Savage Worlds Adventure Edition

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition? How could a game get this good? This is as close to being a perfect "rules light" game for me as it gets, and its universal nature does not get in the way of anything I attempt to play with it. In speed and ease-of-play it puts both GURPS and Champions on my shelf as universal systems and I can run a dozen characters in this system on single-sheet printouts no problem.

I tried a Pathfinder 1e game with a dozen characters and the game died of complexity overload. Having two or three double-sided character sheets stapled together for one character means you are running four characters maximum for one person playing alone. Here? I can generate a dozen characters in about an hour and be ready to go with them all. Just in this game's initiative system it beats most d20 games in ease of use and simplicity.

Note they did an upgrade of the system to the "Adventure Edition" also known as SWADE. There are very few differences and the editions are mostly compatible, but if you are looking to play skip of "Deluxe" and other editions for "Adventure" and you will be all set.

You need to wrap your head around the concept of the target number, the wild die, raises, exploding dice, and the condition/wound system. Once I did that, the system felt a lot less strange and I could easily play this in my head or on the board. Conceptually this is a lot different than d20, but it just runs a whole lot smoother - especially if you wanted to spin up an entire ensemble cast and play adventures with them. I could run a Star Trek ToS SWADE game using the core book only, have the cast ready myself in about an hour (less with players, give us 15m), and beaming down to planets and fighting the Klingons and Gorn before other games died in a session zero four-hour character creation session.

Long Term Play?

Does it provide enough depth for long-term play?

I feel it does. While it doesn't do the huge "multilayered decorated Xmas tree" style class-character builds you can do in Pathfinder (1e or 2e) or D&D 5, what it does is simplify everything down to a simple base that requires very little book reference and lets you simulate the parts of games (like magic systems) with generic-style powers that can be flavored to give you the end result you want. A bolt spell that uses arcane energy? Magic missile. One power point. Attack roll using your casting skill. Damage as listed. Fine. Done. Let's play.

It may have an issue for very-long term play, but most of my games don't last that long anyways even with accelerated progression. Progression can also be scaled or tweaked depending on how fast you want advancement to happen. The max power level in Savage Worlds feels like the "level 12 or so" fun zone for most d20 games, and the system can scale past that point to give greater challenges.

Customization

There are custom skills and edges too, if you really need a character to have a specialized skill such as "photography," "spy gear," or "demolitions" for a 007 style game. If you really need it and it makes sense, clear it with the GM and get playing. No need for a 300+ skill long list of every option for molecular biologists and hazardous material operations. The core skills cover 90% of what every setting needs, and if a setting needs to specialize, make an addendum skill list of a few more (and if you need to, use the more skills campaign option if you run out of skill points for that skill-heavy game).

Depth

You may have trouble selling this game to players already "bought in" on the depth and balance of other games, such as D&D 5E or Pathfinder 1e or 2e (more on the latter in a moment). There is a generic element, especially when you custom-craft powers or build your own character builds that could dissuade players used to a 600-page set of rules they know inside and out. You come at this from a rules-light angle, especially with a setting pulled from a movie or TV show, and you may have an easier time selling this to a group than proclaiming at as a D&D 5E replacement. Which it is not, it is its own different thing that can simulate a traditional fantasy RPG, but not replace it rule-for-rule or build-for-build.

High-level play here involves bigger dice, higher modifiers, and pushing the action economy of multiple actions system to the limit. The system feels capped at the largest polyhedral die supported for ability scores (d12 with modifiers), so there is a maximum power level. The game feels like there is a lot of sideways progression beyond (bigger dice) with edges, and giving yourself bonuses in situations where the edge would give you a better bonus than a larger die.

Scale is relative. You could play a game where everyone is an intelligent mouse and scale the world to that, with the dicing being the same and assuming the larger creatures (cats) are the giant-sized monsters. Superheroes work similarly, you can cap normal people to a 4d or d6 and let the heroes be the exceptional ones.

