My son has asked if I could put together a PbtA style game where the characters are all players in a futuristic version of today’s MOBAs (such as League of Legends and Smite). The idea is that the MOBA is a virtual reality game with its players actually in the game (both Shadowrun’s matrix and Sword Art Online came up in the discussion). Talking it over with him and one of the other possible players we were thinking the game would have scenes both in the ‘real world’ and in the digital world of the MOBA where we would want to be able to play out at least portions of the character’s matches.
Are there any particular PbtA games or hacks out there that would be suggested to either run this with or as a good starting point to build off of to put the game together? We have played DungeonWorld and Masks and I have access to several other PbtA games, but I would be curious what suggestions the community would have in case I’ve missed any good options.
J. Walton weren’t you doing something like this a while back?
Sounds great. I have a slow-burn project about players in DWO (Dungeon World Online), the world’s most popular MMO, that has similar online and offline moves, inspired by Sword Art Online and shows like that. There’s not really a playable draft yet, but I’m happy to help brainstorm stuff.
You could check the hack about WWE catch, if the fight is only a show (I haven’t read it, though…).
I have a project called Just a Game which aims at the trapped in the game scenario. I need playtesters though. My current game group is uninterested and living in Japan makes it difficult to schedule a regular playtest.
I think the most important thing to model in MOBAs is the back and forth push for control of the battlefield. If you’re not married to PbtA, I’d actually recommend Fate’s Eagle Eyes, as its investigation rules map pretty well to big picture conflicts like this and swapping out Aspects is my go-to mechanic for games where you jack into the matrix or otherwise move between worlds. Contest rules would be much simpler and faster than investigation, if that’s a goal.
For PbtA, Masks is probably a good starting point. Villain conditions can be reworked as battlefield progress; if the PCs take control of a zone, you mark a condition representing that (and make a hard move representing the push back). The archetypes can be their in-game character, and when logged out you mostly use the social moves. The Team mechanics are pretty great too, since MOBAs require teamwork to win.
PC conditions can stay the same, since stress and emotional turns are appropriate consequences for things going badly; you lose your cool, the team suffers. Taking a powerful blow might result in a death and respawn, fictionally; might be worth putting that as an option in the move somewhere?
Because you are dealing with both “in the ring” and “behind the scenes” type stuff — I’d strongly suggest Nathan Paoletta’s World Wide Wrestling. It is specifically designed for special moves, an in game career, crowd favorites, working the audience, dealing with managers, and I think with just the tiniest bit of adapting it would fit a VR video game setting well.
Ross Fulton That’s it!
I very much agree with Ross Fulton about http://WWW. It is a beautiful game to start with and provides exactly the framework you are looking for. I would guess it would take barely an hour to make the flavor adjustments you might need to skin it for MOBAs.
I wrote a hack exactly about this called Hardwire. It playtested positively at GenCon last summer, but I never got the gumption to publish it. I’d be happy to share you the Google Doc.
It was heavily influenced by Sword Art Online and MOBAs/MMOs. I’d love to hear what you think.
Here’s the files for the hack I used in our playtest. Keep in mind, this never went through an editor, but it’s still a fully playable game:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0z8tgxmkY-sOC1IMjZrOXB2cFU&usp=sharing
(Sorry, uploaded the .pub files, not the .pdfs. Fixed!)
Okay, I have to say thanks to Blair Monroe for posting this. I realized I hadn’t updated the playbooks since the playtest last summer, and there were a couple additions and typos to fix. I just updated all five ‘sample’ playbooks (version 1.9 is the lastest), and I’d say it’s playable.
The playbooks are wacky, but balanced. Honestly, you can mix and match them, that’s half of what I designed the system to do. So hoopefully this fits your needs.
P.S. to +Brand Robins, this is the post-playtest version of my game with the ‘move grid’ I told you about forever ago, if you still want to give it a peek.
http://tinyurl.com/hardwire1-9 (same link as above, just easier)
I should just send this over to my editor for pete’s sake.
Personally, I’m not sure that WWW is the right approach. WWW’s mechanics have wrestling kind of baked in, in that the match is a bit of a collaborative effort between the two competitors where both parties are trying to create an entertaining performance, which doesn’t really fit with the cut throat competitiveness of a MOBA engagement.
Admittedly my experience with WWW is small, but it seems to me like it relies on you wanting to hand control of a fight to your opponent, because if you dominate the fight you don’t put on a good show and so you don’t get what you want out of the fight (audience engagement). In a MOBA, giving control of the fight to your opponent is idiotic and suicidal.
I’m not saying that you couldn’t hack something using WWW as a base, but I feel like the “in ring” mechanics will fight against you there.
Night witches, with it’s dichotomy of day moves and night moves, might also be a good source of inspiration.
You all have provided me with a lot of good ideas, thank you!
Luke Green I remembered shortly after posting that I had a copy of your Just A Game playtest materials and have been looking at it as one possible starting point. If we make use of it I’ll be sure to send you any feedback we have.
It had not occurred to use the WWW game as a base, but I’ll take a look at it. From the comments here it certainly sounds like it has potential though I am also a little concerned about how well it specifically models the whole wrestling scene. There could be some good ideas in there though.
Lemmo Pew Hardwire looks pretty interesting. I have started reading through it and will be showing it to my likely players to see what they think.
Alan Scott unfortunately, Night Witches is one of the PbtA games that has not managed to make it off my ‘Need to Buy’ list though I’ve looked over the downloadable play aids. Maybe this will give me the excuse to go ahead and pick it up.
Thanks again for the ideas!