Let's talk about the #PbtA games. In particular: mechanical design that leans prescriptive or suggestive. Neither term is probably as precise as it should be but are useful for discussing the trends in this design space. All of the games have mechanics and have moves that reflect both of these trends. Prescriptive moves are usually extremely precise and specific. Therefore, they are also less open to interpretation from the player.

Stress dreams. Those are fun. This one had me cutting through a large space that had kids in a semi circle with a projector going like a movie theatre. A teacher grabbed me and told me that I wasn’t cutting again. I said something like ‘I just don’t understand this stuff’/1 She got pissed and as we were walking she was saying something like ‘you don’t get to choose’, poking me in my back. When we ended up in the office the teacher appeared to be a high school student as she was yelled at by the principal, the only adult in the room now, apparently/2

All in all, super fun session. We started in medias res where we had been captured by The Golden Wurm, a centipede looking ship. We were on route to deliver an obelisk to a Planet when we were captured and taken to the ship, which was super cool and had an Egyptian motif. Our princess playbook character, a cyborg-esk species has a powerful family and cowed them into releasing us until a sneaky jerk one killed their leader and attacked us. After a few misses things devolved and I shot the window out to suck them out into space