Do you guys think it's worth 2 advantage, or a full triumph, to say in super's game "I discover our mothers share the same name and we're best friends now?"

Tone makes me wonder how much crossover the books will have. Will an Arkham Horror setting repeat the horror tone rules? Can we expect to see them again in a fantasy setting with the undead?

I found the Star Wars RPG very off putting due to the three core books that covered so much of the same info. Will the same happen to this system?

That said, I like that tones seem like they are just the special rules for various settings.

5 minutes ago, Endersai said:

Do you guys think it's worth 2 advantage, or a full triumph, to say in super's game "I discover our mothers share the same name and we're best friends now?"

Heroes often fight each other before teaming up. There should be a rule that states how many turns they have to fight each other before moving on. This happens every time to heroes meet up after being separated for 1 hour in game time. A triumph just means they realize what a waste of time it is and move on. With advantages they just waste time arguing.

18 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Tone makes me wonder how much crossover the books will have. Will an Arkham Horror setting repeat the horror tone rules? Can we expect to see them again in a fantasy setting with the undead?

I found the Star Wars RPG very off putting due to the three core books that covered so much of the same info. Will the same happen to this system?

That said, I like that tones seem like they are just the special rules for various settings.

the "technical" answer is "there isn't a Star Wars RPG; there are three separate, distinct, but compatible Star Wars games..."

Given the sanity rules are, from memory from a VERY LONG AGO board game session, from Arkham Horror it seems likely you'd get those in an Arkham Horror rpg?

Just now, Endersai said:

Given the sanity rules are, from memory from a VERY LONG AGO board game session, from Arkham Horror it seems likely you'd get those in an Arkham Horror rpg?

I'd prefer if they weren't in any setting expansions if they are already in the core. I would be okay with new rules that are not already covered.

It may be best to create a tone book that covers a large number of tones. This way we could get one tone book (or a series of them), that way we don't see them get repeated in several settings books.

5 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

If you’re going to base things off what amounts to narrative fiat, why use a game system at all? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for creativity coupled with rules (this system thrives on that), however the rules need to be clear and consistent. Your reasoning opens up a can of worms I wouldn’t want to deal with. It’s far too “Mother, may I?” for me. For example, I’m a super-soldier with the best training in the world. That’s my story. I choose Agility and Cunning as my super characteristics. I roll to shoot and miss. Now, by your reasoning I shouldn’t have shot at all, at least not when it’s against minions. This is an issue and brings me back to the thought of, “If I’m hand-waving large chunks of system, why am I using it at all?”.

Is the bus the Hulk’s picking up actively defending? Narrative fiat has limits, and the limit is typically where success is not guaranteed. Unless the Hulk is in Banner mode or someone else is trying to pick up the same bus, the Hulk will always be able to do so. Yet if you try to quantify his strength on a normal scale, his brawn would be, what?, maybe 50? Or let’s say you go with 5 brawn and 5 athletics. What is the difficulty of picking up the bus? If you make it a normal human scale, it’s easily 5 purple (or simply an impossible task). If you say it’s just average difficulty for the Hulk, you’re already provisioning for narrative fiat.

actually, maybe that’s a good way to manage it. Perhaps in the supers game, difficulty must take super abilities into account, so difficulty when ruling a super ability is always relative.

Supers are very difficult to handle, even more so than magic. Will it be done well in GeneSys ? I certainly hope so. However, showcasing super powers with exploding dice based on Triumphs doesn’t make me applaud. If I unpack my criticism it has more to do with the lack of information; the mechanism in question is just an example. We shall see soon enough.

2 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Supers are very difficult to handle, even more so than magic. Will it be done well in GeneSys ? I certainly hope so. However, showcasing super powers with exploding dice based on Triumphs doesn’t make me applaud. If I unpack my criticism it has more to do with the lack of information; the mechanism in question is just an example. We shall see soon enough.

I hope they will elaborate on the additional mechanics like minions can only do max 1 point of damage and attacks with fists do double damage. If they offer additional scaling tables it could work quite well. I know what you mean, Superman does not need exploding dice to dish out exceptional damage, he simply does with every hit.

Do you really want to run a tabletop campaign with Superman tier heroes, though? It'd be hard for a GM to realistically challenge the party without getting really contrived, comics have to bend over backwards with awkward narrative justifications to challenge their more powerful heroes. And that kinda stuff would often feel like combatative GMing in a game.

I'd think more middling or low-tier heroes would make more sense for an RPG campaign. Plus, RPGs are about progression, and a Superman level character doesn't really have anywhere to spend that XP.

