HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on May 14, 2017 23:51:15 GMT -8
Ok.... so I just finished reading all of the Masks book. I have questions.... 1) How the hell do people think PbtA books are a good first rpg? It expects you to be a good story teller or at least have a great imagination right off the bat. Maybe for theater people? Well, I'm obviously biased, but does anyone fully understand any RPG book when you read it the first time? Stu Venable has said this before on the podcast, but roleplaying games are a really tough hobby to get into without someone there to introduce you to it. Any game can be a great first RPG if the GM is a good GM. But trying to understand a brand new game simply by reading the book? I don't really think that's a strong point of RPGs. If you're talking about first time players though, I still think PbtA games are great. Why? Because of how moves work. They are triggered by a specific narration, which is often written in plain English. "When you attack a foe in melee...", "When you log onto a secure server...", or "When you take a powerful blow..." The fictional action a player has their character take is more closely tied to the mechanics because of those triggers. 2) So how do "Custom moves" work? like I don't really see a need for them. Maybe I'm missing something. Custom moves are moves written by either the GM or sometimes the player in addition to whatever is in the book. They're an optional thing, and you only write them up when the situation calls for something that really can't be handled with the other moves. 3) Do people actually use the "Arc and Hook" stuff or is it just for flavor? I've only run a one shot so far, so I can't provide any input here. To help you help make sense of things vyrrk, what other systems are you familiar with? What's an RPG system you're really comfortable running? Ah, nevermind. I see you're mostly familiar with running DnD, Savage Worlds and Edge of the Empire. I've not played EotE so I can't make comparisons, but I know how D&D and Savage Worlds works.
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D.T. Pints
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JACKERCON 2018: WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY June 22-July 1st
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Currently Playing: D&D 5e, Pathfinder, DUNGEONWORLD, Star Wars Edge of the Empire
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Post by D.T. Pints on May 15, 2017 6:24:27 GMT -8
Monsterhearts. Because all games should have SexMoves.
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Post by vyrrk on May 15, 2017 9:24:58 GMT -8
Ok.... so I just finished reading all of the Masks book. I have questions.... 1) How the hell do people think PbtA books are a good first rpg? It expects you to be a good story teller or at least have a great imagination right off the bat. Maybe for theater people? Well, I'm obviously biased, but does anyone fully understand any RPG book when you read it the first time? Stu Venable has said this before on the podcast, but roleplaying games are a really tough hobby to get into without someone there to introduce you to it. Any game can be a great first RPG if the GM is a good GM. But trying to understand a brand new game simply by reading the book? I don't really think that's a strong point of RPGs. If you're talking about first time players though, I still think PbtA games are great. Why? Because of how moves work. They are triggered by a specific narration, which is often written in plain English. "When you attack a foe in melee...", "When you log onto a secure server...", or "When you take a powerful blow..." The fictional action a player has their character take is more closely tied to the mechanics because of those triggers. 2) So how do "Custom moves" work? like I don't really see a need for them. Maybe I'm missing something. Custom moves are moves written by either the GM or sometimes the player in addition to whatever is in the book. They're an optional thing, and you only write them up when the situation calls for something that really can't be handled with the other moves. 3) Do people actually use the "Arc and Hook" stuff or is it just for flavor? I've only run a one shot so far, so I can't provide any input here. To help you help make sense of things vyrrk , what other systems are you familiar with? What's an RPG system you're really comfortable running? Ah, nevermind. I see you're mostly familiar with running DnD, Savage Worlds and Edge of the Empire. I've not played EotE so I can't make comparisons, but I know how D&D and Savage Worlds works. Thanks for the response! I guess if a gm is good, anything is a ok start. I guess I was just confused how people always say PbtA games are the best for new players when I feel like the book was so not new player friendly. Myself and my group all learned to play RPGs from a book. We were all brand new and I read Dragon Age cover to cover and I GM'ed. I kinda feel like that is impossible with Masks. So when you run a game, do you have problems with players not able to narrate what they want to do? Like they can't see the fiction kinda thing?
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Post by jazzisblues on May 15, 2017 10:35:09 GMT -8
How to understand a PbtA game book (JiB's version)
1) Read the GM/MC's agendas. The agendas are the gm's overarching goals for running the game. For Masks, the agendas are:
"Make Halcyon City feel like a comic book" "make the player character's lives superheroic" "Play to find out what changes"
Understanding and keeping these agendas in mind is very important to running Masks, or any PbtA game. This is WHAT you as the gm are supposed to do.
