14 thoughts on “I’m liking the new edition.”

  1. Couldn’t you do an Initiate? Pick “obsolete gear”, “Chapters everywhere”, “Rich”, and “closed hierarchy” and you are nearly there! 😛

    But I do see how the playbook does not quite offer what you are looking for. You’d probably need to do a cross-over of Hex, Initiate, and Expert for that. 

  2. Holy Water could be a specific application of Use Magic. Although it basically never goes wrong in stories, so maybe it’s just a move like:

    Holy Water: you can consecrate up to a bathful of water. It counts as a weakness or component in magic rituals.

  3. Exorcisms are interesting. In most of the monster-hunting fiction, these are drawn-out conflicts that contain lots of character development for the monster hunter, and form a relationship between the possessing entity and the exorcist. … Thinking about cool ways to handle that, but it’s an obviously awesome thing to throw into the game …

  4. If you take Supernatural as genre basis, you actually have both: exorcisms as Big Magic, and as rotes (as with the Hex playbook), sorta depending on the power level of the respective demon. Holy Water I would either do as a “traditional weapon” (0-harm, counts as a weakness against undead/some demons, and other tags to amuse you), or as a rote as well. 

  5. I think Initiate can work as well as Mundane. But neither are putting the role of a priest in the center of the playbook.

    Holy is an existing tag. I would make a Blessing move that can give this tag to anything. Which allows for holy water but also for different religious symbols from other traditions.

    Yay Exorcisms!

  7. People have said all I would have said about exorcisms – there are very intentionally options in the use magic and big magic rules that cover that sort of thing. 

    For creating playbooks, though, I like to use a central concept that reflects who the hunter is rather than something that they do. A specific “priest” class might end up being a little restrictive, although if you focus on the “calling” rather than “job” aspects that might not be an issue.

  8. I think priesthood attracts a certain kind of person. Who can do the things they do because they believe in something or faith at least plays a big role in their life, priest who lost their faith are showing up in horror every once in a while.

    A priest could be about believing in a concept and preaching it. But they are also trusted leaders of other faithful and often consulted in matters supernatural.

    I guess there could be an Expert priest too for the latter and the one who lost their faith could be Wronged.

    But the Priest or the Faithful could be opened up enough to be a personality type. Technology gurus as well as a charismatic social worker might fall under this heading as much as a catholic priest or a rabbi.

  9. I had even thought about a priest template you could add to another playbook (especially Mundane, Expert, and other mostly ‘plain mortal’ types).  It could add the requisite moves then you have to pick up the other moves available for the playbook as you advance.

    I just don’t have an interest in using the existing magic rules to replicate much of what I’m talking about.  I would like to see this be something a bit different.  Something maybe less overtly powerful but like someone else said some of it just works.  

    I could see exorcisms specifically fitting into ‘big magic’ or some sort of special ‘kick ass’ move though.  That always seems to have a lot of back and forth with the potential for the Priest getting whacked on in the process.  

    There are really only a couple of things that come with being a Priest. Blessings and exorcisms, preaching, and the sacraments. There should be a way to integrate these subtly enough that the potential for faith/skepticism still exists.  

  10. That should be possible and maybe an add-on is a good idea.

    Also choosing playbooks defines the world you play in too. So if you have a priest and a Divine in your group there probably is some kind of higher power in your world.

  11. Yeah, I would think “priests” would be covered by Initiates, Experts or Mundanes, depending on what flavor you’re looking for. Holy Water is just a thing, like rocksalt or silver – you get it like you get it, you don’t need a move to make it (unless you do, and then it’s Use Magic). Exorcism is either Use Magic, Big Magic, or you buy one of those moves from another playbook that lets you Manipulate monsters, depending. “I tell you what, you get out of that little girl, and [insert leverage here]”.

  12. The Initiate works just fine as a Exorcist Style Priest. I played as a Priest working for a secrecy monster hunting branch of the church called “The Burial Agency”. My character’s style of Use Magic allowed him to bless things and make the “Holy”, as well as perform minor miracles like healing people. You don’t need a new playbook for a priest when the Initiate does just fine.

  13. I made a character that’s a atheist Vegas gambler turned priest for the money… who unfortunately finds out that he is in fact a half angel, shattering his scam and throwing him reluctantly into the life of a monster hunter, The divine playbook is awesome.

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