17 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

Do you really want to run a tabletop campaign with Superman tier heroes, though? It'd be hard for a GM to realistically challenge the party without getting really contrived, comics have to bend over backwards with awkward narrative justifications to challenge their more powerful heroes. And that kinda stuff would often feel like combatative GMing in a game.

I'd think more middling or low-tier heroes would make more sense for an RPG campaign. Plus, RPGs are about progression, and a Superman level character doesn't really have anywhere to spend that XP.

You definitefly have a point.

14 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Agreed. I’m sure there’s more, however if they want to sell me on a product, sell me on it. Don’t keep sprinkling vagueness.

To be fair, they are just trying to drum up discussion, and succeeding. This only influences whether you choose to pre-order.

The book will be sold via word-of-mouth once it hits the streets and live or die on that basis. Once you know more, based on flicking through the book or from other people’s feedback, you can make an informed decision.

Right now all we have is... a new hope

18 minutes ago, dbm_ said:

To be fair, they are just trying to drum up discussion, and succeeding. This only influences whether you choose to pre-order.

The book will be sold via word-of-mouth once it hits the streets and live or die on that basis. Once you know more, based on flicking through the book or from other people’s feedback, you can make an informed decision.

Right now all we have is... a new hope

I'm as much interested in the spins put on the game by the community as what's between the covers, but the latter goes a long way to shaping and directing the former, not to mention providing inspiration. If Genesys is a game of highly adjustable, but still compatible dials and levers, it will be difficult to break the system as you attempt to adjust the system to fit a given setting. I'm really excited about the potential.

Supers are a great stress test for a system. As others have pointed out here and elsewhere, they're not easy to model, especially in a system designed to also model entirely non-super settings. But then even among Supers there are stupid edge cases like Superman that just have an endless list of core powers with a vulnerability to a material not even found natively on Earth (although Krypton seemingly exploded in a tight shotgun pattern aimed directly at our own planet). I wouldn't let silly exceptions like Superman be the measure of success.

3 hours ago, Tom Cruise said:

Do you really want to run a tabletop campaign with Superman tier heroes, though? It'd be hard for a GM to realistically challenge the party without getting really contrived, comics have to bend over backwards with awkward narrative justifications to challenge their more powerful heroes. And that kinda stuff would often feel like combatative GMing in a game.

I'd think more middling or low-tier heroes would make more sense for an RPG campaign. Plus, RPGs are about progression, and a Superman level character doesn't really have anywhere to spend that XP.

I think that Genesys would be better at that than other SHRPGs - the thing with superman level heroes (and I GMed a group of that level for years in Champions) - the threat is very rarely that the heroes lose a fight or that they are personally in danger. The threat is something they need to figure out or to save. City (world) is threatened, and it won't be solved with fisticuffs (though that would be involved). It's not the normal way of GMing a SH game, but it can be done.

Alternately - it's more drama and romance - Lois and Clark type stuff. Lots of non physical combat in social situations and Genesys could handle that

If I do a super game I am thinking alternate reality 1930-1940s, WW2 the Nazis are still around, some kind of experiment gone wrong infecting the world like Wild Cards, and set it in a Gotham-esque city.

I think it is hard to do Superman-ish stuff and it's why Batman movies do better. People can't identify to Kryptonite poisoning. A pipe upside the head they get.

I think the closest I'll ever get to run a supers game will be something like vampires, werewolves and similar, but perhaps the Genesys rules can still offer valuable inspiration for something like that.

3 hours ago, 2P51 said:

If I do a super game I am thinking alternate reality 1930-1940s, WW2 the Nazis are still around, some kind of experiment gone wrong infecting the world like Wild Cards, and set it in a Gotham-esque city.

I think it is hard to do Superman-ish stuff and it's why Batman movies do better. People can't identify to Kryptonite poisoning. A pipe upside the head they get.

Some Hellboy style alternate history with the Thule Gesellschaft and Dr. Totenkopf from Sky captain and the land of tomorrow.

They mention Superhero Tone, but I don't think it means specifically capes and secret Identities. I could easily see the original Star Wars movie (A new hope for you younglings) could easily have that tone - lots of stormtroopers fire, they miss and when they do it does almost nothing, heroes drop the stormtroopers easily. Each of the 4 have open ended ability score rolls (I know we have the SW RPG here, but bear with me). It could just be a superhero tone on a SF game. I figure any kind of game where the PCs shake the world with their actions could be run with that tone.

11 hours ago, Tom Cruise said:

Do you really want to run a tabletop campaign with Superman tier heroes, though? It'd be hard for a GM to realistically challenge the party without getting really contrived, comics have to bend over backwards with awkward narrative justifications to challenge their more powerful heroes. And that kinda stuff would often feel like combatative GMing in a game.

I'd think more middling or low-tier heroes would make more sense for an RPG campaign. Plus, RPGs are about progression, and a Superman level character doesn't really have anywhere to spend that XP.

