While the Star Wars rpg (and likely Genesys) is brilliant, there are several areas I wish would have been changed for Genesys.

Now, this is all personal perspective and preference, but if given the chance, here is what I would have changed:

Players roll all the dice. The GM quite literally never needs to roll. Conceivably, every enemy from orc to space fighter could set a difficulty, for attack and defence to and against. When a player attacks an enemy they roll their dice pool. When defending from an attack, the player rolls his defense in the form of a dice pool.

The reason I would like to see this, is it speeds up the game somewhat. Also, the GM is given a bit more time to focus on the story than on antagonistically rolling the dice.

Vehicle combat - in star wars, vehicles have wounds and strain just as a character does, while a ship could suffer strain and stall out, in practice it made more bookkeeping and vaguely worded abilities left it unclear whether personal or vehicle strain is applied. It was a mess. Treating ships like weapons, as a type of gear that gives you options for spending success, advantage, etc. would make for a better game.

More adversary cards - right out the gate. These simple cards helped gameplay run smoother and cut down flipping through books.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the GM never rolling. The GM can also roll Triumph/Despair, and I think losing that possibility takes away an essential element of the game.

I do agree with you about the vehicle combat. Vehicle combat is one of the real weaknesses of Star Wars, and could use an overhaul.

Yes on adversary cards. More cards now please.

I'd also like to add on a request to please add some clarification around defense.

Yeah but that way the GM can't fluff the dice roll.

"A DM only rolls the dice because of the noise they make." - Gary Gygax

I never said that a GM controlled character can't roll a despair, building a dicepool for defense certainly could allow for that, only that the GM doesn't actually roll the dice result.

6 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

Yeah but that way the GM can't fluff the dice roll.

"A DM only rolls the dice because of the noise they make." - Gary Gygax

In a binary pass/fail system, this is applicable. In Genesys (NarDS) or Star Wars, you can fail upward or succeed downwards. If the role of the GM is to facilitate and direct a story, then they need only present situation and help interpret players dice results. This system failing a dice roll doesn't necessarily mean you don't actually accomplish something - though it can. As stated, it is less of a binary pass or fail ideology.

Just now, That Blasted Samophlange said:

In a binary pass/fail system, this is applicable. In Genesys (NarDS) or Star Wars, you can fail upward or succeed downwards. If the role of the GM is to facilitate and direct a story, then they need only present situation and help interpret players dice results. This system failing a dice roll doesn't necessarily mean you don't actually accomplish something - though it can. As stated, it is less of a binary pass or fail ideology.

Ooh Good point. So if you as the GM want them to (let's say) fix the transporter, and the clutz PC rolls 3 fails you could interpret that as "it takes 3 hours longer before it has sufficient power to work again" instead of "It broke more, caught fire and then exploded."?

15 minutes ago, Split Light said:

I think losing that possibility takes away an essential element of the game.

Also, there's the simple, basic thing of: I like to roll dice. I wanna roll them too!

15 minutes ago, Desslok said:

Also, there's the simple, basic thing of: I like to roll dice. I wanna roll them too!

I have to agree there. I like rolling dice too.

3 hours ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

While the Star Wars rpg (and likely Genesys) is brilliant, there are several areas I wish would have been changed for Genesys.

Now, this is all personal perspective and preference, but if given the chance, here is what I would have changed:

Players roll all the dice. The GM quite literally never needs to roll. Conceivably, every enemy from orc to space fighter could set a difficulty, for attack and defence to and against. When a player attacks an enemy they roll their dice pool. When defending from an attack, the player rolls his defense in the form of a dice pool.

I did this with the single roll combat option in the GM section and had them roll that way every round in a Mass Combat scenario with them being able to apply good results to the one PCs Mass Combat rolls, and bad results representing Wounds/Strain/Crits they suffered in the fighting. Worked well.

With most of my groups, the players rolling all the dice would actually slow things down, not speed them up.

