Hi all. I played in one of the demos Saturday. I never played Age of Rebellion, so was not familiar at all with the mechanics. Had a good time.

The strain system did not appear to affect such a short session, but I could see it significantly affecting longer games. The module and rules were very limited, so the GM had to rely on rules from Star Wars at times.

As a player coming from D&D/ Pathfinder wrapping my head around tactical distances took a bit, but it didn't kill the experience for me. I think when running it I will attempt to use a series of concentric circles to help my visually inclined players. Overall excited about the system. Feel free to ask about anything, and I'll answer as best I can.

Being familiar with the mechanics, I won't ask any questions like that. I'm curious about the adventure itself. I don't need a recap, but the gist of the adventure? Like, what were you actualy doing in the game. Dungeon delving, treasure hunting?

Essentially monster hunting. Party comes across some thugs looting a farm, you find signs of vampirism, and off you go.

Did roleplaying apart from combat feel intruiging as well? Social interactions, searching for clues (if there was any), stuff like that? Were there traps, like those often used in exploration and if yes, how did they feel?

Another veteran here so I'll keep to other questions.

Which character did you play?

Was there any mounted combat or combat on the back of a coach?

Did the enemies use magic? What type of magic?

How many Story Points where there? How was the number decided at the start? beyond the things on your sheets what could you do with them?

Was it all combat or did you get to experience the more narrative encounters?

If you want a mat to play on the large Hex's works best. Anything inside a Hex is Short Range, anything touching Bases is Engaged, then the hex's beyond are each 1 move manoeuvre away. It's still not perfect but for those who need a visual aid it's decent.

The GM was running it for the first time, and didn't have much time review the module prior to (I'm assuming due to secrecy, etc.), so the interactions seemed a little clipped, but that could just as easily been due to our play styles as well. I will admit that I was not at the top of my RPG game as I was trying to keep up with the new mechanics.

Story points were one per player and one for the GM. We kept them on a scrap of paper and slid them between the pools.

I played the Elf Warrior (The name escapes me and I have the sheets packed up). Being new I wanted a simple archetype to run, so sword and board it was.

One of the NPCs used magic, and I assume another would have had we not gotten the drop on him and smoked him before he could act.

Mounted combat was pretty simple, we just received a bonus die against anything not mounted.

25 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Another veteran here so I'll keep to other questions.

Which character did you play?

Syndrael

Was there any mounted combat or combat on the back of a coach?

There were wagons and carts in our scenario but nobody tried doing mounted combat.

Did the enemies use magic? What type of magic?

The final boss area consisted of a group of lifeless zombie like creatures, a mage who was banished from the academy and a lady vampire.

The zombie creatures were barely a threat. We split up our two main warriors (me and another player using Alys). Alys focused on the lady vampire while I bumrushed the enemy mage. I think his name was Lavaris? In the scenario Lavaris did not care about our intrusion, he was too focused on a ritual and trying to drive a dagger into a chained up child within a ritual circle. Lavaris never got a chance to really fight back. I sliced off his hand that was holding the dagger. He sprinted for the dagger on the floor and tried again with his other hand. Our mage player scored a Triumphant roll and used it as a critical hit with his arcane spear. Our mage rolled so well that he hit Lavaris pretty hard against the wall and was left open for another free attack.

Alys also rolled really well against the lady vampire. Alys managed to score a critical hit which knocked the lady vampire against the wall and reduced some of the bonuses she had. The lady vampire tried to use a spell / power that would make Alys incapable of acting on her own. Again Alys rolled really well and break free from the spell before losing full control of her own body. Immediately after this conflict our mage scored the critical hit on Lavaris as described above. Lavaris was defeated by being blasted to death. That triggered the lady vampire to retreat and live to see another day.

How many Story Points where there? How was the number decided at the start? beyond the things on your sheets what could you do with them?

I think we had about 10 story points? I'm not sure how that was determined. There were only 5 of us instead of 6. So maybe 2 per player? Aside from our character sheets we were able to use a story point to exchange a green dice for a yellow dice at any time.

Was it all combat or did you get to experience the more narrative encounters?

Experience was not covered during the demo session.

Not OP but as a player at GenCon I'll help throw some data out there. See my answers in blue above.

Thanks guys!

Re the question: " Was it all combat or did you get to experience the more narrative encounters?" I think the key question here is if you had any non-combat encounters that involved significant mechanics? So maybe exploration, interacting with puzzles liked locked doors, attempting persuasion or other influence. That kind of thing?

