Pbta - Tumblr Posts
This is also a major design aspect of PbtA games that I love: you get XP when you “fail” on moves which cushions the blow of a poor roll, serves as a natural balancing mechanic for character builds, and best of all mechanically incentivizes players to try things their character isn’t good at for the sake of advancement. It even has thematic synergy with the idea of learning from failure, and most moves have a narrative direction they suggest on a miss to boot.
On the subject of TPKs and failure in TTRPGs, I gotta say, I love a good mechanic for losing.
I love that Fate gives you metacurrency for conceding a scene, and I love that taking extreme consequences creates a new aspect for your character.
I love that when you die in Blades of the Dark, if you're still attached to the character, you can just become a ghost.
I love that in Monster of the Week, when you need to avoid harm it costs a point of luck, which triggers a character-specific consequence and lets you see when your character's luck is literally going to run out.
I even love that in Cyberpunk they've created an omnipresent group of amoral, heavily armed paramedics, so no matter where your character gets gunned down, there's always a chance of pulling through.
Basically, any game that is set up so that losing is going to make things more interesting, not less, is a game that's going to help great stories happen at the table, and I love that.
I managed to improv a version of this in (I think) Vigil: Tourist Trap, but this is the thought-through version.
I strongly dislike fantasy settings where magic is a thing certain people have or can use and certain people can't (and I'm not only talking about the Dowager Transphobe's setting here). This take draws from old English folkloric magic, which was more about just ... learning the right names to say and rituals to perform to get an effect you want.
What you need to remember about magic
is that it's not a force or a resource - it's an act.
It's not something you can have. It's not something you can use.
It's something you perform.
Listen to Vigil
Hey NOT ONLY THIS but because the new Tourist Trap zine is out, the Cold Snap one has had a price cut!
Sherrydown Enquirer 3: Tourist Trap
What's that rattling through your letterbox? It's the long overdue third issue of the Sherrydown Enquirer!
Contains all you need to run our Monster of the Week mystery, Tourist Trap - plus bonus Vigil lore!
Get the Sherrydown Enquirer issue 3 - Tourist Trap now on @itchio. Each full price (or above) sale adds another community copy.
Want to try before you buy? Here's us playing through Tourist Trap on mic!
The story spans five acts and includes:
🚐 body horror food truck
🙋♀️ Jess volunteers as tribute
👋 dismemberment
This episode: tense, emotionally charged standoff
Also this episode: BIG SPLOOSH 💦
Vigil: Quarry, Act 2
In which the hounds of the Hunt are revealed; the Hunt keeps recruiting; and Brier makes a mess of Melodies.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Get yourself on my mailing list before Friday for early access to my latest mystery for Monster of the Week!
Your chance to hunt the Bad Dog
^ That there is Act 1 of Vigil: Bad Dog, one of our Monster of the Week actual play series set in the quiet English market town of Sherrydown.
Bad Dog is a mystery about being made to feel like a trespasser in your own town. It mechanically incentivises the players to vandalise CCTV cameras and hostile architecture.
Monster of the Week players: does that sound like something you might enjoy playing? Or have you listened to Vigil: Bad Dog and thought "our group would have done that WAY differently"?
The official Bad Dog mystery for Monster of the Week comes out this month. All the locations, bystanders, minions and monster stats you need to play Bad Dog with your group. Plus lore: a tradition born from a devilish legend of Sherrydown's deep past, and an interview with Mayor Jackie Dambrook about how absolutely nobody should worry their little heads about the English Sorcery Guild, oh no no no.
Subscribers to the Foggy Outline newsletter get Bad Dog this Friday; it publishes to everyone else a week later.
So if you think your Monster of the Week group can survive ! Barghest and a tangled mess of council procurement issues, sign up for the newsletter now:
Did we just discover our setting's origin of the bogeyman...?
Ghouls (Vigil Backstage)
We create some more lore about ghouls, especially the specific one Cameron is bent on destroying.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
BRIER: I thought a problem shared was a problem halved.
PAUSE.
MELODY: You did not think that.
...is one of my favourite exchanges we've ever improvised.
Vigil: Quarry, Act 3
In which Brier plays both sides; the pull of blood works both ways; and things come to a head at Sherrydown Library.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
Featuring everything you never knew you wanted to know about
the origins of the podcast
that bit in Ariadne where everyone accused Alex of stealing four imaginary mugs of Bovril from an NPC
Replay: Ariadne (Backstage)
Let’s go back to where this all started - with the slow-burn spookiness of Ariadne.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Josh Yard
WITH: Matt Boothman
MUSIC BY: Matt Boothman
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Josh Yard and Matt Boothman
Finale finale finale!
