Awesome, thanks again. Here is the edit: http://cityofmist.sonofoak.com/2016/10/what-gms-new-to-pbta-apocalypse-world-engine-games-dont-know/

I noticed a lot of GMs / MCs new to AW and PbtA games miss out on some of the best parts of the system because they don't know when to cue in. So here's an article describing the points where MCs can influence the game:

http://cityofmist.sonofoak.com/2016/10/what-gms-new-to-pbta-apocalypse-world-engine-games-dont-know/

I'd love some feedback on this, let me know what you think.

Thanks Aaron and Paul for the feedback.

We've been playtesting this mechanics quite intensively in the last few months. Definitely the points you made are present, here's how I tried to handle them:

Players trying to use tangential tags
I've been able to easily control the use of tangential tags in all the games I ran with a kind of a straight forward approach that I tried to descibe in the "You as a referee" part of the MC sheets http://cityofmyst.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/City-of-Myst-MC-principles-moves-demo-version.pdf. The one time it got out of hand was when Mitosis got into a fight with a group and all his tags became relevant at once, granting him +5. I still need to work out how to handle that, if at all, because it IS where he is supposed to be the most useful.

Too big a bonus, breaking AE
The second problem, too great a bonus, is managed with:

• Statuses, which are conditions that grant a penalty to all rolls related to them.
• Weakness tags that the player or MC invoke to reduce the bonus (players get XP for that).

So all in all, it ends up being a much more loose range of numbers with more factors affecting it, but the end result almost always stays within the AE range. There is another factor that mitigates the effect:
3. The moves have nastier 7-9 effects so that even high bonuses do not save a character from taking some kind of Status.

Another suggestion
A suggestion made by the players was to set a limit of 3 tags per action (they can still get a greater bonus using positive Statuses). This way, there is not so much a rush for relevant tags, just a quick scan to see if you have 0, 1, 2, or 3 tags. On the other hand, knowing that the max is 3 can drive players to try to max it every time, only increasing the tangential tags issue.

What do you think?

We just released more free content: "V for going Viral", City of Myst's first playable scenario ("Case"), tells the story of an infectious new evil that's plaguing the City. We also released the MC moves and principles, as well as a tracking sheet for the MC that helps follow the PC's motivations, a crucial component of the Mythos & Logos character development system.

http://cityofmyst.com/2016/02/go-play-first-city-of-myst-case-and-mc-sheets-updates/

Here we go -- the alpha version is available on our website along with some nice art, check it out:

http://cityofmyst.com/2016/01/city-of-myst-alpha-is-out/

I'd very much appreciate any kind of feedback, from the concept down to the smallest detail.

Specifically, the roll+tags mechanic is pretty experimental and it would be great to get your thoughts on it. It's been going very well on playtests so far, but maybe that's because I was running all of them. Same goes for the status spectrums and Mythos\Logos mechanics.

If anyone is up for running a playtest, I will give you all the support you need. Contact me at amit@cityofmyst.com .

Hope you enjoy the read!

Hi everyone,

I've been working for over a year on a PBTA game called City of Myst about super-powered individuals in a dark urban mystical setting. The two cool game mechanic elements that characterize the game:

1. It runs on roll+tags. The characters are basically lists of tags and the moves are powered by the number of relevant tags you use in a a move. This is a fusion of Apocalypse Engine with tag-based games, e.g. Lady Blackbird.

2. Status spectrums replace harm. Status combines a tag, often negative, with a tier. Whenever the tag applies to what you are doing, the tier acts as a penalty to your roll. The status spectrum is a nice way to merge different effects into one value ("Are they on the same spectrum?") and make the penalty stacking non-linear. I'll share more about that when the Alpha is out.

The Alpha release, due in the next few days, will include the core moves and mechanics and seven ready-made character playbooks (not archetypes but finished characters - the character creation is a whole 'nuther ballgame).

If you want to check out the game website for some more info -- it's at cityofmyst.com . I will post an update here when the Alpha docs are available for download.

For now - does anyone know of any other games/hacks working with the roll+tags mechanics that I can check out? What do you think about this direction?

Oh and check out some of the art our illustrator has been working on: