Thread by @ActionEconomy

I had some stuff to say re: @rdonoghue's thoughts on PbtA PCs "going too far". So here we go: Six thoughts.
What are stats about
Why I’m over them
What’s this alternative
Why I love it as a player
Why I love it as a GM
How you can integrate it.
(thread)

First-Wave PbtA stats ask us to define our characters. It's an interesting question, once. It's interesting because they're evocative, the choices are restricted, and the moves tie inherently into how you'll interact with the game. It's the player flagging how they want to play

All Choppers are Hard+2, but are you Hot and Hard? are you Cool and Hard? The player's decision speaks to what we can expect of that character. Go Hot, we're going to see your connections and relationships, go Cool, we're going to see some bullets. Very interesting...once

Because once the decision is made, it's so static. Were I @bccook i'd call them STATic. The decision gets made and then just kind of flops onto the table. You say you're a gunlugger with +2 Weird and everyone goes "OOOOOH!" and then it just gets old and normalised.

In Trad games like D&D this is even worse because they use a swingier die, and game itself is more built around an idea of a challenge curve. Your 12 INT, 16 STR wizard is really interesting on session one, but then you get frustrated, your teammates get let down. it's a mess.

Because again, it's static. Even if you really enjoy playing ButchWiz, that's totally cool, but you're telling the same story over and over because you're ALWAYS 16 Strength, and it never means anything more than it did the first time you said those numbers to your friends.

So, why I'm over them. I love Night Witches, I do. But I really can't help but not give a shit about stats. For one thing, they tend to carry much less impact numerically (some characters will be +0 all around), and a lot of moves roll without stats.

Reach Out is one of the most interesting moves in Night Witches, and it doesn't use a stat at all. There's not really a way to Model +Feelings in the traditional PbtA system. So I was playing Night Witches and just...not giving a shit about stats. But NW has a better stat!

There's an element to NW called "mission pool" and it's tenfold more interesting than the stats are. Day moves (including Reach Out above) have the option to Add Pool on success. In Night Moves (bombing runs) players can choose to spend this resource to increase results

The benefit is a) It encourages Day Move behaviour, b) it let's players choose when to succeed and when to eat dirt, and c) it's interesting EVERY TIME. When you REACH OUT, do you want to remove harm (yes plz) or gain mission pool (also yes please), you can choose only one. VIVID

Then when you roll poorly on navigate, do we want to spend this valuable mission pool (you'll have 2-4, probably) to bump it up? Is it worth spending on an ENEMY FIRE 7-9? The economy of mission pool makes it so much more interesting, ups and downs.

But mission pool ALWAYS has to be scarce. It has to be fought and scraped for, because if you had a lot of it, it'd stop being interesting. But, again, to summon @bccook "Mo' dice, Mo' fun". We want a solution that carries a whole "stat" system on it's own, and mission pool can't

Because if every move granted mission pool, it's a boring choice. if every move demanding mission pool, spending it is a boring choice. Scarcity works great for Night Witches, but how do we make it work for, say, Monsterhearts? Scarcity and monsterhearts are not common themes.

Pin monsterhearts. We're going to talk about ANOTHER game that does stats interestingly.

@frasersimons The Veil is a game that cares more about How you do it than What you do. it doesn't ask your strength, it says "do you succeed more when you're powerful, or when you're sad?"

This is a really cool way of asking the question. Each move is decoupled from a stat, so I can roll to kick someone's ass with any states. Presents an interesting question: If "Joyful" is my highest, and I want to use that, then I describe my character "joyfully" kicking ass.

I remember hearing once that it tells interesting fiction either way: You're the "always mad guy" in which case you succeed a lot, spike out, and end up in trouble. Or you're the varied kaleidoscopic character. You can't escape being cool. But it's still all about competence.

You see PbtA inherently has this Tiered success system.
6- = Bad things happen.
10+ = Good things happen.
7-9 = Good and bad things happen.

Which is kind of fine, but it's a very singular lens that we've just kind of accepted as truth. The way that moves are written show it.

