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Have a look at the Lexicon thread. Pages and pages of people not agreeing to any terms used in RPGs. They can't even agree on what a RPG is.
Exactly. Until the RPG community accepts the rule and judgment of a governing body that makes ultimate, enforceable decisions that we all need to abide by, we are not getting any universal agreement on RPG terminology or what is or isn't an RPG.
 
Well it's here since 2010 and already influenced the hobby in some ways (Star Wars' success with complications, Cypher's GM don't rolls dice, Mutant Year Zero and Beyond the Wall playbooks and loaded relationships, the new Kult, etc) so there's that.

The first two of these are hardly new. I was using success with complications in a homebrew game in 1983. It had failure, partial success/success at a cost, success, special success, and critical success. I don't remember where I got the idea for partial success/success at cost, but I doubt it was my creation. The first I saw "GM does roll dice" was in an article in Dragon magazine during the TSR era (I tried it and hated it then, still hate it now). I am not sure about the others, but I would not be surprised if they were done before AW as well.

Truly new ideas are really rare in RPGs, in my experience. I remember people raving about the wonderful new idea of ascending armor class with the D20 system in D&D 3.0, when the practically the same system was suggested in detail in an article in Different Worlds magazine in 1980 or 1981. Note that none of this takes anything away from PBTA games others that the claims of some of their fans that these ideas are new to RPGs with AW.
 
Sorry, I don't agree. A lexicon has been established in every field of human academia and it never required universal agreement.

Just wait for the first serious studies to appear then you'll see. At that point all this handwrangling about who has the right to call which what will go the way of the dodo. Unless you want to seriously dispute the fact that language is a convention and that it evolves irrespective of the wishes of any single individual?

I'm also annoyed at how this excuse is used to instantly shutdown anyone who tries to engage in a rational taxonomic discussion. As soon as a single game darling gets excluded from a category liked by any of the game's fans, there's a brigade coming in accusing people of being exclusionary. But if I'm trying to establish categories and subcategories I need to distinguish and thus to exclude based on some criteria, otherwise there's no point. And it's quite obvious distinctions exist and need to be formalized.

Ultimately, it's irrelevant to me how everyone wants to call the subdivisions, but claiming they don't exist, or they do but it's impossible to formalize them is ridiculous because it flies in the face of reality.
Hell, scientists can't even agree on what exactly a fucking planet is, that hasn't stopped cosmology to come up with a terminology. Imagine trying to study the universe without being able to call anything by proper names and being forced to call everything "stuff" because otherwise someone somewhere is going to get angry.
 
The thing is, taxonomy inside a hobby where things are usually blended up and mixed gets kind of navel gazey at times and doesn't serve a lot of real purpose. Like with board games, what is a light euro vs a german family game? A worker placement vs a worker movement game? Hell, what is a board game? Is crokinole a board game? Is darts? (both of these last two have been argued a LOT on BGG). Are dexterity games in general actually board games?

Then you get stuff like Blood Rage. Is Blood Rage a Euro? Ameritrash? Is it a drafting game? Area Control? Or is it just a game that has bits and pieces of all those things? When most things in the field are hybrids of one sort or another, the idea of hard lines become a bit silly.

(Even D&D itself, with its birth from wargames is in and of itself, a bit of a hybrid rather than a pure roleplaying game (whatever that would mean), but because old schoolers are USED to the fact that D&D has wargame trappings they tend to excuse those borrowed mechanics).
 
Sorry, I don't agree. A lexicon has been established in every field of human academia and it never required universal agreement.

Just wait for the first serious studies to appear then you'll see. At that point all this handwrangling about who has the right to call which what will go the way of the dodo. Unless you want to seriously dispute the fact that language is a convention and that it evolves irrespective of the wishes of any single individual?

I'm also annoyed at how this excuse is used to instantly shutdown anyone who tries to engage in a rational taxonomic discussion. As soon as a single game darling gets excluded from a category liked by any of the game's fans, there's a brigade coming in accusing people of being exclusionary. But if I'm trying to establish categories and subcategories I need to distinguish and thus to exclude based on some criteria, otherwise there's no point. And it's quite obvious distinctions exist and need to be formalized.

Ultimately, it's irrelevant to me how everyone wants to call the subdivisions, but claiming they don't exist, or they do but it's impossible to formalize them is ridiculous because it flies in the face of reality.
Hell, scientists can't even agree on what exactly a fucking planet is, that hasn't stopped cosmology to come up with a terminology. Imagine trying to study the universe without being able to call anything by proper names and being forced to call everything "stuff" because otherwise someone somewhere is going to get angry.
Nobody is saying you can't argue about jargon all day if you like. I just said to take it to the lexicon thread. I'll leave this here, but from now on, I am just deleting posts on the topic in this thread.
 
