After reading the first two chapters of John Harper ‘s beautiful Lady Blackbird I noticed the character sheets had an affinity for letting players re-roll dice in certain contexts. I got to thinking, why doesn’t this mechanic appear in PbtA? Is it the disconnect between the fiction and the mechanic, the implication that something has been reset? Or is it to further emphasize the finality of the moves you make and the gravity of the consequences?
After reading the first two chapters of John Harper ‘s beautiful Lady Blackbird I noticed the character sheets had…
After reading the first two chapters of John Harper ‘s beautiful Lady Blackbird I noticed the character sheets had…
I would summon Vincent Baker for the official word, but my guess has to do with the tone of the games. LBB is a pulp adventure where our intrepid heroes regularly snatch victory form the vile grasp of defeat. AW is a gritty tale of bad asses navigating a harsh world where thier actions always has consequences. For that tone I think that finality of mechanics is more appropriate.
I don’t think it makes much sense in PbtA games. Lady Blackbird tends towards the more flashy, buckles and swashes, whereas most PbtA games are more rooted and fleshy. Where actions have concrete consequences. It would be harder to drive the desperation home in a world with rerolls.
I see. The difference between Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and, say, Mass Effect.
In AW when you go to the dice, it only lasts a few seconds: you trigger something, roll and add, check the thing and go then back to the fiction as fast as possible to see what happens to your character, by design. Maybe rerolls interfer with that.
Y’all nailed it. Rerolls would kinda mess with “to do it, do it”.