Friday, February 24, 2023

Playing Stonetop (and Other PbtA Games)

Work continues on Stonetop, my "hearth-fantasy" adaptation of Dungeon World set in an iron age that never was, in which you portray the local heroes of a small, isolated village near the edge of the known world. It's going more slowly than I'd like, but we just added the "Playing Stonetop" chapter to the main book, and I'm quite pleased with it. 

This is a chapter that's addressed to the players, including:

  • The Conversation
  • Your Agenda (as a player)
  • The Flow of Play
  • Dice and Moves 
  • Your Principles (as a player) 
  • Other Things to Do (and not do) 

A few of the Stonetop Kickstarter backers commented that the chapter is a good, overall introduction to and solid advice for playing PbtA games in general. Hence me reposting them here. 

I'm not about to claim that this advice is universally applicable to all PbtA games. For example, I don't think that the "Flow of Play" is the same in Stonetop as it is in games like Monsterhearts or Cartel or even Apocalypse World, which feature a lot more PC-PC drama. 

But for PbtA games where the PCs mostly work together against adversity presented by the GM (like, Monster of the Week or the Sprawl or Impulse Drive, to name a few), I do think this stuff is largely relevant. 

If you're a new player in a game like that, or a GM trying to help new players "get it," maybe this will help?  

playing Stonetop
© 2022 Lucie Arnoux, used with permission (click here for more)

Anyway, here's "Playing Stonetop".