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The money system needs an overhaul, because you can get rich incredibly quickly. The hacking system is way too complex for PBtA. Everything else is really great.
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Jan 4, 2021 01:08
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Our family is tired by the overwhelming amount of rules one has to remember in DnD, so we decided to try out Monster of the week, and it has been a blast. We got our characters, and have figured out their connections, and the main story axis and reason for us cooperating. We are halfway through our first monster. Is there any good source of pre-made story/monsters for this game? Something to throw at players while designing the next one, or to get inspired by? It's definitely more difficult since we have to keep the game less gore-y due to the age of one of our players, so shooting at werewolf is okay, but finding a mangled body and trying to deduce the kind of a monster by the bite marks might be a little too much. Actually regarding shooting : Kick some rear end action, as a part of its design is supposed to be dangerous and deal damage to the players as well as to the monsters, but the game gives a lot of ranged weapons. So far we only had one situation where the monster would be literally unable to get to the person with the gun - luckily (or rather unluckily) there was another player close to the monster, so it attacked them. We decided that this action has the caveat that you not only risk your character, but also other players, as they might be harmed by the monster as the retaliation. I know it all depends on the monster/location, but do you guys have any advice how to deal in future in case of 'rear end kicking from safe position'? What's there to keep the players from just standing and shooting, especially against slower monsters? I know the players, and they know how to play interestingly, but they are prone to relying on "same old" if it proves to be effective. Actually, any kind of advice/"I wish I knew this"/good ideas/tips to help a beginner-Keeper are welcome.
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Jan 23, 2021 17:13
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Well, when it says to exchange harm “based on the established dangers,” you can definitely say that that’s no harm whatsoever. If a PC is shooting at a thing that physically cannot reach her in any way, the PC will inflict harm based on her gun and the monster will inflict nothing - the established danger is that there isn’t any. Similarly, if she tries to use a flamethrower on a monster that’s made of fire or something, she can roll to do battle, but her harm-as-established is nada, and she’ll have to take the “do +1 harm” option to hurt it. However, if there’s no danger or risk involved, you might ask yourself if there’s a need to have them roll at all. The move says “when you get into a fight,” and shooting fish in a barrel isn’t really a fight. You can just say that they inflict harm on their target, period, if the circumstances say that that’s what would happen. But of course you should use that sparingly. On the other hand, the move doesn’t necessarily just mean one swipe or shot from each side. It can be a whole fight scene in one move. So you could also say “you get some bullets in the monster’s hide, but it rapidly closes the distance under fire and tackles you!” or similar. Monster hunter shows rarely have scenes where the monster just gets shot at helplessly from range; shove that beastie right up in their faces. Note that the distance could be reflected in lower damage from the monster - the established danger is lower than if the monster were already close, but not zero. e: Also: having the monster close the gap, or escape into cover, or do something else dangerous (Destroy something precious? Attack an NPC?), is a perfectly reasonable downside for a 6- and is fine even on a 7-9. The PCs are standing and shooting - what is the monster doing with that time? megane fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jan 23, 2021 |
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Jan 23, 2021 17:53
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Pretty much all AW-derivatives will say "this is a fiction first game" at some point early on, and it's kind of easy to look at that and go "ok cool" and then get on with reading the mechanics without much internalization, but it really is the key to most of the rules disputes: rolls happen because something in the fiction happened with a real chance of failure, the consequences of failure are based on what's happening in the fiction.
