Grading the Genesys System

[Doctor Futurity]

I ran a short campaign of Genesys when it came out some years ago. The game lasted around 7 sessions when we bailed and moved over to Cypher System, which fit my GM style and my player group better. My recollection was as follows:
1. I discovered that symbol based dice are actually not intuitive for me (and some of my players) and even using the phone app to roll them was tedious;
2. The magic system was unduly cumbersome for some of my players (it required some time and effort to understand properly) so anytime someone attempted a spell it often degenerated into several minutes of calculations;

Beyond that it wasn't bad. I enjoyed parts of it a lot, but personally couldn't abide the symbol based die mechanic. It's a trivial thing for some, I am sure, but for me I just wanted some real numbers. As it stood, we were looking around for different systems and in the end Cypher won out as the preferred game of choice, it had fewer variables and modifiers in play and moved much more quickly. That said.....I'd consider playing Genesys again in the future with the right group, as long as I have access to the die rolling app. I have kept the books just in case.

 

[Committed Hero]

When he wrote The Yellow King RPG, Robin Laws changed the combat system into one that has the players identify their goal (defeat the foe/capture the foe/run away/et c) and has each participant make a single roll towards it. This would be an interesting use of the Genesys system, in a similar setting where combat isn't the focus of the game (like X of Cthulhu). Of course, it would require some conversion, and make a lot of the combat focused talents less helpful.

 

[MintRabbit]

I'm pretty happy with the Star Wars FFG game in Genesys, but I don't know how it translates to other games. I love the narrative opportunities provided in the mixed outcomes that usually show up on the dice, and I wish the dice were more readily available.

I agree with the statements that mentioned a need for player buy-in. The group definitely all has to be on the same page about what kind of game you want to play, otherwise you might end up with a PC whose abilities don't mesh well with the rest of the group. I felt like Age of Rebellion was definitely my preferred game out of the three Star Wars options, because it provided the players with slightly more focus.

I've also carried the cinematic roll forward into other games. I think it's a real time-saver when your game is running too long or when you'd like to abstract out an action sequence because you're more interested in what happens after.

 

[aramis erak]

THinking about just the roughly 10 campaign years of FFG SW games I'v run...
about 40 players across that time frame.
I've had 1 who was unable to grasp the dice mechanics. He died two years later of an astrocytoma. He was probably already suffering from it.
I've had 3 who grasped it but didn't like it at all. None of those were diehard D&D types, either.
I've had 10 who only worked advantage disadvantage from the purchase lists or other players suggestions for non-list elements. 5 of those stayed strictly to the clear mechanical effects, most commonly as add a blue to X's next action, add a blue to next ally's action, add a black to X's next action, add a black to next opponent-side action, or do a critical hit.
So, yeah, it's not universally graspable, nor loved by everyone. But my regular players have largely loved it.
the other 25+? at least occasionally don't use the list, most liked the special lists for special situations, even tho' those slightly slow play.

And when it comes to the "List only" players, not a one has complained about it being unfair that a team of stormtroopers showed up on the PC's despair result. Or that their quadruple despair blew up the gun in the turret they were firing... tho' that latter was annoyed that they took a mess of personal damage (personal scale = vehicle scale.)

I do agree that the key weaknesses are the range band rules and vehicle combat - i simply switched to using 10m per personal combat movement action (taken from WEG 1e), Speed ×10 movement units per movement action in space combat. It worked really well that way.