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Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi - Core Manual |
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Ring Side Report-Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi - Core Manual
Originally posted at www.throatpunchgames.com, a new idea every day!
Product- Esper Genesis 5E Sci-fi - Core Manual
System-Dungeons and Dragons 5e
Producer- Alligator Alley Entertainment
Price- $ 24.95 here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/240798/Esper-Genesis-5E-Scifi---Core-Manual?cPath=26435?affiliate_id=658618
TL; DR-5E IN SPACE! 92%
Basics-Want some DnD 5e but also want some spaceships and don’t want the less serious nature of Starjammer? Then Esper Genesis is the game for you. Hard space opera on the level of a Mass Effect with the crunch of the Forgotten Realms. Let’s go into the pieces first and then my thoughts on it.
Base Mechanic-Can you play DnD 5e? Then you know this system. That's it. That’s not a bad or a good, it's just the basic mechanics you know and you may love.
Classes-Like any system that bases itself on another base game there will be some reskins and some out of the box thinking taking the game in new directions. You have a not-fighter and a not-rogue, and the DnD 5e system needs those to work, but you also have whole new classes and a different magic system relying on new abilities, due to a new material found in moons across the galaxy. These new classes feel like combinations of clerics and wizards, and truly it's not bad. It breaks fun new ground on the mechanics of the system.
Spaceship Dogfights-DnD is NOT a crunch heavy system that requires a battle map to play, so the spaceship part of the game can’t use that either. Each player gets a role on the ship and can do different actions in a round from repairs to shields to killing people with lasers. However, this is all done quickly via theater of the mind.
Those are the basics. Let’s look at my thoughts.
Mechanics or Crunch-Honestly, this is the shining highlight of the book. You have the cloned classes that you know were going to be there from the not-fighter to the not-rogue, but the changes in mechanics really help the players see a new universe of potential to the system. I like what I see here. Now, this is a reskin and cut and paste of some DnD things from spells that have to be healing word and cure wounds, but it is different enough so you get new things for you to explore. Heck, you can’t even say this is just a combo of Starfinder and DnD5e, as the stuff feels fresh enough that it has its own feel distinct from either of those properties. This isn’t just a hack job of reworked DnD 5e material, this is its own thing that stands strongly on its own two feet. 5/5
Theme or Fluff- I like what I see here, but like any gourmet meal, I left wanting more. There is a whole universe here to explore, but I felt like not enough time was spent on the world itself. It's some amazing stuff, even if it does take some strong references from the Mass Effect series with elements like humans fighting then joining a galactic UN, a mystery element that gives powers. Now, this doesn’t make this game and its world derivative. The basic plot of "magic/science things give magic/science powers to people and now we deal with it" is a staple of the scifi and fantasy field, but what I don’t like is the limited amount of information on display. I wasn’t so much as left wanting more as I was left not getting enough. I wasn’t full waiting for my next book, but was more often than not given enough story to start strong. The world is fun, but not flushed out enough. I’m down to play and read more. What is here does draw you in, but I feel I need another 30 or so pages to really know the world or universe, from bad guys to who the main races are. That said, what is here is well done. I enjoy every piece of it, but just need more of it. 4.25/5
Execution- PDF? Yep! Hyperlinked? Yep! Ok, all the things I want standard in a book! The book is laid out well and typeset well, but the big issue I have is too many pages of double column text. Even the best world book or rule manual is simply a guide book or math textbook, and those NEED to be broken up to keep the reader involved. So I want more pictures to show me cool stuff of your world. Also, this is a third party product, so it has a limited budget. Many cool things are discussed like the monster manual in the back of the book, but I need pictures to see what you're showing me. I want to see what you got. Also, as a new world that is whole-cloth your own, you NEED a short adventure to tell me your pacing and story structure. I read this as standard action adventure scifi, but you might have meant this to be hard R space horror. Overall, it's well done, but it's missing a few pieces to make it excellent. 4.5/5
Summary- From my review, you might think I don’t like this, but this is an amazing rpg. It's got scifi using the nuts and bolts of the DnD 5e system while not just becoming spelljammer. It's full of new flavor that is all its own and not just a copy paste from Star Wars. It’s got solid layout in a format I BEG the major RPG producers to do. All these things mean it is a solid game! My issues are minor, such as wanting more story in the base book, even though the authors clearly indicate other books that have come out since this game was published to build out the world like trailers for coming attractions. The execution of the book is good, but needs more pictures. I just want more in the book, but for a whole RPG from a small press RPG company, this is an amazing product. However, the inevitable comparison comes forward-Is this just Starfinder with 5e? And the answer, I think, is no. This is more light scifi with no space wizardry and none of the more fantastical elements that make Starfinder science fantasy while this is science fiction. The systems stay very separate from one another, as Starfinder embraces the hard crunch of Pathfinder while Esper Genesis has its own mechanics from 5e and modified as needed to give this the speed that 5e is famous for. With this book and the base DnD 5e book, you could make your own Starfinder game, but honestly, I'd use this book by itself to play an awesome game among the stars. If you are looking for your fast, fun, 5e scifi, look no further than this game! 92%
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A really great 5E sci-fi system. As somebody who's looked into almost every SF RPG system out there, this one strikes the best balance for me.