Being part of a community that runs and attends regional SFF fan conventions, I can say with confidence that when that happens, we all lose.
Can I like this two, three, or twenty times. As has been said before, "I wear the viking hat, I run the game, it doesn't run me.". I'll be damned if some is gonna tell me how I'm running my "Elf" game wrong.
 
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If the only people who ever claim to have enjoyed a given game are people with a track record of being people you don't like for other reasons then that's relevant to the analysis.

Like if someone has fun with (insert name of your idea of an offensive game here) but literally everyone who likes it belongs to (insert name of ideologically offensive group that WOULD like such a game) then you can go "Ok, they like it but that is also a bad game". I mean "torturing cats" can be a game. If "cat torture" is enjoyed by thousands of people who are all dickheads then that is relevant to assessing the quality of the game of torturing a cat.

I enjoyed Blades the year I played it. And while you can correct me if I'm wrong I doubt you have any strong feelings about me either way based on our interactions on here. So at the very least I don't think you have enough datapoints.
 
I guess it's time once again to bring up the first rule of RPG arguments

It always comes down to badwrongfun.
 
This thread is not the Pub's finest hour
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The first two of these are hardly new. I was using success with complications in a homebrew game in 1983. It had failure, partial success/success at a cost, success, special success, and critical success. I don't remember where I got the idea for partial success/success at cost, but I doubt it was my creation. The first I saw "GM does roll dice" was in an article in Dragon magazine during the TSR era (I tried it and hated it then, still hate it now). I am not sure about the others, but I would not be surprised if they were done before AW as well.

Truly new ideas are really rare in RPGs, in my experience. I remember people raving about the wonderful new idea of ascending armor class with the D20 system in D&D 3.0, when the practically the same system was suggested in detail in an article in Different Worlds magazine in 1980 or 1981. Note that none of this takes anything away from PBTA games others that the claims of some of their fans that these ideas are new to RPGs with AW.
AW text mentions Talislanta as the inspiration for success at a cost. Traveller as inspiration for playbooks, Mountain Witch for Hx. Don't know what inspired Moves (the nearest thing that comes to mind is some boardgame rules leaflet).

Anyway, I believe what you're saying is perfectly reasonable. With the bazillion tables and magazines and stuff around somebody must have had similar thoughts at some point. My point is that no game have used those features in a cohesive package before, got popular and influenced the hobby back. It wasn't that 80s magazine who influenced Mutant Year Zero into having loaded relationships and success with complications, it was AW (for eg). But revolutionary? No one is saying that. :wink:
 
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I think Blades in the Dark is a fine addition to the RPG world, whatever the hell you want to categorize it. I'd rather have more new games like it than new clones of D&D. I wanna see where it can get pushed. I've already seen where the clones have gone.
 
I'd rather see a lot more variety than that.

It's not like the only options are "PTA games" and "Retroclones".

Well, yeah, I've been saying that for awhile. There aren't enough supers, modern, or even western games.
 
I mean, I think there is room for an insane amount of variety, and I tend to like a hell of a lot of the weird outliers (I even like Chuubo's quite a lot, and I really can't think of a game that gets more esoteric than that). I love the experimentation and attempts at trying something new or different.

That is also why I'm very adverse to these strict ideas of putting things into the box of "this is an rpg, and don't you dare go outside this."
 
I'm still looking for a PbtA pirate game that isn't a supplement to Dungeon World. It looks like one was kickstartered a while back, but the creator took the money and ran.
Poisn'd ?

:hehe::hehe::hehe:
 
Nah, Apocalypse World communicates it's attitude and style amazingly well through the text/descriptors/playbooks/etc (even the simplistic pictures adds to it in their own way). So I don't agree with the criticism in this case.

But I agree other PbtA games needed better art. Blades in particular would really benefit from a Vampire-like visual treatment. The "bearded friends in photoshop" is spot on and some pieces are really embarrassing.

Btw, I see City of Mist has some very good art pieces. Don't know how consistent it is in the book though. Anyone here have it?

images

I have it and did a review not too long ago.

The interior art uses many comic-book like panels instead of more typical RPG-like illos.
 
Got this just there because it looked interesting. Note it's a late beta, not the final game, when I bought it I thought Ashcan edition was just a "cool" title!
 
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After playing several games using this system, I found them surprisingly challenging to run. Some playbooks are enormously powerful compared with PCs in other systems. You’ve really got to be Hard with Hard moves or else it becomes a magical tea party.

On the other hand, I’ve had a GM running a game at a con and she was fucking brutal with hard moves right at the start of the session. I missed an attack roll against our first enemy encounter and nearly got killed in retaliation while also earning the ridicule and scorn of the other PCs. Ouch!

Also, some moves require far more improvisation on the part of the GM, especially moves that require declarations about the world. Some evenings, I really resorted to random tables.

I think that I now much prefer games like Blades in the dark and the Nightmares Beneath. Games with a narrower focus and certain constraints.
 
