Technology in PbtA games – some thoughts
TLDR: Unrestrained technologies undermine the mechanics of PbtA games, and what works best in technology rich settings is a) give the the character’s moves priority, and b) constrain the rate at which characters can acquire enhancing technologies.
Working on both a Steampunk and a Sci-fi PbtA hack really focuses the mind on the question of how best to incorporate technology into a PbtA game without turning that game into a technology arms race.
Sci-fi and steampunk are, by definition, settings where people use technologies that enhance their abilities; allowing them to do things they couldn’t otherwise (e.g. grav belt) and making them better at things they can do (e.g. power arm).
Technologies that give the characters new options in the fiction are easy to handle because they are effectively the same, in terms of gameplay, as a player coming up with an inventive way to handle a situation or moving the adventure into new territory (e.g. underwater). These technologies don’t require change to the game itself, just enjoyment of the fiction they open up.
It’s the things that make the characters existing abilities more powerful that are more challenging.
For example: How do you handle a character who picks up a target tracking gun-sight?
– Do they simply +1 on their shooting rolls, knowing that will a) make them as good a shot as someone who invested an improvement to their skills to get that good, and b) reduce the chances of interesting fiction happening (7-9 and 6- rolls) in combat.
– Do they need a special move for the upgrade?
– What if they later add a second upgrade to their gun (e.g. hunter-seeker bullets)?
What about an automated lock picker?
– Does this add +1 to attempts to pick locks?
– Does it work automatically on most locks and require a roll only on the most complex locks?
– And if this device makes the ‘thief’ character’s hard won lock picking skills redundant?
The technologies in these two examples make the character who uses them them more powerful. But do they make for better fiction? Do they make the game more exciting? More interesting?
There is also the problem of technology making characters’ own moves redundant.
I’ve come to the conclusion that unrestrained technologies actually undermine the mechanics of PbtA games – which makes hacking AW for technology rich settings of sci-fi and steampunk a challenge.
What seems to work best is when the power resides in the characters’ own moves, and accumulation of enhancing technologies is constrained either by a fictional mechanism (e.g. scarcity, high cost, available only to certain playbooks, etc.) or by tying it in to the characters development path (in effect making the technology just another sort of character move).
That’s my take on this.
What are your thoughts?
I think that’s made pretty clear in the original application of the PbtA engine (i.e., AW), by virtue of the fact that Vincent Baker’s approach to the narrative-generating structure in AW (Fronts) is all based on types of Scarcity – his exact word.
Of course the PbtA engine has been hacked in many ways, some differing radically from the original. It could be that you’re seeking to give up conflict about some types of Scarcity and instead focus on other types of Scarcity (positional, relational, intel or lack thereof, familial, economic, blah blah blah)…. OR you might just replace “Scarcity” itself with something like “Motivation” or “Strategy” or etc., although you will likely find that this approach would require more tweaking of other rules, and perhaps Stat definitions.
Tags are my best means of isolating a particular item’s narrative benefit.
That way you can adjudicate (with the players) on a case by narrative case basis on the tag’s effect.
Mechanisms can do whatever you decide they do. If they do boost thieving skills, then you’ve really just moved the level of lock required to challenge the thief.
Its the same with magic weapons — a +5 Holy Avenger makes a lot of foes inconsequential for the Paladin, so you threaten them in different ways.
If you remove a type of scarcity, then the game is no longer about that. So, if you effectively remove all locks by giving a magical always-working lock picker, then the game is no longer about locks.
This got kind of long. Hopefully not too rambly.
Helpful thoughts As If Nathan Roberts William Nichols
These musings are about PbtA gaming in settings where:
a) technology is a fundamental and abundant part of the setting; and
b) technologies have the potential to replicate, enhance or even outperform a characters own abilities
It seems the options for these sorts of settings are:
– restrict access to technology by the characters (scarcity)
– restrict the effects of technology to narrative (tags) only (i.e. no direct enhancement of characters’ abilities)
– make the game be about the things technology can’t do (i.e. technology use does not affect gameplay)
In games where technology use is an expected part of the gameplay (e.g. adventure games), the first two seem like the options to go for.
I have had some thoughts on restricting certain technology to special moves as well. I will elaborate on that if anyone is interested. Otherwise the above paths are real good ways to keep the AWE/PbtA-engine a narrative game engine. Once to many equations enter the fray, you might as well play Pathfinder (which I do too).
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Difficoult issue to manage. I have no quick solutions, of couse, just a couple of hints:
– Limited inventory system (so you can have just X named useful things with you)
– Fore every “tag”, identify useful and deleterious facets. Ie. take the red dot laser, makes things easier to shoot at, AND makes you easily found by enemies. Night vision googles? You can walk in the dark AND you lose lot of peripheral vision. Strong cyber arm? You can destroy a door AND the security notice it from the distance, with scanners/scrutiny etc., so you double the enemies on the scene. Etc. Make clear advantages and disvantages to your players.
MoTW is a really great example of this. You’ve got modern communications and technologies — sometimes even super science — and the game play is shifted. MoTW is really about finding and destroying bad monsters, but you could have it be about scarcity just as well.
Sure, that’s not going to be water or communication. But, it could be love or confidence. And, really, MoTW is about scarcity, its just hidden.
But then, ultimately, aren’t all stories about scarcity?
Jimmy Ringkvist Yes, interested to hear your thoughts on restricting certain technology to special moves, and anything else you might have to add.
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Michael D I have not forgotten about this, just haven´t had the time to write up my thought on the subject yet. But will do this in the coming week.
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