PBTA Archives - Tribality

Modern Horror vs Phantom Menace

Blake Ryan — Fri, 09 Mar 2018 07:04:37 +0000

Today we start a trilogy of movie total conversions into modern supernatural horror. The Phantom Menace Internet Movie Database – ‘Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to claim their old glory.’ IMDB Link – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120915/?ref_=fn_al_tt_8 Antagonists – Trade Federation (secretly prompted by Lord Sidius), Lord Sidius & Darth Maul. Protagonists – Naboo Queen, Two Jedi, Child with […]

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Fast as Lightning – The Flash Campaign

Blake Ryan — Fri, 03 Nov 2017 06:46:55 +0000

You’ve seen the series, now let’s talk about how to make a RPG campaign based on The Flash! There are a few elements you will need to make decisions on. These elements will help you get things started and be an ongoing guide once things are rolling. Echoes of the past Each hero should describe a good and bad event from their past. One of these events will be created or influenced by a time traveller. The other event […]

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RPG plots inspired by 3 Movies

Blake Ryan — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 07:03:31 +0000

To embrace Tribality’s third birthday we shall take the theme of 3, by looking at 3 films, and discuss different takes on them to build an RPG plot. Movie : DIE HARD : 1st of the series, IMDB – ‘John McClane, officer of the NYPD, tries to save his wife Holly Gennaro and several others that were taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles.’ – Fantasy Genre : […]

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The Watch

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:00:40 +0000

I spend a lot of time here analyzing game design, and today I’m studying a new game, still in its Kickstarter run, called The Watch. It is part of the Powered by the Apocalypse family, but the core story of The Watch is so sympathetic to D&D that there are some great lessons to learn, even if PBTA isn’t your thing. To be super clear, I am basing all of my comments on the current draft that is shared with backers, so there may be any number of changes between this document and the final.

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Domain Rulership, Part Seven

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 09 Jun 2016 12:30:44 +0000

Previously in this series, I looked at one of the high-water marks for fine detail in domain rulership systems. This week, I’m going to some systems at the opposite extreme: 13th Age and Dungeon World. Not counting, of course, systems that simply have no rules for domain rulership or strongholds. Absence is different from minimalism – and I’m about to split that hair damned fine. Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part Seven 13th Age If you’re unfamiliar […]

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Tribal Knowledge: You’ve Got to Know How to Ask

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 03 May 2016 20:17:41 +0000

This article is about a very thorny subject in gaming: what does it take to get information out of someone who doesn’t want to give it to you? I’ll be attempting to address this point within both LARPing and tabletop gaming, as the visceral immediacy of LARPing intensifies the issue. There are interlinked issues of information control, the grimdarkness of the setting, the players’ and DM/NPCs’ conceptions of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” mind-control magic, and whether any threat suffices to get the […]

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