# Powered by the Apocalypse *Created:* 2024-01-03, *Modified:* 2026-10-09 ![[Apocalypse World (cover).jpg|600]] **Powered by the Apocalypse** — PbtA to its friends, who are legion — is the most successful engine that spends its whole career denying it's one. The name was born with Vincent and Meguey Baker's 2010 game **[[Apocalypse World]]**, and the Bakers have been admirably clear about what it means: not a rule set, a family tree. Slap "PbtA" on a game and you're declaring lineage — *"we looked at **Apocalypse World** and decided it was worth robbing."* That citation-shaped definition is why the label ballooned from four dozen licensed games to several hundred, and why its two best children, **[[Forged in the Dark]]** and the **[[Carved from Brindlewood]]** family, eventually grew up, moved out, and put their own names on the mailbox. ## The System **Apocalypse World** — winner of the 2010 Indie RPG Award for Most Innovative Game — set the template: a post-apocalyptic landscape rendered almost entirely in the fiction the table builds in the first session. Its engine (2d6 plus a stat against a ladder of results) was never fenced off behind a license. Instead the Bakers published it under a policy that's half invitation, half caution tape: steal the ideas freely, credit where you stole from, don't pretend to be us, and ask if you want the logo. The upshot is that "Powered by the Apocalypse" became less a mechanical standard than what one analyst called "a mark of ludic etymology" — a shared family history rather than a spec sheet. That's why the clan is so stylistically unruly: **[[Monsterhearts]]** and **[[Masks - A New Generation|Masks]]** barely recognize each other at a family reunion, yet both carry the name because both grew from the same well. ## Mechanics Because the label is genealogical and not a checklist, there's no single PbtA rulebook to summarize — but most of the family shares a recognizable bone structure inherited from **Apocalypse World**. The signature is the **move**: a named, triggered sentence ("when you act under fire…") that tells you exactly what happens and what to roll. The standard roll is **2d6 + stat**, read against the ladder: a **10+** is a clean hit, a **7–9** is a win with a catch or a hard choice, and a **6−** hands the narration to the MC, who makes a move of their own. That "roll low and the world bites back" is the engine's pressure valve — even failure shoves the story forward, so there's never a quiet turn. The rest of the shared DNA is about who holds the mic. **Apocalypse World** calls the referee the **Master of Ceremonies**, shackled to a short list of **agendas** and **principles** ("play to find out what happens") rather than a plot. Characters come from **playbooks** — archetypes with their own moves and experience triggers — and experience usually keys off an **end-of-session** question that nudges play back toward the genre. Harm and menace live in **clocks** and harm ladders, and the MC often runs **fronts** and **threats** in the background, the quiet machinery of a world that doesn't need you to keep moving. Individual games remix all of it — **[[Dungeon World]]** adds a Defy Danger, **Masks** trades harm for emotional Conditions — which is exactly the point: learn the frame once, and every new game is a new costume on the same body. ## The Family Sorted by first publication; a wiki-link means the game has its own note. Bold marks games held in the user's library. - **[[Apocalypse World]]** (2010) — Vincent & Meguey Baker's origin: post-apocalyptic hardholds and the psychic maelstrom. *In the library* (original, **Burned Over**, and 3rd-edition previews). - **[[Dungeon World]]** (2012) — Adam Koebel & Sage LaTorra's old-school dungeon fantasy, now with feelings. *In the library.* - **[[Monsterhearts]]** (2012) — Avery Alder's monstrous teens, monstrous hormones (2nd ed. 2017). *In the library.* - **[[Urban Shadows]]** (2015) — Magpie's supernatural creatures of a modern city squabbling over the political table scraps. *In the library* (2nd ed.). - **[[Masks - A New Generation|Masks: A New Generation]]** (2016) — teenage superheroes whose deepest villain is their own self-image. *In the library.* - **[[Cartel]]** (2019) — the narco-telenovela where family and cartel are the same word. *In the library.* - **Brindlewood Bay** (2019) — the cozy-cosmic murder-mystery grandmother of the Carved from Brindlewood line. Not held. - **[[Pasion de las Pasiones]]** (2020) — pure undiluted melodrama with a score and a commercial break. *In the library.* - **[[The Between]]** (2021) — Victorian monster-hunters in a London that keeps its secrets. Descendant families that outgrew the label: **Carved from Brindlewood** (its mystery-first engine powers **The Between** and **[[Public Access]]**, both *in the library*) and **Forged in the Dark** (Harper's d6-pool branch off **Apocalypse World**, whose own family the sweep covers separately). ## References - [Powered by the Apocalypse — apocalypse-world.com](http://apocalypse-world.com/pbta) - [An open letter re: Powered by the Apocalypse — Vincent Baker's policy](http://apocalypse-world.com/pbta/policy) - [What is PbtA? — Lumpley Games](https://lumpley.games/2023/11/22/what-is-pbta/) - [Powered by the Apocalypse — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_by_the_Apocalypse)