14 hours ago, Zorm said:

Can pre-order both at minaturemarket for a few bucks more of the price of pre-ordering the book from fantasy. Would share link but not sure if against the rules?

Actually, Miniature Market is showing about $8 cheaper, and the dice are about $3 cheaper. Depending on where you live, the reduced price would cover most of shipping, or if you go with the really cheap shipping, I should cover it.

14 hours ago, TheMan72344 said:

Are they a reliable site? Have you ordered from there before?

I order from them all the time. In fact, I've pretty much ordered all of my X-Wing Miniatures from them, and need to order some more. I usually select the cheapest shipping, which is supposed to add an extra day or two. Having said that, I usually get my orders within a week. I'm in VA, so it's about halfway across the country.

Pretty much what I expected to see. Not sure if any news for the core book will be too exciting since it will be similar to Star Wars. I'm more interested in hearing about the what the other books in the line will be.

Not a fan of how the system makes more specialized humans. Having a baseline of a tough guy or braniac doesn't appeal to me. Never was a fan of a species getting a bunch of subgroups. I prefer humans being generic but highly customizable. Feels like some of that customization is gone with this.

Edit: Miniature Market is good but there cheap shipping is via FedEx. Stopped ordering from them due to FedEx being over a month late three times in a row. Kept shipping back and forth between the same two cities in different states. Neither of which were the state the games were supposed to be shipped to.

53 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Pretty much what I expected to see. Not sure if any news for the core book will be too exciting since it will be similar to Star Wars. I'm more interested in hearing about the what the other books in the line will be.

Not a fan of how the system makes more specialized humans. Having a baseline of a tough guy or braniac doesn't appeal to me. Never was a fan of a species getting a bunch of subgroups. I prefer humans being generic but highly customizable. Feels like some of that customization is gone with this.

Edit: Miniature Market is good but there cheap shipping is via FedEx. Stopped ordering from them due to FedEx being over a month late three times in a row. Kept shipping back and forth between the same two cities in different states. Neither of which were the state the games were supposed to be shipped to.

I think humans will be generic but highly customizable in a game with other races. But since archetype (or race) determines your special ability, you need to have archetypes (which are not specialized humans) in a campaign with only humans.

59 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Not a fan of how the system makes more specialized humans. Having a baseline of a tough guy or braniac doesn't appeal to me. Never was a fan of a species getting a bunch of subgroups. I prefer humans being generic but highly customizable. Feels like some of that customization is gone with this.

Don't forget that the archetypes are playing double duty--they can be non-human races or all human backgrounds. Laborer can be tough guy human or tough guy race.

I always took 'customizable' to mean 'cherry pick all the good stuff and make a caricature impossible human', as opposed to reality, where people do tend to fall into niches as a result of simply needing to get by.

2 hours ago, TechnoGolem said:

Not a fan of how the system makes more specialized humans. Having a baseline of a tough guy or braniac doesn't appeal to me. Never was a fan of a species getting a bunch of subgroups. I prefer humans being generic but highly customizable. Feels like some of that customization is gone with this.

You could always just go with a more open-ended character-generation system. Start everyone out with 1's across the board in characteristics, and give them 230 points to spend, plus two non-Career skill ranks. That'd give you the ability to start like a Star Wars Human with 2's in everything and enough points to raise some stuff higher, or you could leave some 1's to get points for elsewhere. It'd be more of a GURPS -y approach, but maybe that's what you want.

Actually the archetypes as mentioned in the article are redundant but of the average human . They are rather stereotypes, I know plenty of laborers who are learned but not very tough and intellectuals who work out extensively. Those archetype special abilities like tough as nails and ready for anything should rather be optional. Maybe a general archetype agnostic pool of special one time per session abilities everybody could choose one of or just one iconic human special ability.

The description of the career " Careers are what your character does in the game world. They may be literal jobs (such as a character whose career is Soldier and is a member of a military organization) or they may define your character’s role in society (such as a Socialite character who is a member of a noble house). " makes the use for archetype completely obsolete, if the career is suposed to define the social standing anyways.

That talents are possibly seperated from specializations excites me most =) I am just curious how talents are structured like, are they to be obtained in talent trees tied to a skill (like in Conan 2D20 what would be awesome) or seperately purchased without having other talents as prerequisite? We'll hopefuly see in the next article.

Desire, Fear, Strength, and Flaw are great options to flesh out a character and if they are mechanically meaningful (disadvantage or advanrtage) and maybe grant storypoints if they are played out, that would be awesome as well.

Same for personalities in the last step, playing the characters by its personality should be mechanically rewarded as well.

So besides the first step, the archetype (if its not a race but actually already careers within a chosen race), I an very excited and am already sold

1 minute ago, DarthDude said:

Actually the archetypes as mentioned in the article are redundant but of the average human . They are rather stereotypes, I know plenty of laborers who are learned but not very tough and intellectuals who work out extensively. Those archetype special abilities like tough as nails and ready for anything should rather be optional. Maybe a general archetype agnostic pool of special one time per session abilities everybody could choose one of or just one iconic human special ability.

