PbtA Games: Sell One Well +

[chaochou]

Apocalypse World - the original. Passionately and intelligently written, it's got a compelling vision of who its protagonists are, clear instructions on how to ensure player characters decisions are the beating heart of events, and GM advice which distills decades of good practice into clear and digestible principles.

The playbooks are wonderful - every character starts scary and capable. And while they're not all instantly recognisable archetypes, there's artistry in them - from the can't-take-your-eyes-off-them compulsion of the Skinner to the charismatic high-wire act of the cult-leader Hocus.

The call and answer of fictional action and move resolution gives the game a deceptively simple rhythm which everyone can grasp. But the fact the characters are each independently capable allows every player to do their own thing without needing to find artificial ways to co-operate for every minute of every day. And, as the game develops, it will become clear that there are uneasy alliances between characters, or marriages of convenience threatening to fracture and split and then be healed in the face of the ever greater scarcity that the game uses to create pressure.

The only controversy I can think of is the inclusion of sex as a move. It's a game for grown-ups, which includes the idea that in a post apocalyptic landscape companionship and intimacy will be scarce and valuable. The game represents that mechanically. I've run more than one campaign where they've not been used by anyone and it doesn't affect the game one bit. They stay exactly like any other move that doesn't get used - a non-event which doesn't affect play.

I have several of the PbtA titles, including Vincent Baker's latest Under Hollow Hills, but AW remains the reference point for me. I've run a lot of games of it, probably more than anything else since its release, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone of an open mind.

 

[Aldarc]

It seems that DW is somewhat controversial in PbtA circles. Is there a reason for that of importance to someone looking to try it?

For some, it sits in the Uncanny Valley between an antiquated version of D&D and PbtA.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's wildly controversial for four reasons.

1) It's trying to be basically "compatible" with material from another game system, so makes some very intentional and considered design choices to do so, which offend some PtbA purists (HP, for example). It also encourages people to use existing D&D materials, which again, massively offends certain purists (including DW purists), who feel the entire world/setting should flow from the players and the system - which DW is quite capable of doing, but doesn't require in the same way some PtbA games do.

2) One of the systems it introduces is basically just a worse version of an extant PbtA system - Fronts are basically just PtbA clocks done in a messed-up way, and I don't think they're very helpful or worth the space the rulebook spends on them. Personally I'd suggest people playing DW just totally ignore Fronts.

3) I'm not sure how to put this perfectly kindly but it upsets the most gentle lambs of the world, a lot of whom seem to play certain other PtbA games, because it intentionally emulates D&D, which they see as inherently pro-colonizer, pro-violence (perhaps even pro-genocide), pro-raiding and so on. I'm not kidding nor overstating here, to be clear. And they are, on a level, correct. D&D has always been quite about those things - "Kill monsters and take their stuff" - and you can see this reflected in a lot of Gygax's own comments (including his "nits make lice" approving reference, or his description in the '00s of how a Paladin should operate). But for the vast majority of D&D players, that's either not an issue, or just not how they see it, which is imho also totally valid and possibly more reasonable.

I can even link (if I look hard enough) a thread from the non-controversial co-designer where he talks about what he'd change for a DW 2nd edition, and it's like, basically everything that makes it D&D-like and focuses on violent conflict.

4) One of the two co-designers got in a lot of controversy for a genuinely creepy incident from his home game and sort of did a Mike Mearls and vanished from public. Like Mearls being an eejit and friends with people who aren't great, I don't think this has any real bearing on the game but it certainly influences some attitudes about it, esp. from the sort of people who also think maybe "Killing monsters and taking their stuff" isn't cool.

TLDR - Only reason 1 really matters if you care about PtbA, and I don't think it matters a whole lot - indeed if anything I think it DW makes a more gentle introduction to PtbA. You're jumping a 5' gap instead of a 10' one.

Not to turn this into a DW debate thread but fronts were not invented by DW, they're from AW. I would also contend that DW is no more compatible with D&D than any other random RPG! It emulates the genre of D&D, but that too is hardly unique...

I would also point out it's a lot less likely to turn into a murderhobo fest than most any OSR. There are really solid mechanisms to build other paradigms off of, as Stonetop illustrates. Maybe there could be some better playbooks (ST again) to facilitate that but as is the players can easily go in that direction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

For some, it sits in the Uncanny Valley between an antiquated version of D&D and PbtA.

DW is not D&D at all though. It's more like the wolf in sheep's clothing.

I agree with @chaochou though, AW is the whole enchilada. Nothing has really surpassed it.

 

[Aldarc]

DW is not D&D at all though. It's more like the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Hence why for some it sits in the Uncanny Valley.

 

[Reynard]

Is there a non-Masks supers PbtA game? I don't care for teen drama as a genre, superheroic or otherwise.

