After getting the book last weekend and spending the week reading and thinking about MOTW I started to build a playbook for a niche that still seemed open to me.
The Thrillseeker. A hunter who goes after monsters for fun and the thrill of the hunt. So kind of an adrenaline junkie and hedonist. Not very responsible necessarily but very good at getting attention.
I tried to build the playbook in a way that rewards taking risks and emphasizes the Thrillseekers “hobbyist” perspective by making a few things about pure luck.
The Ashwood Abbey from Hunter: The Vigil was one of my inspirations but I am sure there are more of these guys in horror fiction.
I would be glad if you could take a look at my first draft and any feedback you are willing to give.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nmo8ugtdd4bkfs3/Thrillseeker%20MOTW%20Playbook%20firstdraft.rtf?dl=0
Hah. I’ve had a draft playbook with the very exact same title (plus: a hyphen) sitting unexplored for two years (August 2012. Tag line: “There are monsters? And people who hunt them? Dude, that’s more awesome than gator-wrassling, base-jumping and Chernobyl-tourism rolled into one. Sign me up for a season’s pass.”)
The lack of hyphen might be my German peeking through.
Some quick comments: The simplicity of “Pushing your luck” is great! (I think my draft failed for not having such a clear overarching vision.) I think this should be a default move – so that Hunters gain that plus two of the others.
I like the idea of “rubbing off”, but I am not convinced by the mechanics – it’s really costly, I think. Maybe turn it around – whoever helps you and gets hurt in the process marks experience? “Catch me if you can” is an interesting move – the idea of the prospect of “catching you” as leverage should work. “Flirting with disaster” is cool, but the condition must be really be spelt out clearly, otherwise it’s potentially abusable.
YOLO is an interesting idea, but I am not sure it is powerful enough to be its own move. You could even fold it into Pushing your luck.
Stuntman, Parcour, NRNF are all solid for a first draft, I think.
“Famous face” is a nice touch!
And I think I would avoid a stat line with negative Cool. That’s just not cool, bro.
For histories, you should have one about how someone introduced the TS to this ultimate thrill of monster-hunting.
Very nice! Looking forward to seeing more.
Felix Girke thank you for the feedback.
That your tagline is hitting similar notes as mine has to be a good thing. Means that I am not the only one who imagined a character like this at least.
Pushing your luck could be an unnamed Luck move I guess. Like the Crooked or the Chosen have.
Rubbing off I am not 100% happy with yet. It seemed too weak as a move but I liked the general idea and left it in for this first showing. Maybe your way is better. Or maybe I can think of another way to represent it mechanically.
The wording for none of the moves is finalised. But I guess Flirting with Disaster with the current wording could of course be used rather often. But it would also establish that magic as dangerous and possibly a bad idea, which would give the Keeper an opportunity for moves.
I think YOLO could be pretty powerful. It allows for one or more additional virtual Luck points per session. At a cost of course but it can make an attack really sting and it has synergy with Adrenaline Rush.
Stuntman is the Expert’s It wasn’t as bad as it looked move with Charm in it. Maybe I will reword it a little. I had been thinking about different self healing moves as well. One that requires to take the edge of with a substance and another that is weaker but can be used more often.
The stat lines are not set in stone yet. But I heard another complaint about a negative Cool stat. I might push some of them around some more. When I get time to build a few versions of the playbook and see what different characters emerge from the choices.
Or replace the Hard Case with the Action Scientist. o_O How pulp can it be?