I ran Fear of the Unknown over the weekend and wanted to know if others have played it and their thoughts. The town and character creation I thought worked really well and did get things flowing. I felt the move set worked well for everyone, none of us having any experience with PBtA games. The only thing that we all found a bit clunky was the +tag bit on the roll mechanic. It seemed to slow things down to a crawl and wind up with a lot of shrugs of sure why not.

Hey folks, running my first Brindlewood Bay campaign, and very excited to get into it, but a little intimidated as it's my first PBtA campaign, and my first time DM'ing anything beyond a oneshot.

At session 0, one of my players asked how often they are are allowed to use their maven move - once per mystery? And does that apply for each player (eg if player 1 uses her maven move in mystery 1, does that mean no other player can use their maven move for that mystery?)

I know it's very flexible and can definitely be up to the Keeper, but was wondering if anyone has any guidance for how often they allow players to use Maven Moves? (just as guidance while im finding my feet w the system)

I've been scouring the handbook and reddit threads, and I know Maven Moves should only make up about 20% of the player's moves, and only used in narrow circumstances. But should I limit my players (as a general rule of thumb) to 1 maven move per mystery, per player? (unless it makes narrative sense and we can justify more of course)

i love that the Maven moves are another aspect of the character's backstory/individual skills, and want to encourage my players to really embrace and use them, but i dont want to just give them carte blanche with it so they are too OP, if that makes sense.

Thanks in advance for all your help - i know the nature of the game is very open and flexible, but would really appreciate input on where to start on this!

Yeah. That. How would you handle this?

Check out this crowdfunding campaign if you haven't already -- I've played The Seventh Order and can testify that it's an excellent game with a concept that's just cool as hell (pun not intended): you're average nobody security guards tasked with facing down the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It uses Carved from Brindlewood mechanics and has a slew of awesome mysteries illustrated with some wicked art: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/plus-one-exp/kingdoms-carved-combo

It's a two-game campaign, and I don't know any more about the other game than what's in the campaign, that you play card-wielding students at some kind of weird school where you duel. It also looks like it has rad art, though.

The Seventh Order actually got a shout out on a sizable D&D channel just today: https://youtu.be/nkjs6ccvHQ4?t=340

Anyway, give it a look and consider backing!

Hey all,

Not sure if this counts as an advertising post, as there is no plan for us to make profit from it, but figured I would share the link to our new Actual Play for Stonetop. Hope you enjoy!

https://youtu.be/D1ls1k2LinQ?si=muTNQlc4zjjS2kBm

When setting up a clock, you establish an increasing threat that will occur at certain narrative beats (summarizing).

Players all know there is a clock, but do you keep the aspects hidden, or reveal them in advance. My assumption is that players (and characters) will find out the next event as it occurs, but I can see some added tension if they know in advance what will happen if they fail to push on.

I'm thinking of in a game like Dungeon World or Chasing Adventure, where the some cult kidnapped people and the party is trying to rescue them. The clock could look something like:

1. Cultists in drunk revelry
2. Ritual Begins, strange sounds heard in dungeon
3. First sacrifice occurs, gateway opens. The dead awaken.
4. Second sacrifice occurs, lesser demon exits gate to prepare way for its master. Cultists become frenzied
5. Final sacrifice occurs, the greater demon P'tual enters the world.

Laying that out on the table at the start could put some more tension on their chose of resting to recover (advancing the clock) or pushing onwards to beat the fail-state of the final step (fail for the mission, not the game of course).

Or is the tension better kept by keeping them in the dark of what is next, hinting at it by the situation evolving as the clock ticks?

I'm cooking a game right now and using tremulus playbooks with MOTW style episodes. I love playing PBTA. It's perfect for the kind of storytelling we want to see: fast combat and pure freedom.

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

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If you've been introduced to wargames, you might be familiar with Trench Crusade, which uses a 2d6 system vs a range of successful/unsuccessful results which at the surface level look similar to PbtA style games.

One thing it does it instead of flat modifiets +2 to -3, it has character attributes which add additional d6s. Always adding more dice, but the positive/negative effect of the additional dice decides whether you keep the highest 2d6 or the lowest 2d6 from the pool.

Have any PbtA games done this?

At a glance, the math makes it seem like with ±1d6, it's fine, but ±2d6 and ±3d6 make the character exageratedly much better and much worse than their normal "static modifier" counterparts in normal pbta games.

Super simple question. In Masks: A New Generation. If you fail the roll when Rejecting Influence, do you get a potential?

This thread from Vincent Baker is a great read on a common misread of PbtA move structure, and so I wanted to share it here too.

