https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/9/29/extra-motivation/

Not a big fan of roll- playing your interactions with NPCs. I prefer to talk to the GM acting as the character. I know that's not for everybody, but still...

GM: "you are talking to the king about him hiring your partry for a quest to Certaindoom Island."

Me: "I make some small talk first." Rolls success.

GM: "you have advantage."

Me: "I tell the king he should hire us." Rolls despair. reaviling my characters fear.

GM: " Confused, The king want's to know why you brought up the subject of clown zombies."

Me: "What the- why would I- ah screw it, roll again, keep talking!" Rolls despair again.

GM: "The king reasures you, there are no clown zombies on the Island."

Me: "Again with the clown zombies! Stupid dice! I ask him how much he'll pay us to go on this quest." Roll a bunch of threat and despair.

GM: "Whoa, those are some bad rolls. The king is angry!"

Me: " Why? What did I say?"

GM: " Err, your character's Tourette's syndrome kicked in."

Me: "My character doesn't have Tourette's!"

52 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

Not a big fan of roll- playing your interactions with NPCs. I prefer to talk to the GM acting as the character. I know that's not for everybody, but still...

If that's how you're "roll-playing" a social encounter, it's no wonder you don't like it. But the social skills exist for a good reason, and they are very useful, if you don't use them like that.

A different thread on the matter:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/259603-how-do-you-run-social-encounters/

56 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

Not a big fan of roll- playing your interactions with NPCs. I prefer to talk to the GM acting as the character. I know that's not for everybody, but still...

GM: "you are talking to the king about him hiring your partry for a quest to Certaindoom Island."

Me: "I make some small talk first." Rolls success.

GM: "you have advantage."

Me: "I tell the king he should hire us." Rolls despair. reaviling my characters fear.

GM: " Confused, The king want's to know why you brought up the subject of clown zombies."

Me: "What the- why would I- ah screw it, roll again, keep talking!" Rolls despair again.

GM: "The king reasures you, there are no clown zombies on the Island."

Me: "Again with the clown zombies! Stupid dice! I ask him how much he'll pay us to go on this quest." Roll a bunch of threat and despair.

GM: "Whoa, those are some bad rolls. The king is angry!"

Me: " Why? What did I say?"

GM: " Err, your character's Tourette's syndrome kicked in."

Me: "My character doesn't have Tourette's!"

Best. Example. Ever.

The more I see, the more I think the four aspects of motivations are a great contribution to the system.

27 minutes ago, Blackbird888 said:

The more I see, the more I think the four aspects of motivations are a great contribution to the system.

Absolutely, they look to be a fantastic addition, I'm really really excited by the possibilities. Definitely sounds like a good replacement for Morality.

To be honest no one is going to have the Motivation: Fear of Clown Zombies. They will be far more nebulous than that which should make incorporating them into the narrative far easier.

Hmmm. I just finished reading the Fate core rulebook, and this sounds awe fully inspired by their aspects system, just with more flexibility due to the genesys dice.

2 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Absolutely, they look to be a fantastic addition, I'm really really excited by the possibilities. Definitely sounds like a good replacement for Morality.

To be honest no one is going to have the Motivation: Fear of Clown Zombies. They will be far more nebulous than that which should make incorporating them into the narrative far easier.

But I fear clown zombies....

13 minutes ago, Zorm said:

But I fear clown zombies....

Don't we all, don't we all.

Meh, a bit dissapointed, that social encounters stuff is similar to SW and revolves the only thing we already know yet, the narrative dice system. Nothing really new.

But what about the other mechanics? I'd like some intel about how talents are handled, how magic/supernatural powers are handled. Some new aspects of the game and not just articles around the only aspect of the game we already know by heart.

3 hours ago, DarthDude said:

Meh, a bit dissapointed, that social encounters stuff is similar to SW and revolves the only thing we already know yet, the narrative dice system. Nothing really new.

But what about the other mechanics? I'd like some intel about how talents are handled, how magic/supernatural powers are handled. Some new aspects of the game and not just articles around the only aspect of the game we already know by heart.

They sure are teasing it out. The article starting with "This week..." let's hope this is regular for the next few months.

They do for sure and I am still extremely hyped How they manage talents and magic/supernatural effects, those are the very two point that will either win me over to throw my euros at them, or keep waiting for the next generic system which promises to be suitable for every imaginable setting.

They told in the previous article " So there you have it; how to create a character in Genesys in seven easy steps! ". As long as the mechanics of talents are revealed ( Step 4: Investing Experience Points ), one of the most essential part of char creation is missing.

I am so close tio start a Mass Effect campaign and I like to know if Genesys fits the bill or if I try my luck with Open Legends of which I already know it can do the job. But if there is a option foor a generic narrative dice system, I would prefer that one. This might explain why I am so giddy for more intel, my players are pushing me for a descision

I hope instead of skill trees for classes, they make Talent packs with specific themes, so when you're making your own classes or however you want to set up your game, you can add different themed packs to a class.

For instance the "Shadowy Thief" pack would contain a collection of perhaps 10 talents aimed towards this theme. The "inquisitive investigator" pack would offer a different set of talents.

Then when creating your setting you can very quickly say that a certain class, character, career, occupation etc. has access to certain Talent packs.

Good approach. Though I hope for something similar to Conan 2D20, skill themed talend trees tied to the appropriate skill. This would make for maximum flexible chars without a need for classes in the clasical sense. There might be archetypes with emphasis on skills and talents but the broader the choices are the more freeforem the chars feel without boundaries tied to specializations or classes.