2) Read the GM/MC's principals. If agendas are your goals, principals are how you're going to do it. They describe the way you run the game, and how you do the things that satisfy the agendas. In Masks, the principals are:
Describe like a comic book Address yourself to the heroes, not the players Make your move, but misdirect Make threats real Give up to fight another day Treat human life as meaningful Make supers seem outlandish, creative, and cool Give villains drives to feature their humanity Make adults seem childish and short-sighted Support people, but only conditionally Ask provocative questions and build on the answers Be a fan of the pc's Treat your NPCs like hammers: square peg, round hole Remind them of the generations that came before Think in the gutters between panels Sometimes, disclaim decision-making
These are your tools for HOW you do things.
Understanding these things tell you WHAT the game is really about which may not be apparent from the description, the title, the preface or the other stuff that the writer put into the book, but these two points, do not, cannot lie.
Just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary.
JiB
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HyveMynd
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Post by HyveMynd on May 15, 2017 17:40:05 GMT -8
Thanks for the response! I guess if a gm is good, anything is a ok start. I guess I was just confused how people always say PbtA games are the best for new players when I feel like the book was so not new player friendly. Myself and my group all learned to play RPGs from a book. We were all brand new and I read Dragon Age cover to cover and I GM'ed. I kinda feel like that is impossible with Masks. No problem. I, and everyone else here, are more than willing to help vyrrk. I love PbtA games, want to spread them like a plague, and so am happy to help answer any questions you have. So when you run a game, do you have problems with players not able to narrate what they want to do? Like they can't see the fiction kinda thing? In my experience, players not being able to narrate what they want their character to do is usually caused by two things. Some players who are already familiar with other RPGs occasionally get hung up on the style of PbtA moves. They think that moves are the only thing their characters can do, or they worry too much about triggering moves and lose the narrative. Players who are completely new to RPGs sometimes get overwhelmed by the number of moves (and there can be a lot between the Basic Moves and individual Playbook Moves). When either of those things happen, I tell the player to forget about the moves for now, turning over the sheet sometimes even. I tell the player to tell me, without worrying about mechanics, what their character would do in this situation. If needed I recap whats going on in the story to help them make a decision. Then, after they've told me what their character would do, I tell them what happens and if a move gets triggered. If the player can't see the fiction, it's your job as GM to help clarify that. Tell them what's happening, what their character is aware of, what the NPCs are doing, what's happened previously. You are the character's senses, and it's your job as GM to give them all the information their character is entitled to based on the situation. How to understand a PbtA game book (JiB's version) 1) Read the GM/MC's agendas. The agendas are the gm's overarching goals for running the game. For Masks, the agendas are: "Make Halcyon City feel like a comic book" "Make the player character's lives superheroic" "Play to find out what changes" Understanding and keeping these agendas in mind is very important to running Masks, or any PbtA game. This is WHAT you as the gm are supposed to do. 2) Read the GM/MC's principals. If agendas are your goals, principals are how you're going to do it. They describe the way you run the game, and how you do the things that satisfy the agendas. In Masks, the principals are: Describe like a comic book Address yourself to the heroes, not the players Make your move, but misdirect Make threats real Give up to fight another day Treat human life as meaningful Make supers seem outlandish, creative, and cool Give villains drives to feature their humanity Make adults seem childish and short-sighted Support people, but only conditionally Ask provocative questions and build on the answers Be a fan of the pc's Treat your NPCs like hammers: square peg, round hole Remind them of the generations that came before Think in the gutters between panels Sometimes, disclaim decision-making These are your tools for HOW you do things. Understanding these things tell you WHAT the game is really about which may not be apparent from the description, the title, the preface or the other stuff that the writer put into the book, but these two points, do not, cannot lie. Just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary. JiB I completely agree with jazzisblues here. When I get a new PbtA game, the first thing I read are the GM/MC's Agenda and Principles. The Agenda, usually three or four lines, are statements about what the GM should be doing. I think of them like a lens; whatever I do as GM is filtered through that lens and is flavored and colored by those Agenda statements. The Principles are the things you do to help meet those Agendas. Again, JiB summed it up nicely; Agendas are the goals of the game, Principles are the tools that get you there. After the Agenda and Principles, I move onto the Basic Moves. These are things that every character in the game can do, and they tell you a lot about the game. Is Use Magic a Basic Move? Then that means everyone in the game can use magic; it's part of the setting. Basic Moves are things that will happen often in the game, and they help show you what the game thinks is important or things that are setting expectations. For example, Unleash Your Powers is a Basic Move in Masks. The game expects characters to use their superpowers often, and in a game about teenage superheroes, that makes total sense. After that I look at the playbook moves. (For Masks you have to download those separately.) Just like how the Basic Moves help tell you what the game and setting is about, the playbook moves help tell you what that particular character is about. To put it into D&D terms, playbooks are like classes and the playbook moves are like class features. Hopefully that helps. Again, I'm more than happy to help with more questions.
