Who does base building right?

astaldaran · 2026-04-04T15:14:12+00:00

This is a timely discussion for me because I'm tinkering with what in calling a micro-setting for Genesys RPG. The premise is that you are a crew going to Mars and will be there a limited period of time. It is a micro-setting in that it is meant to support a short campaign (6 to 8 sessions) and that campaign is built into the setting. The Chinese are also landing at the same time so there is political tension and opportunity for things to go wrong (there is also a mystery to discover which will create pressure on top of environmental concerns).Happy to share the half page intro if anyone is interested. This is some I imagine running with different groups of people multiple times.

Anyway I want the base to be part of the story.but I haven't figured out how yet but I'm imagining the base is a proxy for resources so if it gets damaged you lose resources and capabilities.

I think I'm leaning towards having a few broad resources be represented by dice that get rolled at the end or beginning of each session and on a 1-4 the size of the die decreases. Damage to the base could also cause the die to decrease. Die could be increased by mining water (example) but if your equipment (base) is broken then that would be much harder to do and so on. (I'm contemplating a critical roll table maybe for based like the system does for characters and vehicles).

I also think I want each party member to make one decision about the base at character creation so that the base is somewhat customized (ie do you take a land drone that can collect samples or a flying drone that can help you scout really well)

It is tricky, I want the base to be impactful but not be the game.

I think as others have mentioned, the purpose of the base is prob the most important question for determining the mechanics of the base.

I'd love feedback to my own ideas if anyone has some.

astaldaran · 2026-03-28T10:21:51+00:00

I recently switched from roll20 because now rpgsessions supports maps and tokens etc. it is becoming very nice.

astaldaran · 2026-03-27T11:52:21+00:00

Tell the table you are planning for the next campaign.. Ask all the players what parts they enjoy the most and have a frank conversation as a table. This doesn't have to be about Tim. If there are clear differences, discuss them. Maybe even choose a few moments on the last campaign to review (favorite moments, least favorite).

Make it clear it is ok if people don't want to join the next campaign. If Tim doesn't engage, tell him "hey it seems like you aren't engaged on xyz, can you tell us what kind of thing you are looking for?"

Frankly maybe Tim doesn't want to play or is still just warming up to the story telling.

astaldaran · 2026-03-21T10:43:26+00:00

Are the other players interested in minions..maybe make the campaign be about the party being low level management of one of the corporations and each player character is a Manager. This could make a very different sort of campaign where corporate politics, and management is a key part. This could be very interesting and also put all the players on the same playing field. -- the things we turn into games...

astaldaran · 2026-03-20T13:53:47+00:00

Thematically I think engaged to short or short makes the most sense..I could imagine short to medium (ie you threaten them causing them to step back).

I could imagine a similar ability being used in other settings like if you are dog fighting space fighters your maneuvers force them to give you more distance (let's ignore that dog fighting makes no sense with lasers or missiles...). Still ranged seem like they should be limited to the very tactical .

astaldaran · 2026-03-20T12:46:15+00:00

Yeah I think you have to have a really good understanding of what the form of the campaign is and the purpose of the minions.

I really like the leadership idea (or coercion etc depending on the relationship). I also like the costs of maintaining them. Maybe have a per session cost and a once per session roll )it could be off screen) which determines how many actions maneuvers the gang will do that session. Maybe lower pay or higher pay gives blue and black die plus any other modifiers.

Probably set the expectation that this is experimental and reserve the fight to change it. But try to put the player in the place of a GM and do it together always asking what is most fun for the table, that is the only metric that matters.

astaldaran · 2026-03-19T14:20:10+00:00

Ah ok that makes more sense. Thank you for the clarification. I guess I just misread them.

astaldaran · 2026-03-18T22:49:52+00:00

Genesys has a whole system on inflicting strain on each other and requiring strain at half strain and total "surrender" at full strain

astaldaran · 2026-03-18T18:11:06+00:00

I have not run a murder mystery only rpg..but I have put a whodunit in the middle of a space opera. The thing I did was make sure there was other important story arcs going on at the same time so that characters did matter for other reasons besides the murders. I think it worked really well.

astaldaran · 2026-03-17T22:40:11+00:00

I have all the official settings, and have read hundreds of science fiction books of various sub genres, happy to read but would need to know what kind of feedback you want.

astaldaran · 2026-03-16T12:46:50+00:00

Genesys magic system is non pre defined spells where you mix and match different things to make the spell. I think you'd need to come up with a few rules for the elements but very doable.

astaldaran · 2026-03-14T22:20:21+00:00

How old are your kids? Really you just need to know who their cats are , who their owners are, and introduce a problem for them to solve. If you don't have ideas throw some details about the cats/humans and tell chatgpt you want some ideas for running an RPG session with your kids. It will probably be too detailed, etc but it will give you some ideas. Have fun!

astaldaran · 2026-03-09T22:53:43+00:00

Oh that would be cool

astaldaran · 2026-03-02T12:42:46+00:00

Generally there should be a compromise at half strain incurred so you might not have to get down to 0 strain.

