Please note: this thread is intended to be the place for self-promotion.
Please keep blatant self-promotion out of the other design threads.
This thread is for you to tell others about your Powered by the Apolcaylpse projects.
Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined
A Kingdom Hearts Inspired PbtA Game about Fanfiction and crossovers.
https://www.linksmithgames.com/interstitial-our-hearts-intertwined
(also it's officially out on pdf now!)
Interstitial is a game that I love dearly, it encourages you to play canon characters from official properties, and play out whatever wild cross over fiction you want. Do you want Criss Angel to protect Roxanne from a Goofy Movie? Do you want to watch Shego beat up Archie Andrews? Interstitial is the game for you.
It's about to actually release, right now preorders are up but we are waiting for ONE MORE piece of art and then it will be offiically released. It's been played on multiple different platforms, but my go to is always telling people to listen to Interstitial AP on the Orange Groves network! It's a whole Campaign featuring a cast of characters going through different worlds. The first season relies heavily on kingdom Hearts knowledge but Season two really breaks free of that.
Princess World: Princess Academy Adventures
Magical princesses have school life adventures in a world of wild magic.
Princess World is full of magic. You can't escape the stuff. Uncoincidentally it's also full of princesses, individuals who through legacy, effort or accident are able to control magic. Being a princess is a bit like being a magical girl, except you're transformed all the time and there are hundreds of other princesses around. Enough other princesses, in fact, to make some kind of formalised education absolutely necessary.
Thus, Princess Academy.
Princess Academy Adventures is a tabletop roleplaying game about demigod-avatar magical princesses attending school and having adventures in a chaotic world. It's powered by the apocalypse, dad-tested and daughter-approved. I originally made it to play with my daughters and we've had a lot of fun with it over the years. I figure other people will enjoy it too.
Right now the core rules are available, along with a sourcebook detailing some of the factions of the known kingdoms, a couple dozen monsters, and a few other things. There's also a character sheet, and in a soonish sort of timeframe I'll put up some of the adventure modules I've made too.
Armour Astir: Advent
A Powered By The Apocalypse game about giant magical robots and the people that control them.
Armour Astir is a high-fantasy role-playing game about rebellious magicians, fighters, clerics, and forty-foot tall magical constructs, caught up in the struggle against an Authority that seeks to control them. Inspired by Mobile Suit Gundam, Escaflowne, and others, the stars of Armour Astir are young, talented, and at the forefront of violent revolution. Evening the odds against their foe are Astirs; immense suits of magic-fueled armour - the smallest of which still tower above regular men - that are piloted by talented individuals known as Channelers.
Right now, all the core moves, playbooks, and downtime moves are implemented, as well as examples of equipment, enemies, and mech stat blocks, and temporary (but form-fillable) character sheets. GM Principles, Agenda and Moves are also available, as well as a brief glossary and list of shorthands - in short, aside from longer-term features like factions, the game is available for testing! There's also a quickstart/testing pdf available with a condensed version of the rules, as well as a feedback form, linked in the above document.
The Service
Gritty Cold War espionage in the UK
https://lari-assmuth.itch.io/the-service-playtest
The Service is a love letter to espionage stories such as Le Carré, Len Deighton and The Sandbaggers. Drab, dreary and morally gray stories about well-trained but very human intelligence officers trying to deal with crises in every corner of the post-colonial Cold War world as well as trying to cope with their own stress and alienation.
At the moment, there's a playtest kit (version 0.9), and I'm very interested in any kind of feedback. You can find me here on itch.io, on the Apocalypse World channel in Discord and on rocketsurgeongames.com
Home Again
Play as characters who work to take reclaim the heritage that had been wrested from them by mysterious magic, for the sake of their community.
https://nell-raban.itch.io/home-again
40 years ago, the Tao people and their island community were transported by some unknown means to the outskirts of a modern city. Play as members of the Tao community that have grown up with this legacy and fight every day to build on it, in the face of a society that doesn't understand them or care to.
Playbooks:
Home Again is in active development.
