Other Systems, Random musings, RPG

Games I’m excited about: Genesys

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Fantasy Flight Games recently announced a new genre-agnostic roleplaying game powered by the Narrative Dice System, which is of course the system used in their popular Star Wars roleplaying games. I’ve been playing Edge of the Empire for quite some time now and I’ve learned to love the system – even though I had my doubts at first.The new game will be called Genesys (yeah, the name sucks), but I am really looking forward to this game. For one I have always been a sucker for genre-agnostic games, and secondly the Narrative Dice System has a lot going for it.

Even though reading the fancy dice may be a bit complicated and annoying at first, it’s something players learn quite quickly. Instead of binary succeed/fail results you often get more nuanced ones. Interpreting the results can be a lot of fun and pretty rewarding. It also promotes teamwork since you can easily create advantages for other players. A full introduction of the dice mechanic would probably beyond the scope of this post, so I recommend checking out the official announcement which includes an in-depth look at the mechanics.

What I like about FFG’s Star Wars games is that they offer a lot of depth, without being too complex or hard to get into. There are countless talent trees you can use to customize your character. The classes provide the characters with some focus, but they don’t restrain you too much. I really hope the Genesys classes will be designed in a similar way.

From what we know so far, the game will include some genre-specific information and I guess there will also be setting books in the future. I’d definitely buy one based on FFG’s Android setting. But a genre-agnostic game should allow you to easily adapt existing or homebrew settings and I have no doubts the Narrative Dice System can handle this task with ease.

What are your thoughts on Genesys? Please share your comments below.

2d20, Just my two cents, News & Reviews, Other Systems, RPG

5 Reasons Why You Should Get The New Star Trek Adventures RPG

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A couple of days ago Modiphius released their eagerly-awaited Star Trek roleplaying game. Star Trek Adventures is the latest game in the long line of Star Trek games which have been pretty much hit or miss. Luckily Modiphus’ game is one of the winners. Here are five reasons why you should check it out:

  1. It’s Star Trek
    Sure, that’s what it says on the cover, but it’s also one of the best reasons why you should get it – especially if you are a fan of the franchise. Star Trek Adventures also does a great job of introducing the setting to people who haven’t watched every single movie and TV episode. I also think that Modiphius managed to create a game that definitely feels Star Trek.
  2. It’s a Modiphius game
    Games published by Modiphius always have one thing in common: awesome production values. Their games look great, if printed they feel great, and overall they also play great. Sure, there are exceptions, but Modiphius has managed to churn out high-quality products in such a short time that it boggles the mind. The Star Trek Adventure game is definitely one of their best-looking books to date.
  3. It uses the 2d20 System
    Initially I was not sure if the 2d20 System was a good fit for Star Trek. But what I didn’t know at that point was that Modiphius always make sure they adapt the system to the settings. While the core mechanics stay intact, they totally pull apart the system to make it fit to the setting at hand. This especially worked great with Star Trek. I played several of the playtest adventures and with each new rules iteration, it got better and better. The final result is definitely one of my favorite 2d20 implementations.
  4. It supports all eras
    One issue I had with other Star Trek games was that they didn’t support all the eras I was interested in. Star Trek Adventures will be the first game to support everything from Enterprise to Voyager. The only omissions are the new Kelvin timeline and the upcoming Discovery series – which I don’t mind at all. I am especially excited to be able to play in the Enterprise era.
  5. The PDF is very reasonably priced
    Often the PDF versions of games with similar sizes and production values set you back $20 or more. Modiphius chose another route this time and released the digital edition of their core rulebook for about $15. That’s actually a very good price for a game book of 350+ pages.

If you want to learn more about this fine game, I recommend checking out my friend Jay’s extensive article series about Star Trek Adventures.

Advice, Random musings, RPG

Taking another break

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The roleplaying games hobby can be pretty frustrating at times, especially if you’re a game master. One issue I’ve had all my life is that I quickly burn out on the games I run. I lose interest or I inadvertently steer the campaign into a bad position which makes it extremely hard to fix it. The number of campaigns I’ve run into the ground is pretty staggering. Sometimes I wonder why my players keep coming back…

I’ve struggled with self-doubt a lot and it has currently reached a point where I am hesistant to offer anything to my players. I don’t want to disappoint them any more. A part of my problem is probably related to what I call GM attention deficit disorder. As soon as I start running game A I start thinking about how cool it would be to play game B. You can guess how things end.

Another part of the problem is that I often have phases when I am just too tired, too stressed to run a game properly. But in order not to skip a session I more often than not run the game anyway and make mistakes which quickly derail the campaign. Or at least that’s how it feels to me.

At the moment I think the best thing I can do is take another break. Not from roleplaying games in general but from being in the GM’s chair. This allows me to just play for a while without having a GM’s responsibility on my shoulders and it also gives other people in my group the opportunity to take over the GM’s mantle.

During this time I will probably continue to read many different games, think about the campaigns I could run, but I won’t make concrete plans or something like that. At this moment being a GM doesn’t make me happy and that’s actually the only way how you can play roleplaying games wrongly. If you’re not having fun, something’s amiss!

A Roleplaying Games blog