So, I was inspired by the new Solace playbook to write up a Wolf playbook. Here it is:
the Wolf
The world is a dangerous place filled with smoke and mirrors, it’s a steaming pile of crap where others bicker and fight over meaningless twaddle. They circle each other like dogs, waiting to bite the closest friend with a leg up. You’re in this world too, but you see through the smoke, you’re above the crap, and you have the leash. You just have to teach them all who’s really in charge.
NAME
Clyde, Defoe, Dwayne, Flyboy, Joker, Jonah, Maniac, Pinky, Pooch, Zist
Ariel, Beatrix, Bobbie, Cleo, Cora, Hildy, Jo, Maddy, Paramour, Xenia
STATS
Cool +2, Hard +1, Hot -1, Sharp +0, Weird +1
Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot -1, Sharp +2, Weird +0
Cool +2, Hard -1, Hot +0, Sharp +1, Weird +1
Cool +2, Hard +2, Hot -1, Sharp -1, Weird +0
MOVES
You get all the basic moves. You get 2 Wolf moves.
LOOK
Man, woman, ambiguous, transgressing, or concealed.
Casual wear, fashionable wear, fetish wear, or environmental wear appropriate to the local environment.
Broken face, calm face, lovely face, ugly face, scarred face, or wild face.
Calm eyes, laughing eyes, clear eyes, piercing eyes, or wild eyes.
Curvy body, slim body, fat body, skinny body, or small body.
HX
On your turn, tell everyone Hx-1. You’re closed off.
On the others’ turns, for each, ask yourself: can I twist them to my purpose? Can I use them to foment chaos and discord?
• If either answer is yes: whatever number that player tells you, give it +1 and write it next to their character’s name. They’re part of your pack, whether they know it or not.
• If both answers are no: whatever number that player tells you, write it next to their character’s name.
GEAR
You get:
• 1 handy weapon
• oddments worth 1-barter
• fashion suitable to your look, including at your option a piece worth 1-armor (you detail)
• a suitcase full of secrets
Handy weapons (choose 1):
• 9mm (2-harm close loud)
• big knife (2-harm hand)
• hunting rifle (2-harm far loud)
• machete (3-harm hand messy)
• magnum (3-harm close reload loud)
• sawed-off (3-harm close reload messy)
MOVES
Bluesight: When you open your brain to the psychic maelstrom, roll +Cool instead of +Weird.
Expert eye: When you read a person, roll +Cool instead of +Sharp.
He’s got a gun!: When you’re in a tense situation, you can say something crazy or sudden and roll+cool. On a hit, other people present react with violence before doing anything else. Choose options. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:
• you are not targeted in the initial exchange
• somebody takes a blow meant for you
• you get away from the fight
• name one of the characters present, if they strike first they mark experience, it it’s an NPC they definitely strike first
• name one of the player’s characters that is not present, they show up and start the fight, if they don’t want to they’re acting under fire
On a miss, nobody needs to start fighting if they don’t want to and you are no longer exempt from getting hit first if they do.
Howling in the wind: At the end of the session, when you would normally choose a character who knows you better, instead, consider each of the other players’ characters and decide whether or not they helped to destroy something of stability and goodness. All that did, tell them to add +1 to their Hx with you on their sheet. You can tell none of them, any of them, or all of them, as you see fit.
Closing in: At the beginning of the session, before highlighting stats, announce a stat and that one cannot be highlighted this session by either players or the MC. You may never select Weird with this move.
Survival instinct: At the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. At any time, you can spend your hold to avoid 1 segment of damage inflicted upon you. On a miss, the MC will tell you about somebody new who wants you dead.
Taking care of business: At the beginning of the session, name another player’s character. If they inflict harm on anyone other than you during the session, then at the end of the session, you both mark experience.
SPECIAL
When you and another character have sex, you can let their sex move activate, or you can stop it and then use it yourself.
SUITCASE OF SECRETS
You carry something connected to the apocalypse and it drives you purposefully forward. What is it? (choose 1):
• a book filled with names
• a small device that glows
• a gun that shoots something other than bullets
• thousands of slips of green paper
• a mask made of human skin and a knife carved from bone
• a gigantic insect
• black and white photographs
• dozens of objects (you detail; could be coffee cups, lighters, cassette tapes, cell phones, etc.)
What is it? ________________________________________________
By default, your suitcase holds 1-secret. At the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2:
• Your suitcase holds 2-secrets. Choose this again for 3-secrets.
• Your suitcase can obscure you from scrutiny. Anyone who reads you is acting under fire.
• Your suitcase is always in hand and deflects others attack. +1armor.