Not that it's over...
Vigil: Quarry, Act 4
In which the Hunt is at bay; a hound bites its master; and a mentor has nothing more to teach.
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
If you're the type who likes to watch for hints, listen out for the bits of this episode about other realms - they will pay off in the next Vigil production (which I'm editing right now!)
Disbanding (Vigil Backstage)
We look back at Vigil: Quarry. Did we truly stop the danger or just put it off until later?
Prefer your podcasts audio only? Follow us on your usual podcast app - search Merely Roleplayers or head to www.merelyroleplayers.com
COMPERE: Matt Boothman
STARRING:
Christopher Starkey as Cameron Jarvis, the Wronged
Helen Stratton as Melody, the Constructed
Strat as Brier, the Monstrous
Vikki as Renko, the Flake
ROLEPLAYING GAME SYSTEM: Monster of the Week, designed by Michael Sands
MUSIC BY: Alexander Pankhurst
SOUND DESIGN BY: Helen Stratton
EDITED AND PRODUCED BY: Matt Boothman
What started as a joke during the Read The Fucking Manual podcast episode about Patchwork World is now an actual thing I'm doing I guess!
So I'm writing a PbtA move a day, every day, for 365 days in 2023! Or at least, that's the plan. Why take on such a challenge of hubris? (Especially while I'm already doing #Dungeon23 this year, hah!)
Rae's PbtA23 or An Act Of Hubris
PbtA is Cool. Powered by the Apocalypse, first created by Meguey and Vincent Baker, is one of my favorite TTRPG frameworks. There are many components of PbtA, but one of the most famous pieces are the moves. I see them as narrative moments that are triggered through the fiction players create. I've been designing in the PbtA space a lot (I think my biggest work has gotta be Apocalypse Keys) but I feel like there's still a lot I can learn!
Moves outside of an ecosystem is my design poetry. At least, that's my initial approach. Normally I have to think about how different moves interact with several other components in a game. Not so with PbtA23! I can make up mechanics and not worry about what that means. Focusing on a single move means I don't have to worry about any of the usual parameters, so it's an excuse to get experimental, weird, or indulgent!
Design is a skill that sharpens with consistent practice. I once joined itchio ttrpg game jams every month, putting together small games on the regular. It wasn't sustainable, though I pulled it off for about a year or so? But it really helped me grow my craft and sharpen my design instincts in a fun way. I can't do game jams anymore because of health reasons but maybe this can be a way to keep honing my skills in a relaxed way!
This is going to be fun. Due to bad brain stuff I have a perfectionist streak that causes me a lot of problems. Between Dungeon23 and PbtA23, I hope to focus on the joyous act of just creating without worrying about publishing standards or paying my bills through writing these moves. None of this is going to become "Product" or "Finished Game" by the end of the year, this is purely a fun daily task. The other stuff I'll be working on needs to be publishable and cover the cost of Being Alive, but not PbtA23.
I'm cutting myself a lot of slack for PbtA23. I'm not sure what that will look like. I could dabble in Belonging Outside Belonging or Forged in the Dark design on some days (both having grown from PbtA), I could write pieces of a Move a day and assemble a full move by the end of the week. I can write one word and call it a day. On some days I'll write bad stuff. No perfectionism, just chill, just doing my best.
I may not make it to the end of the year and that's okay. I really want to, and I'll do my best, but I'm also giving myself the option if I need it. Less hubris, more kindness, haha.
Anyway that's it! Originally I was going to post the moves once a week after collecting them, but uh, they're kinda a lot longer than my Dungeon23 entries. So I'll try posting them daily/every other day first and see how that feels?
If anyone wants to join me or just write moves once in a while I'd love to see it!! You can check out @aaronsrpgs, they've taken up the challenge too. I'm trying to convince @ostrichmonkey-games but he's wisely ignoring my attempts, pfft.
Going to start posting moves soonish, but here's a sneak peek!
As this post mentions, I'm eligible for Best Game Master | Indie at the CRIT Awards! If you enjoy my GMing on @merelyroleplayers, I hope you'll consider honouring me with a nomination!
