I’m all new to PbtA games, but I love how The Sprawl figures the Cyberpunk theme. My still “old school” mind asks me to include a few more moves in the game, that I feel are needed to increase the options for the players when doing an infiltration in a secure place (very common in how I envision cyberpunk missions).
As said, being all-new to PbtA, I’m sure my new Moves will lack the finesse of the ones provided by the game. I’m not even sure they are needed at all. But as I said, something in me still struggles with the idea of playing covert-ops and not having them.
Tell me what you think, please, or help see how and why they aren’t needed in an PbtA game.
Sneak:
10+ You are a shadow
7-9 You’ve done it, but choose 1:
* Leave traces (Advance an appropiate Threat Clock)
*Takes more time than expected (Advance the Mission Clock)
*An ally gets noticed
Understand technology:
10+ Ask 3 questions
7-9 Ask 1 question:
*What is its purpouse?
*How does it work?
*How can I use it?
*Who built it?
*What problems could it cause?
*Is it illegal?
Physical prowes (Athletics):
10+ You do it
7-9 MC chooses 1, based on the fiction
*Take +1-harm
*You loose footing/grip
*You are stunned
*You lose something
*You are noticed
Let the thoughts and corrections flow.
I have nothing to add, but I want to see what others respond with!
Sneak and Physical Prowess are Act Under Pressure
“Understand Technology” as you’ve written it does not address how they are trying trying to understand it? Like, are they just staring at it trying to puzzle it out? Most PbtA games require you to do something.
Like are you looking up tech specs? Then that’s Research. Are you consulting an expert? Then that’s Declare A Contact/Hit the Streets? Does the player want to declare a fact about the technology? Then that’s spending [intel].
If the player really is just puzzling out then there are two points about that.
1) There is no “notice” roll in The Sprawl (and in most PbtA) if there’s a corporate logo or a serial number (even slightly hidden, in your mind). Just tell them about it. Don’t’ make them roll.
2) If they want to work out what the technology does on their own make them run experiments and tell them the consequences. Does it have a trigger? Are they willing to pull it to find out what it does? If they do, tell them what happens.
The point is that “understanding” does not require a roll. You’re either making an effort to understand which triggers another move. OR you’re just fiddling with the thing and that just requires the GM and Player going back and forth about consequences of what they do. No rolling needed.
Additionally, I’m SUPER generous about “intuitive knowledge” based on Playbook. So if a solider and killer are looking at weapon I usually just say to them, “You’re pretty sure it’s some kind of weapon but not like any you’ve ever seen before.” Or something like that.
You can always do what you want to modify the system for your needs but I would argue Physical Prowess and Sneak are both covered under “Act Under Pressure”
And Understand Technology is covered under “Assess” or “Research” depending on the circumstances.
But if you feel like this makes the game feel more like the cyberpunk you want..go for it. 🙂
I don’t see any problem with the structure of these moves.
Currently these look like skill rolls, working the trigger would soften this impression. But as Riley said, it’s your game, your fun. Don’t worry too much
Thanks to all for your comments!
I agree that they are plainly based on the usual skills of most RPGs. Just felt that, in The Sprawl, there are different kind of approaches to social interactions (smooth, aggressive, contacts,…), but only one (Act Under Pressure) to cover different kind of physical actions. As said, I’d like to give more detail to the infiltration parts: sneaking below the guards noses, hiding smuggled items, etc. or rappeling down an archeology, jumping from the roof to a flying helicopter, …
Also, regarding Understand Technology, I envision it more like the kind of Move you use when finding on the spot something unidentified, not when you want to investigate something with time and resources (that would be Research for me). My idea comes from a cyberpunk world where technology appears faster (in the black market, using poor people as guinea pigs, giving it to newbies as field test subjects) than people can understand and know it. If the troupe gets into some corp lab to steal documents, and find a piece of strange and unknown technology attached to a dolphin, then Understand Technology is the Move I feel would be appropiate to get some idea what it all is about.
I guess that, at least, it won’t hurt to have those Moves written in a paper: if they are needed during a Mission because I can’t handle a situation any other way, there they are. If not, less to worry about. 😉
The thing is that Act Under Pressure includes all of the options you listed for Sneak and Athletics. All of these things can be included under “Offering a risk, a bad deal, or a difficult choice.”
And if you really want it to feel like a different approach to things, you could ask them to roll act under pressure but add meat instead of cool.
In the same way the majority of the questions in Understand Tech are already in Research and Assess, so you have made a new narrowed option to examine something that their are already options for.
For the records, Apocalypse World 2nd ed mentions this move from John Harper in the chapter about hacking the game :
When you infiltrate a place by stealth, roll+cool. On a 10+, both.
On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You get in.
• you go unnoticed.
On a miss, neither.
I think it’s a better option to let the PC choose the consequence, not the MC, but matter of personal opinion. AW games are based on the assumption of keeping the PC agency without giving them full authority.
For athletics I second Riley Crowder about acting under pressure.
About technology move : The point is to remember what is the purpose of a move in a pbta game. A move is not a skill to activate to do a check. The purpose of a move is to prepare the next move. The whole structure of the game is about elaborating a set of move, move by move, in a logical chain of causality. If your PC break the chain of causility, nice, you do a new one (you roll). If they don’t or they miss they roll, you do a hard move : an unavoidable move, irrevocable in its consequence. When designing moves, think of moves as links in a chain of causality you are building to do your hard move, think of them as “how it lets you set a new move”.
“When you infiltrate a place by stealth, roll+cool. On a 10+, both.
On a 7–9, choose 1:
• You get in.
• you go unnoticed.
On a miss, neither.”
Well, I’m sorry for John Harper, but this is a pretty bad move for an PbtA game. 7-9 is a success. Maybe not a complete success, maybe a success gained with pain and costs, but a success. So it’s quite bad, IMHO, to put in the list of options the option that enable success (ie. You get in).
Let’s suppose the player chooses “you go unnoticed”. This means that he couldn’t enter, but he escaped leaving no traces… Ie. “Nothing happen in fiction”. And rolls with “Nothing happens” is very bad, in PbtA games.
I could never use a move like that in a game of mine. I could have something like:
7-9 You get in, but (choose one):
– time is running out
– you were noticed
– it costs you a lot (specify)
– you miss something important that it’s happening near here
(this list was compiled in a minute – probably not the best one).