What do you think about Powered by the Apocalypse games?

[innerdude]

One more note about PbtA generally --- While most permutations generally have aspects of character advancement / XP / "leveling up", it's really not the focus of the system. The point of PbtA is to see what your characters do --- what do they accomplish? What sacrifices did they have to make to accomplish it? How did their choices/actions affect the game world around them?

PbtA is not a game for "turtling." It's not about painstakingly poking 10' x 10' sections of stone floor for traps (Dungeon World being an exception). Generally speaking, it eschews the mindset of accumulating loot to get your next great equipment upgrade, so you can get your next +2 bonus.

While there are aspects of it that can be "gamed", if players go into it with a "gamist" mindset, it's going to feel like a massive let down. It's purposefully not meant to be tactical. It's about creating drama, and stakes, and sending characters into the fire and see where they come out on the other side.

 

[Hex08]

Its difficult to talk about these things without knowing specific questions that someone might have. I don't know what you don't know (for instance) and I don't know how allergic you are to certain concepts and how amenable you are to trying something new.

I know very little, really next to nothing. I think I have a basic understanding of what a move is from reading posts here and that there is supposed to be minimal prep time for the games but beyond that I'm a blank slate. It also seems like the player does as much, if not more than, the GM to drive the story. I'm really looking for something new, it's one of the reasons I'm curious about the games, and I tend not to judge new concepts until I've tried them or seen them in action.

My only concern is the people I play with. All of my players are willing to try anything but I worry about a couple of them being able to drive their own stories, which seems like it might be a big deal with this style of gaming.

 

[Gradine]

PbtA games are pretty great especially for shorter campaigns, and for specific settings and genres. I maintain that Masks is the best example of concept and theme to gameplay of any tabletop RPG ever.

Forged in the Dark is also a really great take on the formula in a crunchier direction.

 

[payn]

I know very little, really next to nothing. I think I have a basic understanding of what a move is from reading posts here and that there is supposed to be minimal prep time for the games but beyond that I'm a blank slate. It also seems like the player does as much, if not more than, the GM to drive the story. I'm really looking for something new, it's one of the reasons I'm curious about the games, and I tend not to judge new concepts until I've tried them or seen them in action.

My only concern is the people I play with. All of my players are willing to try anything but I worry about a couple of them being able to drive their own stories, which seems like it might be a big deal with this style of gaming.

It's a pretty low investment one shot type of RPG. PbtA does try and get players to drive more but they might need some encouragement and/or example to follow. In any style of RPG, I find the GM really drives the style, pace, and feel of the game. My advice? Don't go with a fantasy game at first. Folks will look to what they know and they likely know D&D and it's derivatives.

 

[Hex08]

I had no idea that Forged in the Dark is a take of PbtA. I own Blades in the Dark and Scum and Villainy as well and I'm pretty sure (and excited) that Blades will be the next thing I run, but that's still a way off.

 

[ART!]

My only real experience w PbtA games is running Masks. I struggled with it A LOT because of the issues other posters have mentioned, and because I was learning the system, learning how to run it, and teaching it to all my players - all at the same time. Ugh.

I'm really glad they are out there. Some of the best GMing advice ever written comes from those games.

But I don't enjoy running them. Moves and the high degree of player-driven setting creation are at odds with how I run games.

Yeah, I did not like running Masks, partly because doing so required unlearning a lot of the things I've learned from running more traditional games. So, that's not a fault in Masks or any other PbtA game. My players also struggled with things like "how do I knock this guy out?!?!?", to which there is no real answer in the way that there is in more traditional systems.

They are one of the few games you can play " wrong".

Yes! That's so true!

Needs lots player buy-in and being comfortable with opposing player agendas.

Yeah - every PC is built on a dramatic archetype, and the game is all about the drama, so the PCs will be at odds on a regular basis. That design is intentional, but there it is.

Players need to be happy with some agency loss on occasion.

Yes. Masks is built to emulate teen heroes cartoons and the like, so on a regular basis the drama kind of takes over.

I have found them a bit frustrating. The emphasis on not needing prep, and on making sure that something happens every roll, led to an experience where nothing can ever be simple; everything leads to more scenes and improv activities.

I found myself having to adjudicate and innovate constantly, and it was exhausting and frustrating. And I've run plenty of games, for decades, but not the kinds of games that structure drama the way PbtA games do.

Having said all that, Masks is an amazing game that does what it sets out to do brilliantly. I just can't run it, at least not without a lot more practice.

 

[GrahamWills]

One more note about PbtA generally --- While most permutations generally have aspects of character advancement / XP / "leveling up", it's really not the focus of the system. The point of PbtA is to see what your characters do --- what do they accomplish? What sacrifices did they have to make to accomplish it? How did their choices/actions affect the game world around them?

And I guess this is why it doesn't work for me. It says that the focus is "see what your characters do" but in practice, because much of the time any action results in success with a complication, it seems more like the focus is "see what the world does to your character". When I play Fate, if I fail to interrogate a suspect, I can choose simply to fail and then try something else, or I might decide to use one of my character aspects, or I might succeed with a complication -- but the focus is on my character and what they do. When I play a PbtA game, that has not been the case. Very often my dice roll results not in a choice over what I do (accept failure, put in more effort, accept a consequence) but in the world taking over focus and doing something.