From Fellowship:
10+: You do the thing really good, and get a good version
7-9: You do the thing alright, and get a lesser version

This is the ludonarrative harmony of Big Number = Bigger Outcome, Littler Number = Littler Outcome.

Our brains find a disconnect on moves where Littler Number = Bigger Outcome. There's a level of ludonarrative dissonance there. It doesn't, instinctively, feel right. And this is kind of all over Monsterhearts 2, because much of the complication of that game comes from OVERFEELS

So if we're making a game about feelings, or about how characters do things, about motivations and not ability scores, we need to change our layout.
6 - = Miss, you didn't put in enough.
7-9 = You gave it enough to succeed.
10+ = You gave it too much, you go too far.

(Added benefit that all of the moves can then be framed as "You the PC go too far and create a complication, what do you do and what complication does it cause" which preserves both the Harper Line and its effects on player complicity)

So, pin MH again, and we're going to talk about different kids. In 2017 I played a game called Liberte, by @Mangelune. Then French only, now with an English quickstart to be released shortly I believe. No disclosure required here, no conflicts.

In Liberte you have a single stat. It is called Black Bile and they represent your character's anxiety or stress. Because Liberte is dark portal-fiction about 9-13 year olds. It very much lives in anxiety or stress. Aaaaand it's changed how I look at PbtA.

Now there's a lot going on in this, and we're going to pin some of it.
Pin the following:
"I take"
"Each token invested"
"Beware, 5 tokes = explode"

Pin count is getting high, but i promise I'll deliver on all.

First we're going to start with "I take"

Black Bile is an economy. Take it when your character does childlike things that generate stress and anxiety: in pain, scared, angry, isolated, betrayed. As a player you make the choice to "take" a token from the middle, and by doing so, you tell the table.

That's a big moment, when you turn to the table and say "hey, y'all, this made me feel a bad way'. It's a window in to the character's mind, and an invitation to push harder. "As a player, I'm engaged, as a character, I'm hurt." Cf: The Quiet Year and contempt tokens.

Compare these two triggers from the Brute and the Lil One and you'll see the other benefit. Like mission pool, because Black Bile empowers moves, it offers us an opportunity as designers to incentivise certain character behaviour. Play your brute tough but isolated and get more!

Unpin "each token invested". Once you have some Bile, you want to spend it to do things, right? But it seems easy, because it's so free-flowing, and because I as a player get to define how much I have, why not just spend 5 all the time, because big numbers = good results?

There's a move called Confide. It's like Reach Out, right?
7- is a miss.
8-10 is "We connect and remove harm and stuff"
11+ is...well it's "I go too far"

Because remember Black Bile isn't COMPETENCE, it's STRESS. It's ANXIETY. Spending 3 Black Bile means "oh god I'm anxious and I put a lot of emotion into this!" and I'm more likely to succeed! But I'm also way more likely to go too far and "trouble them or shock them".

By the way, the numbers are different (7- is a miss) for math reasons. I'm not a math enby. But it does make the success curve shift so that spending more black bile is a better chance of success (but also a better chance of over the top). It's- Actually it's very functional

Unpin "5 tokens = I explode" cause it's my Favourite sleeper good shit in this.

So, a character is just getting more and more hurt, but they're not making any moves, so they've got all these resources and suddenly (remember mission pool) it stops being an interesting decision!

So, when you have 5 in front of you, there's been this weird dialogue happening between you and the table, right? So what's happened is: You've said "i'm interested, I'm engaged" and the game has either failed to give you an opportunity to roll, or it's uninteresting to roll

So like, you've got a CONFIDE move with no stakes, so you're like, I dunno, I'll spend 1 Bile, I guess. But then you're still floating four and something bad happens (BECAUSE YOU ONLY SPENT ONE!) and so you take a few more.

The game has this valve for that, it's called Explode and it's dope AF. As a GM I see a player with 5 Black Bile and they're saying "HI I'M FULL OF ANXIETY AND STRESS" and I say "Marco, what's the worst thing you could say to Riko right now?"

