Why I don't like PbtA

[Doc Sammy]

I don't like PtbA either.

Only pansies, hipsters, and sailors like Powered by the Apocalypse.

But then again, I am a huge fan of Big Eyes Small Mouth and the only people who like BESM are steers and queers. And I don't see no horns on me when I look in the mirror. Or in any of my Pub avatars...




Wait a minute...

*looks at current avatar, then looks at past avatars, then looks at my internet browser history and all those texts from my previous boyfriends*


I did not know that about myself.

 

[Lychee of the Exchequer]

"Only pansies, hipsters, and sailors like Powered by the Apocalypse."

Man, you're looking to make friends, aren't you ?

And I thought gay men liked sailors ?

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

"Only pansies, hipsters, and sailors like Powered by the Apocalypse."

Man, you're looking to make friends, aren't you ?

And I thought gay men liked sailors ?

I think this may be Sammy's version of a Grindr profile.

 

[cranebump]

Oh, so Vince gets to post like a 14 year old and it's all arty and cool but when Kevin Siembada does we all make fun of him.

Now, now. We can make fun of BOTH of them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Now, now. We can make fun of BOTH of them.

In fairness, one was being ironic…

 

[Necrozius]

Nothing against edgelords and this is obviously just anecdata, but I've never met an edgelord who could fight. I've always found them to be a cowardly, superstitious lot.

Back in the day, the wind went right out of their sails if you walked into the comic shop with your girlfriend.

That and painting eyes on the back of your head. That stopped them in their tracks.

 

[Skywalker]

Anything that Lionwing translates feels pretty safe to back (Picaresque Roman was 100% on time and the quality was ace, Convictor Drive is a few months late, but it is due to printer problems (I have the finished PDF already and it is also fantastic), and they've also been communicative about it).

Damn it. Now you have made me grab a copy too.

There's one thing people should know about Sword World going in. It's a *massive* game. At first blush, it looks like this really complicated massive thing. It's really not though. The actual system is fairly simple.

Totally agree. Japanese RPGs tend to be procedural and as such they tend to look a lot worse than they are.

 

[Doc Sammy]

"Only pansies, hipsters, and sailors like Powered by the Apocalypse."

Man, you're looking to make friends, aren't you ?

And I thought gay men liked sailors ?

Nah, I'm more into Army guys than sailors.

And ninjas. Especially ninjas. Bonus points if they're twinks.

I think this may be Sammy's version of a Grindr profile.

I will neither confirm nor deny that.

 

[Voros]

Proper punks are a different story but.

But I thought we were talking about The Exploited?

 

[TristramEvans]

 

[Sharrow]

They really aren't. Feats are triggered by the player. Moves are triggered by the narrative. You don't just say, "I use move in shadows" to creep stealthily. Instead you say "I'm sneaking up on the guard" and if applicable, the GM might trigger "Defy Danger".

That depends on the table. Some have players just say "I use Improved Bullrush and charge the Orc", others expect something more like "I charge the Orc and attempt to body-slam them backwards into the well", and then they and the GM determine what feats, bonuses, etc. apply. In the latter case, the player is obviously intending that the move be one that uses Improved Bullrush, but I bet that players in PBtA games choose actions and describe them in ways that they intend to have trigger certain Moves, especially ones from their personal playbooks and/or that they're good at, and just as with the d20 example, would be disappointed (at the least) if the GM ruled otherwise.

 

[Doc Sammy]

This isn't a Vampire: The Masquerade thread! Why are we arguing about punks?

 

[MarkwithaC]

They really aren't. Feats are triggered by the player. Moves are triggered by the narrative. You don't just say, "I use move in shadows" to creep stealthily. Instead you say "I'm sneaking up on the guard" and if applicable, the GM might trigger "Defy Danger".

So... Feats are triggered by the player. Moves are triggered by the character?

Then I basically run traditional rpgs with Moves. Lol I think it helps to eliminate ridiculous player roll calls.

