I will say that i love the narrative dice system that is Genesys and a lot of my play group is super excited about the fantasy settings. Right now i am reading all the old Blue Book Adventures from old 3rd ed adventures and seeing how i can convert them over to this system. I think it should be somewhat easy as we have been playing Star Wars for over 3 years. Anyone else having this idea. Just curious and if anyone else has thoughts.

I am not familiar with that specific book. However as noted in other topics in this forum, DnD is a simulation system where Star Wars/Genesis is narrative. If the module is essentially a "sweep and clear" adventure then you will need to make it a more interesting narrative then "I kill everything in the room, check for traps, rob the dead and move to the next room". Even it there is a Star Warsy narrative feel to the module already, conversions will be more based on what seems appropriate then by direct numeric conversion due to the significant mechanical differences between the two systems. Ask "if this was written as a Star Wars adventure, would it be still be interesting"?.

2 hours ago, zhentil said:

I will say that i love the narrative dice system that is Genesys and a lot of my play group is super excited about the fantasy settings. Right now i am reading all the old Blue Book Adventures from old 3rd ed adventures and seeing how i can convert them over to this system. I think it should be somewhat easy as we have been playing Star Wars for over 3 years. Anyone else having this idea. Just curious and if anyone else has thoughts.

Don't know that book, but it's really a joy converting to this system Made a CoC conversion and am almost done converting Masks. We've had such a blast playing CoC without having to deal with BRP.

3 hours ago, zhentil said:

I will say that i love the narrative dice system that is Genesys and a lot of my play group is super excited about the fantasy settings. Right now i am reading all the old Blue Book Adventures from old 3rd ed adventures and seeing how i can convert them over to this system. I think it should be somewhat easy as we have been playing Star Wars for over 3 years. Anyone else having this idea. Just curious and if anyone else has thoughts.

If someone worked out a conversion guide, I would be extremly interested. Traps should be quite easy to to convert, a skill check is a skill check. You just have to decide which D&D target number roughly equals the number of purple dice.

TN 10 -> 2 purple

TN 15 -> 3 purple

TN 20 -> 4 purple

TN 25 -> 5 purple

would roughly come to my mind.

I guess converting monsters, especially with powers like a medusa's petrifying gaze or something like how to handle multiattack might be more tricky but then I hope genesys will have a robust monster creation guide.

3 hours ago, lyinggod said:

I am not familiar with that specific book. However as noted in other topics in this forum, DnD is a simulation system where Star Wars/Genesis is narrative. If the module is essentially a "sweep and clear" adventure then you will need to make it a more interesting narrative then "I kill everything in the room, check for traps, rob the dead and move to the next room". Even it there is a Star Warsy narrative feel to the module already, conversions will be more based on what seems appropriate then by direct numeric conversion due to the significant mechanical differences between the two systems. Ask "if this was written as a Star Wars adventure, would it be still be interesting"?.

To be fair, this isn't an accurate statement. In both cases, the systems operate almost identically: roll for skill success/failure, if this is combat and its a success, you determine damage and that is applied to a finite and defined supply until the target drops. There are effects that require resistance rolls. Really, the systems are nearly the same. The dice rolled are different and EotE "narrative" dice system does allow for more inspiration die-roll interpretations (if only because of the nuances), but to claim one is more narrative than the other when there are skills, stats, talents/feats, and near never-ending catalogues of stuff, is inaccurate.

As for 3rd ed conversions to Genesys...it would probably work really well, but it depends on what kind of "3rd edition game" you're wanting to emulate. Obviously, some stuff may not convert well...item bloat was a big thing during 3rd, but if its more the dungeon crawl and the crazy adversaries and potent magic...I have no idea why Genesys wouldn't be able to emulate that.

2 hours ago, lyinggod said:

However as noted in other topics in this forum, DnD is a simulation system where Star Wars/Genesis is narrative.

It really isn’t though. They call it the "narrative dice system" because the multi variate nature of the specialty dice help the GM add in more narrative, but at its heart the system remains simulationist. It doesn’t really give much narrative control to the players, they aren’t making up aspects (mechanically) of the game world themselves, stats for characters, equipment, vehicles, so on are still derived based on "how it would work", not, "what would be cool". Just because FFG have decided to call it narrative, doesn’t mean it really is.

16 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

I guess converting monsters, especially with powers like a medusa's petrifying gaze or something like how to handle multiattack might be more tricky but then I hope genesys will have a robust monster creation guide.