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Jan 23, 2021 18:52
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I believe the intent of Monster of the Week is that the monster be incredibly dangerous to actually fight until you've investigated some and figured out weaknesses and like, precautions you can take and that kind of thing. To me this says most of the time it shouldn't accomplish very much to just shoot at it. And even if you can kill it if you shoot it with enough bullets, maybe it's fast enough to dodge unless you're point blank or it can close the distance and maul you, or it'll peace out and then drop on you from ambush, or there's lots of them and you don't have enough bullets, or... And yes, what megane says - harm as established can be nothing in either direction, and it can be that there's really no reason to roll at all. Really consider the fictional triggers for moves, and in particular try not to go "I feel like there needs to be a roll for this, what move seems closest?" The moves have explicit triggers and if they aren't triggered, then really, a roll is not demanded. I know it will feel weird coming from games like D&D.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:17
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malkav11 posted:I believe the intent of Monster of the Week is that the monster be incredibly dangerous to actually fight until you've investigated some and figured out weaknesses and like, precautions you can take and that kind of thing Having run MotW: this is a mostly reasonable assumption until the not!angel playbook enters the picture, at which point the game collapses because they can bypass almost everything, including explicitly bypassing all weaknesses.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:23
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SkyeAuroline posted:Having run MotW: this is a mostly reasonable assumption until the not!angel playbook enters the picture, at which point the game collapses because they can bypass almost everything, including explicitly bypassing all weaknesses. Having just finished a campaign where I played a Divine because I thought Angel Wings was very cool: the Divine is buck wild in context. Other classes could do some very powerful stuff but Divine really short circuited a couple of things.
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Jan 23, 2021 19:29
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Divine, yes, thanks. It's been a while since I ran it and my memory isn't great. Other playbooks mesh together well, but the Divine really feels like someone just absolutely had to play Supernatural and also had to make their knockoff Castiel be better than everyone else. Our Divine was a jinn and not a huge fighter, the latter of which toned down the "breaking the system over her knee" significantly.
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Jan 23, 2021 21:01
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SkyeAuroline posted:Divine, yes, thanks. It's been a while since I ran it and my memory isn't great. Other playbooks mesh together well, but the Divine really feels like someone just absolutely had to play Supernatural and also had to make their knockoff Castiel be better than everyone else. TBH the Divine is not actually an exceptional combat monster - the Chosen in our party in particular made my Divine look positively anemic. We didn't have a Monstrous but that class can get up to 5 AP Harm out the gate. It's AW, the characters are as a rule very competent. The Divine is much more noteworthy for utility than combat, and if you do GM a game of MOTW I'd recommend being somewhat cautious about what moves you let the players take from Divine (including the Divine themselves). All three players wound up taking Angel Wings without coordination (we did a bit of "hiding our playbooks/moves from the other players" at the start for fun; the GM then banned us from cross-classing into each other's classes lol) because it just eliminates any real threat of the party being split. Smite and Cast Out Evil both radically reduce the danger of encountering the target without good preparation. Lay On Hands was probably the #1 factor in our party getting well into advanced moves without anybody using a single Luck.
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Jan 23, 2021 22:25
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There aren’t playbook moves for each class, but the divine should be given a lot of mortal problems they can’t be solved with a flaming whip. Just because you’re still soothing someone doesn’t mean you can get into the club, navigate a busy college, Or find out when the CEO will actually be back. If the players make the characters who kick a lot of rear end, give them more monsters, not singular tougher monsters. Is what they’re telling you they want.
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Jan 24, 2021 00:16
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I'm gearing up to run The Sprawl because it looks dope as hell and its rules seem pretty watertight, I'm just wondering one small thing- what the heck should a corp actually do at 0000? Is that when they start changing the world's rules in order to crush these loving puny insects that keep breaking their poo poo? Screaming boardroom meetings and phones shattered against obsidian-veneered walls? Unleashed experimental gene-tech gas clouds? Purging a segment of the city because some of the group's friends live out that way? Let loose some sort of untested self-replicating VantaBlack ICE onto the matrix? I get that it's supposed to be based on the game and on the specific corporation, but, does 0000 change the rules and reset the clock, Links-style, or does it just fuckin' stay there with them in a full rage until the group spends enough Cred hiding, or do enough targeted (unpaid) jobs, to cool it down?
