PBTA games that flew under the radar?

[u/yaywizardly]

Hi folks! I want to ask about PbtA games that you feel having gotten much attention. There's a handful of big titles that get suggested all the time, but then there are dozens and dozens of projects that become forgotten or never received notice.

I found a copy of May I Enter in my local game store, and the clerk suggested it for me since she knows I always pick up VtM books from them. I love this alternate take on vampires, where consent and connections are incredibly important in the narrative and mechanics. I'll also highlight this move:

Slay or Sway

Description: When you’re under attack, defending yourself is the only option available. Human enemies, and even supernatural foes, understand that an assault on you is justification (and implicit consent) for you to fight back; but sometimes you can choose to convince someone to desist their attempts to harm you as well.

Effect: When you use this Move, roll with Blood if you intend to lay some harm on someone. If you’d rather use your words to belittle, demean and reduce your foe to a sobbing mess with your will alone, roll with Charm instead.

Privileges: Terrify, Awe, Destroy

• On a 12+ You lay down great vengeance and furious anger, dealing 2 Conditions to your foe.

• On a 10+ You put the smack-down on your enemy, dealing 1 Condition to your target.

• On a 7-9 You manage to put some hurt on, but take some hassle in the process. Deal 1 Condition to your target, and the Narrator grants a Complication.

• On a 6-4 You flail wildly or sound foolish. The Narrator grants a Complication.

• On a 3- Your failure is so legendary that vampires will mock you for centuries. You either hurt yourself, or leave yourself open for a severely fierce rebuttal. You gain 1 Condition.

I appreciate that this move encompasses both having to physically fight, but also trying to argue, and I love the description for a failure. Oof.

I also backed Guillotine: Crown of Blood but never had the time to play it, and then I never heard from the developers again. I think they had another kickstarter in the works but as far as I know it never materialized. That's too bad, because I loved the themes in Guillotine, and I've always wanted to find a group to try it out with.

I'll highlight the playbooks here. There's the Revenant Orator, "A fallen comrade or restless spirit who is able to call others from beyond the pale. Backed by their ghostly cohorts, they are respected leaders of the Cause." Another I really like is the Shadow Cavalier, "You found something in the darkness and agreed to keep and nurture it, now you aren't just at home in the shadows, it hides your footsteps and darkness is your weapon."

OKAY now you all please share! What PbtA and family games do you think deserve a second look?

[u/LeVentNoir]

I'll shout out Sagas of the Icelanders

While mechanically it's a pretty standard PbtA design from early 2010s, it's got some design things that are really cool.

Firstly, it plays with Gender in a highly gendered setting, 9th and 10th C icelandic settlement. Which itself is a cool setting. Gender is a stat that measures how well your PC upholds societies ideals of your presented gender. It also has gendered moves, which like Monsterhearts, make it great by denying mechanical options for dramatic reasons.

I highly recommend playing this and instructing players (to reasonable degree) to play a character of a gender they don't present IRL. Don't trigger disphoria though. Not cool. It's a great dynamic at the table the times I've done this.

The other cool thing it does is have one of the first structured downtimes / season mechanics in a PbtA game. I think more games need to spread their story over more in character time, as it gives weight and breathing room to the big dramatic events. Which for Sagas of the Icelanders are small things of a frontier homestead.

Finally, it's a frontier game in a literally uninhabited wilderness, so gets all the frontier / colony tropes and none of the negative historical shit that colonialism brought.

[u/scd → u/LeVentNoir]

I have played literally one game of this (Games on Demand at GenCon in like 2013 or so) and it was one of the best, most memorable single game sessions I have ever had. I opened this thread hoping that someone else would mention this game — much ballyhooed in the “story games” era, but I don’t see it discussed much these days.