For the CoC conversion of masks I am doing, multi attacks works just fine on mythos entities, but haven't played D&D for many years, so don't know if multi attacks are a general thing players also have. One option would be to just scale it down and only allow multi attacks for creatures when it makes sense (like a golem with four arms).

Also agree on your point of view Forgottenlore . I don't see the Genesys system (as I know it from SW) as especially narrative. It works very well for simulationist gaming, where advantages etc. are spent for special attacks, called shots etc. Fate is a narrative system, but really don't like it. It's true that the dice do offer options for narrative spice though.

15 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

I guess converting monsters, especially with powers like a medusa's petrifying gaze or something like how to handle multiattack might be more tricky but then I hope genesys will have a robust monster creation guide.

What do those do mechanically? I'm pretty lacking in my overall D&D knowledge. Should be pretty simple to find similar mechanics in Genesys.

3 hours ago, DarthDude said:

If someone worked out a conversion guide, I would be extremly interested. Traps should be quite easy to to convert, a skill check is a skill check. You just have to decide which D&D target number roughly equals the number of purple dice.

TN 10 -> 2 purple

TN 15 -> 3 purple

TN 20 -> 4 purple

TN 25 -> 5 purple

would roughly come to my mind.

I guess converting monsters, especially with powers like a medusa's petrifying gaze or something like how to handle multiattack might be more tricky but then I hope genesys will have a robust monster creation guide.

I am assuming that many D&D monsters will have Genesys stats, either in the CRB or a supplement.

Your DC to difficulty conversion looks right to me.

2 hours ago, Gallows said:

For the CoC conversion of masks I am doing, multi attacks works just fine on mythos entities, but haven't played D&D for many years, so don't know if multi attacks are a general thing players also have. One option would be to just scale it down and only allow multi attacks for creatures when it makes sense (like a golem with four arms).

Also agree on your point of view Forgottenlore . I don't see the Genesys system (as I know it from SW) as especially narrative. It works very well for simulationist gaming, where advantages etc. are spent for special attacks, called shots etc. Fate is a narrative system, but really don't like it. It's true that the dice do offer options for narrative spice though.

Narrative spice, I like that way of describing the NDS.

4 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

It really isn’t though. They call it the "narrative dice system" because the multi variate nature of the specialty dice help the GM add in more narrative, but at its heart the system remains simulationist. It doesn’t really give much narrative control to the players, they aren’t making up aspects (mechanically) of the game world themselves, stats for characters, equipment, vehicles, so on are still derived based on "how it would work", not, "what would be cool". Just because FFG have decided to call it narrative, doesn’t mean it really is.

They're not? Then your gm is doing it wrong.

Advantage and Triumph can totally justify a change in the narrative and the scene, plus that's what destiny points are useful for; altering the scene.

My players constantly alter the game world with those results.

Yes, i do believe that the whole thing with Sunless Citadel was the fact that it was going from point a to point b and not die. The Goblins in that were so brutal that in 3rd Ed we had many parties die right away. But what intrigues me the most is that with this system is that you can truly get epic narrative aspects from these types of modules that were not there before. And for me being a GM who wants more roleplaying i believe that this system will help with that.

14 hours ago, DarthGM said:

They're not? Then your gm is doing it wrong.

Advantage and Triumph can totally justify a change in the narrative and the scene, plus that's what destiny points are useful for; altering the scene.

My players constantly alter the game world with those results.

My group played Edge for a few months, but I do have to admit we never pushed the dice results much beyond the cheater tables provided in the rulebook, and this was a pity. I think part of the hesitation is understanding how much is a sufficient use of a result and how much is too much. For instance, a "triumph" seems like a really big result on the one hand, but then I see uses of it for scoring a crit (seems reasonable) or doing a knockdown (seems reasonable also, but actually requires a talent to unlock this option, and THAT seems XP spendy).

Reading about how triumph, or a number of advantages, or an expenditure of a destiny point can call an audible on the ensuing action, I'm really curious how far to take the idea. So what are some of the ways you've used dice and destiny to bend the world? I'm not asking to challenge, I'm asking to learn.

6 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

My group played Edge for a few months, but I do have to admit we never pushed the dice results much beyond the cheater tables provided in the rulebook, and this was a pity. I think part of the hesitation is understanding how much is a sufficient use of a result and how much is too much. For instance, a "triumph" seems like a really big result on the one hand, but then I see uses of it for scoring a crit (seems reasonable) or doing a knockdown (seems reasonable also, but actually requires a talent to unlock this option, and THAT seems XP spendy).

