Originally shared by Robert Bohl
What Powered by the Apocalypse is, to me
I’ve heard people talk about things like the “core” of PbtA or “what PbtA does well.” I don’t think there’s anything to those ideas. I’ve been thinking about how to express myself on this stuff, then (in a “Simpsons Already Did It” way), Meguey Baker and Vincent Baker say it better for me in this interview with Jason Pitre.
Each game, including each PbtA game, is unique. You need to approach the game from the context of what the rules tell you to do. That’s how a board game works, or sportsball game. You look at the rules and do what they tell you to do.
To me, “Powered by the Apocalypse” is primarily an acknowledgement of design lineage and a pass at marketing (which is not to denigrate marketing, necessarily). That’s what that phrase communicates to me about a game. But also, as they say on this podcast, an approach to game design. Just like levels and to-hit rolls are an approach to game design.
Vincent also points out that PbtA is a design assistant. You can begin with a structure that works and diverge from it.
Back to my own ideas for a moment, PbtA could also be a creative constraint. You can be trying to align your ideas to the PbtA lineage and see what it produces.
That’s why “what PbtA does well” doesn’t work for me as a thing. “PbtA’s” meaning is too wide for me for it to merely contain the previous examples we’ve seen. And I find it exciting when games break my expectations of what other PbtA games have shown me.
There are audio issues in this interview. It’s worth it. Use headphones. Give it a listen.
Thanks, Shane Liebling, for putting this in my way on The Gauntlet podcast’s Patreon*-only Slack instance.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/rpg-design-panelcast/id580012396?mt=2#
Nice. Another podcast to add to my player.