Been looking at the John Carter 2d20 Kickstarter and I am intrigued by the no skill and just combine two attributes together to resolve actions idea. So I was think of how this would work for a lite Genesys. Maybe something like this:

Brawl and melee attacks could be Brawn and Agility.

Ranged attacks could be Agility and Intellect.

Sneak attack could be Brawn or Agility and Cunning

Stealth could be Agility and Cunning.

Picking locks could be Agility and Intellect.

Perception could be Intellect and Cunning.

Minions would just use one attribute since the other number is determined by group size.

Just a a few ideas. Any thoughts.

Is the idea that the two attributes combine as if one were the base attribute and the other the skill ranks? So, for your Stealth example, I start with 4 greens for my Agility 4, and upgrade two to yellows for my Cunning 2? If so, it might be a fun experiment to run this way for a one-shot. I'm not sure I'd want to get rid of skills for longer than that, though. They go a long way to letting players feel "special" in doing things the other PCs can't, at least not as well.

10 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

Is the idea that the two attributes combine as if one were the base attribute and the other the skill ranks? So, for your Stealth example, I start with 4 greens for my Agility 4, and upgrade two to yellows for my Cunning 2? If so, it might be a fun experiment to run this way for a one-shot. I'm not sure I'd want to get rid of skills for longer than that, though. They go a long way to letting players feel "special" in doing things the other PCs can't, at least not as well.

That’s the idea (in your stealth example).

This is a neat idea. Reminds me of Cortex Prime.

But I'd rename the Attributes then. Reflavor them, similar to Drives from Cortex or Approaches from Fate Accelerated/Jadepunk/Dresden Files Accelerated.

Definitely would keep Talents though and change Professions into Talent packages.

11 hours ago, Stacie_GmrGrl said:

This is a neat idea. Reminds me of Cortex Prime.

But I'd rename the Attributes then. Reflavor them, similar to Drives from Cortex or Approaches from Fate Accelerated/Jadepunk/Dresden Files Accelerated.

Definitely would keep Talents though and change Professions into Talent packages.

I was considering whether I should redo the attributes. I might change them a round some.

Genesys has had skills and characteristics built in from the beginning. The system, on a purely mechanical level, is built around building the dice by comparing attributes and skills. Not having skills may be an interesting idea, but John Carter has a system designed to do that from the beginning .

Progression is designed to split attention between talents (eventually reaching Dedication, which raises attributes) and multiple different skills; this will just make players double-down on raising characteristics. It will also make character's feel generic and identical, without multiple paths to distinguish them, as eventually, all characters will have the same set of attributes to combine and be rolling the same variety of dice.

In addition to what @Swordbreaker said, if you only have characteristics and not skills, you're reducing what things characters can use to spend XP on. Instead of making a choice between skills or talents it's now all about the talents. They'll rush to Dedication—since that's the only thing that'll improve their dice pools—and suck at rolls before then.

Skills are one of the main ways to improve your dice pools. No skills, you get very same-y dice pools (as Swordbreaker said) and XP is going to be hoarded for those higher tier talents. It's going to be a lot of work to make this idea play well at the table. Personally, I'd rather play the game as it's designed and play the 2d20 system when I want that playstyle. YMMV, of course.

The 2d20 system was originally built with skills (Conan and Infinity), then Star Trek reduced it to skill groups and John Carter reduces this down more with no skills. So I believe Genesys could be done similarly.

I think reducing the XP awarded would need to be done, and obviously some things would have to be reworked (maybe allowing higher starting characteristics). But I think the idea has potential as a lite version of the system. Maybe more potential as a one shot or short campaigns (ai am not sure). I will be looking to see how John Carter handles progression.

One idea would be adding skill talents. Something like Awesome Pilot letting you upgrade checks made when piloting. Some way to let you get a little better at a particular area.

Adding a skill talent would be just... adding a skill. You're back to where you began.

