Great piece of info dropped on Reddit regarding talents.

https://www.reddit.com/r/genesysrpg/comments/7fc4d8/the_joys_of_having_a_friend_who_works_at_ffg/

Instead of Specializations, Talents are arranged into tiers that require at least 1 more talent in the previous tier to support it. Like SWRPG, the tiers cost 5, 10, 15, 20, & 25. The first Tier 5 talent costs 175 total XP to unlock (25+40+45+40+25). Subsequent T5 talents require 75 each (5+10+15+20+25). Repeatable talents like Grit are counted as the next tier each time they're taken.

Originally, I was concerned that with SWRPG-esque Specializations, there wouldn't be enough structure to gaining talents, leading to a chaotic hodge podge. This has allayed those fears.

Seems like a solid approach. Forces you to make a fairly well rounded character, and stops players from just cherry picking the best stuff and ignoring the less dramatic talents.

That seems actually super interesting, that also means repeatable talents can be A LOT easier to get in this system. (Though I am not seeing how that link has that info the print is to small to read.


Edit: honestly I don't know how much people will be spending XP on Talents Seems like it would be a whole lot of XP for not a whole lot of gain vs just putting points into Skills.

Just to be clear, the first Tier 5 Talent is available with the expenditure of 175 XP (bringing with it five Tier 1 Talents, four Tier 2 Talents, three Tier 3 Talents, and two Tier 4 Talents).

Subsequent Tier 5 Talents are achievable with the accumulation of each subsequent 75 XP.

Looks like if you factor in the cost of specialisations, costs between Genesys and Star Wars are pretty even.

33 minutes ago, CitizenKeen said:

Just to be clear, the first Tier 5 Talent is available with the expenditure of 175 XP (bringing with it five Tier 1 Talents, four Tier 2 Talents, three Tier 3 Talents, and two Tier 4 Talents).

Subsequent Tier 5 Talents are achievable with the accumulation of each subsequent 75 XP.

Yup, thanks! I've updated my post :).

44 minutes ago, tunewalker said:

(Though I am not seeing how that link has that info the print is to small to read.

It’s in the comments to the picture. The guy who has the book posted the explanation down in the thread.

I like the talent pyramid approach. Now you don't have to take talents you don't want to just because they are in your way in the talent trees.

A pyramid is better than a tree, although many trees look like an upside down pyramid. It does mean however that the top talents will be very common, which I don't like.

I'm itching to see such a pyramid, I need visual input to embrace it. So is there one big pyramid or are there several pyramids for skill related talents?

My guess is thematic pyramids.

17 minutes ago, DarthDude said:

I'm itching to see such a pyramid, I need visual input to embrace it. So is there one big pyramid or are there several pyramids for skill related talents?

The way I read it is that you build your own pyramids by the talents you select.

I was pleased when I first saw this approach in the playtest. Can confirm it works pretty well.

I think you're taking the pyramid language too literally. It's a freeform system. You pick whatever talents you want. They just form a pyramid structure because of this;

Quote

When you are buying talents for your character, you must follow one simple rule. After buying the new talent, your character must have more talents in the next lowest tier.

So for example you might have something looking like this:

TIER 5 TALENT, TIER 5 TALENT
TIER 4 TALENT, TIER 4 TALENT, TIER 4 TALENT
TIER 3 TALENT, TIER 3 TALENT, TIER 3 TALENT, TIER 3 TALENT, TIER 3 TALENT
TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT, TIER 2 TALENT
TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT, TIER 1 TALENT,

In other words:

If you want N number of tier X talents, you must have N+1 talents of tier X-1.

No matter whatever the talents you are taking and they are all available to all characters.

Isn't it??

Yeah, essentially. Presumably there's some pre-requisites for certain talents (Can't get Improved Parry without Parry, etc), but for the most part it sounds like you can pick whatever you want from the list as long as you meet the tier requirements.

This system is much better than a tree. It allows for more flexibility in building.

I wonder if access to talents is controlled by "Classes," I can't remember what they are called in Genesys?

Ok, so answered in Reddit. Talents are divorced from careers. Careers just control skills. Hmm, more importance on skills than talents?

Oh, that sounds great.

More freedom to individual character development.

