Here’s some thoughts about Uncharted Worlds – I’ve now run 3 sessions (I’m trying to put up a short writeup soon), and am still not sure if pbta/uw style is best for me. But I enjoy a lot running it, and my game prep and stressing for it has dropped dramatically. I tend to get ideas between sessions and write them up, and sometimes I sit down for a moment, trying to come up some interesting npc, locations, factions and other details. This a fraction of preparation I’ve done for other games.
But what doesn’t come naturally to me is asking players to tell what happens, who’s coming in etc. I do it sometimes, but often just once or twice a session, and even then about less important things. I also find myself to have bad imagination when it comes to moves – right after today’s session I realized what I should have done with the player rolling partial success when salvaging an alien wreck and trying to leave in hurry as something big and bad was approaching. Breaking another character’s drone was quite boring.
I need some ideas what to do when it’s time to do moves. I really like Impulse drive’s gm materials and use them when running Uncharted Worlds, but I could use even more help. I appreciate elegance of uw gm moves but they are not my style (at least yet). I’ve been carrying Rory’s story cubes with me for inspiration but have forgotten to use them when I would have needed them =o)
Another thing I’ve noticed is that my game doesn’t meet character’s xp triggers. No XP has been shared yet, which is strange, although Sessions have been shortish. I let present players take 2nd triggers and thought of giving them 1xp for free to help them a bit. I don’t know if my jump point took the game to bad direction, but that would be wrong to say too as the games have been fun! I have an idea where the session is heading but don’t prepare it thoroughly and am open to changes.
Cool ideas just come to me but I wonder should I try to drop even the little preparation I do, except for jump points?
It sounds like your players need to pick new triggers. They chose the triggers, and their actions should be earning XP. If they’re having a disconnect between what sounded cool, and how they actually play you should let them repick.
Triggers are saying “here is what our game should be about.” When they pick them, two things should happen: they should try to make them happen, and you should set them up to let them happen. Someone has a trigger for when something breaks? Give them something to break, at a personal cost. They have a trigger to find conspiracies? Give them a conspiracy that implicates a teammate — or worse, implicates the finder.
Work together to make triggers relevant, by doing your part and by confirming that they represent the game the players WANT to play.
It should be up to the players to push for their XP triggers. If someone has “a solution is purchased”, they should be trying to buy their way out of everything.
As for figuring out moves: it just takes time. Improv GMing is a learned skill, and to learn it, you have to do.
Try this: write a list of the GM moves on a piece of paper. When you use a GM move, put a check next to it on the list. When you need to come up with a move, challenge yourself to use one of the least checked items.
In my own personal notes, I have the following generic list that crosses most PbtA-style games:
—
Initial consequences should be soft/setup actions, like:
– doesn’t go as planned (flaw in the plan, backfire, wrong choice)
– change of fortune (betrayal, escalation, accidental benefit to the other side)
– new information (unwelcome truth, hidden threat)
– uncovered secret (red herring, bait and switch, larger threat revealed)
– opposition escalation (limitation removed, timetable accelerated)
– increased tension (others need protection, there is a cost)
As stakes escalate, consequences become hard/direct actions that create:
– harm (physical, emotional)
– isolation (social, physical)
– dissonance (refute knowledge, reveal truth)
– betrayal (dead ends, red herrings)
– loss (of goods, relationships, status)
– humiliation (social harm, false assumptions)
I wouldn’t use Rory’s Story Cubes for a PBTA game. The best sources of inspiration are sitting around the table with you. It’s not your job to prepare the game for the players. Your job is to play the game with the players.
Also worth saying: ask your players what went wrong! Ask players not attempting the action, too. “Ben succeeded but… Alice, what went wrong?”
Can I ask, what are “Rory’s story cubes” and the reference to Impulse Drive?
Rory’s story cubes are dice with pictures on them. They’re great for just kind of improving up weird stories by image association, but not great for taking what players contribute and reintegrating it/expanding on it.
Just checked them out on Amazon. Those look very cool! Is there a particular set you recommend?
Jesse R You will want the three main 9 cube base sets and the brand new Dr. WHO set that just came out.
Make sure you’ve learnt the flow of conversation, I think it’s near the end of the GM chapter. It’s really crucial to getting the game flowing so make sure to follow it as much as possible until it’s instinctive. Don’t worry about looking prepared or rushing your improv, make sure you’re doing it right to begin with.
Keep in mind you’ve got your GM moves to follow. They’re not just suggestions, pretty much everything you do should be one of those moves, and there’s a reason for that. Collectively, the moves cover pretty much every feasible interesting story development while avoiding “nothing much happens”.
The only thing I’m not sure of myself is why there’s no “present an opportunity” move like most other pbta games. Possibly it’s intentional to make UW feel a bit harsher.
I’m a bit socially anxious so I made the mistake of rushing through things and ignoring stuff in an attempt to look like I knew what I was doing. It didn’t ruin the game or anything but it made everything a bit clunky for the first few sessions. There was a lot of, “Everything’s fine for now, what do you do?”, “I don’t know, I guess I’ll just wait.”, “Oh, okay. Um, how about someone else? Anyone doing anything? No?”
And yeah, consequences can be hard to make up on the fly. It’s still the hardest part for me. My usual strategy is to just pitch it to the table if I can’t think of something. Players are surprisingly good at coming up with consequences for each other.
Matthew Browne Uncharted Worlds uses “Impose a Cost” and “Offer a Choice” in place of Offer an Opportunity. After all, in AW it’s “Offer an opportunity with or without a cost,” and giving a PC a chance to do something is — inherently — offering them a choice.
Lean on those moves to find what you’re looking for.
Lots of thanks for your answers everyone! This help me forward, the system is a lot to chew – I’ve read everything but I just haven’t digested and stopped fighting against a lot of it 🙂 Starting to share responsibility about the story is a difficult step to make, and needs something from players too, but I’ll keep trying (more).
The group hasn’t left their ship yet, except for brief visit to another ship that was in distress. I thought they would end at a space station at the end of the first session, but due to failed hasty hyperspace jump and some other rolls, inquisitive nature of the players/characters the game so far has been claustrophobic mystery in the group’s ship that carries a group of priests rescued from another ship.
Aaron Griffin your list looks great, thanks for sharing it! While browsing this community I’ve been actually wishing people would share their tools, threats and stuff more. Jesse R Impulse drive is a free PbtA game with a theme similar to Uncharted Worlds, someone shared a link here a while ago. I’ve picked a few things from there to complement the game.
Antti Lusila Thanks! Will check it out now 🙂
As someone who just ran a one shot of UW as my first experience with PbtA/story games, I can sympathize.
I probably didn’t consult the gm moves as much as I should have, but I did find this to be a good guide post: any time I had to do something to the pcs for a 6- or a 7-9 and found my ideas boring, I tried to throw the responsibility for the consequence on the players. It helped me remember to ask them questions more.
Players, like children, seem to come up with harsher consequences for their actions than you might initially yourself…