Armour Astir: Advent
A downloadable grimoire
Armour Astir: Advent is a high-fantasy roleplaying game about striking back against an authority that seeks to control you.
It is a game of rival pilots clashing in steel-clad Astirs, of soldiers holding their own against the odds, and of spies and diplomats twisting the world to their ends. It is not a game of careful preparation or pleasant truces;
It's hard to change the world without taking arisk.
Armour Astir: Advent is kickstarting aPHYSICAL PRINT RUN! Make sure to check it out if you've ever wanted a physical copy.
Armour Astir: Advent is a PBTA game where the players use their wits, expertise, and their huge magical mechs to fight back against an oppressive power. A love letter to mecha anime and fantasy fiction broadly, Armour Astir is designed to evoke the feel and pace of shows like Mobile Suit Gundam and Escaflowne in an accessible, narrative-focused format: without skimping out when it comes to the exciting action.
The basic version of Armour Astir: Advent is available for free! If you just want to try out the game, you don't need to pay a penny:a free version of the rules without the art is included alongside the play materials.
Featuring;
- Four 'Channeler' playbooks - The tactical Arcanist, the divine Paradigm, the hot-blooded Impostor and the mysterious Witch, each with their custom Astir
- Four 'Support' playbooks - The Captain & the Artificer support their crew from afar, whilst the Diplomat and the Scout fight battles of a different scale
- Customised Astirs - choose from a suite of premade Astirs, or combine parts and weapons to design your own unique model
- Narrative-focused combat - force enemies to takerisksor put them inperiluntil they're defenceless and ready for a final strike
- Simple Factions & Conflict Turn - Zoom out from the player characters to explore the larger war by playing out Conflict Scenes as characters from both sides
- Armour Astir: Artifice- a microgame about creating an Astir for three players, originally created for #WizJam2k19
- Eight additional playbooks from the Encore expansion - now added to the base game, for a total of 16 playbooks
- Optional romance content from the Amor Astir expansion- now added to the base game
Playing online? Check out thesefillable online playsheets, by Ida Ailes, featuring sheets for player characters as well as additional sheets for rules reference, Cause & Faction sheets, and much more.
If you have feedback, concerns or criticism, feel free to contact me atweregazelle@gmail.com with the subject 'Feedback (Armour Astir)'.
Want the original expansion content in a seperate document? Check out:
- Armour Astir: Encore for 8 new free playbooks!
- Amor Astir for additional romance-themed content, like moves and Scenes.
Please remember to rate the game 5* if you enjoy it! Every rating means a lot ♥
| Updated | 12 days ago |
| Status | Released |
| Category | Physical game |
| Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (356 total ratings) |
| Author | Briar Sovereign |
| Genre | Role Playing |
| Tags | acab,Fantasy,LGBT,mecha,Mechs,Multiplayer,PbtA,Tabletop |
| Average session | A few hours |
| Mentions | Announcing the 2020 Tabletop itch.io Sel... |
Purchase
In order to download this grimoire you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
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Community Copies
If you don't have the budget to purchase the game at full price, for whatever reason, feel free to claim a community copy - no judgement. New copies are added monthly and paid for by purchasers.If you take one, please consider leaving a 5* review! Itreallyhelps.
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Comments
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I may have missed this while reading through, but, when does the Conflict Turn happen?
I see an 'order' of
Sortie
Downtime
Plan & Prepare
Sortie
Downtime
Plan and Prepare
etc.
Does the Conflict Turn happen after Sorties/before Downtime, after Downtime /before Plan & Prepare, or after P&P/before Sorties?
Additional question- how many moves does an Astir from a Channeler playbook start with? My first reading is two- one that's 'inherent' to the Astir, and one given from the playbook, but that doesn't seem to gel with what some of the Encore playbooks indicate.
1. I strongly recommend you read Apocalypse World - it's a great game in its own right, but it will also set you up for engaging with any PbtA games in the future.
2. To actually answer your question though, hold is a sort of temporary currency, in most cases meant to be spent within the ramifications of the move that generated the hold (a move will be explicit if that's different). In the vast majority of cases, when a move tells you to "hold 3" or another number, it will then tell you how and what to spend that hold on. (do let me know if that's still unclear)
Good to know and glad to help.
Also reading through, I,m confused about gear. The book references
"Next, choose from the gear or equipment options your playbook has. Some playbooks have more than one choice."
But I don't see it listed anywhere how much gear we are supposed to choose? I originally assumed we just got all the gear on the playbook since it didn't list (choose one) like on Approach.
Should add despite all my nit picking I am loving what this game is doing.
Love the game and my group have been excitedly building our campaign up over the last few weeks!
One question that came up for us was: For dangers, i.e. risks and perils, we know they take up slots and contribute to rendering a character defenseless, but do they have any other mechanical effect?
