I am quite interested in SotB, but while I own Genesys and RoT, I never played either because frankly, I have no time to create adventures or campaigns. Between two toddlers, a demanding job and extensive business travels, I rely on the work of others when I GM.

I understand the concept of Genesys, being a toolkit for creative GMs, and I love the narrative dice system (GMed Warhammer and Star Wars), however is FFG encouraging creative GMs to publish their adventures? Is there some kind of license they could do so on drivethru rpg etc? I only found one adventure for Genesys.

For RoT, one could take many of the D&D5e module and easily run that, but with SotB, what setting is close enough that one could take that as adventure? (And please don’t say Shadowrun, the whole magic and other races isn’t in SotB).

I’d love to buy into it, and run it, but I am just overwhelmed by the need to “create”

Cheers

Ceodryn

While I know you said no Shadowrun, a lot of the world and politics are similar. My Shadowrun GM ran us through (what I think was) a premade series of adventures that involved toppling a companies control in Seattle. The main story beats had nothing to do with magic or race.

I've never played Cyberpunk 2020, but I'm sure it has premade modules you could use.

I'm converting a Shadowrun adventure for my table. The races only matter in that there is a background of discrimination against orcs. I'm changing that to hatred of clones and/or bioroids. There are some magical monsters that are key to one encounter that are being replaced by the results of some genetic experiments. The rest is replacing SR corps etc with Android equivalents. I'm just using the adversary decks for the NPCs.

I don't know that any of this is faster than creating from scratch though, other than I like the idea behind the adventure.

I know Shadowrun would likely work, but the GM needs to know the setting well to translate the creatures or magic into Android's world equivalent style. I had forgotten Cyberpunk 2020, that could work!

I am certainly a fan of converting a module from one system to another, if it's a good scenario. But in my experience it's rarely any kind of time saver.

On the other hand, one of the cool things about the GeneSys toolkit, in my opinion anyway, is that if a given group is relatively mature (as gamers), you can run an adventure fairly fast and loose. Set the scene, and let the Players guide the story to some degree. inevitably I find that the Players will inspire me in unexpected ways if I'm paying attention.

But then, I've always preferred running sandbox games in almost any system. Taking 30 minutes the day before I run a game, and sort of sketching out loose beginning, middle, and end points, is often enough to get things going. I may know that I want A, B, and C to happen, but I'll allow the party to go where they want, and then I'll insert "A" in where it makes sense, same with "B" and "C". The random NPC's and situations the party encounters, will then inform the bigger story that evolves in my head for future sessions.

I've had good success with that approach in the past, when I run out of time to prepare a deeper story.

So how does that apply to the OP? Well, given that you (Ceodryn), have experience GMing WHF and SW, I'd think that-that familiarity should help negotiate GeneSys on the mechanical side, which just leaves adventure hooks really. I saw a YouTube video with Chris Perkins on a panel discussion about adventure creation once, where he mentioned taking inspiration from real world current events, and then adapting them into his (D&D), game. I thought that was a fairly clever approach for doing initial story sketches.

I don't know how useful any of that is within the context of finding solid pre-written adventures, but perhaps it offers you some ideas for how to let the game and story evolve organically? And thus, possibly relieve some of the stress of "Needing" a fully fleshed out adventure.

The one thing I'd suggest though, is don't tell the players that- that's what you're doing. Let them fill in the missing pieces for themselves and feel clever for having solved your puzzle in their own way. And... Of course, take a ton of notes on what they do and with whom they end up interacting with--that'll help maintain continuity going forward.

Success to you in finding a solution that makes sense for you and your group.

They're not Terrinoth or Android, but I've posted three one-shots for Genesys here .

I'm hoping to cook up an Android one-sheet adventure when I have time, too.

Maybe you can try to convert Interface Zero (Savage Worlds).

23 hours ago, Ceodryn said:

I am  quite interested in SotB, but while I own Genesys and RoT, I never played either because frankly, I  have no time to create adventures or campaigns  . 

Unlike RoT, SotB does have a rudimentry 'adventure builder'. Though I can't say I've had a chance to use it. In addition, I'm certain FFG will eventually release their convention one-shot (and the pregens) for SotB.

FFG doesn't seem to be interested in supporting professional third-party supplements for Genesys. Nor do they seem to be willing to devote more than a miniscule fraction of their resources to the system's development. So unfortunately, I don't think there is ever going to be a reasonable selection of published adventures for genesys (let alone for any given setting).

1 hour ago, Cantriped said:

Unlike RoT, SotB does have a rudimentry 'adventure builder'. Though I can't say I've had a chance to use it. In addition, I'm certain FFG will eventually release their convention one-shot (and the pregens) for SotB.

FFG doesn't seem to be interested in supporting professional third-party supplements for Genesys. Nor do they seem to be willing to devote more than a miniscule fraction of their resources to the system's development. So unfortunately, I don't think there is ever going to be a reasonable selection of published adventures for genesys (let alone for any given setting).

They are apparently busy publishing L5R stuff, adventures included. I wonder, is RP in Rokugan that much more successful than goof old Genesys?

