Tag Archives: Planet of the Week

You as GM can certainly handle factions solely through the fiction and the regular rules, but it is great when the game supports factions mechanically. Your characters help this faction, but in doing so run afoul of that faction, and the GM tracks this in some way.

Skills aren’t commonly used in Powered by the Apocalypse games, and take different forms when they are used.

While typically I run year-long TTRPG campaigns, I had an opportunity to run a summer-long campaign. Sometimes less is more, and this was a wonderful experience.

After a thorough review of dozens of science fiction PbtA games, and after hacking the last two TTRPG systems we played quite a bit, I decided to create my own game with exactly the vibe I wanted. Why a new system? I didn’t want to set an adventure in a cinematic universe so that we could capture that feeling of exploring the unknown.

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?

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.