Last month I was at Revelation – one of the only (the only, as far as I know) convention that specialises in Powered By The Apocalypse (PBTA) games and its derivatives. About 45 of us met in Sheffield, and filled out a packed programme of game slots, all loosely (the strictness has lifted through the years) informed by PBTA.

I had a full hand of different games, so I’m going to talk about them – and what they say about PBTA today, and the breadth of its styles

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Slot 1 : Under Hollow Hills

Under Hollow Hills is from the Bakers – the original PBTA designers – and represents a step forward from what I’ve seen before. You’re a fairy circus troupe, travelling to a troubled area, investigating and interacting with locals, before putting on a show to hopefully heal the land of its problems. Weirdly, the game it reminded of was Dogs in the Vineyard – the structure of exploring and interacting (sometimes dangerously) to get to the foot of a problem in a community, only with less tragic gunfights and accidental deaths. The other key difference is that you get to do something about it in a positive way – during the show you can influence the audience in various ways to try and resolve the issues.

It’s mechanically deep, but with neat core mechanics – and one of the things it does really well is how moves inform play. Well, they’re called plays here, but that would be confusing to write, so let’s stick with moves. Because my Chieftain Mouse can summon the mousy clans, of course I’m going to do that in play – and even the “obvious plays” – basic moves – reinforce the theme of whimsy and play. This is PBTA stretched – and honed – to its limits – and made me very excited to see where Apocalypse World 3e goes.

Slot 2-3 : By Endurance We Conquer

In the remaining Saturday slots I ran By Endurance We Conquer, one of the latest releases in the Carved From Brindlewood series from Gauntlet Publishing. In Carved from Brindlewood games, the solution to the mystery isn’t known in advance – instead players gather clues and try to piece them together to a solution.

By Endurance we Conquer is a game of turn of the century Arctic survival horror, paced for a 6-7 hour two-shot, and it’s exceptional, and delicious, fun. I’d actually run this online beforehand, and having a second shot at it really helped me with pacing and flavour (if you’re thinking of running it, Dan Simmon’s The Terror – a big inspiration for it – is a fantastic source of stuff).

By Endurance does the usual Carved from Brindlewood approach of only a few moves – but makes up for it with flavourful locations and player-suggested consequences and retconning. It ran very well, and I wouldn’t rule out a third run of it. The image of one PC hobbling on frostbitten toes across a glacier to save his dogs from the beast that haunted them will live long in the memory!

Slot 4 : Impulse Drive

Impulse Drive is, for want of a better term, old-school PBTA. Its moves are clearly heavily inspired by Apocalypse World, and its flavourful playbooks carry the same level of specificity that used to be common in PBTA. The Warhorse (the playbook I chose) is a military veteran – but there’s enough scope for how and why he’s so bitter to make it interesting.

The MC in this ran it as “trad PBTA” as well – we co-created a setting within some parameters (with stickers!) and then riffed off our ideas to give us an exciting one-shot where we just about clawed victory. Is this what OSPBTA looks like?

Slot 5 : The King Is Dead

Revelation used to be tight on games allowed – PBTA, Forged in the Dark, Ironsworn, and similar tightly-linked games. But it’s loosened up recently, allowing games like this (also from the Bakers) in. And it’s brilliant to see.

In this GMless game, we play the scions of competing houses in a kingdom where, well, the King has fallen. It’s a Firebrands game, so we take turns picking games from a list in the book and following the instructions to resolve them. Some are quick – in Intrigue & Muster, you narrate a quick development to the situation involving some rival houses. Some are more lengthy – for example, the multi-stage War game where you can easily end up with all the players being drawn in. 

Alongside all this, you have hands of cards – and when the endgame comes, we use these to work out who the new leader of the kingdom is! Lots of the games lean into doomed, asymmetric alliances and trysts – romance even – and this produces a delicious Game of Thrones-esque game of backstabbery. Highly recommended – and again, one I’m sure I’ll come back to.

So, when people talk about PBTA these days, what do they mean? There’s huge breadth to the games out there – and this is without looking at Belonging Outside Belonging or Good Society, even!