Pasión de las Pasiones and the Magic of Questions

First off, play Pasión de las Pasiones if you haven’t already. Shit, if you already have, play it again.

Maybe it’s a hard pitch for some folks? The romance novel cover, lack of familiarity with telenovelas, maybe the premise just sounds too unserious. But it truly is a genius game you’d be remiss to ignore.

What stands out to me above all else is that it knows what it wants to be. It’s fully committed to the stories it wants to tell, and its mechanics powerfully funnel players into playing along. If that’s the kind of game you aspire to make, read on! And if you aren’t a designer in the PbtA space, hopefully there’s still something here to get your brain moving ;)

Questions are a huge aspect of this focused, intentional design. (Brandon Leon-Gambetta, the creator of Pasiones, doesn’t capitalize it. But I’m pushing for Capital Q Questions in recognition of the scale of his advancement!)

So let’s dig into it. Here’s a move from Pasiones, which I’ve rewritten to use Apocalypse World stats as a reference point:

When you demand what you deserve, roll+hot:

On a hit, the target of your demand chooses one. On a 10+, remove one of their options and they choose one from the remaining:

Cool, fine. The move sets tone, right? It drives dramatic, explosive interpersonal confrontation like you’d expect in a telenovela. As with all good PbtA moves, the picklist serves an evocative narrative role alongside simple mechanical results.

If you’re expecting to be demanding a lot from people, maybe you pump up your Hot stat. Or is it that you wanted to be Hot so as a result you’re good at making demands…?

What if you wanted to push a specific vibe even harder? Here’s the actual phrasing from Pasiones:

When you demand what you deserve, roll with the Questions:

Helllllll yeah.

So what’s going on here? Rather than using a stat, the bonus to your roll is based on how many questions you can narratively answer yes to.

“Do they love you in this moment?” is so gooooood. This is a romance game! Even if this move isn’t directly about romance, it still is. As a designer, you get an extra level of control over how the game feels and what you want players to think about during play. Asking “Wow, do they love me right now??” is so incredibly evocative when compared to “Yeah I’m +3 Hot”.

“Are you offering something of value in return?” is more utilitarian. It’s not selling a vibe, but it does leave a nice level of openness to the move - that is, rather than the move needing to be “When you demand what you deserve and offer something of value in return”, or listing “You don’t have to give something of value in return” as an option in the picklist of results, players have a choice up front. Do I want to keep my shit or get the bonus. Plus it gets gears turning considering what you even have to offer.

Hey, don’t a lot of PbtA games have stats that go up to max 3? Yep! There’s one more Question we’re missing! The Playbook Question.

Your Question:Are you the center of attention?

Each playbook has a unique Question, which is asked alongside the other two with every move. This is where we get back the “My character is The Hot One so I should be better at this roll than you!” that we lose from abandoning stats.

Playbook Questions allow the designer to give a huge push on how a character should be played, in a much more narratively satisfying way than being driven by stats. In Apocalypse World, my decision to Go Aggro On Someone versus Seduce or Manipulate Someone of course should be driven by the narrative and “what my character would do”, but sometimes it can be hard to divorce that decision from “I have -2 Hot and +3 Hard so Go Aggro is way better”.

In Pasiones, if I’m playing El Jefe, whose playbook question is “Are you taking control of this situation?”, I could of course answer yes when using the Go Aggro equivalent, Striking Out With Voice or Violence, but I could just as well take control of a situation by Expressing My Love Passionately (which would surely have been rolled +hot).Hack time! Here’s a commonly used move in Apocalypse World:

When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll +cool:

On a 10+, you do it. On a 7-9, you flinch, hesitate, or stall: the MC can offer you a worse outcome, a hard bargain, or an ugly choice. On a miss, be prepared for the worst.

Here’s one example of how that could look using Questions instead:

When you do something under fire, or dig in to endure fire, roll with the questions:

The first Question is mostly a thought-provoker. What does it say about you if you’ve prepared extensively for your hideout being shot up vs for explaining yourself to a jilted lover with a big knife?

The second Question is a bigger divergence, a statement that “In my Apocalypse World, everybody does a lotta drugs”. This probably isn’t the right fit for your Apocalypse World! Rather, this is an idea of the focused tonal direction you should push with Questions.

Lastly we need our Playbook Question, something that gets at the core of the playbook and makes sense when applied to a wide range of moves. Here let’s say I’m playing The Battlebabe.

It reads like a Blades in the Dark XP trigger, right? (eg. You addressed a challenge with violence or coercion.) But instead of checking for it at the end of a session, you’re reminded of it every time you trigger any move. That’s powerful!

Last thing, here’s a basic procedure to help with implementing Questions in your own games:

Try it out! Show us your Roll With Questions Moves over on Bluesky!For more from Storygames Chicago, check out our website for links to member socials and other games, and join our discord! We run games online and locally in the greater Chicago area.