Author: Antti Lusila

I’ve been thinking about using skill levels in PbtA games as a major way of advancement. I like the general idea that you are well capable of doing things your career/archetype is supposed to be doing well, but only gain minor success when doing something that really isn’t part of the character’s “skillset” (you are unskilled in that area).

Now, if with an advancement you could take part of that character’s skillset and advance it to expert level. An expert in stealth could easily sneak through an enemy camp in standard readiness. The gm could ask for a roll but mainly to present complications to the situation on fail and present extra benefits for a risk – sneaking would still be generally successful.

An expert swordsman could manage 2 skilled opponents quite easily, 3 might require a roll, depending on circumstances. A Master (or Grandmaster, highest level) cuts through a group of skilled opponents with little difficulty. To defeat an opponent of higher skill, you need to do something special, going toe-to-toe makes you realize you are hopelessly outmatched unless you can create some good leverage for yourself.

There’s a few things I’m not sure how to handle; first, how should combats against unconventional opponents (mainly monsters) be handled? A master swordsman should do better against a giant than your standard trained fighter, but wouldn’t have as huge advantage as against a human opponent. Just some extra defy danger (etc) -rolls to avoid dangers presented by the monster, suffer less drawbacks from combat?

Maybe some skill levels in-between might be needed too, as becoming very competent in something is quite powerful. Presented by 1/session post-roll +1 in the skill (Skilled+ in swordsmanship)

Also, combat skills of various careers are also something a bit vague, and should perhaps be looked at case-by-case -basis. I guess any non-bookworm heroes (in a heroic setting) should be skilled in unarmed combat, thieves with a knife and another fitting weapon etc. Competence could also be offset by unfamiliar armor, and new competencies could be gained/old ones expanded in fiction.

So, what do you think of this? Can you see any other complications/drawbacks? Probably wouldn’t work in AW or other setting where you’re struggling to survive, but both in reality and in fiction there’s people on completely different level of competence in various skills.

Has anyone thought of combining PbtA with Savage World? I run Savage World for a few years and while I like the system, I didn’t find it all that fast and furious that I hoped. Now I’m very excited about PbtA and how it runs, but I really like a lot of the Savage settings there exists. Trying to avoid excessive amount of work converting settings into PbtA, I’m trying to think if there’s a simple way to use Savage stuff in a PbtA game (eg. Simple World). So, if you’d like to run a Pirates of the Spanish Main -game, you could look at the archetypes, select a few edges and convert them to work with PbtA rules (perhaps on the fly).

Any thoughts?

When you run a PbtA game, how much stuff you prepare, how much you wing and how much you you prompt from the players? Both important plot stuff and details? And for context, what ruleset/type of game?

As a PbtA rookie, I’m still trying to find best practices, and am currently running Uncharted Worlds. I think of a general plotline beforehand, but try to let the game run freely & improvise, and have been prompting way less I believe I should, so my games use perhaps 50%/45%/5%. But I’ve already discovered that when I prompt stuff from players, it tends to create an element of moderate or high importance to the game, although the effect tends to have bigger impact in the next session, where I’ve had time to ponder it a bit.

Speaking of preparation, how do you think of puzzles in PbtA games compared to ‘more traditional’ ones?

While AW is quite adult-themed, I’ve been thinking that the core system might work quite well for children, perhaps a bit streamlined. Has anyone tried running PbtA for children or made some kind of framework for this?