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Golden Bee posted:I’m thinking of running a noir set in 50s LA. Any system recommendations? Don’t know if monster of the week will do what I want it to. I know this is the PbtA thread, but if you don't mind going farther afield, Greg Stolze's _A Dirty World_ is built for noir and delivers.
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Apr 29, 2019 06:02
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Golden Bee posted:I’m thinking of running a noir set in 50s LA. Any system recommendations? Don’t know if monster of the week will do what I want it to. It's not PbtA, but "A Dirty World" is pretty good for the noir feel. Word to the wise, though: the "One Roll Engine" needs work. I'd at least double or possibly triple the number of dice being rolled just to get a more interesting spread of numbers to actually make it work as intended. But that's a pretty easy change. EDIT: drat YOU, ZORAK!!!! 
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Apr 29, 2019 06:05
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I just bought a dirty world but can you talk more about the dice pool changes? Any links on that?
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Apr 29, 2019 15:41
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What about Noir World? I haven't read it, but the One Shot version of it sounded pretty good.
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Apr 29, 2019 16:05
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Golden Bee posted:I just bought a dirty world but can you talk more about the dice pool changes? Any links on that? Ilor and I both played in a game that Blackironheart ran, and we all felt like we were rolling so few dice that the odds of getting matches at all were kind of slim. It fell like all rolls came down to luck. If everyone had a few more dice in their pool, it would settle the probability curve down some. Sorry this is vague but it's been a while and I don't have the rulebook handy right now.
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Apr 29, 2019 17:00
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Capfalcon posted:What about Noir World? I haven't read it, but the One Shot version of it sounded pretty good. It's...rough. Too long, 20 archetypes and lousy moves. 360 pages!
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Apr 29, 2019 20:04
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Yeah, it's exactly as Zorak says. I've played through two "Dirty World" scenarios (one set in 1948 Berlin and the other set in Prohibition-era west Michigan (where all the Chicago mobsters had summer homes). Both were a lot of fun and both really delivered the noir feel, but in most cases you're rolling so few dice that you almost never have any kind of match. As such, it often boils down to "who can roll higher on a single D10?" which is pretty unsatisfying. But if you increase the number of dice being thrown, your chance of getting matches increases, which means the space in which you have to interpret interesting results/consequences widens.
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Apr 29, 2019 22:57
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Golden Bee posted:I just bought a dirty world but can you talk more about the dice pool changes? Any links on that? http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/nemesis/probability.html Here's the probability chart for rolling in ORE. You need at least 5d to have reasonable odds of success on a particular roll, more if you're against an opponent who's contesting you. That said, looking at the system, it seems easy to start rolling up into larger pools as scenes progress (with the GM encouraged to do so as that seems to be the only way to recover Qualities that are lost over the course of the game). There are no die tricks in this, just stat shifting, but it has some of the same issues with other ORE systems in that specializing in a particular set of stats has a greater return on investment than generalizing, but A Dirty World is fairly fluid in regards to stats and their allocations and where they're at in any given session.
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Apr 29, 2019 23:08
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Yeah, you can move your stats around after every scene and increase your stats in every scene where something dramatic happens to you. I might just say the pool starts at 2D plus stats.
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Apr 30, 2019 01:21
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So, my Planescape hack is coming through... The Xaositech playbook: http://i63.tinypic.com/x35z5s.png Basic moves: http://i67.tinypic.com/vr8yts.png Planes moves: http://i64.tinypic.com/orht03.png I've tried to depict the planes motiffs. Criticism, suggestions, etc. are welcome.
