First, some context. I own pretty much all of WFRP 3e, but must admit to only having one short campaign of actual play. I've played Edge of Empire but didn't get the chance to read the books extensively as another player in our group was a hue Star Wars fan and bought them all.

Having played bothe WFRP 3e and Star Wars, I personally found that the Advantage / Threat mechanic was much more mechanically satisfying in WFRP as every ability had it's own short table of ways you could spend those symbols. I know the Star Wars implementation seems hugely more popular and Genesys seems to be closer to it than WFRP.

I'm not calling for a return to decks of abilities (though that would be cool; and even more tricky to do with a generic game) however it would be great to have tables of mechanical effects for different types of common endeavour that happen. A good example I am thinking of is Stunt Points in the AGE RPG line, where there are short tables of things you can spend stunt points on for combat, spell casting and to a lesser extent social and exploration activities.

I'm hoping this is already in the Genesys system but if not please could the Devs think about it? It doesn't take anything away from pure story-interpretation of Advantage / Threat whilst adding a bit of mechanical crunch for people who like that kind of thing.

There has been a few tables of "Situational Uses" seen in the backs of a few Career Books lately, notable ones from memory are Endless Vigil (F&D) and Forged In Battle (AoR) for Advantage/Threat, but a bigger issue is that these are only guides. There can't be an "End All/Be All" uses of Advantage/Threat as they are meant to be used organically and not every situation can be taken into account. While many scoff at the idea, uses of Advantage/Threat should just feel right for the story/situation. Outside of a talent, Advantage could be used for everything but taking another Action, so there is a lot of depth to their expenditures.

Side note to this: I've found that having an "Advantage/Threat Use Chart" for my players has actually caused harm to the game as the players stopped narrating the story and simply played the mechanics.

There are lots of list out there of non-mechanical ways to use Adv/Thr But the important thing to remember it that the list aren't all inclusive. You can use the results to make anything happen and log as it makes sense narratively and its remains in scale with the quantity of your roll. (lightning striking your foe for one advantage doesn't work but using 5 adv might)

Having a short list would really limit how the games could progress and limit the ways that my little character could accomplish his task.

On 7/2/2017 at 4:08 AM, dbm_ said:

First, some context. I own pretty much all of WFRP 3e, but must admit to only having one short campaign of actual play. I've played Edge of Empire but didn't get the chance to read the books extensively as another player in our group was a hue Star Wars fan and bought them all.

Having played bothe WFRP 3e and Star Wars, I personally found that the Advantage / Threat mechanic was much more mechanically satisfying in WFRP as every ability had it's own short table of ways you could spend those symbols. I know the Star Wars implementation seems hugely more popular and Genesys seems to be closer to it than WFRP.

I'm not calling for a return to decks of abilities (though that would be cool; and even more tricky to do with a generic game) however it would be great to have tables of mechanical effects for different types of common endeavour that happen. A good example I am thinking of is Stunt Points in the AGE RPG line, where there are short tables of things you can spend stunt points on for combat, spell casting and to a lesser extent social and exploration activities.

I'm hoping this is already in the Genesys system but if not please could the Devs think about it? It doesn't take anything away from pure story-interpretation of Advantage / Threat whilst adding a bit of mechanical crunch for people who like that kind of thing.

There's tables in every career book for specific instances like Astrogation in the Smuggler book. In addition, each Skill write up has suggestions for uses of Advantages/Threats within.

On 7/2/2017 at 4:08 AM, dbm_ said:

First, some context. I own pretty much all of WFRP 3e, but must admit to only having one short campaign of actual play. I've played Edge of Empire but didn't get the chance to read the books extensively as another player in our group was a hue Star Wars fan and bought them all.

Having played bothe WFRP 3e and Star Wars, I personally found that the Advantage / Threat mechanic was much more mechanically satisfying in WFRP as every ability had it's own short table of ways you could spend those symbols. I know the Star Wars implementation seems hugely more popular and Genesys seems to be closer to it than WFRP.

I'm not calling for a return to decks of abilities (though that would be cool; and even more tricky to do with a generic game) however it would be great to have tables of mechanical effects for different types of common endeavour that happen. A good example I am thinking of is Stunt Points in the AGE RPG line, where there are short tables of things you can spend stunt points on for combat, spell casting and to a lesser extent social and exploration activities.

I'm hoping this is already in the Genesys system but if not please could the Devs think about it? It doesn't take anything away from pure story-interpretation of Advantage / Threat whilst adding a bit of mechanical crunch for people who like that kind of thing.

In addition whereas WH3 had all the individual attack cards and spell cards that laid out Advantage/Threats etc, those cards are talents in Star Wars, where specific kinds of attacks and options like Pin, Grapple, Hawk Bat Swoop, are laid out in regards to reqs and effects. So the game has the same stuff WH3 had, it just dispensed with the fiddly bits cards and put it in Talent trees. Now the spec decks are available for those that want them in Star Wars they just aren't included like they were in WH3.

I have a feeling Genesys is going to strike a balance between the two, I dunno about cards, but I have a feeling with the Careers being condensed essentially into several very general archetypes, that the Talents are going to be more ala carte than Star Wars, but likely not all will be available to every archetype.

That's all good to hear. It didn't see any table use in the Star Wars game I played, but evidently there are more suggestions available.

I understand the point about some people limiting themselves to the list being a potential issue, however we haven't had that problem ourselves with other games. My group likes a degree of mechanical crunch to interact with, and the WFRP / SW games give a good balance of flexibility and mechanical widgets. If I want to go lower crunch than that then there are already good games in that niche (like Fate); it would be nice to have a new game occupying a slightly different point on the crunch / narrative spectrum.

There is no lack of crunch in Star Wars, 18 career books, multiple source books and adventures, all with mechanics and gear and suggestions. You can't swing a dead skunk and not hit crunch in Star Wars. Some of that will carry over to Genesys I'm sure just based on the dice alone.

When it comes to advantage, triumph, setback, and despair, I think a series of Trope sheets would be handy - an example of thematic (geared to the setting) uses for spending these results.

Were the game to be quite different, and I doubt it shall, having talents that are geared to your skills could be interesting. For example, a melee talent could allow you to make a brawl attack for spending 4 advantage. A kind of fighting style - which could be adapted to a martial arts (brawling) heavy setting.

2 hours ago, 2P51 said:

There is no lack of crunch in Star Wars, 18 career books, multiple source books and adventures, all with mechanics and gear and suggestions. You can't swing a dead skunk and not hit crunch in Star Wars. Some of that will carry over to Genesys I'm sure just based on the dice alone.

Sure. However some people are advocating no lists as they feel this stifles creativity.

I want some crunch in my peanut butter (and it sounds like you do, too).

Oh yah. I'm no classless system fan, way too vanilla. The only people in life who get to pick all the choices they want are billionaires and transients.....everyone has to make some compromises....

3 minutes ago, dbm_ said:

Sure. However some people are advocating no lists as they feel this stifles creativity.

I want some crunch in my peanut butter (and it sounds like you do, too).

It is a fine line between stifling and perpetuating. Some will look at a list and see all there is and take it as gospel an the only option. Others will see the same list and think that it is a great beginning. Others, still, will see the list and find a way to crunch numbers and find the best numerical advantage.

As to lists personally, all I want is my basic weapons back. A heavy blaster pistol can be whatever I call it, a DL-44 doesn't need seperate stats. I hope the Genesys book has basic light, heavy, etc generic weapons lists as opposed to micramanaging stat blocks.

Ok.... how did you guys shift from a question about how to use threat generated during skill checks to... something about the character creation system and classes?

The word is crunch....