How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional roleplaying games like D&D and Shadowrun? I’m struggling to pitch the game to some friends of mine who are mainly experienced with D&D and Pathfinder, and I’m curious to hear how other folks have dealt with this issue.
How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional…
How do you introduce PbtA – and Masks in particular – to players who are only familiar with hypertraditional…
You just tell your friends this Masks is a different type of game than they may be familiar with. That the game uses mechanics that are more about intent and spirit than minutiae. You then ask them if they’re interested, and run a game for them.
If they are really traditional…get them into a brief game of Dungeon World…to give them a feel of DnD style gaming with a PbtA format.
Yeah, I’d second Riley Crowder ‘s suggetion. Dungeon World makes a great bridge game from something like D&D to PbtA (or other narrative-focused games).
I don’t know. Don’t get me wrong, Dungeon World is great and it’s one of my favorite PbtA games. The possible problem here though is that games with similar settings and character types (DW and D&D) might cause players to assume the rules are similar as well. Which is not the case.
If you switch to a new setting with a new system you can hopefully avoid or minimize that problem.
I haven’t played Masks, yet. Mind you. But with other PbtA games, there was almost no problem. The concept of moves is pretty much what all games do. It’s just made explicit.
Label shifts and influence in Masks, might take some explaining. But that you would have to do, even if they had played other PbtA games.
I second Chris. DW already tends to run into trouble as people inadvertently fall into DnD play patterns that neither work nor make sense in Pbta; it’s likely to cause more confusion than clarity.
Yea you just ask them if they wanna play “Young Justice the RPG” where it’s more about discovering yourself and your relationships than it is about “leveling up” and if they’re like “cool,” well then teach them.
Just a tip, don’t focus anything about mechanics, ask if they want to play a game about young super heroes like the ones in Young Justice and X-Men evolution toons. If they say yes you come to them and explain the mechanical side.
Seriously, the best way to make don’t like Masks and any game PbtA is come and talk about the mechanical side. Usually it is a turn off to the people who are used with combos, long term thoughts about character evolution etc
I realize as I think of it.. another good way of testing the waters of how well they can step out of their normal shoes is play a different system that’s good at one shots just to get them thinking more narratively and see how they take it. Something like Fiasco or Dread. Some people just really aren’t into story based systems, so testing it with something that does one shots well might be a good experiment.
I agree with avoiding dungeon world–games that are too similar in genre to d&d can cause players to continue to rely on d&d play assumptions that don’t actually hold for PbtA.
Pitch it as the Young Justice or Teen titans cartoons. Pitch it as Avatar: the Last Airbender with capes. Talk about the fact that this game supports madcap superhero action, but also the character drama scenes from those shows too. Don’t focus on the mechanical distinctions until they’re cool with playing a teen superhero game–and if they’re not cool with teen superheroes, then don’t force it.
I think the biggest thing that needs to be addressed as the game begins is that playbooks are not the same thing as classes. Give examples: All the teen heroes from the Batman comics are the same class (martial artist gadget users). But most of them are different playbooks (Dick Greyson is a protege, but Jason Todd is a delinquent and Damien Wayne is a Legacy. Cassandra Cain is a Bull and Stephanie Brown is a Beacon, while Barbara Gordon might be a Janus)
When I play the game with first-time PbtA players, I like to give them a peek behind the curtain at the GM side as the game plays–The the first time someone misses and I make a GM move, I explain the process and show them the list of gm moves I’m picking from. Demonstrating that the game limits you in ways they don’t expect GMs to be limited will help them be more understanding when aspects of the game limit them in ways D&D doesn’t.
For the love of god, take control of pacing, and cut from interesting scene to interesting scene. Scene framing isn’t something that D&D players or GMs are trained to think about, so make that an obvious and upfront change otherwise your game can get bogged down in uninteresting details.
This is all good advice, thanks. And I agree about Dungeon World – trying to play it exactly like D&D tends to result in frustration. That’s why I picked Masks. I also picked it because Masks is amazing, of course, but getting folks out of the pawn stance with occasional dips into actor stance playstyle that D&D encourages is easier when the players aren’t expecting D&D with a bunch of weird houserules.