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(2 edits)

Given that all player sentences start at +0 and the fact that players will (generally) be the ones acting, are they expected to fail basically every conflict until they can get a few +1s? I know there's a few ways to get temporary boosts, but once those are leveraged, is a new character just hosed in any conflict with any sentence, since they'll never encounter anything they can natively beat as the actor? I understand that as a narrative game you shouldn't expect to "win" or whatever, but I also feel like as a player I'd be looking at my sheet, doing the math, and getting a little annoyed that I have literally no chance of success in any conflict (as the actor) against any sentence without using my Token. Am I missing something here?

edit: I forgot how honing works. I think between that and your Token you should have enough of a shot to not feel totally useless as an actor with a new character. I do think I need to wait for the full version of the game because even after reading the whole thing, I don't really understand what the player characters are supposed to do beyond "have adventures." I think a specific campaign frame or similar would be really helpful to guide new GMs and give us a more grounded way to pitch the game to our groups.

(+4)

A GMing guide is on my list for the full release for sure!  A lot of play testers have been able to get campaigns up and going with what’s here, so I’m confident it does work.


One important note: the PCs should NOT be the only ones doing things, or be the primary Actors. This game doesn’t work only on “what do you do,” it requires “Someone is trying to use [sentence X] with [Y intent], can anyone counter that?”

(+2)

Thanks for the reply! In a similar way to how a D&D player might ask "how do you determine initiative," when trying a PbtA game, I think I'm so focused on prompting the players for action that the idea of having NPCs be the ones starting conflicts just didn't feel "right" to me. If there's supposed to be lots of give-and-take, and lots of countering from the players, the math feels a lot better.