So I have a question about the game.

9 thoughts on “So I have a question about the game.”

1. I have some ideas (such as multiple rolls representing different stages of access/systems.) But, I would like to hear what more PbtA savvy heads have to say.

2. You only roll when you trigger a move, and if you don’t trigger a move you don’t roll.

   So let’s assume we’re talking about Seize Control. The trigger is “when you and another character struggle over a contested goal.” So, if you’re not struggling, it doesn’t trigger. Tony Stark likely does not struggle with many hackers — most simply cannot stand up to him.

   This is the same thought process behind why you can’t Take Down a tank with a pistol, or an air elemental with a baseball bat, or similar. The wording of triggers is important. If you can’t struggle because you would immediately get your butt handed to you, or subduing because you just can’t do it, the move doesn’t trigger.

   At this point, without a move triggering, you are “looking to the GM to see what happens.” You did a thing, you picked up the dice, the GM said ‘no, see, the move hasn’t triggered’ and then ‘so this is what happens next…’ and they make a move of their own. They might Reveal an Unwelcome Truth (“You realize Stark has broken into your system when his smug faces appears on your screen right before it burns out and your hard drive catches fire”), they might Inflict Conditions (“You’re swinging at the air elemental when it floods your lungs and starts asphyxiating you from the inside-out”) or whatever. The point is, if you do something that doesn’t trigger a move — because it’s just not a move or it’s impossible — the GM keeps things going with moves, of whatever severity fits the situation (generally soft, but not always).

3. You may need several rolls for very difficult systems. One to access, then several to retreive the info you need while yo do some more rolls to defeat the countermeasures coming for you. Hell, an extremely secure system could be a threat by itself.

   If the system is very particular and the hacking action is relevant to the game, another option is making a custom move to hack it. Make it as harsh as you think necessary if you need to challenge the PCs.

   All this being said, I think in PbtA the point is not how much difficulty for a roll or a task, but how relevant to the fiction being told and the possible implications of the action being carried out.

   So, on one hand:

   This computer has a firewall and this one has not? WHO FUCKING CARES??

   On the other hand:

   This computer has some casual information that might be relevant -> regular move and play out to find what happens.

   This computer is special and relevant, I’d like to differentiate what could come out of this -> custom move.

   This computer is part of the fiction, defeating its defenses is relevant, difficult and part of the adventure itself -> create a threat.

   The most boring thing you could do is: “This computer security system is tight, roll with a -1 penalty”. You don’t play PbtA for that shit. But you can still do it if you feel like it (I sometimes do it when my brain is dry or I want an easy way out). Nevertheless, think that if the most interesting thing you can come of is a plain modifier with no story, maybe the situation is not so important and you might just go by with a regular roll or a narration of the outcome straight away with no roll at all.

4. Fair enough, looks like I won’t be running this then. Shame, other than that it looks pretty good.

5. You can always look back to the grandaddy, Apoc World, for advice:

   Things are tough. Whenever a players’ character makes a move, the MC judges it normal, difficult, or seriously difficult. If it’s difficult, the player takes -1 to the roll. If it’s seriously difficult, the player takes -2 to the roll.

6. I deal with difficulty as consequences in case of 6-. If you attempt something risky or choose a reckless approach or the situation is out of control, things go wild when missing or the plot thickens when 7-9. The real probabilities are not as important as the chills sent up your back.

   This is more or less the same strategy used in Blades in the Dark.

7. I think part of the issue is the perspective at work here. In PbtA games (with a few exceptions where it’s been crow-bar-ed back in), difficulty isn’t part of the numerical system. It’s handled in the fiction.

   That is, you don’t make actions or rolls difficult. You make situations difficult.

   In DnD, if a lock is very difficult to pick I can give it a high DC. In PbtA, I might be thinking about how tough a lock this villain has on their door, but I’m not thinking quite so directly about how hard picking the lock is. I’m not thinking about how hard the action is. I’m thinking about how risky the situation is and how complex the action is.

   If the character has the tools an abilities to pick locks, why bother putting a lock on the door if I’m just going to say it’s really hard for them to pick it? Why don’t I throw in electronic security measures or a guard dog or a phalanx of guard robots? On the one hand, the PCs are bad-ass and I’m a fan of theirs. If this PC is great at picking locks, I want to see them walk up to tough locks and places that are supposed to be safe from intrusion and just blow right on through! I want to see them doing the things that make them badass.

   But I also want to make their lives interesting, and that often means making their lives difficult and dangerous. But I want to be interesting. If the point is that this place is secure, difficult and dangerous to break into … it’s my job as MC to make that clear and interesting. A lock that’s hard to pick isn’t very clear or interesting–the character’s whole shtick is that they pick locks that are hard to pick! Come on, we can do better than that!

