Judd Karlman well…all the interpersonal stuff, all the drama-before-the-drama. Who did you leave behind? Who knows your deepest secret? All the r-map-making questions that you answer in typical PbtA games. Because the point, then, is to start pushing on the weak spots in the relationships you’ve collaborated on (and therefore theoretically have buy-in about because of the collaboration).

Not just PbtA either! I played at Jason Pitre’s Sig table at Dreamation earlier this year and there’s a whole hour-ish of making the characters, trading connections with one another and so on. And that is the situation: who is connected by family or origin or job, what debts and whatever are in place.

It’s a pretty common thing.