Powered by Integrity · Compatibility Standard v1.0
Version 1.0 · effective October 13, 2026Powered by Integrity is intentionally flexible, but it is not just a logo. This Standard defines the minimum system identity a work must preserve before it may present itself as Powered by Integrity.
Compatibility Standard. This page defines the current qualification requirements for the Powered by Integrity program and is incorporated by the PBI Terms & Conditions.
Required engine identity
A qualifying work must preserve all eight. The point is to protect a recognizable system center without forcing every creator to reproduce the full Open Almond Studios rules presentation or default complexity.
Ordinary meaningful character uncertainty must be resolved primarily through 3d8 + one applicable character rating against a Target Number. Special subsystems may use another procedure, but 3d8 cannot be merely decorative or confined to a minor subsystem while ordinary action resolution is fundamentally another engine.
The game has exactly four Pillars named Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. Their setting interpretation may vary. A work may use Skills beneath the Pillars or use a Pillar-Only mode, but a roll uses one applicable Skill or one direct Pillar rating—never a Skill plus its parent Pillar.
The game preserves Failure below TN, Endured Success at exactly TN, Success at TN +1 to +2, Edge Success at TN +3 to +9, and Critical Success at TN +10 or more. The fiction may change, but ordinary resolution cannot collapse into simple binary pass/fail.
The game preserves meaningful Pressure and a more persistent consequence layer tied to Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength. Names and capacities may change, but the structure cannot collapse into one undifferentiated universal hit-point track.
Characters have meaningful Convictions that express commitments and give play something real to place under pressure. The default five-Conviction structure, Foundational-Only mode, and discovered Pillar Convictions may all qualify when Convictions remain player-facing statements of identity rather than compulsory behavior or routine numeric bonuses.
The game contains a meaningful, scarce, player-facing meta-currency occupying the role filled by Integrity. It may retain the name Integrity or use a setting-specific equivalent, but it must remain exceptional agency above ordinary fictional possessions such as money, ammunition, or inventory.
During Trials, the game preserves three persistent State axes that create ongoing positional leverage. Exposure, Stability, and Mobility may be renamed or reinterpreted, but the three-axis grammar and meaningful negative, neutral, and positive positions must remain.
The game preserves Trials, or a clearly identified equivalent, for sustained consequential resistance where immediate action order, position, pressure, and changing circumstances matter. Trials may govern combat, social conflict, pursuit, investigation, survival, spiritual pressure, technology, or mixed resistance.
Flexible defaults & design joints
These familiar Integrity Engine structures are available in the IE-SRD but are not individually mandatory for PBI qualification so long as the eight required identity elements remain intact:
Dependency rule: changing a design joint does not excuse broken dependencies. If you remove or replace a rule, also remove or replace rules that spend it, restore it, grant it, modify it, prevent it, upgrade it, or otherwise assume it exists.
Can still qualify
Does not qualify merely by terminology
Relationship to the IE-SRD
The Integrity Engine System Reference Document determines what Open Almond Studios material is designated for reuse under CC BY 4.0. This Standard determines what a work must preserve to call itself Powered by Integrity. A creator can lawfully use CC BY IE-SRD Content without qualifying for PBI branding, and access to the PBI Creator Kit does not make every remix compatible.
Versioning
Each public Compatibility Standard will identify a version number and effective date. The Powered by Integrity Terms & Conditions identify the Standard that applies. Later Standard revisions do not silently rewrite the qualification requirements of an existing PBI edition governed by an earlier version, subject to the versioning and breach provisions of the applicable PBI Terms.