Friday Feb 18, 2022
The Tea Shop: Moving from D&D to Avatar Legends
Introduction
I see a lot of people who are super excited to play Avatar Legends who have either never played a tabletop roleplaying game—TTRPG—or have only ever played some of the more popular ones like D&D 5e.
Whether you have never played a TTRPG before or you are new to Avatar Legends, these tips are for you. People who have played other Powered by the Apocalypse–PbtA–games before might still find some helpful tidbits here too!
Most of my experience as a GM has been playing Pathfinder, which has its roots in D&D. It took a while to notice the pain points, but when I switched over to Avatar Legends, I had to learn and unlearn quite a lot!
Tip #1: Read the Rules
I hope you weren't looking for some crazy, life-changing tip for the first one.
READ THE RULES!
I am not saying that you need to have the rules memorized. That would be ridiculous. What I mean is this: as the GM, you’re the arbiter of the rules for your players. You need to have both a good idea of what rules are presented and what the rules intended. Knowing the rules better allows you to know when the mechanics of the game apply to certain moments in fiction but knowing their intent allows you to know when rules are meant to be broken.
Many GM’s argue one side of the coin, that you should either stick to the rules as written or the rules as intended. In a game like Avatar Legends it's important to remember that both sides of the coin only serve to further enhance the story you are telling.
There may be times that following the rules as they are explicitly written helps to push the narrative while there may be times that following the spirit of the rules pushes the story in better directions.
It takes some practice as a GM to know when to go in one direction as opposed to the other, but knowing the rules is the first step.
Here are a few ways to keep the rules fresh:
- If you have the PDF version of the rules, take notes and add bookmarks so that you can quickly reference them in session.
- Re-read the rules every month. Skim it if you have to or focus on a rule that you know you keep forgetting. The important part is making sure that you are constantly refreshing yourself on how to play the game.
- Lastly, write up a summary of certain rules for your players. One of the best ways to learn the rules is to teach the rules. You’ll learn very quickly what parts of the game don’t make sense to the majority of your players and you can use this opportunity to not only teach them but to better understand it yourself.
Tip #2: The Narrative is Everything
There is a world of difference between popular TTRPG’s like D&D and PbtA games like Avatar Legends. I usually put it this way: in PbtA the narrative is king.
In games like D&D you roll a dice to see if you accomplish something, for instance, can I swing my sword at the enemy? Can I convince the statesmen to provide me with the necessary troops to save the King, etc. In other words, your roll determines the results/outcomes,
PbtA games work slightly differently. You still roll dice but everything is determined by its relation to the fiction. Your dice result doesn’t determine if you can do something (all-or-nothing) but rather how successful your attempt was.
Here is how this would play out in the two examples above.
In Avatar Legends, you would describe your character striking their combatant and your roll would determine the effect. You don’t need to ask the GM if you have the opportunity to strike your opponent in combat, you just do it and find out what happens after you strike them. Did your strike simply wound them? Did it provide your teammates an opening to get out of a perilous situation? Did your attack knock you off balance and cause you to crash into a cabbage cart?
Your impassioned speech before the King of Ba Sing Se about the invading Fire Nation finally ends. In D&D, the roll would determine how good your speech was at convincing those present. However, in PbtA games the speech happens. There's no changing it but now we need to figure out how the king and their court responds to you. Maybe your player misses their role and the King reveals they were a spy for the Fire Nation the entire time. Perhaps your speech didn’t convince the King, but a local freedom fighter heard you and thinks they can help.
Rolling the dice in Avatar Legends doesn't have an impact on how good your character is at something. Rolling the dice in Avatar legends helps establish how the world reacts to your character's actions.
In other words, the roll of dice in Avatar Legends and other PbtA games is outcome-focused. Rather than asking whether or not someone has the opportunity to have some result occur, we want to see what interesting outcomes–oftentimes outside of the control of the players–will come about because of their actions.
Tip #3: Decide on Genre
Now we start to get into the fun prep.
As a GM, you want to think about the characters your players have created and the story they have set up. From there you can figure out what tone and themes you want to highlight. Sometimes this happens naturally just based on the way the characters interact with the world, but the GM can also choose to highlight certain themes and genres over others.
The world of Avatar supports several different genres and tones.
On the surface, it's easy to pick up on both the broader fantasy themes as well as the Asian influences that undergird the worldbuilding. You as the GM should rely heavily on these genres. But honestly? The sky's the limit.
Two of my favorite minor genres that The Last Airbender delves into are horror and western/samurai movies. Another big theme of the Avatar-verse is wonderment and playfulness. For this, I enjoy drawing on Miyazaki films for their sense of awe and simplicity.
So what do you do with this?
Borrow prolifically! Watch movies and read books from the genres you want to emulate. The more you read the more you start to see what makes those genres “tick”. Borrow those elements and think about how they would exist in the campaign you are playing.
Tip #4: Playing with the Players
Let's just be honest, D&D focuses a lot on combat. That's part of the fun of a system like D&D, but it inherently sets up the GM–whether they know it or not–in an adversarial role to their players.
My monsters vs. the players becomes me vs. the players
This is not how Avatar Legends works. To begin with, the GM will never need to roll dice! Everything that the GM does is always in response to the fiction that your players have set up.
This places the GM in a far more collaborative role than we see in D&D. Instead of trying to beat your players, you are their biggest fan. Sure, sometimes this means placing them in situations that force their character to make abrupt–and sometimes difficult–choices, but that's only because you want to see the character grow and their story come to fruition.
So there’s no need to think of this as a board game, where you are placed against the other players. It’s a collaborative storytelling game where everyone involved gets to push the fiction forward in new and interesting ways.
Tip #5: Present Problems not Solutions
I think this is my favorite/most important tip. If you get nothing else from this article, memorize this.
Do not plot out how your players can solve the obstacles that you create!
All you as the GM are doing is setting up obstacles for them, you should not have a single “right” solution in mind.. Let your players decide how they want to solve the obstacles placed in front of them.
As an example, in a recent episode of The Flying Bison Podcast, a party member got kidnapped. The rest of the party knew who kidnapped them but that was it. I let them decide whether they wanted to infiltrate the business, go in guns blazing, stalk the business and follow their leader, or whatever else they came up with. Their choices set the story for the next couple of episodes. And the best part? All of it was improvised!
Your players will surprise you. The beauty of Avatar Legends is that you can let them. You’ll have more fun GM’ing if you do!
So that's it for now. I’m sure there will be more advice along the way but for now, remember
- Read the Rules
- Focus on the Narrative
- Play around with genre and tone
- You are your players’ biggest fans
- Present problems, not solutions
Until next Tea Time!
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