this is an idea I’ve been working on
introducing THE UNSTITCHED
STATS
Choose one set:
• +1 Cool, -1 Hard, 0=Hot, +2 Sharp, +1 Weird
• -1 Cool, +1 Hard, +1 Hot, +2 Sharp, 0=Weird
• 0=Cool, 0=Hard, +1 Hot, +2 Sharp, 0=Weird
• 0=Cool, -1 Hard, +2 Hot, +2 Sharp, -1 Weird
MOVES
You get all the basic moves. You get I’m from the future! and Time’s Running Out then choose another Unstitched move.
GEAR
You get:
• one weapon or one piece of clothing worth 1-armor
• oddments worth 1-barter
• fashion suitable to your look (you detail)
• a time machine (detail)
WEAPONS
• 9mm (2-harm close loud)
• crowbar (2-harm hand)
• machete (3-harm hand messy)
• many knives (2-harm hand infinite)
HX
On your turn, choose one or both:
• One of them helped you while you were weak from the journey. Tell that player Hx+2.
• One of them is suspicious of you. Tell that player Hx=0.
Tell everybody else Hx-1, you came out of nowhere.
On the other player’s turns, whatever number everyone tells you, give it -1 and write it next to their character’s name. You’ve not heard of any of them.
STARTING MOVE
I’m from the future! whenever you ask the MC what you know about a particular place, person, or thing, roll+Sharp. On a hit, you get to know stuff. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:
• you know why this is happening
• you know how things are about to go down
• you know who is nearby that might help you
• you know when a thing is going to happen
• you know where to find some gear easily
• you know what is going on (take +1forward)
On a miss, you can still choose 1 but advance your Mission Failed countdown clock by 1 segment and tell the MC to make a threat move or advance one of their own countdown clocks.
Time’s Running Out At the start of the session, mark a segment of your Mission Failed countdown clock. You may avoid this by erasing the highlight on one of your stats.
UNSTITCHED MOVES
Quicker than most When violence occurs near you, roll+Cool. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1. Spend your hold 1-for-1 to choose options:
• Name a person who is witness to the violence, you cross the distance to stand beside them.
• Take +1harm from an incoming attack against you and reflect an equal amount of harm back upon your attacker(s).
• Name an NPC who is engaged in violence, as either assailant or victim, and you escape their notice.
• Reduce a Harm move roll by -1.
• Name a character engaged in violence whom you could assist, increase the amount of harm they can inflict by +1.
Gemini incident At the start of the session, roll+weird. On a hit, there are two of you. On a 10+, you can coordinate freely with your other self. On a 7-9, the MC controls your other self but your other self will either actively try to harm you or will try to scuttle your mission. On a miss, you found your other self’s dead body, or one of them, take -1ongoing for the rest of the session.
Voice of authority when you reveal what you know to a person, mob, gang, or group of people, roll+sharp. On a hit, they listen to you with fascination. On a 10+, choose 2. On a 7-9, choose 1:
• None of them leave while you speak
• None of them will inflict pain or violence in front of you
• None of them will betray you later on
On a miss, they don’t care who you are, what you know, or if you get in their way.
I know what will become of you when you manipulate someone, roll+sharp instead of roll+hot.
Telepathic feedback when you read a person, your questions can act as a weapon. You can spend one of your hold to +stun them.
UNSTITCHED SPECIAL
If you and another character have sex, subtract 1 from your HX with each other but you both take +1forward to roll+weird.
TIME MACHINE
Choose size:
• small, fits in your hand
• medium, can carry it in both hands
• large, need to ride inside of it
Choose one:
• mobile
• indestructible
• inconspicuous
Using your time machine is not reliable. It was only meant to bring you here and then return you home, and if you use it too soon your superiors may not allow you to return or will insist that you return to the point where you left from.
When you use your time machine before your mission has concluded, mark 1 segment of your Mission Failure countdown and roll+weird. On a 10+ you can return to your point of departure, refreshed, healed, and fully resupplied. On a 7-9, you return without being resupplied. On a miss, make a new Unstitched character: either a different agent sent back to complete your mission, or is a rival agent from an alternate timeline with a completely new mission, your choice, but do not reset your Mission Failure countdown.
MISSION
For each mission below, the MC is not obligated to provide any details about the mission beyond the instructions for the mission itself. Choose a mission:
Assassination you must find and kill your target, the MC will choose your target
Assistance you must preserve a community, the MC will tell you where help is needed most
Historical survey @ you must document and record an important event, you and the MC will determine the event together
Interview @ you must find several people and ask them questions about their lives, the MC will provide you with a list of names
Paradox you must destroy a community, the MC will tell you the most effective way to destroy a nearby hold
Temporal Fix there is an already existing time paradox that you must fix, the MC will tell you what part of the timeline was damaged
@ for these missions you also start with recording equipment, it counts as +hi-tech and +valuable gear
MISSION FAILURE
Mission failure is not the end of your character, but you have to suffer the consequences for not completing your mission. If your mission fails, the MC chooses one:
• your time machine returns home on a preset journey, you are now stranded in the past forever
• your time machine has been disabled by agents from an alternate future timeline you’ve created by accident
• your time machine stops working due to your alterations of the timeline, you might be able to repair it…
The MC should also create a new threat and add a countdown clock as further and deliberate disruption of the timeline, or established history as the Unstitched knows it, will create more severe consequences.