More Books?

If you wanted to mix in superpowers or horror elements there are books for that (previous edition but still 95% compatible), and now there are a few other reasons to play....

Pinnacle has been delivering themed games (licensed and their home settings) that are AAA releases. They have SWADE versions of Rifts, Pathfinder, and Deadlands out and they all are incredible. There is even a Flash Gordon one (previous SW edition, but still can be played either new or old rules) that looks incredible. I swear I have 20 more years of gaming in this set of books and I would be perfectly happy.

Savage Pathfinder

SW Pathfinder is an interesting creation, and this set I feel moves a lot of the current B/X de-jour systems down a notch on my playtime schedule. Here I have a rule system that gives me a complete zero-to-hero progression, rules-light, pulp-focused, skill-system, bestiary, magic items, and class-like builds? Ouch. This puts a dent in my Pathfinder 2e play time, and I am currently looking for an old "Pathfinder compatible" game world to play this in, since I am saving Golarion for my PF 2e playthrough.

And the rest of my B/X games (and other indie darling RPGs)  are sidelined for SW Pathfinder, since it does 90% of what I want in a rules-light fantasy game with enough "leveled creatures and items" support to keep the character progression part of my brain happy. More on this later. More on all of these later as I dive in. Especially Pathfinder and Rifts - two games I collected and have a long history with. Deadlands and Flash Gordon look fun and will be new for me.

But yes, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, if you are looking for a rules-light toolbox generic system, this is one of those that sits on the top of the mountain and deserves a serious look.

More In The Works!

They are working on a SWADE Superpower companion next, and I hear Horror is also on that update list too. There is a previous edition Fantasy (kind of outmoded since SW Pathfinder is here) and Sci-Fi book to get, and those still have uses. I do want Pinnacle to do well and I am backing their kickstarters for the new books, and I want to see more in the lines of cross licensed games like the Flash Gordon one. Or even new books like the rules-swap Rifts and Pathfinder games for classic games (SW Paranoia would be fun, and I would love to see a SW Vampire/Werewolf/Mage/Hunter/etc. White Wolf style set of books).

It is nice to see the company doing well and its kickstarters for Deadlands, Rifts, Flash Gordon, Pathfinder, and now the Superhero book doing extremely good business. I am a fan and wish them the best with their new lineup of books, and plan on enjoying these myself in the near future.

More on all these soon as I dive in and play.

Starfinder

I am glad I gave Starfinder a second chance. This game sat in our library for a while, the first printing, and it never really saw use except for a Star Frontiers to Starfinder crossover game we ran. It never really seemed to click for my brother and I, and we ended up ignoring the book and not really paying much attention to it past that point.

Beginner Box?

These days, I game alone, and I restarted our hybrid Star Frontiers meets Starfinder game in a 300 years after the Frontier setting. I started with the Starfinder Beginner Box, a move I ended up regretting just a little due to the incompatibilities between some of the BB material and the full game (item levels and a few other things), and I eventually finishes the BB adventure using the main rules once I was comfortable with the flow. There are not that many incompatibilities, just a cut down skill list and issues with damages and gear levels, and I would rather play a BB where I would not have to recreate my characters using the full rules once I finished the content in the box.

The BB is still excellent though as a primer of what the game expects from both players and referees, highly recommended with that small word of advice to create characters in Starbuilder or Hero Lab if you want to take them to the full game after you play here for minimal disruption, and just do a couple conversions along the way.

This is a quirky game with plenty to like, and it has this distinctly video-game feel with leveled ships, items, gear, and everything else in the universe having a "suggested level" tacked onto it. If you can let go of your "hard sci fi" feelings you will have a good time, and the tropes and gameplay are mostly standard d20-isms so you can pick it up quickly.

