Powered by the Apocalypse
Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Powered by the Apocalypse
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Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) is a tabletop roleplaying game design framework created by Meguey Baker and D. Vincent Baker for Apocalypse World, which Lumpley Games published in 2010. Its hallmarks are playbooks, rolls of two six-sided dice plus a stat, three tiers of result and "moves" that tell the table when the rules apply. The Bakers don't define PbtA by its mechanics. Vincent Baker describes it as a self-applied label for games inspired by Apocalypse World or by other PbtA games, so only a game's creator can say whether it qualifies, and many games share the mechanics without using the name. The framework spread because Baker encouraged others to publish hacks, and itch.io listed more than 800 products tagged PbtA as of April 2023.
The framework is built on Apocalypse World, a post-apocalyptic game published in 2010 and revised in a second edition in 2016.
Description
In a PbtA game, players take on characters from playbooks, which are archetype templates rather than classes or races, and the game's setting is shaped by the table. The game master (GM), called the Master of Ceremonies (MC) in the original, creates conflicts for the characters to resolve, and creative responsibility is shared among all players. Players and the GM build the world together and often create non-player characters together.
The framework asks a table to play by the fiction. A player has to describe what their character does to trigger a move, and if something that should trigger a move happens in the story, it has to be rolled for or walked back. It suits groups who want a story that keeps moving and don't mind a GM who doesn't prepare fixed encounters.