If you're feeling extra generous, my work is also eligible in the Best Supplement or third party content category. To tie in with Merely Roleplayers' Monster of the Week campaign, I've been releasing mysteries for Monster of the Week; these three all came out within the CRIT Awards eligibility period:
Sherrydown Enquirer 3: Tourist Trap https://merelymatt.itch.io/touristtrap
Sherrydown Enquirer 4: Bad Dog https://merelymatt.itch.io/baddog
Sherrydown Enquirer 5: Quarry https://merelymatt.itch.io/quarry
The CRIT Awards: for your consideration
The Creator Recognition in TTRPG (CRIT) Awards are open to nominations until 1 June!
Things released between 1 Jan 2022 and 31 Jan 2023 are eligible. In the case of Merely Roleplayers, that means:
Main House productions: Vigil: Quarry
(Vigil: All Aboard is also on the borderline, the final story act came out on 7 Feb 2023)
Studio productions: Monumental Exit & The Feed (series 1)
(The Lost Andromeda Ward Christmas Special is also on the borderline, it kicked off on 14 December 2021 but extended into the eligibility period)
See our Past Productions page for more about all those productions.
Here's the CRIT Awards nomination form.
It would mean the world to us if you considered nominating Merely Roleplayers in some or all of these categories:
Best TTRPGs, Supplements, APs, and Channels of this year
Best storyline | In a AP: Vigil: Quarry (Merely Roleplayers)
Best Series: Vigil (Merely Roleplayers) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCMIHyd_TMSpZ_HMrmThX2HcM_zP2yR5-
Best NPC: Ernie Bering, agent of DoOm (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)
Best Villain: The Stranger (Merely Roleplayers: Vigil)
Best in their TTRPG Category
Best Game Master | Indie: Matt Boothman
Best Player | Indie: choose your fighter—
Natalie Winter (for either Gwynned in Vigil: All Aboard or Sue Sherpa in Monumental Exit)
Alexander Pankhurst (for Mike Sherpa in Monumental Exit)
Marta Da Silva (for Harper in Vigil: All Aboard)
(also eligible are Ellen Gould and Josh Yard for The Feed, and Helen, Strat, Vikki and Chris Starkey for Vigil: Quarry – but Nat, Alex and Marta are professional actors and a nomination could make a real difference to them!)
Best Podcast: Merely Roleplayers
Best Audio and Sound Design | Podcast: Merely Roleplayers
Artist Categories
Best Instrumental of the year by a musician in TTRPG: Vigil theme by Alexander Pankhurst https://youtu.be/KRsdcFLK0F4?t=104
Enter your nominations in the CRIT Awards form or find out more about the awards
And if you don't fancy nominating us for all these categories, hopefully you'll shower some nomination love on other podcasts in the community who are doing incredible work, like @realmspod, Interstitial AP by @revryebread, @monsterhourpod, @legendlarkpod and @campaignskyjacks. We can't nominate ourselves so we'll be putting all of these luvvies and more forward instead!
Graphic by Cezar Capacle
All five issues of the Sherrydown Enquirer – each one of which is a combination Monster of the Week mystery and @merelyroleplayers: Vigil lore supplement – are part of this bundle, along with 60+ more spooky and supernatural RPGs!
In issue 1, Playtime, a teacher disappears during a rainy playtime at Sherrydown Primary, and all the kids say he was eaten by a shark
In issue 2, Cold Snap, something has awoken deep in the forest and now the seasons are all out of whack
In issue 3, Tourist Trap, the high street isn't the only thing that tacky new souvenir shop is killing
In issue 4, Bad Dog, rentacops are at war with the local teens and something savage is taking the chance to mark its territory
In issue 5, Quarry, the sound of hooves and the stain of blood herald the separation of the community into hunters and prey
Plus, each issue comes with details you can use to set your Monster of the Week games in middle England, instead of the game's default gun-totin' US setting!
Usually getting all 5 issues would set you back about £20; in the Supernatural bundle, $20 gets you all these and more than 60 other things, including lots of complete games.
I've been thinking a lot about TTRPGs lately, and I particularly want to find something; a system that works well for a light one-shot to play with friends for an evening. Something with the simple system and player agency of Powered by the Apocalypse combined with the ease, shorter playtime, and potential for creativity of The Adventure Zone's Bureau of Balance. Light on number crunching, heavy on roleplay and imaginative thinking.
Anyone got any suggestions?
i recently tried playing masks: a new generation and designed this little android! they’re a wildly unethical experiment who is three weeks old and has killed a man :)