Everything is Here

This also needs some suspension of sci-fi biases, as this is a futuretech fantasy world with elves, dragon people, dwarves, monsters, space goblins, space demons, and fantasy tropes with bubble helmets and ray guns that do a d4 damage and you are cursing them out as doing as much damage as a hair dryer. If you want to do big damage it is magic or melee at the start and I see a caster-centric power curve here but not surprisingly.  Embracing magic seems to be the path to success.

It was hard for me to give up those built-in Traveller and Space Opera biases, and Star Frontiers with space-fantasy races feels like a good setting for me. Things have changed in the old Frontier, and new neighbors have moved in and everything is upside down. Volturnus is now my hub-world, and a permanent Stargate to Absalom Station links the two universe forever in orbit. This is a good setup because Starfinder's "warp to any planet" style of exploration where distance and maps do not matter is over there, and on the Frontier side it is a set, known area of space with more traditional map-based exploration and travel.

Everything is mixed in and mixed up from there, and I am having fun with the pairing.

The Strange Economy

One thing I find strange is Starfinder's "free ship upgrades" system where they do not put prices or costs on ship upgrades and equipment. The society is very socialist (or movie-like), and once you get connected with a space organization they take care of the upgrades and parts for your ship for free. And it is very odd to have characters scrounging for every credit on a mission like it was water on a desert planet and then go back to their multi-million credit ship that they got for free and sit inside poor and lacking money for personal gear.

Coming from Star Frontiers, Space Opera, or Traveller this is a huge shock. Those games are way more "space capitalist" than Starfinder, but then again, Starfinder has this "movie mentality" where you are not worried about paying repair bills or affording a new space torpedo launcher.

Again, you play by the d20 "this is how much money you get per adventure based on level" loot guidelines and that required a huge suspension of disbelief and hand wave from me in my mind. You know, a Traveller character would smile, say, "you need money for upgrades?" and start hitting the cargo manifests at different planets and start hauling cargo and taking passengers from A to B. There's enough money for a level 3 laser pistol that isn't used to 1d4 caramelize sugar on top of a creme brulee.

Yes, the money and reward system is flat-out strange and weird, especially when you consider free-ish starship upgrades that are handwaved off as your ship "levels up." Yes, ships level up with your party. And a party of four is recommended and again, pretty standard for d20-ish systems.

Is it fun?

If you keep your party size down to four, yes.

If you can toss out your bias against fantasy races and monsters in sci-fi, yes.

If you can get used to the odd economy of being poor and getting a free ship and upgrades, yes.

If you can accept "leveled gear, weapons, and equipment," yes.

If you dive into ship combat and not ignore the mechanics, yes.

If your party embraces magic and magical gear upgrades, yes.

If you like dungeons in space filled with traps, hazards, monsters, and loot, yes.

Surprises

There are surprises in here, some fun synergies and class abilities, lots to discover as you level up, and this is fantasy with a fresh coat of reflective paint on it and a huge universe you are free to craft and expand in whichever way you want. Would I run solo campaigns for more than one 4-person group? Not at the same time, since like any d20 game the bookkeeping is pretty hefty and the rules references start to pile up the higher you go up in levels.

But as mentioned, you have to get rid of a lot of sci-fi biases you may have in your head to get into this game, and that took me a while to get the hang of. It helped for me thinking of it like a video game and just playing for fun.

Oh, and if you have the first or second printing, I advise getting the third printing or the PDF, since the changes (especially in ships) are significant enough to make this feel like a new game experience for all the bug fixes they had to make.

Revisiting Aftermath!

 So I have been going back and taking a look at Aftermath! as a generic system. Having over 20 years of experience with the rules makes it an easy thing, plus we learned this game when we were kids so a lot just comes naturally.

First up, why? I like the system with the hit locations, special effects, and detailed combat. This is something that GURPS sort of gives me, but there is a whole lot more work involved. Sectional armor plus hit locations is a fun minigame to play, and if you have characters with cool armor sets made of different materials and protective values you get a really interesting simulation.

