I'm a relative veteran of SWRPG, and I'm just curious what Genesys has that should make me want to buy it. Bear in mind, I intend to buy this game no matter what (the system is bar none my favorite, and I'd buy the book even if it only gave me vague ideas of how to homebrew my own system port), but what about the book sets it apart from the other SWRPG books? I have a decent collection for SWRPG (all CRBs and most of the EotE sourcebooks, plus loads of dice), and frankly I'm pretty confident that I could just use what I've seen so far concerning changes to the game to play Genesys relatively true-to-life even before I get my hands on a physical copy.

So what in the book is unique? I know it has rules for Magic, which I'm rather curious about (I've been pretty cozy with the Force Die, and the idea of using other dice is quite the change for me), and that further it has a generic list of Talents and some other tweaks to make SWRPG less genre specific. But how much is totally new? For example, how does Magic compare to the Force? How does it differ? What are the tools for making new rules like? How good of a job does it do at explaining how to make new Careers, Talents, Gear, Species/Archetypes, etc.? How good are the rules for creating Adversaries (if any)? Above all, would you actively suggest purchasing this game to someone skilled in SWRPG over just manually tweaking that system to fit another setting?

Any other thoughts or comments on Genesys are also appreciated--what you like, what you don't like, basically anything you think a player/GM should know before coming in.

Would I suggest it? Yes.

The biggest improvement is a concrete set of rules for social encounters.

Magic is fairly different from the Force; I was a fan of the Force die mechanics, but I think this system is a fair improvement. It wouldn't be a 1:1 replacement, though.

Not much explicitly on making new sets of rules. Guidelines for making weapons and armor is pretty nice, and makes home-brewing them much easier. Same with species making. Making personal gear is less extensive, unfortunately, and no step-by-step process for making adversaries either, just guidelines.

Character progression has been changed considerably. No more specializations, and talents are arranged into a talent 'pyramid' style system. Creating new talents is outlined, but not a lot of examples are given.

Anything else? Vehicle rules has been tweaked a bit, probably in an attempt to make it a little more intuitive, but I haven't run it yet to know if it worked. Attachments have been adjusted and are much-more balanced now.

More than anything, the book is very concise. Star Wars can get wordy and hard to find some rules behind all the fluff text, while Genesys cuts to the chase pretty quickly.

What swordbreaker said, plus Defense has been tweaked to be easier to understand, more things stack but there’s a cap of 4.

Magic v The Force? I prefer the Magic system, it’s incredibly flexible and simple yet also deep in its applications. But the Force Die is so tied into Star Wars that while reverse engineering is possible it’s not easy. I will say that Magic is currently a much less developed system, there’s practically no supporting talents and it feels like it’s the generic system that will form the basis of a future much enriched supplement. But really that’s to be expected, this is after all the very first book, so if we compared only to The Force from Edge of the Empire then this is far more advanced.

New Stuff:

Magic System

Social Encounter Rules (star wars had some tacked on stuff from a career book that was missing concrete rules for how it worked)

Rules to create your own archetype/species, items, talents.

Tones, which add flavor to games.

Changed stuff:

Defense

Vehicle Rules (much better and concise now)

Attachments and Hard Points are now optional rules

Characteristic cap is lowered by 1

No more specializations

Careers only dictate what skills are cheaper to upgrade

Talents are in the form of a pyramid: you must have at least 1 more talent in a lower tier before you can purchase a talent in the next tier up.

Dedication talent can only be taken once per characteristic, which puts much more emphasis on specializing your character at creation (having at least a 4 in your favored stat) rather than being a generalist.

Overall the changes are good for the narrative dice system and I'm really looking forward to starting up a Genesys game. In the meantime, I'll be taking some of the rules from Genesys and porting them over to Star Wars (such as the Social Encounter rules).

Specialization trees are done away with in favor of an open talent-purchasing system, where characters require more talents in lower tiers to buy higher-tiered talents. One the whole, it seems like this lowers the power level of characters considerably. No more buying 2 or more ranks of key talents, like Grit or Toughened, for 5 XP each, and it's much more expensive to get to the really strong stuff.

For example, in Star Wars, some Specializations might have two Grit talents at tier 1, and maybe another at tier 2, allowing you to buy +3 Strain for 20 XP, and if you are savvy with your Specialization buying, you might be able to stock up on cheaper talents for a pretty low price, over all. Now, Grit costs 5 XP the first time, 10 XP the second, 15 XP the third, and so on, until tier 5, where you can keep buying it for 25 XP...except that you also need to buy talents in lower tiers to keep buying the more expensive Grit, which isn't a direct cost, since you're getting stuff you probably want along the way, but slows things down.