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May 5, 2019 08:07
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Thanks for the advice on running World Wide Wrestling. My group has enjoyed the double layer of roleplaying characters who are portraying characters in the ring, but I think 3 sessions is the most we're going to get out of it because the rules seem completely hosed? I'm not sure if I'm just misinterpreting the rules but my players have basically been able to increase their momentum to the point where nothing bad can happen to them unless they let it happen. Most 7-9 moves generate momentum and have no negative effects, and if they roll a 9 they can spend one momentum to gain two momentum on the regular wrestling move. Some of my players ended up screwing up moves on purpose rather than spending momentum because otherwise the results were too boring, which isn't great. That being said, we've been having fun anyway because wrestling is ridiculous. The player who has the least experience with wrestling picked the veteran as his gimmick and has been doing great with it. I had a scene where one of the NPCs refused to job to a high flyer PC during a tournament because he outweighed the PC by over 100lbs and didn't want to look weak, and the veteran helped plan the match and keep the NPC looking strong with a visual pin while the ref was down to protect the NPC while still getting the PC to win with his finisher. Thanks for the suggestion about making NPCs ego driven, it's been the one setback PCs have had since everything went their way when actually wrestling.
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May 6, 2019 05:58
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Thanks for the advice on running World Wide Wrestling. My group has enjoyed the double layer of roleplaying characters who are portraying characters in the ring, but I think 3 sessions is the most we're going to get out of it because the rules seem completely hosed? I'm not sure if I'm just misinterpreting the rules but my players have basically been able to increase their momentum to the point where nothing bad can happen to them unless they let it happen. Most 7-9 moves generate momentum and have no negative effects, and if they roll a 9 they can spend one momentum to gain two momentum on the regular wrestling move. Some of my players ended up screwing up moves on purpose rather than spending momentum because otherwise the results were too boring, which isn't great. It absolutely is the case that if the players are careful to play to their strengths, are generous with passing narrative control, and don't use momentum to seize narrative control or power their face/heel moves that they find themselves with plenty of momentum. The session I ran last week, the players were, uh, not careful. It was a bit of a bloodbath. Completely glorious. I'm not entirely sure what I did different, if anything, to get that behavior. With that caveat, I introduced a NPW by asking the Vet "At the last promotion you were at, there was a wrestler you hated working with. Why did you hate working with them?" Every time it seemed sensible (maybe twice?) I fleshed out the awful NPW asking players why they hated working with him and/or having him interfere with their matches. By the end of the session I had wrestlers with terrible real scores working real stiff and throwing momentum around like wild. I'm almost certainly overstating my effectiveness in luring the players into rolling on their -2 stats, but it seems worth a try.
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May 6, 2019 14:54
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CHaKKaWaKka posted:Thanks for the advice on running World Wide Wrestling. My group has enjoyed the double layer of roleplaying characters who are portraying characters in the ring, but I think 3 sessions is the most we're going to get out of it because the rules seem completely hosed? I'm not sure if I'm just misinterpreting the rules but my players have basically been able to increase their momentum to the point where nothing bad can happen to them unless they let it happen. Most 7-9 moves generate momentum and have no negative effects, and if they roll a 9 they can spend one momentum to gain two momentum on the regular wrestling move. Some of my players ended up screwing up moves on purpose rather than spending momentum because otherwise the results were too boring, which isn't great. The thing with Momentum is that it's a means to an end. If you're not generating Heat with your opponents and Audience for yourself, your character is treading water creatively, no matter how many matches they end up winning. Make that abundantly clear in the backstage: you're a good hand, but you don't have that crowd connection that makes you a top of the card wrestler.
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May 6, 2019 15:41
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I personally cap momentum at five. But the complete lack of a penalty for spending a momentum when you roll a six or a nine is a flaw in the system. The open match rules from international incident are a great antidote to that. Players will definitely be spending their momentum to steal control and to go for the win.
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May 6, 2019 16:08
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I'm currently running a Masks game and I have a question about the Beacon playbook's Pretty Much a Superhero. What is the intended purpose to assigning a Label based on the stories that result from this move?
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May 15, 2019 10:39
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Saguaro PI posted:I'm currently running a Masks game and I have a question about the Beacon playbook's Pretty Much a Superhero. What is the intended purpose to assigning a Label based on the stories that result from this move? If they think you're a Savior, or a Freak, or what have you, they're going to reinforce that perception in interactions with you for a bit. Basically, it's a way to control what an NPC wants you to be, or otherwise mess with how they might shift your labels.
