PbtA Game Ideas

Away Team
As the name somewhat unsubtly suggests, Away Team is a game inspired by primarily by episodic,
ensemble cast, Sci-fi TV shows. Major: Star Trek, but also Stargate, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica,
Lost in Space. Lesser extent: Farscape, Dark Matter, Firefly, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings.

It looks to try to recreate this in game in a couple of ways:

A centralised group character or focus (the ship, space station or organisation).

A focus on shorter missions or archs, lasting ideally one to four game sessions (the episodes).
Consecutive episode don’t necessarily have to be directly linked, if at all, as the central character
help to bind longer archs and campaigns together.

By each player creating multiple characters to pick from when going on a mission (the cast). Even
though each player creates multiple characters, they will still on have to play one character ‘in
focus’ (on screen) at any one time.

Premise
- Sci-fi

- Inspirations
----- Major: Star Trek, but also Stargate, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Lost in Space
----- Lesser extent: Farscape, Dark Matter, Firefly, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings

- build ‘stable’ of characters to choose from.

- ‘Episodic’ focus. ‘episodes’ could last just a single session but could also cover a few game
sessions.

- Episodes can be linked to create ‘series’. A campaign could be a single or multiple ‘series’, as
needed and remains interesting for the campaign.

- not really to to with moving around/exploring space, its about what people, places and things are
encountered (situations and obstacles arise) when moving around space. Whilst exploration is the
narrative excuse and overarching motivation, the game (and the media that inspire it) focuses on
and is about the interesting encounters that happen when doing so.

- for the above reason, many of the ‘episodes’ won’t actually take place in space. Like much of the
fiction that inspires it, they’ll be on space stations, planetside or onboard ship where ‘space’, or
being in space, isn’t really the focus

Mechanics
- Our ship, Crew and Cast (can also be a company)
----- set world/setting truths
----- decide on ship/campaign focus
----- acts as hub for downtime, additional characters, base of operations etc.
----- decide on the cast - how many characters each player will play
----- decide any needs or limitations of the cast (only one of office X in the group, at least 2+ of
office Y in group etc.)
----- guidelines: don’t have the same player play the same office more than once, try to have each
office once before doubling up

- In play, the focus and protagonist characters are the Cast. Of these cast characters, those actively
involved in an episode are the ‘on screen’ characters.

- Characters
----- have team leader trait
----- have rank
----- have an ‘office’, a mechanical archetype and narrative role that they fill on the ship.
---------- security,
---------- science, (physics and biology)
---------- medical, (including counselling)
---------- engineering,
---------- ambassador
---------- weird
---------- operations
---------- specialist (piloting/helmsperson, navigator)

Gateway Knights
Grand size and scale sci-fi rpg. Expansion of Away Team. More move options, more ships, more
equipment and assets, more talents.

- Universal moves
----- general
----- downtime
----- session
fewer universal moves than Away Team, with all non-downtime and session moves rolled in to
general (inc. combat etc.). This is because of the new optional moves sets.

- optional moves
----- combat
----- space and spacefaring (piloting and spacefaring)
----- computing
----- investigation and exploration
----- interaction and politics
----- tech and engineering

- extra equipment
---- cyberware
---- drones
---- vehicles
Combat Focussed game

- fight defensively
- all out attack
- butterfly/bee
- reposition
- recover
- press advantage
- run through (pierce)
- hack and slash (slashing/cutting)
- Pound (bludgeon)
- snipe (single, big)
- pray and spray (area cover)

- positioning
---- advantageous, neutral, disadvantageous
- damage and pure damage
- conditions