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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8677934" data-attributes="member: 7028554">Welp, I tried to extend some courtesy, but you're not doing the same, so here we go!From Meg and Vincent Baker's <a href="http://apocalypse-world.com/pbta/policy" target="_blank">note</a> about calling something PbtA and using the logo: "Again, "Powered by the Apocalypse" isn't the name of a kind of game, set of game elements, or even the core design thrust of a coherent movement. (Ha! This last, the least so.) Its use in a game's trade dress signifies ONLY that the game was inspired by Apocalypse World in a way that the designer considers significant..."Even Wikipedia doesn't call PbtA a system, but "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_by_the_Apocalypse" target="_blank">a tabletop role playing game design framework</a>." Some PbtA games don't even use the same type or number of dice—Flying Circus, for example, uses 2d10 rather than the more typical 2d6. Some PbtA games have HP or equivalent, others don't. Some, like Avatar Legends or Monster of the Week, stat up NPCs, and others don't. That every PbtA game is different, sometimes drastically so, from others, isn't some minor point or marketing speak. They are all unique games, including down to what your rolls mean. And the differences are often much greater than variations within a system. Fall of Delta Green and Night's Black Agents have some different skills and setting-based tweaks, but they are both Gumshoe games, as much as a GURPS Transhuman and GURPS CthulhuPunk campaign are both GURPS games.Put another way, if someone was playing a fantasy RPG with no statblocks for enemies, and they were rolling a d10 instead of a d20, and had no HP...would you say they were playing 5e, because the classes were D&D-like? Or, a less extreme example, would you say that all OSR games are 5e?You might not be interested in having this discussion, but I think it's important for how the larger community thinks about and discusses PbtA. It really is a framework for various kinds of designs, not a system.And if you still want to say, meh, words or distinctions don't matter, it's a system, remember that Bluebeard's Bride is a game where you play different aspects of the same character's personality—not as Inside Out-style individual embodiments, but literally guiding the protagonist through the situation together. Meanwhile, World of Dungeons is D&D-style fantasy using storygame mechanics. Those aren't the same system, no matter how hard you squint.</blockquote>

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