I don't know how 2d20 works, but it obviously functions in a way that allows skills to be reduced or removed all together. As a game design concept, it is very interesting. But Genesys doesn't work that way, nor was it conceived to work that way. Skills are a key component in how dice pools are made, not a side thing.

I'm sure the original idea of 2d20 didn't take into consideration the lack of skills until they decided on doing that for John Carter of Mars.

The only thing is that going with only Attributes would require a new way of determining Difficulty dice because every die roll in a no skills option would have dice pools with upgraded dice for the players.

However, this idea could probably work well for super hero characters.

What Professions could do is list Profession Focuses (broad skill themes, if you will) that allow the player to add Boost Dice to die rolls or negate Setback Dice when doing actions they have the focus on.

22 hours ago, fjw70 said:

Been looking at the John Carter 2d20 Kickstarter and I am intrigued by the no skill and just combine two attributes together to resolve actions idea. So I was think of how this would work for a lite Genesys. Maybe something like this:

Brawl and melee attacks could be Brawn and Agility.

Ranged attacks could be Agility and Intellect.

Sneak attack could be Brawn or Agility and Cunning

Stealth could be Agility and Cunning.

Picking locks could be Agility and Intellect.

Perception could be Intellect and Cunning.

Minions would just use one attribute since the other number is determined by group size.

Just a a few ideas. Any thoughts.

I guess I really have to ask "why would you want to do this?" The Genesys system has been well tested and vetted. It is not perfect because no system ever will or can be. The Skill system is core to how it all works, I am not sure what is gained by removing it, nor can I see any need for a "lite" version of this game. At its root it is already an incredibly 'lite' game system, especially compared to such games as D20 or Rolemaster. The core mechanics of how to build a dice pool cover what, like 10 - 15 pages at most?

My two cents would be if you want a system that uses a core mechanic similar to that of the"John Carter 2d20" system, then why not just use that system vs Genesys?

I wouldn’t call Genesys incredibly lite. I would say it is more of a medium crunch game. Not bad but not incredibly lite. So I guess we will agree to disagree on that one.

i don’t see how skills are core to the system. They are used to build dice pools but if an alternate method can be used then no don’t think that would destroy the system.

As to why I don’t just play the John Carter system and not Genesys, I like the Genesys dice mechanic better and I don’t really have a connection to the John Carter setting.

I don't get why people are so hostile to this idea. I certainly couldn't see myself implementing it at my table, but it's pretty mechanically sound and doesn't really violate the design philosophy of Genesys at all.

5 hours ago, fjw70 said:

I wouldn’t call Genesys incredibly lite. I would say it is more of a medium crunch game. Not bad but not incredibly lite. So I guess we will agree to disagree on that one.

i don’t see how skills are core to the system. They are used to build dice pools but if an alternate method can be used then no don’t think that would destroy the system.

As to why I don’t just play the John Carter system and not Genesys, I like the Genesys dice mechanic better and I don’t really have a connection to the John Carter setting.

Suffice it to say I have never really understood the desire to tinker with game systems, especially when the tinkering replaces what I feel IS a core mechanic to the Genesys system in skills. Will it make the game unplayable if you replace it with something else? Probably not, and if that is what you enjoy then go for it.

Its all personal preference in the end, but Genesys is based off a mature and well tested game engine, so I simply feel its not worth such radical surgery.

2 hours ago, Tom Cruise said:

I don't get why people are so hostile to this idea. I certainly couldn't see myself implementing it at my table, but it's pretty mechanically sound and doesn't really violate the design philosophy of Genesys at all.

The OP asked this forum for their opinions about a suggestion regarding a house rule and I gave mine which is "I don't like it." That doesn't make me right, but it also doesn't make my opinion "hostile".

If people at the table enjoy house ruled or home brewed games, then its all fine.

I'm not sure the current attribute set is suited to this sort of system. Ag+Br makes sense for fighting, but some of these combinations seem like a stretch. Also, this change would require re-writing and re-balancing a lot of the talents. You would also probably need to re-balance XP costs and character advancement, since it makes attributes even more important.

