I double post this from reddit RPG group:
So I like what Powered by Apocalypse (PbA) games bring to the table – they are rules light, low prep RPG out of the box. It is exactly what I am looking for. I would think this would work great with a non-gamer group.
When I first read the original Apocalypse World, I was very confused. I was bothered with the “slang” used in the book and explanation of the rules and the whole attitude in the book (I know, artistically it was well made). To me it was hard to understand the phrases “when you do it, do it”, “go aggro” – especially because English is foreign language to me.
Now looking other PbA games out there, I find them too niche. For a totally new group, the “sex moves” and some other very genre specific content is not that accessible.
So what I would want is to find as bland and generic PbA game as possible. I want the qualities of rules light, player driven sandbox. I also want it accessible for GM – I want the rules to be explained in simple and understandable way.
I think the #1 recommendation would be Dungeon World, but even though D&D is considered accessible among gamers, it is not for new people in the hobby. It has all the “culture” of D&D as a base to understand it. And it’s what, 400 pages? Yeah, not light at all.
I would like this game to be able to play a scenario of one of those examples:
– regular people in a haunted house (horror)
– historical people fighting a monster (low-fantasy)
– in space encountering aliens (traveller) (simple space opera)
And all that as rules light as possible. I think there is none of that 🙁
I am wondering how these games would suit to me:
– Life Among the Ruins http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/151507/Legacy-Life-Among-the-Ruins
– Uncharted Worlds http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/162122/Uncharted-Worlds?hot60=1&src=hgrs&filters=0_0_44825_0_0
– Fellowship – A Tabletop Adventure Game http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/177662/Fellowship–A-Tabletop-Adventure-Game?hot60=1&src=hgrs&filters=0_0_44825_0_0
I haven’t read or played the games you mention, but the horror genre could be covered by Monster of the Week. It was my first pbta game and me and the players found it easy to master.
evilhat.com – Monster of the Week/
Setting wise, people who have seen an episode of Buffy or Supernatural will know what the game is about.
I second Eric Nieudan. Monster of the Week is a great first step into pbta game, everything is inside the book, it’s a common universe (who hasn’t seen one of these shows?). I am playing a campaign right now with my irl group and it’s working great.
If you have to choose between the three you mentioned I would consider Fellowship, Uncharted World and Life among the ruins seems to me very complicated to master. I didn’t play those three games, maybe someone who actually played can comment.
I’d third Monster of the Week, but Fellowship is pretty great at showing how PbtA games can break standard RPG assumptions what with the Overlord playbook system. Haven’t played Uncharted Worlds but I’ve certainly heard it’s on the complex end. Legacy: Life Among the Ruins is my baby and I love it of course, but I wouldn’t recommend it as someone’s first PbtA game – other games do a better job of explaining the Conversation framework that drives this engine. It’s something I’m working on improving with the 2nd edition.
OMG, YES! Monster of the Week sounds exactly what I am looking for. X-files monster mystery. 320 pages is still quite a tome, but I guess there are better explanations and examples.
Juhan Voolaid I am positive you’re not the only person who wants that. You could create it!
Monster of the Week does a great job of explaining PbtA in an easy to understand way. I’m working on a PbtA game about monster hunters in 17th century Europe, and it’s definitely low fantasy, so it seems to hit one of your requested genres. It’s playable if you understand PbtA, and heavily inspired by Monster of the Week, but not finished but I’ll leave the link in case you want to check it out: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yGpNkbjkI1ycvHftMSYNwh1I-8JCyv4x9LvthPGsb8g
Uncharted Worlds is a great sci-fi game. It is a little more “complicated” then other PbtA games but only because it leans more heavily on the narrative side of doing things without rolls, in some places. That does take a bit of experience with when to trigger moves, when not to trigger them, etc that comes with playing PbtA games. That said, if you’re good at that, UW is a blast and a half.
I don’t find Uncharted Worlds complex. Maybe for traditional gamers it has some twists and explicitly encourages player cooperation in the narrative. But for folks new to RPGs I don’t see the problem.
What about Mythos World? Could I run CoC scenario with this rules lite system?
Have you looked at Simple World? It’s basically a “Make-Your-Own-PBTA-Game” kit. Very short read, no extra fluff, just the PbtA system and the steps to create a custom game out of it.
Uncharted Worlds is at the simple end, well written and highly evocative. NPCs don’t even have Harm, they are simply The that need to be dealt with through Moves, Skill and appropriate tools. Worth checking.
I also love Impulse Drive which is in preview on Drivethru. Closer to AW and playbook driven, the Moves look good.
I guess Impulse Drive is closest to a “Traveller World” out there?
I would say Uncharted World is closest to Traveller? You pick “careers” to make your characters, and combat can be very risky. Uncharted Worlds is billed as “space opera” but it is a very specific kind of space opera. It feels like classical space opera, very Asimovian — the kind of space opera that inspired Traveller.
Impulse Drive, to me, feels much more bombastic and more in line with what we call space opera today. Impulse Drive works better out of the box, I would say, for your huge flashy explosive Michael Bay Space Operas: Mass Effect, Star Wars, Farscape, and so on.
I might be wrong, but that’s the feel I get from both of them. Uncharted Worlds is getting some sourcebooks soon that are all about making the game weirder and more flashy, but those are still in development right now.
While thematically it might be too gamey, World of Dungeons, is one of the simplest PbtA games. You could do something similar for a more modern theme. Streamline the stats, have just a single (or small number of basic moves) and your done.
Another Mythos alternative is tremulus: https://realityblurs.com/shop/catalog/setting/tremulus/
realityblurs.com – tremulus | Reality Blurs Shop
Alfred Rudzki Spot on I’d say.
The gold standard for explaining PbtA in an approachable way is MonsterHearts, and the second edition looks like it further improves on the approachability. Problem is, I think MH is the sort of niche game you’re trying to avoid.
Avoiding a niche might be harder than you think. PbtA thrives on specificity, and therefore the designers that understand and can communicate the system through design are going to latch on that. That’s how you can get games like MonsterHearts, Monster of the Week, and Urban Shadows side-by-side on a bookshelf. Each is a great game that tackles the same Genre of Modern Horror–but it will fall apart if your table isn’t in sync with the particular spin on that genre that each game captures.
That is spot-on Alan Scott. The power behind “moves” is forcing genre-specific tropes to the forefront of gameplay, as seen in Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and more. Its been joked before that PbtA games are “troperific” and that is kind of their super-power, really.
Alan Scott – yep, I totally get it. I wish there were a sword and sorcery emulation like Dungeon World.
Devon Apple – I was considering Tremulus, but I took the Mythos World as it is supposed to be simpler and more rules light. Will see.