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Feb 11, 2021 21:43
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They're onto you with whatever resources they need to crush you. That's where the campaign switches off from being guns for hire and becomes about survival. Until the players figure out a way to get out of it, pull no punches. It's a one-warning-before-car-bomb situation. (Also a good moment if you keep hearing about how the players are talking about cybernetic implants. Suddenly losing an arm will be a convenience, actually.) Obviously this does not happen overnight, so give them a few warnings at 2300 and before. And a chance or two to stop it. But if the poo poo does hit the fan, it hits the fan.
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Feb 12, 2021 00:54
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I'm about to run the Sprawl for the first time this weekend and I'm trying to figure out what to do with synth. It seems pretty useless even like 80% of the cyberware doesn't use it. I'd love to create some custom moves that make it useful instead of just jettisoning it. Anyone have experience in making it an impactful stat?
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Feb 24, 2021 06:24
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It's incredibly useful for the classes that are massively wired up, and it comes up a fair bit in hacking. Also, most of the cyberware does use it? Cybereyes/Cyberears, the Targeting Suite (basically how the Killer functions), and hacking all lean heavily on it. It's also sort of a symbolic thing on a lot of sheets: when you put a high stat in your synth, you're saying you are going to be grabbing 'ware when you can. It's part of making everything chrome. If you are interested, I previously reworked the Drive playbook to use Synth for driving while jacked in, plus grafted most of the AW2E car moves onto it: http://conjur.es/sprawl-driver.pdf. If you're going to cut it, I'd make sure nobody is playing the Killer and heavily rework the Hacker's hacking moves (though that should probably be done anyway). QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 10:04 on Feb 26, 2021 |
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Feb 24, 2021 07:03
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Thanks. I wouldn't cut it - it does enough. I'd like to craft a basic move so it would be useful for every character. I'll see what playbooks people pick and how the world shapes up and then see if there's a move we can make that would enhance things.
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Feb 25, 2021 02:44
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Killer and Hacker can pull enough use of it the stat-swapping gear is not a half bad investment to plan for. As for the other classes... yeah, it takes more investment than it's worth, honestly, and it's a safe pick for a dump stat for them. ... but, you know, at some points the players will start losing limbs and then some spice might be wrung out of it. But yeah, for session-to-session purposes, just make someone run a hacking scene (even if they're not a dedicated hacker), it's pretty useful there.
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Feb 25, 2021 20:55
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There's also a whole thing where a player can dump a couple core stats and make up the difference by having their character heavily reliant on 'ware to do basic stuff Also note that all of the character sheets except the driver misspell "cyberware" as "cyberwear" on the back and you'll need a Mac to fix it
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Mar 4, 2021 04:36
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I gotta admit, Sprawl's Synth stat struck me as weird because it seems like a quasi-stat that only some playbooks care about at all.
Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 18:43
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I don't like Sprawl for several reasons but a big one is that stat, it doesn't have a basic move and just serves as a weird point shuffle instead of a thematic component of a character. Every other stat means something, Synth is just "I can wear a cyberarm good".
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Mar 4, 2021 19:19
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Poland Spring posted:I don't like Sprawl for several reasons but a big one is that stat, it doesn't have a basic move and just serves as a weird point shuffle instead of a thematic component of a character. Every other stat means something, Synth is just "I can wear a cyberarm good". What are other reasons? Sprawl never "clicked" with me but I also didn't go into the guts of it hugely.
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Mar 4, 2021 20:16
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Josef bugman posted:What are other reasons? Just a few of the issues:
QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 21:45 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 21:43
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I don't think it's mandatory or even necessarily desirable for most moves to have miss text in a PBTA game. The default for missing a move roll is that the MC makes a hard move. If you specify, that limits the scope of what they can do in a way that might not suit the fiction. Sometimes you want that limited scope, but I wouldn't expect it.