Tier 5 talents in Star Wars, getting to a tier 5 talent, like Dedication generally cost between 75 and 100 XP. In Genesys, it costs 175 XP. Then, in Star Wars, your next tier 5 talent is just 25 more XP, since you're already at the bottom of your tree (assuming you want the next one over), but in Genesys, the next tier 5 costs another 75 XP each time. Of course, you're buying more tier 1, 2, 3, and 4 talents to get there, but it is necessarily a slower progression.

Yeah, Talent flexibility comes at a cost.

I've done a list the other day, so even if I repeat some things already said, here are the items I found.

Core Rules

• Attributes cap at 5 instead of 6
• Story Points start at 1 per player at the table
• The Star Wars careers and specialisations are gone. Instead you choose a career that gives you 8 career skills; you get a rank in 4 of them. Post character generation, you can only gain new career skills through talents.
• Talents are purchased in a free-form pyramid/tier scheme. You must have more talents of tier X than in tier x+1 at all times. Tiers go from 1-5. Ranked talents like Grit start at a given tier, but increase their tier for each subsequent instance until they are tier 5.
• Motivation has been expanded into Desire, Fear, Strength and Weakness. The Social Encounter rules build on this, so it is more ingrained into the system than it was in Star Wars.
• Deception is resisted by Vigilance
• Piloting has been split into Driving (ground vehicles), Piloting (small planes and spacecraft) and Operating (large vehicles like capital ships or zeppelins).
• Available skills are adapted by the setting. For example, in fantasy games, you have Melee (Light), Melee (Heavy) and Ranged, while a sci-fi game would have Melee, Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy) and Gunnery.
• Equipment attachment rules are optional, and no modding rules are given
• Defense is capped at 4
• Social Encounters are part of the core rules. I did not yet compare them with the rules of Far Horizons or Desperate Allies, so I can't say how much of them is new. However, since they make heavy use of the Motivation, they are expanded at least.

Toolkit Rules

• Guidelines for the creation of Skills, Species/Archetypes, Talents, Items, and Adversaries. While not strictly rules, these are very helpful for the customisation of a setting.

Optional Rules

• Nemesis extra activation: Now rolls initiative twice instead of going last with the second action (EotE GM Kit)
• Uncoupling Skills from Characteristics: If you think Athletics should sometimes be rolled with Brawn, and sometimes with Agility, this rule is for you
• Item Attachments/Hard Points: No modifications, otherwise like in Star Wars. A generic rule for the number of HP of an item is given
• Magic: This is completely originally, as far as I can tell. It works different than WHRPG3, and very differently than the Force
• Vehicles: This has quite a number of changes, see below
• Hacking: I did not yet compare this with the rules in Special Modifications.
• Fear: Similar roll, but changed effects compared to Star Wars
• Sanity: New rule

Vehicle Rule changes

• Vehicles move automatically a number or range bands, depending on current speed. No more Fly/Drive maneuver
• Piloting checks become more difficult and collisions more dangerous at higher speeds
• No more defense zones, just a single attribute for the whole vehicle
• Emergency repair effects (after a vehicle exceeded Hull Trauma) are changed
• Range Bands are now the same as in personal combat. A sixth band, strategic, is added for ballistic, long-range attacks. I feel that weapon ranges overall have increased; this might or might not be connected.
• All vehicles can now take 2 Pilot-only maneuvers
• Punch It has been rolled into Accelerate / Decelerate, which allow to change the speed more than one point at a time at the cost of system strain
• Stay on Target has been removed
• Brace for Impact is a maneuver that allows the pilot to mitigate some damage
• Angle Deflector Shields has been removed (no defense zones ...)
• Dangerous Driving is a new catch-all Pilot-only action that is needed when things get rough
• Gain the Advantage has been rewritten. It now gives 2 upgrades in offense and defense when you have the advantage.
• Vehicle Attacks now go by distance. Silhouette only affects the difficulty as it does in Personal Combat. Snub Fighters really should gain the advantage on capital ships before getting close, or they are toast.
• The Critical Hit table has shrunk and changed
• No special Chase rules are given

I don't see the need for chase rules now that moving is mandatory and it's pretty obvious that faster ships will outrun slower ships much quicker just based on their max speed difference.

6 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

I don't see the need for chase rules now that moving is mandatory and it's pretty obvious that faster ships will outrun slower ships much quicker just based on their max speed difference.

