Technology in PbtA games – some thoughts
Technology in PbtA games – some thoughts
TLDR: Unrestrained technologies undermine the mechanics of PbtA games, and what works best in technology rich settings is a) give the the character’s moves priority, and b) constrain the rate at which characters can acquire enhancing technologies.
Working on both a Steampunk and a Sci-fi PbtA hack really focuses the mind on the question of how best to incorporate technology into a PbtA game without turning that game into a technology arms race.
Sci-fi and steampunk are, by definition, settings where people use technologies that enhance their abilities; allowing them to do things they couldn’t otherwise (e.g. grav belt) and making them better at things they can do (e.g. power arm).
Technologies that give the characters new options in the fiction are easy to handle because they are effectively the same, in terms of gameplay, as a player coming up with an inventive way to handle a situation or moving the adventure into new territory (e.g. underwater). These technologies don’t require change to the game itself, just enjoyment of the fiction they open up.
It’s the things that make the characters existing abilities more powerful that are more challenging.
For example: How do you handle a character who picks up a target tracking gun-sight?
– Do they simply +1 on their shooting rolls, knowing that will a) make them as good a shot as someone who invested an improvement to their skills to get that good, and b) reduce the chances of interesting fiction happening (7-9 and 6- rolls) in combat.
– Do they need a special move for the upgrade?
– What if they later add a second upgrade to their gun (e.g. hunter-seeker bullets)?
What about an automated lock picker?
– Does this add +1 to attempts to pick locks?
– Does it work automatically on most locks and require a roll only on the most complex locks?
– And if this device makes the ‘thief’ character’s hard won lock picking skills redundant?
The technologies in these two examples make the character who uses them them more powerful. But do they make for better fiction? Do they make the game more exciting? More interesting?
There is also the problem of technology making characters’ own moves redundant.
I’ve come to the conclusion that unrestrained technologies actually undermine the mechanics of PbtA games – which makes hacking AW for technology rich settings of sci-fi and steampunk a challenge.
What seems to work best is when the power resides in the characters’ own moves, and accumulation of enhancing technologies is constrained either by a fictional mechanism (e.g. scarcity, high cost, available only to certain playbooks, etc.) or by tying it in to the characters development path (in effect making the technology just another sort of character move).
That’s my take on this.
What are your thoughts?