No specific puzzle mechanics. There was some investigation, but it primarily involved skill checks.

I played at the same table ElSuave described the final battle. I was the orc scout so I can say I had plenty of non combat interactions. Scouting the farm. Tracking the wagon. Breaking into the fancy inn the vampire lady resided in, getting info from gnomes in a pub after called them noisey gophers. Our mage also researched vampires at the academy in advance of the final encounter and scored a triumph (he was a triumph machine) granting us a boost die vs the vampire for entire final encounter. Our scholar did medicine checks to help figure out the death causes. Alys and Syndrael intimidated the bandits at the farm house with some limited success, but never fear a beserek orc scout finished the job with a loud and proud take down of a bandit moving into ambush position. Long story short. Session was 3.5 hrs. Combat was 30 mins of it rest was investigation, hilarity (darn goats) and social interactions.

If you have played Edge of the empire you are 90% familiar with Genesys. Magic and paragon skills only things that stood out as different and both seemed a natural fit to the game.

What kind of non-combat skill checks did you make?

...Frequently?

What sort of non-combat checks were typically made during combat?

How did sequences of checks that could be considered non-combat encounters compare to combat encounters?

What kinds of non-combat encounters did you run into?

What was your most memorable non-combat encounter?

What was your most memorable non-combat skill check that occurred during combat?

...Outside of combat?

Did any of the 4 Motivation elements come up during play? What sort of impact did that have on the narrative? Where there mechanical effects?

4 hours ago, sharkfin6 said:

Magic and paragon skills only things that stood out as different and both seemed a natural fit to the game.

Paragon skills?

I think it's the Heroic Ability they are talking about

And now, for somthing most important: Defence??? Did it come up (armour, weapons, cover etc.); how was it resolved?

3 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

And now, for somthing most important: Defence??? Did it come up (armour, weapons, cover etc.); how was it resolved?

This was my first time playing with FFG's narrative dice system so I'm unfamiliar with how defense is played in Star Wars RPG's. Being a tank I had 3 defense with 5 soak. The GM made his attack rolls behind the screen, I think he also included difficulty dice based on my defense. He had a rough time attacking me with melee. All I know is that when he declared attacks he would roll behind the screen and determine the outcome. My armor was based on the Defensive stats of your gear. So in Syndraels' case she has a shield with Defensive 2 and a sword with Defensive 1. So my total Defense was 3.

As far as non-combat checks go. I had 2 that I could recall:

1. Negotiation: I was able to negotiate with a farmer to give us horses for the entire party for dirt cheap.

2. Leadership: This check happened during combat. I was trying to activate an ability Syndrael had called Field Commander. If successful I could have rallied 3 of my allies to do "out-of-turn" maneuvers. Our back line had gotten surrounded by zombies. I failed to get any successes but they still managed to handle themselves on their own turns.

If it works as Star Wars, to hit Syndrael in melee enemies have to beat 2 purple dice (basic difficulty) plus 3 black dice (your defense). Then basic weapon damage plus any success is reduced by 5 (your soak) and any damage in excess goes to your wounds.

But Syndrael has Parry 3 I remember, so you could spend Strain to absorb more damage. Did you use it?

10 hours ago, CMink said:

What kind of non-combat skill checks did you make?

...Frequently?

What sort of non-combat checks were typically made during combat?

How did sequences of checks that could be considered non-combat encounters compare to combat encounters?

What kinds of non-combat encounters did you run into?

In the 5 sessions I ran, there were a ton of non-combat skill checks; tracking rolls, social skill checks, investigation gathering checks, all sorts. There were...3? maybe 4 combat encounters depending on what the players decided to do. Otherwise it was a lot of RP and skill checks to try and get more information either from physical evidence, knowledge of lore and geography, and coaxing it from others.

10 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Did any of the 4 Motivation elements come up during play? What sort of impact did that have on the narrative? Where there mechanical effects?

It honestly depended on the player. The most common and memorable one was that Durik the Orc Pathfinder was fearful of the supernatural, and was uncomfortable in cities. Sometimes he'd shy away from Leoric and Alys when they cast magic, and when t was revealed a vampire was involved would most commonly want to go in the other direction. Alys threw her weight around a lot when it came to the investigation and pursuit of justice for those killed by the vampire. Only one player of Syndrael seemed to embody her dislike of non-elves.

