I've been world building a setting for about 15 years for a novel I'm probably never going to write. Now that Genesys (haven't bought it yet) came out I'd like to turn my setting into an RPG for a few friends that seem interested in RPGs but don't have much experience. My wife has zero RPG experience and is a bit hesitant, mostly because we have a baby that is very attached to her, breastfeeding and all. But she's not really into the idea of RPGs, so in an effort to bribe her I gave her character a name and backstory (no stats yet) that combines her four favorite TV show characters, which she seemed to be genuinely excited about. This game is going to be ROLEplay heavy with as little crunch as possible. I'm starting a session zero with everyone via individual text messages and we will probably actually start the game around July 2018.

My setting is a survival mystery with some real historical figures that get displaced and show up as NPCs. No magic or monsters in the traditional sense.

Any advice?

If you're looking for less dice rolling and more narration and in-character play, you might consider using the one-check resolution rules for any sort of tense, fast-paced encounter. It allows you to resolve the situation in a single roll for each player. If you have the Edge of the Empire core rulebook (didn't notice if you do or not based on the OP) there's a section on that. Simply put, the combat or chase or whatever is handled in a single roll for that character, with the dice roll they make representing whatever they think their time is best served during the encounter. For a soldier it might be fighting, for a doctor it might be helping others to safety or patching up wounds, for a wilderness expert it might be finding an escape route for the party, etc. You roll, the difficulty is the skill of the opposition but turned into difficulty and challenge dice. Success means you do what you intended, with advantage and triumphs giving you or your allies additional boons. Failure means you don't succeed and can potentially suffer from harm or other ill consequences, with threat and despair making things worse.

As far as narrative situations, the social encounter rules from the genesys core book are great and have variable goals and setups (could be just arriving at a mutually beneficial arrangement, could be a single roll or could be a series of rolls based on the method the characters are using to convince an npc of something or to get the npc to concede to their requests). More details on how to run it are in the book of course.

Make sure you and your players are on the same page about what kind of game this is, with survival and mystery at the forefront and less of the "shooty mcshootface" stuff. Encourage them to spend experience on knowledge skills (or whatever skills will primarily be a focus in your game!) to help them along with the environments and situations they encounter.

44 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

Make sure you and your players are on the same page about what kind of game this is, with survival and mystery at the forefront and less of the "shooty mcshootface" stuff. Encourage them to spend experience on knowledge skills (or whatever skills will primarily be a focus in your game!) to help them along with the environments and situations they encounter.

That's going to be tricky. Most modern tech doesn't work in this world (by design), only low-tech gear and weapons. I want to keep everything super mysterious but I don't want them to get frustrated for having unrealized expectations either. I want to tell them just enough to get them excited, but let them figure out where they are and what's happening very gradually.

5 minutes ago, Mychal'el said:

That's going to be tricky. Most modern tech doesn't work in this world (by design), only low-tech gear and weapons. I want to keep everything super mysterious but I don't want them to get frustrated for having unrealized expectations either. I want to tell them just enough to get them excited, but let them figure out where they are and what's happening very gradually.

You do what you like but generally it's suggested- regardless of the system used- to be on the same page with your players about expectations and the type of campaign you are running. This is especially suggested for newer groups with newer GMs.

Speaking from experience, being in a game where you don't understand the rules or scope because the GM isn't communicating those things can be incredibly frustrating for players.

1 minute ago, GroggyGolem said:

Speaking from experience, being in a game where you don't understand the rules or scope because the GM isn't communicating those things can be incredibly frustrating for players.

Yes, I desperately want to avoid frustrated players. Any ideas on how to do give them rules & scope while keeping the setting enigmatic?

Just now, Mychal'el said:

Yes, I desperately want to avoid frustrated players. Any ideas on how to do give them rules & scope while keeping the setting enigmatic?

They should know at least something about the setting unless you're treating their characters as amnesiacs or "strangers in a strange land". If you are treating them as such, just let them know that. Open communication is the best advice I can really give. Even if you can't tell them the setting doesn't have cellphones, for instance, maybe you can tell them what skills they might find more useful for the campaign. Especially if the campaign you are running, as you said above, doesn't have a lot of modern tech. Because the last thing a player would want is to put points into a skill only for the GM to say "we aren't using that skill in this setting" or "all technology of this type doesn't work, so the skill is moot". Part of this is in the way you setup the game with Genesys, as you can change, remove, add or swap certain skills to make it make more sense for the setting you're using. So no ipads, laptops & smartphones? Cool, just remove the Computers skill from your setting rules.