Bullets and damage are fun in this game, more so than GURPS. You get all sorts of fun special effects, but simplified from something as complex as Rolemaster. Also, a d20 (roll low) dice mechanic with a heavy reliance on ability score saving throws. Damage is straightforward with special effects that cascade out from rolled-for special effects (and is also expandable easily).

The system is also very calculated and math-like, once you get through what gets added to what to fill in what spot on the character sheet you are done. All your chances of success are on your character sheet. The system plays well from character sheets, and the special cases apply equally given situation X or Y. In fact, the game comes with a handy combat flowchart so you can't really get lost on how combat works.

Golden Age Sci-Fi

I wanted to use this game for something along a golden-age sci-fi game, but more gritty and realistic. If I have advanced aliens I will just generate them as age-group 5 characters and give them a ton of skills. My rule is +5 to ability scores and 10 skill points and eliminate rolling for development and attribute points. I purposefully avoid the Operation Morpheus generation system because it is way too bloated, and 10 skill points gets me a great starting character with room to grow.

For talents I assigned the following: -2, -1, 0, 0, +1, +2, and +3 to the seven values. I didn't roll since this lets me define strengths and weaknesses my way instead of randomly. You could roll random, your choice.

So in summary 80 attribute points, 25 talent points, 10 skill points, one firearm skill, literacy (x2), tech use (x2), culture (x2), two survival skills, and brawling.

Tech Use, Culture, and Literacy are Relative

Also, keep Tech Use, High Tech Use, and Literacy relative to the cultures. Tech Use becomes Earth Tech or Space Tech, and you pick your starting culture's Tech Use skill. This makes Martians have to learn how to use telephones, while Earthlings need to figure out Martian transport tubes. High Tech Use? Well, again, culture relative if you go there and really only applicable for the "super advanced" technology of the day, such as computers in the 50's and something like technology that was lost or theoretical to the Martians. 

Literacy and culture work similarly, Earth and Space, but let everyone read English and only roll for odd cases such as who Shakespeare or Guulilinak is in reference to classic literature of the planet. Culture is also similar, what is rock and roll and what is the Martian hoopa hop would be good areas for rolling.

Remarkably Flexible

One thing I love about Aftermath (that we knew all this time) is how remarkably flexible the game is to modify. This is a common trait to many old-school games, and I find a lot of the modern games are very easy to break and throw way out of balance. Some games exist to be completely out of balance and are further ruined by 3rd party content. The older games feel more grounded in "chance of success" and "consequences" and don't have these huge structured frameworks of class designs (that are never play tested well unless they are ancient and time-tested like B/X) bolted on them.

I can swap out the skill list. I can pare it down. I could put Gangbusters or Star Frontiers skills in there. I could do a decent Space Opera with the system. I could play fantasy. The post-apoc genre sits on the border of sci-fi and fantasy, and is grounded in modern day, so the system does everything reasonably well. I could do steampunk fine, and the whole BAP/MNA/PCA action system feels like clockwork mechanics anyways so it would thematically fit (and it isn't as complicated as I remember, just a phased initiative countdown system).

Plus you get vehicles and things that go boom. As kids, this killed D&D for us because we got to play with the big action-movie toys, real cool war stuff, and it just felt grand and epic, while being rooted in rules that were easily accessible from a single character sheet.

Simple and Fun

The system feels good to me. Likely because we used to run games that lasted years, and we played every day with a fast-and-loose version of the rules where we ignored hex maps and handled everything verbally. The characters start weak and grow to heroic proportions.

A fun system I am very comfortable using, and it feels like a great "mess around" home system with a lot of potential for random effects and outcomes in combat.

I am happy again going back, and that is something I didn't expect after spending nearly 20 years away.