As an example, from AW p137 "Act Under Fire" the suggestion is that if you roll 7-9 on dragging a friend to cover, you offer the player a choice between one of the two of you getting shot. That sort of thing I found frustrating. There's no option to say "this is important to my character, I'm willing to burn something just to make it work", there's no option to say "I'd prefer to simply fail and try a different approach". There isn't even the suggestion that a player could choose a complication (although I'm guessing most GMs would allow that).

This is made more noticeable because when your character does something well, it's over fast -- you did it, you narrate it, next player. When you are in that intermediate state, there's a pause while the GM explains what's going on and your alternatives, and then you might have a question (like, how badly is my character going to be shot? Will my friend potentially die?) The focus has switched from your action to the complication. And because it takes so much more time, I found that when I played PbtA games, most of the time was not spent on seeing what my character did, but instead on understanding and reacting to what the world did when I didn't succeed completely.

I really, really want to like PbtA, and I've played maybe a dozen variants in home games and at cons. But it often feels like I'm along for the ride; there's no need to think or plan or worry about what my character would actually do, because a complication will come up and I'll just be reacting to GM intrusions.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

One more note about PbtA generally --- While most permutations generally have aspects of character advancement / XP / "leveling up", it's really not the focus of the system. The point of PbtA is to see what your characters do --- what do they accomplish? What sacrifices did they have to make to accomplish it? How did their choices/actions affect the game world around them?

PbtA is not a game for "turtling." It's not about painstakingly poking 10' x 10' sections of stone floor for traps (Dungeon World being an exception). Generally speaking, it eschews the mindset of accumulating loot to get your next great equipment upgrade, so you can get your next +2 bonus.

While there are aspects of it that can be "gamed", if players go into it with a "gamist" mindset, it's going to feel like a massive let down. It's purposefully not meant to be tactical. It's about creating drama, and stakes, and sending characters into the fire and see where they come out on the other side.

This is an important point, which I think relates to another important element--most PbtA games aren't really designed for open-ended "forever" campaigns. They aren't necessarily always play-to-lose, where you're play to see how your character crashes and burns, but there's often a clearer trajectory and sense that this is going to end, and it's actually very interesting if it ends at least somewhat tragically for your character.

In that way it's much closer to a miniseries than a 7-year-long TV show or an ongoing monthly comic. The stakes are often higher, and if players stay in a more traditional RPG mode of wanting to "win" every situation, they could easily bounce off most of the mechanics, progression included.

To me, PbtA (and FitD) games are great when everyone embraces the chaos and isn't precious about their characters failing or dying or constantly maintaining complete agency. Cautious, optimized play just doesn't make sense.

 

[payn]

And I guess this is why it doesn't work for me. It says that the focus is "see what your characters do" but in practice, because much of the time any action results in success with a complication, it seems more like the focus is "see what the world does to your character". When I play Fate, if I fail to interrogate a suspect, I can choose simply to fail and then try something else, or I might decide to use one of my character aspects, or I might succeed with a complication -- but the focus is on my character and what they do. When I play a PbtA game, that has not been the case. Very often my dice roll results not in a choice over what I do (accept failure, put in more effort, accept a consequence) but in the world taking over focus and doing something.

As an example, from AW p137 "Act Under Fire" the suggestion is that if you roll 7-9 on dragging a friend to cover, you offer the player a choice between one of the two of you getting shot. That sort of thing I found frustrating. There's no option to say "this is important to my character, I'm willing to burn something just to make it work", there's no option to say "I'd prefer to simply fail and try a different approach". There isn't even the suggestion that a player could choose a complication (although I'm guessing most GMs would allow that).

This is made more noticeable because when your character does something well, it's over fast -- you did it, you narrate it, next player. When you are in that intermediate state, there's a pause while the GM explains what's going on and your alternatives, and then you might have a question (like, how badly is my character going to be shot? Will my friend potentially die?) The focus has switched from your action to the complication. And because it takes so much more time, I found that when I played PbtA games, most of the time was not spent on seeing what my character did, but instead on understanding and reacting to what the world did when I didn't succeed completely.

I really, really want to like PbtA, and I've played maybe a dozen variants in home games and at cons. But it often feels like I'm along for the ride; there's no need to think or plan or worry about what my character would actually do, because a complication will come up and I'll just be reacting to GM intrusions.

GM intrusions is an interesting take. I see it more as dice randomizing the events. I mean, sure the GM determines what is happening, but I kind of like that as their role in the game. It gives me as a player more to react to, more puzzles to solve, and increases the danger to the character. Then again, I'm not a big fan of Fate or player driven narrative systems. I don't see clear lines between roles and for some that might be the point I suppose.

 

[payn]

This is an important point, which I think relates to another important element--most PbtA games aren't really designed for open-ended "forever" campaigns. They aren't necessarily always play-to-lose, where you're play to see how your character crashes and burns, but there's often a clearer trajectory and sense that this is going to end, and it's actually very interesting if it ends at least somewhat tragically for your character.

In that way it's much closer to a miniseries than a 7-year-long TV show or an ongoing monthly comic. The stakes are often higher, and if players stay in a more traditional RPG mode of wanting to "win" every situation, they could easily bounce off most of the mechanics, progression included.

To me, PbtA (and FitD) games are great when everyone embraces the chaos and isn't precious about their characters failing or dying or constantly maintaining complete agency. Cautious, optimized play just doesn't make sense.

I do like the injury system. It seems to give you room at first to throw caution into the wind until you get beat up. Then, it becomes more dangerous and you think harder about what the character is going to do. Seems like a natural flow of events to me. Even better, its rare that everyone in the party is at the same stage, so its not feast or famine on the party throwing caution to the wind or turtling up.