Hello all. I've been enamored with Genesys ever since it came out, but haven't gotten round to play/run it as much as I would like. I do have experience with the Star Wars game, and I think the system is brilliant and fluid once you get used to cancel out the relevant symbols. I also think it strikes a nice balance - every result can be as fluffy and narravie as you want, or they could just be "eh, dunno, just give yourself a Blue die - next!"

It's safe to say that Genesys has been out for a while now, and some of you may be in an ongoing campaign, or a few adventures. How has the experience been for you so far? What do you like and dislike? And, of course, I'd love to know what settings and special rules you've incorporated in your games!

I came from a three days of demo at Modena Play (Italy), for Star Wars and Genesys.

Every single game group had a great time and no one had difficulty with the dice symbols; after a couple of shots they had already figured out which symbols cancel each other and how to use them to boost the story.

Moreover, I'm GM of two year long campaign (one EotE, one AoR+FaD).

What I can say is that me and my players are absolutely in love with this system. It's narrative and light, but the combat is deep enough and there are several tactical decisions that make each encounter satisfactory.

I'm waiting for Realms of Terrinoth to switch my other group from 13th Age to Genesys (they play in a fantasy settings).

What I like? All.

What I dislike? Nothing.

My group of friends and family are having a blast. We have 4 players normally on site, and my son and best friend who often join via Google Hangover video that I put up on a 42" TV that I also use as a digital battlemap, picture display, and other misc things.

We are playing a fantasy mash-up in a world I created taking inspiration from Mistborn, Stormlight Archives, Death Gate Novels, and other things I have made up or worked in. I especially am making use of the Elder Scrolls rules on these forums and will use Terrinoth in some fashion. A very war-torn world sees the return of the first of an ancient (roman-like) race that enlists the party to find out what happened to their ancient enemies that had imprisoned them 3,000 years ago. When the "romans" were imprisoned the moon shattered and the gods fell and no one remembers their names. A storm believe to be the forgotten god's eternal battle, the Godstorm, moves like clockwork ravaging the continent but also depositing moonstones which are a source of magical power and the basis for most economies. In the wake of the loss of the gods and the constant destruction few great cities even exist, and powerful Urstones were found giving a few people near god-like powers each setting up a domain on the planet.

I am using a further fleshed out magic system I have cherry-picked from here and reddit plus some of my own. The summary is spell points separate from strain though strain can be used at a heavy cost if the spell points run out. I also use a magic system where there are ten schools (attack, Augment, Barrier, Conjure, Curse, Dispel, Divination, Enchantment, Heal, and illusion) and the player gets "dots" to spend on the schools individually equal to the square of their magic skill (1 for 1, 4 at rank 2, 9 at rank 3, etc) but no school can have more dots then the base rank. When casting spells they use the school rank rather than their skill roll. Magic skill is more a roleplaying choice and no limits on schools other than those given by the dot subsystem are used. The different magic skills do however give a choice of two different stats to use as the casting stat depending on the characters "traditions"

Combat I am trying out an active defense system where players can dodge (coordination using CUN of AGI), block (melee) or parry (melee) to avoid attacks against essentially the negative of the enemy's skill (YYG would become RRP difficulty for example.) It includes some subskills that use the armor/weapon properties as modifiers.

What do I like: the story-dice system. I love that any single roll has a mix of success/fail, threat/advantage, and triumph and despair. It makes situations more fun to tell out. I encourage players to act out the result, but it gives me good cues to help tell the tale.

Edit; here was my original written intro for the characters....

Gealach Briste - World of the Broken Moon...

A hundred generations ago the moon shattered, and so the gods have since fought as seen by a storm that both ravages and renews the world. Thes torm never ceases moving from region to region keeping an annual calendar of destruction. Most believe the first battle between the gods took place shattering the moon, others say it is because of the shattering of the moon the gods war. No mortal knows the truth, but it is the Godstorm that brings forth the shards of the broken moon leaving the gift of light and power in the wake of their destruction.

