Teh hat of PbtA knows no limit

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Your experience may vary, of course, depending on what boards/communities you frequent.

I can think of one OSR designer with a strong "convert or exterminate all who will not bow to me" streak, but he's a paranoid megalomaniac outlier who may very well be under malevolent preternatural influence . :smile:
 
Probably so, but the OSR crazies aren't really the proselytizing sort, unlike the FATE or PbtA or GURPS people. They may reject anything new than 1e as some weird hippie abomination but they're not really trying to recruit either.

Your experience may vary, of course, depending on what boards/communities you frequent.

My experiencce does differ, RPG tribalism and fanaticism is alive and well in the OSR as anywhere else.

So much oxygen is wasted in the OSR attacking other editions and different playstyles and reiterating the same ideas over and over again it gets very boring.

It is unfortunate as in terms of designers there is a lot of interesting and innovative work being done in the OSR.

The comparison between the OSR and punk rock has been made before but one unfortunate similarity is the contrast between innovative and open minded artist/designers and a vocal part of the audience/fans being dogmatic and reactionary.
 
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Sprawl and Sagas of the Icelanders. Hacker and Godi respectively.
Sagas is a great example of what I'm talking about, as it contains a lot of OOC elements that are there to help shape what happens into something resembling an Icelandic Saga.
First let's look at some things that are very much OOC...

EXAMPLE ONE
When you endure grave harm, roll +young. On 10+ pick two, on 7-9 pick one:
• it will get better on its own (otherwise you will need assistance)
• it doesn’t leave a permanent mark (otherwise take a scar)
• it gives you purpose (gain two bonds with whomever you consider responsible)
On a miss it’s fatal, beyond help and the MC will say how and when.
Grave harm is anything potentially fatal to a human being like weapon injuries, traumatic wounds, serious burns, prolonged starvation, deadly disease, extreme cold or similar.

When you take a scar, pick one of the following:
Crippled: -1 young
Addled: -1 versed
Changed: -1 gendered
Doomed: -1 wyrd

I hope you'd agree that someone with a grave injury doesn't actually get to decide whether or not it leaves a scar, and if it does leave a scar, how that affects you.

EXAMPLE TWO
When you lie with a man to conceive a child, you gain a bond with him and roll +gendered.
On a hit, you’re pregnant. On 7-9 also chose one:
• it is the last child you will bear
• you will endure grave harm during pregnancy
• the child will be born strange, sickly or marked

Again, I hope we can agree that a woman doesn't get to decide whether her child is strange, sickly or marked, or whether it is the last child she will bear or whether she will endure a grave harm during pregnancy (and then get to pick how that goes like detailed above)

EXAMPLE THREE - This one could go either way...
When you accept a physical challenge, roll +young.
On 10+, you’re faster or stronger than them when it matters and win the challenge. On 7-9 chose two:
• you don’t tempt fate while doing it
• your actions are honourable and admirable
• you win the challenge
A man’s physical prowess was of great importance, whether at sea, in battle or in the fields. But along with it came the burden of proving oneself and measuring up to the expectations of others.

So I can decide to...
1. Win honorably and admirably, while tempting fate (which is another move)
2. Win without admiration and honor, without tempting fate
3. Lose honorably and admirably without tempting fate.

So, you could rationalize this one as 1. Doing something crazyass and risky to win. 2. Cheat, 3. Don't cheat or do anything crazyass and lose.

EXAMPLE FOUR
When you entice a man, roll +young.
On 10+ hold 3 over them, on 7-9 hold one.
You can spend your hold 1-for-1 at any time to give them -1 forward on any of their rolls. They can spend
your hold by:
• truthfully answering your questions
• giving you worthy gifts
• acting in your name and favour
Women were considered crafty and alluring creatures, in addition, romance and falling in love is a strong
theme in some of the sagas. This move was purposefully given to female characters so that male characters
can be made to act less-than-reasonably.

So this move creates a meta-conversation between the players as Player One or the GM informs Player Two about the result of the enticement and then Player Two has to either respond by 1. Roleplaying Out a smitten Viking. 2. Know that Player One can invoke that hold at any time to affect a future action.