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Post by jazzisblues on May 16, 2017 8:45:32 GMT -8
When I was designing Bad Streets, one of my advisors, much much smarter than me, asked me a pretty simple question that at the time threw me for a loop.
"What do characters do in Bad Streets?" it seems like a simple question, but it matters, because that is what leads us to EVERYTHING else.
I absolutely agree with Hyve about the moves, after the agendas and principals, moves tell us more about what goes on in the game than anything else.
After that comes the playbooks. Before I get to the moves of the playbooks though, personally I want to know what the playbooks are.
Cheers,
JiB
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mysticfedora
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The truth lies somewhere in between.
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Post by mysticfedora on May 19, 2017 7:34:51 GMT -8
Another suggestion is Monster of the Week, it's a hoot, easy to pick up, and works great for one shots.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2017 2:23:00 GMT -8
Here's the thing. From the players side PbtA is the easiest system that exists because it requires zero mastery. You say what your character is doing and that's how the game works. You don't even need to know the moves. In fact the game might be better if you only have a basic understanding of things to start. It's not a game where you have to make a million little choices to create a character. Can you play pretend? Cool. You can play PbtA.
From the GM side of things PbtA is a toolbox for preparing to improv. The moves and prep you do is going to get you ready to answer the pants shitting question of dread that every GM must encounter: What do I do?
You have your agenda, which is like a filter through which you should look at the game. When it comes time to start playing you could frame the scene like a screenwriter or director... or you could do it like a comic book! It's right there in your principles, so do it! Whenever you don't know what to do, start with your agenda & principles. You'll know its time to do it because everyone will be looking at you.
"Okay... I need a comic book style opening... But what? Well it says here I'm supposed to fill their lives with heroics? How about a school bus hanging off the side of the crosstown bridge? Yeah..." <end inner monologue> "Okay everyone. Issue one..."
Now, sometimes that isn't going to be enough. Thats when you start grabbing for a move. You know you want to start with a heroic scene of the PC's trying to rescue a bus full of school kids, but how to do it? Well, there are lots of ways, but you might decide to start with putting someone in a spot. "Spider pig, you are eating breakfast with Aunt mayleane when the news turns to a breaking story." "Kent Brockman, DEF News. We're over crosstown bridge where a school bus has jumped the side rail and is now teetering over Halcyon Bay. HFD is trying to respond, but has been unable to reach the accident because of a spill of radio active chemicals on the causeway." Pater, you have a test in first period today in an hour. What do you do?
Once you get that first session over with you'll have some time to actually prepare. You'll use it to give yourself ammo for when it becomes time to make a move. Essentially you'll have a laundry list of elements you can use when things slow down and everyone is looking at you again. At this point you are into the realm of rinsing and repeating. Keep using what your players give you and keep updating your prep.