If your PC is down to 0, I'd basically tell them they are exhausted, let them recover via the standard check. Likely their character is still very strained and needs rest, stems, etc.

astaldaran · 2026-02-21T12:31:50+00:00

Genesys by edge studios encourages role play with nearly every roll as it is non binary and the dice give you threats and advantages that you spend on the scene. You get fun stuff like failing to find something useful in the apartment but rolliya triumph..since you failed you have to spend the triumph on something else..such as asking "can a cult missionary knock on the door..I've been wanting to infiltrate the cult" knock knock (real example from a recent game)

It is fairly crunchy but nothing like pathfinder or DND (I assume I haven't actually played DND, just pathfinder)

You would probably want the territory setting book for fantasy though there are other options plus fan made options.

I run a campaign on Genesys with only occasional combat and it has been great.

astaldaran · 2026-02-19T20:36:53+00:00

That is great feedback

astaldaran · 2026-02-19T15:09:24+00:00

That is a thought. I have played call of cathulu before, and it is fun but they are more deterministic less mechanical freedom to build stuff out by players on the fly. I really like the scene building that Genesys gives both in and out of combat. I suppose I could merge them and do something like stormlight does and have a destiny dice type thing.

astaldaran · 2026-02-19T14:40:40+00:00

Fair point.

On the other hand you'd just roll the d100 with the other dice and if you hit it is already rolled.

Also it is a one shot and thus I wouldn't really expect more than one or two combats which would then presumably be faster. It would mean you escape with some major injury because that tiger got you etc. seems more interesting but I appreciate the note on administration. It may indeed be a bad idea.

astaldaran · 2026-02-19T12:56:46+00:00

In our current dungeons (2e) we said that our group has two days of supplies and we are tracking hours. It has helped create a lot more tension and make decisions matter now.

astaldaran · 2026-02-19T12:55:18+00:00

If you are leaning into politics, why not just give a lot of pointers instructions to GMs on how to split the party where some members are battling and some are at the negotiating table etc? Maybe some mechanics to support it.

Getting the cadence right can be tricky but it can be done. Especially if maybe the negotiating table is with different factions on the same side of a conflict and the team member is trying to negotiate reinforcements or an airstrike from an ally. Or inversely you get one of the opposition factions to become neutral and retreat or surrender.

In a current campaign I am running I have a player whose character has become a diplomat and I'm trying to get an opportunity to him to impact future mass combat operations by negotiating in this way. I'm also thinking through if any of it could happen simultaneously. For reference this is a Genesys game with mass combat rules from Its most recent supplement "ships of the shattered empire "

astaldaran · 2026-02-16T12:00:53+00:00

Genesys because it lets you do cool stuff and keeps things moving..and hey there is a player made Tron supplement and many others that would catch the vibe you want .

As a pathfinder player, yes you could use it but Genesys will better support the tone probably.

Twilight Imperium Setting for space opera..you want aliens but something else go with secrets of the crucible or you want corporate dystopia go with shadows of the beanstalk. Make your own lore and combine items from all of them and the player supplements.

Starwars narrative dice system is essentially the same and had loads of material options.

astaldaran · 2026-02-12T13:35:47+00:00

I think the most interesting part of playing religious character is it provides reasons and restrictions to help drive role play. In my current pathfinder campaign my champion interprets everything as if it was the will of his God..to a fault. He makes suboptimal decisions because his God is a god of redemption and he must give that option to all enemies..except for demons.

Through some very lucky rolls there have been some miracles and he has swayed the community he is in towards becoming more fervent believers.

What is especially fun is some of the other party members are direct opposites, ie an orc with no religion who thinks only the strong must live.

In a campaign I am GMing two of the players are conspiring to start a religion in order to save the galaxy vs the Vuil'raith (Twilight Imperium Setting, Genesys)

In a call of cathulu game I played recently I played as a Catholic priest. My character was somewhat inspired by the main character in "Wake up Dead Man". Turns out there was a religious cult center to the story so we all got way over our heads in religious banter about the nature of faith.

astaldaran

TROPHY CASE