 

[CRKrueger]

KPSF and Poison'd? I haven't heard of those.

... I'm not touching that one.

Here’s a TGD review of Poison’d.

 

[lategamer]

That's the case specifically for some moves, but usually not for others. That said, in a well-designed PbtA game most of the things your character will choose to do will pretty obviously fit into one of a very short list of moves so by declaring action X you are, in effect, shortening the list of moves the GM might trigger down do probably just a couple.

Which reinforces that it's not for me.

It just feels boardgamey (which isn't a criticism in itself). The idea of limited actions and actions which trigger themselves are counter to what I like about RPGs.

 

[chuckdee]

Which reinforces that it's not for me.

It just feels boardgamey (which isn't a criticism in itself). The idea of limited actions and actions which trigger themselves are counter to what I like about RPGs.

I think that a lot of people think you're limited in what you can do by the moves. You aren't. Those are just special situations that the character excels in.

 

[yosemitemike]

I think that a lot of people think you're limited in what you can do by the moves. You aren't. Those are just special situations that the character excels in.

You kind of aren't but you also kind of are. Everything in the system is expressed in moves so everything has to be fit to a move or some sort whether it's a generic one or a more specific one. The entire resolution system is framed in terms of moves and what they do. If they aren't using a move to do whatever they are doing, you are your own for how that's resolved beyond the basic fail/succeed with complications/succeed framework. It's not much of a stretch to conclude that everything you do must be a move of some sort. Just from reading the system and running it a bit, that seems like the intent. If there's a move to befriend someone, do you need to have that move to try to befriend someone? If yes, that limits what you can try to do based on what moves you have. If no, why is that move even there?

 

[chuckdee]

You kind of aren't but you also kind of are. Everything in the system is expressed in moves so everything has to be fit to a move or some sort whether it's a generic one or a more specific one. The entire resolution system is framed in terms of moves and what they do. If they aren't using a move to do whatever they are doing, you are your own for how that's resolved beyond the basic fail/succeed with complications/succeed framework. It's not much of a stretch to conclude that everything you do must be a move of some sort. Just from reading the system and running it a bit, that seems like the intent. If there's a move to befriend someone, do you need to have that move to try to befriend someone? If yes, that limits what you can try to do based on what moves you have. If no, why is that move even there?

You really aren't. Moves are not a menu of options - they're things that are triggered by things that characters do. There will be things that characters do that don't trigger moves, and they are not limited if they don't. It's stated quite clearly "Sometimes a character’s action won’t count as a move. That’s okay. Don’t
have the player roll, just acknowledge what they do and say what comes of it or how it affects everyone else’s actions."

 

[TristramEvans]

I mean, that's no different than automatic actions you don't need to roll for in any traditional RPG, but reinforces the point that any interaction with the system is done through a Move

 

[lategamer]

I think that a lot of people think you're limited in what you can do by the moves. You aren't. Those are just special situations that the character excels in.

which kinda (but not wholly) contradicts

That's the case specifically for some moves, but usually not for others. That said, in a well-designed PbtA game most of the things your character will choose to do will pretty obviously fit into one of a very short list of moves so by declaring action X you are, in effect, shortening the list of moves the GM might trigger down do probably just a couple.

For instance if I make a game that has three stats

Run
Shoot
Shag

I can define my character by the stats they have. Anything they want to do outside of the stats is "acknowledged" and they don't need to roll and the Success/Failure is just improvised by the Referee. But if they get a mechanical benefit from rolling, every solution they will offer will be defined by their moves especially if they think the Referee will say their attempt won't work.

At this point it reminds me of original D&D. Everyone has basic Fight Moves. Thieves have Moves that come into play due to the narrative and are feck all use at other times.

I mean, that's no different than automatic actions you don't need to roll for in any traditional RPG, but reinforces the point that any interaction with the system is done through a Move

Precisely. The success of automatic actions in most RPGs is Referee fiat. Same here I think.