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May 15, 2019 17:08
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Anybody have any actual play experience with Undying? I've only read it, and while I really like 90% of it, something about the Hunt move feels a little off and I'm wondering if it's just me. Specifically, it feels a little odd to me that you use your Status to determine how many options you get on the Hunt move instead of, say, the Abundance tag of the hunting grounds you're hunting on, and I'm not sure what the intended interaction is between the "You do not rouse the prey to action" option on the Hunt move and the fact that the hunting ground's Awareness tag dictates what you have to do to rouse the prey to action.
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May 16, 2019 10:15
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I'm on the hunt for PbtA games that focus on flight-based combat. I'm wanting to see what is out there since I had an idea to actually try writing an Ace Combat-esque RPG system but the Masks game I am in currently makes me wonder if PbtA has something similar to that. Any recommendations?
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May 19, 2019 22:53
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You want Flying Circus. It's in playtest now.
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May 19, 2019 22:57
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Neopie posted:If they think you're a Savior, or a Freak, or what have you, they're going to reinforce that perception in interactions with you for a bit. Basically, it's a way to control what an NPC wants you to be, or otherwise mess with how they might shift your labels. Thank you! I figured it would be something like that, so it's good to see I'm not missing something.
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May 20, 2019 14:12
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LongDarkNight posted:You want Flying Circus. It's in playtest now. https://www.patreon.com/opensketch
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May 20, 2019 14:24
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I am planning on throwing out a set of aircraft from different eras so players can test them. Flying Circus stops being a sim and starts getting arcade the later the era until recent jets just become Top Gun, but that's still fun, right?
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May 20, 2019 19:44
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LongDarkNight posted:You want Flying Circus. It's in playtest now. Hmm...on a first read I like the granularity of some mechanics and the mission structure...what I like less is the fact that so much of it ties into its setting and particular aesthetics, since my game group and myself were not so keen on a system that focused on one setting. While I'm sure it could be hacked into a different setting I'd be more after a play system that doesn't have strong thematic connections to an existing genre or era (beyond focusing on flight combat). I'll keep writing and maybe get into the game making thread a bit. Thanks very much for the advice, all.
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May 20, 2019 20:41
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There's going to be a set of generic historical rules coming soon.
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May 20, 2019 21:24
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ModeWondershot posted:Hmm...on a first read I like the granularity of some mechanics and the mission structure...what I like less is the fact that so much of it ties into its setting and particular aesthetics, since my game group and myself were not so keen on a system that focused on one setting. While I'm sure it could be hacked into a different setting I'd be more after a play system that doesn't have strong thematic connections to an existing genre or era (beyond focusing on flight combat). IMO you don't want PBTA, then. You can make a PBTA game where the setting itself is less explicit (indeed, Apocalypse World is one), but you still want to be going for a very explicit theme and mood.
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May 20, 2019 23:43
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GimpInBlack posted:Anybody have any actual play experience with Undying? I've only read it, and while I really like 90% of it, something about the Hunt move feels a little off and I'm wondering if it's just me. We had a great discussion group on Google+ But after the later shutdown I don't know where the crew went to. I'll try finding them and he you back. Don't pass up the game because of that though, it's very, very good.
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May 21, 2019 01:33
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Can someone help me with mechanical side of PBTA/BITD? I wrote the first draft of a hack based on Springsteen albums like Born to Run: melodramatic, over the top, slightly urban fantasy/horror about petty criminals & losers trying to escape New Jersey. But I don’t know how to actually design moves. And since the characters are playing a group - a street gang, a band, a trade union, a church group, etc - I feel like I should use the gang creation rules from Blades in the Dark. Which is more complicated. But you can’t have this setting without rules for playing The Sopranos. Could anyone give me advice? And how do I tastefully handle Sex Moves? I’m On Fire, Prove it All Night...