Witch Game Generator
A generator that creates small, PbtA-inspired games about a dead witch's apprentices.
https://uncannydice.itch.io/witch-game-generator
[Not sure where to put this, I want to talk about some of the ideas behind it and the things it generates, but being a weird mix of stuff I'm gonna put it here]
Haven
A game about killing monsters and surviving the Apocalypse.
It’s the early 21st century and monsters have invaded our world. With them, they brought the apocalypse and all sorts of supernatural problems. Once sprawling metropolises have now become desolate wastelands. Haven is a tabletop role-playing game about a group of people who live in this ruined world and want to do something in order make it like what it used to be. Our world has been invaded by monsters of occultish nature and because of it, strange magics are beginning to run rampant through the lands.
We play to see if the characters can survive the apocalypse, make it a better place, create pockets for humanity to thrive, and defeat our monstrous invaders.
I just released the playtest for Haven! I've been working on this project for a while and I'm so excited that it's finally in the wild. This is only the first version and more features are soon to come! I'm also going to be getting a copy editor soon. If you would rather just read the rules without all the fancy images and 40+pages, feel free to read the text only document that is linked on the page.
Just so there's no confusion and in case you've seen this twice, Haven is heavily Powered by the Apocalypse and was slightly Forged in the Dark. I drew lots of inspiration from both designs and credit it as such.
Esoteric Compendium
Six new compendium classes for Dungeon World
https://zargogames.itch.io/esoteric-compendium
Deep One adapts to life in the depths of the ocean and becomes more like the monstrous creatures found there.
Divine Armor accepts strength and protection from a higher power.
Fey Touched transform into the creatures that once touched them, gaining their strengths and abilities.
Jotun Heart awaken the frozen heart inside them and gain the strength of giants.
Monster Hunter slays monsters and transforms their fallen foes into greater and greater weapons and armor.
Scrivener scribe magic scrolls and other powerful texts that change reality and inspire others.
Ryne
Tell stories of an autumnal, decaying world ruled by the enormous god husks that shape its landscapes.
I just released the first playtest of Ryne, a Powered by the Apocalypse game set in a world of strange colossi, shifting landscapes and untied spirits. It's designed to tell stories of a world bigger than humanity, tapping into the emotions of your characters and the landscape.
Some key bits are:
It's currently in playtesting and will be updated frequently. I'd love to hear your thoughts if you read or play. We're also using the system on the actual play podcast These Flimsy Rituals, if you want to get a feel for how it runs.
Resistor: High School, Low Life
A game about angry teens with brain computers fighting the System in the San Angeles MegaCity.
https://thelawofnames.itch.io/resistor-high-school-low-life
Resistor is a near-future cyberpunk game about angry teens with brain computers. A strange mix of corporate spy and punk rock rebel, military-industrial mercenary and social justice advocate, Resistors are children of a new normal. Everyone's already plugged in and turned on. NetSpace has put the worlds in their heads. If they want to change things, they've got to get creative in their rebellion. But if there's anything teens are good at, it's rebelling.
A mechanics-light game, designed for flexible, low-prep play, collaborative world building, and character-driven storytelling, Resistor is centered around classic, tech-laden cyberpunk tropes. Take what you like, throw away the rest. Every rule is made to be broken.
Welcome to the neon grime of the streets of San Angeles. Here it's high school, low life.
--
I created Resistor because I could never find a cyberpunk game that did what I wanted it to. I love books with extensive worldbuilding done through ephemera, and games that allow you to use or discard as much as you want.
I'm currently play testing Resistor. The Build Sheets (playbooks), and TOS/TOU (move sheets) are complete, the book is fairly close to done. There is a lot of proofreading and little fiddly things to do, but really, I need to see how the rules work in the wild.
I would appreciate and value all notes!
The Day We Leave Our Forests To Die In Beautiful Silence
A diceless game about the last days of elven civilization.
https://anxiousmimicrpgs.itch.io/the-day-we-leave-our-forests-to-die-in-beautifu...