 

[yosemitemike]

You really aren't. Moves are not a menu of options - they're things that are triggered by things that characters do. There will be things that characters do that don't trigger moves, and they are not limited if they don't. It's stated quite clearly "Sometimes a character’s action won’t count as a move. That’s okay. Don’t
have the player roll, just acknowledge what they do and say what comes of it or how it affects everyone else’s actions."

That's nice but the entire thing is expressed in terms of moves. If you are actually interacting using the system, it's a move.

 

[Bacon Bits]

They really aren't. Feats are triggered by the player. Moves are triggered by the narrative. You don't just say, "I use move in shadows" to creep stealthily. Instead you say "I'm sneaking up on the guard" and if applicable, the GM might trigger "Defy Danger".

"No, no, there's an additional layer of abstraction," really doesn't seem like it changes anything at all.

 

[AsenRG]

"No, no, there's an additional layer of abstraction," really doesn't seem like it changes anything at all.

Well, that depends on whether you're adding or removing levels of abstraction...

 

[Fenris-77]

You kind of aren't but you also kind of are. Everything in the system is expressed in moves so everything has to be fit to a move or some sort whether it's a generic one or a more specific one. The entire resolution system is framed in terms of moves and what they do. If they aren't using a move to do whatever they are doing, you are your own for how that's resolved beyond the basic fail/succeed with complications/succeed framework. It's not much of a stretch to conclude that everything you do must be a move of some sort. Just from reading the system and running it a bit, that seems like the intent. If there's a move to befriend someone, do you need to have that move to try to befriend someone? If yes, that limits what you can try to do based on what moves you have. If no, why is that move even there?

Your reply is partially correct but suffers from some interpretive issues. This might stem from the specific PbtA games you're familiar with or possibly from an attempt to be too general. What I'm going to call 'core' PbtA game, the ones that don't materially change the basic structures of AW, are designed to collapse gracefully inward. At the core of the game is the conversation where there is a back and forth between the players saying what they do and the GM saying what happens then. Much like any other RPG, you only add dice to the conversation when something is risky or liable to fail. Moves cover what happens when risk is an element.

At the core of most PbtA games there will be a catchall for actions not covered by specific moves - a Risky Shit move of some kind. This is what you roll when a player is doing something (anything!) that isn't covered by a specific move. This catchall move has a very non-specific format specifically to scaffold its intended use, and will probably look something like this:

You can see that the outcomes and whatnot are quite general and fit the possibilities for anything risky or done under a time crunch.

Moving out from this move the game will provide additional basic moves for the types of actions that are most likely to come up in the game in question. Call these moves expected by genre I suppose. Each of these is somewhat more specific than the catchall move, both in its bounding of the actions that trigger it and also the list of possible outcomes, succeed or fail. For Monster fo the Week, the list of basic moves is as follows:

So given player declaration X the GM decides based on risk that a roll is called for and by the type of action which move/stat combo covers it best, always defaulting to the Risky Shit move if nothing else applies. Different games with different design goals will provide various sets of basic moves that reflect their desired milieu or genre, but all of them collapse back on the Risk move. Personally, I prefer variants where the basic risk move doesn't have a single stat tied to it. The basic idea of Risk + Stat when you can choose the stat covers pretty much anything I can think of, and some games (like The Between for example) lean hard on this idea and have much smaller lists of basic moves as a result.

The next level of specificity in PbtA is the playbook moves, which are moves specific to the character type. These tend to be very specific both in application and outcome. These moves tend to index the very specific things that a character is supposed to be good at, call it their spotlight skills if you like, but they are essentially the equivalent of thief skills in B/X - those things that character can do that other characters can't. These moves are either additional types of action, or something closer to abilities that modify basic moves in some way.

