Forced into taking the lead on a dangerous mission, the B Team of the Young Heralds of Halcyon City must skulk around the seedy underbelly of the city to track their unexpected villain.
Intro Music: Exit The Premises by Kevin Macleod. Purchase it here.
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Great series! I was really surprised to listen to another AW game by you guys, but I’m glad you decided to give this game a whirl! While I love AW and AW powered games, I know you guys don’t, so how about the One Roll Engine? There is this great game called Wild Talents that’s basically about Supers and stuff. If you never have tried it I’ll buy you guys a copy off of Drivethru if you’re interested.
Continue the great work,
~Ryan R.
Hey Ryan!
Thanks for the comment. We try not to ever give up on a system when someone releases a new and interesting sounding game. We might still pick up an AW game if the setting is interesting. But yeah, AW certainly isn’t something Fandible is into. We know a lot of groups love it, and that’s awesome, but it just doesn’t mesh with our play style. However, I will say that I feel Masks does a pretty good job with it, and it was probably the only AW I played where I didn’t feel completely bogged down by rules.
We actually do have the game Wild Talents. We’ve read through it, and it looks promising. We have a few superhero games we’re looking to try out, and I’m sure we’ll give it a whirl at some point. For now, the next one on our docket is Mutants and Masterminds.
Rad. I used to play a lot of M&M when I was younger, but my group stopped playing it around 3rd edition (which made me so sad, I finally was the guy who knew everything about everything in the group). I hope you guys enjoy the game! I personally prefer Wild Talents to M&M, but I love anything that I can wear a Mask and Spandex and not be called ridiculous (my current GM won’t is already making fun of me for it in D&D 5E) and I can’t wait to hear your Actual Plays of it.
Fantastic episode! Once again made me chuckle heartily at the craziness. I especially found the ending debrief quite fascinating. As a recent convert to the Powered by the Apocalypse (PtbA) engine, I’ve noticed that when the system is critiqued, it’s usual for it’s social mechanics. I think this is largely due to the fact that in most RPGs, the player is expect to wing it. DnD being a perfect example, where interparty conflict and relationships were something you had to design for yourself as the system didn’t actually encourage it.
For long term RPers, these kinda things come naturally. You have your character form and break bonds, develop relationships, become angry or vengeful, because you learned to do it in systems that don’t facilitate it. However, I’ve played in a LOT of DnD games where roleplaying wasn’t encouraged or overtly ignored, not because the players were jerks or the GM unkind, but rather because nobody really knew how to approach it. Those are the kind of groups that I think could benefit from those relationship elements.
Short form: PtbA games, largely, contain ways of interacting that are fresh and new for some RP groups, but could be constricting to those groups that have been free form RPing all along.
It is interesting to note that of all the things that PtbA includes in it’s mechanics, relationships aren’t what drew me in and light lightbulbs in my brain. Most of it was the Moves mechanic, the Playbooks design, and the role of the GM (or rather, MC) at the table.
PtbA might not be for everyone, but it’s exactly what I was looking for. And it’s good to hear that my favorite RP Podcast group enjoy it enough to try it out on a regular basis.
On a side note, have any of Fandible played the actual game Apocalypse World? It’s one of those games that I’ve heard you have to give it six or seven sessions to really get under the hood, but I’m curious if any of you have tried it.
Camden – Interesting that you note experienced role players are more likely to critique the PbtA social mechanics, since most of the big PbtA fans I know have been around for awhile and love those social mechanics! We must run in slightly different circles 😀 Though I’m with you – I love the concept of the moves and the playbooks, though they don’t always work as well in practice for me.
I don’t think any of us have actually played Apocalypse World, and that’s probably not changing any time soon, but who knows! We’ll likely be putting together our 2016 gaming wish list soon (what games do we hope to play in 2016), and maybe it will end up there!
I’ve listened to all of your AW games so far, I have to admit I don’t think they would work for us either, we don’t like romance over here (I rarely put it in because well frankly I don’t understand it irl!)
Players tend to rebel against anything that enforces their reactions. Possibly the conditions being more “spongy” and open to player interpretation might help!
Don’t worry about being more “superhero podcast” we’ve got Cthulhu horror covered (we have Archive and Nyx 😉 )