Now you should be seeing a pattern...
While roleplaying, the mechanics frequently have you stop roleplaying your character and temporarily author something about your character to address the premise of the game, which in this case is playing an Icelander from the Sagas.

That is PbtA in a nutshell. Roleplaying, with mechanics (usually in the form of those 7-9 "choose what happens" results) that switch you to authorial stance (by definition OOC) in order to author a result that gives you some creative and thematic control over the outcome of that event.

The Sprawl gives you WAY more authorship and creative control than Sagas does, but that's another post.
 
What part of the rules as written are you saying we were playing wrong?
Apocalypse World has "make the world feel real" in its Agenda (see here ), which would forbid tricks like the one you cited earlier (letting just one player fight monsters alone while the rest await doing nothing), BUT I'm not finding the same clause for Dungeon World. Maybe it's there in the text and I couldn't find it, don't know as I don't play it. It looks to me like something players should imply based on common sense. But yeah, it feels an weird absence, I give you that.
 
Sagas is a great example of what I'm talking about, as it contains a lot of OOC elements that are there to help shape what happens into something resembling an Icelandic Saga.
First let's look at some things that are very much OOC...

EXAMPLE ONE
When you endure grave harm, roll +young. On 10+ pick two, on 7-9 pick one:
• it will get better on its own (otherwise you will need assistance)
• it doesn’t leave a permanent mark (otherwise take a scar)
• it gives you purpose (gain two bonds with whomever you consider responsible)
On a miss it’s fatal, beyond help and the MC will say how and when.
Grave harm is anything potentially fatal to a human being like weapon injuries, traumatic wounds, serious burns, prolonged starvation, deadly disease, extreme cold or similar.

When you take a scar, pick one of the following:
Crippled: -1 young
Addled: -1 versed
Changed: -1 gendered
Doomed: -1 wyrd

I hope you'd agree that someone with a grave injury doesn't actually get to decide whether or not it leaves a scar, and if it does leave a scar, how that affects you.

EXAMPLE TWO
When you lie with a man to conceive a child, you gain a bond with him and roll +gendered.
On a hit, you’re pregnant. On 7-9 also chose one:
• it is the last child you will bear
• you will endure grave harm during pregnancy
• the child will be born strange, sickly or marked

Again, I hope we can agree that a woman doesn't get to decide whether her child is strange, sickly or marked, or whether it is the last child she will bear or whether she will endure a grave harm during pregnancy (and then get to pick how that goes like detailed above)

EXAMPLE THREE - This one could go either way...
When you accept a physical challenge, roll +young.
On 10+, you’re faster or stronger than them when it matters and win the challenge. On 7-9 chose two:
• you don’t tempt fate while doing it
• your actions are honourable and admirable
• you win the challenge
A man’s physical prowess was of great importance, whether at sea, in battle or in the fields. But along with it came the burden of proving oneself and measuring up to the expectations of others.

So I can decide to...
1. Win honorably and admirably, while tempting fate (which is another move)
2. Win without admiration and honor, without tempting fate
3. Lose honorably and admirably without tempting fate.

So, you could rationalize this one as 1. Doing something crazyass and risky to win. 2. Cheat, 3. Don't cheat or do anything crazyass and lose.

EXAMPLE FOUR
When you entice a man, roll +young.
On 10+ hold 3 over them, on 7-9 hold one.
You can spend your hold 1-for-1 at any time to give them -1 forward on any of their rolls. They can spend
your hold by:
• truthfully answering your questions
• giving you worthy gifts
• acting in your name and favour
Women were considered crafty and alluring creatures, in addition, romance and falling in love is a strong
theme in some of the sagas. This move was purposefully given to female characters so that male characters
can be made to act less-than-reasonably.

So this move creates a meta-conversation between the players as Player One or the GM informs Player Two about the result of the enticement and then Player Two has to either respond by 1. Roleplaying Out a smitten Viking. 2. Know that Player One can invoke that hold at any time to affect a future action.

Now you should be seeing a pattern...
While roleplaying, the mechanics frequently have you stop roleplaying your character and temporarily author something about your character to address the premise of the game, which in this case is playing an Icelander from the Sagas.

