Category: Powered by the Apocalypse: ApWorld Settings

Remnant dev post.

I had a bit of a breakthrough in my understanding of the PBTA system. This is probably going to sound pretty yah-duh to most of you but I’ve been struggling for a while to wrap my head around the concepts. Most of my background is in video games where almost anything a developer wants the player to experience is driven mechanically. If I don’t think of a given mechanical lever to throw to encourage player behavior, I have no certainty of outcomes. As a result, most of my thinking thus far for Remnant has been rather brute force and obvious when it comes to systems.

As an example one of my latest efforts, Pangs, has seen a lot of rough and stupid ideas end up on the chopping block. Its supposed to be a PC’s desire which they find easy to race toward half the time, and the other half sits out of reach as they sink into their self loathing. My notion for the first was to make it a bit like Strings from Monster Hearts, but always on so long as an action is aimed toward reaching the goal, so bonuses in other words. When the player is in the morose state however the script needed to be flipped with the Pang providing debuffs as you reach toward it.

I presented this to a friend who is smarter than me and he asked why it needed a debuff? I was puzzled, how else do you tell the player that something is bad now, because you cant just do nothing, because that would suggest it’s normal or as valuable as anything else. My friend said the MC will handle that, going on to explain that just having the Pang at all was enough. But how?

“Your character has a car. As the MC I use ‘Take Away Their Stuff’. Now you dont have a car.”

It was a very pure rundown.

So getting back to the original point I’m working on some elements of the game, this time it’s Precious Memories. You need color to live in Remnant, and in a pinch you can eat your memories to do it. I wondered how the game would handle eating a memory associated with the learning of a skill, or of a friend, or of a bad scar, and what would happen in the game if you couldn’t remember something when there is evidence of it’s existence? It would leave a Hole in your memory, and on your character sheet.

Oh! My brain said excitedly, What sort of debuff does a Hole put on someone. Well… Losing a memory of a skill doesn’t take your muscle memory, it doesnt make your friend vanish, and the scar is still there physically on you. losing a memory is in no way debilitating, but it leaves a hole in your narrative.

It doesn’t do anything I realized. You just mark it down and move on. If your character is the type to find a gap in their memory uncomfortable, they’ll be motivated to do something about it in the fiction.

I don’t need a debuff to prod them. They’ll prod themselves!