• Your suitcase is a conduit to the psychic maelstrom. You can spend 1-secret to automatically roll 10+ when opening your brain.
• Your suitcase is a curious object. Anybody who sees it today must open their brain or suffer -1ongoing for the rest of the session.
On a miss, the default stands.
Whenever any player’s character attempts to go aggro, seize by force, or read a person against you, subtract your suitcase’s secrets from the roll.
When you consult the suitcase, roll+secret. On a 10+, hold 2. On 7-9, hold 1. You can be spend hold 1-for-1 from the following list:
• Your suitcase vomits forth goods worth 1-barter for you.
• Your suitcase has food inside. Enough to feed one person for one week.
• Your suitcase has a weapon inside (tell the MC it’s either a distinctive weapon or a weapon that gives pause, your call, and the MC will give you something suitable).
• Your suitcase impresses, awes, or frightens everyone present. They will now treat you with admiration, fear, or revulsion, as appropriate.
IMPROVEMENT
+1 Cool (max. +3)
+1 Hard (max. +3)
+1 Sharp (max. +3)
+1 Weird (max. +3)
get a new Wolf move
get a new Wolf move
get followers (detail) and Fortunes
get a gang (detail) and Leadership
get a move from another playbook
get a move from another playbook
I like the concept but I think it needs some tweeking. First, I think on the hunt is too game changing in a negative way. Highlighting stats to me should be a way to have players encourage characters to act in certain ways. You can see a new aspect of an angel the week that he get’s hard highlighted. By using that move it forces everybody in the game to go weird, and that just isn’t as interesting. I think the move would be more fun if it said “at the begining of the session chose a character whom you did not chose a stat to highlight. That character highlights weird instead of what another player told them to highlight.” Alternatively (although this might make things frustrating) you could instead have all players highlight a stat of your choice as long as you had not used the move the session before, but I like the prior edit better. My second issue is more of a question. Does the Wolf need two different moves involving the suitcase? Could it be one? Should it? I don’t know. Reading the playbook makes me wonder if it’s redundant to have both.
Seems fun! It’s like a horrible combination of Mister Burke and Sport Billy…
David Rothfeder You might be right about On the hunt but it’s meant to be an opposition move to the Solace’s self-possessed. Give me some time to mull it over and I’ll come up with something suitably opposable that doesn’t just highlight Weird.
I drew inspiration from the Solace and the Touchstone when I wrote this. The Touchstone brings hope and the Wolf destroys hope, the Solace fights against the psychic maelstrom and the Wolf is an agent of the maelstrom. The suitcase of secrets is an opposite amalgam of both the Solace’s Threshold and the Touchstone’s Toke of Hope. Thresholds have two moves (both are rolled) and the Token of Hope has three moves (none are rolled). I tried to take aspects of both and flip them for the Suitcase, but also maintain the fiction that the suitcase is part of the psychic maelstrom and it’s contents are somehow connected to the apocalypse. I’m more interested about whether the moves fit within that narrative.
John Machin I wasn’t deliberately trying to elicit Mister Burke, but YES! That’s great! I kept thinking of the suitcase from Pulp Fiction and Winston Wolf.
Thank you!
Your welcome. One of these days I’ll make a trifold, because now I want to play this badass!
David Rothfeder How does this sound?
When highlighting stats all the other players pass their playbooks to The Wolf who gets to highlight stats instead of other players?
Or, the Wolf announces a stat and that one cannot be highlighted this session by either players or the MC?
The 2nd sounds better than the first. I personally don’t lime the idea of the wolf highlighting everybody’s stats as that kinda shuts down an aspect of the game. I am fine with the wolf stealing control though, which is why i think the original move would work if you could only do it to a single player. I also think the prohibiting a stat can also work but it doesn’t feel as flavorful since that is a rule and the wolf is supposed to upset order
Control is key. The original move took control away from the MC regarding one character, I wanted a move that would take away control from the other players… but now that I wrote that, I’m starting to think maybe it should be something else. Maybe something that gives the MC control over a a character.
Possibility #5: At the beginning of the session, choose another character and instead of handing their playbook to another player to highlight a stat hand the playbook to the MC who highlights two of their stats.
What about giving one player of your choice the ability to choose his highlight himself instead of the GM. Give the player more control over his character instead of the world.
Wait. The GM still does, but not another player, this is better. You don’t care about other people but still about the Maelstorm.
mmhhh….
I changed it to Closing in: At the beginning of the session, before highlighting stats, announce a stat and that one cannot be highlighted this session by either players or the MC. You may never select Weird with this move.