My list of pipe dream changes:

• Simplified weapons/armour. I'd like to see a paired down list of common weapons that are more generic then the specific pages-long lists we currently have. The creation rules from Special Modifications and Keeping the Peace would be a great place to start
• Universal talen tree layouts. Assuming they are in use, a handful (no more than 6) generic talent trees that all specializations use. That will make it so much easier to make our own.
• Changes to vehicles. this is really many items rolled into one. Overhaul the current scale system. Either add a third scale or make the two current scales less of a massive jump. A speeder-mounted weapon shouldn't be doing 30 damage to a character! Overhaul the shield rules—let's face it, they're not that great. Condense the vehicle action/manœuvre charts so there are less to choose from. Too many choices can be just as bad as too few. Fix the strain economy…or remove it altogether. Vehicle strain seems great, until you realize you can only recover 1 strain each turn, and that's only if you spend an action to do so! Vehicular strain should be just as fluid as PC strain.
• Condensed skill list. It may only be me, but I think the current skill list is a bit long. EotE has 30 skills, not counting Lightsaber or Other. I'd like to see the core skill list no more than 20, 15 if possible.
• Modified characteristic/skill pairing. If you want to be good in combat, you max Agility. If you want to be good at fixing things (and people!) you max Intellect. I'd like to see some of the combat skills get spread out a bit. I've seen some really good arguments for Gunnery to be Cunning-based, for instance.

1 hour ago, c__beck said:

• Modified characteristic/skill pairing. If you want to be good in combat, you max Agility. If you want to be good at fixing things (and people!) you max Intellect. I'd like to see some of the combat skills get spread out a bit. I've seen some really good arguments for Gunnery to be Cunning-based, for instance.

Indeed, there can be arguments for pairing attribute and skill depending on the situation. Some melee weapons should be agility based as well. Heck, intellect could be used in vehicle combat for firing missiles. The game should be more fluid with what is required to attack. Plus a percussive maintenance talent would be fun. Brawn/mechanics.

Like other systems, the skill list will probably be up to the GM to determine what is or isn't in the game. The different setting chapters will probably have suggested lists. Likewise, they'll probably have suggested pairings for characteristics and skills.

My three big changes would be rolling out their supposed defense overhaul, overhauling vehicles and scale, and fixing Auto-fire.

And I wouldn't call it a change per se , but I'd like to see optional rules for using miniatures and maps, considering the inevitability of a Runebound/Descent setting book. I don't care if it is literally a box taking up a quarter of a page, I'd just like to see the option.

4 hours ago, c__beck said:

• Modified characteristic/skill pairing. If you want to be good in combat, you max Agility. If you want to be good at fixing things (and people!) you max Intellect. I'd like to see some of the combat skills get spread out a bit. I've seen some really good arguments for Gunnery to be Cunning-based, for instance.

I'm going to move Pilot to Intellect and Stealth to Cunning. Leaving the shooty skills as is but I wanna deconstruct Agility's dump stat status. I'm adding skills though. I want to break up crafting as well, so I am deconstructing Mechanics and Medicine, they're for fixing broken stuff. I don't like Mechanics in particular because you use it for everything from unplugging toilets to building hyperdrives so it needs to be parsed out for my tastes. The Knowledge skills will become a series of obvious science and engineering related disciplines that will pair with what is being built, which for my tastes, will broaden and deepen the technical skill focused PC. There are several combat skills but only one for baking cakes and building Death Stars, not good enough for me.

I don't know as I need FFG to do it for me, but I agree with Agility in particular more attention needs to be paid to avoiding the dump stat.

3 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I'm going to move Pilot to Intellect and Stealth to Cunning. Leaving the shooty skills as is but I wanna deconstruct Agility's dump stat status. I'm adding skills though. I want to break up crafting as well, so I am deconstructing Mechanics and Medicine, they're for fixing broken stuff. I don't like Mechanics in particular because you use it for everything from unplugging toilets to building hyperdrives so it needs to be parsed out for my tastes. The Knowledge skills will become a series of obvious science and engineering related disciplines that will pair with what is being built, which for my tastes, will broaden and deepen the technical skill focused PC. There are several combat skills but only one for baking cakes and building Death Stars, not good enough for me.

I don't know as I need FFG to do it for me, but I agree with Agility in particular more attention needs to be paid to avoiding the dump stat.

I like the idea of Stealth being Cunning-based!

3 minutes ago, c__beck said:

I like the idea of Stealth being Cunning-based!

It makes vastly more sense than Agility. How well you use surrounding terrain, noticing the pattern of the searchlights, guard rotations, spotting the surveillance cameras, using the passing garbage truck as cover, eating local foods to smell like a local, all have nothing to do with how well you dance Swan Lake and everything to do with a sneaky mind.