ORCACommander wrote:

this should of been placed in the off topic section. Mods?

[color=red] Yes[/color]

I still remember the old Degenesis. I was a fan of both the setting and system, which puts me in the minority. I haven't followed the new edition at all.

Degenesis is a game that Posthuman published an English translation of. It got a reboot in Germany, and AFAIK the English version is "no longer available", though you can find it floating around (It's licensed similarly to EP). It had one of those interesting (admittedly somewhat subpar) systems that I'm a sucker for, and was one of the more interesting post-apocalyptic games because of a number of unique factors in its setting development, which are too numerous to go into detail on here.

@Atreju: Just out of curiosity: How are you affiliated with Degenesis? It sounds allot like advertisement how you are talking about the game here and as I pointed out I am curious how you are connected to Degenesis. About the old game: I really like the setting. It is dark and 'somehow adult' as pointed out, but nonetheless seemed belivable to me. It is a psychotic world in which loads of people are quite over the top and that is what I loved about the game. For example the Spitaliens are an order of physicians who are trying to protect the surviving rest of humanity from before mentioned fungal infection from space. In doing so they are using very harsh and desperate measures like very strict containment protocols and killing and hunting hunting down infected persons (not that different from firewall as I come to think of it...). However, it is written quite dark and I saw the Spitalians as a bunch of really desperate, homicidal fascists. And that is the stuff I love to use in games. The struggle of leading a loosing battle, using extreme measures and still strive and hope to somehow cling to your humanity. As I pointed out, I liked the game and I am quite certain that I will pick up the new edition one day. As for the system: I ran a campaign for a while and the system was really a bit weird, but nothing you could not work with. It used two d10, from which the values were added, so the probability distribution of the dice rolls was a pyramid. That meant that low scores in a skill were the absolute, 'youneverachiveanything' nightmare, medium scores, up to 12 gave you a real advantage and high scores in a skill didn't change much. But you could play with it as long as players had skills of 10 upwards.

If you want to know, why Atreju is so enthusiastic, check the artwork of the 1st chapter of the book Primal Punk (German only, sorry). http://sixmorevodka.com/uploads/media/DEGENESIS/WEB/DEGENESIS-FORWARD-CH... You'll find this artwork in glossy print throughout both rule-books and the campaign book "In Thy Blood" (English version coming soon). I bought the books at first instance just because I liked the artwork, but when I started reading the setting impressed me just the same. And so I share Atrejus enthusiasm, and like to spread the word. ;)

I still am a big fan of the original book, but my group could never figure out a way to tweat the atrocious system, so i'm with Holy here. I remember seeing the reboot and something made me shirk away from it. Something was fishy about it.... wasn't that the thing with the super expensive collectors edition or something? Either way, love the setting and the setting is well described in the free corebook. So i could use the EP rules or fate to play in it. Fate would actually work pretty sweet i think.

This looks pretty neat, I've been reading it a bit. Hard to find a group or discussion yet though.

GreyBrother wrote:

@SquireNed Sorry for replying so late. Yeah, i checked it out again and went to the website and... the cheapest physical book is just some premium edition which.... is just not the kinda business i want to support. If you like it though, enjoy and more power to you. Play more games. :)

Too busy working on mine to start in on a new game at the moment, though at some point I'm going to run another EP, and with that add some more entries to AUGC and NMO.

Atreju wrote:

Just put it this way: what other games would sell as a premium edition is the standard level for Degenesis. These books have the highest quality out there in the rpg market and they wouldn't cut any slack to diminish the quality of what they've done. A lower price would always mean lower quality, and if you check the number of pages per dosh you get, there is not much difference to other games. To quote Neil Gaiman: "It is heavy enough to overcome an intruder, and that has always been my definition of true art."

The problem is that I'm not willing to splurge on a premium edition until I know it's premium. I was a featured reviewer at DriveThruRPG for a long time, and a seven hundred page game didn't usually spell "instant success". It spelled "I'll never have anyone to play this with, the mechanics are almost certainly over-personalized to the author's tastes, and I don't have time to go through it." I mean, I even liked the original Degenesis enough to consider it in my top ten games for a long time, but I can't afford $110 (and probably shipping) on a game: I'd have the only copy for my group even if I splurged on it, and that means it'd get trashed as it got passed around between people for rule lookups and such. At least if it's on my tablet I don't have to worry about the pages getting torn, and I can get a PDF of a game and a new tablet for the same price. It looks like the English PDF is finally available, and it's still over $40 (if they apply digital sales tax, it'd be $50ish). Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to accept the value of games, but having your game's standard price be what it would cost to deck each person in my group out with a PDF of a cheaper game is just plain exclusionary pricing. As much as I want it, I'm not sure when I'll finally get it. If it were on DriveThruRPG, I'd apply store credit and snap it right up, but it's a lot of money and I just can't justify a huge purchase for a game I might not play ever.

Sorry Atreju, that's a artificially inflating the importance of the name "premium" and/or devaluing the "standard" of other productions. It puts a bad taste in my mouth if SMV would really claim that "others premium is our standard". I might just be used to the good treatment we got from PHS, especially in terms of PDF pricing.

I finally caved and bought Degenesis. The PDF cost came to $37ish, which is less than I expected. I don't know why: the price actually went down mid-check out, and there's no logic I can spot: I didn't have a coupon, there wasn't any listed sale, et cetera. The big draw of Degenesis remains the art and setting. The new mechanics are sorta Shadowrun-esque, with a d6-based success system that is a little better than the old system (or a lot, depending on personal taste), and it's certainly a little more fun to deal with. Character creation is sane and relatively quick. Artistically, Degenesis is pretty. Given that SIXMOREVODKA is a concept art studio, as well as a tabletop games publisher, there's a lot to like. It seems like at least 20% of pages have half or full page art, and the page backgrounds are magnificent; they vary from page to page and while I can't determine whether or not there's a loop or random pattern going on they are often relevant to the contents of a page and they are certainly easy on the eyes; there's a lot going for it, and the aesthetic certainly comes across better in Rebirth than in the original Degenesis. Unrelatedly, I'm not sure what the canon is between Degenesis and Degenesis: Rebirth, but there's less overt aggression in Rebirth, and I feel like you could actually gather together groups of characters from different cults and not have a recipe for bloodshed, though there are certainly some cults that don't get along (Spitalians and Apocalyptics, or, worse, Anabaptists and Jehammedans). There's an official online character creator that is pretty good; it doesn't have character advancement rules implemented, but that's not the end of the world.