Like, if I get the exposed peril for example, beyond taking up one of my danger slots, what effect do you imagine this has? Like, should it impose disadvantage or desperation on certain moves, or does taking up the danger slot represent a sufficient penalty, so also having it impose that would be too much?
Just want to make sure we're approaching them right, I didn't get a clear sense from the text under the Dangers section.
Hi Briar. A very minor thing: along the whole book (and also up here, in the game description) you use the semicolon ";" at the end of the phrases that introduce a list of items.
I don't know if you had a reason for using it, however I'd humbly suggest you to change them all with the standard symbol used for that, the colon ":".
I find it slightly distracting, 'cause my proofreader soul thunders to come out :D
In the meantime, compliments for the 1.2 release 💜
Hello! I'm deffo buying the purchase version as soon as I can but meanwhile looking at the free version, I'm loving the art credits but I'm specifically floored by the cover art and the 4 iconics on this page, too. Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere but I couldn't find it on the credits - does anyone know who that (or those) artist is(are)?
I'm excited to see this is finished! Hopefully I'll be able to get this in the future when I have a similarly eager group.
Speaking of, may I ask what your policy is on sharing the PDF with other group members of the same campaign- would I be able to share (edit: or print for in-person sessions) it/parts of it (such as the playbooks) with others so long as they didn't further distribute it past that, or would you prefer they buy a copy as well to access it?
from what i went through i am immensely excited to have a go at playing this someday. everything about it has some many things i personally enjoy.
but (and i hope this is a good place to ask) im a little confused are ardents and what they could do (what tags work for em n what not).
other than that. it's amazin.
This looks really exciting, and might scratch that mecha itch I've had. I've read through the (what I think is) most recent version in the zip document, though I haven't played it yet so some of my questions might need experience to be played through/are somewhere in the pdf and I just haven't seen it yet.
1. How is the "Sortie->Downtime->Conflict" cycle supposed to go? What about, say, a multi-sortie mission where the characters are in the field for a long time between major components- would downtime be skipped, or would options be restrained to the narrative?
2. The Conflict turns seem... vauge when it comes to resolving them. What's the relation between tokens and dice for the cause? How would you get players from trying to game the system for the cause?
3. Are projects ever explained somewhere?
4. Am I able to print out copies of the playbooks?
5. I've never used PbtA in general; can multiple people use the same playbook?
6. Some of the Parts lack power costs
7. If you're running a B-plot, could you take other characters (Channeler or no) with you? Like, say you're a captain going to attend a shady meeting and want the guy who can atomize a house along as muscle while everyone else is doing something important- could I use a B-Plot move for that, or would that be better done as the "Something Else" downtime?
8. As a follow-up, can multiple support characters use separate B-plot moves?
9. Gear Tags/Traits aren't alphabetical
10. Are multiple people allowed to run the same playbook for their characters?
11. The Stake for divisions seems kinda low- with an average of 3 and 1d6, that's a 50 percent chance of knocking stake down. Is a faction intended to be KO'd in three conflict scenes?
12. An explanation of "Hold" would be useful for anyone who hasn't played PbtA.
13. In FATE, there's an option to Create an Advantage, such as entangling someone in a net. What would be the way to do that here- for example PC Bob is fighting NPCs Steven and Earl, and Earl tries to flush Bob out of cover for Steven to hit. Would that just be Bob rolling Weather the Storm/whatever and on failure taking a Peril?
14. Is Weave Magic intended to be used for the same capabilities as Exchange Blows/Strike Decisively? If not, could you roll CHANNEL for the other ones?
15. Are you able to take the options from advancing multiple times? Or is each option only takeable once, and thus there is an effective "Level cap"- For example, I can only get up to 2 Soldier Moves throughout a campaign because the option only appears twice.
16. When describing Spotlight, the "If you take a move..." sentence at the end could use clearer writing- is that saying that I can spend all of my spotlight to both a) advance and b) make a move with advantage?
17. Am I correct in assuming that Confidence and Desperation cancel out?
18. Advancement can happen whenever, correct?
19. If you permanently get rid of a hook by spending it, can you gain another one later? Same with crossed-out gravity clocks.
5 and 10 are the same question. And to answer that question specifically, you *can* run it that way, but it's better if you don't, at least in other PBTA games. in the other PBTA games I've read, it's made clear that playbooks aren't just your class, they're also your role in the narrative, and guidelines for your character's story, so it can be done but it can feel like stepping on eachother's toes if two people are taking the same one.
Hi! Love the game, very excited to run it with a couple of my groups, and I'd LOVE to have a playbooks + reference PDF to send them. I saw your comments about wanting form-fillable sheets, and I'd be happy to convert a non-fillable PDF to fillable. Or edit & convert the old ones, which are apparently no longer available? Feel free to hit me up here or @aaronmfking on Twitter. Thanks!
