So Apocalypse World, of course, uses stat line arrays where you choose one of a number of pre-set stat lines. This works well, in my opinion, because the conceptual design of the playbooks is so strong. This manifests not only with regards to the different playbooks’ main stat (the Brainer is always weird) but with regards to their secondary stats as well (X is always at least a bit Y / X is never Y).
On the other hand, many other PbtA games have free stat assignment, offering players more room to customize playbooks and playing them in different ways, leaning into different strengths or weaknesses.
Of course, different games will have different requirements, but do you have a personal preference? And what are the angles that I might be missing in how this choice affects a design?
PbtA stat line arrays or free assignment?
Dungeon World - arrange all 6 stats as desired, but no option to increase stats after char gen.
Monster of the Week - choose an array, but you can raise any stat after char gen.
So DW lets you start more competent, but MOTW gives you room to grow.
Most players like some amount of choice. Personally I like games with open choice for post char gen, so direction and breadth is up to you.
I don’t mind which get used. For games like Dungeon World the openness of the stats works well. For games with less stats or a much more intense focus (e.g. Monsterhearts), having one or two arrays to pick from is great. MH2’s descriptions also mentioning what kind of Skin you might want to experience with each array is a nice touch.
Stats are really the least interesting part about customizing your playbook. Dungeon World needs the versatility, others are better served with making it a quick and easy choice.
Stats in PbtA are not even that descriptive… they really just tell you what a character is more likely to get their way with or not.
That is really brought home by The Veil. If you got Mad +2 this does not mean you are an angry person. It just means that when acting out of anger you are much more likely to get what you set out to do.
In fact, a choleric character is likely one that has a bad Mad Stat but just uses it very often.
Your Apocalypse World character can still be sexy as hell with a low Hot, I feel. It’s just it gets you into more trouble than it gets you out of.
(Btw, in Dungeon World (with the weird Stat/Modifier confusion), you increase a Stat every level, leading to Modifier increases.)
That doesn’t sound familiar. Do you mean World Of Dungeons Or AWoD maybe?
So, it does matter where you put that 15 and 12.
Ahh ok, I’m glad you pointed that out! I haven’t started my campaign yet and the podcasts I’ve listened to never happened to detail a character leveling up so the stat increase went right under my radar.
shakes fist at podcasts skipping over XP and/or end of session stuff
Stat lines can be used for other things as well. For example, in Night Witches a non-commissioned officer begins the game more competent than a Junior Lieutenant, which makes a useful statement (NCOs are the ones who Get Shit Done) and also has some subtle in-game effects, like preventing a character who begins play as a Sergeant from ever leading the Regiment later in the game.
World Wide Wrestling has set stats for each wrestler, and then most playbooks can bump a stat up one and another stat down one, optionaly. I think it’s an intresting middle ground between assigning stats any which way and giving set stat lines. Similar to Night Witches, not all playbooks have even stat distribution which allows for playbooks like The Jobber (a wrestler whose purpose is to lose to other wrestlers) to hit their tone more consistently.
Just adding 1 to one stat is my preference too. Makes that process much quicker while still giving a significant choice to the player. Mathematically I don’t think it’s all that different from an array, but for me it’s clearer and easier to think about.
I like either the Monsterhearts style “Choose between those two predefined statlines”, or “add +1 to one stat in this otherwise predetermined statline”. I think free choice can be too much of a distraction for little gain. And it always gives me the feeling the designer hasn’t really thought about what they want the playbook to do?
I think free choice or multiple arrays makes sense in a system where the players have a large role in designing their own playbook. Dungeon World is one such example but there are others.
I like the minimalist approach of Bluebeard’s Bride. Each playbook has one stat filled in as +1, and can fill in the other two stats with 0 and -1. So the playbook has a built-in speciality, but the rest is a simple binary choice. This only works with a small array of stats, but it does make character generation sleek so you can get onto the suspense.
I quite like premade stat arrays. So much else of playbooks is ‘pick an option from this list” that it doesn’t seem odd to do the same for stat arrays, and a reduced choice makes choices a little easier than free assignment. Plus it reduces min/max temptation!
Another voice in favour of stat line arrays here (especially with the +1 option).
The real strength of PBTA games is that you can laser focus the design on a specific experience. You can have a set of Basic Moves and Skin moves which very precisely emulate a genre. I think that stat line arrays feed into that.
As a player I don’t want to be worrying that I’ll pick the ‘wrong’ stats for my character and my moves. The limitation of skin moves already means that my character is channelled in a particular direction - I want a steer on the stats that support that direction.
My approach in Last Fleet is similar to Bluebeard’s Bride, I guess. Each playbook has a fixed stat at +2, a fixed stat at -1, and then the remaining three are assigned freely at either +0/+0/+1 or -1/+1/+1. So you preserve the focused experience, with no risk of accidentally b0rking the playbook, but with some choice.
Honestly as a player I couldn’t care less whether I get a choice or not. I like choosing moves, because they’re interesting. Stats are kind of boring, so if the designer wants to limit my choices I’m fine with that. If they want me to choose, fine, I can manage that.
And then there is the game Liberte (there should be an accent over the e, but this keyboard doesn’t support that) that has no stats, but uses Black Bile (aka Melancholy) as a currency players spend to improve their changes to succeed, although if they roll too well, then the consequences of success come home to roost as well. Black bile is ‘earned’ when the character is humiliated, shunned, etc. (varies by playbook), which drives character interactions in an intense and interesting way, since you want to have at least some Black Bile handy.