So, I’ve been writing a manga/anime PbtA hack for a couple of months now and I am in need of some guidance about playbooks. I don’t want to create straight up playbooks, but leave the creation of the characters dependent on the setting and genre (aspect that’s really important in both manga and anime) of the game.
My question is this: What do you guys suggest about this part of the character creation portion? Do you think a universal template would work, or something more specific?
I thought about the MC and players working together to come up with a limited number of custom moves for the character; or maybe letting them create their character and just use the basic/special moves (those have been written) for guidance in the game. They basically are able to do whatever their character can do within their stipulated abilities.
Any suggestion is appreciated! Thanks!
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The thing to go with here are the super standard manga tropes. If I were looking at this project, I’d be looking for playbooks that showed up in Macross and Ranma 1/2 and Evangleion and Lodos War and Black Butler and RWBY, for example. It would have things like The Shy One and The Know-it-all and The Sensible One and The Romantic and The One With a Secret, etc.
Then for each playbook I’d look at what that trope character did in each series – how is Minmai’s “I wanna be a superstar” move different from Weiss’s “my dust is best” move, even though they are the same playbook (The One With Privledge).
Meguey Baker Those where the playbooks that I was thinking about in essence and you gave me other ideas too! I’ll try them out and I’ll see how they feel. Thanks!
Now, what about those games that have powers and such? I was thinking, instead of granting powers making the players limit the scope of their powers. They will know what their powers are but can only be unlocked through certain conditions in the game. What do you think? Meguey Baker
Ghost, here I’d go back to powers in Dogs in the Vineyard. You set the basic power in the Moves, and have the players decide for their game whether that’s entirely magical, entirely mundane or something in the middle that just changes the fx.
Check out Worlds in Peril by Kyle Simons. It’s comic books done PbtA style and does a great job of setting limits for powers on a character by character (or setting by setting) basis.
Shane Donohoe I’ve heard of it but haven’t actually looked through it. Will definitely take a look at it. Thanks!
Colin Matter I know that one. I actually ran a game this week and it was great (working on writing a blog post on it)! The only thing is that for limitations, it’s kind of open, which works great for superheroes and makes sense the way Kyle Simons did it. Mad respect for a great game! Thank you for your input!
Everyone thank you for your suggestions. I’ll come back with an update in a few weeks. Thanks all and happy 4th of July!!!