Critical Role Plays Zelda using pbta

[darjr]

Nintendo Made a Custom Zelda TTRPG for Critical Role

An official Legend of Zelda tabletop RPG exists and it debuted last night during a special [...]

comicbook.com

An official Legend of Zelda tabletop RPG exists and it debuted last night during a special Critical Role one-shot.

Nintendo and CR made the game.

Mercer noted that the game was a collaboration between Nintendo of America and Critical Roles

Also io9 contacted them.

Critical Role Has a Custom Zelda TTRPG, and We Might Never See It

Merging D20-based combat and move-forward mechanical inspiration from Apocalypse World, the game remains a mystery, lost to time.

gizmodo.com

It uses both a D20, turn-based combat mechanic system which includes initiative and hit point-based damage. A slimmed-down Dungeons and Dragons combat is the best way to think about this. Kind of like Knave, a little like Into the Odd. Very Old School Roleplaying structures.

The TTRPG also takes inspiration from Apocalypse World by Vincent and Meguey Baker—in game design parlance, a game that does this is called “Powered by the Apocalypse”—and uses two D6 dice to determine success, success-with-complication, or failure. It has at least three stats—Wisdom, Courage, and Power, which can add bonuses or subtract from a roll.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The title is like a mad lib of words designed to anger and confuse me.

 

[GMMichael]

"7 is bare minimum. You cook it successfully."

::finds more interesting things to watch::

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"7 is bare minimum. You cook it successfully."

::finds more interesting things to watch::

This is a truly asinine implied criticism.

It’s describing how pbta success ladder resolution works. 7 is “you did the thing, but it isn’t special”. Sometimes it’s more, “you did the thing, but there is a cost or complication”, i think in some cases which is the case depends on the Move you’re using.

The idea that this dynamic makes for non-interesting gameplay is just silly.

 

[GMMichael]

This is a truly asinine implied criticism.

It’s describing how pbta success ladder resolution works. 7 is “you did the thing, but it isn’t special”. Sometimes it’s more, “you did the thing, but there is a cost or complication”, i think in some cases which is the case depends on the Move you’re using.

The idea that this dynamic makes for non-interesting gameplay is just silly.

Yeah, fair. I just had to bail before they started rolling to fold the napkins and clean the pots.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, fair. I just had to bail before they started rolling to fold the napkins and clean the pots.

Yeah that…definitely isn’t how the game is playing out, or how any game they’ve ever done on the channel has played out.

Sometimes you have a dumb shopping scene early in the adventure, but that doesn’t indicate how the rest of the adventure goes.

 

[Aldarc]

Yeah, fair. I just had to bail before they started rolling to fold the napkins and clean the pots.

It's really hard to say. Matt Mercer tends to run all his games more like traditional games, even when running story games (e.g., Monsterhearts). Even the new Candela Obscura RPG seems to strip out the story game elements of Blades in the Dark in favor of giving more player authority back to the GM along with traditional GM-authored storytelling. In this case, we don't have the system that Nintendo designed for the one-shot. So the boundaries between Matt Mercer as a GM and the system rules are difficult to ascertain.

 

[OakenHart]

Yeah that…definitely isn’t how the game is playing out, or how any game they’ve ever done on the channel has played out.

Sometimes you have a dumb shopping scene early in the adventure, but that doesn’t indicate how the rest of the adventure goes.

Pretty much. The one-shot's still going as I write this, but it's been a fun watch (and listen as I work on other stuff, 5+ hours is way too long to devote to a single watch).

 

[Crusadius]

What does the title of this thread mean when it says ".. using pbta"? Is it a published rpg using PBTA? Or something else.

 

[OakenHart]

What does the title of this thread mean when it says ".. using pbta"? Is it a published rpg using PBTA? Or something else.

Homebrew stuff using Powered By The Apocalypse, apparently with the help of Nintendo Treehouse (Nintendo's localization department)