When I break down sci-fi RPGs, I think in terms of two key metrics: 1) How much do I like the ruleset? 2) How heavy does that ruleset weigh on the setting/creativity of the DM?
A common problem I found when I was trying to find a system I liked, was that advantages in one of these categories was always equally outweighed by negatives in the other category.
Hyperlanes for 5E uses the 5th Edition DnD ruleset, which for me and my group strike the right balance between tactical play and cinematic, rules-light play; however, Hyperlanes also creates an overly hard SF setting for what I'd like to play. To add some of the more fantastical elements I look for in an RPG, I'd find myself needing to homebrew entire classes and "spell" lists.
Stars Without Number (Revised Edition or Original, or even Traveler) has a better balance when it comes to giving the player control over how fantastical vs hard their setting feels, but the rulesets are too roguelike for my liking.
Starfinder, while offering some interesting rules dives too deeply into the 3rd-4th edition "Pit of Math" that characterizes the Pathfinder games and the rules provided force the idea of magic a bit too deeply into the settting (i.e. the word magic and spell will come up frequently and explicitly and there are literal dragons). This can be almost as much work to expunge as it is to create new classes from scratch.
If you're like me and have wanted a reasonable, middle-of-the-line science fiction setting that is neither strictly hard nor strictly fantastical (think Mass Effect) for using the 5th edition ruleset, this is exactly it.
While I might have done some things differently in terms of language usage to make it slightly more generic (i.e. Sorium, Esper, etc), I don't mind the basic language the game provides to you and I found once I had engaged with it for a bit in actual play, I was able to avoid having these setting elements feel at the forefront of the story.
Overall, it's a definite recommend for me, if only because I LOVE LOVE LOVE RPG books and this one is quite beautiful and nicely laid out. We've bought everything in PDF/book format so far that is available. My only regret is that there is not really any kind of convenient digital tool for esper power look-up/character creation available. I'd love to see a standalone app, an import file for 5th Edition Spellbook, etc. anything really. I had considered making an import file myself, but I haven't had the chance to look at what is OGL/OGC in Esper Genesis and what is not.
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Beautiful pdf and the hardcover is even more so. I am not one to be able to provide a well written review, but just wanted to say that I love this game, well done on so many levels. GREAT JOB! Do yourself a favor and check it out.
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I have watched Esper Genesis grow as I was a playtester and (late to the game) Backer. I have loved how they tweaked 5E to make it more well rounded and added a universe that begs to be explored. I have found that I love the classes and races in Esper more than I ever loved 5e D&D (bugbear aside) and I love running Crucible Corps and now that my players have eaten up all of that my own universe. I cannot rave more about this game, yes first edition had a lot of things to be fixed but they pushed out an update in lightning fast speed and updated the pdf accordingly. PLAY THIS GAME!!
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Esper Genesis is an excellent full of great story potential set in an interesting universe. The Species are varied an interesting and it uses the 5e D&D ruleset excellently. It is fun, fast, and easy to play.
The art is brilliant as well.
Great game.
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Alright, let's get all the nasty (and few) objective issues out of the way so we can get on to the Good Stuff (TM). Sidenote, how many of the developers played 3.5/PF? Asking for a friend.
- Cerebral Ashenforged are pretty damn strong, but so are hill dwarfs.
- The Belare information doesn't really go into a lot of detail about HOW exactly the enviromental suits work. While it prbably won't come up in game, it would be nice to have a small block such as "Inside Your Suit!"
- The Lunar Eldori's "Draw From the Wheel" ability doesn't specify a duration. Is it supposed to be "The NEXT d20 roll you make"?
