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6/2/2022

Changeling the Lost PbtA and Beyond

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HEDGE MAGIC
With the midpoint of the year coming up I'm starting to look at what things I really want to get done by the end of 2022. Part of that involves going back and looking at all of the game hacks I've done. I’m trying to assess which ones were successful, which ones didn't work at all, and which ones have promise and are worth developing further. It's honestly a mixed bag.


The hack that's gotten the most attention and yet is the biggest mess is my Changeling the Lost PbtA hack. It's certainly one I've run the most, and the one others people have run the most. People reach out to me about it more often than anything else.

I say it's a mess because it's got a lot of moves; probably more than it needs. And the playbooks have a lot of stuff…honestly they’re overstuffed. Yet they're also pretty fun. Players have rich choices and there’s less doubling up of abilities within each playbook than you might expect. You can make very different versions of characters from the same playbook. My Changeling the Lost PbtA hack builds on many other games: Hearts of Wulin, The Veil, Masks, Urban Shadows, and beyond. It really deserves another rewrite and redevelopment.

Each time I've revised it I've focused further on what I like from Changeling the Lost, and cut away some things that are important to other people CtL but matter less to me. For example a focus on contracts as rich lists with distinct catches, Clarity as a key sub-system, the pledge making mechanics, and a bunch more. The next time I revise I have to decide if I want to change even more and spin it off into its own thing or keep it as Changeling the Lost but try to just clean up mess.

Below I link to my character keeper for this. I love online keepers because they’re one of the best tools for hacking, revising, and developing ttrpgs. I don't have to write out big rules chapters or anything like that. I can get all the playable elements down in one place. It is also an easy thing to hand off to other people who have PBTA experience with. They can look at it and go “oh okay I can run this.” Note that this is still a rough, in-progress game but fairly playable. Below I also link to some other posts that I've done related to Changeling the Lost you might find useful and interesting if you like the setting.

Changeling the Lost PBTA Keeper 

IDEAS ABOUT CHANGELING
The Courtly Campaign
Kith and Kind: Some Brainstorming on Changeling the Lost 
More Kith and Kind: Continued Brainstorming on Changeling the Lost
Changeling Civil Ceremonies
Changeling the Lost as a Lens for Horror
Albums Written for Changeling: Middle Cyclone
Changeling Songs
Building Hollows for Changeling
Spoiling the Setting? Thoughts on Player Knowledge (examples from Changeling)
Changeling the Lost and FATE
Changeling the Lost for Fate Accelerated
Changeling the Lost GM Jam
Changeling the Lost and DramaSystem
Kingdom: On Fae and Samurai

NEW CONTRACTS
Court of Judgment and Contracts of Weights & Measures
Contracts of the Merciful and Contracts of Sentencing
Contracts of Words and Contracts of Roads
Contracts of Uniform
Contracts of the Prisoner
Contracts of Kohl

FRAGMENTS FROM MY CAMPAIGN
The Neon Hedge: Building Changeling Las Vegas
The Wayward Notebook
Applying Hamlet's Hit Points: A Changeling Session Analysis
Two Successful GM Tricks from Changeling
Changeling Scene Postscript
Sharing and Play
Changeling Campaign Themes: Planning Wayward
Why You Should Never Look Behind the Campaign Curtain
Pieces Fall into Place 
Sarah No-Tears Dreams
YouTube Playlist of Changeling Lost Vegas Sessions
Changeling Lost Vegas: Session One
Changeling Lost Vegas: Orientation (Part One)
Changeling Lost Vegas Orientation (Part Two)
The Tarot of Changeling Lost Vegas

REVIEWING THE BOOKS
Product Guide for New Players
Changeling the Lost
Autumn Nightmares
Dancers in the Dusk
Equinox Road
Goblin Markets
Lords of Summer
Night Horrors: Grim Fears
Personae
Rites of Spring
Swords at Dawn
Victorian Lost
Winter Masques

Glimpses of the Unknown (WoD)

In another post coming up I'll also look at some of the other hacks I have on the table. Some of these I might want to go back and revise. And maybe I'll solicit some feedback and suggestions about which of these is most worth doing.

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2 Comments
Savasae
6/23/2022 10:31:52 am

I'm pretty amazed by your PbtA adaptation of changeling the lost. I always loved the game, but the nWoD system wasn't a great match for it.

I had a couple of questions about this adaptation:
-How many points should be distributed among the 6 stats?
-What do the stats Calm and Power mean? Particularly with respect to the Humanity and Keeper descriptions.
-Why are the elementals the only ones with access to Oneiromancy contracts?
- Do the pcs begin only with their base move of their Seeming, or should they also chose another?

Reply
Lowell link
6/23/2022 01:09:15 pm

1. Assign the following stats: +2, +1, +1, 0, 0, -1
2. Each of the six stats represents a feeling or emotion. This is borrowed from The Veil. Moves don't have a stat associated with them. Instead, when you go to roll a move, you choose which emotion is dominant for you, guiding your action, or informing how you're doing this.

So the first four stats are classically tied to each of the Courts. For the last two (the feeling of Calm vs. the feeling of being Powerful) I wanted to thematically associate them with the two other key groups in the setting-- essentially the Mundane world and that of the Keepers

3. I put the Dream stuff in the Elemental playbook for convenience, but as an Advance, players can take moves from any playbook.

4. They should have their starting move and one more.

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  • Home
  • Blog
    • Blog Table of Contents
  • Podcasts
    • The Gauntlet Podcast
    • Discern Realities
    • +1 Forward >
      • Belonging Outside Belonging Series
      • Forged in the Dark Series
    • Fear of a Black Dragon
    • The Farrier's Bellows
    • Trophy Podcast
    • Pocket-Sized Play
    • We Hunt the Keepers!
    • Comic Strip AP
    • Podcast Indexes >
      • Gauntlet Podcast Index
      • Fear of a Black Dragon Index
      • +1 Forward Index
      • Discern Realities Index
      • Trophy Podcast Index
      • The Farrier's Bellows Index
      • Pocket-Sized Play Index
      • Comic Strip AP Index
      • We Hunt the Keepers! Index
  • Publications
    • The Between
    • Brindlewood Bay
    • Codex Magazine >
      • Codex Index
    • Hearts of Wulin
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  • Online Gaming
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