Swords & Wizardry vs. Labyrinth Lord

https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/fkfs0g/advanced_labyrinth_lord_vs_swords_and_wizardry/

https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/14309/how-does-swords-wizardry-differ-from-labyrinth-lord

http://flamingtales.blogspot.com/2010/07/rpg-smackdown-swords-wizardry-vs.html

Above are three great discussions on the differences between Swords & Wizardry (S&W) and Labyrinth Lord (LL), and yes I know, so many have moved on to Old School Essentials (OSE) as their B/X game of choice. But I recently got into Swords & Wizardry just because of all the cool games based on it and wanted to check out the base rules out and to see why the game inspired so much hacking and custom games that started with these rules.

In short, Swords & Wizardry was the old-school hacker's paradise before Old School Essentials came along and built B/X as a modular experience. In S&W a lot is left up to your imagination and interpretation (like the old days), and the game is even supplied as a MS Word doc (so I have heard, I have not found the current link yet) so you can remix and rebuild the game any way you would like.

So a plethora of games were released using S&W as a core rules set, including a lot of the X! games mentioned previously, a WW2 game, and many others.

In regards to community choice, it does feel as if Swords and Wizardry came first, that was replaced by Labyrinth Lord, and that was replaced by Old School Essentials. Dungeon Crawl Classics still is in there somewhere doing its own thing. I get this feeling the more your game emulates the original rules and acts as a replacement for them, the easier you are to replace when the next cool thing comes out. Games that do their own thing (DCC and others) tend to stick around and maintain fans.

One Save to Rule them All

There is one feature of Swords & Wizardry that I feel is a genius simplification: the unified, singular saving throw number. You get one saving throw that improves as you level, and there is no chart reference or odd progression for this or that. No difference between saving versus spells or a wand. You just "save" and that is that, and there are optional "plus this versus that" sort of exceptions, like a class getting a save bonus versus something or the other.

You can even use the saving throw as a backdoor skill roll. Would a magic user know how to read those runes? Saving throw. Would an assassin know the handiwork of another assassin? Saving throw. Could a ranger or druid identify a plant? Saving throw. Basic Fantasy has a skill roll mechanic like this, but this way feels much more unified and sane.

I like the one save concept a lot, and it makes the "save versus..." charts on many other games look like unneeded minutia and cruft. I just ask myself why do saves really need to differ by a couple points in either direction for all these classes when you could just average them all out and give a bonus or penalty to a couple situations per class and be rid of all that complexity and have more flexibility.

It makes me wonder why the original designers of D&D felt the need to divide saves like this and if that was even the right choice or just pointless detail. If you wanted a species to be magic resistant, give them a plus on magic saves. Make that stack with a class also magic resistant for another plus. Or give assassins a bonus on just poison saves since they nick themselves constantly. Or give clerics a save versus opposing alignment (good or evil) magic.

You get a lot of flexibility here and a lot more options when designing races and classes versus having to print, update, and reference dozens of tables of saving throws. And these tables are huge, slow, and require a lot of recording and bookkeeping.

The one save number rule alone makes me a fan.

Very AD&D and Close to LL

Before Old School Essentials came along many were split between Swords & Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord for the mixed D&D and AD&D sort of mash-up experience. Then we had a lot of great B/X games released and rapid development of base games and new experiences. With the "advanced" companions for OSE coming out this year I suspect both S&W and LL are further going to be relegated to hardcore fans, but both always given props in the community.

You also have the demons in here where OSE's advanced edition removed them, so if you wanted the classic AD&D style experience with the demons and devils being the evil masterminds of wickedness in the world either LL or SW are great choices for your game.

S&W does feel like a 70's version of AD&D to me, sort of a stripped-down, pre-basic/expert set version of the rules with quirks and balance through taking away some of our standard assumptions (like all classes getting a STR modifier to damage in B/X land; only pure fighters get that damage bonus, and not rangers or paladins). The more tricky social classes (bards and illusionists) are not here, and this is feels like more of a retro-retro clone with some of our B/X assumptions turned on their heads.

