PbtA Games: Sell One Well +

[overgeeked]

Our next campaign is going to be about a trial program of roller-skating cops in Santa Monica in 1977. Like a cross between CHIPS and Roller Boogie with some Barney Miller mixed in.

Spirit of ‘77 is the prefect system for this (also the inspiration). Does that sell or unsell it? I don’t know.

That sounds awesome. Hope it goes well.

 

[Reynard]

Does anyone have a PbtA actual play they highly recommend? Preferably (for me) either a one shot or short series.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Does anyone have a PbtA actual play they highly recommend? Preferably (for me) either a one shot or short series.

To what end? Most AP's I've seen tend to lean more toward entertainment value, without giving much justice to the rules of whatever game is being played

However (and I may have linked this upthread at some point) the upcoming Stonetop game has had some nice youtube APs that also talks about the mechanics as they go

 

[Aldarc]

Does anyone have a PbtA actual play they highly recommend? Preferably (for me) either a one shot or short series.

As part of the Kickstarter, Jeremy Strandberg began an annotated actual play for Stonetop...

Edit: And as I was typing, @Eyes of Nine beat me to the punch.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Yeah, I'm not sure about 'cultural' maybe, but it has to speak clearly to a specific vision. You can't make a PbtA that is like "generic space opera", you need specific tightly drawn character archetypes, a tight agenda, etc. that all fit together. Like, I could see a PbtA that would reproduce the sort of "Classic Traveller, we got a Free Trader, we're just booting around trying to make rent." sort of game. It would probably NOT do other sorts of Traveller games, like Mercenary Dudes, or something like that.

Yes totally agree - Free Trader is totally different from Mercenary; which is totally different from Imperial Intrigue/Espionage. Classic Traveller held a lot of possibilities under it's umbrella - but for a PbtA, one would want to drill down and focus on one aspect and build out from there. So far there have been at least 4 PbtA's around the Free Trader archetype:

• Uncharted Worlds
• Impulse Drive
• Ironsworn Starforged
• Offworlders

for mercenary play, I might actually re-skin Night Witches or Ross Rifles

For Imperial Intrigue, the Sword the Crown and the Unspeakable Power could drop right in

Anyway, totally agree - PbtA is more focused on what characters do rather than what they are

 

[overgeeked]

Here's a Zombie World actual play.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yes totally agree - Free Trader is totally different from Mercenary; which is totally different from Imperial Intrigue/Espionage. Classic Traveller held a lot of possibilities under it's umbrella - but for a PbtA, one would want to drill down and focus on one aspect and build out from there. So far there have been at least 4 PbtA's around the Free Trader archetype:

• Uncharted Worlds
• Impulse Drive
• Ironsworn Starforged
• Offworlders

for mercenary play, I might actually re-skin Night Witches or Ross Rifles

For Imperial Intrigue, the Sword the Crown and the Unspeakable Power could drop right in

Anyway, totally agree - PbtA is more focused on what characters do rather than what they are

If we're calling Ironsworn PbtA, I would also put Scum & Villainy on this list, as it's derived from Blades in the Dark, which is derived from PbtA.

Scum & Villainy has three modes -- Firefly, Cowboy Bebop and Millennium Falcon -- each split up by their ship types and what kind of adventures they have -- smuggling, bounty hunting, revolution.

The adventuring party's ship ties everyone together and the characters are all interconnected.

The heist mechanics are similar to Blades in the Dark and each campaign is a limited length one, as the consequences of the group's actions eventually catch up with them and, in the finale, permanently change the setting in some way, allowing one to easily run them sequentially as a single mega-campaign.

The tone of the setting tries to thread the needle through the three properties, but the presence of space wizards (although they're more interesting than Jedi, IMO) probably puts it a little closer to Star Wars than the other properties.

But for certain flavors of Traveller campaigns, Scum & Villainy pares everything else away to provide a focused, outside-the-law experience.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

If we're calling Ironsworn PbtA, I would also put Scum & Villainy on this list, which is derived from Blades in the Dark, which is derived from PbtA.

Glad S&V is a good game and can deliver a Traveller like experience! May not fit OP's desire of a PbtA game - OP would have to tell us why they've chosen to specify PbtA

I don't own S&V, but I wonder if in its acknowledgement page or anywhere in its text does it say it was influenced by AW? (both BitD and Irownsworn do) I hope to learn something new today

Not super interested in going further down this rabbit hole around defining what is or isn't PbtA (for those who are interested - here's Vincent and Meg's definition Powered by the Apocalypse)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't own S&V, but I wonder if in its acknowledgement page or anywhere in its text does it say it was influenced by AW? (both BitD and Irownsworn do) I hope to learn something new today

Nope, just this under Thanks:

This game would not be possible without the Blades in the Dark G+ community, the original Beta community, plus all the folks playing Scum and Villainy during development and giving feedback and critique.

And this under Acknowledgements:

Appendix N: We list media inspirations on page 4. For game inspirations just check out the Blades in the Dark list. ^_~

 

[Reynard]

To what end? Most AP's I've seen tend to lean more toward entertainment value, without giving much justice to the rules of whatever game is being played

Watching a game being played can be useful for gathering insight into how the system works at the table. I'm not sure how this wouldn't be obvious from the outset.