That is PbtA in a nutshell. Roleplaying, with mechanics (usually in the form of those 7-9 "choose what happens" results) that switch you to authorial stance (by definition OOC) in order to author a result that gives you some creative and thematic control over the outcome of that event.

The Sprawl gives you WAY more authorship and creative control than Sagas does, but that's another post.
Thanks for the elaborate answer. I stand corrected. I see what you mean by OOC mechanics now and agree. I thought you were referring to mechanics for narrating stories or editing the world external to the character.

Sometimes we internalize things and have difficulty seeing differently. This may be the case here. My default way of gaming these days is always thinking "what would be cool for my character now" automatically considering genre, themes, etc. I forgot there's ways of playing that ignore all that crap and simply asks "what would I do in such a situation?"

Notice though that most games requires that you go out of your character in certain moments, like choosing where to apply XP, using Hero/ Fate pts, Bennies, Edge, etc. So it's more a spectrum than a binary thing.
 
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Sagas is a great example of what I'm talking about, as it contains a lot of OOC elements that are there to help shape what happens into something resembling an Icelandic Saga.
First let's look at some things that are very much OOC...

EXAMPLE ONE
When you endure grave harm, roll +young. On 10+ pick two, on 7-9 pick one:
• it will get better on its own (otherwise you will need assistance)
• it doesn’t leave a permanent mark (otherwise take a scar)
• it gives you purpose (gain two bonds with whomever you consider responsible)
On a miss it’s fatal, beyond help and the MC will say how and when.
Grave harm is anything potentially fatal to a human being like weapon injuries, traumatic wounds, serious burns, prolonged starvation, deadly disease, extreme cold or similar.

When you take a scar, pick one of the following:
Crippled: -1 young
Addled: -1 versed
Changed: -1 gendered
Doomed: -1 wyrd

I hope you'd agree that someone with a grave injury doesn't actually get to decide whether or not it leaves a scar, and if it does leave a scar, how that affects you.

EXAMPLE TWO
When you lie with a man to conceive a child, you gain a bond with him and roll +gendered.
On a hit, you’re pregnant. On 7-9 also chose one:
• it is the last child you will bear
• you will endure grave harm during pregnancy
• the child will be born strange, sickly or marked

Again, I hope we can agree that a woman doesn't get to decide whether her child is strange, sickly or marked, or whether it is the last child she will bear or whether she will endure a grave harm during pregnancy (and then get to pick how that goes like detailed above)

EXAMPLE THREE - This one could go either way...
When you accept a physical challenge, roll +young.
On 10+, you’re faster or stronger than them when it matters and win the challenge. On 7-9 chose two:
• you don’t tempt fate while doing it
• your actions are honourable and admirable
• you win the challenge
A man’s physical prowess was of great importance, whether at sea, in battle or in the fields. But along with it came the burden of proving oneself and measuring up to the expectations of others.

So I can decide to...
1. Win honorably and admirably, while tempting fate (which is another move)
2. Win without admiration and honor, without tempting fate
3. Lose honorably and admirably without tempting fate.

So, you could rationalize this one as 1. Doing something crazyass and risky to win. 2. Cheat, 3. Don't cheat or do anything crazyass and lose.

EXAMPLE FOUR
When you entice a man, roll +young.
On 10+ hold 3 over them, on 7-9 hold one.
You can spend your hold 1-for-1 at any time to give them -1 forward on any of their rolls. They can spend
your hold by:
• truthfully answering your questions
• giving you worthy gifts
• acting in your name and favour
Women were considered crafty and alluring creatures, in addition, romance and falling in love is a strong
theme in some of the sagas. This move was purposefully given to female characters so that male characters
can be made to act less-than-reasonably.

So this move creates a meta-conversation between the players as Player One or the GM informs Player Two about the result of the enticement and then Player Two has to either respond by 1. Roleplaying Out a smitten Viking. 2. Know that Player One can invoke that hold at any time to affect a future action.

Now you should be seeing a pattern...
While roleplaying, the mechanics frequently have you stop roleplaying your character and temporarily author something about your character to address the premise of the game, which in this case is playing an Icelander from the Sagas.

