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Ilor posted:I routinely run AW or re-skins thereof at convention games and have never had anyone even bat an eye at the sex moves. It has been an issue with me presenting the game to a couple of existing gaming groups of mine*. It's not an arbitrary, theoretical concern. *both via "haha, boobs" reactions and "why is this a sex game" reactions.
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Sep 8, 2019 22:53
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Ilor posted:I routinely run AW or re-skins thereof at convention games and have never had anyone even bat an eye at the sex moves. It is a very non-trivial hurdle to getting people to play the game.
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Sep 8, 2019 23:42
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The sex moves are fine, I'm sure, in convention crowds and in non-conventional crowds. They are a huge obstacle for an otherwise-great-intro-game in conventional crowds.
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Sep 9, 2019 00:36
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A tactic that seems to work with new players and the sex moves is to frame it like other fiction. 'Did the last rated R/MA film or TV show you've seen have sex in it? Did it have consequences? That's why these moves exist.'
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Sep 9, 2019 00:49
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I like this less horny version of AW; I want to run it for the LGBT group on uni campus, but I didn't want to make the ace folks potentially uncomfortable, and as I'm on the very young end of what they call a mature student, I ain't running a game with sex moves where the players could be 10+ year younger then me. 
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Sep 9, 2019 00:59
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BlackIronHeart posted:A tactic that seems to work with new players and the sex moves is to frame it like other fiction. 'Did the last rated R/MA film or TV show you've seen have sex in it? Did it have consequences? That's why these moves exist.' I don't really feel comfortable asking that to people I don't know that well, no. It's tough enough getting somebody to consider playing an RPG in the first place; I'm definitely not going to simultaneously put them on the spot about sex content. Hell, I love AW, but if somebody I didn't know asked me to play in some other game, and it had sex rules on the character sheet, I'd have some reservations. Maybe let's start by beating up some kobolds or stealing a plane or something and then we can think about pulling in some soap opera poo poo after I know the group. Not to mention that there's a sizeable gulf between watching a movie where some characters have sex, versus roleplaying it out, in character, in public, with semi-strangers. If it's worked out for you in the past, great, more power to you. But it's definitely outside my comfort zone.
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Sep 9, 2019 01:26
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Yeah maybe I'm just a prude, but sex doesn't really play much of a role in my games, and I'd be really uncomfortable introducing it to most of the groups I've gamed with. I think there's probably a certain type of role player that is comfortable with sexual content in an rpg and also capable of taking it seriously, but I don't game with them.
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Sep 9, 2019 02:34
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Sex in RPGs is participatory in several ways (your character, an NPC you helped develop, or you as a witness), it simply can't be mandatory.
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Sep 9, 2019 02:48
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You could cut this thread to five pages if you got rid of the litigation of sex moves. Other changes sound fun.
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Sep 9, 2019 03:20
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Golden Bee posted:You could cut this thread to five pages if you got rid of the litigation of sex moves. The fact there's so much discussion about it kinda proves the point, though. It's a stumbling block for an otherwise easy to pitch game. Also, the hardzones are really great for just picking up and playing apoc world without any prep. I'm a fan.
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Sep 9, 2019 04:09
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I know i've already spammed it in some discords, but I commissioned some art for my wrestler for WWW and it came out pretty well:
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Sep 9, 2019 09:32
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Golden Bee posted:Other changes sound fun. Hard Zones sound interesting in the abstract, but lol if you prep for Apocalypse World.
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Sep 9, 2019 15:56
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Ilor posted:I routinely run AW or re-skins thereof at convention games and have never had anyone even bat an eye at the sex moves.
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Sep 9, 2019 16:18
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I was apprehensive about introducing AW to a group I set up with some of my coworkers because of the sex moves, but we were all adults so they were fine with it, especially when I made it clear that it would all be "fade to black" in terms of narrative. I think the stumbling block is there, but it turned out not to be a problem for my group at least.
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Sep 9, 2019 16:23
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"I know you guys got creeped out when I introduced that game last week, but there's another version -- instead of "sex moves" there are now "hardzones" and th-. . . hey, wait, don't go"
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Sep 9, 2019 16:24
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Halloween Jack posted:Did people sign up ahead of time? Presumably they're familiar with the game and what's involved. Selling it to people you know is a different story. That said, people who are already into RPGs generally have a pretty good handle on building a narrative and the separation between player and character. Maybe they're more apt to just take it in stride than someone for whom RPGs are an utterly alien concept, but honestly once you explain than all an RPG is is a way to do shared storytelling, most people get it.
