Troy Press

Planet of the Week is my PbtA homage to shows like Star Trek, Firefly, and Stargate: Atlantis. You’re the away team of the research vessel Endeavor Maru. You’re the first group to land on each new planet, making first contact with aliens, investigating strange phenomena, and giving whatever assistance is needed. Can you stay true to your values as you explore?

Sturgeon’s Law says that “ninety percent of everything is crap.” With 940 episodes of Star Trek so far, assuming 90% are crap, the top 10% would be 94 episodes—but let’s round that up to an even 100. Here are the top 100 highest rated episodes from IMDB, from the nearly one thousand episodes across 49 series of television and the 14 movies (though none of the movies made the list).

I conceived of my artlang Muna Lingi as the language of the pulotu, groups of singers who traveled between the Polynesian islands, sharing songs, stories, and news from other islands. These singers were themselves drawn from many islands, and Muna Lingi was initially their lingua franca when at sea. Over time it became a language in its own right, and the source of songs, tales, and news for isolated islanders.

We started a campaign using the second edition of Apocalypse World. At the end of July 2024, Vincent Baker announced a beta of AW: Burned Over 2024 for his Patreon subscribers. We began using the reworded basic moves where we could. It took quite a few months before I managed to get three of my players to convert their playbooks.

Filk music (the folk music of science-fiction and fantasy fandom) is much less mainstream than rock songs with science-fiction themes (sometimes called found filk). Unlike my Top 15 Filk & Geek Rock Songs, which is based on listening stats from streaming services, for this “best of” list I asked U.S. adults in an omnibus survey to name one to three songs.

Most GMs like to prepare those specific aspects of NPCs that are important to them: names, drives/instincts, loyalty, connections, attitude, voice, media models, appearance, faces, actions / GM moves, and system-specific detail.

Reflections on PbtA Design is a collection of my past blog posts that discuss different facets of PbtA games—from their core principles to specific implementations across various genres and settings. It also includes plenty of new material. Whether you want to design your own PbtA game, get a broad view of how different PbtA games handle things, or read reviews about other games, this is the ebook for you. Bonus: All the sections I wrote are now licensed under the Creative Commons.

The original sin of Kemeny and Kurtz when they designed BASIC in 1963 was not in fact their inclusion of the GOTO statement but their failure to embrace structured programming. While a relatively new concept, having emerged in the late 1950s, structured programming was already familiar to Kurtz, who had implemented an ALGOL 58 and then ALGOL 60 compiler called Dartmouth ALGOL 30.

We asked over 1,000 U.S. adults what tabletop games they had played last year, “in real life, not on an electronic device.” The most played board games were Monopoly (37% had played), Checkers (25%), and Chess (24%). The most played card games were Solitaire (32% had played), Uno (29%) and Blackjack (25%).

What we know about Dungeon World’s upcoming second edition: 1) Luke Crane, the publisher, bought the rights from the two authors, so that he could hire new designers. 2) Helena Real, author of Against the Odds, and Spencer Moore, author of Chasing Adventure, will design this edition. 3) They are looking for feedback and contributions. 4) To stay updated, you can share your email or join the Dungeon World+ Discord.

If you were invited to a beer-and-pretzels game night, but you’re the designated driver, here are my favorite “non-alcoholic” beers to consider, though technically some of these do have up to 0.5 alcohol by volume (ABV). Or perhaps you’re thinking of abstaining or limiting your alcohol consumption.

Many PbtA games have a core set of moves that the GM is to make during play. Apocalypse World has five additional modules of threat moves. Subsequent games by other authors extended this modularization of GM moves. For instance, Dungeon World added threat moves for over 100 monsters, and Masks added playbook-specific GM moves.

I’ve been looking for some high-crunch PbtA games for my players. Crunch is derived from number crunching and, in the context of tabletop RPGs, refers to the added steps required by more extensive mechanics. Some examples specific to PbtA systems: almost no rules, more moves, more variables.