u/G-Dream-908

Why is PbtA seen as Bad Game design?

I have been watching and reading a bunch of stuff on game design as research for my own system since January, and I tend to come across the sentiment that Powered by the Apocalypse games are often seen as "Bad" Game Design (typically either here on reddit, or by a very opinionated creator like Notepad Anon, but he doesn't say why he doesn't like them, he just often goes "fucking pbta!").

I personally haven't played many PbtA games (just a few one shots in Monster of the Week, tho lots of Ironsworn & Starforged, but I don't consider PbtA, but more an evolution of it to where it is something different/ in between, like Shadowdark is between 5e and OSR, but that's getting too off topic), tho I have read few a couple, but I'm not sure what I'm missing.

The really only the main thing I can think of is that Gamist people and Simulationist people aren't a fan of Narrativist games (terms from GNS theory), so have some kind of kneejerk reaction to any Narrativist game. But surely there's more to it than that, no?

So, I figured I'd turn to Reddit to get Reddit to do what Reddit does: Please give me your (helpful, or trying to be at least) Unadulterated Reddit Opinions on why you think PbtA games are, or might be seen as, bad game design? Go ham in your responses (this is reddit after all...), but please try to give some reasoning instead of JUST vitriol.

Edit: to be clear, I don't share this sentiment (I don't feel I have enough knowledge to even have an opinion on it, so I'm asking to get more information)

reddit.com
u/G-Dream-908 — 1 day ago