How many playbooks is a good number for a PbtA hack in it’s basic form, with supplements and additions?
Originally shared by James Mullen
Troublemakers: The Dirty Dozen?
Currently, there are 20 core playbooks for this PbtA hack, but some feedback from potential players, and a quick straw poll on of my friends on Facebook, has led me to believe that 12 might be a more appropriate number, especially for hooking in new players who don’t want to be overwhelmed with options.
The current 20 can be found in the link below: if I was to strip this down to 12, which ones should stay and which ones would go? Note that this doesn’t mean deleting those other 8 playbooks, just not including them in the final form of the published game; they would instead join a reserve of bonus playbooks to be used as rewards or incentives.
Here are the 12 I would keep:
The All-Star: worked well in playtest, good all-round character.
The Crush: the friendly, popular kid archetype.
The Devil: the rebellious, misbehaving kid.
The Goth: slightly morbid, slightly weird.
The Knuckle: a big, tough lunk.
The Kook: a true believer, for ‘weird’ adventures.
The Mouth: the smart-mouthed kid who won’t shut up.
The Newcomer: for playing an overtly weird game based around their story.
The Prodigy: the smartest kid on the block.
The Punk: bold, daring, street-sport enthusiast.
The Rat: grubby dumpster diver with lax morals.
The Royal: bossy kid who tells the others what to do.
Do you agree or disagree with my list? Is there one of those you would leave out, or one of the other 8 you would include?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1iTjRUomaBXM2lNR1Z1TURWSDA/view?usp=sharing
I guess is not a matter of numbers, but content.
If some playbooks are just the same but with different name, just merge them into a single one with options.
But if all playbooks are different and interesting… go ahead with them.
Also, remember not all PbtA games use playbooks 😉
I find that 8-12 for a core is good. Fewer than 8 is too broad, more than 12 and you start squeezing out the player’s options for interpretation.
I don’t know much about your game, or the ins-and-outs of the genre you’re working in, but as for a generic question of “how many playbooks” I have some thoughts.
A very large percentage of major release PbtA games use between 10 and 12 base playbooks. (ApW, MH, DW, SotI, LotE, Masks, US, The Sprawl, MotW, tremulus – )
If I see a game with only five or six, unless there’s an exceptional amount of customization within the sheet or the genre is exceedingly focused, I worry about replayability. Not a concern for everyone, but it is for me. If I’m making something and have this few, I ask myself “Is there other source material and related genres that I can draw upon?”
Both Night Witches and The Warren get away with very few (5 each) but those are some laser-focused games.
If I see a game with fifteen or more, I immediately think that either the genre is too broad if there’s so many archetypes or that there’s going to be a lot of mechanical and thematic overlap between playbooks, unless it’s a greatly stripped down playbook with only a move or two each (such as games where you take two types of playbooks and mash them together). If I’m making something and have this many, I ask myself “Can some of these be combined or left aside for supplemental release (which I have no personal limit on, within reason)? Am I actually making two games and treating them as one?”
I guess Uncharted Worlds is an example of getting away with a lot? But it’s doing the two-part playbook thing (10 Origins, 10 Careers). I can’t think of a significant release that has tons of single-part playbooks.
This is, ultimately, a matter of personal preference. You can obviously get away with any number if it suits the design. But hopefully my thoughts are helpful to you!
I’d merge the Kook and the Goth (both mystical powered oddballs), the Punk & the Rat (they’re both rebellious inventive types.)
The Mouth and the Royal are both similar solve-problems-with-words types.
I can kind of see merging the Kook and the Goth (but I’m still not interested in doing so) but the other pairings? Really? The Punk (now Daredevil) is rebellious, but not really inventive, while the Rat isn’t either. The Mouth creates problems with words more than solves them, while the Royal solves problems by getting their friends to do something about it.
I appreciate everyone has their own take on which playbooks fit, which ones could be merged and which ones could be dropped, though. It’s informative to see the shorthand everyone else uses to describe the playbooks, it just underlines how the same thing can be seen in such a variety of different ways by even quite a small group or people.
James Mullen, this is where I and Jack were having issues. You have a clear understanding of what you want for each playbooks, but many of us don’t. Both Jack and I were misinterpreting a playbook by just name and description alone. Which is I also said merge the Kook and the Goth.
I think the suggestion of not just having playbooks, but where each one doesn’t overlap the other either in concept or moves but instead fully end where another begins is something that we should strive for.
And by the way, to your mouth and royal, you don’t have to fully separate every playbook. You can have the moves split the kind of person that playbook is.
Think of a bard. A bard could be instrumentalist or a sly talker. Some people would make that two playbooks, but instead you could make it one in which the choices of moves determine which direction that player chooses for the playbook to go. They bring their own character desires into that playbook and personality.
Same thing could happen above,
The quick talker has moves that could make them go royal or mouth or a mixture dependent on what the player decides. I find this key in my desire to play a game long term. How can I bring what I want into a play books vs it being so strict. I also find it makes replaying a playbook quite fun, so you aren’t always playing the same kind of character, but one that evolves.
Look at the Monsterhearts playbooks; there are “two paths” in every skin. The lovesick punching bag mortal and the digging too deep, lover-as-a-shield mortal. The physical jock werewolf and the spiritual wolfwolf.
Tommy Rayburn I just feel that kind of generalism in the playbooks dilutes their distinctiveness: if I merged the Kook & Goth into one book, or the Mouth & Royal, or any two of them, then you end up with something that is harder to describe and pin-down. It becomes blander, more wishy-washy, less focused on a specific, recognisable archetype: many of the playbooks are inspired by specific kids in fiction, who have very distinct personalities.
For example, the Kook takes inspiration from Johnny Maxwell, while the Goth is a mix of Wednesday Addams and Lydia from Beetlejuice: Johnny reluctantly accepts he sees things that other kids don’t, while Wednesday & Lydia embrace how they are different. To make one playbook that covered both those archetypes would be to water down what makes them special.
I agree that there should be room to explore your own interpretation of a character and create your own path for them, which is why you get to choose which moves you want from the ones the playbook provides, instead of being given a pre-determined set of them.
James Mullen Taking it out of your game, that’s like saying let’s remove the ability for Ranger’s to use swords. “They may not be as good of an archer.” That is true, but it’s up to you to set the possibility of those paths and then let the players decide if they want to be a jack of all trades or a focused beast or 80/20.
The idea of creating Uniqueness in each Sheet is why you have 20+ playbooks in Troublemakers and The Hood. It’s fine for sheets to be broad and let players bring in distinction!
Nobody’s going to play your Kid Adventure game and think “oh, these archetypes are all that I can bring to a character.” (The favorite food, the badges, and the other mechanics ask them to think in a kidlike way.)
But there are natural archetypes that are broad, like Weird Kid (Kook + Goth), Lippy kid who can’t back it up (Royal/Brat/Cherub), the wiseass (Mouth + Jokester), The Big Dude (Knuckle + Mountain), The Perfect Child (Crush + All Star + Parts of the Prodigy), the Nerd (parts of Prodigy + Rat; in Grimm, they make Boy Scouts part of the Nerd package, so the Ranger is in here too!).
You can also regroup by role. Kook and Rat are both outsiders; Royal, All Star and Crush are insiders. The Punk & Devil are rebels, whether with extreme sports or graffiti.
Keep the Dog and Sitter as core because there’s nothing else that does what they do, and
everyoneat my table said “hey, can I play the Dog?”