Interesting! I’d definitely play it!
The part I feel doesn’t really work is the Gemeni one. A 7 – 9 should still be a success of some sort, and that feels like a failure. Maybe “nothing happens” and a failure is that there is 2 of you and the other is actively working against you.
This could, theoretically, after many sessions have quite a few dopplegangers working against you.
Sort of reminds me of Rick and Morty with many Ricks / Morty’s.
As a whole I really like the concept.
Seems like too many choices for From the Future, and I agree with Mike about Gemini. Otherwise, this looks pretty solid.
If there’s a way for the Unstitched to bring others to the future(s) and back, you could develop this into a whole other scifi PBTA game.
7-9, the MC controls your other self — ‘but your other self will either actively try to harm you or will try to scuttle your mission.’
The clause seems better suited to a miss, when an active Gemini is already in play… or something that might come into play as a hard move for other reasons.
This need not be so explicit, your MC controlled doppelganger might, or might not, be an ally:- yet there is inherent uncertainty of trusting your otherself provided by the Gemini not given to player agency. (7-9 however, is technically a hit, and some useful cooperation, oracle advice, or preemptive preparation to an unknown future badness, would be expected…)
Since this is always activated at the beginning of a session…
On a 10+ the Gemini is easily treated as a second character, until the beginning of the next session, when you check your Gemini Incident status again… overall, this might not be too unlike The Hocus; Bonefeel Move, in use and strangeness… (and perhaps as an advanced 12+ option, a player might have up to two Gemini available for player control… but never limit the number of MC controlled Gemini… because… fractal infinities are fun…)
Interesting concept over all, wouldn’t have thought it would stat up as well as you’ve done here… Excellently done!
I’d also play the Missions a bit like Gigs, and each player controlled temporal iteration of a Gemini, must choose a different one… (if for some reason they are all used up, then a doubled mission is a definite cross-purpose inverted-mission entanglement.)
So, you might have your Prime’s Mission in conflict with the Mission of another Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, (etc…) Gemini or two… whether they are MC or Player Controlled anyway.
They all consider themselves Prime in their own worldline… of course… but, as the player, you know which one you consider to be Prime…
One more alteration; I’d consider attaching the Gemini Incident directly to the Mission Failure countdown rather than weird… roll high to avoid the confusion, the closer your mission is to midnight, the more fractured and convoluted the worldline pluralities have become, and the more escalated all these entangled histories and self-certain past-future (and/or future-past) alt-prime agents are drawn into a temporal war of ‘true-worldline’ dominance.
incidentally (with intent) this gives the player a hard choice… advance the countdown intentionally by messing with the worldlines, to cause a Paradox Incident or Gemini Event to gain some possible (and perhaps merely temporary) advantage in a tight spot… or proceed with more caution, and don’t risk being extracted or hunted as an expendable, failed, or rogue agent…
Yeah, I kept looking at Gemini Incident and thinking “this needs to be different” and overall I wanted some critical eyes looking at the whole thing. The time machine is still missing something, for instance I think I’ll collapse those options into a single list.
Great ideas William Mims!
I’ll comment here with any rewrites and edits as I finish them
The Time Machine itself looks fine… to me — I like that it is loosely defined. Could be an inconspicuous and portable but highly fragile antique pocket calculator, a large and conspicuous but highly mobile modified sports-car, or a difficult to reposition yet nigh-indestructible vending machine… maybe it’s a key shaped staff-blade, but only works between clearly (to the initiated) marked stones during a full moon, four specific times a year…
…of course, extra bells and whistles can be added by selecting from other playbooks, when appropriate — augury of arcane archives or via double-blind messages encoded on bubblegum wrappers, a capacity for some workshop space might be opened by some creative means, or even some scrap-n-salvage options from a quarantined break-n-case-of-emergency hidden timecapsule, are easy options to add if desired by the player.
Again, no need to be too explicit, AW and most PbtA systems are modular like that by default.
If it is a pimped out super car… consider how someone might decide… my other time machine is a tank!
No… wait… don’t consider it:- just make sure The Unstitched is a nice loosely adaptable but easily comprehensible playbook, and let the compatibility of creative cross-ups and wild interpretations land where they may.