I might want that level of power and, based on what’s been on the tin so far, we should be able to have it. GeneSys has been selling itself as a toolbox to create the adventures and stories you want. It also supports superheroes. What it hasn’t stated is that it supports creating your own adventures with superheroes, but it caps out at Level X.

1 hour ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

I might want that level of power and, based on what’s been on the tin so far, we should be able to have it. GeneSys has been selling itself as a toolbox to create the adventures and stories you want. It also supports superheroes. What it hasn’t stated is that it supports creating your own adventures with superheroes, but it caps out at Level X.

It also hasn't said it supports creating superheroes of any power level.

It is a toolbox. It does support supers.

It doesn't do exactly what you want. That's fair. Life is rough.

1 hour ago, Lordmhoram said:

They mention Superhero Tone, but I don't think it means specifically capes and secret Identities. I could easily see the original Star Wars movie (A new hope for you younglings) could easily have that tone - lots of stormtroopers fire, they miss and when they do it does almost nothing, heroes drop the stormtroopers easily. Each of the 4 have open ended ability score rolls (I know we have the SW RPG here, but bear with me). It could just be a superhero tone on a SF game. I figure any kind of game where the PCs shake the world with their actions could be run with that tone.

I don't be really see the original Star Wars having a superhero theme (except for Force users). The heroes run from stormtroopers and wade through large groups of them.

That said I will be interested to see how the superhero theme can emulate Force users for my stripped down NDS Star Wars game.

2 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

I might want that level of power and, based on what’s been on the tin so far, we should be able to have it. GeneSys has been selling itself as a toolbox to create the adventures and stories you want. It also supports superheroes. What it hasn’t stated is that it supports creating your own adventures with superheroes, but it caps out at Level X.

It's advertised as a toolbox, sure. But it's ridiculous to expect any one system to be able to cover every possible tone, setting and power level well, unless it's something very loose and narrative like Fate.

Different systems are suited for different things. I'd rather FFG keep their scope controlled rather than try to stretch too thin and end up with a dysfunctional system.

There is a book for 1st edition Fantasy Hero by Aaron Allston and Mike Nystul "The Spell Book" that has a bunch of pre-built spells for the system. Now the mechanics are out of date - but there is advice in there about what requiring/disallowing different advantages, disadvantages and powers would mean to you game. Some examples include - if you have a flight spell - not uncommon in RPGs, but very little of it in source literature before that; if you require "requires a skill roll" that means magic is never ever for sure, there is always a chance of failure - conversely disallowing mean magic always works and almost feels like superpower or mutations. This article changed how I approached gaming (and highly recommended).

The reason I bring it up here - I don't think any genre, tone or whatnot is required wholecloth. When I get Genesys, I'm going to look at each setting, and each tone and the rules therein and think about what each of them mean, in total (say I want to use horror complete), or individually (say I want fear but not sanity). And see what each of them means to a game individually. Just like powers, skills and ability scores in games like GURPS or HERO are building blocks of the character - these things will be building blocks of a campaign.

This game isn't Pathfinder, or even Edge of the Empire, it is a toolkit for building games. I've posting (as a long time generic/universal/toolkit GM and player) as a public service, I guess, to remind everyone that is the case. Not that I am better or know more, but to help spur discussion of the toolkit nature of the game, and ways we can break pieces apart and put parts of them back together to make exactly the kind of campaign we are going to run.

3 minutes ago, Tom Cruise said:

It's advertised as a toolbox, sure. But it's ridiculous to expect any one system to be able to cover every possible tone, setting and power level well, unless it's something very loose and narrative like Fate.

Different systems are suited for different things. I'd rather FFG keep their scope controlled rather than try to stretch too thin and end up with a dysfunctional system.

Agreed - I think GURPS is great for action, and really low level supers, but not JLA/AVENGERS style, and HERO handles the Mid-high end supers very well, but isn't as granular (well a little more granular with 6E) for low end play. Both are Universal/Generic systems, and each have their strength & weaknesses.

1 hour ago, Tom Cruise said:

It's advertised as a toolbox, sure. But it's ridiculous to expect any one system to be able to cover every possible tone, setting and power level well, unless it's something very loose and narrative like Fate.

Different systems are suited for different things. I'd rather FFG keep their scope controlled rather than try to stretch too thin and end up with a dysfunctional system.

3 hours ago, CitizenKeen said:

It also hasn't said it supports creating superheroes of any power level.

It is a toolbox. It does support supers.

It doesn't do exactly what you want. That's fair. Life is rough.

13 hours ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Can we at least wait for the book to come out before we start putting bricks into our backpacks of posterior pain?