I'm thinking about creating a supplement document with a list of Greys (threats to elven civilization), and another playbook or two. Any critiques or thoughts are much appreciated.
The Meta (Masks Playbook)
A fiction-bending playbook for Masks: A New Generation inspired by Marvel's Gwenpool
https://zargogames.itch.io/the-meta
The Meta is a comic book geek from the real world spirited away to the world of their favorite comics. They use their genre savvy and deep knowledge of the world and how it works to become a hero despite lacking actual powers.
Sangre y Mascaras
https://jrgoldb.itch.io/sangre-y-mascaras
Luchadors fighting Heinous Monsters!
Based on the El Santo movies popularized in Mexico in the 1960s, you are a band of heroic luchadors, looking to solve mysteries, stop kidnappings, and punch Draculas.
L'Oracle Baroque
https://axxroytovu.itch.io/loracle-baroque
Written as part of the #LegacyJam, L'Oracle Baroque is a TTRPG that uses a Tarot deck as a resolution mechanic, magic spirits, and a conduit for divination. Navigate the streets and politics of pre-revolution Paris as a darkness creeps into the catacombs. Interpret the cards correctly to stop the occult horror before it's too late.
Gooday all
Don't pay the Ferryman (table top pbta rpg)
Setting-Fantasy Supernatural World of Rikirta (including Underworld, moons and Astral space)
Genre-Dark Ages Fantasy. Moderate tone (ectoplasm and pogosticks)
- Don't pay the Ferryman is about Explorers, Investigators & Agents who travel a Supernatural Fantasy universe. This pack has maps, spells, creatures, moons, world details, astral plane, species, underworld & everything else you need to run the game.
Think Mission Impossible+Dresden Files in a Dark Ages Fantasy setting.
While the game works for one-shots, it really shines in 3-12 episode arcs.
GHOST ORBIT, a game about things breaking in space.
https://bad-quail.itch.io/ghost-orbit
GHOST ORBIT is my entry for YourMoveJam. It has one move which is basically "act under risk of loss." The move is designed to focus attention on what's at risk of breaking whether it's a character's relationships, composure, equipment, or body.
The game itself is about disaster and horror in space. It handles anything from Ghosts of Mars to Apollo 13.
I just published a game inspired by #YourMoveJam and especially by @jdragsky's entry. I made it long after the jam was over but I'm pretty proud of it anyway. Feel free to check it out if you like! Thanks to the Bakers for running the jam and to Jay Dragon for their rad little game.
My game, titled 'Believe': https://breathingstories.itch.io/believe
I've just released a free preview for an upcoming trilogy of missions titled The Synth Convergence for The Sprawl RPG. It includes the complete first mission and I'm working towards releasing the full datafile this November (2019).
Splintered Moon
A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy
After all the signs and portents, the entrails read and the cards consulted, the omens foretold and the prophecies fulfilled, it happened: The Last War. The gods of Light and Justice gathered their forces and assaulted the strongholds of Darkness and Evil. God slew god; angel smote demon. All that was fantastic waged a horrific conflict with its opposite.
The Lords of the Fae rode out to inglorious battle. The Great Old Ones shambled forth. The Elemental Princes whipped their followers into a frenzy of devastation. Every living pantheon (and many of the forgotten ones) rose up and sought to destroy the others. Vast creatures of primal might coalesced from the spare matter of Creation and made savage war.
Dying gods spoke hellish curses. The moon shattered into a billion deadly shards, some still falling to earth generations later. Deserts melted to glass or blew away to bedrock. The sky caught fire from a thousand riven angels falling in blazing arcs. Lesser creatures fled the carnage, hiding wherever they could find a metaphysical hole deep enough. Few survived; none survived unscathed.
The collateral damage of the War encompassed every part of the universe. Stars burnt out or froze solid. The seas boiled and blackened with the ash of ten billion cindered trees. Priests of fallen gods ran in screaming madness, their ultimate connection forever severed. All the magic in Creation turned against itself like a serpent, striking in maddened terror. Sorcerers imploded or melted into bony puddles or detonated in a horrid display of thaumaturgical feedback.