That is PbtA in a nutshell. Roleplaying, with mechanics (usually in the form of those 7-9 "choose what happens" results) that switch you to authorial stance (by definition OOC) in order to author a result that gives you some creative and thematic control over the outcome of that event.

The Sprawl gives you WAY more authorship and creative control than Sagas does, but that's another post.

Sagas is much more of a storygame (and a good one btw) than other PbtA games. As I said earlier there is a diverse range of games under the title, some more storygamey others more ‘trad.’

That is one of the interesting things about AW and PbtA, it has encouraged more exchange between the OSR and indie/storygamers than any other game/system I can think of. I think it is because of the popularity of hacking the game on both sides.
 
Apocalypse World has "make the world feel real" in its Agenda (see here ), which would forbid tricks like the one you cited earlier (letting just one player fight monsters alone while the rest await doing nothing), BUT I'm not finding the same clause for Dungeon World. Maybe it's there in the text and I couldn't find it, don't know as I don't play it. It looks to me like something players should imply based on common sense. But yeah, it feels an weird absence, I give you that.

I think the absence of initiative is the most radical design decision in AW. It seems such an odd idea to us raised on trad games I think more instruction on how to implement it would be of help, I can’t recall if Baker did that in the 2nd edition of AW or not.
 
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Apocalypse World has "make the world feel real" in its Agenda (see here ), which would forbid tricks like the one you cited earlier (letting just one player fight monsters alone while the rest await doing nothing), BUT I'm not finding the same clause for Dungeon World. Maybe it's there in the text and I couldn't find it, don't know as I don't play it. It looks to me like something players should imply based on common sense. But yeah, it feels an weird absence, I give you that.

My apologies @Azazel Webster, I was under the impression you were playing AW. But I was thinking along the same lines as Muchacho Muchacho mentions. I stand corrected; you might have been playing the rules as (sometimes poorly) written, but probably not as intended.

(Like I said, I was playing AW, which is a bit more clearly laid out, and even then I required a little hand-holding from the guy who had played Sagas with another group. So much for "training wheels", I guess!)

Thanks for the elaborate answer. I stand corrected. I see what you mean by OOC mechanics now and agree. I thought you were referring to mechanics for narrating stories or editing the world external to the character.

Sometimes we internalize things and have difficulty seeing differently. This may be the case here.

I believe and sustain that the brevity of OOC "authorial" decisions is key to immersion in PbtA games, and maybe that explains their success at least in part — operating on storygaming principles at some level but framing most decision-making in character.

And I do find it amusing that everyone is quick to forgive blatantly OOC decision-making in trad RPGs under the "gamist" umbrella. Character optimization and the two examples I quoted in the previous post (bird's-eye view of combat, spellcaster PC leisurely trawls memorized spell list).
 
I've avoided the conversation to this point as I've said stuff before on the matter, and at least a few people have touched on the points I'll make anyway. To me, the issues I have with PbtA games are these:

1) The Evangelical Proselytism - Certainly not the only game series guilty of this - indeed it is normal amongst different systems for gamers to get like that. However, gamers generally ought to learn that the quickest way of turning off other gamers is to turn up to a session of Traveller, say, and then suggest that everybody should switch over to their new shiny game for entirely contrived reasons when, in fact, it's exactly the same game that it's seeking to emulate. "It's deeper!"; "It's simpler!", "It's more modern!". No, it's not. Most of the PbtA spinnoff games are, for the most part, just applying their rule conventions to established genres or settings. You don't need to have 13 alternatives to playing Cyberpunk, if you are happy playing the original.

2) The 'Traditional/Storygame' conceit - Again, not the only game that has done this but there is an approach in trying to sell these games that assumes what they are doing is somehow revolutionary, and that the only reason why people don't like them is because of some sort of inflexible, conservative mentality. Apocalypse World seems particularly susceptable to an Emperor's Clothes analysis - Playbooks aren't really more significant than elaborate pre-made character sheets, the Archetypes are basically Classes, the target number system is basically just degrees of success/failure by any other name. You have statistics to establish your character capabilities and roll dice to determine the success or failure of declared actions, with a designated referee to establish scenarios and adjudicate results. Just like every other RPG out there. It's a set of conventions that carry their own design tropes, but the idea that people haven't thought of these ideas before - or that somehow people are unaware of how to create collaboratively or haven't ever done so before is flawed.

