|
spectralent posted:Hey thread, if I take an advance from another playbook, in monsterhearts specifically but I assume this happens in other games too, that triggers off something a different move establishes, do I have to take the first move first, or can it just be activated whenever thematically appropos? For Blamed in specific, like, you could probably just inflict 'Blamed' through other methods.
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 19:45
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:24 |
|
|
Hiro Protagonist posted:I have a come to a conclusion: I hate powered by the apocalypse games. Specifically, I hate the idea of moves. It makes role-playing into a purely mechanical thing in my experiences. If I want my character to be friendly with another character, but they fail there roll, I am forced to hate them. Similarly, the consequences being chosen by players makes me wonder why it even bothers with a GM. No one in real life can really control the consequences of their actions, so choosing the exact way I want things to go takes me out of the game. In a way, and players have far too little power over their characters, and for too much power over the world. The players help you define the world as much or as little as you let them. AW encourages you to "ask provocative questions and build on the answers," but that doesn't have to include ceding total creative control to the players. John Harper wrote a really good article about "Crossing the Line" that talks about the balance of creative details and its effect towards "making the world feel real." As for controlling the consequences of your own actions, you don't. Especially on a miss, the MC/GM is going to take that opportunity to make with the bloody fingerprints. And even on a hit, you are usually faced with choices. Those options you didn't choose represent the things in the situation that you can't control. A good example is seize by force - on a 7-9 you get to pick two options. Awesome, I can really gently caress these guys up! But if I do, then I can't both a) keep myself from getting hosed up, and b) keep them from killing the NPC I'm trying to save. So I am forced to make a choice, to prioritize what is important to me. And that's what the choices represent - your priorities in the moment. Choosing "suffer little harm" might mean ducking for cover. "inflicting terrible harm" might mean burning through ammunition like it's going out of style. You know it might bite you in the rear end later, but you make the conscious choice to do it because right here, right now, it will get the job done. AW isn't a "one shot, one roll" kind of a game, so your choices help to describe the kinds of actions you take over the course of the conflict. Finally, be careful lumping all PbtA games together. There are some really good ones out there, but an awful lot of it is crap. The PbtA engine does a couple of things really well, but unless a hack plays well to those strengths, it's just another ruleset.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 22:36
|
|
|
I'd venture to say that the only good games in the engine are Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World itself.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 22:59
|
|
|
Nihnoz posted:I'd venture to say that the only good games in the engine are Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World itself. I'd venture you've never Played Spirit of '77, Fellowship, WWWRPG, Masks, Inverse World...
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 23:04
|
|
|
Night Witches went okay. I think the main ones that are a bit naff (admittedly that I have experience with) are Dungeon World and Tremulus, and they're not horrible, but they are definitely kind of meh.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 23:13
|
|
|
Dungeon World definitely falls in the "meh" category for me. It's novel for what it is (an attempt to get grognards who will only play D&D to try something different), but the kludgy D&D crunchiness it incorporates makes it way less hot and awesome than AW itself.
|
|
#
?
Feb 27, 2016 23:58
|
|
|
spectralent posted:Night Witches went okay. I think the main ones that are a bit naff (admittedly that I have experience with) are Dungeon World and Tremulus, and they're not horrible, but they are definitely kind of meh. If I had to pick a PbtA game as being horrible it would definitely be tremulus. Large parts of it are just a copy+paste of AW with little consideration of how those elements actually fit in a game of 1920s Mythos investigating as opposed to a post-apocalypse shitfest.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 00:05
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:I'd venture you've never Played Spirit of '77, Fellowship, WWWRPG, Masks, Inverse World... Isn't the math in Masks sort of off?