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May 22, 2019 17:29
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Count Chocula posted:Can someone help me with mechanical side of PBTA/BITD? I wrote the first draft of a hack based on Springsteen albums like Born to Run: melodramatic, over the top, slightly urban fantasy/horror about petty criminals & losers trying to escape New Jersey. What kinds of actions do you see all the characters doing often? Those should probably be covered by the basic moves. As for Sex Moves, think about how the character the playbook represents would approach being intimate with someone else. Have you taken a look at AW's playbooks? They might help give you some ideas.
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May 22, 2019 23:49
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If I might add, it's not really up to the MC to tastefully handle Special Moves, that's up to the players. My group has routinely used the Special Moves because, well, sex is often times part of a good story. When it comes to writing Special Moves, they should reflect how the playbook handles intimacy, not just sex. Perhaps sharing intimacy gives the character some insight into their partner (or vice versa) perhaps it creates an opportunity for a feeling of renewed purpose. Hell, maybe it does sweet gently caress-all and was just some fun, no biggie.
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May 23, 2019 00:07
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Yeah, the key is that Special Moves really represent intimacy and vulnerability. (What constitutes this kind of intimacy/vulnerability varies by genre, so give this a think.) When your character archetypes share this with another person, do they seek to increase that intimacy further, or downplay or deny it? Is it a predatory thing? Keep the sex details abstracted and play up the emotional/interpersonal/aftermath elements.
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May 23, 2019 00:34
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For PbtA moves in general, try making a list of activities that get the spotlight a lot in your genre. For instance, Monsterhearts has a move called "lash out physically" because every single teenage monster drama movie has that scene: the monster guy loses it and tries to bite / maul / etc. his date because he's so conflicted and edgy and barely in control of his monstrous instincts!! You can basically watch Twilight and describe every scene in terms of some person using a MH move and what result they got. If I was making a PbtA about, like, telenovelas, I'd need moves for "reveal a scandalous secret" and "make a tearful accusation" because those are like... 90% of a telenovela scenes by volume. I dunno what the equivalents would be for the Boss, but I imagine you can come up with a few. If you're wondering how to write the thing mechanically, try just copying the structure of an existing move. There are a lot of moves that go like this, for instance: When you do this thing, roll +Stat. On a 7-9, pick one. On a 10+, pick two.
megane fucked around with this message at 02:14 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 02:10
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Coming up with moves can be daunting. To get started I start jotting down "clever" names for moves based on the genre and filling in the trigger and the stat you roll later, or vice versa. This is also a good way to come up with the stats your hack uses. When you start assigning moves to playbooks, pay attention to which stat each playbook relies on. Once you start getting a few moves down put them in a spreadsheet like so https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fH5R4spssAqbVTU82enflvGG1wH2FV18ig6DH6BVhVg/edit?usp=sharing This lets me look at each playbook, compare all the different moves by stat, or see where we are in terms of types of move. In theory this also lets me assemble the text of every move out of the spreadsheet, and have the playbooks update when the master spreadsheet is updated. Google Apps doesn't quite seem to have that ability.