Given the collapsing inward design of PbtA there shouldn't be actions that escape ability of the game to represent and adjudicate. Take the making a friend example. A player declares in the conversation at the table that they are going to try befriend the waitress at the local diner. As GM I first decide if there's any risk or time crunch involved. If not, then *poof* roleplaying happens and the waitress is befriended, no rolling necessary. If there is risk or a time crunch then I have shift to moves. Perhaps the waitress has been warned against the group but possesses some key information. Here we have conflict, and I decide a move is being made. In MotW I'd be picking between Manipulate Someone and the basic Act Under Pressure and my choice would depend on the exact details of the players IC action declaration. That character might have special playbook moves that apply as well.

Anyway, I just wanted to demonstrate the collapse inward design idea, not provide a fully explicated example of play. If you wanted me to be dig deeper into how the generic results from the basic risk roll provide a sturdy framework for adjudication I'd be happy to.

 

[cranebump]

Here's the thing. That doesn't actually mean anything. It could mean about anything so it actually means nothing. Also, saying that you can just ignore the GM moves and do whatever you think fits is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the entire concept of GM moves. Why do I even need them then? Why are they even in the game? It's like all of the specific moves and the idea that people who don't have them can just generic moves to do the same thing. If that's the case, why are the specific moves even in the system?

Most of the time, whatever you’re doing as the GM fits one of the moves anyway. Deal damage. Use up resources. Reveal in unwelcome truth, etc. The moves DO mean something, but I find I don’t refer to the list much since I’m reacting through reading the situation. I think, if you’re an experienced GM, you make these types of moves anyway, regardless of system. If you’re not as experienced, they form your palette of responses.

“Moves” may not even be the best name for them, as they don’t work like player moves. They’re not as specific, for one thing. They’re also not proactive. They’re responses to an opening, provided by partial successes and failures. That said, distinguishing between hard and soft moves does provide a guideline as to how much you can fuck with the players. For example, you can’t (or shouldn’t) pull a hard move unless they fail, or ignore a previous soft move (show signs of an approaching threat). They saw it coming, ignored it, now you can bring down the hammer.

Now, do you need this sundry list, if you’ve been GM’ing for decades? You don’t. Well, I think you don’t. You do this stuff anyway. But the GM moves section IS a great guide for newbs, good GMing advice in general, and a good reminder for old hats. It’s also there to reveal the philosophy/approach of the system. It’s broken down into these moves because you can’t just write, “Respond logically, given the context of the situation” and expect everyone to understand what that means. Or to even act logically, because people ain’t always logical.:-)

 

[AsenRG]

Most of the time, whatever you’re doing as the GM fits one of the moves anyway. Deal damage. Use up resources. Reveal in unwelcome truth, etc. The moves DO mean something, but I find I don’t refer to the list much since I’m reacting through reading the situation. I think, if you’re an experienced GM, you make these types of moves anyway, regardless of system. If you’re not as experienced, they form your palette of responses.

Before being able to improvise, you always use pre-set examples. That's only normal IME.

And I suspect experienced PbtA GMs (which I'm not, I've only ran it a couple times, so it's only a suspicion) wouldn't be thinking in terms of Moves, either, though even if they are...so what, if their groups don't see any holes in their games as a result of that?

 

[JAMUMU]

Before being able to improvise, you always use pre-set examples. That's only normal IME.

And I suspect experienced PbtA GMs (which I'm not, I've only ran it a couple times, so it's only a suspicion) wouldn't be thinking in terms of Moves, either, though even if they are...so what, if their groups don't see any holes in their games as a result of that?

And the GM Moves (I don't think the term works either) remind the experiened GM of what's possible. As an experienced martial artist you know that we all have our go-tos, those tools we drill until they come out to solve most any problem. But there are always more tools to use. I think running games is similar in a way. Also the GM Moves/advice can run counter-intuitive to some of the cliches gaming has acquired over the years. Don't split the party? Well, one of the GM moves is "separate the party". When i read it I was like "huh, of course, I should do that more often, that'll really fuck with them." And it does.