When the gods took to the eternal sky to fight under the shattered moon, the titans broke free and all civilization was destroyed. All life would have vanished too if it were not for the dragons and their great sacrifice. The dragonflights drove back the titans and sealed them in their elements prisons with the dragons’ own blood. The last of the dragons then departed this world with the promise that, should the Godstorm halt and the titans return, the dragonflights would once again join the fight. In their wake, the dragons would leave the dragonborn to maintain the faith and order.

Much is lost about the names of the gods that once oversaw the world, only that as they withdrew to fight, a portion of their divine power were the largest of the first moonstone to fall. These Urramclach (means honor-stones), or Urstones would see the rise of the Primal Lords each representing the prime forces that made up the world. The Primal Lords would carve kingdoms, though the Godstorm would prevent any great civilization from occuring . The lands claimed would take on the very aspects of the Primal Lord and their precious Urstone .

Good and evil have long since faded as driving forces giving away to simply law and chaos. Like pack alphas, the fight to the top is for the most powerful and cunning and their time is limited for only as long as they maintain the strength to hold their domains.

I've run 2 games of my Dragon Ball/DBZ setting, both went well so far. The special rules for that can be found here in the compiled resources topic.

The information given for archetype/species crafting as well as item and talent crafting has worked super well. I renamed the magic system to fit the setting (it's now the Ki system) but functionally it is exactly the same and works perfectly. The superhero tone helped capture the over-the-top nature of the Dragon Ball universe. I used custom talents either generic (flight, Ki sensing, special techniques) or specific to archetypes (super saiyan transformation, frieza race multiple forms, namekian fusion).

Been great, hilarious experiences overall, I'm just unsure of my free time going forward so I may unfortunately have to end a couple of my rpg groups.

Intro went great! ...and then we spent literally the entire next game session trying to figure out if the GM was "messing" (but with the F word) them and this was some kind of elaborate LOST type "messed" up scenario where the Carrot and Celery people were some sort of mass drug hallucination and that everything they just did is some big elaborate lie that they need to see through.

...I kid you not. They're so trapped inside the WTF of the Intro, they spent 3 hours trying to "gather clues" on what happened. Which I suppose is A+ reaction to a first contact incident that you weren't expecting.. but.. LOL.

Oh.. and the Magic user is currently in jail for poking RANDOM people with fire trying to figure out if his finger tip was REALLY on fire. So.. they need to deal with THAT too.

Never played yet.

Me and my friends are playing Pathfinder but sometimes we just play Magic: the Gathering.

I was talking something last met if they want to try something new (but we played Star Wars for 10 sessions in 2016), they like scenarios like Cyberpunk, maybe this could be a new restart...

Ditched every other rules system. I was heavily investing into Kickstarter campaigns, hoping to find the right RPG. Not anymore. I'm sold. I'm actually saving money with Genesys!

I've been running an urban fantasy Far West campaign which will soon be replaced by Terrinoth; the western could not survive the hype for Terrinoth.

I've been running another urban fantasy campaign, but held in a world similar to our own but yet not our own, in an era not unlike inbetween WW1 and WW2.

So far so good. No complaint! Some of my players still have some D&D tactical reflexes (hey I got line of sight... yeah but there's lots of people in between you and the target so I call for a setback die or two... mumbles), but it'll pass eventually. I hope. I have to admit that I wish we had some guidelines to turn Genesys into a more tactical thing, for those groups that can't let go of the D&D mindset, but hey, it is a very minor tidbit.

Right now, my GM is running a Call of Cthullu campaign. It has been extremely amazing so far. We started in the early 1980's, but some stuff happened, and our universe disappeared. We have now found ourselves in an alternate universe in the 1940's. Needless to say, some fun role-playing happened. I am excited for Realms of Terrinoth. However, me and my group came from D&D, and so the magic system, we kind of, threw it out. I have converted the powers from Savage Worlds, and it seems to be balanced enough, still testing it out. Hopefully, I can get it up and running for a podcast that I have been wanting to do.

Have any of you guys attempted to do a different magic system?

