Index Card World PbtA Hack Teaser? (Not an actual thing... yet!)

inspiration
question
hack
brainstorm
#61

I’ve thought myself the same about Chimera, but as I don’t have any experience in PbtA Systems yet and I could not find any reviews for it I decided to try Dungeon World first (gonna run a Unlimited Dungeons Hack - One Shot this Friday as my first time playing a PbtA system :smile:), after seeing Hanks enthusiastic videos on it.

#62

My best tip for PbtA: Print out your GM agenda, principle and moves and stick them where you can see them clearly! It’ll help A TON.

Good gaming!!

#63

Sadly no many examples or reviews still. And I personally still did not try to run anything in it.
However from reading it. I can see lot of similar ideas and visions with ICRPG :sunglasses:

#64

Thanks for the advice, I will :+1:

#65

BUMP!

Update: Thanks a whole bunch to everyone who contributed to this thread. I’ve shared a hack I made using the ideas in this topic in a cleaned-up format over here, so go there if you want to check it out.

:heart:

#66

This is all really great! And is something close to what I’ve been working on for a couple years now. Wanted to share an idea from Ironsworn, which is PbtA, but uses dice to determine thresholds for weak and strong hits. I was thinking it could really up the gonzo factor of your game to have players roll 2d20 to determine what the thresholds are for strong and weak hits every turn. Great work and deep thinking from everybody here! Cheers!

#67

Honestly I started doing the same thing, as I also love and appreciate ICRPG, but Dungeon World and Powered by the Apocalypse system is just an easier system. I find even when running other games systems like Stars Without Number that I’m basically running it as a fiction first, fail forward game.

I pondered what made DW awesome and what made ICRPG awesome. I found ICRPG’s flexibility, formlessness, and “do it yourself” mold was what made it fun and for Dungeon World it was the 2d6 concept of you succeed but with a price and the GM moves based solely on the characters dice rolls, I do enjoy the moves and tags because they are clever.

The 2d6 on a 10 wins, 7-9 “wins with a but” is too elegant and simple to change out for the swingy D20. I found that when I did change it out for the D20 that I was pretty much just playing Traci Hickman’s XDM game. However Dungeon World using moves as character progression is nice and easily transferable to milestone loot for ICRPG.

Your solution looks good, mine was just to allow more DIY classes, races, moves, maybe some loot for moves here and there in the DW games.

They are hard to mush together! ICRPG depends on turns and rounds for the core mechanics of threats, treats, and timers to work right. Hard to do if distance and time is abstracted. ICRPG likes the Death in 1d6 or 1d4 (depending on what version you like) rounds, DW has the Last Breath - which is fantastic and much more narratively bad-ass.

This is a cool effort though Nim, let me know if you want to run a game using this set, I’ll jump in with you.

Sincerely,
Deathbare

#68

I also keep coming back to ICRPG-DW merger as my ideal RPG.

I think the difference is the DW fail-forward system really feeds and pushes the fiction and the collective story-telling. Players (including GM) are super free to act and have the world respond in any way imaginable (that fits the scenario). The adventure just flows!
Where as systems like ICRPG provide consistency and crunch to the world. It has a firmer physics engine that provides a strong sense of challenge and accomplishment. But its more rigid structure limits the fiction and possible actions of players and GM, compared to DW (but far less than 5E for example).

In a sense, one leans more into Role-Playing, whilst the other more into Game.
I love both and will continue looking for my sweet spot on the spectrum between them!

#69

Ah man! We’ve been playing co-op Ironsworn with my regular group as a “GM vacation” thing for a couple of sessions haha. I didn’t particulary liked how Ironsworn handles the GM-less game loop (too many basic moves, yet not so many interesting results from them) compared to Mythic or even just playing GM-less Dungeon World and picking GMs moves collaboratively. But everything else is just awesome! I’m particullary in love with the way progression is handled with Assets and how you can freely mix and match stuff. Very ICRPG-ish imho.

So much that I kinda started pumping the Class Warfare supplement for DW into mtg sized cards (and hacked for my ICRPG-DW mix) for using in my Tabletop Simulator games!

#70

Ironsworn does have too many moves, even if mechanically, the moves are cool. The game is a little over-engineered, but is also really cool.

What is Class Warfare?

Love the idea of GM vacation.

#71

Not a fan of baseball? :wink:

#72

A supplement for DW that provides lots of moves. See https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/137634/Class-Warfare.

#73

Haha! I’m not a fan of baseball. :slight_smile:

#74

Interesting thread as I’m actually working on a hack to use Ironsworn/Winsome (a hack of Ironsworn) dice and momentum mechanics with ICRPG.
@The_Merlitron what do you have in mind when you said “over-engineered”? I have some ideas about what you’re talking about, but a different point of view is always interesting :wink:

#75

What I meant was I think Ironsworn has too many specific moves. The flavor and difference of each move is well thought out and executed, but I think playability has been harmed, and the game requires access to a lot of game materials to be able to look up exactly what your doing. I think a more elegant design would be fewer moves which apply to more situations, so you can keep them all in your head.

#76

Ok, so we have the same idea of is too much. I discovered a great hack a couple of weeks ago, Winsome, which removes all moves, and use a special rules in the hack section of Ironsworn (p. 238) called role to play without assets. I think it’s a better foundation to fuse ICRPG with it.