When assigning stats in a AW game, which of these do you prefer:
*Picking stats from a choice of arrays (Apocalypse World)
*Assigning numbers to each stat (Dungeon World)
*Starting with a fixed array, then modifying somehow (Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, World Wide Wrestling)
Something else (???)
If the character concepts are evocative and fairly narrow, I prefer a fixed array. Maybe with an add 1 for the smell of customization.
I prefer picking an array, personally. One of the things I liked about Apocalypse World is how the seemingly restrictive character gen actually drives you to come up with quite a distinct character as you make and justify the choices you have. That stat arrays work with that too, and also stop the annoying thing you get in some games with certain choices being mechanical ‘traps’ for people who don’t get the game mechanics as well as others
Fixed array and modifying, like US and WWW and MH. It very quickly shows where you’re putting your resources, which is a sign to the GM. I think its a more obvious sign than in AW. As for DW’s system, it works for it — but that’s because it is emulating D&D.
fixed array. i find character trait selection works better in almost every respect than character creation.
I don’t think it matters significantly, but I agree with Richard Greene that restriction is good and seems to spurn creativity.
Option #3…I really like how it’s an elegant tweak to the original method that’s simple and straightforward.
I think they serve different purposes related to the moves you expect characters to actually use:
– AW is all about pushing characters away from certain moves. If you’re at a -2 stat, you’re going to avoid rolling that stat most of the time. If you’re at +3 on a stat, you’re going to roll that move all the time. (Note that this doesn’t get you away from consequences because of how tightly AW moves are written to the fiction).
– US/MH/DW assumes that you’re going to be rolling all the moves most of the time. The lowest stat is a -1, so even on your “worst” stat, you can get by okay. Players typically can’t solve problems by rolling on their +3 all the time, so it’s cool to be a bit more flexible with the starting position.
Array
I like the array for simplicity, but getting to modify one stat always feels a bit limited. I’d like, say, to increase one by +1 and decrease another -1.
The third option with less stats, the first with a bigger number.
I like the fixed array as well. With some amount of modification.
Makes it quicker to evaluate where the core of the playbook is as well as putting a spotlight on the players choice where they see their character within the archetype.
How easy or hard it is to parse all the information of stat lines of course depends on how many stats there are. Monsterhearts and Urban Shadows each have 4 stats. So with just adding 1 there are four options. Which would be easy to get as lines to choose from but also not worth the afford.
Providing an array only makes sense if by design one option shouldn’t be there or you want a wider range than just one stat being different. Both might be valid. But I can’t say I really need them.
With the number of stats rising lines become more useful. By just providing a limited array and leaving out options you can make a playbooks weakness more appearant. But again even five lines of five stats each can get hard to interpret into a narrative meaning. So a player sees what choice they are making in building their character.
If there is a bigger number of stats I would still prefer modifiers or assigning numbers. With suggestions of what the playbook really needs to make their moves work.
If I had to do arrays in a game I would give each of the choices a label, so they become easier to parse at first glance.
I like the array, too – makes much more sense to the unique Archetypes’s feeling of te Engine.
I prefer fixed arrays. They’re straightforward guides to the possible ways of playing a playbook.
I think I also like arrays because being universally bad at something can be a feature, rather than a bug. It lets you say something about the archetype in question if you ensure that there are no good picks for that stat.
Depends on the thing you want to reinforce. I like starting with an array, but fluid until advancement (like Masks) for portraying shifting emotional states. But I also like fixed arrays that are tweaked slightly like #3 for the more static attributes
Something else to note:
DW is to some measure, about characters in a Heroic style of Fantasy Epics… the assigning numbers offers some niche protection, and the allowance for min/max is entente cordiale with persona concepts to define the trope of strengths and weaknesses in the heroic persona. That is, even the epic weakness of a clumsy fool is protected as an aspect of a courteous rake, even though the base playbook is centered around the sword bearing rouge ~ Madmartigan, or even Cpt. Jack Sparrow.
MH, US, and WWW are about characters with attributes better than the typical norms and mundanes of the cities and settlements in contemporary settings. These persona are monstrously gypsy blessed with extra ordinary ability, or perhaps they are street hardened metropolitan guerrillas who can be said to have an edge over the typical wage-slave plebeian, and rank as exceptional along with the training and determination of professional contenders of stadium sportspersons.
AW is an even field of survivalists, everyone in the setting is easily presumed to be inherently at an evenness of wants and needs, not to exclude the deficiency of adequate skills, and the insufficiency of reliable luxury. The playbooks are already diverse sets of defined moves, enough, to protect such persona niches of aptitude, virtuosity, and savvy in the aftermath and decline of formal regimented tutelage, or technologically augmented high luxury edification. Simply stated; everyone crawls out of the same junkyard at birth as relative equals in scarcity, and circumstances of diversity in nurture and nature is extreme enough to be selected with the playbook.
That is, to say; playbooks and character builds from most PbtA (officially published or fan-con’d,) variants, are quite interchangeable… maintaining a certain quality of balance in the expectation of such cross-over fiction.
(congratulations; G.U.R.P.S. super-lite is a huge success)