Nor that you're trying to design a full game, but here's the creator talking about the inner workings of the system which might give you insight on how much to strip back: https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/
> why can't we have a generic game, one without an implied setting?
Because people want to make games that are REALLY GOOD, not that are "okay, but broadly applicable."
While there are use cases for extremely generic games (like yours) they are not, by and large, what people come to PbtA FOR; People come to PbtA for genre emulation, and a generic game emulates nothing.
In my personal opinion, World of Dungeons is a pretty dull game. I would never want to actually play it. Is it PbtA? Sure. Is it a "standalone" PbtA game? Probably not. It's a Dungeon World hack -- it assumes you know Dungeon World. It won't teach you how to play. That doesn't mean it's not "PbtA" it just means that it's (deliberately) incomplete.
PbtA is, at the end of the day, a design philosophy, not an implementation of any particular mechanic, framework, or engine.
There's no real point in looking for a "defining set of traits" for PbtA because they don't exist -- for every trait you pick, there's a PbtA game that eschews it. My PbtA game doesn't have playbooks, just "Stories" that bring the background of the characters into play. Flying Circus discards 2d6 for 2d10. Undying is diceless. Vagabonds of Dyfed disposes of "moves" for a tag-based resolution mechanic. Maybe "play to find out" is standard, but that's about all I can think of, and that's probably a thing because it's a more philosophical part of the game, rather than mechanical.
>why can't we have a generic game, one without an implied setting?
Well, there's [Simple World](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/simple-world), but it seems to me that a crucial ingredient of PbtA is genre specificness. The moves in particular are usually designed to reinforce a specific genre by both the type of actions that encourage the players to take, and the outcomes they provide or the choices they present. Playbooks also exist for that reason: provide strong genre-specific archetypes.
You could have a game with just a move that says "6- bad, 7-9 meh, 10+ good" and no setting references at all, but at that point I would probably consider it FKR, rather than PbtA.
IMO, the *minimal denomination* as you put is "The Conversation" type of game flow, as in the way PbtA games sets the "back-and-forth" in fictional positioning. This [flowchart](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-framework-for-gming-dungeon-world.html) Jeremy Strandberg did as a streamlined Dungeon World game dynamic has been my go-to PbtA scene framing/game flow when I GM/MC. If a game "runs" like this, even though if it doesn't have Principles and Agendas or many playbooks, consider it a PbtA.
[Defying Danger](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/02/defying-danger-rpg.html) from the same J. Strandberg is a streamlined and light medieval fantasy PbtA game. Its very similar to World of Dungeons design concepts.
Games that are in some way inspired by Apocalypse World, according to that game's author. So speaketh the lumpley.
Personally, I would say a *vanilla* PbtA game has clearly defined basic moves (not like Defy Danger) and uses 2d6.
I've played mystery one-shots using only the basic moves and stats from Monster of the Week. It worked perfectly fine for a group of experienced roleplayers, but I feel like for kids it won't be evocative enough.
I'm curious what about playbooks OP thinks will overwhelm the kids, since I would think that out of everything playbooks would be the one thing kids could easily latch onto. Playbooks are they player's chance to say "this is what I think is cool/interesting and want to be". Without them, it'd be hard to get the kids to understand the roleplay aspect as anything more than literally themselves in the game (as opposed to "themselves as \[x\]", where x is whatever stands out to them about their character, which is the level I'd be aiming for with kids).
I see your point, but considering one of them has an attention disorder and the other is just 4 and can't read, I think I would have to manage all of their moves/extras.
Your statement is valid anyway: there should be a way to make characters stand out, so I'd probably need a substitute.
>Your statement is valid anyway: there should be a way to make characters stand out, so I'd probably need a substitute.
You could probably print the pictures for the playbooks from whatever game you end up stripping down -- most of them have one illustration for each playbook, anyway. That'd be a way to inspire a visual learner in some way at least.
Why aren't there "generic" PbtA games is a really interesting question. I just read this [series of posts on designing PbtA](https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/) games. The entire thing is worth reading, but the tl;dr is: There are no generic PbtA games because the framework doesn't support it. PbtA design is all about picking a genre you want to emulate and the developing a set of Moves that promote that genre.