It does challenge some of those B/X assumptions we have come to feel are genre standards, and it helps show you that breaking some things in B/X cannon (like the saving throw tables or assumptions of ability score bonuses) can actually make a better or at least more interesting game in some ways.

I feel it also highlights one danger of homogenizing on one B/X rules set as a standard, and forcing every B/X design to account for everything in one rules set over all others. Personally, I am happy owning, reading, playing all these B/X games and S&W makes a fine addition to my B/X play and game design toolkit.

Missing Bards and Illusionists

For some not having these classes is a deal breaker, and LL does not have a bard class either. Though I found a great S&W bard here:

http://swcompanion.wikidot.com/resources

...and I am sure if you really wanted an illusionist you could always use LL's, or find another one like this one that took me seconds to search for:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/140543/The-Basic-Illusionist

This is S&W, the community of hacking is your friend and will fill in most of what you need. And there is also B/X to pull from as well. Since S&W is closer in spirit to the old days you are supposed to mod and hack and get playing. It is a different attitude from the "complete" type games like Old School Essentials where all of what you need is in the books (but you can mod there as well, TBH).

Still Worth Having

For all the game hacks and games created off this base, I still feel S&W is worth owning and playing, or at least as a companion resource to games based off of the core system. The system feels more 1970's D&D than Labyrinth Lord's early 80's AD&D feel, and that is something to consider. LL feels more like a nod to today's B/X conventions, while S&W keeps things old school (and thus has a more distinct identity in my feeling, especially when LL is compared to OSE).

There is also a lot of great high-quality content written for the game and worlds of content to explore here, and it is all B/X so it can be reused anywhere you eventually end up. So while OSE is the current game of the moment for the B/X world, I still feel S&W is a strong choice with some cool custom games developed from the core rules.

While I do like OSE a lot, I don't feel I need to play it exclusively. I will probably change my mind when the advanced books arrive, so there is that.

I could see myself designing a game originating on this rules set over Labyrinth Lord or even Old School Essentials, just because the system is designed to be ultra hackable and modifiable. There isn't much baggage here once you strip everything out beyond a handful of core B/X style conventions. OSE does a great job modularizing things, but S&W lets you tear down to the metal and rebuild.

The PDF is free too, so the price is right. I picked up the softcover too, just to have the book, and it was a great deal - and something I will be using.

Beyond Belief - X! Games

Here is a sweet find. On my investigation into "why play Swords and Wizardry?" (coming up) I found eight absolute gems of B/X pulp-comic gaming. These are each complete mini role playing games covering the topics of different pulp comics (which they pull public domain art from, which is cool).

I was looking for a B/X implementation of the classic Top Secret game, and I found Lies and Spies X! a cool retro-pulp spy game with an assortment of G-Men, spy, and other cool B/X style modern archetypes that go up to 6th level and play with a system that is B/X compatible (but more along the Swords and Wizardry style of theme).

After that I found Superheroes X! a cool low-powered early-pulp golden age superhero game that is compatible with all of the games in the X! lineup and gives you an interesting mix of characters, powers, and heroes. Wow. Cool stuff!

But it doesn't end there. We have retro Buck Rogers, Red Planet, and Flash Gordon style games with Jarkoon - Adventures on Planet X! and Space Adventures X! two genres I really love. You have all sorts of cool scientists, astronauts, space adventurers, diplomats, and other sci-fi B/X goodness in these books. Oh, and they are compatible with the other books in the X! lines as well.

Want pirates and cowboys? We got those too with The Eerie West X! and Screaming Seas X! with a pair of strongly themed games set in those periods too. I am sure the western game could be a cool "out west" supplement for the other modern games like spies or superheroes, since those comics assumed the Wild West kept going up until about 1970. And again, all compatible with each other.

