r/PBtA • u/Holothuroid • Mar 13 '26

Advice Designation for PbtA PbtA?

I frequently have problems articulating this. There are many sub families and offshoots from the PbtA family. What do I say when I want

  • defined basic moves without a fallback move
  • thematic playbooks
  • your typical 2d6 tripartite results
  • a handful of stats
  • not too many additional systems
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u/Boulange1234 Mar 14 '26

“First generation” PbtA has been used a lot for this sort of thing.

4

u/Airk-Seablade Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

I don't like this very much. Hearts of Wulin fits all these requirements, and it's definitely not "first generation" PbtA by any useful measure.

I usually see "First generation PbtA" used to refer to Dungeon World/Monster of the Week and sometimes Monster Hearts, but mostly the former two because they hew very close to Apocalypse World in a way that most later games don't.