in the core book would only be 10 to 20 pages, leaving 200 odd pages for core rules.

If I where developing the system I would make everything vanilla and group all of the like things together.

Chapter 1(15): Playing the game, exactly as is without the IP

Chapter 2(40): Character Creation, would cover Motivation in depth, Arctypes as well as all the careers in generic flavour. Then cover Heroic Abilities and how to acquire them(could be a part of a later chapter but here seems good)

Chapter 3(20): I would have a Skill chapter with every skill conceivable.

Chapter 4(15): A Talent chapter covering every Talent required for all Themes included in the core book.

Chapter 5(15): Spells and supernatural abilities. All their glorious details separated by their specific skill.

Chapter 6(30): Gear, all of it in generic form. Probably separate things more than was done in Star Wars, breaking it up into smaller more specific categories.

Chspter 7(20): Combat, as is with less Star Wars

Chapter 8(30): vehicles and their rules, wagons to warships, motorbikes to star ships... again all generic.

Chapter 9(40): GM stuff. How to prep a game, how to create a theme, how to adjudicate problems at the table.

Chapter 10(20): Optional Rules, seems appropriate that some complex things will be kept out of the basic rules and only used as required, eg crafting

Chapter 11 through 14(15 each, 60): Themes. Overview on how to rename the basics to fit the theme, the skill list and career list that will be used. How to choose appropriately for the theme. Adversaries for the theme. Some examples of story arcs that can be made into Sessions, Adventures or Campaigns (perhaps a modular encounter or 3 as well if there's room).

I don't know guys... the EotE has:

• 23 pages to explain system/dices/checks/atributes/obligations/destiny
• 6 charater concept + background
• 6 obligation
• 11 species
• 3 explain career + average 6 per class (~36)
• 7 details
• 24 skills
• 12-13 information about equipments
• 27 equipments
• 9 customization
• 23 conflict and combat
• 34 narrative
• 2 alternate and optional rules
• 26 adversaries

We really really need in the core, being commom to every setting:

• 23 explain the system
• 6 obligation if they'd use as a core thing
• few pages to details
• 10~15 pages to skills (here my point is, all the common skill in the first chapter. Each specific setting can offer it's particular skills, like Arcana, Divine and Primal in Fantasy, or Computer in Modern and just a note in Science Fiction)
• 12-13 information about equipments
• 23 conflict and combat

Ok, 80 pgs. Twice my first bet xD

The last chapter:

• 34 narrative + alternate and optional rules

Settings:

• Species, adversaries, equipments, vehicles, career... it's all up the each setting and with fez options, just as a baseline.

Anyway, of course I want a book with 350, 400 pgs I just believe they can do a good work with 300.

• 80 First chapter
• ~35 per setting
• 40 Last chapter (narrative + alternate rules)

@Bellyon My point was that I think it's very unlikely we will get 'fantasy powers', 'sci-fi powers' etc. It's for more likely IMO that we will get a big chunk of general powers followed by genre-specific guidance on how to implement them appropriately.

I also think we should anticipate guidance on how to create adversaries plus a small number of examples rather than extensive bestiaries for each genre. A combat droid / iron golem / clank solider could all use very similar stats.

Seems fair anyway I was just thinking in useless things xD

I guess they'll do a nice job with the book. Our troubles will appear trying to adapt and create new things. Could be easily but not less hard...

Everyone here has his own point of view about adaptation "in my game katana do 9 damage" "oh, no, in my game it's 10", etc. This forum will burn in topics we can see that a lot o people here already said about their fav scenarios and games, I'm pretty sure, despite the generic aspect of any generic system and the "create your own world", a lot players really want oficial things to feel more confortable, you know?

I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, but an Android sourcebook has been confirmed .

Sigh. Too many things I'd love to see get books. Sadly I doubt any of them will happen. Trying to do all your own conversations can be extremely time consuming.

48 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Sigh. Too many things I'd love to see get books. Sadly I doubt any of them will happen. Trying to do all your own conversations can be extremely time consuming.

yeah, but it is quite fun as I am working on a Dragonstar conversion and I starting to look into the system a little bit, I come to have fun with the conversion with help of the community.

If the system has the right set of guidelines for everything generic that is genre agnostic (weapons are still weapons after all as vehicles are vehicles, it's the traits and qualities that define them), the conversion should be a cakewalk.

But if Genesys relies on different guidelines for different settings and even use specalizations (which are opposite to being generic), then it could be an arduous work.