First session got delayed, frustratingly! Now it will start this sunday in my submarine exploration on Ganymede scifi-regressed-to-steampunk setting. Never been this excited for a campaign, can't wait.

12 hours ago, Doomgrin75 said:

I am using a further fleshed out magic system I have cherry-picked from here and reddit plus some of my own. The summary is spell points separate from strain though strain can be used at a heavy cost if the spell points run out. I also use a magic system where there are ten schools (attack, Augment, Barrier, Conjure, Curse, Dispel, Divination, Enchantment, Heal, and illusion) and the player gets "dots" to spend on the schools individually equal to the square of their magic skill (1 for 1, 4 at rank 2, 9 at rank 3, etc) but no school can have more dots then the base rank. When casting spells they use the school rank rather than their skill roll. Magic skill is more a roleplaying choice and no limits on schools other than those given by the dot subsystem are used. The different magic skills do however give a choice of two different stats to use as the casting stat depending on the characters "traditions"

Would you be willing to share more details about this? Sounds really interesting!

I'll keep it brief.

I love everything about Genesys and Star Wars rpg's from FFG.

The mechanics are smooth, the narrative dice are great and they seem to be the best mechanics i have used in a long time.

Long live FFG!!!

1 hour ago, sithlord71 said:

I'll keep it brief.

I love everything about Genesys and Star Wars rpg's from FFG.

The mechanics are smooth, the narrative dice are great and they seem to be the best mechanics i have used in a long time.

Long live FFG!!!

When we first started out with EOTE, I hated the narrative die system. Then I learned those tables were SUGGESTIONS and not "Do this when you roll this". And then I fell in love with most of the EOTE. I think Talents could be a little more interesting, but it is what it is.

Anyone else's combat narration feel like you're playing an RPG of the Stanley Cup play offs? "The bad guy rounds the corner and fires! <Insert PING! sound effect> Oh! The bullet pinged JUST off the shelf to the right just missing Player X's head. That one surely puckered up his butthole!"

I'm hoping to start my first Genesys campaign in the next month or so. My group was played with the Star Wars RPG quite a bit, and we've done a few one-off Genesys games just to get a handle on the changes. But I'm hoping to use Genesys to make my first ever homebrew system. I've made small changes and house rules to many different games over the years, but never a full system homebrew.

It's going to be a mash up of Pirates of the Caribbean, One Piece, and the Age of Sail. When I'm all done creating the complete first draft I'll share it on the forum for others to use and critique.

On 4/13/2018 at 7:27 PM, Trekonomist said:

Right now, my GM is running a Call of Cthullu campaign. It has been extremely amazing so far. We started in the early 1980's, but some stuff happened, and our universe disappeared. We have now found ourselves in an alternate universe in the 1940's. Needless to say, some fun role-playing happened. I am excited for Realms of Terrinoth. However, me and my group came from D&D, and so the magic system, we kind of, threw it out. I have converted the powers from Savage Worlds, and it seems to be balanced enough, still testing it out. Hopefully, I can get it up and running for a podcast that I have been wanting to do.

Have any of you guys attempted to do a different magic system?

I like where your GM's head is at. My players, assuming they can figure out they're not insane... (which is a 50/50 right now).. are heading towards something similar. First Contact with an Alien Species, but that's not the only threat they bring. Aliens are the obvious problem, but lurking in the technology that all the advanced species use to get around space faster than light rests an ancient, and unfathomable evil hoping to get out and feast on the universe. And as of right now, the only ones who have a clue... are the guys trying to convince themselves that the Kobolds dressed up as Hershey kisses were drugged up hallucinations and the mage can't ACTUALLY conjure magic. ..and I'm up to some ingenius plot of doom and there aren't really aliens. It's just a huge, off the bat plot twist. ...my world is doomed.

So, I have started a Genesys campaign. It is a Power Rangers Alternate Universe game. Session 0 was fantastic. We all got along. We all had fun. Everyone laughed and no one detracted from the fact that we were there to make characters and to get things in order.