 

[Vinicius Lessa]

I'm terrible at selling things, but I find Sagas of the Icelanders one of the most unique PbtA in the sense that it does (norse settlers) family drama in a way that's nuanced and deliberate, while also having it's share of explosive moments. Its almost like the anti-Monsterhearts in this sense.

Oh, and it also has the best move I've seen, from The Matriarch, where on a success she may order someone younger to shut the naughty word up. And the other player must obey (or lose precious Bonds).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Man, Monsterhearts was amazing as a Critical Role one-shot, but I cannot imagine playing it with any of the people I game with. I do wish there were more professional performers were doing actual plays of it, though.

 

[overgeeked]

Is there a non-Masks supers PbtA game? I don't care for teen drama as a genre, superheroic or otherwise.

There’s Worlds in Peril and the more BitD sequel Galaxies in Peril. I’ve skimmed but neither read nor played either so cannot give a review or rec either way.

As a note: I’ve used Masks to run an adult-characters Suicide Squad game. Switch the “teenager” to “criminal” and it works almost just as well.

 

[Aldarc]

There’s Worlds in Peril and the more BitD sequel Galaxies in Peril. I’ve skimmed but neither read nor played either so cannot give a review or rec either way.

As a note: I’ve used Masks to run an adult-characters Suicide Squad game. Switch the “teenager” to “criminal” and it works almost just as well.

With agency handlers as the mentors?

 

[Malmuria]

3) I'm not sure how to put this perfectly kindly but it upsets the most gentle lambs of the world, a lot of whom seem to play certain other PtbA games, because it intentionally emulates D&D, which they see as inherently pro-colonizer, pro-violence (perhaps even pro-genocide), pro-raiding and so on. I'm not kidding nor overstating here, to be clear. And they are, on a level, correct. D&D has always been quite about those things - "Kill monsters and take their stuff" - and you can see this reflected in a lot of Gygax's own comments (including his "nits make lice" approving reference, or his description in the '00s of how a Paladin should operate). But for the vast majority of D&D players, that's either not an issue, or just not how they see it, which is imho also totally valid and possibly more reasonable.

I did notice this in the rulebook, that they almost played up the violence/colonialism of the game.

 

[overgeeked]

With agency handlers as the mentors?

Exactly. Waller and the other agents as the “adults” in the game. There was a lot of Peacemaker vibes in the game as well. Seeing the criminals as petulant teenagers definitely put the game in a certain light. And it worked better than I hoped.

 

[Reynard]

Exactly. Waller and the other agents as the “adults” in the game. There was a lot of Peacemaker vibes in the game as well. Seeing the criminals as petulant teenagers definitely put the game in a certain light. And it worked better than I hoped.

I was hoping for something more "standard". Luke, what PbtA would you use for Morrison's 2000ish JLA with Big Damn Heroes in Cosmic Crises, or maybe Astro City, Slice of Life Supers?

 

[overgeeked]

I was hoping for something more "standard". Luke, what PbtA would you use for Morrison's 2000ish JLA with Big Damn Heroes in Cosmic Crises, or maybe Astro City, Slice of Life Supers?

Worlds in Peril is more your standard superheroes game. That and Galaxies in Peril (more BitD) are what you'd look at for the big damn superheroes vibe. But again, I haven't really dug into those or played them. If you can dig it, there's a PbtA game that does Bronze Age 1970s street-level supers and other 1970s badasses to a T that I'm just starting a write up on. It's called Spirit of 77.

 

[Faolyn]

A bit more on Monster of the Week: It is a sleekly designed machine to tell one kind of story, the "monster of the week" episodes of Supernatural, Buffy, X-Files, Kolchak and so on. (I think I remember that the game was originally designed as a homebrew system to run a Supernatural campaign.)

The playbooks create pretty much every character from those series -- sometimes pretty blatantly -- but with enough flexibility to make things your own. (When I run it, I intend to have the Chosen One be chosen by a UFO cult, rather than a bunch of upper class English twits, for instance.)

The player-side mechanics help drive the plot forward, with every playbook having some sort of related plot hook (maybe you're working against a conspiracy that attempts to foil your monster hunting, maybe you are fated to die saving the world, etc.) that ticks forward when you accomplish certain things or spend XP.

Player characters are heroic badasses to various degrees (even the sidekick types get to have their moments, as in BtVS's "The Zeppo"), with failures typically being partial successes or successes with a cost. But eventually, the fight against monsters will consume them all, leading to another monster hunter taking their place. (Player characters have a non-replenishing Luck score, and when a character's Luck runs out, you should start thinking seriously about your next character.)

Adventures have an open-ended design, typically featuring a monster with an unknown weakness that has to be discovered in order to defeat them. But there's a ticking clock: If the players dither, the monster's agenda keeps moving forward with some sort of horrible event happening when the clock has ticked down. So the player characters are spurred into action to get investigating and attempting to disrupt the activities of the unbeatable-at-the-moment monster in the meantime.