   So let’s look at Tony Stark’s computer and the NYPD computer. I want to hack them. What does that entail? Am I doing this remotely or through direct access? It’s always easier if you have the computer in front of you. Heck, both the NYPD and Stark probably don’t even have their systems connected to outside networks when he doesn’t have to–if you’re trying to get onto their intranets or physical machines, you may well need a more direct connection.

   Already we’re starting to see how to make this more interesting. Which one is going to involve more action, more rolls, more opportunities for me to make hard moves, and just generally more muss-and-fuss: infiltrating the NYPD server room or infiltrating Stark Tower (or boarding the Stark Jet, or maneuvering to get Stark away from his laptop while it’s nonetheless available to you)? If you can’t think of ways to make getting close to Tony Stark’s laptop more tricky and dangerous and difficult than getting into the NYPD without modifying the rolls themselves … maybe you were wrong in the first place and it’s not actually harder to do!

   But let’s assume you were right and it’s harder and let’s further assume we establish the fiction of Stark, his tower and his personal laptop so that’s clear to the players. Even if the players manage to contrive a situation within the fiction as we establish it where getting at Stark’s laptop is physically easier than getting into the NYPD server room … they’re probably going to have to do a lot of fictional work–talking, planning, scouting, etc–to make that happen and if they’re clever and playing to their strengths in a way that helps them avoid risk … that’s fine! You’re a fan of the players. You want to see them take on tough challenges and succeed. Pulling off a smooth heist is just as awesome as pulling off an A-Team style romp or a Sprawl style hack-a-thon. And even if you have an easy time of it mechanics-wise, Stark (and others in the know) are going to be a lot more wary next time, and might already by planning retaliation or damage control.

   But wait, we’ve got more tools to play with! Next up it clocks. If we want to show that Stark has layer upon layer of security, we can use a Clock (or several). Maybe every successful hacking roll fills X Clock segments but while that’s being worked on you’re thinking off screen and announcing future badness to make sure they know Stark’s counter-measures are serious business. As soon as they miss a roll (or make too many rolls, which you can represent with another clock if you like), you start to bring down the hammer of those counter measures. Bad stuff starts happening–they can keep going, but it might cost them more than they’re willing to pay. They might have to fight or run away empty handed or accept a really nasty choice involving what Stark knows about them and what leverage he now has over them. This is a lot more interesting than make the DC higher or modifying the roll or chaining Defy Danger rolls!

   What makes hacking the NYPD server room easier? Well, maybe there you just chain moves with no clocks–try to sneak in. Once you’re in, try to hack. Once you hack, try to get out. Or maybe you still use clocks, you just have shorter clocks, segments fill up faster or the consequences of not filling up the clock fast enough or missing rolls while the clock isn’t full yet are less intense.

   We’re not quite done with clocks yet, either. Let’s say we really want to hammer home how tough this security is. We can make this clock an extended project. They have to get the laptop somewhere and really work on it. They might have to buy tools, take the laptop apart, set up an off-grid workspace … we can really make those clock segments cost something. They don’t have to just cost a simple roll. They can cost days of in-game time, money spent on help and tools, etc. Those extra things can automatically fill in clock spaces or act as gatekeepers for the individual hacking rolls that fill in the clock.

   Another tool we have is custom moves. “When you mess with Stark Tech, Roll+Bond with Stark” or something. Then you write what you want to happen. The kinds of choices and consequences you want the player to face. One idea is to then take that custom move and attach it to a clock. Everytime you fill in a segment, you get to ask a question from a special list, or roll a special custom move that lets you then ask questions from a special list. Stark’s laptop gets you answers you couldn’t get elsewhere, and that means you get to ask things that aren’t on the normal Investigate list.

   In summary, you need to think the fiction through a little more carefully before you can bring the mechanics to bear. It’s not as numerically straight-forward as increasing the DC class on the lock but it’s a very flexible system that’s incredibly friendly to improvisation. If you want to make hacking the NYPD easier than hacking Stark? You have many, many ways to do that in PbtA without dice modifiers or chaining Defy Danger. It’s just not going to come in the form of moving a number up and down.

8. ^ this is great and accurate.

9. Alfred Rudzki Thanks. 🙂 I think one unfortunate thing that happens in games like DnD is that the superficially more adjustable difficulty mechanics get a bit too much attention, even though they’re not really the heart of making those systems work in cases like this either.

   In DnD, the best way to make a secure place more secure is also to make it a complex challenge with more interesting consequences for failure. That you can represent difficulty more granularity when that’s an interesting thing to do doesn’t change that and that it’s more mechanically focused on exactly what you do and exactly how well you do it than PbtA matters in certain respects … but it doesn’t change what makes an interesting scenario in the first place.

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