Let's round out the collection with Terror Tales X! and Uncanny War Stories X! two more genre specific games of terror and two-fisted paranormal WW2 battle stories. If you ever wanted to run a quick game from stories ripped out of 1960's horror comics these would be my go-to games. Again, these are all compatible with the others in this set, and you can also just pull in your Swords and Wizardry or B/X content as you see fit.

Barebones but Cool

The presentation on all of these is very bare bones, the games run about 20 pages and they look more like nicely formatted MS Word documents than they do professionally laid out publications. There isn't too much in the way of fluff either, these get right down to the basics and stay there. But in that lies their charm, they are someone's homebrew notes for running cool and fun variant pulp-comic book games with the B/X rules across a wide variety of subject matter and they are all interchangeable for a whacky and zany "World of X!" style experience in the Swords and Wizardry style of universe.

I can see how some might be turned off by the presentation, but I see it as a cool throwback to the days of dot-matrix printed rules and shared content among gamers of house rules and homebrews. Would I want these someday to be redone and professionally presented? Of course, but without exposure that is never gonna happen. These remind me of the systems that were on sale in the classified ads of the old Dragon Magazine in the back, quirky, small press, and labors of love.

More?

I do want to see more of these. Savage jungle style adventures. Ones where you play as vampires, mummies, Frankensteins, or werewolves. 1950's monster movies where you battle blobs and giant insects. Time travel. Samurais and ninjas.

I would also like to see the Uncanny War Stories one cover a wider range of content, from WW2 through Korea, to Vietnam (the cover image), and an option to remove the magic elements, but I could house rule that just as easy.

Starting Points

They are also infinitely expandable with your own house rules, gear, classes, monsters, and spin on things. Run a battle between a World War II squad and a red dragon. Have space explorers crash land on cowboy world. Run a superheroes versus pirates game. Pull the demons in from Swords and Wizardry and have them fight paranormal investigators - or G-Men. Or pirates.

Oh, and the PDFs are only a couple bucks each, less than a cup of coffee. What is not to love?

B/X is a wonderful world to explore, find gems in, and play in. The ultimate generic system is B/X, and you can find games that go off in so many creative and cool directions with a little digging and the desire to try something new and cool.

Mythic Game Master Emulator

My intent was to use Mythic GM Emulator (MGME) with Genesys to augment that game's situational based dice, but the more I read this, the more I realized that I didn't need the special dice or Genesys itself. I could get by fine without the overlaying system of Genesys and just use something simple like B/X as the core game and let MGME do all the heavy lifting.

Yes-No and Probability

The way the system works is interesting. This isn't a rule system, but more of a framework for determining the answers to yes-no questions given a probability you assign to the question being a "yes." You can go even, somewhat likely, very unlikely, a sure thing, impossible, and so on with the probabilities, and this is all modified by a global "chaos" type factor that goes higher the more things get out of control and goes lower the more the players get things under control.

There are limits to the types of number of questions you can ask to avoid cheesing the system, and it is recommended you avoid asking the question "do I find a suitcase with a million dollars in it?" in every scene. They say two questions per scene is a good number, like "is the room empty?" and if no "are these the goblins that escaped?" You answer questions until you figure things out, setup the encounter with the system of your choice, and go from there.

For the most part, you go by logic and what you would expect, but the system is engineered to throw you curveballs every once and a while to keep things interesting, As a solo-play system I can see this working well.

Random Events

When doubles are rolled and the singles digit of the doubles is less than the 1-9 Chaos Factor, a random event occurs.- so every question asked of the fate chart has the possibility of throwing a curveball into the story with every question asked. I like this since it puts some danger on asking questions for 5-10% of them having a possibility to throw a wrench into the works.

These can be decided on the spot, or there is a flavor table where you can roll two random words to help you interpret the event, such as "inform-ambush" meaning your group gets advance word of an ambush happing to themselves or others.