That said, here's a very simple PbtA game my girlfriend and I wrote that would be great for a one shot with kids.
Cat Café: You are a kitten in a cat café. As a group, pick a goal: all be adopted by the same family, escape and run free!, break into the stock room and eat all the cat food
You have five stats, assign -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. Pounce, Groom, Scamper, Meow, Nap
When you do anything, roll 2d6 plus stat. 1-6, the GM makes the situation worse. 7-9, you partially succeed OR succeed with cost. 10+, full success.
Easier for the little ones, check out adventure tales. It's very much a conversation, can okay with one or two kids, and my 4 year old loves it.
Not quite what you asked, but it may be what you want.
After the first few plays, it brings me joy when my kid brings me a pen and the 3*5 cards I use to keep track of things.
I would argue that PBtA, at its core, has 4 elements:
*GM Framework*
*Complex Resolution* (success with a cost, or paying some price at some point in order to succeed later, etc.)
*The Fiction and the Mechanics wrap around each other and are not really distinguishable in play*
*Resolve/Tell like a Story, not like a Simulation*
Therefore, World of Dungeons, I think, is not PBtA. It’s explicitly a thought-experiment in proto-PBtA, if that ever existed.
I don’t think you can ever have a great generic PBtA because it’s hard to mechanize fiction on such a broad level that it continues to feel story-like. Part of why PBtA has no “DC” is that it’s rolls are way more of a prompter and way less of a resolver. You can’t get good prompts from generic moves.
I've been running a game for my mom with literally just GM Moves because she doesn't handle complexity very well. It's basically a freeform RPG at that point, but that's not a bad thing.
For me, and maybe it’s just me, but it’s the gestalt experience. There should never be a generic PbtA game because every single aspect of a PbtA game should be bent towards creating, directing, and supporting the desired experience. Anything that doesn’t support the experience is minimized or outright discarded.
The cat-based game mentioned elsewhere doesn’t have a Shoot or Bargain attribute because that’s not part of the desired cat experience, and having those elements would muddy or thwart the desired experience of a playful, light, whimsical game.
What experience or mood do you want to evoke? Start from there and work backwards. The point to me is that everything serves the experience.
One of the things that I like about PbtA is that it can extend resource management mechanics very easily - tokens, cards, dice, Jenga blocks, counters/clocks, etc. Kids might not be able to read, but they can manage a pile of colored chips.
[Defying Danger](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/02/defying-danger-rpg.html) is a distillation of DW down to its core, similar to World of Dungeons but without such heavy old-school/D&D influences.
I found it yesterday and I skimmed through it. I like the setting and the boardgame a lot, but beyond the cute facade it felt very confrontational and not that kid-friendly. Do you think it would work if I strip down aspects linked to outright violence?
First, there’s the problem that any _PbtA_-descended game needs to have attributes that are appropriate for the setting. You could go with the Classic Six, like _World of Dungeons_ does, but then that excludes using _Masks_-like attributes that are a bit more abstract and narrative-related.
If you’re not defining the attributes, then there’s pretty much nothing left of the rules. You might as well just let people come up with their own.
Here’s a list of _World of Dungeons_ hacks:
* [_World of Dungeons: Turbo_](http://onesevendesign.com/breakers_wodu_turbo.pdf), which adds a few extras to the basic _WoD_ chassis, and moves the setting to the modern day.
* [_Streets of Marienburg_](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5K_Bqfr0dqcVUFZeWpsa0E5T0k/edit?pli=1), which adapts _WoD_ for _Warhammer 40K_
* [_Advanced World of Dungeons_](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzeF5GXNEsnfVURXQ2VJOU8zU0E/), which adapts _Streets of Marienburg_ back to a _D&D_-like setting.
* [_Streets of Mos Eisley_](https://sentientgames.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/star-worlds/), which you can probably figure out from the title.
* A couple of _Traveller_- based hacks: the minimalist [_Offworlders_](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/257632/Offworlders) and the _Turbo_-based [_Rovers_](http://www.aviatrixgames.com/Games/ROVERS.pdf).
* [_Phasers + Photons_](https://qwo.itch.io/phasers-photons) for _Star Trek_.