29 minutes ago, GroggyGolem said:

"strangers in a strange land".

I will make it clear that this is a "strangers in a strange land" setting for sure. I've even used that phrase with at least one player.

During the game I want them to find out right away that their smartphones don't work. And they all just survived a water landing of a commercial jetliner so nobody has guns with them. And the emergency flares get dropped in the ocean.

If they come to me with a backstory of a computer hacker, that makes for great character development from a storytelling perspective, but I don't want to crush the player's dreams.

Does anybody know of any FFG Star Wars RPG adventures that I could pick from and adapt to my setting? Any adventures where the PCs are stuck on a planet with low-tech natives perhaps? I'd like to borrow some ideas for some encounters.

Mimban is a planet that comes to mind that is full of primitive cultures. Mimbanites and the Coway, which are basically two differently colored tribes of the same species if I recall correctly. I used them in one of my games, one was entirely warlike and the other was peaceful and welcoming but held a dark secret.

3 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Mimban...

...dark secret.

Sounds great! Which FFG book is that from?

I think "Nexus of Power" has adventure seeds and encounters that take place on Weik, a planet that's basically at medieval fantasy levels of technology.

47 minutes ago, Mychal'el said:

Sounds great! Which FFG book is that from?

Oh, my bad, I forgot you were looking for a written adventure. If it helps, I'll explain more about the adventure I ran.

It was just an adventure I came up with based on the Legends information of Mimban and the two tribes of people there. Initially they came to the planet to hunt down the bounty for another player and had to track him throughout the swampy forests of Mimban, encountering both cultures along the way. Two of the party ended up getting captured after exploring the temple and the other two came in to rescue them only to talk things out with the Mimbanites and help them in a ritual. It was a dark moment in the Force Sensitive's story and he has since learned from it and grown into a better person in his quest to become a Jedi.The dark secret revolved around the temple that is on the planet. The Mimbanites built their village around it and members went down there secretly and were learning things from the temple (a holocron inside it was speaking to them throughout the lower levels). They held sacrifices of Coway members and such there to appease the dark presence that taught them Galactic Basic and many other things. When the group came, one player appeased the dark presence by swapping out the bounty another player needed to take in alive with a Coway for the ritual and ended up taking the sith holocron at its request, because it was done with the people.

4 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

Oh, my bad, I forgot you were looking for a written adventure. If it helps, I'll explain more about the adventure I ran.

No worries, that sounds exciting!

In mine I had the idea of an ancient-alien type structure where the primitive natives worship and build their village around it too!

I'm hoping that if I fill my setting with many different options for the players, they can really feel like they are in control of their own story and it will evolve into something special.

On 2/2/2018 at 5:04 PM, rogue_09 said:

I think "Nexus of Power" has adventure seeds and encounters that take place on Weik, a planet that's basically at medieval fantasy levels of technology.

Thanks! I looked up the Planet Weik, and is so much like my setting! The only drawback is there is no real magic in my setting, and so that might rule out most of Force and Destiny . Although there is some sci-fi tech in my setting, and that would probably be considered 'magic' by a primitive society.

I was thinking that "Friends Like These" could possibly be adapted to my setting, but I've only briefly glanced at the book. I'd like some more recommendations before dropping any indisposable income.

On 2/4/2018 at 1:48 AM, Mychal'el said:

I was thinking that "Friends Like These" could possibly be adapted to my setting, but I've only briefly glanced at the book. I'd like some more recommendations before dropping any indisposable income.

Friends Like These involves planetary travel, a looming Imperial invasion, crashed capitol ships, and droid factories. It would take quite a bit of work to adapt it to what you have described. Not impossible, but a lot to bite off.

How long of a campaign are you hoping to run? With your first time out I would recommend a compact story arc that runs over two or three sessions of three to four hours each. Try to end each session with a big revelation or cliffhanger. Add in plot threads that can lead to a more expansive story, but have some satisfying resolution.

Hook your players with hard-won success and they'll want to explore your world.

On 2/17/2018 at 6:07 PM, O the Owl said:

Friends Like These involves planetary travel, a looming Imperial invasion, crashed capitol ships, and droid factories. It would take quite a bit of work to adapt it to what you have described. Not impossible, but a lot to bite off.