I do think that the idea itself has potential, but you might be better off just writing a new, more story-game-y system that uses the Genesys dice rather than applying the idea to the Genesys system.

This won't work to me.

I agree that some skill checks could use an alternative stat sometimes or that the idea to use one more thing than stat + skill, like a second stat providing bonus, could work well, but just two stats and no skills, don't make any sense to me.

The skill ranks works as knowledge and practice in that area. I can't concebe a system without this as a main part of any check. And just use a mental stat to anything is far away from a good idea to me. If anyone here know something about multiple intelligences just as an example, know what I'm talking about. It's impossible to be good in anything, even for a genius.

From what I saw of Star Trek during the Beta the skill groups only affected the critical chances, base task rolls were just rolling under your stat so there was very little there needing stripping out skills wise. i haven't seen any of the other 2D20 systems so can't judge beyond that. From my personal point of view my thought process would be if I want to change the system that much why not just us a system which already works this way. If the dice are the only things that you want to keep for example perhaps try to retrofit them to John Carter 2D20 instead. I had been thinking about porting Symbaroum into Genesys because I like the narrative system but having thought about it I decided that there was no point because in order to make it feel like Symbaroum I may as well use the system that comes with it. Your game your rules though.

This is like the two-column variant of the Fate RPG, but really just one column bent back on itself. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea, although you do have to rebalance XP gains regarding when characteristics can be improved, and you might want to consider adding one or two to round out combinations rather than trying to squeeze them all through pairs of the six.

Also, if all you have are characteristics, you can't make them so difficult to improve as core Genesys has it or the characters will feel static. OTOH, talents are great, and sinking points into them are certainly worth it too. Perhaps that will suffice, but the talents are highly situational, and the characteristics will be in play far more often.

One thing I like about the idea is it skirts around what skills to include and what skills to remove for a given campaign setting. That's a far tougher choice than it seems when you actually try to answer the question. It's easy to increase the number of skills, but harder to combine them without creating uber skills.

The biggest drawback of your approach is that you'll have players contorting their decision making to play to their own strengths. Not that they don't do this anyway, but a character with high Intellect for instance will argue that everything they do is the result of INT + X. And you can't simply pick the two skills for the PC player without room for negotiating the choice or they'll feel a lack of co-authorship of the narrative.

8 hours ago, Dragonshadow said:

This is like the two-column variant of the Fate RPG, but really just one column bent back on itself. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea, although you do have to rebalance XP gains regarding when characteristics can be improved, and you might want to consider adding one or two to round out combinations rather than trying to squeeze them all through pairs of the six.

Also, if all you have are characteristics, you can't make them so difficult to improve as core Genesys has it or the characters will feel static. OTOH, talents are great, and sinking points into them are certainly worth it too. Perhaps that will suffice, but the talents are highly situational, and the characteristics will be in play far more often.

One thing I like about the idea is it skirts around what skills to include and what skills to remove for a given campaign setting. That's a far tougher choice than it seems when you actually try to answer the question. It's easy to increase the number of skills, but harder to combine them without creating uber skills.

The biggest drawback of your approach is that you'll have players contorting their decision making to play to their own strengths. Not that they don't do this anyway, but a character with high Intellect for instance will argue that everything they do is the result of INT + X. And you can't simply pick the two skills for the PC player without room for negotiating the choice or they'll feel a lack of co-authorship of the narrative.

Good thoughts. I was thinking of adding a Senses characteristic.

I want to see how the John Carter game handles progression. It may give me some ideas for how to handle progression in this Genesys variant.

I am not too worried about players not selecting their own abilities to combine for a roll. That is how most RPG work.

Another possible variant is using the 2d20 Star Trek approach and having six Skill groups (I forgot what STA calls them) instead. So one of the groups could be combat and you could roll Brawn+Combat for melee attacks, Agility+Combat for ranged attacks, and Intellect+Combat for mass combat. Conan uses a similar approach for NPCs.