Then there was session 1. I had commissioned one of my players who is a musician to make a themesong for us. It turned out great and she is still fine tuning it. The players were also SO great. They saw the storyhook and leapt on it HARD. We all had a blast. They worked as a team. There were some unexpected moments. It was all great and all good. Someone ended it with "We're the Power Rangers"

Session 1 yesterday went very well! My players are on Saturn's moon Ganymede in an exploratory submarine trying to find a sustainable energy source because Earth can no longer support its colonies.

The session began with character building and giving them the chance to flesh out the world, which they embraced. Then I discussed why I liked Genesys - crunchy mechanics, but all those mechanics serve collaborative narrative building. They were very into that.

So the session began with them investigating a base that claimed they had found an energy source, but an internal religious conflict was blocking any progress. They had a lot of great roleplaying and out of the box thinking to solve the conflict nonviolently, and then set up to defend against pirates after the same energy source. Came up with some good plans (though rolls weren't always in their favor) and we ended as the fight broke out. They all left very excited and energized for the next session.

My campaign in Genesys takes place in a world I've been slowly building for well around five years now (having spent the last year or two working on it quite diligently). The whole concept is to present a vast and highly diverse world of many nations and peoples, which contains upwards of eighteen human races (no stock fantasy races like elves, dwarves, or orcs, though there are a couple custom built non-human races), a vast landscape filled to the brim with differing landscapes, and a wide array of problems that need solving and that I've been stringing the players along to choose between.

Lengthy Campaign Explanation

Our group is comprised of a distant warrior from the northern deserts named Shamar (running from lost loved ones and seeking to crush the dark forces that took them while fearing letting anyone draw close again), a probably crazy Duke/Knight Errant named Thibault (who is on the most dangerous midlife crisis as he abandoned his family and lands to seek a glorious death and become a legend), and a friendly merchant from the trade imbued Lakelands named Theodore (the glue that keeps our madness from falling to pieces).

The game has so far been:

• A long and arduous journey on ship that has involved the Lord they were working for being killed first session (which I didn't expect at all, but which has driven the entire game);
• Tthe PCs arriving at an isolated island and killing a bone creature that was totally peaceful until its baby got killed (because of the PCs in part);
• Resting briefly in a town before saving it as it got sacked from raiders (with one player losing an arm in a low-magic setting);
• A player missing from the town action (due to IRL things) to go on a vision quest to discover he has access to Mythica (mythical powers and such);
• The group finally getting a breath of fresh air as they rest in an idyllic town (protected by a jealous spirit-like creature), learn about the state of the world (from a very educated woman of untold age), and finally decide where they want to go next:
  • Go to the homeland of Thibault to "amass an army" (but we all know he's just going back to encounter his family and get royally served for ditching them),
  • Go to the mystical Sylvan Forests (which several characters have had important dreams about) and try to unlock a power to Save the World,
  • Maybe get around to being merchants someday.
• And all of this has been tied together by the plotpoint of a magical Staff of Life the PCs have been lugging around, a wondrous artifact of immense value and power that they're trying to figure out what the heck to do with (part of their current plan is to take it to the above mentioned Sylvan Forest for the above mentioned World Saving).

My Thoughts on Our Game

So all of that lengthy explanation is to say that my game has been going quite splendidly (having lasted to about the seventh session now), and has been loads of fun. I've always loved the Star Wars RPG from FFG, and have always lamented that I couldn't play it with other settings--then Genesys came along and made it all easy as pie. We've done a few house rules (making combat harder and more dangerous, making Talents a smidge easier to get, using Force Dice for Story Points because the light/dark dichotomy works for my setting), but overall the base rules have carried themselves as always. I'm excited as this campaign goes forward, as well as for trying out other genres with my favorite system.

Sadly my one-shot (springboard) died a death last night, players wouldn’t engage with the system at all.

I’ll take the blame as GM, I clearly didn’t highlight the advantages of Genesys over their preferred system.