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May 23, 2019 03:22
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Antivehicular posted:Yeah, the key is that Special Moves really represent intimacy and vulnerability. (What constitutes this kind of intimacy/vulnerability varies by genre, so give this a think.) When your character archetypes share this with another person, do they seek to increase that intimacy further, or downplay or deny it? Is it a predatory thing? Keep the sex details abstracted and play up the emotional/interpersonal/aftermath elements. I’m not the most comfortable with all this IRL, but songs like I’m On Fire do suggest some characters will be motivated purely by lust. Most of them will be about Intimacy, sure, but teenage lust is also part of it. It’s also another thing that traps them in NJ. They make bad decisions, someone gets pregnant.. You’re right about me handling the language tastefully tho, and I want most of them to reflect strong friendships too. mllaneza posted:Coming up with moves can be daunting. To get started I start jotting down "clever" names for moves based on the genre and filling in the trigger and the stat you roll later, or vice versa. Yeah Springsteen songs provide no shortage of clever move titles! And Playbooks, like The Big Man and The Magic Rat. Making them do something is the hard bit. As for clever stat names, I got as far as Wild, Innocent, and then I ran out of ideas. I don’t wanna just use MOTW stats but they work. Heliotrope posted:What kinds of actions do you see all the characters doing often? Those should probably be covered by the basic moves. As for Sex Moves, think about how the character the playbook represents would approach being intimate with someone else. Have you taken a look at AW's playbooks? They might help give you some ideas. They’re going to be doing small time gang poo poo like the BITD game I was in: rumbling with other gangs, drug deals, smuggling. They’re going to be falling in love and having sex. They’re going racing in the street. Maybe they see or play in a band but that’s more thematic. There’s minor supernatural elements too - ghosts, the odd vampire. You can ramp it up to Bat Out Of Hell craziness if you want. But the main goal is to escape NJ, which comes at a price. AW has a bunch of stuff i’m stealing. Like most of The Driver. And that move where the character slowly removes an article of clothing & stuns everyone. I know it sounds cheesy but it captures that ‘mary’s dress waves/like a vision she dances across the porch’ bit, just transfixing someone with beauty. I’m probably gonna steal from Urban Shadows, Monsterhearts, Cartel, etc
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May 23, 2019 03:39
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You should also keep in mind that just because AW uses the format of "each playbook gets a distinctive Special Move," that doesn't mean you have to follow. You could just as easily have sexual relationships be some other mechanic, like... each player has a list of stuff keeping them here, and their lover gets added to the list, or something.
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May 23, 2019 04:15
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Count Chocula posted:I’m not the most comfortable with all this IRL, but songs like I’m On Fire do suggest some characters will be motivated purely by lust. The point isn't intent, it's consequences. Obviously, most sex moves are triggered by the characters just wanting to screw, but sex is emotionally messy for most people (and if it specifically isn't for a given playbook, that should be a part of that playbook's sex move, ala the Battlebabe). Unintended emotional consequences are the point! On the other hand, if you want sex in this game to just be for fun/not mean much, you need to think about what actually represents intimacy/vulnerability in your genre. For Springsteen songs, maybe that means letting your tough facade slip and telling someone about your fears honestly. The function of a special move doesn't have to involve sex just because several games have done it before. Antivehicular fucked around with this message at 04:41 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 04:39
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You’re 100% correct, sorry, and i’ll write all of them to reflect that. They should each have an emotional consequence.
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May 23, 2019 04:42
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I'm currently working on a Monster of the Week game with some local friends. They've already got their playbooks selected and we even picked a place in the U.S. to have our fictional town (right along the Northwest Angle Inlet aka The Angle). Right now we're setting up our introductory adventure and we've decided that at least two pairs of characters already know each other in some capacity. Still, I want to do have both pairs meet for the first time and I'm wondering how to do that. I could have the first monster up and attack one of the players, prompting a response from everyone else. That might be the easiest thing to do. I want to make sure that, as an Apocalypse game, I'm letting the players make the major decisions. I just want to make sure I'm not overthinking everything. I'll try to get back to everyone soon to share my ideas and concepts. ItWasMoida fucked around with this message at 20:53 on May 24, 2019 |
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May 24, 2019 20:46
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That’s what the Relationships in character creation is for. Everyone goes around the table and picks how they’re related to the other players, using the questions on the Playbooks. So in my con game, the Grifter and the Mortal were drug dealers together, the Frankenstein’s monster was my Grifter’s conscience, etc. In my game, The Mortal idolises the Hex, who has a secret crush on him. They’re designed to create drama.
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May 25, 2019 02:14
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Has anyone played Velvet Glove? It’s about girl gangs in the 70s, and it hits what I want my game to be perfectly, minus the extreme focus on sex. I sent an email to the publishers asking if I could hack it. And keep the Southside Johnny gang.
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May 28, 2019 00:17
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I have never found a group where I can run a game where there’s a stat called +pussy.
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May 28, 2019 17:04
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