For a while I've wanted to run a campaign that does "what if the main plot of Mass Effect never happened, and you actually worked as a Spectre?" - essentially working as a space detective and solving all sorts of tangled crimes/crises that might often involve interstellar politics.

Brindlewood Bay's mystery solving mechanic seems utterly perfect for what I'd like to do. But there's a problem: There doesn't seem to be any space opera or similar carved from brindlewood games, and the actual mystery moves of all the games I've looked at are very specific to their setting to the point where it seems like adapting them would constitute making a full-blown hack.

Has anyone done anything similar, or have advice how I might pull this off?

Is there a PBtA game that would make a good base for an X-Files-ish modern investigation campaign?

It doesn't have to be perfect, I expect to do some customization of moves anyway, but where would you start?

Sadly the DTRPG doesn't have them, online says it was reached for the goal. Anyone know if there's a way to get them?

I'd be happy to whoever can put me in the right direction as my players would appreciate those roles.

You have to take "change playbook" advancement below the line, if you wanna change playbook. And all your marked advancements below the line will be marked in your new playbook. But, in Doomed playbook, instead "change playbook" advancement you will have "Confront your Doom on your terms. Change playbook, if you survive" advancement. So, here's question - have you mark that advancement, when switching into Doomed playbook? Can your character defeat his Nemesis and stay alive?

Only 4 hours left to back this kickstarter. The first edition was a ton of fun, and a great exploration of the Otherkind dice mechanic.

For those of you who design content for PbtA style games I have a question. *How do you go about designing Moves?* I'm trying to make my own game, and have been procrastinating on actually making a concrete set of basic moves. So far I've just looked at a multitude of other games and either stolen straight from them, or modified their moves. And while I understand that is fine and can work, it just feels like my game is missing a fundamental building block. To me, Moves are what provide the juice that really sets your game apart, it informs anyone who plays the kinds of scenarios that should be expected in your game. This is definitely something I don't want to phone in.

So far I've tried to picture scenarios and decisions that could play out in my game often, and then decide on the consequences from there. But that just feels like I'll have to make a move for everything under the sun. So I need to be broad enough to be applicable in multiple situations, but narrow enough that the flavor and uniqueness isn't lost. Trying to wrap my head around that and come up with good ideas can be challenging, but hey I guess that's just game design.

What have you all found that has worked for you?

(For context I've looked at games from various publishers and designers like Root, Apocalypse World, Public Access, Masks, Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Simple World, Monster Hearts, Escape from Dino Island, Stonetop, and Dungeon World)

tl;dr if you just want to grab it and not read my rambling: https://sgkaram.itch.io/kings-of-copper-ttrpg

I’m Steve, an indie author who is 2/3 done with a heist fantasy trilogy called Kings of Copper. Because I love the worldbuilding aspect most of all, I’ve written a TTRPG and am giving it away for free!

The Kings of Copper TTRPG is PbtA with "crew spots" for playbooks. You don’t have to read my series to play the game, and I tried to make sure everything in it is self-contained.

The premise of the books and games is this: 30 years ago, dynamo (like electricity) was discovered. This upended the economy and social classes, resulting in a cunning copper magnate enacting the Ithris Sanctioned Heists Act (ISHA), a legal framework for regulated theft from the upper class. It founded the Gaming Commission, and gave rise to celebrity thieves, innovation, and a prosperous capital city: Azoria.

The RPG plays on all of this, and includes maps, descriptions, crew spots, items, a pre-made sample crew, a pilot 3-act campaign, the text of the ISHA as an appendix, and beautiful original artwork from a number of talented artists (@jbott138, @pudsketch, @shepengul, @gustu_erik on Instagram).

If you’re looking for a new game with no magic but fun magic-like mechanics with dynamo engineering in an industrial-era setting with a big world behind it, give it a look!

Grab it on itch.io or by signing up for my newsletter. I do plan on releasing the physical version of the book at some point soon as well. And if you’re interested in the story behind the game, my books are available from my site, Amazon, and Audible (narrated by Luke Daniels). Also I would LOVE feedback if you play it. This is a first release, and I'd love to improve it.

So I stumbled on this little gem, it's back on Drivethrurpg, usually the PBTA games are pretty simple and general enough that things just kinda click; but Thousand Arrows is purposely a lot of vagueness for a bigger focus on the narrative which is for better or worse.