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 00:05
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:Isn't the math in Masks sort of off? Well, no. You can get a +3 in your most important Label, but any adult can use their Influence and lower it (and increase something else). If you Reject their influence, the may change it anyway (and you mark an emotional condition), but if you succeed you grow as a person.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 00:39
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:I'd venture you've never Played Spirit of '77, Fellowship, WWWRPG, Masks, Inverse World... Any game in the World engine where you play a party with a shared goal is garbage.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
Nihnoz posted:Any game in the World engine where you play a party with a shared goal is garbage. I keep seeing that said, but I haven't yet seen an explanation as to why. What aspects of the core PBTA engine make it inherently opposed to long-term cooperation? I'm genuinely curious since I'm working on a hack that's lighter teen drama than Monsterhearts, and I haven't read a design analysis that explains the PVP Or Bust thing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 01:10
|
|
|
Doc Aquatic posted:I keep seeing that said, but I haven't yet seen an explanation as to why. What aspects of the core PBTA engine make it inherently opposed to long-term cooperation? I'm genuinely curious since I'm working on a hack that's lighter teen drama than Monsterhearts, and I haven't read a design analysis that explains the PVP Or Bust thing. Because Dungeon World has you roll for damage basically. I've never heard a more coherent take. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Feb 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 01:18
|
|
|
I think AW definitely had a PvP bent, so it's definitely easier to port it, but functionally PBTA is just a gameplay structure. Like, Dungeon World isn't great but it's not awful, it's a perfectly serviceable game and I'd rather play it than Pathfinder or something. EDIT: I guess the issue is DW is basically to run Pathfinder which isn't a genre I have tons of interest in anyway, which is an improvement on pathfinder itself because that's also a game for playing pathfinder but has the disadvantages of actually playing pathfinder. You feel me? spectralent fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Feb 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 01:21
|
|
|
Doc Aquatic posted:I keep seeing that said, but I haven't yet seen an explanation as to why. What aspects of the core PBTA engine make it inherently opposed to long-term cooperation? I'm genuinely curious since I'm working on a hack that's lighter teen drama than Monsterhearts, and I haven't read a design analysis that explains the PVP Or Bust thing. Here is a long post from a few pages ago in this very thread about it.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 03:32
|
|
|
Well, Dood's post is a great explanation of why AW works so well. But I'd disagree that because it works well one way, it can't work well the others. Of the two "create an RPG" examples given in Simple World, one is Apocolypse World. The other is a game about Unicorn Princesses.The system's capable of doing both, and Dood's struggles with Enemy Action doesn't mean it can't do both. A lot of hacks don't get why PbTA works. I've never contended otherwise. But to say only Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows works is to do two things: --Ignore the interplay of helping and hurting (MoTW does this well; almost every class is "monster hunting fuckup with a personal agenda", except the Mundane, whose schtick is gently caress Up, get XP. In '77, the Vigilante and Tough Guy are almost always going to oppose the brainier or smoother party members. In WWWRPG, only the person hitting their finisher in a tag match gains the +1 audience, and there's a specific --Ignore that Hx is built into the systems of all of these games. The problem isn't games where you all have one goal; it's that it's hard to undermine the party when failing the goal means death. So the Starship Enterprise or the Tomb of Horrors aren't using the full piano of PbtA. But there are a poo poo ton of other ways to do it. It's not some Everquest binary of "PVP: Yes or No".
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 03:48
|
|
|
Doc Aquatic posted:I keep seeing that said, but I haven't yet seen an explanation as to why. What aspects of the core PBTA engine make it inherently opposed to long-term cooperation? I'm genuinely curious since I'm working on a hack that's lighter teen drama than Monsterhearts, and I haven't read a design analysis that explains the PVP Or Bust thing. I'd have said there were three things combined that made PBTA systems run best under at least light PVP. The first is the agenda "Play to find out what happens" in almost all PBTA games combined with the setting being created in character creation. This makes it harder to make villains an integral part of the setting - in most D&D campaigns the villain and the setting existed prior to character creation. The setting is created round the PCs and the threats to the setting reflect choices about the PCs rather than the PCs being the monkey-wrench in the setting. The second is that only the PCs roll. This means that at some levels an NPC can't be as vibrant as a PC, so PCs make the best adversaries. The third is that the GM is restricted more than in most RPGs and the moves come in response to the PCs failing rolls. First this makes the PCs their own worst enemies as the PCs doing things wrongly or suffering consequences drives scenes. Second it again makes the NPCs less vibrant than PCs. None of these are absolute determinants. It's possible to overcome any or all of them in game design - but all of them are pointers towards at least light PVP and allies of convenience ratehr than a tight-knit party.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 04:20
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:Words Yes, I just linked that post because it seems like a decent starting point for the discussion. And I think you made the good follow-up point: a lot of the fun of PbtA is that sometimes your character is going to do a thing that the party doesn't want because your character wants it. In AW this usually ends with PvP, in US it usually ends in politicking and cruel/inevitable betrayal, and in MH it usually ends with (more) high school drama. (I'll refrain from speaking about MotW since I haven't played it, but maybe it has a similarly-themed mechanism..) And all of that is precisely tied to the fact that you need to sometimes act contrary to the "end goal" to make a good story. I think a good way to generalize this insight is that a major strength of PbtA is its ability to incite inter-character drama. The idea of "betraying the party" shouldn't be a "die if you do" scenario, but a "Oh poo poo Tonic's going to be mad and good luck if he doesn't [stab/sell out/spread lies about] you" situation. When I explain AW to people, it's usually as an HBO show. And I usually use that as a jumping-off point to couch character conflict. Of course you're going to have inter-character problems: point out one good TV show around that doesn't play up the interpersonal dramas between the main characters. Even when they're on the same side, that drama shows up to drive the story, drive player growth, and drive group growth. That sort of conflict, even benign in terms of physical PvP, drives good stories. It's no coincidence that the AW book talks about "onscreen" and "offscreen". And, in fact, says this outright: AW, p. 136 posted:Choose the things you’d just loving kill to see well done on the big screen, and skip the things that don’t spark your interest. Why do I tune in every week? I don't just tune in to see the cool dungeon of the week, but if Hardison and Parker are actually going to date, if this is the week where Jayne sells the crew out, if Michael is going to finally tell Rachel he didn't go to Harvard. That's what keeps me coming back to the show, and that's, in my opinion, when PbtA starts to sing. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Feb 28, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 04:22
|
|
|
Agreed fully. But that's a far way from the driveby pisstakes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 05:21
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:driveby pisstakes. Any analysis at all is far and away from these.