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Mar 4, 2021 22:30
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QuantumNinja posted:Just a few of the issues: Some of this isn't exactly true- they absolutely go into detail about how to fix a burnt-out cyberdeck (costs 1 cred and a few hours to bring it to full stats-1, 1 more cred and another few hours to bring it to full stats, you do that with Hit The Streets), and the miss text is generalised that the MC makes a move, with harder moves coming out more aggressively as the clocks advance- something that Apocalypse World could have used a bit more guidance for from time to time. The lack of explanation for how one sells hacked paydata is really glaring though, as is the fact that +satellite uplink is actually a dire negative and probably something that you get as mandatory with +owned. (I'm just gonna house-rule that hacked paydata is worth 1 cred, 2 if the player had to gently caress up the mission to get it, and anything that could be worth more than 2 is too hot to actually sell and possessing it is real bad) Also I'm actually looking forward to running the hacker dungeons since my group's decided on a 90's-future world where the hacker has to be directly wired in and present on site to get anything other than the public facing front of a company's cyberspace presence. Somfin fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Mar 4, 2021 |
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Mar 4, 2021 22:45
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malkav11 posted:I don't think it's mandatory or even necessarily desirable for most moves to have miss text in a PBTA game. The default for missing a move roll is that the MC makes a hard move. If you specify, that limits the scope of what they can do in a way that might not suit the fiction. Sometimes you want that limited scope, but I wouldn't expect it. I completely agree, and for moves like Act Under Pressure I think that's fine. But the moves Get The Job and Getting Paid both have no miss text, and are integral to establishing the fiction of the game. Anything there to go on would help both the player and MC quite a bit. Somfin posted:Some of this isn't exactly true- they absolutely go into detail about how to fix a burnt-out cyberdeck (costs 1 cred and a few hours to bring it to full stats-1, 1 more cred and another few hours to bring it to full stats, you do that with Hit The Streets), and the miss text is generalised that the MC makes a move, with harder moves coming out more aggressively as the clocks advance- something that Apocalypse World could have used a bit more guidance for from time to time. The lack of explanation for how one sells hacked paydata is really glaring though, as is the fact that +satellite uplink is actually a dire negative and probably something that you get as mandatory with +owned. (I'm just gonna house-rule that hacked paydata is worth 1 cred, 2 if the player had to gently caress up the mission to get it, and anything that could be worth more than 2 is too hot to actually sell and possessing it is real bad) Thanks for clarifying on the cyberdeck thing. It would be nice if they appeared on the Hacker playbook or MC sheets. The paydata thing came up several times in the game where I played a hacker, and we did the same: +1 cred when I grabbed it. It set my hacker up to retire early, but he ended up spending it moving apartments a lot. QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Mar 5, 2021 |
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Mar 5, 2021 00:28
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QuantumNinja posted:Thanks for clarifying on the cyberdeck thing. It would be nice if they appeared on the Hacker playbook or MC sheets. The paydata thing came up several times in the game where I played a hacker, and we did the same: +1 cred when I grabbed it. It set my hacker up to retire early, but he ended up spending it moving apartments a lot. This tells me the game is exactly what I want
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Mar 5, 2021 06:34
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I think one of the things that kind of put me off was the art style for the actual characters. The whole look is just not my aesthetic in any way.
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Mar 5, 2021 14:53
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The game also has more clocks than Coldplay and it takes a lot to keep track of everything which is like the opposite of what I want out of one of these kinds of games
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Mar 5, 2021 18:29
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Having play tested it, it does jobs really well, but the money system means that if you bet big and succeed, you’re pretty much set. There isn’t enough to buy once you’ve succeeded on like, three missions. And having entire hacking chapter means you missed a major part of PbTA, in my opinion. When I run the game, you can be a hacker but you can’t use that playbook because it has the Shadowrun problem of “one player is doing a completely different game than everyone else.”
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Mar 7, 2021 05:08
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Speaking of playtesting, my group has been running the Thirsty Sword Lesbians preprint system and it's amazing  It's definitely a "right group / right time" sort of system, but insanely fun and emotionally deep.