Also, some moves require far more improvisation on the part of the GM, especially moves that require declarations about the world. Some evenings, I really resorted to random tables.
Holy smokes, this was VERY true in Worlds in Peril a supers PbtA. You have to think quick for any critical failure as well as "damage" or complications to someone who is invulnerable.
 
After playing several games using this system, I found them surprisingly challenging to run. Some playbooks are enormously powerful compared with PCs in other systems. You’ve really got to be Hard with Hard moves or else it becomes a magical tea party.
This is a big one, yes. The GM must hurt them hard when given the opportunity, otherwise players will wipe the floor with any opposition. Specially true depending on the playbooks picked (like in AW a party with a Gunlugger AND a Battlebabe).

But then I think the best PbtAs are those where players don't really join up together as "adventuring parties", and thus are their own biggest threats. Like Undying and Monsterhearts, for eg.
 
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I just finished the 12th session of my Masks game. It super keeps me on my toes, but it’s super satisfying. I’d totally put up my bullet-point AP if that’s a thing that happens at the Pub, but I don’t see an AP forum.

My daughter has been playing in it, and loves it so much she was inspired to run an online Masks campaign for her friends.
 
I want to love PbtA so much, I want it to be my 'go to' system. But the lack of long term campaign play basically kills it for me.

What is it, 10 sessions and the campaign is over? To me that's too short.
 
Specially true depending on the playbooks picked (like in AW a party with a Gunlugger AND a Battlebabe).
Our Gunlugger kept trying to "pull punches" to capture running enemies to pump them for information. Even when trying to do less damage, it typically went something like, "I'm just going to wing him." BOOM (the runner explodes).
 
I want to love PbtA so much, I want it to be my 'go to' system. But the lack of long term campaign play basically kills it for me.

What is it, 10 sessions and the campaign is over? To me that's too short.

PbtA tend to shine between 10-20 sessions IME. But many can much longer.

There are lots of variables in the length for PbtA games. It depends on the game and how you run it as few have “per session” XP. For example, I ran 14 sessions for Masks and the campaign could easily have gone for 4-5 times longer than that mechanically.

Also many PbtA RPGs also include legacy mechanics, to allow you to play multiple PCs over time. Some even build that into campaign arc structures that can last many sessions like Legacy: Life Among the Ruins.
 
There are lots of variables in the length for PbtA games. It depends on the game and how you run it as few have “per session” XP. For example, I ran 14 sessions for Masks and the campaign could easily have gone for 4-5 times longer than that mechanically.
If your PbtA could feasibly have run for roughly 56 sessions, then I am extremely interested in PbtA. I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm being serious. It's just that I've heard they tend to top out at around a dozen sessions because you have no room left in which to improve your character. Granted you do not have to measure longevity just by the sheer number of "modifiers" you can tack onto a character sheet but for me that is about 98% of the enjoyment. It's one thing to keep adding contacts and resources but if my character can't ever get better at (for example) sneaking or climbing or anything, then it feels stagnant.

Also many PbtA RPGs also include legacy mechanics, to allow you to play multiple PCs over time. Some even build that into campaign arc structures that can last many sessions like Legacy: Life Among the Ruins.
An interesting concept but one that doesn't really appeal to me. I like to stick with one character and all that entails.

Don't get me wrong, I have tremulus, Monster of the Week, and Dungeon World, but I don't GM them because of the above.
 
As none of those RPGs have “per session” XP awards, it’s hard to judge what exactly their mechanical improvement longevity is. DW may seem easiest with its 10 levels but as the XP per level grows over time, 1 level per session for all 10 levels doesn’t match my experience. IME many other PbtA RPGs are less defined than this and could easily go longer.

Of course talking about PbtA RPGs as a single system is also problematic as they are more an approach to RPGing than a single ruleset.
 
Both my Apocalypse World and Worlds in Perils games had longevity. In both cases the players really got into their characters' development, probably more than the exploration of the campaign worlds. Both games ended when players graduated/moved, the existing players want to go back to both. We've talked about starting Apocalypse World back as a legacy game playing the kids of the main characters.
 
I think I may have to dig out my PbtA games again
 
I think SeaJay Iceman point about longevity has some truth to it. But I can't comment now. On a hurry.
 
I think that you can't really say too much about the longevity of PbtA games as a whole, at least regarding advancement. One thing that tends to vary widely in PbtA is the experience system. The Sprawl advancement is much slower than in Dungeon World or Masks. Personally, I feel the Sprawl is too slow.

I'm 12 sessions into my Masks game right now, and that's probably half the life of the game. We play monthly, so it might be shorter by some folks' measure, but I don't think I would have as much story invested in each session than if I was running weekly.

Progress does seem to vary between players and playbooks and retiring PCs is a totally legitimate move if you feel like your advancement is becoming saturated.

But saturating the characters' advancement is definitely a worry in PbtA games, something I never needed to worry about in (say) D&D or Pathfinder.
 
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