Kingdoms warred with republics. Empires warred with theocracies. Disease followed famine followed disaster. With their armies in ruin, rulers called upon their craftsmen to forge Created soldiers. Most Created were only smart enough to hold a spear and follow explicit orders. Some were more than that and had steel minds conceived and constructed for only war. A few still exist, guarding places that no longer survive.
Creatures of the world, both mundane and magical, drew the dying magic as unwitting targets. Scores of mutations erupted as flesh and bone and fur and feather flowed in a sluggish river of torment. When the ground stopped shaking, most were dead - disfigured and unviable. Creatures of magical essence wisped into nothingness. The great dragons fell, nevermore the lords of the air. The vicissitudes of time fell in a rush on the ageless and unchanging, as immortals found themselves to be very mortal indeed.
The dead outnumbered the living; Death Herself lost interest in gathering souls. Funeral rites still lay loved ones to rest, but scores of undead stalk the world’s wreckage. Some are silent and subtle. Some wander, shrieking their torment and loss, some grown bold at the easy pickings… all deadly.
But life persists, inexorable. Several of the new species were able to survive in the fallen world, their Twists new knots in the rope of existence. A lucky minority found themselves adapted to the ash wastes and the charcoal seas. New predators stalk the razed cities and crumbled mountains.
But all is not lost. New communities rise from the ashes, new breeds of people, new religions, new reasons to hope… new gods. Some of these are reclaimers, seeking to resurrect the Golden Age. Then there are the Twisted, those folk marked and changed by nature’s revolt. The superstitious shun them but the Twisted have been instrumental in building new places of refuge.
Some groups have turned inward, rejecting the old gods and the new. A few are re-inventors, forging the world anew. Some turned to pursuits of what meager pleasures still existed. Many have collapsed into degeneracy and savagery. Rumors persist of hidden enclaves with scholars, sages, and warriors to shield them. They have not only re-invented lost technologies but have even surpassed the advances before the Fall.
The sun still shines, though it beats down like a dwarven forge-hammer. Tides still run, unpredictable as phases of a shattered moon. Ash blows, sometimes for days. You'll lose track of how many withered, sand-blasted bodies you find. Some died only a few score yards from clean water. This is the world we bequeath to you. It is a world both harsh and unforgiving, a world of scarcity, need, and privation.
You are heroes in a world with no concept of heroism. Not any more.
Welcome to Splintered Moon.
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I'll be releasing this one in the next 30 days with minimal art and a basic layout.
Owen
I'm working on one called Sparking! A DBZ-Inspired PbtA Game, or just Sparking!
This game is inspired heavily by the things I like about Dragon Ball Z: interesting techniques, loads of transformations, and taking on weird threats from across the planet, galaxy, and universe. It's still a work in progress, with the rules in the game allowing you to very easily play anything you see on Dragon Ball Z up to the end of the Frieza Saga. The plan is to have rules that give you enough options to play with every concept you see on the show and in the manga, either just outright replaying the story beginning to end or taking the specific things you like to create your own stories and characters. The next revision should add different types of Fusion, Time Travel, and Androids as a player species.
My PbtA post-apocalyptic fantasy game is up!
https://fallonspaag.itch.io/splintered-moon-wo-art
Come have a look!
Dual Wield RPG is a free PbtA RPG (in beta) about people who can turn into weapons and utilize each other to fight their inner demons. Inspired by Boyfriend Dungeon, Soul Eater, and Persona, it hopes to capture the idea of battling your trauma and personal journey through cinematic armed combat. What it adds to weapon-people formula is there are no dedicated "wielders", everyone can turn into a weapon. What it adds the the PbtA formula is that the playbooks are based around the weapon you turn into, the support role you play, and combat is separated into moves that the wielder and weapon can do independently, allowing weapons to cover the weak points of their wielders to some extent.