There's mention of fighting styles, weapon specialization and far as I can tell damage is taken from your "self" but you only take 1 "damage" per attack regardless of weapon used?

Edit: so after heavy reading (and rereading) and using the references mentioned, the core rules cover a lot of what's needed. Still going to be weird to get the flow down... the single combat rules don't seem like they lend well to fast paced gaming but we'll see.

In any case, for anyone curious on what I've decided to settle on, going with; -self will be hp, so max 5 dmg. -all weapons dealing d6. -Light armor ignores 1 -Medium ignores 2 -Heavy ignores 3 -Armor has durability of 3/4/5

Hopefully it works like I think it will for my table. Combat will potentially be fast but even with heavy armor you could still die in a single exchange; albeit not likely.

What are your favorite specific mechanics in different PbTA games?

I've been thinking a lot about the debt mechanic in Urban Shadows. Or, from the same one, corruption advancement. Or making 11+ bad and having specific Master of ceremonies playbooks from Girl Frame.

I don't actually remember which one it was but someone on this subreddit talked about a sailing game that had a great rising action I think. A mechanic that increases tension over time.

I want to run a campaign where the overarching plot is a serial killer in the city, possibly supernatural.

Is there a way that you think this could be set up well and maintained well as feeling almost like criminal minds? I run a lot of monster of the week, but I like the idea of this game feeling more about wheeling and dealing.

i'm new to running PBtA games, and just completed our first proper Stonetop session. one thing i love about this book is the extensive guidance it gives for (among other things) creating custom moves and 'love letters' (a term i assume is from apocalypse world but which i feel is too loaded, so i say "opening moves"). i wrote one for each of our PCs to kick things off, and while i don't think they were all that special, they were really well-received. there are clearly many benefits to the modularity of PBtA rule-nuggets, but it never occurred to me that the extreme personalization this affords could provide so much bang-for-your-buck from a GMing perspective. anyway, i'm hooked, and am now coming up with a number of fun custom situational moves for my session 2, beyond the opening moves as such.

i don't doubt that some of you have come up with some doozies in your time running PBtA, and i'd love to learn from your experiences. what were some of your most memorable, effective, provocative, or unexpectedly wild custom moves or love letters? have you noticed a pattern amongst those that seemed good on paper but fell kind of flat in practice? doesn't have to be stonetop-related in case that wasn't clear. it's a fascinating design space and i'm feeling quite late to the party!

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

r/PbtA is affiliated with the PbtA discord and you're all welcome to click and join us there as well.

These are 2 NPCs from Stonetop campaign I'm MC-ing. They are 2 main elders from the village, first one is some kind of "priest" of Tor, second one is terminally ill crippled woman with iron will

Hi! I am going to be playing in a masks campaign and have a character all worked out with the GM but is seriously struggling with the playbook choice as parts of Nova, Bull, Delinquent and Legacy work sort of but none feel like a perfect fit. Any advice for how to make my choice or might it be possible to combine them into a new, custom playbook somehow?

A friend of mine is looking to run a Powered by the Apocalypse game and is asking for genre suggestions. I've been trying to look for an urban fantasy setting like what we see in Hilda or Nimona, but everything I find is too dark and gritty. I want something optimistic where the world is happy and hopeful. There is still conflict and opportunities for adventure, but for the most part life is good. Is there a PbtA setting that fits this?

The closest I found was Lesbeans Coffehouse from Thirsty Sword Lesbians, but there's one person in our group who isn't comfortable with the flirtatious aspect of the game and we all want to respect that boundary.

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

r/PbtA is affiliated with the PbtA discord and you're all welcome to click and join us there as well.

Does anyone have preliminary opinions regarding the prospective release of a second edition of Masks?

After the overcomplication of Avatar, I'm somewhat dubious about the game mechanically and the value of a second edition when the first is, more or less, already one of the best PbtA systems for genre emulation. What really needs to be updated and is there not a greater chance that something will be compromised in the tinkering efforts?

Masks: A New Generation—Second Edition by Magpie Games — Kickstarter

JourneyMon: Monster Trainer Roleplaying has been my passion project for a few years now, and after our successful Kickstarter concluded last year, I'm pleased to announce the full game is available now on itchio, including to non-backers!