Hey gang! I’ve recently hosted a successful Masks oneshot and the group loved it. But I gotta say, I think despite reading through the material, there were a couple of instances where we couldn’t quite find a ref for what was happening on our table. We ended up just coming up with our own rulings on some of these, but I’d still like to know what (if any) is the correct answer. So I figured, I’d ask the Veterans here for some assistance/clarifications.

1. ⁠One player chose the “Lose Control of yourself/your powers…” as an option upon Taking a Powerful Blow (They we’re thrown at a nearby building.) This is more fictional Vs mechanical but couldn’t quite work out how to utilize the prompt. The player basically had Super Soldier level abilities (Janus Playbook), and upon getting thrown at a building, I couldn’t quite come up with a way to display uncontrollability as I would Cyclops beams going haywire, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’m just not as creative as I thought.
   
2. ⁠Provoke Someone Vs Comfort/Support. There was an instance in the session where one of the player addresses the public and I seriously thought they were trying to calm them down during a chase sequence. The player (very much respectfully) corrected me and suggested that he was aiming more to provoke the villain in unveiling themselves because during his speech he called them insignificant/minor threat. Naturally I went with his suggestion, I’m always more open to listen to my players especially since it’s their scene and I want them to own it. But I am curious if certain situations arise and I have to make my own call on wether I think they’re leaning more into one Move Vs the other.
   
3. ⁠Influence is very much confusing and it’s follow up Rejecting Influence falls in the same boat for us. I think I have a clear understanding of what it does though, but I think it’s interactions can feel confusing at times. For instance I understand that when someone has Influence over a PC says something meaningful/hurtful/etc to them, they can shift their labels. I dictate the labels being shifted and they can choose wether to accept or reject them. Simple enough. But what if an NPC who already has influence, takes influence further via a miss/or a shift in the fiction. Mechanically, it says that they get to shift labels in a similar fashion as earlier. Is this also rejectable? Or is this a separate utilization of influence? What happens if this occurs between PCs shifting eachother’s labels upon gaining further influence? Is that rejectable too? What about Taking advantage of Influence, is that also rejectable?

Anyways I have a few more questions but I think I’ll stick to those for now. Hope I can get some insight because I’m really enjoying the system. Certain things just bug me and that new user feel is definitely sticking around for a bit.

We never ran Brindlewood Bay, but ran other PBtA games before. Are there hacks or recommendations for how to run this game while keeping only the cozy murder mystery vibes without any occult stuff? Especially since this is a one-shot, we will not care that much about an overarching plot.

We would like cozy fall vibes, small-town mystery, elderly women, crocheting, baking etc.

Salve!

Conoscete un gioco di ruolo adatto o adattabile per one-shot o bi-shot in cui si interpretano personaggi dell'ombra, servitori dell'oscuro signore Sauron?

Con tono piuttosto serio.

Grazie!

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

r/PbtA is affiliated with the PbtA discord and you're all welcome to click and join us there as well.

As being an OSR where things must be dificult, and clever thinking and tactical approaches should be rewarded to achieve success, 2d6 bell curve makes 7 the most common roll meaning success with complications. Besides that the character itself usually will add a tag to the roll, making success always more probable than failure. I sense that’s something odd for a OSR.

So I think of making 7- failure, 8-10 partial success and only 11+ total success. Making anyone always take an effort to secure a +1 to try an action, while trying something with “nothing” a great failure.

What are your thoughts?

EDIT: d'oh! we're playing MASKS.

This hasn't happened to me yet but I could see my new players trying something like it. Not sure what I would do. Make him roll for it? Once or one for each PC? What if he's determined to use that every time someone takes a condition? It just feels against the spirit of the format. What would you do?

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

r/PbtA is affiliated with the PbtA discord and you're all welcome to click and join us there as well.

I'm trying my hand at game design and I was looking for the game theory behind moves. I've played some pbtas and I understand how they work; what I wanted to know is how this design (triggers, 3 levels of success, etc) helps achieve the goals of a narrative game, what is the fundamental difference between it and rolls for other games, etc.

If you have some sources or references to redirect me, I would also love. I'm reading Vincent Bakers blog and I think the answer to this might be there somewhere, but I didn't get there yet. Anyway, all contributions are helpful :) thanks in advance

I mean those moments when the party goes out together just to hang out, or when they have to do something with an NPC — a date, a birthday party, helping someone with something personal, etc.

How do you make these scenes feel meaningful instead of like the party is just wasting time?

I’m especially curious about how you handle it when someone inevitably goes, “Guys, we have a villain to stop / the world to save, and we’re seriously doing this right now?”

(We'll play Masks, but it's a general question to other systems)