Two questions about moves!
1. It looks like all of the origins have one skill that adds +1 to a stat. As this us the only place where your stats can go up, and it is at creation, why would you take one of the other Origin skills? The +1 seems like the obvious choice. Has anyone gone through character creation and had someone take something else?
2. The “Authority” skill under Military seems to invite some abuse. Where would you draw the line for players trying to use it to command their enemies, etc?
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I would say that +1 isn’t as valuable as that, imho. Sure, if you were playing a character through 20 levels then you’d reach a point where other things are more enticing. But there are so many other fun things to select that I wouldn’t be so compelled to pick the +1 to their loss.
That’s only my opinion in regards to the first question, however.
Do they have “clear superiority” over their enemies? Yes? Cool, give it to them, they took the move and your rules are to be a fan.
Sure, but there is being a fan and there is breaking reality. I wouldn’t want them to say, order the enemies to kill their friends or something totally out of whack like that. It isn’t mind control.
In my experience, players who grok the apocalypse engine and its derived games appreciate that rolling 10+ all the time is actually pretty boring. Having a cool extra move with lots of flavour is way more fun for these types of players.
From a pure optimization standpoint you can’t argue with the plus 1 stat though.
Chris Wolf Remember that that this is still a Command. They will try to do what was commanded to the best of their ability. Basically, once dominated, they become a weapon to be turned on their former comrades.
Authority is as much the Skill of a proud leader as it is the Skill sadistic tyrant. A character who rolls into a colony with a crew of armed soldiers, and uses Authority to get the civilians to turn on each other for his amusement? That can happen. Hell, that has happened in real life.
You may get a few brave souls, who would rather die than submit, even when faced with utter domination and overwhelming force. Work with it. Show that to the character. Tell them: “That one, the 17 year old rookie, is defiant. What do you do?”. Force them to take responsibility, force them to make hard decisions.
History of the + 1 stat in Origin /rocks on rocking chair
Once, long ago, early in the design of UW, the +1 stat was the only option for the Origin. The Origin, in truth, was just a method of deciding your + 1 stat. And while the optimizers were content, the character builders felt that it lacked choice.
So I added 3 “cross class” skills, each from different careers, to allow players to make a character with more variety. With 4 starter skills, rather than 3 starter skills + a stat, players were able to make the archetype they wanted from the get-go, and were able to put more thematic or mechanical skill combos together.
Also, earning XP is easier if you start with more skills, because you can do more things. The cross-career skills give a character a behavioral/professional foothold in a different career, making it easier to trigger that career’s XP events and thus causes the party to level quicker.
It’s true that from a purely mechanical standpoint, the + 1 is better. But PbtA has never really been about mechanics, but rather a collaborative storytelling; more skills means more stories (I also added personality foibles to each + 1 stat, to add a bit more story on them as well).
Thanks for the detailed follow up! Still looking forward to actually taking the game for a spin!
A couple more questions, for anyone who has played some:
How quickly do players level up, especially early on?
And, what’s the ideal length for a UW campaign? Dungeon World, for example, has only 10 levels. Apocalypse World similarly angles for a shortish campaign, the players reaching a pretty high power level in ~12 sessions (give or take).
Does UW angle towards a particular length?
Chris Wolf
“How quickly do players level up, especially early on?”
We’re eight sessions in (I just counted and wow, time flies!), and my players have so far leveled up every other session or so. Our sessions are usually only about 2 hours each though.
So far, though, the “power curve” seems much flatter than Dungeon World. Skills are nice bonuses but so far don’t seem to be the leaps and bounds in player power that DW has. Can’t say if that’s by design or just the way my group is handling things, though.
On average, we can assume 2-3 xp triggers per session, so the first level up will happen during the 2nd session. Subsequent levels will usually happen at the 4th session, then at the 7th or 8th session.
This varies greatly, depending on how long the sessions are, and how concordant/complementary the character’s xp triggers are.
UW doesn’t have a fixed length built-in, though the rigors of constantly updating rules meant that my own campaigns never lasted very long, sadly. I’m fascinated to eventually see how a truly long term campaign shakes out.
Nice!
So one more question (for now). Anyone have a player take the “Addict” skill from Scoundrel? What’s the best way to balance the constant pressure to buy drugs without making it too much of a focus of the game? Considering there isn’t a specific inventory or cost for the drugs.
Sounds like an Acquisition. I can see some very cool pressure and tension surrounding the question of how much Cargo the character blows to “recharge” their Addict move.