Chase rules applied to more than vehicles. You could have foot chases as well.

On 02/01/2018 at 1:03 AM, Richardbuxton said:

Yeah, Talent flexibility comes at a cost.

I was actually surprised how much this wasn't really the case when comparing Star Wars to Genesys (in my reading, at least). Specializing comes at a cost, sure. If you want a lot of Grit it'll cost you, but you could also just alternate Grit and Second Wind if you want that Strain bad enough and you'll probably end up with more Strain than you were going to get in Star Wars anyway without paying through the nose for extra specializations and talents that are in your way.

And then, in general, I find talents just better in Genesys. I keep having to get through my head that Natural is a Tier 3 talent (it is, right?) because it just seems so much better than that... and it's for two skills in this game? Or how Knack for It is just better than all of those "ignore setback" options from Star Wars at Tier 1 (remove two Setbacks from a skill of your choice) and while it's ranked so it gets more expensive if you want a lot of it, it isn't until 5 skills (3 purchases of the talent at 30XP not counting prerequisites) that it starts to get diminishing returns next to Star Wars.

I love the new talent setup (with my first session being in about an hour so we'll see once it gets some mileage), but I really think a point of experience goes further in Genesys than in Star Wars.

The difference in cost for things like Grit is that, if you've got enough XP in the game, players are probably picking up a second or third specialization anyway, and once you're doing that, it's likely that you're getting access to 2-4 instances of Grit or Toughened for 5-10 XP each, rather than necessarily having to buy a more expensive version each time.

The characters I built for the few Star Wars campaigns I played in almost all had 2 or 3 Grit talents, whereas none of the players in my upcoming Genesys game are buying more than 1 Grit for the time being.

On 1/2/2018 at 1:23 AM, Farnir said:

I've done a list the other day, so even if I repeat some things already said, here are the items I found.

Core Rules

• Attributes cap at 5 instead of 6
• Story Points start at 1 per player at the table
• The Star Wars careers and specialisations are gone. Instead you choose a career that gives you 8 career skills; you get a rank in 4 of them. Post character generation, you can only gain new career skills through talents.
• Talents are purchased in a free-form pyramid/tier scheme. You must have more talents of tier X than in tier x+1 at all times. Tiers go from 1-5. Ranked talents like Grit start at a given tier, but increase their tier for each subsequent instance until they are tier 5.
• Motivation has been expanded into Desire, Fear, Strength and Weakness. The Social Encounter rules build on this, so it is more ingrained into the system than it was in Star Wars.
• Deception is resisted by Vigilance
• Piloting has been split into Driving (ground vehicles), Piloting (small planes and spacecraft) and Operating (large vehicles like capital ships or zeppelins).
• Available skills are adapted by the setting. For example, in fantasy games, you have Melee (Light), Melee (Heavy) and Ranged, while a sci-fi game would have Melee, Ranged (Light), Ranged (Heavy) and Gunnery.
• Equipment attachment rules are optional, and no modding rules are given
• Defense is capped at 4
• Social Encounters are part of the core rules. I did not yet compare them with the rules of Far Horizons or Desperate Allies, so I can't say how much of them is new. However, since they make heavy use of the Motivation, they are expanded at least.

Toolkit Rules

• Guidelines for the creation of Skills, Species/Archetypes, Talents, Items, and Adversaries. While not strictly rules, these are very helpful for the customisation of a setting.

Optional Rules

• Nemesis extra activation: Now rolls initiative twice instead of going last with the second action (EotE GM Kit)
• Uncoupling Skills from Characteristics: If you think Athletics should sometimes be rolled with Brawn, and sometimes with Agility, this rule is for you
• Item Attachments/Hard Points: No modifications, otherwise like in Star Wars. A generic rule for the number of HP of an item is given
• Magic: This is completely originally, as far as I can tell. It works different than WHRPG3, and very differently than the Force
• Vehicles: This has quite a number of changes, see below
• Hacking: I did not yet compare this with the rules in Special Modifications.
• Fear: Similar roll, but changed effects compared to Star Wars
• Sanity: New rule