Sadly this means Genesys will just be a collected game for me

On 4/13/2018 at 10:51 PM, lbwoodard said:

Would you be willing to share more details about this? Sounds really interesting!

Here is my public google drive folder. The different docs I use are in there and are a lot of compilations of things found on these forums with some tweaks. These are far from "done." I am waiting to incorporate Terronith stuff and then I might make a print-out and get spiral-bound a couple copies for my home group.

Google Drive Public Folder

Not played yet but going to in probably 3-4 months, so slowly working on what I will pitch to my group. Two scenarios stand out:

1. Late Republic Rome. I’ve talked about this on the forum before and it’s my long time obsession. Something set during the Socii War, for example, end as Sulla becomes Dictator of Rome.

2. Traveller. No lifepath stuff. Just a straight Traveller game, like, PCs are the crew of a ship, maybe working for the sub-sector Duke at the start of the Fifth Frontier War.

On 4/17/2018 at 8:39 AM, Doomgrin75 said:

Here is my public google drive folder. The different docs I use are in there and are a lot of compilations of things found on these forums with some tweaks. These are far from "done." I am waiting to incorporate Terronith stuff and then I might make a print-out and get spiral-bound a couple copies for my home group.

Google Drive Public Folder

I've only skimmed through the magic rules you've come up with, but WOW this is great! Perfect for a setting closer to D&D than Terrinoth. I really like the Genesys magic rules as is, and will probably use them later just because they're so much simpler. But, since I'm converting a current 5e campaign to the Genesys system your rules are going to be making an appearance! Thanks so much for being willing to share your hard work.

2 hours ago, lbwoodard said:

I've only skimmed through the magic rules you've come up with, but WOW this is great! Perfect for a setting closer to D&D than Terrinoth. I really like the Genesys magic rules as is, and will probably use them later just because they're so much simpler. But, since I'm converting a current 5e campaign to the Genesys system your rules are going to be making an appearance! Thanks so much for being willing to share your hard work.

I cannot claim ownership of everything in there. I am definitely a scavenger, but thank you none the less!

I launched my campaign prior to the Genesys release so I ended up uisng OggDude's app to essentially make trees for more or less everything. Not every career idea, or spell etc, but what my guys actually expressed interest in. It wasn't clear at first how they were going to open up the Talent tree option in Genesys. I have no regrets going my way since sometimes too many choices can be a bad thing. My guys certainly love it regardless so I call it a win.

My perspective is that I think the mechanics work even better in a fantasy setting than in Star Wars. I find all manner of ways to reward them with 'stuff', and the trees are part of that. I award xp, but I can also give casters and crafters a 'step' in their spells and formula as well. It's the way a campaign can really be drawn out and not seem monotonous that I particularly like in the system.

The same as in Star Wars, characters spool up in lethality quite fast, but they remain squishy throughout, consequently I find it much easier to challenge players in this system than in a D20 setting. If anything given the higher amount of close combat I am finding the fantasy setting even more lethal to players, which is a good thing. Beating the **** out of players is easy, but the system makes the leap to death quite a bit harder.

From the players perspective we have all ranges of age and RPG table time, people who were there at D&Ds birth like me, to one who was introduced to RPGs at the table. Everyone prefers the narrative mechanics to D20, the newest player in particular loathes the older dice mechanics.

I've been running them through wotc Tomb of Annihilation the last few months, although they have reached the end game there, probably still 5 to 10 sessions in the final lair, but it is wrapping up. I intend to 'undo' Faerun in some fashion or portal them, or something, and launch into a home brew build as we go world next. Gonna be a personal/warhmmer/witcher-esque kinda thing. Had my artist buddy print off a nice canvas world map poster size, and I've been chipping away at names/places/faces to get ready.

They are really good, and everyone is having fun BUT it's the magic system which we all see as just TOO open. I mean we played Cthulhuian campaign and we had to figure out the magic system. And granted there have been a lot of bumps in the road and we all would get together and work with them. It just overall seems that FFGs answer is to homebrew rules. Which work but yeah. We do have a lot of fun with this system.