4 hours ago, player1303422 said:

I saw that in the Savage World, prior edition, when there was the Attribute (Characteristic) Spirit and the Skill Guts. When building a Barbarian, you had to invest your points in the Skill Guts to not be afraid when time comes to fighting a monster. That expense in Guts, had an effect in that this character can’t fight well cause too few points to put in the fighting skill.

Never saw that. IMO removing the guts skill was a horrible choice for Savage Worlds Deluxe. I used it all the time and don't see any real overlap with Spirit. The thing to remember with Guts is that it was a check to keep it together when faced with stuff radically outside the character's field of experience. If your a raging, Conan-esque barbarian who has been raised from childhood with the blood of combat then you don't need to make a guts check just because fighting has broken out, but if all that experience is with raiding other tribes and hunting or fighting off various beasts, then you might need one the first time you come face to face with rotting undead whose limbs continue to attack after severed. If you get into enough fights with such horrors though, you'll become inured and no longer need to make the check.

It looks like combat in the adventure at Gencon was still based on a "kill everything with damage" paradigm (which, to be fair, most RPGs are.) Was this the case? Did the system allow for ways to affect combat and neutralize (remove) combats beyond smashing them with weapons and spells?

D&D-esque dungeon crawls are fine and all, but lately I've really been looking for a system where dealing damage is one option but not the only option to overcome combat encounters.

To a certain extent this is based on the creativity of the players, but often players will find that as far as game mechanics go, attacking round after round is the best or easiest way to win. I'm wondering if rewarding and facilitating more creative play is a feature baked in to the Genesys system or not.

14 minutes ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

It looks like combat in the adventure at Gencon was still based on a "kill everything with damage" paradigm (which, to be fair, most RPGs are.) Was this the case? Did the system allow for ways to affect combat and neutralize (remove) combats beyond smashing them with weapons and spells?

D&D-esque dungeon crawls are fine and all, but lately I've really been looking for a system where dealing damage is one option but not the only option to overcome combat encounters.

To a certain extent this is based on the creativity of the players, but often players will find that as far as game mechanics go, attacking round after round is the best or easiest way to win. I'm wondering if rewarding and facilitating more creative play is a feature baked in to the Genesys system or not.

Coming from Star Wars, it really depends entirely on how the GM designs the encounter, and what the GM will allow. Generally, a good suggestion to Star Wars GMs is to have more requirements than just 'kill the other guys,' such as open a lock door, hack a computer, repair a thing, etc. Or design with reinforcements in mind, to discourage the kill 'em all mentality. But, speaking of Star Wars at least, there are a lot of different mechanics that can be used. It just entirely depends on the creativity of the GM and the players. Speaking of combat itself, there is also non-lethal strain damage. There's also discussion that disarming a target can also remove them from a fight, though it still requires the GM to facilitate that.

The system also encourages a lot of variety in encounters (wilderness survival, social, vehicular, investigative, urban), and I don't see the developers stepping away from that. It just depends on the group playing if they are willing to branch into those areas.

I think the setting they used (fantasy) just has people default to the dungeon crawler mindset.

1 hour ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

Did the system allow for ways to affect combat and neutralize (remove) combats beyond smashing them with weapons and spells?

The system has a number of ways to run/resolve encounters beyond kill and loot. The system does a much better job of making skills matter without much effort, and matter in useful mechanical ways than any other system I've played. Social skills, not mind powers, not magic, have practical applications in tactical encounters, as do technical/tinkerer skills, as do knowledge/lore. In reality so does any system although the PCs and GMs have to be open and creative enough to allow it in other systems, whereas this one provides up front, situational and specialized Talents based on certain skills that impose tangible effects.