What do you think the impact on BitD’s gameplay or tone would be if all the actions were replaced instead with Hard, Cool, Hot, Sharp, and Weird? (along with related mechanics like advancement, etc) Those could also serve as effect/resistance ratings and possibly replace crew effects.
What do you think the impact on BitD’s gameplay or tone would be if all the actions were replaced instead with Hard,…
What do you think the impact on BitD’s gameplay or tone would be if all the actions were replaced instead with Hard,…
I don’t think they would help or particularly improve the game, Adam. From what I can tell, John Harper is going for a lean system that always enhances the fiction that is intended to emerge from the ruleset; adding those modes (presumably from Apoc World) would dilute or diverge from the tone that I think Mr. Harper is going for.
adding AW highlighting would presumably put more of the focus on individual PC action as opposed to teamwork
I’m not supposing they’ll make anything better, I’m just curious what the specificity of the BitD action list does that’s different from the broader category stats like AW’s list does not. Those 5 stats would work just like Actions in BitD, with pips equating to number of dice rolled in BitD fashion.
Adam McConnaughey without adding the highlighting for XP, just replacing the actions with the AW stats, what do you think would cause a shift of focus to individual PC actions? Teamwork actions could still work the same way, for instance Leading a group action would have everyone roll Hard instead of Mayhem.
you said “related mechanics like advancement” which i assumed meant highlighting.
if we’re just replacing skills with adjectives, shrug, idk. it seems like the specificity of the skills kind of takes the place of moves in AW–rolling +Hard to do Mayhem and also +Hard to do, like, Command kind of stretches the concept in my mind (if we’re not including moves).
having individual skills makes it so that you can specialize your talents further–which is a little funny, as Mr Harper has said he doesn’t give a crap about niche protection.
It’s easy to conceptualize how to do teamwork with someone who is doing an action. It’s harder to Synergize with someone who is “going hard” or “being weird”.
You also skew the numbers; A*W has five stats to the multiple stats in each category of Blades. Means advancement suddenly quickly undercuts the feel of slow buildup. Instead of having to work on all your Mask skills, you just boost, say, Cool or Sharp.
That switches the advancement dynamic to “you’re good enough. Now what?”, which is a very different game.
Adam McConnaughey ah I see where I was unclear. I meant adjusting advancement in the way Hrafn Afnsaz hints at. Obviously not advancing stats so fast since there are only 5 instead of 16.
Interesting connection between individual skills and moves. I hadn’t considered that.
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Adam – it seems analogous to Fate’s skills vs FAE’s Approaches no? I would agree with Adam Mac and Hrafn that it would detract somewhat from the ‘concept’ behind group actions and helping.
Otherwise, why bother? Are you coming at this from a hack point of view? New game concept?
I see one important difference between a stat based system (be it Cool, Hard, Hot, Sharp, and Weird or traditional Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, and Cha) and a skill based system (16 actions here covering the bases suitable for the game) is the level of nuance they prescribe for the games that use them.
I find it more interesting to see the contradictions in characters demanded by being Sway 3 and Deceive 0 for instance than dropping it all under Hot and assuming the character is equally good at all masky type things.
Also, the AW set doesn’t really account for fictional position pre roll. You’d lose most of what makes the game unique and great.
Keep in mind that although what you’re seeing as skills (mayham, discern etc) sound like stats, they’re actually moves in their own right if you see how they interact with the actions. (Think about what Murder 4 means vs Murder 0, and how that influences your decision on whether an action is desparate or not).
What you’d gain is simplification and a familiar template. Maybe more statements about the world.
In stripping out the actions you muddy the waters for defining how you do something. Remember the GM doesn’t call for rolls, the player says “I VERB him.” The list of actions highlights that the player is choosing an approach in how they do something. “I command him” is different than “I sway him” or “I deceive him.”
I imagine what you would see is players describing their actions and then everyone trying to figure out which box to put it in. Was that hot because its all social and stuff? Was it cool because you acted all smooth when you were charming him?