I want to do PbtA in The Expanse.

I want to do PbtA in The Expanse.

I want to do PbtA in The Expanse. I arrived at this idea because I haven’t found a PbtA sci-fi hack I like as much as The Sprawl. For those of you who have watched the show/read the books, what do you think? I think I wouldn’t have to hack too much.

For playbooks, here’s how I see the show/book characters:

Holden: Pusher

Naomi: Tech

Alex: Driver

Amos: Killer or Soldier or ?

Miller: Hunter

The cyberware rules would have to be scrapped for PCs. Vehicles for the Driver would have to be changed to ships (would be fun statting out the Roci…)

Any ideas?

13 thoughts on “I want to do PbtA in The Expanse.”

  1. Back when I was first thinking of publishing The Sprawl, this kind of space-faring sci-fi was my plan for Game 2. As it turns out, I know someone has a pretty extensive hack in progress.

    For a lighter hack, I agree with those playbooks. Amos is definitely a Killer rather than a Soldier though. He’s far more of a follower of orders than a planner. I could see and argument for Holden being a Soldier.

  2. Amos as Killer and Holden as Soldier possibly too. I agree with Hamish. I’ve been running my own Sprawl game in a space setting and have taken a ton of inspiration on space combat from Expanse.

  3. I have Uncharted Worlds and I don’t like it as much as The Sprawl. First, the game doesn’t feel like PbtA because of the way the book is set up. Also, the character setup is weird. It doesn’t feel good for just picking up and playing like at a con.

  4. It’s entirely possible I’m the “someone” Hamish Cameron is referring to! I’ve pieced together an alpha version of a Sprawl hack called “Out on the Rim” specifically for this sort of Traveller-esque spacefaring. If you’re interested in taking a look, you can find it right over here…

    drive.google.com – Public – Google Drive

    Specifically, you’d want to skip the “planet creation” part of your first session and instead set up index cards for the planets/locations you’d want to visit in your Expanse game (Earth and Mars almost certainly, and probably a couple good belt locations). Then, you should be able to continue with character creation as normal. You should even be able to stat the Roci out however you please: I left a lot of the ship systems ambiguous as to tech level specifically so the system could be used for hard sci-fi, too! As for who each character on the show would be using OotR playbooks, I’d say…

    Holden: Soldier

    Naomi: Expert (expertise: Engineer)

    Alex: Pilot

    Amos: Muscle

    Miller: Captain (or maybe Ambassador)

    Anyway, feel free to take a look and see if it suits your purposes. If you do happen to give it a try, please let me know how it goes! I definitely want to hear as much feedback as possible at this point.

  5. I’d agree that Holden is a soldier, although… his desire to piece together the story and his literal use of “Live and on the Air” make a fun case for him being a reporter (at least up to the point in the story we’re at in the show).

  6. Yeah. Dawes would work (I haven’t read the books) in that he is pushing the vision of the OPA. Fred Johnson might even be a soldier turned pusher.

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