Reading about how triumph, or a number of advantages, or an expenditure of a destiny point can call an audible on the ensuing action, I'm really curious how far to take the idea. So what are some of the ways you've used dice and destiny to bend the world? I'm not asking to challenge, I'm asking to learn.

Same issue here. A couple of examples for every aspect: combat, social encounter, removing traps, casting and the like would be helpful. If there is already such an article I would be thankful for a link.

On 11/1/2017 at 3:46 PM, DarthDude said:

I guess converting monsters, especially with powers like a medusa's petrifying gaze or something like how to handle multiattack might be more tricky but then I hope genesys will have a robust monster creation guide.

The weapon quality Linked can be applied to any weapon or a talent can allow Linked to be applied to any attack you desire. If this doesn't work, the additional combat turns text box in the Inquisitor section of Force and Destiny is another option of emulating multiple attacks.
For a petrifying attack you can use stun damage, status effects, or a combination of the 2. This may require creating a new one for your setting, but I don't think it would be too difficult.

For example,
Petrifying Gaze make a <skill> check targeting an enemy at short range against a target that is visible. If the <skill> check is successful the target must make a Hard Resilience check. If the character fails, the attack causes an immediate Critical Injury, but instead of rolling on the Critical Injury Result table, the character automatically suffers the following special Critical Injury:
Petrified [Hard ] The character becomes Staggered and Immobilized until a successful Daunting medicine check is performed on the character. Some settings may allow using Magic skills, such as Heal, to remove the Petrified Critical injury.

The NDS are great for a lot of things, but they do not give the same narrative experience as FATE for instance, where the system is all about narrative. I like that because we tried FATE for one session and it was not fun. It felt more like just making **** up all the time.

We like a strong Game component in our RPGs, without it being D&D or shadowrun. Genesys is spot on for us in terms of crunch, because even when you make up resolution mechanics on the spot for different weird situations it feels consistent and makes sense, without looking at modifiers in a book. Fate feels more like a role players drinking game or something.

2 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

My group played Edge for a few months, but I do have to admit we never pushed the dice results much beyond the cheater tables provided in the rulebook, and this was a pity. I think part of the hesitation is understanding how much is a sufficient use of a result and how much is too much. For instance, a "triumph" seems like a really big result on the one hand, but then I see uses of it for scoring a crit (seems reasonable) or doing a knockdown (seems reasonable also, but actually requires a talent to unlock this option, and THAT seems XP spendy).

Reading about how triumph, or a number of advantages, or an expenditure of a destiny point can call an audible on the ensuing action, I'm really curious how far to take the idea. So what are some of the ways you've used dice and destiny to bend the world? I'm not asking to challenge, I'm asking to learn.

Okay, my favorite example; PCs are on a floating platform in the middle of a city-planet reservoir. One PC is trying to disarm a villain of a remote control currently steering a Hutt's hover sled in the direction of some Bounty Hunters trying to capture him. PC rolls failure, three advantage, Triumph, Despair.

1. Shot misses
2. PC spends Advantage to disarm villain of remote control
3. PC spend Triumph to have remote land in a box of other remotes, which gets knocked over and spills remotes everywhere; it's an outlaw tech shop on this platform, makes sense for there to be a convenient box of remotes for this one to fall into. Villain now has to spend the next few actions trying to figure out which remote is his.
4. I spend the despair to have the hutt's hover platform be stuck in "go" mode, heading right off the edge of the platform over the water. The hutt can't swim, and is likely to panic and up-end himself if he gets out over the water. Other PCs now have to try and hop on the runaway sled, disable the remove control, and keep the hutt calm.

Other things Triumphs or massive amounts of advantage (5+) have been used for; triggering pipe ruptures that create beneficial effects for PCs or detrimental effects on NPCs. Just happening to know someone in the area who can help with a specific task. Finding a rapport with merchants so they not only like you, but you talk shop with them so they consider you a kindred spirit and let you in on some good deals. Having there be a convenient alcove or sewer pipe to hide in that those pursuing you don't notice exists, so they completely pass you by. Hyperdrive calculations so precise that you practically come out of hyperspace in the planet's atmosphere, completely bypassing the need to deceive or stealth their way onto the planet.

