Thanks for the mention! I’ve also been thinking on threats lately and this has helped me dig into it more. Also, when isn’t Mausritter a fantastic example am I right?
I love any attempt in putting together modules to boil off any unnecessary fat -- your own maps show a similar process I think! But Factions/Threats are a resilient feature of any really great adventure, it seems to me!
I'll tell you what, especially as I get ready to blog about stuff like my timekeeping procedures: It's really hard to not just look at what Mausritter has and lightly adjust according to taste. It's just so elegant.
I’m gonna come right out and say that I really don’t like PBTA and I think the concept of ‘Moves’ as a granular (player facing) mechanic is stifling. This is strictly my personal prejudice. But I really like what you’ve done here to use the basic concept to abstract factions just enough to make them usable in a low-prep context while also giving them a concrete identity, an agenda and assets that can be slotted in to play.
You know, that's a really interesting dichotomy that I think is neat to explore -- 'Moves' as a player mechanic, and 'Moves' as a GM mechanic, which are totally different even within PbtA.
For player moves, I might agree that I don't often love them as the engine of how players interact with the world. Sometimes, my players want to act and roll and throw some dice, and it can be a contortion to go "Ok well... what MOVE are you making?" And then I literally see the interruption in their table energy as they frantically scan a list and go "Ugh, ummm, ok, I guess this is Kick Some Ass" or whatever.
But for "GM moves," like the ones I've written above, I think these are in the same category as things like "GM principles." You don't really NEED them to run the game well, technically, but they're there to remind you of what kinds of things might be interesting to do. They're there for when I feel like things are stagnant to say to the GM "Hey, glance over here at me! I've got a list of stuff that you can do to throw in some spice. Take a second to glace, if you'd like."
I'd like to think that if you look at my entry for say, The Mafia, you might get an idea of the kinds of things that might help your mystery if you incorporate them. In short: I hope I put a cool tool on your belt, and one that doesn't weigh much. But at some point, you might get to the point in your adventure where you stop referencing the Threat description and just say "Yeah, I've got this," and leave it behind.
You put your finger precisely on my personal issue with the ‘Move’ system, which seems to me, on the one hand, to set up a system which clearly needs to be flexible to handle player agency and the variety of circumstances in play while, at the same time, narrowing that flexibility, at least in terms of the language of mechanics.
I get it that the designers surely intended the mechanic to be capable of loose interpretation, but the very act of nesting this within the outward skin of a more restrictive menu system sets up a tension between form and intent. At the table, it almost feels like GM and players are colluding in stretching and pulling the mechanic into a shape that does not suit the RAW.
This applies to the question of ‘GM Moves’ also. What you’ve done here is really smart, but I do wonder what utility it has to even use the word ‘Move’ when, as you say, what you’re actually doing is using a term of art for something that is, in substance, not a ‘Move’ as conventionally imagined at all but rather just a necessary short-hand to allow abstraction which, as you say, can evolve through play well beyond the ‘Faction menu’ (I use a clumsy phrase) and become self-generating plot developments.
Oh if what you're pointing to here is the loaded use of the word "Move" to describe what you've also called the "Faction menu," I am right on board with that complaint, and am just struggling to rename what I'm referring to here. Sometimes naming conventions are tough, and there are several I'm grappling with!
Factions->Threats is easy enough! But what about Moves -> ????, or for the Liminal Horror system HP -> "Guard." I may end up going back and cleaning that sorta thing up. Naming conventions are tough!!!
Yes, I think that’s right and it is, I suppose, a tribute to the design influence of PbtA that we can’t help but associate the term ‘Move’ with the system. Yeah. Terms have to be chosen carefully. The phrase ‘Faction Action’ is inelegant in the extreme, plus I suppose one has to try and stick as much as possible to a unified vocabulary derived from the core game.
Thanks for the mention! I’ve also been thinking on threats lately and this has helped me dig into it more. Also, when isn’t Mausritter a fantastic example am I right?
I love any attempt in putting together modules to boil off any unnecessary fat -- your own maps show a similar process I think! But Factions/Threats are a resilient feature of any really great adventure, it seems to me!
I'll tell you what, especially as I get ready to blog about stuff like my timekeeping procedures: It's really hard to not just look at what Mausritter has and lightly adjust according to taste. It's just so elegant.
I’m gonna come right out and say that I really don’t like PBTA and I think the concept of ‘Moves’ as a granular (player facing) mechanic is stifling. This is strictly my personal prejudice. But I really like what you’ve done here to use the basic concept to abstract factions just enough to make them usable in a low-prep context while also giving them a concrete identity, an agenda and assets that can be slotted in to play.
You know, that's a really interesting dichotomy that I think is neat to explore -- 'Moves' as a player mechanic, and 'Moves' as a GM mechanic, which are totally different even within PbtA.
For player moves, I might agree that I don't often love them as the engine of how players interact with the world. Sometimes, my players want to act and roll and throw some dice, and it can be a contortion to go "Ok well... what MOVE are you making?" And then I literally see the interruption in their table energy as they frantically scan a list and go "Ugh, ummm, ok, I guess this is Kick Some Ass" or whatever.
But for "GM moves," like the ones I've written above, I think these are in the same category as things like "GM principles." You don't really NEED them to run the game well, technically, but they're there to remind you of what kinds of things might be interesting to do. They're there for when I feel like things are stagnant to say to the GM "Hey, glance over here at me! I've got a list of stuff that you can do to throw in some spice. Take a second to glace, if you'd like."
I'd like to think that if you look at my entry for say, The Mafia, you might get an idea of the kinds of things that might help your mystery if you incorporate them. In short: I hope I put a cool tool on your belt, and one that doesn't weigh much. But at some point, you might get to the point in your adventure where you stop referencing the Threat description and just say "Yeah, I've got this," and leave it behind.
You put your finger precisely on my personal issue with the ‘Move’ system, which seems to me, on the one hand, to set up a system which clearly needs to be flexible to handle player agency and the variety of circumstances in play while, at the same time, narrowing that flexibility, at least in terms of the language of mechanics.
I get it that the designers surely intended the mechanic to be capable of loose interpretation, but the very act of nesting this within the outward skin of a more restrictive menu system sets up a tension between form and intent. At the table, it almost feels like GM and players are colluding in stretching and pulling the mechanic into a shape that does not suit the RAW.
This applies to the question of ‘GM Moves’ also. What you’ve done here is really smart, but I do wonder what utility it has to even use the word ‘Move’ when, as you say, what you’re actually doing is using a term of art for something that is, in substance, not a ‘Move’ as conventionally imagined at all but rather just a necessary short-hand to allow abstraction which, as you say, can evolve through play well beyond the ‘Faction menu’ (I use a clumsy phrase) and become self-generating plot developments.
Oh if what you're pointing to here is the loaded use of the word "Move" to describe what you've also called the "Faction menu," I am right on board with that complaint, and am just struggling to rename what I'm referring to here. Sometimes naming conventions are tough, and there are several I'm grappling with!
Factions->Threats is easy enough! But what about Moves -> ????, or for the Liminal Horror system HP -> "Guard." I may end up going back and cleaning that sorta thing up. Naming conventions are tough!!!
Yes, I think that’s right and it is, I suppose, a tribute to the design influence of PbtA that we can’t help but associate the term ‘Move’ with the system. Yeah. Terms have to be chosen carefully. The phrase ‘Faction Action’ is inelegant in the extreme, plus I suppose one has to try and stick as much as possible to a unified vocabulary derived from the core game.