Could I see what you're working on?

Most of it is just crazy thoughts for now, I think the blood elves are the one thing I have the most concrete so far. I'm mostly building from a lot of the same foundations you did for yours, but I have a couple of divergent thoughts on things that I want to see how they run their course before putting them anywhere.

I'm more in the experimentation phase of things for most of it. Mixing Karma with Story Points (obsidimen add 2 Story Points to GM pool at the beginning, windlings add 2 to players' pool), had a crazy notion today of separating careers (which would still give you skills and tie more into the artisan skill side of ED) and Disciplines (giving each Discipline a set of 'magic' actions very similar to what's already there), and some other random thoughts.

It's all still very theoretical, and some of it like the career/discipline thing I like on the surface, but I'm afraid will add too many fiddly bits to be worthwhile.

When I was first cooking this up, I was going to be using the Force Karma Die to enhance magical abilities. The number of Karma dice would go up by buying a Talent, just like in Star Wars. If you got white pips, the karma added 1 Suc or 1 Adv to your roll. Black pips would do the same, but at a cost of 1 Strain per pip, to simulate Blood Magic Strain.

When Genesys did away with the Force die, I got rid of that idea. But maybe it's something you'd like to try out.

I was more thinking of just tying in the Story Points as Karma and tying those things together, with a touch of the superheroes idea to simulate the open-ended rolls from Earthdawn. So, a Thief who uses a Story Point to add to a check to sneak around not only gets the upgrade, but rerolls Triumphs and adds that result to the total result sort of thing.

I've played a little bit with the Super Attributes mechanic. It's very fun, but it's not reliable. I'm playtesting allowing Adept Career skills to be "Super" to keep the exploding dice of Earthdawn feel.

I'd be concerned that adding that mechanic would make Story Points only used for upgrading checks, which is already (arguably) their best mechanical use, outside of specific Talents.

2 minutes ago, dougansf said:

I've played a little bit with the Super Attributes mechanic. It's very fun, but it's not reliable. I'm playtesting allowing Adept Career skills to be "Super" to keep the exploding dice of Earthdawn feel.

Maybe even a "meet in the middle" situation where you have your career skills, but also your Discipline skills within those that are asterisked or something in the list that give you the explody option. Maybe let the player choose 2 with a T2 talent that gives you a third?

So here's an idea I had regarding separating Disciplines from Careers:

What if some of the more overtly 'magical' Talents from Earthdawn were covered as magical actions for skills that each Discipline had? Each Discipline could be covered by 3 'thread skills' (or something along those lines barring better terminology), and then each skill determines which actions you can take and how they work?

Example: The Thief has the Sneaky, Stabby, and Charmy 'thread skills' (just throwing skill names out there, but I'm pretty sure I just nailed it on the first try). Stabby has the 'Melee Attack' action at the Novice level and 'Second Weapon' at the Journeyman level, each giving out different bonuses based off of how it works.

More examples:

Melee Attack Thread Action
You gain a number of advantages equal to ranks in your thread skill to all Melee (Light) and Melee (Heavy) checks.

If I continue down this rabbit hole, I'll probably set something up that limits how many actions you get per thread skill or something so you just don't have access to a giant crapton of actions through each skill, there's still some pick and choose and customization while trying to maintain some of the light-crunchiness of Genesys.

That sounds more like something I'd expect out of Fate or Fate Accelerated.

Obviously I'm biased that Disciplines are Careers, as that's what I built.

I think it could work, but I'd be very careful about overlap, which is easy with such loose terms. If Thieves get Stabby (which IMO they shouldn't), then does that make them eligible for Crushing Blow and other high end Warrior talents?

If I were choosing three for Thief it would be something like Sneak, Deceive, Perceive.

Let's see if I can through together a more cohesive example...Clearly the categories might not be actually how I'd end up with things, it's more just to set the framework so you can see how I'm looking at things.

Thief
Thieves take stuff from people and are super good at it.

