Hey community, I am working on a PbtA swashbuckling game.

Hey community, I am working on a PbtA swashbuckling game.

Hey community, I am working on a PbtA swashbuckling game. I have been working on the move list and I have what I hope is and interesting sword fighting mechanic as well as some moves that help you gain favors from the nobility/royalty (often in exchange for getting tangled up in their plots). But I wanted to ask the community at large when you are looking to play a swashbuckling game (think 3 musketeers or 7th sea) what tropes and moves would you love to see.

30 thoughts on “Hey community, I am working on a PbtA swashbuckling game.”

  1. Improbable odds, face-heel turns, tricky terrain, dangerous picnic situations, caught up as bystanders (but not for long) in grand events of war and politics, mundane acquaintances with hidden connections

  2. Improbable odds, face-heel turns, tricky terrain, dangerous picnic situations, caught up as bystanders (but not for long) in grand events of war and politics, mundane acquaintances with hidden connections

  3. dynamic movement seems to come up a lot, but since movement is already pretty narative in PbtA games I’m not sure what to do with it. Any great ideas for a Dynamic Movement Move?

  4. dynamic movement seems to come up a lot, but since movement is already pretty narative in PbtA games I’m not sure what to do with it. Any great ideas for a Dynamic Movement Move?

  5. I’d recommend handling dynamic movement with a hold move instead of a move with a roll you can botch. (How many awesome swashbuckling stories have someone swing in on a chandelier only to fall flat on their face?) Like, when you enter the scene, hold 1+panache. Spend hold 1-for-1 to describe how you use an environmental feature to….

    -escape danger

    -surprise someone with an attack

    -grab hold of something

    -distract or impress someone

  6. I’d recommend handling dynamic movement with a hold move instead of a move with a roll you can botch. (How many awesome swashbuckling stories have someone swing in on a chandelier only to fall flat on their face?) Like, when you enter the scene, hold 1+panache. Spend hold 1-for-1 to describe how you use an environmental feature to….

    -escape danger

    -surprise someone with an attack

    -grab hold of something

    -distract or impress someone

  7. Christo Meid It is totally homebrew and in very early development. I am mostly assembling moves and playbooks. If you are interested in play testing, let me know and I can share the google doc when it is ready. Like I said it is in early stages.

  8. Christo Meid It is totally homebrew and in very early development. I am mostly assembling moves and playbooks. If you are interested in play testing, let me know and I can share the google doc when it is ready. Like I said it is in early stages.

  9. Alan Layton​ Not a swashbuckling trope, but something that makes early PbtA games sing that has been missing from some of the more recent iterations: make sure your moves snowball. If a move triggers and the fiction stops dead or resolves cleanly, keep tinkering.

  10. Alan Layton​ Not a swashbuckling trope, but something that makes early PbtA games sing that has been missing from some of the more recent iterations: make sure your moves snowball. If a move triggers and the fiction stops dead or resolves cleanly, keep tinkering.

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