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wizard casting spell

FAQ: The Right Fantasy PbtA for You

The family of roleplaying games that emerged in the 1970s grew out of wargames and focused on the mechanics of combat and exploration. Fantasy PbtA games put the fiction first, the mechanics second. As a result, players have much less work to do – their primary job is to envision the situation their character is in and decide how they would react. Rather than a character sheet that lists stats common to every player, PbtA games have playbooks, which offer unique information depending on the type of character (wizard, fighter, […]

concentric circles of a threat map with dripping blood

Threat Maps as Campaign Prep

One of the great bits of tech from Apocalypse World 2e is the threat map, which provides a concise summary of campaign prep. You can adapt it for other systems as well, if your play centers on a holding or home base. Here’s an example from last year for my Stonetop campaign: D. Vincent Baker and Meguey Baker describe the process of using threat maps as follows: List the players’ characters in the center circle. As you name NPCs, place them on the map around the PCs, according to what […]

1973 Implementation of Wordle was Published by DEC

1973 Implementation of Wordle was Published by DEC

While some have traced Wordle to Lingo, a game show that started in 1987, they’ve missed an earlier implementation: WORD was published in 101 Computer Games by Digital Equipment Corp. in 1973 and later in Creative Computing’s bestseller BASIC Computer Games, which went on to sell over a million copies. Unlike the 1955 boardgame Jotto, where players are told only how many letters are in the mystery word, WORD plays like Wordle, but with a text interface, providing information about what letters are in the mystery word and, of those, […]

WW2 1941 ABC

WW2 1941 ABC

When my youngest had a random Friday off from school last October, and my wife was on holiday with our sister-in-law, I asked him how he wanted to spend the long weekend. “Playing Axis & Allies!” he said. We started with the 1984 Revised Edition of the Milton-Bradley game and played that each day. I kept winning, so I suggested we get one of the newer editions, for which I’d be less familiar with the strategies. (I played the 1984 edition a ton in high school and college.) Given the […]

puppeteer as a watercolor

Character Moves When the Player is Absent

I love Rob Donoghue’s idea for having a move for each PC when their player is absent: I want to write up a set of moves, one per player, that can be used once per session to represent the influence of absent characters. So “Jack knows a guy” may allow the current game to hook up with a useful NPC when Jack isn’t at the table. I doubt this is something that many games need, but for my rotating cast, I think it’ll be a nice way to keep it […]

Wordle-style puzzles

What Other Implementations of Wordle Can Teach Us

I recently download a dozen iOS games in the Lingo/Wordle genre. As I played each, my appreciation for the original Wordle grew. Here’s a look at the design decisions of the different implementations, and what we can learn from them. The lexicon of words that can be guessed needs to be the right size, containing common words. With WhatWord there are too few words; within a few days of playing the application, I’m seeing repeats. With PuzzWord, there are too many rare words; I’ve had three mystery words in a […]

playing cards as a watercolor

Agile Development for Card Games

This is the introduction from my ebook, How to Design Card Games. Designing a card game is messy. You will have what you think are good ideas that, when you play them, you find don’t work that well. With that in mind, start with a simple game and add complexity over time, as you play. Here are 7 steps to follow: Think of a game idea. Document the current state of your game idea. Create a playable prototype. Playtest. Apply feedback. Go back to step 2, as often as necessary. […]

medieval warriors charging into battle as a watercolor

Tactical Moves in PbtA Games

TLDR: Compendium of Tactical Moves for PbtA Games Some complain that PbtA games lack tactical moves and so combat has much less mechanical support than in traditional roleplaying games. This shouldn’t be a surprise since D&D grew out of wargames with miniatures and so naturally emphasized combat. Yet I personally find fights in a PbtA fantasy game to be much more exciting, dynamic, and cinematic than fights in 5e, for instance. But there are times I want additional mechanical support from the game for tactics. One area where I don’t […]

potion bottles inscribed with runes as a watercolor

FVTALK: Runes from the Roman Alphabet

My fantasy gamebook Under the Blood-Red Mountain differs from a Choose Your Own Adventure® book in that your player has basic stats (strength, dexterity, wisdom, hit points) and inventory. Choosing which stats to use was easy, but the inventory system was more of a challenge. I wanted the player to have a simple way of tracking inventory throughout the game, but the system needed to be obscure but easy to use, so that if you were directed to turn to a specific page based on an item you had, you […]

illustration of dice, computer program, symbols in a cubist style

Top 10 Lists for Troy Press Content for 2021

I find it so weird when I start getting “year in review” summaries from my apps (Spotify, Duolingo, etc.) in the first week of December. While I wouldn’t mind working an 11-month year, the year goes 12 months. (Though I do appreciate that my binging of Abba and their new album won’t affect any of my annual stats.) So, being a purist, I postponed this analysis until 2021 was actually complete. Here are the Top 10 most-viewed blog posts for 2021: Alternatives to Dungeon World Questions to Ask During Session […]

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Top 10 Posts

  • Table Comparing Dungeon World to 5 Hacks
  • Alternatives to Dungeon World
  • Uncommon World: Open-Source Fantasy PbtA
  • FAQ: The Right Fantasy PbtA for You
  • Fantastic Worlds: An Anthology of Resources for Fantasy PbtA Games
  • Threat Maps as Campaign Prep
  • Use Text Mapper to Create Random Maps and Hex Describe to Create Random Campaigns
  • List of Resources for Dungeon World One Shots
  • Atma: Card-Based Improvisational Role Playing
  • Probabilities of 2d6 Compared to d6 Dice Pools

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