[snip]

So besides the first step, the archetype (if its not a race but actually already careers within a chosen race), I an very excited and am already sold

Kinda, sorta. Depends on how you look at it.

Just looking at humans, not all are born equals. Some are naturally very strong, or very smart, or very personable. Then you include such modifiers as illness, upbringing and lifestyle, and that can further modify those beginnings. Stereotypes are exaggerations , but are not always fabrications . I think they went with the "strong-dumb" and "smart-weak" types because they're pretty ubiquitous.

But remember, archetypes provide a baseline that a player starts with, not a limit on what they are allowed. In Star Wars you can, if desired, take one of the dumb or weak species and put them into their opposing role and work just fine, it just takes some thinking and an investment of XP. A little less than optimal, but who's meta gaming?

And, again, archetypes are not only applied to human characters. They are applied to whatever the setting requires, whether that be alien species, various races, or different social classes of humans. It's one of those situations where the developer's have to draw the line somewhere and make a decision, even if it's not entirely "realistic."

As far as the abilities, I think they went with new abilities that are pretty setting agnostic. Being "ready for anything" can apply to everything from fighting alien insects on the moons of Jupiter to dealing with cutthroat bankers. The way tough as nails works means it can be applied to a sports RPG or a game about vikings fighting neanderthals, because it just affects how the character manages injuries.

26 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

But remember, archetypes provide a baseline that a player starts with, not a limit on what they are allowed. In Star Wars you can, if desired, take one of the dumb or weak species and put them into their opposing role and work just fine, it just takes some thinking and an investment of XP. A little less than optimal, but who's meta gaming?

[snip]

Then you include such modifiers as illness, upbringing and lifestyle, and that can further modify those beginnings.

Those species are actually compared to humans with human standards in mind as we humans need guidelines to evaluate alien capabilities and attributes. A species with an average intellect of 1 is compared to humans less mentally capable on average. If you say for example a value of 2 in every attribute is the average for humans let humans start with a base value of 1 in every attribute and grant them xp worth lifting every attribute to 2 in addition. So if you want a human being ailed by illnesses in its youth and thus less hardy than the average just keep brawn at 1 and invest the xp in a different attributes or skills.

Upbringing might be relevant to more primitive cultures but then, why should a laborer in the middle ages being tougher than a human with higher upbringing? On the contrary, actually persons with higher upbringing in the medieval had higher rates of survivability, better nutrition which also favored their constitution positively. So laborers where mostly less tough and healthy in the middle ages than a knight of noble upbringing. So the whole concept of nobles are weaker but more intelligent and laborers are generally tougher but dumber (not by exageration but by archetype) on average does not sound plausible.

Instead of offering archetypes with some certain fixed distribution of attribute values let the background of the char determine the outcome. You could provide instead guidelines for races in which ranges the attributes tend to be on average.

I'm not focusing too much on the names of the archetypes presented, I'm just looking at the structure. What we are getting from my impression compared to SW is Careers condensed into a few choices and combined with race and re-branded into archetype, which will be flexible with each genre likely giving access to some Skills/Talents, again varying with genre.

Then specs now become careers and they will likely be narrowed into consolidated logical pathways, so Bounty Hunter/Soldier/Hired Gun/Warrior/etc all fall under a single path.

So in a fantasy setting you'd have your standard Human, Dwarf, Elf, Halfling, etc/whatever. They would all have their unique racial trait, they would all have their unique racial skills, they would all have some flavorful racial Talents. Then you'd have your basic fantasy career paths. A Dwarf can probably be a wizard, but an Elf by nature of just being an Elf will always have access to racial stuff that gives them a leg up. etc. This will all vary appropriate to the setting I would think.

If archetypes are about races and not social classes, then I am for it by all means. And if you want to do it for within a species than maybe at least like for example in The Elder Scrolls, Bretons having an aptitude for magic, Redguards for combat, Nord are sturdy and so on. I just wanted to stress out that to me, awarding attribute advantages just based on social classes instead of subscpecies or races seems illogical. The article mentions archertype being about social classes and classes themselves being about social classes as well, then at least merge it together. Having two steps both relying on the PCs position on the social ladder feels redundant in a setting with only a single race PCs.

Interesting article, and it might've just been my very culturally British upbringing but I also couldn't help but see the archetypes as part of the socio-economic class system!

It's also interesting trying to define modern cinematic (or other media) heroes into those archetypes. In that you could be boring and go "average human" for all of them, but I doubt it. Like with SW, where characters from the films don't truly fit the careers, it's a good move.

Here's the problem though. I was hyped beforehand. I'm not sure what I am now since I don't know what comes after hyped.