I've had triumphs spent on NPCs not remembering the encounter with the PCs. You know those meetings or run ins with folks. You talk with some stranger at work or in a store, and not five minutes go by and you can't really remember what you talked about because you had something else on your mind, and might be able to recognize them if you saw them again but otherwise you can't really recall much of anything about them.

And that's just what I can recall. During games I'm always open to creative uses for those rolls.

Finally, you may want to give a listen to our podcast if you haven't heard this one before.

Order 66 Podcast, Episode 10 "Triumphant Despair"

15 minutes ago, DarthGM said:

Finally, you may want to give a listen to our podcast if you haven't heard this one before.

Order 66 Podcast, Episode 10 "Triumphant Despair"

Will do for sure, sir. Thank you very much

Darth you have some brilliant podcasts and when you describe narrative control like that, I agree. It's still much more crunchy and feels more mechanical than Fate; Which is a good thing. We have used the good and bad symbols like that a lot as well and it can really add a lot to a scene. I guess it's just when I hear the narrative word I think of Fate and that kind of game.

NDS is more subtle in a way, at least it feels like that when we play. It's small (or sometimes not so small) additions to the outcome, as opposed to the driving force behind everything like the Fate system. Am I making sense ? I know what I mean ?

47 minutes ago, DarthGM said:

Okay, my favorite example; PCs are on a floating platform in the middle of a city-planet reservoir. One PC is trying to disarm a villain of a remote control currently steering a Hutt's hover sled in the direction of some Bounty Hunters trying to capture him. PC rolls failure, three advantage, Triumph, Despair.

1. Shot misses
2. PC spends Advantage to disarm villain of remote control
3. PC spend Triumph to have remote land in a box of other remotes, which gets knocked over and spills remotes everywhere; it's an outlaw tech shop on this platform, makes sense for there to be a convenient box of remotes for this one to fall into. Villain now has to spend the next few actions trying to figure out which remote is his.
4. I spend the despair to have the hutt's hover platform be stuck in "go" mode, heading right off the edge of the platform over the water. The hutt can't swim, and is likely to panic and up-end himself if he gets out over the water. Other PCs now have to try and hop on the runaway sled, disable the remove control, and keep the hutt calm.

Other things Triumphs or massive amounts of advantage (5+) have been used for; triggering pipe ruptures that create beneficial effects for PCs or detrimental effects on NPCs. Just happening to know someone in the area who can help with a specific task. Finding a rapport with merchants so they not only like you, but you talk shop with them so they consider you a kindred spirit and let you in on some good deals. Having there be a convenient alcove or sewer pipe to hide in that those pursuing you don't notice exists, so they completely pass you by. Hyperdrive calculations so precise that you practically come out of hyperspace in the planet's atmosphere, completely bypassing the need to deceive or stealth their way onto the planet.

I've had triumphs spent on NPCs not remembering the encounter with the PCs. You know those meetings or run ins with folks. You talk with some stranger at work or in a store, and not five minutes go by and you can't really remember what you talked about because you had something else on your mind, and might be able to recognize them if you saw them again but otherwise you can't really recall much of anything about them.

And that's just what I can recall. During games I'm always open to creative uses for those rolls.

Finally, you may want to give a listen to our podcast if you haven't heard this one before.

Order 66 Podcast, Episode 10 "Triumphant Despair"

I will definitely listen to the episode!

Not to be nitpicky, but your example has one flaw, which is part of the problem we had adjudicating the dice. Unless I read it wrong, the roll in your example did not actually succeed based on the die faces, but you let the advantages act like a success. They were rolling to disarm the villain and they succeeded in doing so.

In a similar vein, there were a number of times we had several advantages and even a triumph come up, but the successes were all cancelled out by failures (or by a despair counting as 1 failure). We house ruled that if there were no uncancelled failures that all the advantages could be spent to count as a single success to allow the roll itself to succeed.

Of course, we also house ruled that triumph and despair cancelled each other out, too, but in your example, I really like what you did with both of them factoring into the story.

1 hour ago, Gallows said:

Darth you have some brilliant podcasts and when you describe narrative control like that, I agree. It's still much more crunchy and feels more mechanical than Fate; Which is a good thing. We have used the good and bad symbols like that a lot as well and it can really add a lot to a scene. I guess it's just when I hear the narrative word I think of Fate and that kind of game.

NDS is more subtle in a way, at least it feels like that when we play. It's small (or sometimes not so small) additions to the outcome, as opposed to the driving force behind everything like the Fate system. Am I making sense ? I know what I mean ?

