If you play the Edge Studio Star Wars game, you typically play Genesys. Star Wars is the entry point for this game and provides setting-neutral support for its unique dicing system. For Star Wars, you play Star Wars. For everything else, you play Genesys. This system transplants the cinematic system used in the Star Wars game to other genres, allowing you to use it for anything you can imagine.
These two are sister games, same rules, different dice, and less Star Wars.
This is "Movie: The RPG," the game. Any Hollywood movie from 1920 to about 2019 can be recreated with this system, and it works better than many of today's narrative and storytelling games since the dice leave "what happens" up to you, instead of "telling you what happens" through the rules. I put an end dat of about 2010 on this simulation system since Hollywood has changed so much in the 2020-2026 era that filmmaking is practically unrecognizable and alien compared to earlier times, due to streaming and the collapse of the theater model.
Genesys feels like a forgotten system at this point, with Cypher System feeling like it replaced it (and Cypher System fading), and these days, Daggerheart is the RPG darling of the narrative crowd. This was always in the same sort of narrative simulation systems, such as Cypher System, FATE, Savage Worlds, and other generic systems.
I bounced off Cypher System many times before I finally learned it. It is a good system, but a part of me preferred Genesys, since the dice in Genesys are more solo-friendly than Cypher's GM-driven narrative model, which is honestly better with other people. Daggerheart, I have, but never got into, partially because I have Nimble, which does everything I need for superheroic fantasy.
What I like about Genesys is that you are playing with oracle dice, there is no narrative control system, and you do not need to drop out of character to reference narrative rules and determine outcomes. There are no "hope and fear mechanics." I am not dropping out of character to accept a GM Intrusion (or trigger a Player Intrusion), tripping bennies, nor am I dropping out of character to create a situational aspect.
There is a pair of "story pools" for the GM and players, with each player getting one point and the GM getting one point. When a point is used by either side, it flips to the other. These are mainly used to upgrade dice (positive for players, negative for enemies), to activate talents, or to affect luck and slightly change the narrative (we find a crashed cache of survival gear).
The dice roll tells me "what happens in the world," and I can stay in character to make it happen, or suffer the consequences. It is simple, straightforward, and keeps the action in the "mind space" of the game and in-character" situation.
This is a classic, fun, and elegant system that relies on special dice, and it is the best "special dice" system out there. The pool mechanics are limited, and enforce a currency that flips between the players and the GM.
Weaknesses? Some people get tired of constantly interpreting the special dice symbols. The game does have a fatigue to it if you are constantly rolling the dice for every little thing, and having to look at charts, cancel symbols, and interpret the remaining pool with every single roll. I recommend that dice rolls in this game be used for the macro-level actions: one roll to sneak across the town, avoid guards, and stay out of trouble. Do not roll for every city block, and every action without consequence!
In many cases, just do not roll; let the character's skills and abilities grant automatic success, and only roll when it means something, when there are consequences for failure, or when the path forward is uncertain and potentially dangerous.
Landing your starship at a starport in normal circumstances? No roll needed; that is a routine action and should be covered by your normal training and ability as a pilot. If there were a situation that made it difficult, such as enemy fire or severe weather, roll. But - only if you need to! If the bad weather can't force anything to meaningfully change, then why roll?
"Just to see" is not really a good enough reason.
If there are others being chased by stormtroopers, and you need to stick the landing on the first attempt, or else that group will be stuck down there, playing a desperate defensive last stand, then, yes, roll. If the bad weather just means a sloppy landing, or landing in a far-off, clear spot where no roll is needed, then don't roll. Why? Does it matter?
Before you roll, think of the dice as the director of the scene "on the set" wanting to film "the best movie possible." Does the scene have conflict? Is there an uncertain outcome? Does failure have consequences? Is the scene interesting enough to even film?
If the scene is a nothingburger, assume success and move on to the next scene that the audience does want to see. Why waste film on filler? Why waste a die roll on the same?
Being frugal on your shot selection makes for a great movie.
Being selective in rolling the narrative dice will avoid burnout.
Part of why I fell out with Genesys was GURPS, and GURPS is its own amazing thing that can do anything, too. GURPS tends to enforce a gritty reality on everything it touches, which is amazing to see superimposed over Star Wars or any other "false reality" game (including D&D). However, gritty realism does not always work across genres, and it can dramatically change things.
If I am playing "D&D with GURPS," I can get those moments where a goblin is hit in the leg by an arrow, hobbling around, and bleeding to death. That is a dark, gritty, and hardcore level of reality that is cool to experience in a hyper-realistic system, and it gives a wonderful feeling to "see D&D through realistic glasses."
If I want to play a movie game, GURPS can do that with a few tweaks, but there are times I want to play a narrative, curated experience where the rules have a lot to help me. The dicing system in Genesys is fun and produces unexpected outcomes. This is good stuff, and things that GURPS does not give me without adding oracle dice or other tools.
The system is more weighty than Savage Worlds, FATE, or even Cypher. The dicing is simple, but there is a lot going on behind the scenes, special rules, and sections of the rules to master. Once you get the hang of it, everything runs smoothly, and you can mostly play with just a GM screen reference and be fine. There are fewer "toys" (cards, bennies, tokens) than Savage Worlds, and no XP and per-character pool economy like in Cypher.
Cypher is still a lot easier to convert into, requiring only one challenge number and a few special abilities for monsters (or any challenge). This requires source data and conversion, so it is par for the course for games like GURPS or Savage Worlds.
The real advantage here is that the dice are all oracle dice, and you are not taken out of character to figure out what happens next in the narrative. The flip-flop story pool between the players and GM is an acceptable extra pool to track, and accounts for momentum shifts and narrative control flips.
The characters are also top-notch, with the talent trees being an excellent part of the design, solving the character depth issue in a single page of the character sheet. The characters here are far more fun to build than Cypher or Savage Worlds, with only GURPS beating them in design flexibility.
Dated? Compared to the game-of-the-week that comes out on Kickstarter? Yes, a touch. Clunky? Not really, the narrative dice are the reason to play. VTT support? I haven't seen too much, so that is a minus, but I play solo, so not for me.
The community content on DriveThruRPG is excellent.
If you are playing Star Wars and want to stay in the Star Wars groove while playing in other settings, Genesys will work perfectly. The same types of dice are used here; the mechanics are identical, and there is not much more to learn to play.
This is still a solid generic system; it still holds up, and the solo-play factor is high due to the assistance from the oracle-like dice. A strong recommendation.
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