PbtA is an engine that pushes people to act quickly, and to encourage failure for its own sake.

PbtA is an engine that pushes people to act quickly, and to encourage failure for its own sake.

PbtA is an engine that pushes people to act quickly, and to encourage failure for its own sake. So what’s a better match for that… than screwball cartoons? MADCAP: Screwball Cartoon Role-Play, in the PbtA engine, from the makers of FARFLUNG and IRONCLAW. Kickstarter starts today!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sanguine/madcap-screwball-cartoon-role-play-for-tabletop

7 thoughts on “PbtA is an engine that pushes people to act quickly, and to encourage failure for its own sake.”

  1. Neat pitch, but I want to see something concrete about what you’re doing with the engine before committing. That possibility seems to be currently locked behind a $3000 stretch goal and even then it’s only for backers, I guess?

  2. It might be nit picking, but because it seems to be a sticking point for a lot of people that can’t quite get into PBTA games because of this perception–I wouldn’t say that the games encourage failure for its own sake.

    Rather, acting as your character would act, even if they don’t get the most favorable result of that action, isn’t punished, but still moves the narrative forward.

    Most people aren’t looking to do something and hoping they fail, but they know that the game isn’t going to provide a binary “yes/no” answer if the character tries to do something and doesn’t get the most favorable result.

  4. Jared Rascher I didn’t read that section of their pitch as a criticism of other PBtA games, but as an approach to Cartoon style play. Success is being tied, it seems, to how funny a result is, regardless of if it fulfils procedural goal for the character.

    I can easily see a Wiley E. Coyote style playbook where higher roles lead to “failures” for the character that builds comedy resources for the player to use. Like playing a heel wrestler who is scripted to lose in World Wide Wrestling, but can build heat and audience regardless.

  5. Yeah, I’m probably just over compensating because I’ve heard “I can’t get into a game where failing is suppose to be good” as a reason to not give PBTA games a try multiple times. Sorry to be the grumpy gus here. 😉

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