Anything I barrow from will need reskinning for sure. Spaceships become boats and whatnot. But I'm open to any suggestions.

On 2/17/2018 at 6:07 PM, O the Owl said:

How long of a campaign are you hoping to run? With your first time out I would recommend a compact story arc that runs over two or three sessions of three to four hours each. Try to end each session with a big revelation or cliffhanger. Add in plot threads that can lead to a more expansive story, but have some satisfying resolution.

Hook your players with hard-won success and they'll want to explore your world.

It all depends on the first session and if the players like it.

The first session will be very similar to the pilot episode of LOST except they aren't on an island.

Then I want ancient Egyptians to kidnap them.

6 hours ago, Mychal'el said:

The first session will be very similar to the pilot episode of LOST except they aren't on an island.

Then I want ancient Egyptians to kidnap them.

Awesome, sounds intriguing.

6 hours ago, Mychal'el said:

Anything I barrow from will need reskinning. Spaceships become boats and whatnot. But I'm open to any suggestions.

So, spoilers for Friends Like These below:

Friends Like These sees a small rebel squad (the PCs) sent to a planet with orders to arrange its defense against a looming invasion. There is a countdown to the arrival of the invasion force, and then another length of time that the defenders have to hold out before a Rebel battle group can come to the rescue.

- Have it be a small city threatened by a large band of raiders or rampaging company of soldiers. A sort of Battle of Helm's Deep meets Seven Samurai.

The planet is a former droid foundry that was a battlefield during the Clone Wars. Its surface is strewn with crashed capitol ships. There is conflict among the leaders of the planet that the PCs need to resolve. This hopefully results in the better strategest/leader commanding, and the experienced factory supervisor in charge of building defenses.

- In a fantasy setting the crashed ships could be damaged siege weapons and perhaps the mass graves of fallen soldiers (with their weapons and armor). The foundries could be armor shops organized into a smith's guild, or if you are planning high fantasy there could be alchemy breweries or a mage's college able to craft magical defenses.

In the adventure there are two nearby planets to visit in the hopes of securing allies in the upcoming fight. One is home to a band of Mandalorian mercenaries and warring tribes of Talz. On the other the PCs must meet with a slaver prince who has several hundred slaves that can join the fight.

- The band of mercenary warriors could have their stronghold at the foot of a nearby mountain, also home to wildings (or half-giants if your campaign has them). The slaver could have his slave pens and ziggurat in the river delta to the south (or perhaps he is a powerful necromancer that could raise a small army of undead for the right price).

The final act sees the battle played out, relying on Mass Combat rules with the PCs able to perform tasks and achieve various objectives to affect the roll that decides the outcome of the current phase of the battle.

- Mass Combat rules appear in an abreiviated form, and are robust enough to run the battle. Expanded rules are printed in the source book Lead By Example.

The phases of the final battle include three that take place in space and six that involve ground combat. If they cannot delay the Imperial forces long enough, the PCs and other leaders are captured.

- I would begin the battle with calvary charges against the enemy forces as they approach. Then there would be exchanges of siege weapon fire while the PCs help defend forward emplacements before falling back. The enemy attacks the outer wall, then the inner wall, floods into the city for street to street fighting. At last they reach the keep (or mage's college or great ironworks) where the PCs et al mount a final, desperate defense.

- If you are using a high fantasy world I recommend magical beasts, alchemal weapons, animated skeletons, knights astride flying mounts, etc.

1 hour ago, O the Owl said:

Friends Like These

A sort of Battle of Helm's Deep meets Seven Samurai.

Your suggestions are excellent and just confirmed my thoughts of it being good for my low-fantasy setting. I think you sold me on the book.

I think I'll use it after we've had a couple sessions to solidify the setting and get the players invested a bit. I already have factions that could fit those profiles pretty easily.

I also have a pirate faction that I could possibly use Mask of the Pirate Queen for if the players want to keep playing.

If you have any other good book recommendations that would translate well into low-fantasy, keep em' coming!

Also, the premise of my campaign is that the PCs are modern characters who have been time/space-displaced to a more primitive world so I'm thinking I'm going to have to merge some skills like:

• driving/riding
• piloting/operating
• photography*/ranged(light)????
• computers/mechanics

*My wife wants to play a Veronica Mars/Chloe Sullivan type character who uses a camera as a weapon (figuratively)