Currently, there is only support for Melee weapon playbooks, of which there are five: Blade, Blunt, Energy, Shield, Spike. Blades for the cutters, Blunts for the smashers, Energy for the magical and tech weaponry, Shields for the defenders, and Spikes for the stabbers. All of these can be 1 handed or 2 handed, and have customization both in moves and in a tags system, so two Blades can feel nothing alike. While in weapon form, you play a support role but cannot take damage, instead risking Break, a track that determines the condition of both your weapon form and your mental stability.
For the Wielder side, you still get to customize with Wielder moves which are not playbook-bound. There is a list of example Wielder moves, but the system encourages making your own and comes with a guide on how to do so. Wielders are the stars of the given show, the dungeons you delve into based on their trauma and psyche, but can take both Harm and Break, with both their physical bodies and mental well-being on the line whenever they choose to face down their demons.
The system itself is somewhat of a hack of Rhapsody of Blood, borrowing from its non-Euclidean dungeon design, its tiered enemy and obstacle system, easy-to-build dungeons with minimal prep, and its Bosses that cannot be damaged until an opening is created. It can be played with as little as two players or as many as six(counting the MC).
I have a couple of PbtA games up on itch:
The Continent Adrift is a sci-fi hack of Dungeon World loosely inspired by pulp magazine covers
Liquid Soap does daytime soap opera, heavily influenced by the breezy, Australian style.
SOUP! is one of three small games that make up my modular Atomic Summer series and is best described as an anime comedy action adventure, mashing up ideas and themes from Thunderbirds and Cells at Work.
I'm currently toying with another PbtA design with more anime inspiration, dealing with the lives of the various employees in a brothel or bawdy house in a semi-serious way but still trying to keep it wholesome and treat the sexual content with sensitivity.
Here we go... it's the demo version of Troublemakers, my PbtA game of childhood adventures. This is just a taster of the full game, with a look at the basic moves and a couple of playsets with ideas and character outlines. If you are familiar with the mechanics of PbtA games, there's enough here to get at least a one-shot game out of it. Feel free to ask me question about this, but the full release, which should follow soon, will hopefully answer them.
Definitely inspired by PbtA, however it's more like "tabletop party game meets PbtA philosophy".
"Arrpacas of Seven Seas" is a game about alpacas on pirate ship, who struggle for captainship and where to sail across the sea.
https://common-fortress.itch.io/arrpacas-of-seven-seas
Released the core stuff for Heirs of the Leviathan, and working on more material for it.
It is a game where you play the Heirs of a fragmented realm, with power struggles, intrigue, drama and tragedy. A bit Game of Thronesy I guess, but I was really more inspired by stories like I Claudius and Oedipus Rex. It's started out as a hack of World of Dungeons, but grew quite a bit over development.
I recently had the idea to make a loving tribute to the 'sex & shopping' style novels and TV serials of the 1970s and 1980s, as popularised by Judith Krantz, Jackie Collins, Shirley Conran and Jilly Cooper, so here it is: this is a first draft copy of Vixens and there's still a lot to be done, e.g. guidance on managing the game.
Translations of my PbtA game Tivoli are now up! In Tivoli, the story plays out in a fun fair, amusement park or circus that is co-created at the start. The emphasis is on diversity and friendship. All characters start out with negative beliefs about themself, and these are turned into positive convictions during the game.
You can find all language versions (original Finnish as well as the new translations into English and Swedish) here: https://glassangel.itch.io/
My game powered by Apocalypse for the Ritual JAm
https://landomatz.itch.io/springsong
In this game, you take on the role of an assistant to the great Wizard Alder Rustic. You will have to fulfill his tasks for the grand spring ritual. His tower is located in the great city of Warmstone, a festive and joyful city surrounded by nature, gods, magic and shadows of the past.
Hi! I'm in the middle of making a Pokemon Pbta
https://3dmatt.itch.io/powered-by-pokemon
In this game, most of you are stepping into this world as a human, a trainer! People who face the trials and tribulations of life with a pokemon partner by their side. One of you will be The Professor. The Professor will be in charge of starting you down the path of your story, bringing the world to life and portraying the People and Pokemon you meet.
It's still a work in progress and any feedback or critique would be very appreciated!