StarCraft using Genesys

If you are interested in running a StarCraft game using Genesys, these resources used and/or developed by the players of the actual play podcast Dicey Stories: StarCraft FRAWD Investigators may be helpful.

The material we developed ourselves is presented in a PDF here: https://diceystories.com/genesys-supplement-for-starcraft/. What does it cover? Some archetypes, talents, skills, and psionics, as described below.

The archetypes we developed are all for terran characters, since we had no protoss or zerg PCs in our campaign. Some of our created talents go with the archetypes, but a couple of them were for enabling more career skills like the way Well-Traveled does in Realms of Terrinoth (RoT:89). Coming to Genesys from having just played a bunch of Star Wars, we missed the specializations one could add that would grant more career skills. Our game used only three Knowledge skills: Protoss, Zerg, and Terran, and that’s reflected both in the archetypes and the talents. The only career change we made was that the Leader in the Genesys Core Rulebook has a Melee skill, but we thought Ranged-Light made more sense in this setting.

Although we used Genesys magic rules to cover psionics and zerg-infestation, we did not allow just flat-out open access to all the spells in the Core Rulebook. The powers had to be grudgingly learned over time from mentors narratively, and we worked out specific ones based on what the player wanted for the character. So using the Genesys magic system was more a frame of reference for our game than a rule set.

We sometimes consulted our FFG Star Wars RPG materials for equipment or vehicles, but we aren’t a very gear-focused group, so that was not a big deal to us.

A resource our GM used for some plot ideas are the adventure booklets developed by Leovaunt as part of his non-Genesys StarCraft adaptation: https://www.stellarrealmsgames.com/starcraft

1 Like

Hey @jendefer,
I stumbled upon FRAWD Investigators a few days ago. Love it. My knowledge of Starcraft is about nil, but your campaign is well run and interesting. I also can’t believe you are managing a weekly release schedule.

On the topic of other various places to market your podcast, if you are on the Genesys discord server, you might want to ask Drainsmith for the Podcast Host role, and post something about the podcast on the #podcasts channel.

1 Like

Thanks for the compliments, and for the tip! The two players also knew almost nothing about StarCraft in the beginning, so you’re not the only one! I was never sure when our GM was introducing a piece of lore from the game or making something up from scratch, but it was a fun fictional universe to explore.

The weekly release schedule would be virtually impossible if the game were being actively played right now. The campaign ran from Aug 2019-Aug 2020, so I had some lead-time before we began publishing it, as well as the comfort of know we’re telling a complete story. I like to try to stay one arc ahead of what is being released, but it is sometimes tricky. I’ve got to tell you, I have gained a lot of appreciation for professional sound editors and such!

2 Likes