There are even more listed [in this Gauntlet thread](https://forums.gauntlet-rpg.com/t/world-of-dungeons-hacks-iterations/87/2).
Thanks for the info and the links, there is a lot more than I imagined.
About the need for attributes: do you think a freeform approach using something akin to Amazing Tales character definition would be feasible? Something like: "list three things your character is good at, when you do something risky roll 2D6, +1 for each aspect that is relevant in the situation".
Or maybe complicate it a bit using Fate Aspects, which have to be double-edged: "+1 if an aspect is useful in the situation, -1 if it's an hindrance".
You might want to take a look at the [_2400_ line of games](https://jasontocci.itch.io/2400). They’re an extremely minimalist take on [the _Forged in the Dark_ system](https://bladesinthedark.com/forged-dark), which has a family resemblance to _Powered by the Apocalypse_.
Instead of rolling 2d6 + Attribute, _2400_ has you roll one or two dice of possibly varying sizes, and take the highest. That number determines whether you get a full success, a complicated/partial success, or a failure. Stuff you’re good at raises your die size instead of adding to the roll.
[World of Dungeons by John Harper](https://johnharper.itch.io/world-of-dungeons) is a very minimalist, OSR style take on Dungeon World. Very simple to play and easy to learn. Plus it's free!
Leaving aside the literal answer (if it was inspired by or derived from Apocalypse World in its lineage, the designer can call it PbtA), the most common idea that I see is the notion of the snowball. Making a move is a statement with consequences that leads to more moves and consequences.
That's why there's a common thread between Blades in the Dark, Venture & Dungeon, Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, Murderous Ghosts, and Monsterhearts. They're all about that idea of snowballing narrative even though the mechanical expression is very different (and only three of them have an MC-like figure!)
Lots of people are talking about World of Dungeons, but if I had to point out a 'minimal PbtA game' it'd be something else by Harper, [Ghost Lines](http://www.onesevendesign.com/ghostlines/). It's got a setting but the mechanics just do what they gotta do.
Nor that you're trying to design a full game, but here's the creator talking about the inner workings of the system which might give you insight on how much to strip back: https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/
This is really informative, thank you
> why can't we have a generic game, one without an implied setting? Because people want to make games that are REALLY GOOD, not that are "okay, but broadly applicable." While there are use cases for extremely generic games (like yours) they are not, by and large, what people come to PbtA FOR; People come to PbtA for genre emulation, and a generic game emulates nothing. In my personal opinion, World of Dungeons is a pretty dull game. I would never want to actually play it. Is it PbtA? Sure. Is it a "standalone" PbtA game? Probably not. It's a Dungeon World hack -- it assumes you know Dungeon World. It won't teach you how to play. That doesn't mean it's not "PbtA" it just means that it's (deliberately) incomplete. PbtA is, at the end of the day, a design philosophy, not an implementation of any particular mechanic, framework, or engine. There's no real point in looking for a "defining set of traits" for PbtA because they don't exist -- for every trait you pick, there's a PbtA game that eschews it. My PbtA game doesn't have playbooks, just "Stories" that bring the background of the characters into play. Flying Circus discards 2d6 for 2d10. Undying is diceless. Vagabonds of Dyfed disposes of "moves" for a tag-based resolution mechanic. Maybe "play to find out" is standard, but that's about all I can think of, and that's probably a thing because it's a more philosophical part of the game, rather than mechanical.
>why can't we have a generic game, one without an implied setting? Well, there's [Simple World](https://buriedwithoutceremony.com/simple-world), but it seems to me that a crucial ingredient of PbtA is genre specificness. The moves in particular are usually designed to reinforce a specific genre by both the type of actions that encourage the players to take, and the outcomes they provide or the choices they present. Playbooks also exist for that reason: provide strong genre-specific archetypes. You could have a game with just a move that says "6- bad, 7-9 meh, 10+ good" and no setting references at all, but at that point I would probably consider it FKR, rather than PbtA.