 

[AsenRG]

And the GM Moves (I don't think the term works either) remind the experiened GM of what's possible. As an experienced martial artist you know that we all have our go-tos, those tools we drill until they come out to solve most any problem. But there are always more tools to use. I think running games is similar in a way. Also the GM Moves/advice can run counter-intuitive to some of the cliches gaming has acquired over the years. Don't split the party? Well, one of the GM moves is "separate the party". When i read it I was like "huh, of course, I should do that more often, that'll really fuck with them." And it does.

All true - and that's why it's useful to go, at least occasionally, over the basics...

And that reminder is hilarious. I haven't found a good way to separate them more often, but then most of my players don't live as joined-at-the-hip-PCs like I've been told is the norm in some D&D groups!

 

[thebigh]

I agree. A party walking in lockstep 100% of the time gets bland. I'd like them to have concerns, ambitions, and activities of their own.

But splitting the party? Ehhhh... I'm reminded of a game I was in some years ago where every session began with the ranger going "I turn into my hawk form scout ahead!" and getting effectively an hour's worth of solo adventure while we did nothing but trudge along after.

 

[AsenRG]

I agree. A party walking in lockstep 100% of the time gets bland. I'd like them to have concerns, ambitions, and activities of their own.

Yes, exactly!

But splitting the party? Ehhhh... I'm reminded of a game I was in some years ago where every session began with the ranger going "I turn into my hawk form scout ahead!" and getting effectively an hour's worth of solo adventure while we did nothing but trudge along after.

That's nothing. In our Exalted campaign, where I was a player, a PC got into a fistfight with another Solar. We started running towards them as soon as he blazed iconic...which was the first round, because the other Solar was young and unexperienced.

...and since we didn't have fast-movement Charms and I refused using a SPELL (Serious Business in Exalted) for that, we told the GM to let us know when we get there, and I ran an impromptu one-shot session for the rest of the group!
The AAR of that was flying around until recently.

 

[Necrozius]

the ranger going "I turn into my hawk form scout ahead!" and getting effectively an hour's worth of solo adventure while we did nothing but trudge along after.

Yeah this is a concern to me too.

I'd like to see some elegant ways of tackling this. One thing I've overheard is that some game(s) basically handle everything outside of combat with initiative turn order. Basically each action happens like combat (player 1 scouts ahead, makes a perception check, move on to player 2, who's prepping food at camp, makes a "cooking" check, player 3 tries to boost morale with a song, makes a perform check, now we return to player 1; they see some orcs and make a stealth check to get a closer look, etc). More of a technique rather than a rule but you know what I mean.

My thoughts extend to anything that grinds the game to a halt for other players. See also: summoning large numbers of creatures who drastically pad out combat (eg, Druid summons 12 wolves! Now her turn takes 30 minutes to resolve!). I think it's better to have summoning rules focus on ONE creature at a time, or use "swarm" rules (of which there are easy ones in D&D 5e, basically treating a mass of creatures as a single stat block). Not perfect, but going in the right direction, IMHO.

 

[JAMUMU]

I agree. A party walking in lockstep 100% of the time gets bland. I'd like them to have concerns, ambitions, and activities of their own.

But splitting the party? Ehhhh... I'm reminded of a game I was in some years ago where every session began with the ranger going "I turn into my hawk form scout ahead!" and getting effectively an hour's worth of solo adventure while we did nothing but trudge along after.

IME this comes down to the GM managing the table, not a flaw with any rules set. The GM turned that into a solo adventure for the player every session, instead of managing expectations.

One thing I like about PF2 is the way sidekicks and summons use up the PCs actions, as the PC has to direct them in combat. Your guys can do stuff, sure, but then you can't and that's a nice way of balancing things out. As is "sure you summon 1000 bats, and your 1000 bats do 1d10 damage" instead of "your 1000 bats make 1000 attacks at +1 and deal 1d3 damage for each attack".