QuantumNinja fucked around with this message at 05:43 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 05:16
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We had a discussion on Discord about playbooks with internal vs. external power, and now I want a game (or maybe just a hack of AW) where every character's power is external. In case it's not clear what I mean, internal power is like the Brainer - your playbook's primary benefit is a bunch of weird mind poo poo and skills, stuff that's built in to you personally. External is like the Hardholder, where your character is basically just a normal person - your power is that you're in charge of a town. (The inspiration was someone noting that Burned Over reworks most of the externally-focused characters to have internal powers, the Lawmaker in particular.) Some playbook concepts: a summoner who makes contracts with demons instead of being magical himself; the demons are independent NPCs, so he has to convince or coerce them into doing stuff not explicitly stated in the contract. A magistrate whose power is just "having authority to investigate crime and enforce the law"; you can wave your badge to get into places or get guards to do stuff or get people to listen to your judgement. A fixer sort of person who has underworld connections and can hire people and get ahold of contraband. A rich person who has excellent gear and lots of money. A loser hero type under some sort of prophecy or curse or destiny or something, who just has weird stuff happen to them. Obviously all the "you're the leader of a [town/cult/bike gang/whatever]" playbooks work great, too, and something similar to the Waterbearer where you control access an important location could be good too. Any other cool ideas? I'm not sure if this concept demands a less lawless setting than AW. The Hardholder's control over her town isn't really explained, she's just... in charge. But maybe if everyone's leaning on the glass like that, so to speak, it won't hold up. Either way, the obvious trouble with external power is that it can be taken away. (Well, internal power can also be taken away, like you could lose a hand and be unable to do your cool sword moves, but we generally just pretend that doesn't happen.) So perhaps there'd need to be some sort of mechanism for reclaiming or replacing powers that you lose access to.
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Mar 7, 2021 05:59
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megane posted:Either way, the obvious trouble with external power is that it can be taken away. (Well, internal power can also be taken away, like you could lose a hand and be unable to do your cool sword moves, but we generally just pretend that doesn't happen.) So perhaps there'd need to be some sort of mechanism for reclaiming or replacing powers that you lose access to. There was a hack the Bakers were working on called AW: Dark Age. Rather then playbook moves, you had rights. They were all stated "You have the right to ____" - external things like "you have the right to kill who you must for the good of all" were phrased like that but so were moves where you made a roll or that just gave you mechanical bonuses. There was also a basic move you went to when someone denies you your right. There were choices that happened in the fiction ("your gods become angry") but also out of game choices ("Let the other player or MC know you'll hold this against them.") Unfortunately I think it never got past playtesting so I don't know if the stuff they put out is still there. You could browse the subforum for it on the Barf Forth board if you're interested.
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Mar 7, 2021 06:51
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Speaking of unconventional PBTA, has anybody bought this bundle and did they think it was particularly worth it? https://lumpley.itch.io/meguey-vincents-pbta-eye-openers
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Mar 7, 2021 07:23
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There was an unfinished hack, maybe “the hood“, where your powers are mostly that you had a job in the neighborhood. Nobody was particularly skilled but everyone had some social position. It’s been years and I might be misremembering. In Hollyworld, which I must’ve mentioned before this thread, your job is a major factor in what you can actually get done, but you can represent the same job position with multiple playbooks. The Director can be an artist who is extravagant with everyone else’s time and money, someone whose main priority is the studio more than making anything good, or a duplicitous person who switches rapidly between praise and blame.
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Mar 7, 2021 09:28
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Is there any podcasts that have actual play sessions of some powered by the apocalypse games? I was trying to run a one shot of spirit of 77 to some newbies because i thought the rules light system would make it easier to play and run but it means everyone has to talk more and christ almighty it's like pulling teeth to get anything done
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Mar 7, 2021 11:00
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Friends at the Table is an all time great but its seasons are long so maybe not the best for a quick bite of good GMing. Check out Bluff City though. Was patreon exclusive but it's now free (their world wide wrestling bit is PbtA: https://t.co/RHJkeCsDDB?amp=1) Some ones with good short seasons are: Trials of the Apocalypse https://trials.podbean.com/ +1 Forward has a few episodes of "PbtA GM tips": https://www.gauntlet-rpg.com/1-forward
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Mar 7, 2021 11:22
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Street Horrrsing posted:Is there any podcasts that have actual play sessions of some powered by the apocalypse games? I was trying to run a one shot of spirit of 77 to some newbies because i thought the rules light system would make it easier to play and run but it means everyone has to talk more and christ almighty it's like pulling teeth to get anything done If people are talking more surely that's good? You can sit back and just say "what do you do" to make sure moves come I to play.
