HJRPG 2405

Fredrix

Your hosts: Stu, Kimi, Jason, Gina
In this Episode: Eric from NJ asks "Can the GM be too much of a fan of the PCs?" James writes in about 1d4 Con, which starts May 3rd. And Joe wants to know what Stu thinks a hippie game is.

My two pen’th (two cents in colonial insurgent speak) is that @Stu show take a look at the Warren in terms of learning to understand PbtA

EricfromNJ

Fredrix I have the Warren on my wish list but why do you think that would give @Stu a better understanding of PbtA games? I am curious for myself as well.

Fredrix

EricfromNJ well, I had read a few, but it’ was the very first one I read where I “got” PbtA, but also got how it applies a set of mechanics to the task of emulating a particular genre. Part of the reason is, the language is very matter of fact, not like Apocalypse World, where it’s written almost as part of the world. It clearly explains what it trying to do, and then does it. Does that make sense?

EricfromNJ

Fredrix yes it does. I will admit it took 4 different PbtA games before I really got a handle on it and wanted to run it.

While I think Masks has gotten me there, I really want to run others like Monster of the Week (I blame the AP that Adam ran) and the Warren (I heard there is a campaign involving Polygon Woods around 1917 - that is a horrifying concept I want to unleash on some of my players.)

Fredrix

EricfromNJ Yes! Polygon Woods is a great mini campaign. When I ran it one of my players, a serving squaddie, guessed the situation before the others and sat there grinning from ear to ear, saying nothing.

komradebrownies

Cold medicine fueled ramblings after listening to the episode:
I enjoyed the "hippy game" discussion, for me it comes down to "do players get to declare the truth?" I agree with Stu's loosely defined comment, just expanding it to character creation and such too. Like the FATE and such where I am a [HappyJacker] who uses [Beer]to [Fight_the_Lame]
I just made all of those things™ exist by saying them, or in 10 Candles the truth section.
As I write this I guess part of my definition comes down to players using mechanics for outcomes vs players declaring a wanted outcome and rolling to see if it happens.
Hippy games let go of the supreme GM plot power and disperse that power amongst the players.
I think with that has to come a level of trust and respect, it is real easy, if unchecked, to have a PbtA game get messed up if people say they do unrealistic things that don't fit the fiction.

bobcatt

komradebrownies Fight_the_Lame!!!!!!

UselessTriviaMan

While listening today I realized there's a bit of disconnect between what happens in LA and the rest of the country. I'm interested in PbtA but haven't yet played any of its iterations.

I know it's been huge at Strategicon for a couple of years, but when I mentioned that game to my game-store-employee buddy he gave me a blank look. Virtually no one around here has even heard of PbtA.

(I know, I'm going to get dice thrown at me for not running it at local cons and introducing it to my community, but I know my limitations. I've got a few too many proverbial irons in the fire to tackle also learning and running a whole new game.)

Kairaku

UselessTriviaMan That's the joy of PbtA games, you don't really have to have a clue what you are doing to be able to run them.

Oh and we even have them down here in the arse end of the world.

DT-PINTS

UselessTriviaMan such an easy game to learn! Listen to a few of those APs and it just clicks. It’s my go to game (Dungeonworld) for TTRPG noobs. (All of the preceding terms for my vidja gamer friends that I’ve managed to sharpen their pencils and talk in silly voices).

Fredrix

Definitive definition of hippy games: RPGs played by Californians

ProbieTim

Fredrix Definitive definition of hippy games: RPGs played by Californians

I take great exception to that statement, sir. I play no hippie games.

BattleMatt "it sounds to me like you are trying to 'hock the mewey-ugglebuck', AREN'T YOUUUU? For that, Mince your Waagh and hope you get at least a Hiffle."

I don't know if that was a translation error or on purpose, but holy hell did I laugh out loud when I read it. Mince your Waagh! Get a Hiffle!

BattleMatt

The term "hippie games" was coined long before Happy Jacks RPG Podcast even started, and was thought to mean games that cared more about feelings than XP. In a joking but kind of derogatory way.