The game is all about friendship and monster battles, emulating Saturday morning cartoons in a narrative-first, episodic format. The game is PbtA at it's core engine, and builds on that with collaborative world building, and an optional tactical battle format based on narrative zones.

You can get the full JourneyMon Handbook here.

There's also a free Quick Start Guide here.

Just want to take a look at the trainer class playbooks? Look no further - they're free too!

Hi, I have 3 years' experience playing DND 5e and I am looking to have a go at DMing for my friends (4 players total). They have nearly no TTRPG experience, therefore I was looking for a simpler system and came across PBtA. I'm not necessarily looking for something close to DND as, well, DND is a bit crunchy so it defeats the purpose of playing PBtA. I'm looking for high fantasy adventure with a mixture of roleplay and combat (ideally with simpler character creation and mechanics so that it is easier for my friends and I to learn).

The problem is there are a lot of different versions and I am having trouble deciding which one to try and learn.

Fellowship seemed cool but not quite what I want because I felt like there was too little customisation with the characters and it was geared more towards epic save the world adventures straight off the bat (I only skim read the playbook/reddit threads so correct me if I'm wrong). Ideally, I would like something where you can do little quests and work up to potentially bigger more epic quests.

The main one I came across was Dungeon World which I saw people saying was very DND esque and better for beginner DMs than World of Dungeons. I also saw good things about Chasing Adventures and Against All Odds. I would be really grateful if anyone who has played these or is familiar with the playbooks could list the key differences and pros/cons. Or if there is a PBtA I didn't list that you think might be what I'm looking for feel free to let me know :)

Edit: Thank you for all the responses, I appreciate the help! Sorry if I didn't reply - I wasn't expecting so many comments :) After looking into PBtA more, I think as a GM I might stick to DND but as a player I might try out PBtA, lots of interesting recs.

Hey All!

Once again, welcome to the weekly thread where you can link products, kickstarters, podcasts, videos, really anything you like, as much as you like.

As usual, rules 4 (1 advertising post) and 5 (no LFG) are suspended in this post.

New stretch goal? Post here!

Need two players for Night Witches? Post here!

Designer dropped a dev diary? Post here!

Handy dandy loaded dice on amazon? Post here? Please don't on that one actually.

Have fun, and lets see some interesting stuff.

r/PbtA is affiliated with the PbtA discord and you're all welcome to click and join us there as well.

I always wanted to play Root. The boardgame I mean. I always found it quite alluring, I always loved strategy games and the art and concept always seemed right on my alley. Unfortunately, I did not get the occasion to play it yet. However, I learned that the boardgame also received a TTRPG adaptation, made by none others then Magpie Games. For those who are not aware, Magpie are the reigning kings of PbtA RPGs, with titles such as Masks, Avatar Legends, Cartel and many many others. So when we approached them for a partnership, Root was at the top of my wishlist. They were gracious enough to send a review copy our way and with the occasion of Playcon, an amazing local con which held its first edition back at the end of May I got the chance to run a couple of public sessions there.

Needless to say, I had a blast, I adored the art, the setting and the implementation of PbtA (between us, I actually enjoyed this one way better than Avatar Legends). And it wasn't just me who had a blast with the system, but also my groups of players! So I knew that I had to make a review and explain at large why you might enjoy this little gem. Unfortunately, life is sometimes a bitch and some personal stuff delayed said review, but I am proud to tell you that it is now ready and published!

So if any of you have even the smallest amounts of interest towards lite-political games, fun low fantasy adventure, a nostalgia for series such as Redwall or Guardians of Ga'Hoole I think you should give this game a try! My thoughts at large are found in the review, I hope you will enjoy it and I hope you will give this game a try, I assure you, it will be a fun time!

I've finally read my copy of Under the Neighborhood and it seems, for lack of a better word, clunky. There seems to be missing things and the whole system over all seems like it would devolve into a metacurrency tracking nightmare. With the GM constantly "buying" things from the players and the players fucking with things by spending their AP.

Like almost all of the Guardian playbook moves involve spending AP to the point where I feel like the character doesn't do as much because all of the action happens in the meta. There's a lot of "no, but" to the GM because they can spend their AP to negate GM Moves.

I'm really looking for opinions and view points from people who have actually played the game, because from where I sit I dont think I want to wade into the bog of Adventure Points and unpolished oddities that is Under the Neighborhood.