 

[thebigh]

IME this comes down to the GM managing the table, not a flaw with any rules set. The GM turned that into a solo adventure for the player every session, instead of managing expectations.

Oh, for sure. This was an extreme example of the problem of party splitting, which is that only half of the party can be in the spotlight at once.

 

[PolarBlues]

When the party splits up it's easy enough for GM to switch to rotate between players/groups of players giving everyone a fair share of the time. Admittedly it works better in urban settings when it feels natural for different characters with different skills to pursue different leads. This is pretty old, well-established GMing tech.

 

[JAMUMU]

Oh, for sure. This was an extreme example of the problem of party splitting, which is that only half of the party can be in the spotlight at once.

I would argue that not everyone can (or maybe even should) be in the spotlight at the same time. The party get split, say by a big metal wall that pops out the floor. Now you've got two smaller groups separated from each other, with a (presumable) desire to get back together. If each 'half' gets equal time back and forth - and I'm a strong believer in rapid cuts while GMing - then the efforts to re-group can add tension.

Tension isn't a must, though. Maybe they go do different things while in the big city. Maybe a player wants to go do some personal sub-plot thing apart from the group. So long as no one is is sitting on their hands for more than a few minutes (at the table), everything's gravy. Frequent, rapid cutting between split characters is also a good way of managing those players who think they're entitled to more airtime than everyone else.

 

[JAMUMU]

When the party splits up it's easy enough for GM to switch to rotate between players/groups of players giving everyone a fair share of the time. Admittedly it works better in urban settings when it feels natural for different characters with different skills to pursue different leads. This is pretty old, well-established GMing tech.

I mean, Gygax was doing it in his early modules to add drama and scare/annoy the players.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Precisely. The success of automatic actions in most RPGs is Referee fiat. Same here I think.

It seems each game has two types of actions. Ones that require a roll to determine the outcome, and ones that don’t.

Some games call the first set “moves”.

That’s really all that’s different.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

It seems each game has two types of actions. Ones that require a roll to determine the outcome, and ones that don’t.

Some games call the first set “moves”.

That’s really all that’s different.

There's another big difference and it boils down to this.

There are a million ways to GM games; Apocalypse World calls for one way in particular. This chapter is it. Follow these as rules. The whole rest of the game is built upon this.

Most games treat the rules more loosely AKA Rule Zero. AW doesn't; there is only one singular way to GM AW and it strongly implies at least that you shouldn't be diverging from the list of moves.

That's a vital difference I think, way more than the old trad/narrative debate. AW is meant to be played strictly by the rulebook and restricts GM authority accordingly. (Obviously, it's not the only game to do so. But it is a pretty big jump from how most RPG have traditionally been played. It's also why I don't think TristramEvans' "training wheels" analogy works. That's not the function of moves. Moves are there explicitly to make sure the GM keeps within the broad confines of the path ahead).

 

[EmperorNorton]

As someone who plays a decent amount of games that are structured (BitD, Cortex, etc)... I'll be honest I still sometimes just wing it and don't follow the exact structure.

Hell, I'll even drop whole subsystems if I don't like them (I didn't use the milestone experience system from Marvel Heroic at all).

 

[AsenRG]

There's another big difference and it boils down to this.



Most games treat the rules more loosely AKA Rule Zero. AW doesn't; there is only one singular way to GM AW and it strongly implies at least that you shouldn't be diverging from the list of moves.

That's a vital difference I think, way more than the old trad/narrative debate. AW is meant to be played strictly by the rulebook and restricts GM authority accordingly. (Obviously, it's not the only game to do so. But it is a pretty big jump from how most RPG have traditionally been played. It's also why I don't think TristramEvans' "training wheels" analogy works. That's not the function of moves. Moves are there explicitly to make sure the GM keeps within the broad confines of the path ahead).

Yes. But since nothing else interacts with the GMing Moves - they're unrolled, only changing the situation - I can confirm that the game doesn't break if you wing it, as EmperorNorton said.
I know, because that's how I ran it.