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 06:47
|
|
|
For whatever it is worth, Vincent Baker has commented on his intention regarding these kinds of things when designing Apocalypse World
|
|
#
?
Feb 28, 2016 07:43
|
|
|
Whoop, sorry I've been MIA. I think I'd second QuantumNinja - PBTA games for me are about interactions between PCs as much as interactions with NPCs. I think I agree with some of what Doodmons says about PBTA games, in that I think that they have to focus on the tangled web of cooperation to be good. The moves system, the dice mechanic, the playbooks - some of this stuff is interesting and refining on mainstream RPGs, but the most important aspect of a PBTA is how the whole thing hangs together. They live and die on PCs interacting with each other, and being driven to interact with each other, in a way that makes for interesting play. It's easy to look at Apocalypse World and see hx as "the" mechanic that does this, but actually most of the game is focused on creating those tangled webs. The playbooks are set up to be held in tension with each other - there is no combination of 3 or more playbooks that doesn't have some kind of conflict built in. It does this by rewarding play on those books, and by pushing players to do stuff they're good at. The hardholder wants the hardhold to be at peace and under control, but the hocus thrives when everything is on the brink of disaster, and the gunlugger is built to solve all problems with violence. The chopper is going to be pushing for theft and thuggery, but the angel wants them to screw up and get hurt, so he gets paid. I'm sure we can all think of tensions in the playbooks without me listing any more. The reason that the Operator is a wet duck playbook is because that tension, that web of connections, is both more explicit and less motivating. You don't have to push these conflicts in the direction AW doe (to violence, fuckery and craziness), but for a PBTA game to succeed and be satisfying you do have to push it. It's why DW is sometimes a bit meandering - sure, there are connections between the PCs, but the classes don't spread into each other and cause interesting sparks when they do. If the wizard got to advance for acquiring ancient tomes and artifacts, and the barbarian got to advance for burning and destroying civilisation, then you'd have tension - it'd be a conflict, even if the two are ultimately on the same side, that would push that relationship and make things not boring. I also think that's why Urban Shadows is weirdly uneven - depending on the playbooks you bring out, it can deliver this experience in spades, and you get lots of interesting tension, alliance-building and alliance-destroying, and general subtly politicking and fuckery. But sometimes you bring out playbooks that don't have that overlap, and things start to fall apart - that drive to create tension and build relationships, to resolve through play the tensions on your sheets, is missing. I think that's why some people play US and love it, and others play it and think it's OK but kind of stilted and awkward. Monsterhearts works because instead of embedding that tension into the playbooks (though they do that too, to a certain extent) that tension is built into the basic moves, and pushing the gameplay in that direction without any pretence. It means that you create those tensions all the time, whether you mean to or not. Totally unrelated, it's been really great to get feedback from you all on Bronze Circle and Lords of Creation, and both of those are now pending some serious playtesting. However, one of my other projects, Blood&Iron, has been revised following playtests and is now meandering towards a finished 2nd draft. It'd be super cool if people could check out the rules and the playbooks and sheets. Thanks in advance. Oh, and in service of getting off my arse and getting serious with this poo poo, here's my facebook page and G+ community. I'll be slapping updates and stuff up there.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 09:46
|
|
|
Given the lack of activity in Malleus play test recruit thread, I figured I would post the link to the G+ group I have set up to organise play test sessions in here, in case anyone is interested.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 13:26
|
|
|
thefakenews posted:Given the lack of activity in Malleus play test recruit thread, I figured I would post the link to the G+ group I have set up to organise play test sessions in here, in case anyone is interested. I'm almost certainly not up for online playtesting (never has sit right with me), but I will happily put it on my group's playtest list. Can you link out to the collection of all the materials we might need? It might be a while before we get to it, but it should happen.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 13:30
|
|
|
thefakenews posted:Given the lack of activity in Malleus play test recruit thread, I figured I would post the link to the G+ group I have set up to organise play test sessions in here, in case anyone is interested. Personally speaking, I would have gladly given you an hand with playtesting but I am in a different timezone, and I am already staying up until 3 am for one game session once a week; I can't afford to do it more often.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 14:20