7 minutes ago, Endersai said:

Interesting article, and it might've just been my very culturally British upbringing but I also couldn't help but see the archetypes as part of the socio-economic class system!

It's also interesting trying to define modern cinematic (or other media) heroes into those archetypes. In that you could be boring and go "average human" for all of them, but I doubt it. Like with SW, where characters from the films don't truly fit the careers, it's a good move.

Here's the problem though. I was hyped beforehand. I'm not sure what I am now since I don't know what comes after hyped.

Busy. Game prep.

16 minutes ago, Endersai said:

Here's the problem though. I was hyped beforehand. I'm not sure what I am now since I don't know what comes after hyped.

Revolution! The uprising of the working class!

3 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

Revolution! The uprising of the working class!

With those INT and PRE scores? Who will do the thinking? The socialising?!

2 minutes ago, Endersai said:

With those INT and PRE scores? Who will do the thinking? The socialising?!

This brings me to a new theme idea! Karl Marx, the RPG!

Just now, DarthDude said:

This brings me to a new theme idea! Karl Marx, the RPG!

You could do so many. Khmer Rogue or Venezeula, the RPG - eliminate all non-labourer archetypes! The French Revolution - do you hear the people sing? The Industrial Revolution - hire all the labourer minions!

Or the Soviet revolution - the intellectuals team up with the labourers to enslave the average humans and wipe out the artisocrats, before rerolling as neo-aristocrat party elite!

History - the best source of all Genesys games.

13 minutes ago, Endersai said:

The French Revolution - do you hear the people sing?

Ready For Guillotine . Once per session the labourer archetype can identify a noble and can have his head looped off.

Let Them Eat Cake . Once per session the aristrocrat can distract pursuing commoners by droping biscuits in their wake.

(technically not cake but brioche - 'qu'ils mangent de la brioche')

I am mostly interested in how many role and setting specific careers they include in the CRB. It sounds like there will be enough basics to kick start any sort of genre.

28 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I am mostly interested in how many role and setting specific careers they include in the CRB. It sounds like there will be enough basics to kick start any sort of genre.

Yeah, and it will be interesting to try and tie together character concepts that on paper might not seem to make sense. i.e. Archetype = Aristocrat, Career = Spy is a perfect choice. Spies, in easily the best of the services (MI6) were all from good Public (private) schools (Eton, etc) and Oxbridge universities. They relied upon social skills, not brawn or agility (charm, deceive, etc). But, Aristocrat + a more "Secret Agent" type (think the Infiltrator spec from AOR; basically a Bond/Bourne) could require heavy upfront investment in BRA to lift it up but a good return on that with a character who is as good with his/her charm as with his/her fists.

It's basically a good way of saying "pick your archetype based on who you want to be, not what you want to be" - with who over what being hugely important to the narrative dice.

On ‎17‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 0:45 PM, TechnoGolem said:

Not a fan of how the system makes more specialized humans. Having a baseline of a tough guy or braniac doesn't appeal to me. Never was a fan of a species getting a bunch of subgroups. I prefer humans being generic but highly customizable. Feels like some of that customization is gone with this.

Think it through though. Not only do you get average human for all the "2s" across the attributes, but you get these archetypes which make choices harder in a good way . For example, try and assign "archetypes" to the following, noting that we don't have any visibility over careers so there's no real science to this:

James Bond

Ezio Auditore

Indiana Jones

Batman/Bruce Wayne

Captain James

T

Kirk

Matt Murdock/Daredevil

It's really hard because you could just Average Human them all, but that defeats the purpose. Obvious ones, like Sherlock Holmes as the Intellectual, I left out.

James Bond could be an Aristocrat, who bought Brawn up to a 3 and has talents for strain. Matt Murdock could be an Average, because of the story point talent; Ezio a labourer etc.

That challenge, of heroic types not fitting these archetypes properly, is one of the things I look forward to most.

4 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I am mostly interested in how many role and setting specific careers they include in the CRB. It sounds like there will be enough basics to kick start any sort of genre.

Actually defining setting agnostic core classes is fairly easy, you have the typical fighter/soldier/ranger, spy/rogue/assassin, medic/cleric/healer, adept/wizard/scholar.

The specialization of a core class (not the SW spec trees meant), would be done by emphasizing certain skills and choosing certain talents. That is the beauty of a system that makes char creation as flexible as possible.

Sure there will be classes specific to settings but I bet it would be nothing a fair amount of broad talents and special ability traits won't be able to handle. If you throw a grenade or cast a fireball should technically not matter. Both will have similar weapon qualities. Have seen this work pretty well in the other generic system OL.

I have had this on "pre-pre order" from my local game store; as soon as it becomes available for preorder, it was going to be put in for me. Can't wait. I feel the hype.
Not having played any other systems this is based on, this is all new to me, so enjoying the articles and people commenting on things.

On 9/18/2017 at 0:02 AM, DarthDude said:

Have seen this work pretty well in the other generic system OL.

Hero/Champions?