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Sep 9, 2019 22:07
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Tekopo posted:I know i've already spammed it in some discords, but I commissioned some art for my wrestler for WWW and it came out pretty well: Oh hell yeah, who did this?
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Sep 9, 2019 23:00
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Tekopo posted:I know i've already spammed it in some discords, but I commissioned some art for my wrestler for WWW and it came out pretty well: My first thought was that they were named Motrin
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Sep 10, 2019 02:21
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Neopie posted:Oh hell yeah, who did this?
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Sep 10, 2019 06:46
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Tekopo posted:I know i've already spammed it in some discords, but I commissioned some art for my wrestler for WWW and it came out pretty well: You got to drop dat artists name, man. I need to know who I can comis for stuff like dat.
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Sep 11, 2019 01:27
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megane posted:
For what it's worth, there's absolutely no requirement to actually roleplay the sex, and I think you'd get a lot more people being weirded out if that were part of it. It's relevant that, in the story, these characters hooked up. That's all the detail that needs to be provided. If you're not okay with that either, no shame in that.
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Sep 11, 2019 06:06
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Covok posted:You got to drop dat artists name, man. I need to know who I can comis for stuff like dat.
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Sep 11, 2019 06:32
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Hello thread. I've been liking "short" PTBA or inspired games like World of Dungeons and Breakers, especially the latter. Any recs for similarly compact PTBA-like RPGs? I'm looking to make my own thing where the fat is trimmed as much as possible, and I want to see what's already out there.
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Sep 12, 2019 03:23
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Daylight Robbery is a very tightly designed implementation of the system in one shot format.
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Sep 12, 2019 04:13
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Any of the Legacy quickstart PDFs. They squeeze a playable RPG into 24 pages. The Regiment assumes knowledge of the PbtA system and how to run it, but it's a complete hack in very few pages. Here's the Colonial Marines version, http://mightyatom.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-regiment-colonial-marines-25.html But where you really want to start is Simple World. It's a toolkit for making PbtA hacks from blank sheet to playable hack. https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/little-games/simple-world
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Sep 14, 2019 22:15
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Vincent’s next game has a KS now. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/226674021/under-hollow-hills Looks even more confusing than standard PbtA.. 
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Sep 22, 2019 16:51
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There's nothing confusing about Apocalypse World. EDIT: I take that back; in 2nd Edition, the concept of what it really means to be "in battle" is not well explained. But that's about it, everything else is remarkably self-explanatory.
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Sep 22, 2019 21:08
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Ilor posted:I routinely run AW or re-skins thereof at convention games and have never had anyone even bat an eye at the sex moves.
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Sep 22, 2019 22:24
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Under Hollow Hills looks real good
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Sep 22, 2019 22:43
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Impermanent posted:Under Hollow Hills looks real good It's very fascinating but I honestly have no idea how a game of it actually looks like. I hope there will be examples in the final product.
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Sep 26, 2019 11:11
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paradoxGentleman posted:It's very fascinating but I honestly have no idea how a game of it actually looks like. I hope there will be examples in the final product. Honestly, that's the worst part about PbtA and FitD games. I've ran three campaigns of Blades and Apoc World derivatives—when I got my hands on Band of Blades I pretty much just threw my hands up and waited for Strass to run an AP.
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Sep 27, 2019 18:08
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tokenbrownguy posted:Honestly, that's the worst part about PbtA and FitD games. I've ran three campaigns of Blades and Apoc World derivatives—when I got my hands on Band of Blades I pretty much just threw my hands up and waited for Strass to run an AP.
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Sep 27, 2019 19:59
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Ilor posted:This largely depends on the hack in question. The 1.0 version of Legacy for instance very much left us all feeling like maybe we were doing it all wrong? There were a lot of gaps there that I think have since been smoothed out in 2.0. We did a little better with Cartel. But other games like Scum & Villainy were pretty straightforward. Our biggest gripe there was the same as it is in the original BitD in that the published setting is pretty thin on details for how poo poo actually works. Like, OK, from the description I know what electroplasm is sort of, but, like...is it dangerous to handle? Does it burn human skin? What would happen if you drank it? Does it have a shelf life? Does it make noise? And while the author's advice of "It's whatever, do what you want!" is liberating, it's not exactly helpful for someone trying to lend some verisimilitude to someone else's weird ideas I never minded that aspect of it. Maybe it's all that Star Trek RPG stuff I played in high school. How do you replace dilithium crystals? Do you need a shipyard? Can you move them from ship to ship? Hand wave it! My biggest problem in BitD was still the between-score moves. It seems too easy to just let people tick off options, as though there's nothing to reducing your heat score. On the other hand, you can't make too much out of it, because you it's still a between-score thing, not a score in and of itself. The rule book really needed more good actual play depictions to flesh that area out.