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Mar 7, 2021 12:06
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Tulip posted:Speaking of unconventional PBTA, has anybody bought this bundle and did they think it was particularly worth it? I picked this up because I was interested in the design aspects/expansion of PBTA. Firebrands is absolutely the stand-out, but I also found Murderous Ghosts and Midsummer Wood to be worthwhile reads. Note that when Spin The Beetle says bugs, they mean actual insects. If two or more of the games sound interesting to you or you want to see how the developers of Apocalypse World play with their engine, I'd say grab the bundle. Otherwise just get Firebrands and you won't be missing too much. Street Horrrsing posted:Is there any podcasts that have actual play sessions of some powered by the apocalypse games? I was trying to run a one shot of spirit of 77 to some newbies because i thought the rules light system would make it easier to play and run but it means everyone has to talk more and christ almighty it's like pulling teeth to get anything done In addition to the others posted, Six Feats Under has played a few PBTA games. Namely Fellowship, Monsterhearts 1 & 2, World Wide Wrestling, and Spirit of '77. Six Feats Under https://www.sixfeatsunder.com/
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Mar 7, 2021 12:19
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thotsky posted:If people are talking more surely that's good? You can sit back and just say "what do you do" to make sure moves come I to play. 100% agree with Thotsky on this. Hardest thing to do is to get the players talking. With that dealt with, all you need to do as a GM is note down and chime in on what they're saying and give it teeth, claws and consequences. If they LOVE to talk, you can use panel moderator tricks to keep conversation moving and on track. ask leading questions to get to the meat of the issue, hold your mouth slightly open like you're going to speak to subtly suggest you have something to say, move conversation to people who are quieter when more active players have had their say, etc etc I find often with PbtA if slow pace is an issue, try to make moves more sweeping to better match the pace of a TV show as opposed to a video game. So rather than like "here's a door, what do you do, here's a hallway, what do you do" feel free to make more cinematic scene transitions (e.g. cutting straight from them going overboard and killing a perp to their hearing a week later, or "zooming out" and using a single roll or GM move to summarise a whole sequence of action). The game pace is faster and more intense but the lulls in action come from players talking. Do the opposite and "zoom in" if they're taking their moves quickly otherwise the game can be overwhelmingly pacey. Macdoo fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Mar 7, 2021 |
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Mar 7, 2021 14:00
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Street Horrrsing posted:Is there any podcasts that have actual play sessions of some powered by the apocalypse games? I was trying to run a one shot of spirit of 77 to some newbies because i thought the rules light system would make it easier to play and run but it means everyone has to talk more and christ almighty it's like pulling teeth to get anything done RPPR has done some PBTA episodes, and the second season of The Adventure Zone was Monster of the Week. I don't know that either pod entirely groks PBTA but it's more grist for the mill. Also there are some Twitch/Youtube streamers doing it, including some IMO very good ones on Roll20's official channel (with the caveat that they are run by Adam Koebel, who I know some folks would prefer not to have in their eyeballs/ears anymore.)
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Mar 7, 2021 18:27
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thotsky posted:If people are talking more surely that's good? You can sit back and just say "what do you do" to make sure moves come I to play. I think Street Horrrsing is saying that the system requires their players to talk more... and the players are struggling with it and SH is struggling trying to squeeze any talking out of them. (A situation I am very familiar with.)
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Mar 7, 2021 19:09
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