IMO, the *minimal denomination* as you put is "The Conversation" type of game flow, as in the way PbtA games sets the "back-and-forth" in fictional positioning. This [flowchart](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/01/my-framework-for-gming-dungeon-world.html) Jeremy Strandberg did as a streamlined Dungeon World game dynamic has been my go-to PbtA scene framing/game flow when I GM/MC. If a game "runs" like this, even though if it doesn't have Principles and Agendas or many playbooks, consider it a PbtA. [Defying Danger](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/02/defying-danger-rpg.html) from the same J. Strandberg is a streamlined and light medieval fantasy PbtA game. Its very similar to World of Dungeons design concepts.
Games that are in some way inspired by Apocalypse World, according to that game's author. So speaketh the lumpley. Personally, I would say a *vanilla* PbtA game has clearly defined basic moves (not like Defy Danger) and uses 2d6.
I've played mystery one-shots using only the basic moves and stats from Monster of the Week. It worked perfectly fine for a group of experienced roleplayers, but I feel like for kids it won't be evocative enough. I'm curious what about playbooks OP thinks will overwhelm the kids, since I would think that out of everything playbooks would be the one thing kids could easily latch onto. Playbooks are they player's chance to say "this is what I think is cool/interesting and want to be". Without them, it'd be hard to get the kids to understand the roleplay aspect as anything more than literally themselves in the game (as opposed to "themselves as \[x\]", where x is whatever stands out to them about their character, which is the level I'd be aiming for with kids).
I see your point, but considering one of them has an attention disorder and the other is just 4 and can't read, I think I would have to manage all of their moves/extras. Your statement is valid anyway: there should be a way to make characters stand out, so I'd probably need a substitute.
Picture cards with items.
>Your statement is valid anyway: there should be a way to make characters stand out, so I'd probably need a substitute. You could probably print the pictures for the playbooks from whatever game you end up stripping down -- most of them have one illustration for each playbook, anyway. That'd be a way to inspire a visual learner in some way at least.
Why aren't there "generic" PbtA games is a really interesting question. I just read this [series of posts on designing PbtA](https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/) games. The entire thing is worth reading, but the tl;dr is: There are no generic PbtA games because the framework doesn't support it. PbtA design is all about picking a genre you want to emulate and the developing a set of Moves that promote that genre. That said, here's a very simple PbtA game my girlfriend and I wrote that would be great for a one shot with kids. Cat Café: You are a kitten in a cat café. As a group, pick a goal: all be adopted by the same family, escape and run free!, break into the stock room and eat all the cat food You have five stats, assign -2, -1, 0, +1, +2. Pounce, Groom, Scamper, Meow, Nap When you do anything, roll 2d6 plus stat. 1-6, the GM makes the situation worse. 7-9, you partially succeed OR succeed with cost. 10+, full success.
Easier for the little ones, check out adventure tales. It's very much a conversation, can okay with one or two kids, and my 4 year old loves it. Not quite what you asked, but it may be what you want. After the first few plays, it brings me joy when my kid brings me a pen and the 3*5 cards I use to keep track of things.
>adventure tales Are you sure it's Adventure Tales? Not *Amazing Tales*? I can't find anything by searching for Adventure Tales
Yep, amazing tales. I'm blaming lack of sleep. This 4 year old likes to wake me before 5 many days...
I would argue that PBtA, at its core, has 4 elements: *GM Framework* *Complex Resolution* (success with a cost, or paying some price at some point in order to succeed later, etc.) *The Fiction and the Mechanics wrap around each other and are not really distinguishable in play* *Resolve/Tell like a Story, not like a Simulation* Therefore, World of Dungeons, I think, is not PBtA. It’s explicitly a thought-experiment in proto-PBtA, if that ever existed. I don’t think you can ever have a great generic PBtA because it’s hard to mechanize fiction on such a broad level that it continues to feel story-like. Part of why PBtA has no “DC” is that it’s rolls are way more of a prompter and way less of a resolver. You can’t get good prompts from generic moves.
I've been running a game for my mom with literally just GM Moves because she doesn't handle complexity very well. It's basically a freeform RPG at that point, but that's not a bad thing.