3) The conventions of the game are restrictive - While I appreciate some of the ease in which all 'Moves' are printed on the page or that there is a clear set of Archetypes and options given to you, in general play I have found that the game can be over-structured in some areas and loosey-goosy in others. Any game system can be criticised at some level, but when you play Dungeon World, for example, you have less options to play from the core rules than D&D, while the lack of defined parameters in some spells can easily be exploited by D&D veterans.
 
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That AW is revolutionary is certainly an odd idea but perhaps not surprising to someone new to RPGs. I do think that Baker actually taking the time to explain GM principles and how to run a game in such detail though is one of the strengths of AW and the better PbtA games learn from this as well.

Undying for instance has an excellent GM section that includes how to adjust the game for convention play that is so good I wonder why every game doesn’t include it!
 
...is hilarious. :thumbsup:
Anything by Lore is good. We still regularly reference the geek hierarchy at work, although as a pokémon fan over the age of six who wrote fanfic for their GCSE coursework...

That is one of the interesting things about AW and PbtA, it has encouraged more exchange between the OSR and indie/storygamers than any other game/system I can think of. I think it is because of the popularity of hacking the game on both sides.
This hits on the overwhelming curiosity I have about any PbtA-related thread, which is: whenever it comes up, there are stories of experienced RPG groups playing PbtA games is such a way that it almost looks like they're intentionally going out of their way to not have fun, or to read things in the most ridiculous way possible, or whatever. If it was one or two groups, that's within the bounds of error, but this is so consistent that it seems like there is something seriously wrong with the way the games are being explained in the books (I had absolutely no idea what I was reading when I bought Apocalypse World, frex).

Maybe it is as simple as the games being weird and recommended in places and to groups that they shouldn't be, or groups are buying into the fanboy hype and then finding that it's not the solution to every gaming problem that they have ever had. It's very possible! Or maybe it's something else...

Apocalypse World has "make the world feel real" in its Agenda (see here ), which would forbid tricks like the one you cited earlier (letting just one player fight monsters alone while the rest await doing nothing), BUT I'm not finding the same clause for Dungeon World. Maybe it's there in the text and I couldn't find it, don't know as I don't play it. It looks to me like something players should imply based on common sense. But yeah, it feels an weird absence, I give you that.
I don't think it's a trick, more something that needs unlearning from other RPG's. In pretty much every other game, when someone starts throwing a punch, the game moves onto combat time, with it's own mechanics and pacing compared to the rest of the system outside of combat.

PbtA games don't do this (Generally, but see Night Witches as a counterexample), combat is just a special case of the character's lives being interesting and playing to see what happens; there's no real distinction between "combat time" and "roleplaying time", and that requires strong table buy-in to the concept, and strong guidance from the books on how this works.
 
Thanks for the elaborate answer. I stand corrected. I see what you mean by OOC mechanics now and agree. I thought you were referring to mechanics for narrating stories or editing the world external to the character.
PbtA isn't the kind of game where the mechanics determine who narrates the story, it's specifically designed to not do that. Some PbtA versions do allow you to do some external world editing, it's just that I think a lot of PbtA players don't consider, for example, Declaring a Contact from The Sprawl to be world-editing. It's seen as a kind of retro-active character creation. "Of course this character has dozens of contacts, we don't need to define them beforehand, we'll develop them during play." However, the end result is, you've been allowed to create an NPC in the world and define your PCs relationship
to the character. That's world-editing. It's not creating a back door where not existed a second ago, but it is world-editing.

Sometimes we internalize things and have difficulty seeing differently. This may be the case here. My default way of gaming these days is always thinking "what would be cool for my character now" automatically considering genre, themes, etc. I forgot there's ways of playing that ignore all that crap and simply asks "what would I do in such a situation?"
No worries. That mindset and approach to Roleplaying is obviously pretty common. I haven't found a good word for it yet. "Narrative" or "Roleplaying+Storytelling" gets people upset, as I suppose "IC/OOC Roleplaying" or "4th wall Roleplaying" would.