14 minutes ago, Hugh Salamando Filth said:

Oh, that sounds great.

More freedom to individual character development.

Makes sense for a Universal system too. If you want to run a mix and match genre game (Urban Fantasy as an example), you don't have to make up full career talent trees.

I hope the open pyramid idea works as discussed here. The proof of its effectiveness will be designing characters, obviously, but thank God it looks like we don't need to pick between dozens of talent trees to find the magic combination of skills and talents to try to approximate the vision of a character, we can just start building that character.

Being a tinkerer, my mind immediately started pondering pyramid tweaks and alternatives:

• Can it be more column-based than a pyramid? You just can't have MORE at a higher tier than a lower one, but you can have an equal number. The downside is then you can direct climb to 5th tier with only one talent per tier below it. Granted, you'd need to climb all the way from 1 to 5 for your next 5th tier talent, but a PC's big move will spike quickly in such a game. Perhaps for supers?
• Base the pyramid on both talents and skills, so having a rank 3 skill counts as a tier 3 item for purposes of filling out the pyramid. Again this gets you to tier 5 faster, but since you can use XP to buy both skills and talents, and both cap at 5 "levels", it has a certain logic that I might need to ponder further. Perhaps an additional minimum of 1 talent per tier just to represent some measure of diversity.

That makes a lot more sense - free form and just a simple requirement of not having more on top that bottom. I like that.

The Talent Pyramid works the same as Fate's Skill Pyramid, and I think it works really well. In a generic system, it allows for some level of niche protection that I really like, while still preventing characters from becoming one-trick ponies.

2 hours ago, CitizenKeen said:

The Talent Pyramid works the same as Fate's Skill Pyramid, and I think it works really well. In a generic system, it allows for some level of niche protection that I really like, while still preventing characters from becoming one-trick ponies.

Well, not quite, unless there's an additional pyramid on skills. Genesys talents are more akin to Fate stunts, although with a bit more structure and hierarchy of costs. I haven't heard that there's any way to stop someone from spending every point earned (after the character creation limit of rank 2) to push their main skill to rank 5 before doing anything else. Fate uses its pyramid to prevent that sort of narrow focus. Bear in mind that it also does NOT impose increasing costs for each skill rank other than respecting the pyramid limits--you just get to advance a skill by one rank at certain milestones.

Not having played EotE more than a dozen or so times, I'm not sure which has a greater game effect: a higher level talent or a higher level skill, but it seemed that specific skills will come into play more often than most of the preconditions for talents being used. Talents just seem more fun...

2 minutes ago, Dragonshadow said:

Well, not quite, unless there's an additional pyramid on skills. Genesys talents are more akin to Fate stunts, although with a bit more structure and hierarchy of costs. I haven't heard that there's any way to stop someone from spending every point earned (after the character creation limit of rank 2) to push their main skill to rank 5 before doing anything else. Fate uses its pyramid to prevent that sort of narrow focus. Bear in mind that it also does NOT impose increasing costs for each skill rank other than respecting the pyramid limits--you just get to advance a skill by one rank at certain milestones.

Not having played EotE more than a dozen or so times, I'm not sure which has a greater game effect: a higher level talent or a higher level skill, but it seemed that specific skills will come into play more often than most of the preconditions for talents being used. Talents just seem more fun...

Sorry. I wasn't comparing Genesys Skills to Fate Skills. I was comparing the Genesys Talent Pyramid to Fate's Skill Pyramid. Fate's pretty popular, and the only other pyramid build limit I'm aware of off the top of my head, so I thought it was an interesting point of comparison.

16 minutes ago, CitizenKeen said:

Sorry. I wasn't comparing Genesys Skills to Fate Skills. I was comparing the Genesys Talent Pyramid to Fate's Skill Pyramid. Fate's pretty popular, and the only other pyramid build limit I'm aware of off the top of my head, so I thought it was an interesting point of comparison.

True. Sorry my response was a bit pedantic. The talent pyramid as a replacement for the fairly awful talent trees is a great idea, although it seems like it will take even longer to reach rank 5 talents (and it probably should). Some trees allowed a straight climb, so those looking to port Edge to Genesys as a system upgrade might have some concessions to make. Seems like they'll gain a whole lot of flexibility, so it shouldn't be too onerous.