Quickphix Club has released all 117-pages of Extinction Punk as a Pay What You Want with a suggested price of $0.00.
It’s a Powered by the Apocalypse Eco RPG that blends sci-fi and science fantasy to get us to a future where humanity has let an extinction event happen. It was an avoidable apocalypse, climate change, a nuclear holocaust or biological war, but we failed to stop it.
Based on the Bakers’ Apocalypse Word, as games like Monster of the Week have done, Extinction Punk is story-driven and streamlined in rules.
- Character creation is quick and guided.
- The PANIC system and its related ten moves make the rules simple to grasp.
- Empowered game master (GM) techniques that enable more theatrical play via open narration
- Mutation mechanics provide gamers with an additional avenue for growth and self-expression.
- Hostile world occurrences provide a simple opportunity for the GM to invent encounters on the way to an expedition’s destination.
- Mechanics are divided into basic rules that focus on the characters and their actions and are intended to be utilised for one-shots and at the start of the adventure, as well as advanced rules that are intended to move the players’ playstyle toward resource collecting and base-building.
The tropes of Extinction Punk came to us by observing some pieces of popular media of the past 5-10 years. While not all of these things fit exactly into the world of Extinction Punk, a lot of them do. So much so, that we are convinced Extinction Punk the genre will establish itself (although probably under a different name) anytime soon.
GMing Extinction Punk
Designer Mauro Gotsch has a few things to say to would-be GMs for the game.
- …never player any TTRPG: In that case, it is probably best for you to read the entire chapter 2, at least one entry in chapter 3 and all of chapter 5. Once you are firm in your understanding of those rules, you can read chapter 4.
- …played TTRPGs, although not ones “powered by the Apocalypse”: You’ll probably be fine by checking out chapter 2, at least one character in chapter 3 and chapter 5.1.
- …played Apocalypse World (or other pbta games): You should feel right at home – this game’s unique mechanics can be found listed in chapter 5.1 and explained in detail from chapter 2.6 onwards.
Quickphix Club is a Swiss publisher. They’re a gaming club since the early Web 1.0 days that saw and enjoyed the rise of digital RPG content, and they’re still playing today.