And shiiiiit son we're on that Explode train. Your anxiety is boiling. Blow some of it off and hopefully don't say something really dumb. But hey you probably will because you're spending 3! And now you're a) down to 2, and b) on a snowball that is going to have you making moves!

Taking Bile is an invite, not spending it is a challenge, and exploding is a gift. It's LEGIT and I love it to pieces. So let's talk about why I love it so, and how I've used it in my designs. Cause this thread is a bit on the short side.

As a player, I love it, because even when I'm not in a scene I get to be a part of something. Riko kisses Lina. Well shit I feel like a third wheel, gimmie that black bile. Fry throws his weight around, well I feel powerless, gimmie that BB, baby!

Then I get to CHOOSE how much to spend based on how emotional I am, then whatever the result is I feel like it's my fault! I'm like "ah I should have spent more" or "Nah I spent 3, this was always gonna go bad". Or I'm "YEAH! I spent 3 because I knew I'd roll snakeyes sometime!"

As a player, I feel complicit in everything. As a player I'm engage and I'm driving action with my character's emotions. And because it's PbtA, my Moves are triggering my playmates to take Black Bile and I feel great because it's mechanised applause, right?

I go to Fry's best friend and tell him that Fry has been talking shit about him, and the best friend believes me. cool. Fry takes a token to show me that hurt his feelings? COOLER! Fry spends that token to rally a gang to sort me out? COOLEST!

As a GM I love it because it's Flags all the way day. Players are showing me how their characters feel constantly. "I want to tell Lina I love her." "Okay Riko, how nervous are you about this?". And every answer thrills me as a GM! 0 is great! 3 is perfect! I just want to know

As a GM it shows me when players want to be brought into the game but haven't had the chance, and it gives me a chance to swing spotlight around. If you're amassing Black Bile, I just get to throw you neck deep right away. And you've got the tools in hand to deal with the threat

So we've got a system that is a) a fluid economy, that is b) expressive, and c) always interesting, that d) encourages player behaviour toward the goals of the game, while e) allowing for personal expression of the character. HOW IS THIS NOT THE NEW HOTNESS?

So here's how to integrate it into a design. I hacked Dogs in the Vineyard to work as PbtA for a game or two before I hit some issues with it, but stats never felt right.

Even in Vineyard, acuity and knowledge and whatever never really felt like good stats for me

Something about it was like "I don't care how booksmart or fit these dogs are, what I really care about is how the demons touch them". So that's what I focused the game around. Remember: Fluid, Expressive, Drives behaviour. The FED system. As in I'm FED UP WITH STR WIS AND CON.

So, in this game, you take "Demonic Influence" which powers you. Take it when you bear witness to darkness, and spend it to do dark things (in the name of goodness, of course). Roll too high and you go too had, driven by demons.

This is my explode move: Feel the Influence of Demons. Same deal. "Brother Josiah, that little voice, deep in your head, what's the terrible thing it's asking you to do right now"
"It says to beat the truth outta the Doctor."
"Sounds like you're feeling the influence of demons."

Actually, just In Support Of showing Reach Out, and Confide before, here's my move for that same space.

This move SLAPS. Players love it. It's predicated on this idea that you have to confess your own weakness to them, and be empowered by own demons. Ah it does so much.

So, it's fluid, for the reasons we've said.

It's expressive because of other systems, and the fact that players will find different things to be markers of sin, and different characters have different triggers.

And it Drives Behaviour because it drives players down.

(this game is much more explicitly about Dogs succumbing to the demons they face. That's a big part of Vineyard, but it's like the central thesis of this game).

And that is where I would like to see more PbtA design go. Toward a system of fluid and expressive design more than a system of static, boring definitions.

But that's just my feelings, and it doesn't mean anything until you chime in. Your lens is critical to this!

Thank you for your patience, your interest, and your joy.

End thread. Rest. Hydrate.

@threadreaderapp, could you please unroll, mate?

Many thanks, as always.