Genesys vs Tricube Tales
Compare Genesys and Tricube Tales side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Genesys | Tricube Tales | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Universal | Universal |
| Play Style | Toolkit, Narrative, Career-Based, Social Combat, Modular, Hackable, Character Building | Rules-Light, Player-Only Rolls, Narrative, Toolkit, Beginner-Friendly, Family, Open Source |
| Core Mechanic | Assemble a pool of custom narrative dice: positive dice (Boost, Ability, Proficiency) from character ability and skill, negative dice (Setback, Difficulty, Challenge) from task difficulty and circumstances. Roll all dice and cancel opposing symbols: Success vs. Failure determines if the task succeeds, Advantage vs. Threat determines beneficial or harmful side effects, and Triumph/Despair trigger powerful narrative outcomes. All three axes resolve independently, so a check can succeed with complications or fail with a silver lining. | Players roll one to three six-sided dice against a difficulty of 4 to 6 and succeed if any single die meets or beats it. The pool comes from the archetype: 3d6 when the character's trait fits the challenge, 2d6 when it does not, and one die fewer when the task falls outside their concept. Succeeding on two or three dice is an exceptional success, and rolling all ones is a critical failure. Players make every roll, including defense, so the GM never rolls dice. Karma tokens lower a difficulty by 1 or fuel a perk, while declaring a quirk raises it by 1 to earn karma back. |
| Dice | Custom dice | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Low |
| Accessibility | Medium | Very High |
| Runnability | Very High | Medium |
| License | Genesys Foundry (community content program) | CC BY 3.0 |
| Cost | $$ | Free / $ |
| Publisher | Fantasy Flight Games | Zadmar Games |
| Year | 2017 | 2026 |
| Best For | Groups who want a genre-flexible system where every dice roll generates narrative texture beyond pass/fail, and who enjoy interpreting results collaboratively at the table. | Tables that switch settings often and want one ruleset to cover all of them, or groups introducing children and first-time players who need rules with no arithmetic. |
| Highlights | Every roll produces multiple axes of outcome, creating layered narrative results beyond binary success/failure. Full social encounter rules give non-combat interactions the same mechanical depth as combat. The GM Toolkit provides structured guidance for creating custom settings, species, talents, and gear. Six example settings (fantasy, steampunk, weird war, modern, sci-fi, space opera) included in the core book. | Players roll to attack and to defend while the GM never touches the dice, which keeps the GM focused on describing the world rather than resolving it. Declaring a quirk raises a challenge's difficulty but refunds a karma token, giving players a mechanical reason to drag their own flaws into a scene. Eleven optional genre modules cover magic, superpowers, vehicles, and mass battles, so one ruleset stretches across settings without a second book. |
| Considerations | Requires proprietary narrative dice or the Genesys Dice App: standard polyhedral dice cannot be used without conversion charts. Interpreting multiple symbol types on every roll can slow play for groups unfamiliar with the system. No free quickstart or SRD available. | The GM assigns every difficulty and adjudicates what each perk can do, so outcomes rest on one person's consistency rather than on written rules. Characters are built from a single archetype, perk, and quirk, which leaves little mechanical distinction between two PCs who share a trait. Gear grants no bonuses and exists only to justify what a character can attempt, so equipment choices never change the dice. |