Troy Press

The Line separates what the GM narrates vs. what the player narrates. In D&D, the player narrates their backstory and their current activity; the DM narrates everything else. Of course, even some DMs in 5e shift the Line a little – “You killed it! Describe your final blow and its death throes!” On the other extreme, take One Shot World by Yochai Gal. The players and GMs collaboratively develop the world. “Set out a blank sheet of paper and ask the player who is the most well-traveled to draw a […]

Dungeon World helped popularize Powered by the Apocalypse games by capitalizing on players’ familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons. Enough so that it is sometimes used as a reference point by gamers who ask, “Can you recommend a game like Dungeon World but…?” Here are some common answers. Next-Generation Fantasy PbtA If you’d like “Dungeon World 1.5”, try my own Uncommon World* or roll your own with its configuration tool. If you’d like to play a take on “Dungeon World 2.0”, try Homebrew World.* If you’d like to play a more […]

PbtA games (Powered by the Apocalypse) are sometimes summarized as 2d6 games, due to the 2d6+stat dice mechanic popularized by Apocalypse World: a 10+ is an unmitigated success, a 7-9 is a mixed success, and a 6- (6 or less) is a failure. But some PbtA games use other dice mechanics.* I was particularly fascinated by the action rolls of Blades in the Dark, which use dice pools where only the highest die is considered: “They might succeed at their action without any consequences (on a 6), or they might succeed […]

Much of the free technology that we interact with strives to build behavioral addiction primarily to show us advertising. The software developers of Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok all concentrate on increasing utilization of their respective apps, often using cognitive science against us (check out this review of Irresistible: The rise of addictive technology and the business of keeping us hooked for more). So it is nice to use an app whose developers are primarily trying to help us achieve our educational goals (though, yes, showing us advertising along the way). […]

Synopsis: “Double Draw” is a variant of 5-card draw where after the second round of bidding, each remaining player may discard and take up to two additional cards, then bid again. Everyone who wants to play first pays to the pot an agreed-upon ante (typically one or two of the lowest-valued chips). The dealer shuffles and deals each player 5 cards, face down. First betting round – Starting with the player to the left of the dealer, bidding proceeds clockwise. Prior to any bet being placed, initial players can “check”, […]

As a conlanger, I’ve been curious about the phonotactics of fantasy names for the player characters in D&D 5e. My assumption is that these names are designed to be vanilla, easy-to-pronounce names, while conveying a bit about character and setting. As someone who overengineers names, I wanted to assess the names I generate against the mainstream standard. The Sample The Player’s Handbook (PHB, shown above) has lists of suggested names for dwarves, elves, halfings, humans, dragonborn, gnomes, half-orcs, and tieflings. For humans, there are lists of names by eight of […]

One of the many things I love about Homebrew World and similar fantasy PbtA games (Powered by the Apocalypse inspired) is their druid’s ability to spend time studying a creature and then subsequently becoming able to shapeshift into the form of that creature. My player who was a druid would go out of her way during adventures to master new animal forms that she would be able to turn into. For instance, one evening in a swamp, while the wizard was studying his spellbook, the druid spent time in quiet […]

If you are interested in designing a Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) tabletop roleplaying game: First, buy a copy of Apocalypse World. After all, that’s where this all started. Second, buy and read a few systems from different branches of the PbtA family tree, to get a glimpse of the range of possibilities. Sam Sorensen has a great taxonomy of PbtA games (shown above). Third, download @lackingceremony‘s Simple World. As she wrote, “I created Simple World in order to showcase that an Apocalypse World hack didn’t need to be a […]

I’m thinking again about armor hacks for RPG rules. Fantasy TTRPGs over-obsess about armor, to my mind. Thinking about all the swords & sorcery and fantasy that I read, the only narratively interesting scenes about armor that spring to mind come from The Lord of the Rings: Frodo’s mithril coat saving him from a spear thrust in Moria, to the subsequent surprise and delight of his companions. (In the book, he’s attacked by an orc-chieftain; in the movie, by a cave-troll.) Pippin getting armor at Minas Tirith and the resulting […]

If I’ve blocked you on Twitter, it’s not about you, but about Twitter’s UI. Maybe you’re a huge fan of Funko Pops and the people I follow like your tweets about those, so I keep seeing them. And keep seeing them. And keep seeing them. If I mute you, then you can talk to me and the people I follow without my being able to see those conversations. So I have to block you instead if I want to control my feed. And I believe I should be able to […]