Going by the GenCon characters there is definitely Careers and those careers offer certain benefits. The talents on each character are well themed so I hope there's a simplified talent structure behind that andnot just FFG choosing well for an open list.

Prerequisits would be great, such as the Paladin collection requiring Brawn 3, Will 3.

Im very excited to see how it all ties together, how it's presented to the players, and how modular it is for mixing the different Themes. Post Apoc Mad Max with Magic? **** yes!

9 minutes ago, Richardbuxton said:

Im very excited to see how it all ties together, how it's presented to the players, and how modular it is for mixing the different Themes. Post Apoc Mad Max with Magic? **** yes!

I have high hopes for that as wwell. This implies much flexibility though.My personal dream would be starting a char neutraly (maybe careers for races) and then maybe with the slight help of archetypes develope a char as you, the player likes. You want to be a warrior with academic background? No proble, enhance your skills as you like and choose themed talents as you see fit. Would make adapting Genesys to different settings with ease as well, you do not have to make up classes, put tons of work and spare time in that instead on the stories themselves.

The problem inherent in social interaction is that it relies so much more heavily on the player's social skills than the character's -not exactly news to anyone reading this. It's easy to draw a distinction between character and player in nearly every other aspect of a roleplaying game, but herein lies the challenge for player and GM alike.

12 hours ago, Richardbuxton said:

Going by the GenCon characters there is definitely Careers and those careers offer certain benefits. The talents on each character are well themed so I hope there's a simplified talent structure behind that andnot just FFG choosing well for an open list.

Prerequisits would be great, such as the Paladin collection requiring Brawn 3, Will 3.

Im very excited to see how it all ties together, how it's presented to the players, and how modular it is for mixing the different Themes. Post Apoc Mad Max with Magic? **** yes!

WITNESS MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

7 hours ago, themensch said:

The problem inherent in social interaction is that it relies so much more heavily on the player's social skills than the character's -not exactly news to anyone reading this. It's easy to draw a distinction between character and player in nearly every other aspect of a roleplaying game, but herein lies the challenge for player and GM alike.

It doesn't have to, tho. One of the general principles of a true rpg is that "you are not your character, and your character is not you". It is well within the purview of the player to exclaim "look, i'm not very eloquent, but Mezzanir the Mystifying has a Presence of 4 and two ranks in Charm. He's much better at this than I." And the player simply explains the points of the conversation but perhaps not the actual words. This system will help facilitate even the most blunderous statement form a Player, that a Character may not necessarily state.

13 minutes ago, DarthGM said:

It doesn't have to, tho. One of the general principles of a true rpg is that "you are not your character, and your character is not you". It is well within the purview of the player to exclaim "look, i'm not very eloquent, but Mezzanir the Mystifying has a Presence of 4 and two ranks in Charm. He's much better at this than I." And the player simply explains the points of the conversation but perhaps not the actual words. This system will help facilitate even the most blunderous statement form a Player, that a Character may not necessarily state.

This all the way. The huge advantage of the 3 axis narrative dice is that it creates twists in a social encounter that you would never have thought of yourself. Most of us are not masters of combat yet are happy letting the dice determine how well our character fights, same goes for social characters.

On 9/30/2017 at 4:14 PM, DarthGM said:

It doesn't have to, tho. One of the general principles of a true rpg is that "you are not your character, and your character is not you". It is well within the purview of the player to exclaim "look, i'm not very eloquent, but Mezzanir the Mystifying has a Presence of 4 and two ranks in Charm. He's much better at this than I." And the player simply explains the points of the conversation but perhaps not the actual words. This system will help facilitate even the most blunderous statement form a Player, that a Character may not necessarily state.

I agree, with the caveat "it doesn't have to." But often, it does! I've seen it work in the reverse more often, though - an eloquent player being far more sociable than their character would be. It's an easy trap to fall into.

36 minutes ago, themensch said:

I agree, with the caveat "it doesn't have to." But often, it does! I've seen it work in the reverse more often, though - an eloquent player being far more sociable than their character would be. It's an easy trap to fall into.

That's just bad GMing. I don't let players who are black belts or veterans get a pass, why should sociable characters?

I play with very personable people. And after they loquaciously and articulately lay out what their character is saying, they roll like everybody else.

The real GM gets both. Allowing one gives a pass to naturally skilled players. Reducing it to just dice rolls is roll playing, not role playing. Good use for Boosts and Setbacks. Encourages people to step outside their comfort zones and try harder, or pay a consequence for not trying.

It's possible to describe as many details as possible to upgrade an action without being socially skilled and describing that in a dramatic way.

This kind of topic is always cool despite the theme being very thorny. It's pretty common to some players disdain the social skills and related stats cause "they are good with that in the real life" and think that it's enough to surpass the social challenges in a RPG.

Yah, I do both. As either system tends to favor a Roll player, or a Role player. In the end a player is either limited or expanded by the character. I mean, role-playing doesn't have it's lack of people who lack certain social skills (Gamer funk is a thing folks. and that's simple hygiene) .

Anyway, what I do is Have a person Roleplay out what they say (in their preferred form, first or third person), and then based on that We roll, either it's made easier because of what was said or harder. For something like this system, I'll hand out Blue and or Black dice for what was said to alter the roll. Then I'll give them back the reaction of the NPC. I mean, Sometimes even the most eloquent person can step on their own tongue, or trigger an emotional response from people.

I don't think mechanics are a bad thing for "Social combat," any more than I do think they are a bad thing for physical combat. But with a narrative system I do think it benefits the creative (the whole system, not just social or physical combat) person....