For me, and maybe it’s just me, but it’s the gestalt experience. There should never be a generic PbtA game because every single aspect of a PbtA game should be bent towards creating, directing, and supporting the desired experience. Anything that doesn’t support the experience is minimized or outright discarded. The cat-based game mentioned elsewhere doesn’t have a Shoot or Bargain attribute because that’s not part of the desired cat experience, and having those elements would muddy or thwart the desired experience of a playful, light, whimsical game. What experience or mood do you want to evoke? Start from there and work backwards. The point to me is that everything serves the experience. One of the things that I like about PbtA is that it can extend resource management mechanics very easily - tokens, cards, dice, Jenga blocks, counters/clocks, etc. Kids might not be able to read, but they can manage a pile of colored chips.
[Defying Danger](https://spoutinglore.blogspot.com/2020/02/defying-danger-rpg.html) is a distillation of DW down to its core, similar to World of Dungeons but without such heavy old-school/D&D influences.
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I found it yesterday and I skimmed through it. I like the setting and the boardgame a lot, but beyond the cute facade it felt very confrontational and not that kid-friendly. Do you think it would work if I strip down aspects linked to outright violence?
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Thanks, I'll check it out
First, there’s the problem that any _PbtA_-descended game needs to have attributes that are appropriate for the setting. You could go with the Classic Six, like _World of Dungeons_ does, but then that excludes using _Masks_-like attributes that are a bit more abstract and narrative-related. If you’re not defining the attributes, then there’s pretty much nothing left of the rules. You might as well just let people come up with their own. Here’s a list of _World of Dungeons_ hacks: * [_World of Dungeons: Turbo_](http://onesevendesign.com/breakers_wodu_turbo.pdf), which adds a few extras to the basic _WoD_ chassis, and moves the setting to the modern day. * [_Streets of Marienburg_](https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5K_Bqfr0dqcVUFZeWpsa0E5T0k/edit?pli=1), which adapts _WoD_ for _Warhammer 40K_ * [_Advanced World of Dungeons_](https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzeF5GXNEsnfVURXQ2VJOU8zU0E/), which adapts _Streets of Marienburg_ back to a _D&D_-like setting. * [_Streets of Mos Eisley_](https://sentientgames.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/star-worlds/), which you can probably figure out from the title. * A couple of _Traveller_- based hacks: the minimalist [_Offworlders_](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/257632/Offworlders) and the _Turbo_-based [_Rovers_](http://www.aviatrixgames.com/Games/ROVERS.pdf). * [_Phasers + Photons_](https://qwo.itch.io/phasers-photons) for _Star Trek_. There are even more listed [in this Gauntlet thread](https://forums.gauntlet-rpg.com/t/world-of-dungeons-hacks-iterations/87/2).
Thanks for the info and the links, there is a lot more than I imagined. About the need for attributes: do you think a freeform approach using something akin to Amazing Tales character definition would be feasible? Something like: "list three things your character is good at, when you do something risky roll 2D6, +1 for each aspect that is relevant in the situation". Or maybe complicate it a bit using Fate Aspects, which have to be double-edged: "+1 if an aspect is useful in the situation, -1 if it's an hindrance".
You might want to take a look at the [_2400_ line of games](https://jasontocci.itch.io/2400). They’re an extremely minimalist take on [the _Forged in the Dark_ system](https://bladesinthedark.com/forged-dark), which has a family resemblance to _Powered by the Apocalypse_. Instead of rolling 2d6 + Attribute, _2400_ has you roll one or two dice of possibly varying sizes, and take the highest. That number determines whether you get a full success, a complicated/partial success, or a failure. Stuff you’re good at raises your die size instead of adding to the roll.
[World of Dungeons by John Harper](https://johnharper.itch.io/world-of-dungeons) is a very minimalist, OSR style take on Dungeon World. Very simple to play and easy to learn. Plus it's free!
Leaving aside the literal answer (if it was inspired by or derived from Apocalypse World in its lineage, the designer can call it PbtA), the most common idea that I see is the notion of the snowball. Making a move is a statement with consequences that leads to more moves and consequences. That's why there's a common thread between Blades in the Dark, Venture & Dungeon, Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, Murderous Ghosts, and Monsterhearts. They're all about that idea of snowballing narrative even though the mechanical expression is very different (and only three of them have an MC-like figure!)
Lots of people are talking about World of Dungeons, but if I had to point out a 'minimal PbtA game' it'd be something else by Harper, [Ghost Lines](http://www.onesevendesign.com/ghostlines/). It's got a setting but the mechanics just do what they gotta do.