Author: Carl Gerriets

If you picked one PBTA game as the best for one player-one GM play, what would it be (and why)?

(I know, all of them can/have been made to work. I’m wondering which one/s might be well designed for that.)

Are there any PBTA games that are intentionally comedic? I’m not looking for suggestions like “You could totally play Monsterhearts for laughs”–I’m wondering if there are PBTA games that, like Paranoia and InSpectres, are written to set up the comedy.

When you open your mail, roll + Cool.

Barf forth apocalyptica: Fallen Empires

Probably will put together a FE one-shot, so how ’bout some folks give me some Fallen Empires style apocalyptica to get me in the mode?

I’m toying with a PBTA idea and wanted to see what people thought.

The idea is that instead of having stats, your character would have tags. A primary tag that kind of sums up what the playbook is about, maybe a couple of secondary tags that reflect specialized focus, and then other things on the character sheet would count too, if they seemed to apply. (Not your moves, they already give you something, but most anything else–if something in your look should really help, why not?)

Then when you roll, you just say what tags apply and count them up, to a max of +3. Like, I need to roll to intimidate this guy into shutting up, so I say that my primary tag is bruiser, so that helps, and I have a weapon with the tag big, that helps, so I roll at +2.

Theoretically, the GM might also count some things against me, like, “Hey, you have the condition Injured, so that will counter one of your tags this time.”

I worry that either the base idea or adding the GM bit might make it too messy or time-consuming, but I also kind of wonder if it could work. But maybe it’s better to just leave tags in the realm of the narrative rather than trying to tie them into moves.

Thoughts welcome.

(Cross-posted from RPGnet to diversify my feedback)

I’m again fiddling with a hack of Apocalypse World. The first idea I’m wanting to think through here is the idea of defining your character by two elements: role and identity.

Your identity is who you see yourself as. It probably defines your stats and some key moves. Your identity changes when you decide it does, probably tied to a certain level of advancement.

Your role is how the society around sees you. It probably gives you access to a few special moves, and maybe your starting role also affects starting gear or bonds or something. Your role changes when the fiction/GM say it changes.

This would (I think) make it easier to do the kinds of stories where people’s status can be fluid. (Like in [I]Defiance[/I], at first Amanda is the Mayor. That’s her role. When she loses the election, she takes on a different role (business owner or something), but her identity stays the same. 

So when your character with the “hot pop star” role tanks a crucial roll and gets humiliated on social media, the GM takes that role away, and you pick another one–“has been” or “outcast” or whatever.

Some roles might be official things recognized in the fictional world: sheriff, captain, mayor, dean of magical studies, “sexiest man alive,” whatever. Others would be less official roles: voice of wisdom, troublemaker, outcast, spirit booster.

I suspect this could be coupled with a game like Dungeon World to just add a more social/political element. You could use DW largely as written and just make appropriate roles to let people take on (kind of like compedium classes–and maybe in this case I’m just reinventing the wheel). 

Responses welcome, of course.