I can't speak for it's current success, but L5R does have more than two-decades worth of brand recognition. Genesys just can't compete with that.

It might seem daunting. But like @QorDaq said running a module or converting one wont really save you time.

So try it just go for it SOTB seems like a great setting. You dont even need to plan the campaign before the group gets together and creates characters and form concepts. Then just make simple one line plot like maybe.

"Jinteki hires pc to track down a clone wanted for murder before the NAPD gets to her. "

And just roll with it Especially since it sounds like your and experienced GM and familiar with the system.

1 hour ago, Archellus said:

It might seem daunting. But like @QorDaq said running a module or converting one wont really save you time.

So try it just go for it SOTB seems like a great setting. You dont even need to plan the campaign before the group gets together and creates characters and form concepts. Then just make simple one line plot like maybe.

"Jinteki hires pc to track down a clone wanted for murder before the NAPD gets to her. "

And just roll with it Especially since it sounds like your and experienced GM and familiar with the system.

I know very well the mechanics, and have no issue with going with the flow from a mechanical standpoint. However, narratively, I am more used to build from a story than create one from scratch. That is basically why Genesys is sitting on my shelf.

One of the response hinted to FFG not supporting 3rd party supplements... err, I don’t quite get it, adventures aren’t supplements. For Star Wars EotE, within a few months there were plenty of great fan made adventures, but for Genesys, it seems rather scarce - all energy is devoted to creating settings maybe.

20 minutes ago, Ceodryn said:

I don’t quite get it, adventures  aren’t supplement   s  .

I consider everything beyond the core rulebook a supplement, including adventures. I also specified "professional" because we can make supplements for genesys, @drainsmith is especially prolific, but we can't publish them for cold-hard monies.

26 minutes ago, Ceodryn said:

Fo       r     Sta  r W  ars EotE,  within  a few months  there were plenty o  f  great  fan made adventures, but for Genesys, it seems rather scarce  - all energy is devoted to creating settings maybe.   

Star Wars has decades worth of fan-fiction that can be adapted into plots. It is a well-known universe beloved by multiple generations. Meanwhile fewer people know, or care about the runebound or android settings. They're comparatively obscure settings.

There are probably also a fair number of people quietly working on conversions for their favorite settings instead of adventures for them. Which is sort of what genesys was advertised as being for, so that makes sense.

Here are two modules I wrote:

The Malady Melody , a full adventure for Realms of Terrinoth

Crossfire , a mini-adventure for Shadow of the Beanstalk. I'm currently working on a three-adventure series that includes Crossfire.

13 hours ago, Cantriped said:

I also specified "professional" because we can make supplements for genesys, @drainsmith is especially prolific, but we can't publish them for cold-hard monies.

That’s really a core issue. If FFG wants Genesys to live, why don’t they let publish and sell their adventures? I get the fact they don’t want part of their book pirated, but NPCs could be easily represented like the cards where frankly you can’t do anything if you don’t have the book.

20 hours ago, Ceodryn said:

I know very well the mechanics, and have no issue with going with the flow from a mechanical standpoint. However, narratively, I am more used to build from a story than create one from scratch. That is basically why Genesys is sitting on my shelf.

One of the response hinted to FFG not supporting 3rd party supplements... err, I don’t quite get it, adventures aren’t supplements. For Star Wars EotE, within a few months there were plenty of great fan made adventures, but for Genesys, it seems rather scarce - all energy is devoted to creating settings maybe.

I can't speak for others, but the way I'm GMing SotB doesn't suit itself well to a module format. I like to set up situations and NPC's, but let the PC's attack the problems however they see fit. This means it is very hard to predict how things will play out. To compensate, I make semi-generic resources, like server systems for hacking, that I can quickly modify to whatever is going on. I keep a pile of NPC imaged available. I keep name generators open.

I do try to guess how things will go down, but I'm almost always wrong. I'm ready for them to try to enter a Starscraper from the hopper pads that ring the residential levels, but I can handle it if the Eve-model Bioroid decides to charm the pants off the on-site customer service rep after hours.

On 3/10/2019 at 4:40 PM, Cantriped said:

I can't speak for it's current success, but L5R does have more than two-decades worth of brand recognition. Genesys just can't compete with that.

I honestly had no idea what Legend of the Five Rings was before this. I guess I live under a rock. I do hope to see more splat books, or adventures get put on Drive Thru RPG, or posted up here for us to consume.

The biggest barrier to entry for me to create anything like that for Realms of Terrinoth, or Shadow of the Beanstalk, I feel that I don't know enough about the setting, any existing published books, or what happened in the card games. I bet the card game had some good stories with it similar to how Magic does. That could be easily translated into an adventure module.

On 3/11/2019 at 10:36 AM, Ceodryn said:

That’s really a core issue. If FFG wants Genesys to live, why don’t they let publish and sell their adventures? I get the fact they don’t want part of their book pirated, but NPCs could be easily represented like the cards where frankly you can’t do anything if you don’t have the book.

Have you thought about trying to put any of your modules up on DriveThruRPG?