Creativity through restriction
Being creative is really hard when you're put in front of nothing. Most people need some kind of constraint to be able to squeeze out their creative juice. That's why humans have been putting new spins on ancient tales since the dawn of time. That's why art challenges such as Inktober are so successful. And that's why we buy RPG manuals instead of sitting around a table making up random stories.
But what makes your brain spin into gear might sound empty or uselessly complex to somebody else. I myself have been trying to understand other people's fascination with PbtA games, and I wasn't really sure why they didn't click for me until I played Blades in the Dark.
Blades in the Dark looks like a pretty complex game to GM: you need to keep track of factions, places, NPCs and clocks, while managing players who can't help being a bit rowdy and unruly. They're playing criminals, after all.
The system doesn't help smooth it out at all. Every time the GM asks for a roll, all of the following things need to be considered before touching the dice:
- The position (Controlled / Risky / Desperate)
- The effect level (Limited / Standard / Great)
- Is the character Pushing themselves?
- Does the player want to strike a Devil's Bargain?
- Is someone else helping the character?
The game halting for each and every roll feels like a train suddenly braking with a piercing metal-on-metal noise.
Generally, when I play, I try to subtly steer the GM away from rolls with fun ideas and interesting plans that they might just say yes to, but I found myself doing it excessively while playing Blades in the Dark. I was trying very hard to avoid making any rolls whatsoever, which was definitely unfair of me given the inexperience of our GM. I could tell he was enjoying my blabbering and I kept pushing because I saw it was working. Thankfully I was called out by another player who knows me too well, and I apologised.
I do dislike this way of playing, though.
Rolls should be exciting: they should drive tension by entrusting character success to chance. Bookkeping kills tension like no other.
This is why I could never properly get into PbtA games. How do I get to know my character, if my time is spent trying to remember their Moves so that I can maybe pleeease add to the fiction?
"Creating fiction" is supposedly the objective of these restrictions in PbtA RPGs. And in Blades in the Dark, too. But if they turn a role-playing game into a management game, the story being told feels much less personal to the character you're playing. Your playbook is just along for the ride. You don't get to know who that person is, because the time that would be spent on developing their personality is instead given away to bookkeeping.
The answer to "what can I do" shouldn't be found on a piece of paper such as a character sheet or playbook. The game shouldn't stop at every action to reference a chart to find out what happens. Players and GMs should spend most of their time looking at each other, not checking sheets and manuals.
Am I playing these games wrong?