Vehicle Rule changes

• Vehicles move automatically a number or range bands, depending on current speed. No more Fly/Drive maneuver
• Piloting checks become more difficult and collisions more dangerous at higher speeds
• No more defense zones, just a single attribute for the whole vehicle
• Emergency repair effects (after a vehicle exceeded Hull Trauma) are changed
• Range Bands are now the same as in personal combat. A sixth band, strategic, is added for ballistic, long-range attacks. I feel that weapon ranges overall have increased; this might or might not be connected.
• All vehicles can now take 2 Pilot-only maneuvers
• Punch It has been rolled into Accelerate / Decelerate, which allow to change the speed more than one point at a time at the cost of system strain
• Stay on Target has been removed
• Brace for Impact is a maneuver that allows the pilot to mitigate some damage
• Angle Deflector Shields has been removed (no defense zones ...)
• Dangerous Driving is a new catch-all Pilot-only action that is needed when things get rough
• Gain the Advantage has been rewritten. It now gives 2 upgrades in offense and defense when you have the advantage.
• Vehicle Attacks now go by distance. Silhouette only affects the difficulty as it does in Personal Combat. Snub Fighters really should gain the advantage on capital ships before getting close, or they are toast.
• The Critical Hit table has shrunk and changed
• No special Chase rules are given

A few others I noticed now that I've finished the book:

Core Rules

• The way Perception and Vigilance work has changed so that Perception is an active skill, while Vigilance is a passive one. For instance, in Star Wars, you might roll Perception to notice a trap at the last second, but that's now Vigilance. Perception would be used to actively search for traps.
• Buying and selling seems to be different, with the difficulty set by the rarity of the item traded rather than the merchant's Negotiation pool.
• Superior Armor Customization is not available (yet).
• Installing Attachments is no longer automatic; it requires an Average Mechanics check.

Vehicle Rules

• Repairing a point of Hull Trauma now costs 100 currency, rather than the previous 500.

Thanks for all the input--most of it sounds like what I'd already gathered. Looking forward to getting my hands on the book at some point (though with classes starting and me having already blown most my money on other hobbies, that may have to wait a minute).

On 1/3/2018 at 4:58 PM, Colyer said:

I was actually surprised how much this wasn't really the case when comparing Star Wars to Genesys (in my reading, at least). Specializing comes at a cost, sure. If you want a lot of Grit it'll cost you, but you could also just alternate Grit and Second Wind if you want that Strain bad enough and you'll probably end up with more Strain than you were going to get in Star Wars anyway without paying through the nose for extra specializations and talents that are in your way.

And then, in general, I find talents just better in Genesys. I keep having to get through my head that Natural is a Tier 3 talent (it is, right?) because it just seems so much better than that... and it's for two skills in this game? Or how Knack for It is just better than all of those "ignore setback" options from Star Wars at Tier 1 (remove two Setbacks from a skill of your choice) and while it's ranked so it gets more expensive if you want a lot of it, it isn't until 5 skills (3 purchases of the talent at 30XP not counting prerequisites) that it starts to get diminishing returns next to Star Wars.

I love the new talent setup (with my first session being in about an hour so we'll see once it gets some mileage), but I really think a point of experience goes further in Genesys than in Star Wars.

On 1/4/2018 at 2:55 AM, yeti1069 said:

The difference in cost for things like Grit is that, if you've got enough XP in the game, players are probably picking up a second or third specialization anyway, and once you're doing that, it's likely that you're getting access to 2-4 instances of Grit or Toughened for 5-10 XP each, rather than necessarily having to buy a more expensive version each time.

The characters I built for the few Star Wars campaigns I played in almost all had 2 or 3 Grit talents, whereas none of the players in my upcoming Genesys game are buying more than 1 Grit for the time being.

I was thinking about that while comparing the two games. I imagine the stacked system will always feel more sluggish to me than the Specialization system, but I suppose it's countered by the wide open availability.

On that note, I don't suppose anyone has come up with any sort of satisfactory way to let Talents build up a bit quicker? The lazy way would be to just say "screw it" and remove the pyramid structure so that the first Tier 1 lets you buy a Tier 2, which lets you buy a Tier 3, etc. until you hit Tier 5 and need to buy another Tier 1. Thinking about it, this could possibly make for a decent middle ground (at least for a group that wants to move through the game a lot quicker), since it still removes all of the horizontal travel (so you can't buy more Tier 5 until you buy through Tiers 1-4) but doesn't have as much of the molasses grade "build up all levels beneath." Maybe it could be tempered with a slight XP increase as you start a new row (like adding 5XP cost after every two rows, so that your third/fourth Tier 1 costs 10XP, third/fourth Tier 2 costs 15XP, etc.). I'll probably end up figuring something out and seeing how it goes in the long run (after discussing with my players, of course), but any experienced opinion would be appreciated.