Reminded tonight of a conversation I had at GenCon in either 2009 or 10, when Apocalypse World was ramping up. I was excited by the idea of fictional triggers and how by using sentences, you could present stats as evocative moves rather than numbered increases.
I asked Vincent Baker if you really even needed stats. Couldn’t you, I opined, just present different versions of the same basic moves for each playbook without making the stats into, like, stats.
He said: “I don’t know. luke crane told me people like stats.”
That’s good game design advice.
Ha. It is. There’s also the fact the stats are descriptors. The characters are varying degrees of cool, hard, hot, sharp, and weird.
I’ve been toying with the idea of a game with a wider set of basic moves where playbooks give additional options to pick from when making those basic moves. So when one playbook makes a veiled threat it does one thing but for a different playbook it offers different choices.
I haven’t really found a home for the idea yet, but I think it is along the lines of what you were asking Vincent about.
Main reason I’d prefer stats to completely different moves is a much lower overhead in terms of what I have to remember
For sure. It’s problematic for a bunch of different reasons.
This might work well in a game with few play books.
I’m now reminded of a 1 on 1 PBTA game called something like “I Am Killbot” where you play this ridiculously powerful combat robot with a malfunctioning AI. And missions include such things as “Bake your creator a birthday cake”. Is there something similar that could be done – something like an Island Of Misfit Toys game?