|
|
|
Nifara posted:I'm almost certainly not up for online playtesting (never has sit right with me), but I will happily put it on my group's playtest list. Can you link out to the collection of all the materials we might need? It might be a while before we get to it, but it should happen. Playbooks are here. Full draft rules are here. paradoxGentleman posted:Personally speaking, I would have gladly given you an hand with playtesting but I am in a different timezone, and I am already staying up until 3 am for one game session once a week; I can't afford to do it more often. What time zone are you in? There's som flexibility regarding play times.
|
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 14:31
|
|
|
thefakenews posted:What time zone are you in? There's som flexibility regarding play times. I'm on GMT+1. When I checked the Doodle poll the only times available were from midnight to 6 am from my point of view, so I figured it was not going to happen. paradoxGentleman fucked around with this message at 14:46 on Feb 29, 2016 |
|
#
?
Feb 29, 2016 14:41
|
|
|
So I've been furiously working to get things into shape so I can handout playtest packets at conventions this summer. You can grab a copy of Blood&Iron with everything you need to play - it'd be awesome to know what you think. Print it double sided, flipped on short edge, at 100% and it should come out fine (as long as you're printing on A4. You'll have to find your own solutions in another format, I haven't gotten around to setting it out for letter yet, but I will and it should be pretty much OK in the mean time). I'd be very appreciative of feedback. I'm well aware that the storywheel is low resolution - that was a problem with exporting that I know how to fix, but I just haven't had time to do yet. It'll get updated in the near future. Hope y'all like it. You should pretty much be able to play the whole game with this pack.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2016 12:40
|
|
|
I'd like to see a clearer way of reading the sheets; the blacks are too heavy and the MOVES section is concealed on page 2. Underline, highlight or mark directly what moves you start with. I wonder if giving each PC 5 NPCs to assign would complicate play. The rebel's ritual knife should be +Magic, otherwise your choice "one knife or infinite knives." The book is extremely evocative, though. Everything seems to push play forward. It's great how the Jester gets success on a miss. In play would this lead to scenarios where you're good no matter what you roll? Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Mar 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2016 22:31
|
|
|
I'm kind of wondering how much of the improved battle stuff from AW2e might fare ported over to The Regiment.
|
|
#
?
Mar 3, 2016 22:41
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:I'd like to see a clearer way of reading the sheets; the blacks are too heavy and the MOVES section is concealed on page 2. Underline, highlight or mark directly what moves you start with. When you say the blacks, do you mean the fonts, the heading highlights, or something else? Knowing exactly what is causing problems would be useful. I'm a little surprised by what you say about moves being concealed. These are trifolds, so the inside sheets contain the reference materials for 90% of play - the move will be visible alongside your stats when they're open. Where would you prefer them to be? It's where the moves are on the AW trifolds. You're absolutely right about the moves you start with not being higlighted, that's a silly mistake, and I'll fix it in my next pass. Golden Bee posted:I wonder if giving each PC 5 NPCs to assign would complicate play. It hasn't presented a problem in the playtests so far, but I can see why you'd say that. I'm not sure it's more complicated for keeping track of than such things are in things like AW and US. Are they something you just don't like, or are they something you'd concerned would slow things down? Golden Bee posted:The rebel's ritual knife should be +Magic, otherwise your choice "one knife or infinite knives." You're right, again will fix in the next pass Golden Bee posted:The book is extremely evocative, though. Everything seems to push play forward. Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad it's making an impression! The Jester is one of the more experimental playbooks, I guess. I'll hopefully be doing my next round of playtests with it this weekend - last time, the problem was actually that the jester was under powered, rather than finding things too easy. It's possible I've over corrected but, hey, that's why we playtest, right? I've certainly tried to keep the options distinct and very different in tone and effect on a miss than a hit, but yes, one of the strength of the Jester is that they can guarantee something "good" coming out of what they do.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 16:07
|
|
|