The Thief gains access to Thief Weaving and gains 1 rank in Deceive, Perceive, or Sneak .

Initiate
A Thief chooses two skills to become Discipline Skills: Coordination, Deception, Skulduggery, or Stealth .

Karma: Once per session, as an out-of-turn incidental, you may spend a Story Point to ignore some setback dice on a Deception check.

Deceive Thread Actions: Avoid Blow, Conceal Object, First Impression, Haggle, Surprise Strike, Taunt

Perceive Thread Actions: Awareness, Danger Sense, Disarm Trap, Melee Weapons, Missile Weapons, Throwing Weapons

Sneak Thread Actions: Climbing, Great Leap, Lock Picking, Picking Pockets, Sprint, Stealthy Stride

Journeyman
A Thief chooses one skill from the Initiate list to become a Discipline Skill.

Karma: Once per session, you may spend a Story Point to reroll an check made to attack a surprised opponent.

Shadowcloak: For 2 Strain, upgrade Perception checks to spot you for the remainder of the scene.

Deceive Thread Actions: Blade Juggle, Dead Fall, Disguise Self, Engaging Banter, Mimic Voice

Perceive Thread Actions: False Sight, Second Weapon, Spot Armor Flaw, True Sight

Sneak Thread Actions: Call Missile, Fast Hand, Graceful Exit, Slough Blame

So the idea being that for the Thief, Melee Weapons may use their Perceive Thread Action, but the Air Sailor would have it in their Swashbuckling Thread Action list, so you wouldn't have to worry about how and where those might crossover into different areas of different Disciplines.

23 minutes ago, dougansf said:

Obviously I'm biased that Disciplines are Careers, as that's what I built.

Which is obviously not to poo-poo on your work. If I had to run an Earthdawn game tonight, I'd grab your doc and run with it and be happy.

Version 1.8 is now up. Including more Talents, Gear, and rules for Thread and Pattern Items.

Very nice job with the cover

Version 2.2 is now live.

Mostly this was a cosmetic update, establishing a color scheme. Some example Thread Items were included.

One big change was separating Conjure and Summon into two different magic actions.

Version 2.3 is now uploaded and ready for action.

Changes:

• Various Talents were tweaked. Including Great Leap, Astral Sight, Astral Sense, Astral Targeting, and Battle Shout.
• Crafting and Enchanting now exist (Alchemy has a purpose).
• Additional details about spellcasting dice modifiers and results.
• More Adversaries.
• Blood Pebble and Living Crystal armor have been combined into Blood Magic Armor, and are now similar to cybernetic sub-dermal "armor"

I have been very pleased to hear more people are using this document at their tables. As you can see from the credits page, I will happily add names of playtesters to the list if feedback is provided.

On 4/4/2018 at 8:39 AM, dougansf said:

I've been working on a hack for Earthdawn, by FASA Games for a while. It's still a work in progress, as there's a lot to cover. But this version has a solid basis to get people started.

I'd appreciate any feedback.

Earthdawn Genesys

My group just tried version 2.3 of Earthdawn Genesys and we simply loved it! Simply amazing!

We’ve been fans since FASA’s 1st edition and also love the FFG system in Star Wars Force and Destiny so this conversion is simply the best of both worlds for us...

Can’t wait for the next update!!!

On 11/15/2020 at 1:29 AM, Trepid Blackblade said:

My group just tried version 2.3 of Earthdawn Genesys and we simply loved it! Simply amazing!

We’ve been fans since FASA’s 1st edition and also love the FFG system in Star Wars Force and Destiny so this conversion is simply the best of both worlds for us...

Can’t wait for the next update!!!

Thanks Trepid. I'm elated to hear that people are playing Earthdawn Genesys and enjoying it. I'll never get bored of hearing it.

I've been an admin of an Earthdawn 4E community for several years. I recently ran a group of fellow admins through an Earthdawn Genesys module of mine. Their reactions as they got how Genesys worked were priceless.