PBtA members, I am looking for recommendations of PBtA games that have rules differences that significantly differ…

PBtA members, I am looking for recommendations of PBtA games that have rules differences that significantly differ…

PBtA members, I am looking for recommendations of PBtA games that have rules differences that significantly differ from those of say, Dungeon World and Apocalypse World.

Particularly those that have specific reasons for those changes and that those changes are done well in your opinion.

Thanks in advance!

27 thoughts on “PBtA members, I am looking for recommendations of PBtA games that have rules differences that significantly differ…”

  5. Monster Force Terra uses Size as a single stat for all moves, only sometimes you want to get a high result and sometimes you want to get low.

    The ‘Hood scraps harm or hit points in favour of three conditions: Fine (carry on as normal), Down (you’re hurting, with -1 ongoing to everything) and Out (you’re dead.) It’s quite hard to inflict serious damage without a solid weapon, to the extent that ‘combat’ as such isn’t one of the basic moves, but is a peripheral move that uses the bonus of the weapon you’re holding.

  9. Night Witches. The game really pushes the themes extremely well, and while in the surface the rules don’t look that different, everything was written in these oddly restrictive ways that really put the characters in the hot seat. Also harm and marks work very differently.

  10. In Magical Fury, all stats for the magical girls are assumed to be +1. So, the roll is described as 6-8 as a partial and 9+ as a success. All the PCs have the same starting moves. So, the focus shifts from the number crunching mechanics to the relationships and themes of each character.

  12. Uncharted Worlds emulates Traveler, so you make a character by choosing two careers and an origin, instead of a playbook.

    It also handles the Harm move in a much better way: You roll +armor and want to roll well (like everything else in the game). It (like some other PbtA games) also makes a 10+ on the combat move a clear victory, not dealing damage.

    I’m curious to follow this thread, too.

  17. Little self promotion here, but Pasión de las Pasiones (ashcan recently published by Magpie Games) doesn’t have stats. Instead, it uses Yes/No questions that give bonuses to rolls!

  19. This is going to be a non-answer, but every PbtA game I’ve read or played has done this. Each one is different, and all of them have reasons for those differences.

    No one’s mentioned Masks with its changing stats reflecting how the teen heroes perceive themselves. Or Monsterhearts with its mechinization of social influence.

  27. It’s been mentioned already, but Monsterhearts is a classic that’s worth looking at, for the way moves mechanize small, subtle interactions between characters. It’s the only game I’ve played where a subtle glance occasionally has as much impact as gunshot.

    Vincent Baker’s nanogames are also worth looking at, for doing PbtA in an entirely different vein. It’s a collection called “The Sundered Land”.

Comments are closed.