Hell, I'd use "Always thinking "what would be cool for my character now" automatically considering genre, themes, etc. Roleplaying" if it wasn't so long. :grin:

Notice though, that any game requires that you go out of your character in certain moments, like choosing where to apply XP, how to use Hero Fate pts, Bennies, Edge, etc. So it's more a spectrum than a binary thing.
Yeah, many games (but not all) have certain elements like that. For example, Traveller is about as old school as you get, but if you allow the player to choose which stat gets damaged, that mechanic is obviously OOC.

It definitely is a spectrum, but once you get to the point where the core mechanics of the game are requiring these decisions, for an express purpose, and it becomes unavoidable, then you're definitely getting into a different "band" on the spectrum I think...and there's nothing wrong with that, but it is what it is.
 
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It was the Sprawl, specifically. I didn't run the game, I was a player, so I can't tell you much about the specifics. But regardless, "make the world feel real" is kind of a cop out. If the explicit rules of the game lead to a lousy situation you can just have this vague guideline and blame the players once again if the game doesn't work out for them. Every game should have a rule in it "make the game fun" and then there would be no bad games.
If we were talking about other games I would agree with you. Apocalypse World and it's kin though are explicit in that Agenda and Principles are rules that must be followed as any other. I repeat: that's not advice, that's the game rules. This is one of the first things the text tells you right at the start. And it also tells you that if you're not following it that way, you're not playing the game right.

About the Sprawl specifically, I will have to consult it. Don't remember much now.
 
Do other PbtA games not have rules for making things more difficult based on the situation? (I'm used to Blades in the Dark, and if you try to fight the whole group yourself while your party sits out of it, then you are not going to have fun, because you are going to have limited effect and higher chances for consequences for being outnumbered.)
 
Some PbtA versions do allow you to do some external world editing, it's just that I think a lot of PbtA players don't consider, for example, Declaring a Contact from The Sprawl to be world-editing. It's seen as a kind of retro-active character creation.

Which is an interesting distinction to attempt to make, since all character creation is, of course, world-editing.

The positioning of that world-editing, of course, can be significant: World-editing before play begins (or between sessions) can be seen as qualitatively different from world-editing during the session. But even here the idea of a clear-cut line seems to be illusion: Individuals will draw a clear-cut line for themselves, but the positioning of that line is so variable that it doesn't event qualify as a spectrum; it's purely idiosyncratic.

- There are tables that don't allow you to create NPCs during pre-campaign character generation without GM permission.
- There are players who are okay with, for example, leaving points in their Language skill and deciding what languages those represent during play, but who consider during the same with their Contacts pool an anathema.
- There are players who are perfectly fine with PCs improvising stories about their parents and their little sister, even if those family members were not previously defined... unless the story ends with "and that's how Amelia ended up being a smuggler; let's go hit her up for some information about the local smuggling guilds".

Initial character creation vs. advancement; mid-session vs. pre-first session vs. between sessions; relevance vs. non-relevance to immediate play / problem-solving; even which specific abilities/aspects of the world are involved.

You can often see these arbitrary lines being reflected in actual system design. For example, Tales from the Loop explicitly empowers the players to create entire NPCs from whole cloth with any background or set of skills they want; and it encourages GMs to frequently prompt their players to provide details about the world... but then freaks out at the idea of letting players decide whether or not an NPC might be susceptible to a particular social skill test. There's clearly a boundary there for the designers that I find completely incomprehensible (like giving someone a blowtorch and then freaking out because they have a book of matches in their pocket).

We're just going to disagree on whether or not that's really a valid argument in favor of AW design.

You choosing to ignore the rules doesn't change the fact that they're the rules. This isn't a matter of opinion.

I think the absence of initiative is the most radical design decision in AW. It seems such an odd idea to us raised on trad games I think more instruction on how to implement it would be of help, I can’t recall if Baker did that in the 2nd edition of AW or not.

One of the weirdest legacies of D&D, if you look at it objectively, is treating combat as some sort of special snowflake. We have no problem figuring out how to move the conversation around the gaming table in every other situation, but when it comes to combat we've been conditioned into thinking that those skills that are applicable everywhere else somehow don't apply here.
 