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Sep 27, 2019 20:17
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Yeah, the issue isn't so much "How does Ectoplasm work?" I get the need to figure that out as a group. It's more, "How the hell do I make the BoB campaign fun from the get-go?"
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Sep 27, 2019 20:59
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Well, OK, but then you need to define "fun" for you and your group. Making a "fun" BitD game is super easy (barely an inconvenience) for people who like heists. I feel like that's more of a no-brainer if your players have bought into the premise of the game already. And as I understand it, the premise of BoB is "fight a heroic delaying action against a sinister and unstoppable foe." At that point, all you need to do is make sure your sessions a) give the PCs chances to be heroic while b) playing up the sinister and ultimately unstoppable nature of the foe. What am I missing?
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Sep 27, 2019 23:01
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It’s more that band of blades does some weird structural stuff to emulate military hierarchy.
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Sep 28, 2019 03:15
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Good questions. I agree that the strength of PbtA and FitD systems is the easy-bake concept. BoB’s premise grabbed my group right off the bat. We played three sessions of Saving Private Frodo and loved it. Same with Blades—the crime shenanigans are a license for every character to let out their inner murderhobo, and I’ve never run a session 1 that wasn’t a blast. My issue is the mechanics designed to facilitate extended play often times aren’t as explicitly outlined as I’d hope. I had a three “season” Blades game over a year-and-a-half real time that was fun the whole way through, but definitely showing the weakness of the system by the end of the campaign. Mostly, this was because I made a few mistakes in the first two seasons: - Didn’t press my players with nasty enough consequences to fictional actions - Didn’t make higher tier threats as threatening as they should’ve been - Was too generous with experience - Didn’t account for what an extra player (# 5) would do to the stress economy These mistakes led to the already terrifyingly effective Blades PCs become fictionally invincible except to truly out-of-scope threats. Not that this capability is by itself an issue—I believe that PCs should be capable for what they’re built. But the level of pain necessary to actually put them on the backfoot became more of a… high-stakes superhero or fantasy level in the fiction rather than a street-level crime game. By the third season they were running around in a demon-apocalypse’d Duskwall being chased by millitarized/Mad Max’d elements of the Bluecoats utilizing machine guns and mortars, wrestling demons, and flying skyships laden with ghost-nukes, and they’d still generally come out of scores relatively un-stressed / flush on resources. Again, this was a blast. But now that I’m running a Hack the Planet campaign, I’m much more careful about outlining threats, sticking to the fictional strength of those threats, and generally speaking being nasty about consequences. I think while BitD encourages you to avoid the mistakes I made, I don’t think it conveyed what failing to do so would do to an extended campaign. Or conversely, the text never communicates what PCs at session 23 should look like in a “balanced” Blades game. So when I ran Band of Blades, I was really uncertain how far I should pushing the limit with the mechanical threats / consequences. BoB claims that it is a very lethal game, and folks who’ve played (myself included) seem to agree that death spiral is, if not inevitable, pretty easy. Where’s the line? What’s the tipping point for players either getting too powerful, too quickly, or worse, getting the poo poo kicked out of them into a place where the game’s been lost? I guess, ideally, I’d like to see more work done in PbtA and BitD systems to support extended play. That’s why I decided to wait for an AP of Band of Blades to come out. Not because I think my group couldn’t have fun with the game—because I wanted more clear expectations on how to keep the extended play mechanics engaging and in-tone. And hopefully, fun.
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Sep 28, 2019 21:29
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I can semi-agree; I feel like, generally, in blades, stress was quite manageable and money tended to come easily. What WAS bonkers, though, was any time someone let an injury happen without buying it off somehow it took them loving forever to recover, even (and especially gallingly) if it was something relatively minor. The balance between stress recovery and injury recover, IMO, feels insanely out of whack.
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Sep 28, 2019 23:34
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spectralent posted:I can semi-agree; I feel like, generally, in blades, stress was quite manageable and money tended to come easily. When I was playing, I was often in the same boat - dirt poor and often going into scores still carrying stress from the previous hare-brained thing I had attempted.
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Sep 29, 2019 02:14
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the gm really has to hit the pcs hard in blades. and watch out for when someone figures out that if they spread their xp out and take 1 point in every action they'll make all resistance rolls with at least 4 dice, meaning they're basically invincible
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Sep 29, 2019 05:45
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