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<blockquote data-quote="Breaking Star Games" data-source="post: 9144192" data-attributes="member: 7042067">I'll second that calling it a system tends to do PbtA games a disservice. People think that the single one they tried applies to them all. But I've found the differences between Masks, Bluebeard's Bride and Apocalypse World 2e as bigger than many traditional systems. And there is an abundance of bad PbtA games. Its really best just to discuss them on their own merits but I'd do the same for many d20 games too. That said, they do have similar characteristics: Hard Choices, Snowballing action, Structured GM Frameworks, &quot;Just-in-time&quot; Mechanics that get you immediately back into the fiction and Genre Emulation.Many games seem to recommend keeping the action moving forward but often it boils down to just some general advice about failing forward. PbtA games tend to actually provide the table with support on what happens on a Miss, Weak Hit and Strong Hit. IMO Its the biggest loss when playing FitD games for me - suddenly its on the GM's shoulders to constantly make these interesting consequences. And there has been some trend of PbtA games following this - Day/Night Moves from The Between/Brindlewood, Rely on your Skills and Training in Avatar Legends, Bay or Defy Danger from Ironsworn. It does allow tons more flexibility, but I think that is going against the core strength of PbtA with niche genre emulation and already those hard choices and snowballing built into the mechanics.That said, all of those are some of my favorite games but I prefer something like Root: The RPG that provides more support where it doesn't rely too heavily on GM fiat for catch-all moves. Implementing a skill system is really genius. Its easily my favorite way to play low magic fantasy now.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Breaking Star Games, post: 9144192, member: 7042067"] I'll second that calling it a system tends to do PbtA games a disservice. People think that the single one they tried applies to them all. But I've found the differences between Masks, Bluebeard's Bride and Apocalypse World 2e as bigger than many traditional systems. And there is an abundance of bad PbtA games. Its really best just to discuss them on their own merits but I'd do the same for many d20 games too. That said, they do have similar characteristics: Hard Choices, Snowballing action, Structured GM Frameworks, "Just-in-time" Mechanics that get you immediately back into the fiction and Genre Emulation. Many games seem to recommend keeping the action moving forward but often it boils down to just some general advice about failing forward. PbtA games tend to actually provide the table with support on what happens on a Miss, Weak Hit and Strong Hit. IMO Its the biggest loss when playing FitD games for me - suddenly its on the GM's shoulders to constantly make these interesting consequences. And there has been some trend of PbtA games following this - Day/Night Moves from The Between/Brindlewood, Rely on your Skills and Training in Avatar Legends, Bay or Defy Danger from Ironsworn. It does allow tons more flexibility, but I think that is going against the core strength of PbtA with niche genre emulation and already those hard choices and snowballing built into the mechanics. That said, all of those are some of my favorite games but I prefer something like Root: The RPG that provides more support where it doesn't rely too heavily on GM fiat for catch-all moves. Implementing a skill system is really genius. Its easily my favorite way to play low magic fantasy now. [/QUOTE]

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