- The Adepts Talent Point scaling is off, shouldn't it be the same as the Melder?
- Also, the Adept and a few others get bonus spells based on thier choice of subclass, but it doesn't specify if those spells are automatically gained like the cleric, or must be chosen like the warlock. I'm assuming the former but it'd be nice to know for sure.
- Unless there's been some serious rebalancing of spells, the Cybermancer should be proficient in Intelligence and Constitution saves?, not Intelligence and Charisma saves. Or, 1 good and 1 bad save instead of 2 bad saves.
- Opposite for the engineer, Wisdom AND Constitution saves are way to powerful, Wisdom and Charisma instead?
- Also the maximum talent rank and talent points colums are different for the adept and melder (they've swappped places).
- Sentinal is a better paladin, and the paladin was already one of the top tier classes. Not by much, but if I were allowing both EG and base PHB i'd not allow the sentinal. But that's just me.
- And the Specialist and Warrior are the Rogue and Fighter respectivly (this isn't actually an issue, but I do want to point it out for reasons).
Ok so, I like this alot. Like, i'm a huge fan of space opera, and this scratches that itch. In a different way than starfinder, which is good. Right so, this is more of a thing for the buyer: The Cybermancer, Engineer, Hunter, Sentinel, Specialist and Warrior are the Warlock, Cleric, Revised Ranger, Paladin, Rogue and Fighter in essence, but heavily reflavored. And when I say reflavored, I mean it. However, the subclasses (At least from what i've seen) are not, and most are entirely new (excpet for the Hunter, but it's the revised ranger) or have had new stuff added/cobbled together from already existing subclasses. What this means is that even if you're not gonna be running a space campaign, the content from this book is still usable, which is awesome. Just replace all the space tech stuff with regular magitech and you're good to go. The Esper stuff can just be used as psionics (which actually melds quite nicely with what psionics is probably gonna be in 5e if you've been watching HFH). Space Ship Combat is easily repurposed as Sailing Boat Combat (Just reduce the size of everything because no they're not that big), and the backgrounds would easily fit onto a high magitech enviroment such as Eberron or Kaledesh. In fact, if you wanted to play a Kaledesh-esque campaign, get this.
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This book is fantastic and very well done, with great art, layout, and clear, understandable rules. It borrows heavily from D&D 5e's Player's Handbook, but with a sci-fi theme throughout. Though there are only 8 classes, there are more archetypes for some comparable classes than in the PHB. The best part in my opinion is that EG is totally compatible with D&D 5e rules, and monsters are totally interchangeable between both systems. There's absolutely no reason why you can't have a D&D 5e barbarian fighting along side a Warrior, while your party's Melder and Cleric and slinging spells in the back. My players and I switched over to EG from Starfinder and it's not a decision we regret. Space combat even makes sense because it's treated very similarly to regular combat. I can't wait for the other two core rulebooks to release (Master Technician's Guide--i.e. the DMG--and the Threats Database--i.e. the MM). Overall, great fun!
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I played a couple games using this setting and I was impressed by how refreshingly different it felt from standard D&D stuff, while retaining the accessibility and flexibility of the D&D 5e rules system. The writing flows well and is incredibly cohesive, and the artwork and layout are pretty great. The art is arguably a lot better than other sci-fi stuff that's out there. I would recommend this for people both new and used to science fiction settings - you can't go wrong with this one.
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Esper Genesis - A Science Fantasy/Fiction game based on the 5th ed D&D rules.
You get all new races and classes, though it's not too hard to see how some of them were derived from the originals to fit this setting.
A setting where discovery of the Cauldrons, mysterious planetoid/planetary scale artifacts from an unknown source, have spawned new technologies and new powers, Esper Genesis.
Ok, it's a star spanning sci-fi romp with it's own fantasy components. Psionics and Esper powers are definitley a fantasy component that is very common in scifi. The game lends itself very well to a nice range of settings that could easily include Star Wars, Mass Effect, or even the Retief series of books if you are so inclined, though it does have it's own setting included.
I've found the writing clear and easy to understand, and the artwork astounding! In my opinion, I've rarely seen artwork of this caliber in sci-fi games, or even games in general.
It even has a good spaceship combat system that gives people things to do other than wait for the pilot or gunner to win or get everyone spaced.
If you're curious, why not take a look at the Basic Rules, that file is free. Esper Genesis Basic Rules
I own or have otherwise looked at a variety of scifi rpg rulesets for star romping, and this is one is my favorite.
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