Tag Archives: Impulse Drive

In my Impulse Drive campaign, before facing the BBEG, the PCs needed to run a last gig to earn some lucre to repair their spaceship, buy some gear, and pay down their debt. I typically offered two or three gigs for the PCs to pick from, having them choose at the end of a session so I could prep the right gig. In this case, I really wanted to play the Mothership adventure The Cleaning of Prison Station Echo (by Haig Morrison and Dave Kenny), so I offered two gigs inspired […]

This post is an excerpt from The Best-Delayed Plans: The Game Master’s Guide to Adventure Prep. Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) games—games in the school of design of Apocalypse World—often outline moves and principles for Game Masters. While these are typically intended for use during play, they can also be useful in prep, no matter which RPG system you use. Principles Here are some principles to keep in mind during prep— Moves While principles guide overall play, in PbtA games “GM moves” are the types of responses that GMs make […]

Free League Publishing is currently crowdfunding a new edition of its Coriolis science-fiction RPG­ – Coriolis: The Great Dark. The new edition is based on the updated Year Zero Engine, which powers their RPGs based on licensed properties: Alien, Blade Runner, The Walking Dead, etc. Unlike those games, Coriolis is their own IP, their own setting. I discovered its predecessor, Coriolis: The Third Horizon (ironically, its second edition) when seeking science-fiction modules for my Impulse Drive campaign. While I’ve never used its game engine, I did find the setting to be invaluable for prep and adventures. Billed as “Arabian […]

Impulse Drive is a science-fiction PbtA RPG that is licensed under the Creative Commons and offers ship playbooks for four different styles of campaigns: “These Ship playbooks not only describe what technology your Ship may use, but also the kinds of adventures your Crew will get up to, what motivates them, and the kinds of trouble that will follow your Crew around the galaxy.” The ships— The ship playbooks have custom moves that lean into the types of stories that can be told with such ships. For instance, each has a […]

I love having a Starting Session move. It is a great segue from small talk into the game itself. Frankly, I think I’m going to hack such a move into every PbtA campaign I run from now on.

How some RPGs get coins wrong: they matter a lot until they matter not at all. It’s fun to play until your PCs are rich, but it’s even more fun to be able to buy things with those riches. Absorbing Excess Wealth At early levels, PCs lack coin and equipment, and they spend whatever coin they get on gearing up. Then eventually the coin no longer matters. There aren’t enough weapons, gear, luxury items or magic items to buy. You’ll know you’ve hit that point in 5e when PCs are […]

Vincent Baker in his blog series on drafting PbtA games says— A crucial feature of Apocalypse World’s design is that [its concentric] layers are designed to collapse gracefully inward:• Forget the peripheral harm moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but the rules for harm have got you covered.• Forget the rules for harm? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but the basic moves have got you covered. Just describe the splattering blood and let the moves handle the rest.• Forget the basic moves? That’s cool. You’re missing out, but just remember […]

Which PbtA or FitD games are recommended for science-fiction settings? In part, it depends on which genre you are trying to emulate. The following are each unlicensed settings in similar genres. To boldly go where your favorite science fiction has gone before: For world building—well, galaxy building—check out The Perilous Void. And a few fantasy titles: Comments and suggestions welcome here! Originally published 2022-06. Updated 2022-08-23. Added Starforged’sown list of inspiration. Updated 2023-05. Added Atma, The Continent Adrift, Invasion of the Third Kind, Light Side, Sixth World, Thirsty Sword Lesbiansand […]

I researched a lot of PbtA and FitD science-fiction games before selecting Impulse Drive. For my group, the game provides the Firefly/Expanse-style heroics we were looking for, with enough of a framework to encourage the narrative without so much complexity that it bogs down play. Our group just shifted from playing every other week to playing every week, because they couldn’t get enough! When I first started reading Impulse Drive, I searched the web for something like the Dungeon World Syllabus, a collection of invaluable links for GMs. Not finding […]