Gaming has come a long way since then, and even an old groggvirke (... Wtf?...oh, the phone doesn't know the word "grognard")... sorry... grognard as myself likes to get into some hippie gaming.

But it was really funny to me when @Stu was going to say what he didn't like about AW, and you go:
"Oh boy, here it comes."
And then :
"...allright, I'll give him that.
...
...yeah, he does have a point there.
...
...that thing annoyed the crap out of me too!"
😂

In all, nice episode and good discussion. I had a jolly old time listening at work as usual. 👍💖🍻

gina

BattleMatt Definitely re: the coining of the term. My 'arm wrestle' with Stu was being the first on the cast to say it (in my recollection lol) vs. coining the term. I love to make up words/phrases, but I def didn't invent that one. 🙂

And yeah, I used to say I played 'dirty hippie games', but agree that it started to feel a bit squicky, even though folx who played them actually used the phrase. FWIW now I usually say indie games or story games.

Kairaku

And yes the translator and Gina did get my name right. It's a Maori word Kai=food and Raku=stick. So it means are spear

BattleMatt

Kairaku food on a stick? 😀

Kairaku

A stick for food, but yeah...Maori is a pretty literal language 😉

whodo

I do think Stu made a good point about difficulties in PbtA, it's one of the things that I have struggled with in the past and that still occasionally bugs me. Shooting somebody vs shooting somebody in the eye are exactly the same roll and the consequences of rolling a 6- are probably the same.

The thing that helps me with PbtA games is remembering how much they lean on highly thematic narratives - playing AW? Then of course your Mad Max character can make what should be a near impossible shot while they also spin their car over the edge of a cliff.

gina

whodo The thing that helps me with PbtA games is remembering how much they lean on highly thematic narratives -

Boom, that. Well said!

It's why I said it really depends on what you want out of a game. It totally may not be for you. Some days, it's not what I want out of a gaming experience either.

BattleMatt

What I don't understand with most PbtA titles is why nobody has done away with either the stats or the basic moves (this is what I'm doing for a game I'm working on btw). Since the game is so simple, the layering of stats and basic moves seems like an unnecessary redundancy to me.

It kills me each time to hear a player describe what they are doing, and then the MC replies (in a suggestive tone) "it sounds to me like you are trying to 'hock the mewey-ugglebuck', AREN'T YOUUUU? For that, Mince your Waagh and hope you get at least a Hiffle."

In an old school game you'd get: "roll Stealth".

Kairaku

Without the stats or basic moves there is not really much of a game left...or individuality between characters for that matter.

It will be interesting to see what you come up with to address this.

Azhrei_Vep

Well, the Forged in the Dark games are pretty heavily inspired by PbtA, and they dropped basic moves entirely. You just roll a particular stat, and get a result that's a failure, mixed success, total success, or super-de-duper success, and you and the GM figure out what the hell that means.

BattleMatt

Azhrei_Vep 👍 That is pretty much what I'm aiming for. I can definitely do without all the dilly-dallying of basic moves. ☺
I don't thick I'd lose anything of character individuality (the basic moves are the same for everyone after all) or gameplay (you still A. take an action, B. roll dice, and C. determine an outcome).

EricfromNJ

@Kimi Dwarven drinking contests apparently involve ax throwing at targets and if you missed the target (or missed completely) you took so many drinks but if you hit the target you got to give so many drinks depending on how close to the bulls eye you were.

It turns out Megan was pretty bummed at Nogar's death, even if he gets raised from the dead. Her husband Casey talked to her on the drive home and it was more of me not managing expectations in that D&D you can die and be brought back from the dead pretty easily (the cleric is now 9th level so he has access to the raise dead spell). They do plan on bringing Nogar back because Nogar is their whirlwind of destruction.

As for Jason's question of how long we have been playing. Not long. We did a long campaign in 3.5 (1-20th level) that I wrote in about where after the game ended the GM passed away from cancer. We still wanted to get together and play, partially as a salute to him and partially because we are addicted gamers, and one of the things I offered to run was Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. One more 3.5 thing for the road, and a mini-campaign from 6th to 10th levels. Megan decided to join at this point and made Nogar. It became Axe Day relatively quickly after that.