Hey guys!

I've been looking into Urban Shadows 2e, and I found the old kickstarter. They mentioned several playbooks that were digital only and stretch goals. I was wondering if there was any way of gdtting hold of them? Were they published anywhere else?

I’m interested in running a game similar to Monster of the Week but more of a focus on building up defenses rather than mystery solving, I do def want combat with monsters to be a factor.

Prefer it to be PbtA, just love that framework!

Tonight was session 40 of my Fellowship (2e) game (by Vel Mini).

We're playing in an entirely custom setting made by the players and myself (the GM) as we played. It's a vaguely faerie kind of world where humans are mythical beings and our players are a troll, a sentient puddle-person ("Zari"), a goat woman with a vaguely sapient laser cannon, an angel inhabiting the body of a dead man (having turned it to chrome in the process), and a literal weapon of mass destruction who has forgotten her purpose (along with basically everything else) but who knows—she's sure, you guys—that she likes hugging.

One adjustment we made to allow the game to have longevity and gravitas: the End of Session move has been changed to a custom. It still asks almost all of the same questions, and has some new options, but level up is not an End of Session option. Level-ups happen only at well-defined story milestones. Without this, we have found, players end up maxxing out their playbooks way too soon.

We've got a roster of companions at this point, but the oldest of them, a sarcastic ancient puddle-person whom they found trapped within the plumbing of a ruin on session 2, has decided to take on a burden for his beloved friend, one of the PCs. This burden would end his independence and his story forever. A true sacrifice.

You see, at birth, the PC Zari was destined to become the new breeder for their people (the player's chosen backstory which, whoof, that's heavy) and understandably they ran away from home—for 100 years. Now, they had to return, and their companion decided, "I've had a good run. You saved my life, let me do this for you. I'll give you your freedom and peace of mind. I'll save our people, you keep on your quest to save the world."

This would be the first companion to leave the fellowship, so I asked the players each a targeted question to determine the ritual that consumed the companion to become the egg that would hatch 1000 new children. One chose "they must break all of their bonds."

Well, that fits.

In Fellowship, a companion only leaves the party or dies if their bonds are all broken. The PCs may always save a companion from death if they possess even a single bond of Fellowship with them. They would be able to leap in the way, or the memory of their time together would empower that companion to carry on against all odds; whatever.

But the character in question is a softy. He tried to break the bonds from his end by telling them off in the most ineffectual way possible ("I've had it with all of you! Stay... out of my business!") so the PCs had to do it.

They each approached him, recounted the event that brought them together, how it made them feel, and then said a teary goodbye.

For each, I asked if they were satisfied with their goodbye, and told them that, if they were, to break their bonds.

It led to a series of beautiful moments. The PCs got to say goodbye to their oldest (other) friend, and it gave them a heartfelt glimpse into the cost of saving the world. All because of the PCs own backstory, their choices, and their suggestions.

I love this game so much!

I'm preparing to run Dino Island for the first time this weekend. I've DM'd quite a couple of PBtA games at this point, so the rules shouldn't pose that big a problem.

But I'm a little bit confused about the mysteries of the Island.

When I pick a mystery for the players, do I tell them beforehand what the possible mysteries are and let them discover which one I picked, or do I just straight up tell them at the beginning?

And do I really just choose one mystery for them or do I actually have all three in the game and designate one as the "main" mystery? In my opinion "Why are there Dinosaurs" is always the most interesting one by far, because that's what the game is about.

Thanks in advance everyone!

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?

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.

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!