I’m trying to write my own PbtA/FitD game and I wondered if anyone has advice for using a “template” of sorts, just to get the basic structure of components (describe the setting, lay down some principles, have some playbooks with moves, then give some general advice for playing the game, etc.). Should I look at AW 2e, or another game?
What do people think are good templates to emulate?
Thanks in advance!
Basic Structure of an RPG?
3 Likes
Honestly, I’d say to grab whatever is feasible for your budget; also look at the freely available move and GM sheets for various games to get an idea of what most of the mechanical core looks like. Monsterhearts 2 and Masks are good, straightforward ones here.
Also, see what play experience you can get; for me, at least, watching the game get played helps me get an image of how it’s set up and works together.
Things you want, in my opinion:
- Basic moves that serve as the main verbs for your game. What are the pivot points for the narrative you want to see? Don’t be afraid to get a little unusual here.
- MC principles and reaction moves are a very good idea, since they say a lot about where you want games to go.
- Barebones playbooks are nice but not necessary, and it might not be a bad idea to see how the core game plays out first.
- A few words about the setting are a decent idea but not necessary here.
- Any random ideas you have should be captured somewhere.
This might seem like it’s leaving a lot out, and that’s because I think you should start with a prototype. See how the main game plays out before you add more. As you put things to paper, you’ll also notice where stuff feels missing, or you’ll try it out with people and notice where stuff is absent. That’s normal, work things out and go on ahead!
4 Likes
Do you mean structuring a game design in general or a rulebook specifically? For the latter, I really like the detailed and well-structured way The Veil and Monsterhearts 2 discuss stuff, both in terms of using specific game mechanics and setting up and handling the game in general. They’re pretty easy to navigate, I find. Apocalypse World itself is great for that, too. You could take a look at these (and other) games, and compare how they structure their content; see what they handle similarly, and where they diverge.
Keep in mind that people probably won’t read the rulebook front to back, but flip through and read some bits while totally ignoring others; they’ll go in a random order, and just take what they need in that exact moment. When writing and structuring the book, don’t necessarily assume a reader has read the previous part.
This is also important, especially when discussing playbooks, moves and principles in the book: Are you writing for MCs/GMs or for any sort of player?
Apocalypse World specifically addresses MCs for example, which is reflected in the content, writing and structure of it’s book. Monsterhearts 2 and The Veil are meant to be read by anybody playing the game. Who are your writing for?
As far as game design goes (I assume you weren’t talking about that, but I’ll throw it in here anyways), there are these two, which do a good job at providing an overview of structuring a PbtA-design:
8 Likes
At Metatopia 2016 @lumpley have a great talk about pbta design. Sadly the audio was lost. The slides are here but are not super useful without actually hearing what Vincent was saying. (In my opinion that is working as intended for a presentation.)
On page 9 of that presentation is a pretty clear route you can take:
- Figure out the genre you are trying to emulate/interrogate
- Figure out the character types you generally see in stories in that genre (These will be your playbooks.)
- Figure out the adjectives you would apply to those categories and look for the overlaps (These likely will become your stats)
- Look for actions the characters generally perform. (Those that are common to all the character types would be Basic Moves and those unique to the character types would be Playbook moves)
- Finally, look at what happens to the characters in stories of the genre, how the world reacts to their presence and actions (this data will point you towards the MC moves)
Jason Pitre spoke directly with the Bakers as a redo of the panel. It’s a good chat and definitely worth a listen if you want to do pbta design, but I feel the original presentation spoke to a number of practical points that were not covered in the interview.
12 Likes
Thanks for those links! Reminds me of a Google hangouts talk that used to be on YouTube where I think Gregor Vuga, Jonathan Walton, Adam Koebel, Sage LaTorra and John Harper (I may have some of those wrong) talked about making PbtA games. It was really good and I’m sad it’s no longer available as far as I could see.
There’s also a talk from RopeCon in Finland on the subject by Jason Morningstar and Steve Segedy.
3 Likes
DC, of Mutants in the Night and plot ARMOR fame, put together a great video explaining what they call Circle Theory. Its a way of introducing players to your game’s setting by starting with big picture stuff and then gradually giving details that are more relevant to the characters in that world.
Helped me wrap my head around how to introduce people to my settings:
7 Likes
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! I appreciate the input and help.
Next question, if I may…
The game that I am trying to write involves three “crew” or party playbooks, which I think are distinct from one another. It’s a very large setting with many different worlds and genres and as a group, the players decide whether they want to be Guardians, Explorers or Interlopers, and I was thinking that I should take inspiration and maybe have slightly different core mechanics depending upon which mode of play is chosen.
For example, if Guardians, try to emulate Masks or Worlds in Peril to try to enforce the idea of teamwork. And if the group chooses to be Explorers, use AW to enforce the idea of scarcity, and if Interlopers, Urban Shadows, to use factions and corruption as a cornerstone. Or maybe I should just look to Worlds in Peril, since each character’s origin (which world they come from) should be central to who they are?
1 Like
I would be careful with trying to go too wide in the genres you are emulating/interrogating in a pbta design. Usually the tighter the genre focus the better - since in general pbta games pare down their move lists to focus the play experience - based on the genre.
6 Likes
Yeah, that makes me wonder if PbtA is the right sort of system to use for the “setting” that I’m working on. It’s a multiverse, so encompasses many different sorts of settings. What I’m trying to do is give the overarching multiverse setting enough of a framework to grab onto that it is essentially its own thing, sort of like Roger Zelazny did with Amber. But being somewhat new to improv and sandbox style games, I keep wrestling with trying to keep the multiverse setting itself open and mutable in case a group wants to create their own multiverse meta setting and there’s the added complexity of it being a multiverse itself-- so the playbooks themselves are also open enough to fit different settings and genres.
I think Fate Accelerated probably is the best system that I know of for something like this, but I’ve kind of moved away from it for simplicity’s sake. I love the simplicity of 2d6 (6-, 7-9, 10+) and using playbooks, versus all the stuff I see as “cruft” in Fate.
2 Likes