Nifara posted:When you say the blacks, do you mean the fonts, the heading highlights, or something else? Knowing exactly what is causing problems would be useful. If you look at a Monsterhearts skin, you'll see everything is shadowed to the right, even the circles. This draws the eyes over to the picture and moves. (Other games do it differently: in Spirit of '77, the bigger the text, the more important it is.) In Blood and Iron, all the lines are pointing away from the moves. The circles are shaded to be lightest to the top right. The dividing lines on the left go from dark to darker to light. The thick blood of the logo drips onto the "Circles" field, which is not the most vital part of the sheet. Maybe it's less noticable while printed, but I play a majority of games online. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Mar 4, 2016 |
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 18:30
|
|
|
Golden Bee posted:I mean the line weights of everything & the ink density. This is great stuff to have feedback on, and I'll take a serious look at some examples, and see what I can change to make it easier. The printed ones seem pretty clear and clean, so it's possible I've been ignoring issues with the digital versions that won't arise in printed copies. Thanks again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 20:01
|
|
|
Has anyone had a chance to check out The Sprawl yet? Is it worth $15 for the PDF?
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 21:57
|
|
|
Gorbash posted some impressions of it a little back. He's playing in a game I'm running of it. So far, I like it a lot, but we are still in the legwork phase of the first mission.
|
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 22:56
|
|
|
Nifara posted:This is great stuff to have feedback on, and I'll take a serious look at some examples, and see what I can change to make it easier. The printed ones seem pretty clear and clean, so it's possible I've been ignoring issues with the digital versions that won't arise in printed copies. In addition to what Golden Bee mentioned, which I generally agree with, the layout is very cramped which hurts readability. I know you have a lot of information to fit on there, but if you could open up your line spacing a little bit I think that would make a positive difference. The lines dividing the various creating a character sections are also too tightly spaced with the text. The text of the headers often touches, or very nearly touches, the edges of the black backgrounds which I'm not a fan of. I also noticed a couple places where your text touches or is covered by the black header backgrounds. Edit: also, think about italicising move triggers. I find makes it easier to identify what move you are looking for, and it breaks up the blocks of text a bit. thefakenews fucked around with this message at 23:31 on Mar 4, 2016 |
|
#
?
Mar 4, 2016 23:26
|
|
|
thefakenews posted:In addition to what Golden Bee mentioned, which I generally agree with, the layout is very cramped which hurts readability. I know you have a lot of information to fit on there, but if you could open up your line spacing a little bit I think that would make a positive difference. The lines dividing the various creating a character sections are also too tightly spaced with the text. All solid input. I'm struggling through my first layout challenge in indesign, so there are bound to be hiccups. I agree they look cramped, it's just a case of working out how on earth to fit everything on with spaces opened up - do you think I could stand to drop half a point or so on the text in order to open up the spacing? I see what you mean about the headers, I'll tweak the layouts so that doesn't happen. And yes, that shouldn't be happening, I'll shift things around to try and make sure headers don't intrude on body text. Italicising move triggers is a sensible plan, I'll do that for sure. Thanks again for all the feedback!
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2016 10:16
|
|
|
So has anyone given The Sprawl or Uncharted Worlds a look? I'm kinda interested in both, but haven't heard much talk about overall quality.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2016 15:46
|
|
|
I backed Uncharted Worlds, but it kind of feels incomplete and hard to judge? This may be because the second book isn't out, which is supposed to have more aliens, psychic woo, and space opera campaign stuff.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2016 16:12
|
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:So has anyone given The Sprawl or Uncharted Worlds a look? I'm kinda interested in both, but haven't heard much talk about overall quality. Haven't played Sprawl without the creator, so I can't tell if the implementation was good or if it was creator finesse.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2016 17:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 14, 2024 12:24 |
|
|
Evil Mastermind posted:So has anyone given The Sprawl or Uncharted Worlds a look? I'm kinda interested in both, but haven't heard much talk about overall quality. I got to play the kickstarter .8 beta of Sprawl without the creator for a con game last fall and it handled pretty well. There was only one other player with PbtA experience at the table but everyone really got into the mood of the game and the various phases of Planning and Action flowed into each other well. Even so I still think the game has a really intimidating move list.
|
|
#
?
Mar 16, 2016 18:14
|
|
