Introducing the WOLF

Introducing the WOLF

Introducing the WOLF

I finally got my hands on a program that allows me to make pdfs. I spent a few days twiddling with it to get my first playbook just right. It’s not 100% perfect, but I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

If you notice any typos, or if you think one of the moves on here needs editing, let me know. I should probably also point out: this playbook hasn’t been playtested yet.

18 thoughts on “Introducing the WOLF”

  2. No problem!

    I used Scribus, which is a slow and buggy piece of software, but once you spend several hours tinkering with it you can start to actually make something resembling what you want. I made a generic playbook template so it’s relatively easy for me to drop in new graphics or text. Using the template I constructed I’ve already finished a second playbook, but I’m waiting for the original author to email me back before I upload it.

  3. I am not sure if it’s a good idea to make the beginning of session move +weird. I guess it’s never negative but rolling a beginning of session move that is so central to the theme of the ‘Book with a Subpar stat feels weird. It encourages you to upp your weird as good as much as you can Mhhh. It totally is a weird move though.

    I guess it’s not so bad because there is not really something totally bad happening on a miss.  

  4. One of the things I’ve noticed about playbooks is that they sometimes will have a move that doesn’t use the core stat (or the stat that starts at +2). You’ll notice Weird always starts at +0 or +1 with the Wolf, and two of the Improvements could easily bring Weird up to +2 or +3 depending on the player’s starting value. I didn’t want the playbook to be too married to game mechanics, and I kind of like the idea of having a move that is automatically the +2 stat.

    If you think about in terms of a group of characters, this is also a pretty powerful move: being able to avoid future damage. If an MC allows the Wolf as a playable character type then a Brainer, a Hocus, or a Savvyhead could easily pick up that move and get an edge up in combat.

  7. So, this playbook is super intriguing. The crazed sower of chaos COULD be overly gonzo in play, but I see tons of potential in the Suitcase of Secrets. Hell, I wanna play the character just for that.

    Leaving optimal stat bonuses aside, I’m feeling a big conceptual dissonance with such a lunatic, bizzarro character not leading with Weird, especially since he’s a Wolf of the Maelstrom. Yeah, he can redirect Open Your Brain to Cool, but that leaves both Survival Instinct AND Augury keying off Weird. I see what you’re going for with the Wolf being supremely Cool–he’s crazy as hell and Honey Badger doesn’t give a shit–but the playbook really seems torn in two directions.

    Not that this means it’s broken. There IS precedent in the playbooks for A) redirecting a Move to another stat while leaving other key moves tied to the suboptimal stat (Battlebabe can Go Aggro with Cool, but not Seize by Force) and B) giving a playbook specialized options from other playbooks that aren’t keyed to the prime stat (a Gunlugger with lousy Sharp can get Gigs). It just that I feel confused and ambivalent about it.

  11. Joel Shempert I felt that an agent of the Maelstrom doesn’t necessarily know they are an agent of the Maelstrom. A Weird character who is explicitly an agent of the Maelstrom would probably be conscious of their status, and I wanted the Wolf to be playable either way. Conceptually I felt this translated best by not making Weird the best stat. Does that seem solid to you?

  12. Well, like I said, ambivalent. I really like what you’re doing with Cool, and maybe my wariness about the Weird moves is just hypothetical. I should try it out and report back. 🙂

    (And I’m totally with you on “may not KNOW they’re an agent of the Maelstrom, though that can apply to a lot of high-weird characters.)

  16. A couple thoughts:

    -Based on Monte’s comment I sort of feel like secrets should be currency that can be spent rather than a stat that changes from session to session and can’t be raised through XP. Perhaps you can just spend them to get some of the effects from the roll+secrets section instead of rolling for them. I think that makes it more of a “hard choices” sort of mechanic.

    -Augury, your inclusion in the additional rules section just seems to imply it’s something they can always do. If that’s the case I think it should be explicitly stated in the “suitcase of secrets” section though I prefer it as an option that you can select from the suitcase options for this session.

  17. Monte Lin The secrets are meant to reset to 0 at the start of every session. This makes them a mercurial commodity that can’t be relied upon too heavily, especially since they do some powerful stuff with the roll+secret move beneath. This, I think, also falls under the “hard choices” that Dylan Clayton mentions. At the start of the session the player has to decide whether their suitcase will hold secrets or have weirdo effects (like forcing people to open their brain or being used as a +1armor shield), if they make the roll.

    I fixed the wording on this and the file on my google drive is updated to reflect this as well, and I also fixed a typo I found in the wording of the roll+secret move.

    Augury is included under the Additional Rules because there’s a precedent in the official playbooks for putting information that falls under the Improvements underneath the Additional Rules. Also, blank empty space is unattractive. 😉

Comments are closed.