Author: Chris Mitchell

Implied setting or fleshed out?

Which do you prefer? Most PbtA games are implied settings. I think almost all of Vincent’s games are implied settings. But I’ve always loved the sort of early 90s games that had these big fleshed out settings. With the crazy success of 7th Sea, I think other people do as well. What are the plusses and minuses for you? Why don’t indie games have fleshed out settings?

An Simple Observation

In Apocalypse World, a move’s trigger (the when you do x…) is character facing and the effect (…then y) is player facing. For the most part (i.e. most moves), the move is then over. THEN we reincorporate the choice or result into the fiction, using GM Agenda and Principles.

This is the fiction/real world/fiction dip-and-surface that makes the PbtA language so speedy and elegant at the table. It also forces a bit of “immersion” (not in a Forge way, I can’t do that today) in that it forces a correlation of “you”s.

EXAMPLE: When you (Grekkor the Gunlugger) read a charged situation, then you (Chris the Player) roll + sharp. On a hit, you (Chris the Player) can ask the MC questions. Then the MC reincorporates the move into the fiction like a puzzle piece.

COROLLARY: You could also write moves as player facing (When you, the player, chooses x….), then character facing (….then you, the character, does y), without breaking the PtbA language as such. This is a more traditional way of resolving task and conflict.

EXAMPLE: When you (Chris the Player) want to reduce the hitpoints of the MCs monster, then roll a d20. On a hit, then you may describe how you (Grekkor the Gunlugger) attack the monster. Then the MC reincorporates the fiction into the monsters mechanical stats by removing the hitpoints.

DISCLAIMER: My observations are not smart. They’re just a way for me to organize my thoughts about a specific problem I’m having at the table or in one of the mini-hacks I do. The public nature is simply a pressure to force me to not go entirely off the rails of reason.

SECONDARY DISCLAIMER: Chris the Player is what they called me when I slept with your dad. What’s up? High five? No? Okay.

Yeah, this video IS an important influence on the RPG setting I’m making. I’m still a good person. Trust me.

https://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU

Do I spend a few hours working on my game, or do I wait and see if Elaine from Ghostbusters’ prediction about the end of the world comes true….?

Yeah, I’ll wait til Monday. Don’t want to waste my time if stuff goes down.

Space feudalism…

I think the community’s failure (yeah, I’m using that word, I realize it’s loaded) to create a Game of Thrones “hack” is really interesting. This morning I read every hack since 2010. None of been finished. For a property that is as popular as GoT, it’s clear many people want one. And it’s not just this community. Going back to Birthright, pre-GoT, the noble houses battling it out for the throne has been an dream of the RPG community at large.

I guess I’m just curious in other’s feeling on the subject.

My own thoughts are that the subject matter of noble houses competing politically is simply narratively difficult in any medium. Even in ASOIAF (a arguably successful example), the premise breaks apart fairly quickly into a bunch of solo characters running about the world. It “splits the party”, so to speak.

Reminded tonight of a conversation I had at GenCon in either 2009 or 10, when Apocalypse World was ramping up. I was excited by the idea of fictional triggers and how by using sentences, you could present stats as evocative moves rather than numbered increases.

I asked Vincent Baker if you really even needed stats. Couldn’t you, I opined, just present different versions of the same basic moves for each playbook without making the stats into, like, stats.

He said: “I don’t know. luke crane told me people like stats.”

That’s good game design advice.

Thoughts in the Shower, A One Act Play

By Chris Mitchell. 

“Color first? But … the color  ….. so specific …. so many specifics…. take out the color? Choose your own color? Maybe? No … the color stuff is way evocative… need that…. how to do specific evocative color for many, many, many situa – 

Gahhhhhh.”

Death.

Fin.

.

The hocus/skinner in Perfume is better than your character.

A move:

Rumors

When you dip your toes in the water, socially, roll + (whatever).

On a 10, you get the skinny on whatever Fronts have a clock at 6 o’clock.

On a 7-9, the same but for Fronts at 9.