6 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

Paragon skills?

Kinda like Signature Abilites; once-per-session powers that cost 1-2 story points to activate. Like Usha's(?) ability to just take out a minion group as an incidental actions on her turn (lasted for 2 turns).

3 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

And now, for something most important: Defence??? Did it come up (armour, weapons, cover etc.); how was it resolved?

It's the same as Star Wars, except simplified. Simply put, Defense is either granted or added. If something says "Gain Defense 2", it doesn't stack. Your base Defense is now 2, even if you already had Defense 1. If something says "adds Defense", it increases the base defense. So Syndrael the Elf Warrior had a shield with Defensive 2 and a sword with Defensive 1. In Star Wars (currently), she would have melee defense 2 (because you take the better Defensive rating from the source "wielded weapons"). In Genesys, her melee Defense was 3.

6 minutes ago, Solkar77 said:

If it works as Star Wars, to hit Syndrael in melee enemies have to beat 2 purple dice (basic difficulty) plus 3 black dice (your defense). Then basic weapon damage plus any success is reduced by 5 (your soak) and any damage in excess goes to your wounds.

But Syndrael has Parry 3 I remember, so you could spend Strain to absorb more damage. Did you use it?

I did not need to use the parry. The rolls were working against the GM. I only took 1 damage the entire combat.

2 minutes ago, ElSuave said:

I did not need to use the parry. The rolls were working against the GM. I only took 1 damage the entire combat.

Yeah, Syndrael was a PITA to hit and actually deal damage to. Half the time when the Vampire would try to bite her (to heal back some Wounds) all she got was a mouthful of shield.

Leoric on the other hand...

I was lucky enough to have DarthGM as my GM (we were the group from Mobile, AL that kept trying to kill horses) and first I'd like to say thanks Phil, that was one of the best experiences my group had at Gen Con. I would also like to chime in and say that it was fascinating to me how effortless and well the narrative dice system worked in this fantasy setting. Armor seemed intuitive and balanced, Magic made sense and was in fact very fun and more malleable than in 5e. Social Actions also worked very well. Maybe this shouldn't be surprising since a similar system was used in WHFRP 4e, right? I think for me I have enjoyed SW so much in this FFG system and fantasy so much in 5e that I thought there was something inherent in each that facilitated its setting but turns out this was wrong. I came away very excited about this particular setting for Genesys, to me overall it felt like a much more fleshed out and uninhibited Descent encounter and I mean that in the most fun and exciting way possible.

27 minutes ago, m4rtst3r said:

I was lucky enough to have DarthGM as my GM (we were the group from Mobile, AL that kept trying to kill horses) and first I'd like to say thanks Phil, that was one of the best experiences my group had at Gen Con. I would also like to chime in and say that it was fascinating to me how effortless and well the narrative dice system worked in this fantasy setting. Armor seemed intuitive and balanced, Magic made sense and was in fact very fun and more malleable than in 5e. Social Actions also worked very well. Maybe this shouldn't be surprising since a similar system was used in WHFRP 4e, right? I think for me I have enjoyed SW so much in this FFG system and fantasy so much in 5e that I thought there was something inherent in each that facilitated its setting but turns out this was wrong. I came away very excited about this particular setting for Genesys, to me overall it felt like a much more fleshed out and uninhibited Descent encounter and I mean that in the most fun and exciting way possible.

From what I hear, the difference between Genesys and WHFRP is like the difference between 5th Edition D&D and 2nd Edition; they use the same general dice mechanics but after that there's a lot different. Magic for instance is one thing I've heard; WHFRP used a magic pool system, where Genesys used strain cost as a limitation.

And I'm glad to hear you had a good time at my table. Helps increase the odds that FFG invites me back to run games for them again.

How did they handle loot during the demo?

Just wondering whether it's something that needs to be addressed or not?

20 hours ago, Ragudaddy said:

Hi all. I played in one of the demos Saturday. I never played Age of Rebellion, so was not familiar at all with the mechanics. Had a good time.

The strain system did not appear to affect such a short session, but I could see it significantly affecting longer games. The module and rules were very limited, so the GM had to rely on rules from Star Wars at times.

As a player coming from D&D/ Pathfinder wrapping my head around tactical distances took a bit, but it didn't kill the experience for me. I think when running it I will attempt to use a series of concentric circles to help my visually inclined players. Overall excited about the system. Feel free to ask about anything, and I'll answer as best I can.