Oh totally; I can't STAND Fate. It's way to nebulous for me, too narrative. I need crunch, but I'm tired of RPGs being a purely tactical exercise with some talking and story thrown in (like much of D20 systems were). NDS is so scratching all my gaming itches right now, it's brilliant.

1 hour ago, Dragonshadow said:

Not to be nitpicky, but your example has one flaw, which is part of the problem we had adjudicating the dice. Unless I read it wrong, the roll in your example did not actually succeed based on the die faces, but you let the advantages act like a success. They were rolling to disarm the villain and they succeeded in doing so.

In a similar vein, there were a number of times we had several advantages and even a triumph come up, but the successes were all cancelled out by failures (or by a despair counting as 1 failure). We house ruled that if there were no uncancelled failures that all the advantages could be spent to count as a single success to allow the roll itself to succeed.

Of course, we also house ruled that triumph and despair cancelled each other out, too, but in your example, I really like what you did with both of them factoring into the story.

I did not let the Advantages act like successes. The PC was trying to...CRAP, you're right. I worded my example wrong. The PC was trying to SHOOT the NPC, not disarm him initially. My bad! Instead of hitting him with the blaster bolt, the shot missed but the PC generated enough Advantage to have disarmed the target instead.

Sorry for my typo!

The "advantages can equal a success" does take some of the power out of Advantages. If the roll failed, it failed. The dice are somewhat weighted to come up "Success with Threat" and "Failure with Advantage" given even numbers of positive and negative dice rolled. Don't take that design intention away from the game, as it diminishes that type of result. Your failure with advantage can set up your opponent to take a whomping from the next PC who goes, because you've missed but you knocked them out of cover and given your next ally a boost die. Or you've failed to deceive the person but by doing so you've allowed the next PC to try and stealth by them undetected while they're dealing with you.

Triumph and Despair are never supposed to cancel each other out, that's how you get some truly amazing game altering effects.

1 hour ago, DarthGM said:

Oh totally; I can't STAND Fate. It's way to nebulous for me, too narrative. I need crunch, but I'm tired of RPGs being a purely tactical exercise with some talking and story thrown in (like much of D20 systems were). NDS is so scratching all my gaming itches right now, it's brilliant.

I did not let the Advantages act like successes. The PC was trying to...CRAP, you're right. I worded my example wrong. The PC was trying to SHOOT the NPC, not disarm him initially. My bad! Instead of hitting him with the blaster bolt, the shot missed but the PC generated enough Advantage to have disarmed the target instead.

Sorry for my typo!

The "advantages can equal a success" does take some of the power out of Advantages. If the roll failed, it failed. The dice are somewhat weighted to come up "Success with Threat" and "Failure with Advantage" given even numbers of positive and negative dice rolled. Don't take that design intention away from the game, as it diminishes that type of result. Your failure with advantage can set up your opponent to take a whomping from the next PC who goes, because you've missed but you knocked them out of cover and given your next ally a boost die. Or you've failed to deceive the person but by doing so you've allowed the next PC to try and stealth by them undetected while they're dealing with you.

Triumph and Despair are never supposed to cancel each other out, that's how you get some truly amazing game altering effects.

Alright, I will take your advice when we embark on our first Genesys adventure! I will try to encourage creative dice interpretations beyond the simple “pay a blue die forward” that too many of our checks were reduced to in Edge.

15 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

I will try to encourage creative dice interpretations beyond the simple “pay a blue die forward” that too many of our checks were reduced to in Edge.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but try to encourage a narrative reason why the boost/setback exists. Even if it's as simple as "My shots missed, but they blew up a nearby panel and the shower of sparks illuminated the target, making it easier for my team to blast him!" Even little bits of flavor like that really round out a scene.

46 minutes ago, rogue_09 said:

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but try to encourage a narrative reason why the boost/setback exists. Even if it's as simple as "My shots missed, but they blew up a nearby panel and the shower of sparks illuminated the target, making it easier for my team to blast him!" Even little bits of flavor like that really round out a scene.

Excellent point. Though we've played Fate, my group gravitates toward crunch, so it's easy to forget the fun of narrating the dice and just making it about numbers. I will actively discourage simply stating "you get a boost" and try to lead by example as GM.

another cool thing i think is magic weapons. How would you handle them. I mean a plus one magic sword could be 1 extra blue die. and anything above say magic plus 3 could be an extra yellow dice. thoughts