One of the weirdest legacies of D&D, if you look at it objectively, is treating combat as some sort of special snowflake. We have no problem figuring out how to move the conversation around the gaming table in every other situation, but when it comes to combat we've been conditioned into thinking that those skills that are applicable everywhere else somehow don't apply here.

One of the things that made me really love Blades in the Dark and really struck me was that every single kind of conflict and challenge uses the same resolution mechanic. As an added bonus: it doesn't encourage combat by making combat the most interesting thing in the game mechanically.
 
Do other PbtA games not have rules for making things more difficult based on the situation? (I'm used to Blades in the Dark, and if you try to fight the whole group yourself while your party sits out of it, then you are not going to have fun, because you are going to have limited effect and higher chances for consequences for being outnumbered.)
Yep, it's right there in AW. If you face alone a group of enemies, they count as a gang, which penalizes your roll depending on their size. If I ain't mistaken it's -1 to your roll, and +1 for damage taken, for each half a dozen members or so. I.e: if you face 20 enemies alone you would have -3 to your roll and take +3 to the damage.

(The Gunlugger even has a famous move - "Not to be fucked with" - that makes him act as a small gang for practical purposes, meaning he would ignore the penalties against a small gang, OR gain the gang bonus against a single enemy)

P.S: Blades in the Dark is really good. :thumbsup:
 
Yep, it's right there in AW. If you face alone a group of enemies, they count as a gang, which penalizes your roll depending on their size. If I ain't mistaken it's -1 to your roll, and +1 for damage taken, for each half a dozen members or so. I.e: if you face 20 enemies alone you would have -3 to your roll and take +3 to the damage.

(The Gunlugger even has a famous move - "Not to be fucked with" - that makes him act as a small gang for practical purposes, meaning he would ignore the penalties against a small gang, OR gain the gang bonus against a single enemy)

P.:thumbsup:S: Blades in the Dark is really good.

I guess that's something, but I still say that @Azazel Webster's problem seems to be the related to my main problem with PBTA games - they make every action of the same type identical. The example I used when I complained about this in another thread was sneaking past a sleeping guard versus losing a posse with bloodhounds in the woods. The latter should reasonably be a ton harder than the former, while at the same time both are possible to either succeed or fail at, but PBTA does not acknowledge that - it's all a Defy Danger roll or whatever.

The problem would of course be very easy to fix by using situational modifers to your roll, but PBTA usually don't do that. Apocalypse World using them for facing multiple enemies is a start, but I'd like to note that that still means that fighting four big, burly guys with guns is exactly the same as fighting a single half-pint with a knife.
 
In Blades in the Dark every time you go to do an action, the gm comes up with the position (how dangerous it is to try) and effect (what you will manage if you succeed) based on the situation and how you are describing your action. I'm not as well versed in other pbta games so I can't say if that is the case in others.
 
One of the weirdest legacies of D&D, if you look at it objectively, is treating combat as some sort of special snowflake. We have no problem figuring out how to move the conversation around the gaming table in every other situation, but when it comes to combat we've been conditioned into thinking that those skills that are applicable everywhere else somehow don't apply here.
It's not weird at all in my opinion, considering that D&D origins are in turn-based wargaming. In games such like Cyberpunk 2020 and Twilight 2000, Initiative is one of the most important measurements of experienced combatants. Combat Sense for solos in CP2020 and I don't remember what it was in T2K, but more experienced characters were highly more likely to act first, which in those games is a big thing, considering how lethal they are.. This tickles the 'simulationist' in me. I have done my share of martial arts, and still practice sword fighting regularly. I have been in more real-life HtoH situations that I'd like to admit, and am of a firm opinion that initiative is taken, not somehow magically determined by outside forces. "Strike first, strike hard, no mercy!", is the slogan of Cobra Kai :evil:

To each his own, but I want clear-cut rules for initiative for my games, not some handwavium crap.
 
It's not weird at all in my opinion, considering that D&D origins are in turn-based wargaming.

Even on a more basic level than that, combat is when a character is generally in the most constant physical peril. Combat rules for the most part exist to deal with the heightened stakes for everyone involved.
 
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