It's episodic in nature, but the player-side plot engines form campaign arcs through regular play. And if they're at all synched up, you can expect one hell of a season finale every dozen or so sessions.

There's a new crowdfunding campaign to introduce new settings and group playbooks via a supplement (play Locke & Key or Penny Dreadful in Monster of the Week!) and a new hardcover version of the game, with a bit of new material (including material from a prior supplement I suspect they want to let fall out of print) comes out on Feb. 27.

This is not Hunter: The Vigil, with hunters eventually becoming serial killers who justify their actions for the greater good, or even the upcoming Apocalypse Keys, which is more Hellboy trying to prevent the world (or becoming the thing that will cause the end of the world himself).

But if you ever wanted to play a government monster hunter having to look over their shoulder for the conspirators lurking in the shadows of their own agency, or the criminal who's seen too many things in the dark to look away any more, or even a vampire (or werewolf or angel or whatever) siding with humans against the supernatural -- and especially if you want all of these folks to team up -- this is the game for you.

Thanks for the link! I'm going to be running a game of MotW soonish--well, either that or Root, although I'm leaning to MotW--and I'm really enjoying what I've read so far.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Thanks for the link! I'm going to be running a game of MotW soonish--well, either that or Root, although I'm leaning to MotW--and I'm really enjoying what I've read so far.

It's an amazingly well written rulebook. The author is practically shaking the reader by the shoulder and saying "let's play right now!"

 

[overgeeked]

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll.

The Best parts of a Bad decade...

Can you dig it?!

Spirit of 77 is a love letter to the 1970s. It absolutely nails the time period and related pop culture. The GM is called the DJ, each character should have an era-appropriate theme song, and you're playing in an alternate history where aliens are real, super science is proliferating, Tricky Dick is still in office, and the power of rock can save you.

Spirit of 77 in three images. The cover. Art from the back cover. And the first piece of interior art.

Looking over the book to try to encapsulate the game, I was reminded of this page of the text. So rather than try to write something better than this (I can't), I'll just post this long quote...

What is Spirit of 77?

The Best Parts of a Bad Decade
Evel Knievel and Pam Grier. Alice Cooper and Bruce Lee. The Dukes of Hazzard and the Six Million Dollar Man. Shaft. Spirit of 77 is a combination of muscle cars and Mack trucks, CB radios and kung fu fighters, cross-country road races and big scores in the big city with a killer soundtrack. Can you dig it?

Non-Stop Full Throttle Action
Put the pedal to the metal and drop the hammer. We got places to go, ammo to use, and buckets of fuel to burn. This isn’t a game about exploring deep personal relationships between characters; it’s about fast-drawing gangsters leading angry cops on a non-stop high-speed chase through rain-slick city streets, swaggering away from explosions in slow motion and striking a cool pose while delivering an awesome one-liner at just the right time.

Being Cool Over Bean Counting
Math is hard and nobody really cares how many iron rations you have in your bedroll. Time spent keeping track of nonsense like ammo, fuel and money is better spent blowing suckas away and burning rubber. Running out of ammo only happens when it’s appropriately dramatic, and if you run outta gas it’s because you’ve just arrived where someone is in desperate need of a boot to their ass.

Watergate and Weird Science
What’s more amazing, the superscience of X-Technology that brought us things like Skylab, bionics and computers that can fit on your desk or “Tricky Dick” Nixon beating the Watergate rap with a public apology? Both are complete mysteries, making the ’70s into the weird world it is in Spirit of 77. Politics and truth-seeking have become even more dangerous since the manufactured flap over that hotel break-in, and the end of Vietnam went weirder than anyone could’ve predicted.

Music In The Streets
In 1977, music is a powerful force that not only inspires and motivates, but in some cases can even be weaponized. Musicians everywhere devote themselves to the pursuit of hitting the big time, and in every club and on every corner, the omnipresent voice of the City’s soul can be heard. The DJ, always wise, always mysterious and always taking requests.

Say What? - Wheaton’s Law In Effect
Spirit of 77 is not a historically accurate representation of the 1970s. It’s a fictionalized fantasy world and a chance to play kung fu fighters or clever detectives, good ol’ boys or disco divas. It should never be an opportunity to indulge in racial or sexual stereotypes. Bigotry in any form isn’t fun or funny.

 

[Reynard]

If they exist, what are good PbtA games for the following genres:

Zombie Apocalypse
Baroque Space Opera
Abercrombie grimdark fantasy
Gonzo Post Apocalypse
Whatever genre it is Neil Gaiman writes

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Abercrombie grimdark fantasy

Is this attractive young people stabbing each other in gloomy castles?

 

[Reynard]

Is this attractive young people stabbing each other in gloomy castles?

No. It is mud and blood gritty military low fantasy.