Adventure and Scene Frameworks

There is also a basic scene framework to build encounters with that string together for an adventure. You setup a scene, there are some chances for it to go off the rails from what you expected, and you begin the yes-no process to setup the situation. This felt like a section I would pass over, but one thing caught my eye - when a scene is setup, a 1d10 is rolled and compared to the current Chaos Factor. This roll can either alter or interrupt the scene you have planned in your head.

With an altered scene, what you thought was going to happen in the scene is changed in some way. The goblin fort you planned on attacking is empty. The lost starship everyone assumed crashed is actually intact. The casino the super criminal is supposed to be at is holding a carnival festival. Your assumptions about the setup for the next scene in your head are not correct, and you are forced to change them.

With an interrupted scene, you don't even get there. The goblins ambush you before you even get to the fort. You get a distress call from a remote moon before you ever get to the planet with the lost starship. Your superspy never gets to the casino, and instead, they are locked in the back of a runaway taxi as it careens towards a cliff!

You then play out the original, altered, or interrupted scene. After that, you make changes to the story threads (updating, starting, or stopping the threads in the adventure), the character and NPC lists, and update the current Chaos Factor either positively or negatively (depending on if the characters were in control or out of control).

I like the concept of story threads here. You can start with stop the goblins from attacking traders on the road. You learn of the goblin fort and you add, destroy the goblin fort. You learn of a kidnapped merchant being held for ransom and you add, rescue the merchant. You destroy the fort and rescue the merchant, so you cross those threads out, but you learn of the goblins were being paid by an evil cult to attack the merchants, so you add investigate the evil cult to your story thread list. Perhaps you find a map the goblins had with the location of a strange ruin, so you add investigating that to your story thread list as well.

I Like This, Well Put Together

This is a fun story framework system I can see myself using. It is interesting, lightweight, and it doesn't get in the way of the underlying rules with all sorts of special talents, abilities, and qualifiers. There isn't a lot of scaffolding here except for the Fate Chart, Chaos Factor, two ways of creating Random Events, and one-of-three possible Scene Setup rules. Just four pillars to consider when thinking about what happens next, and a solid yes-no method for creating the low-level details.

Very nicely done, and hlighly recommended for those into solo play.

Fantasy Flight's RPGs are now Edge Studio's

So I see Edge Studio (the new home of Fantasy Flight Games' RPGs) has their store up at DriveThruRPG:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/17946/EDGE-Studio

Looks like every game except the Star Wars RPG is up for digital downloads and that is a good thing. It also looks like they have a community-content program up for Genesys with a foundry program:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/cc/27/genesys-foundry

The program includes style guides, templates, and a 50-50 revenue split with EDGE Studio, plus retaining rights to your original IP (like the unique setting, characters, story, etc). I see that as fair given they need to make money in order to keep supporting the game with books and dice, plus the acquisition costs for the game. If you want 100% of revenue for your game, go B/X or roll your own, but I feel this is reasonable for supporting a system so many are fans of, and personally I want to see this game continue and have strong community support.

I am liking Genesys more as a structured story game. It is like a FATE-style story-system, but more geared towards cinematic play with easier to interpret narrative events built into the dice. It feels like the Star Wars game and movies with an ever-shifting balance or power, good things and bad happening, and lots of unpredictable things built into the rolls. The symbols on the dice make it easier to interpret "what bad or good things happen" on a roll, and the rolls are also macro enough to cover a large swath of action - like one roll covering a transition scene in a movie.

Roll Streetwise to find the seedy bar the suspect is known to frequent, and cover the hours-long task with one toss of the dice. Does anything good or bad happen while you are looking and asking around? Roll the dice and see. Do you even find it? Is there a possible cost, or did you gain a benefit? One roll does it all.

The only thing holding me back from fully enjoying the game was a lack of settings and genre-specific content. With the Foundry it feels like the community is being set loose on this problem, and that is a great thing.

Looks like some great stuff coming up and I am looking forward to what comes next.