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Post by jazzisblues on Jun 12, 2017 14:50:29 GMT -8
Here's the thing. From the players side PbtA is the easiest system that exists because it requires zero mastery. You say what your character is doing and that's how the game works. You don't even need to know the moves. In fact the game might be better if you only have a basic understanding of things to start. It's not a game where you have to make a million little choices to create a character. Can you play pretend? Cool. You can play PbtA. From the GM side of things PbtA is a toolbox for preparing to improv. The moves and prep you do is going to get you ready to answer the pants shitting question of dread that every GM must encounter: What do I do? You have your agenda, which is like a filter through which you should look at the game. When it comes time to start playing you could frame the scene like a screenwriter or director... or you could do it like a comic book! It's right there in your principles, so do it! Whenever you don't know what to do, start with your agenda & principles. You'll know its time to do it because everyone will be looking at you. "Okay... I need a comic book style opening... But what? Well it says here I'm supposed to fill their lives with heroics? How about a school bus hanging off the side of the crosstown bridge? Yeah..." <end inner monologue> "Okay everyone. Issue one..." Now, sometimes that isn't going to be enough. Thats when you start grabbing for a move. You know you want to start with a heroic scene of the PC's trying to rescue a bus full of school kids, but how to do it? Well, there are lots of ways, but you might decide to start with putting someone in a spot. "Spider pig, you are eating breakfast with Aunt mayleane when the news turns to a breaking story." "Kent Brockman, DEF News. We're over crosstown bridge where a school bus has jumped the side rail and is now teetering over Halcyon Bay. HFD is trying to respond, but has been unable to reach the accident because of a spill of radio active chemicals on the causeway." Pater, you have a test in first period today in an hour. What do you do? Once you get that first session over with you'll have some time to actually prepare. You'll use it to give yourself ammo for when it becomes time to make a move. Essentially you'll have a laundry list of elements you can use when things slow down and everyone is looking at you again. At this point you are into the realm of rinsing and repeating. Keep using what your players give you and keep updating your prep. That's both true and untrue. It's true that you can play the game without knowing even what the moves are about. That is a true statement. But you will be playing at an incomplete level of the game, and you will be unable to pick moves or advance your character without that understanding. This is functionally true of any game. without some level of system mastery the game play is at a more rudimentary level. The functional equation of a move in any PbtA game is: When the character wants to (do a thing) they roll + (some attribute) and: 10+ they do it without difficulty 7-9 they do it but there is some complication 6- they either do not do it and there's some more impactive problem, or they don't do and there's still an impactive problem. Understanding what triggers the move, what its moving parts are, and what it ultimately does are important, as is understanding why the move exists in the game. All of which is fundamentally true of any game. I can play Pathfinder without knowing what my feats really do, or what it means when I roll a d20 to hit that orc, but not knowing has the exact same impact as not knowing in a PbtA game. As always, just my 2 krupplenicks worth, your mileage may of course vary. JiB
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HyveMynd
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Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 13, 2017 1:34:51 GMT -8
Yup. I have to agree with jazzisblues here. You can play any game without knowing the rules; that's not something unique to PbtA games. I feel the difference between PbtA games and some other games is how the moves are presented. The trigger phrase of "When you..." is very often followed with some sort of in-fiction action the character takes. "When you carefully study a situation or person", "When you take aim and shoot an enemy at range" "When you speak open and honestly with someone" "When you charge headfirst into a situation without hedging your bets" for example. I find that fictional trigger encourages players to narrate their character's actions.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 13, 2017 2:10:16 GMT -8
Dammit, people This thread keeps popping up, and now you've got me thinking about buying a PbtA book myself!
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
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Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 13, 2017 2:48:02 GMT -8
That's great! Of course, there was that big discussion in the Season 19 Episode 11 thread. A lot of good stuff came out of that.
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Post by vyrrk on Jun 13, 2017 10:07:12 GMT -8
That's great! Of course, there was that big discussion in the Season 19 Episode 11 thread. A lot of good stuff came out of that. Yeah... but i think this thread has been a little... uhm... nicer.
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HyveMynd
Supporter
Dirty hippie, PbtA, Fate, & Cortex Prime <3er
Posts: 2,273
Preferred Game Systems: PbtA, Cortex Plus, Fate, Ubiquity
Currently Playing: Monsterhearts 2
Currently Running: The Sprawl
Favorite Species of Monkey: None
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Post by HyveMynd on Jun 13, 2017 19:16:20 GMT -8
I still highly recommend Dungeon World, vyrrk. It's the PbtA game where everything clicked for me because I was pretty familiar with the genre and tropes of fantasy adventuring. That being said, the best PbtA game to start with is the one that excites you the most.
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Post by zoomfarg on Jun 15, 2017 1:26:38 GMT -8
I was just reviewing jazzisblues's post about learning agendas and principles. Does any particular PbtA game offer a better treatment of them than others? Like--assuming I can get on board with any genre of game--which one handles that part of them best?
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