Otherwise one might explode one’s head with probability potentiality paradoxes. XD
it’s a little longer now William Mims, I also like explicit choices because there’s still a lot of open-endedness here but it gives the choices very clear directions to travel in…
Gemini incident At the start of the session, you can choose to roll+weird. On a hit, there are two of you. On a 10+, you can coordinate freely with your other self, you control both of you. On a 7-9, the MC controls your other self and you choose 1:
• they have a different mission than you, but will try to preserve your life no matter what
• they’re actively trying to help your mission, but they don’t care about your safety
• they are your consummate ally for both the mission and your safety, but anybody you share HX with is on their kill list
On a miss, the MC chooses 1:
• your other self is present and actively working against your mission
• you found your other self’s dead body, or one of them, take -1ongoing for the rest of the session
• you’re all be yourself, for better or worse
I dropped “you know what is going on” from I’m from the future! Tim Jensen , this whole playbook was inspired by me re-reading the Continuum rules recently so maybe one of the advanced improvement options will be “switch games” as a laugh
Inquiring minds would like to know;
What would signal a minor mission success?
What would signal a major mission success?
When is a mission considered completed:- esp. where the goal is presented as rather open ended?
How might one actively buy time, effectively causing a countdown tickback?
Would there be a reason for some Mission Success countdown for certain missions?
How long do I observe and record the single elder tree in the middle of the ruined Lone Oak Plaza Shopping Center, before the status of the tree has been observed and recorded sufficiently?
(Wait — Wasn’t this supposed to be the Trinity Maples Market Square Gardens? If I’m not mistaken, something seems amiss… in the state of Dunwich, New Hampshire –; We must go to the Whateley Academy Library for further instructions at once!)
Would there be a reason for Countdowns to be in the player’s face, as persistent reminders Time’s Running Out and/or Mission Failure is imminent?
How do all these special stopwatches affect and interact with play?
With what interactive relevance would one have for these signals?
Could interactive countdowns and stopwatches facilitate more or less motivation to express concern for their status?
non compos mentis…
Continuum is awesome; though a more viable playbook if considered through a generic lens, in homage to the general time tracker motif… with just enough tools to tickle the timeline, cause some havoc with immediate temporal coordinates, motivate actions toward/away-from chosen main-objectives/foreboding climaxes, and generally pull rabbits out of wormholes… all while being ambiguously loonie and certifiably eccentric.
…and, still loving it.
I’m sorry William Mims, I meant to respond earlier and I obviously dropped the ball. I didn’t initially want to write a way for the countdown to be ticked back, I felt like that might be too game-y. I wrote time’s running out with the idea that there is a timer but it can only be delayed and not reversed. Delayed at a cost of personal growth, I see that as stress distracting the character.
I hadn’t thought about “Mission Success” but I suppose it could reset the Failure countdown and give the character a new mission from the list, from the MC. Perhaps it also gives an improvement to succeed at a mission since it’s feasible that a player might activate the delay in every session and suffer for it. I hadn’t considered minor vs major success either.
What do you think?
Ironically, the Continuum RPG inspired the concept of the playbook but the unrelated Continuum TV show inspired the mechanisms of the moves.
XD wouldn’t you know, I buried myself in a ConWorld MythWeave project… forgot that I had these questions hanging on a thread.
I don’t mind a bit of game-crunch and book-keeping — managing a couple countdowns for things other than harm… ime, isn’t too extreme.
stress management, is something I’ve seen a couple players implement their own countdown for… one Old Coot had his vices, and there was a Faceless hulk that counted rage on a countdown…
Putting the Mission Success/Failure Countdown right there on the playbook, always in the players face and being a motivating factor in some manner, would definitely be a desired feature for me. Tickback opportunities might be rare… more so than Stock in a dead Angel’s handbag…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vBWtq_uacs
skipping right out of AW for the explicit example I most recently snagged on — I never liked how Divine Portfolios(3E & later)/Dogma(2E & earlier) have no mechanical purpose or effect, they just kinda hang there on the wall, surrounded by rules that interact with fiction in functional ways… saying… I could’ve been a contender, but someone forgot to tie me into a tangible piece of this artwork… :p
it’s like having a streamer with a badge, designed to intentionally complement a flag… or just a pretty ribbon on a pole, where a flag should be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxPVyieptwA
there is some specific ludology and game-design terms for what I’m trying to convey, I know I’ve attend a few lectures for this thing, but I feel like I’m running around playing conceptual wack-a-mole in my head now. :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aXUiVTFkI
A moment to reset my genre, and I’ll be back… Old, but not obsolete… theoretically…
When I am thinking major success, I am thinking of full mission goals… when I am thinking minor success, I am thinking of completing minor goals…
…over all, I might not have been thinking of specifics, only the generalities.
but let’s say Historical survey is the major mission, document and record an important event of what?
what is an important event?
why would the importance even be known?
objective location: A tree
area of operation: a park
document: tally, the color of clothing everyone who visits the park wears
record: photograph anyone who touches the tree
duration: within the timespan of one week…
but why?
shut up, and complete the mission… because Future-HQ knows what to do with the data, you don’t need to know.
so, what counts as a mission failure…
Time’s Running Out… because — How did he put it? — something like; ‘That is a problem with time; seems there is always too much, or you run out too soon… there is never just enough time.’
as it’s stated though; in a week or two, every mission ends… so we are kinda like saying… we are going to cram your into a cramped metal beach ball, and when we throw you back there, you are on your own for a week or two… after that the rubber band snaps, and you either come rebounding back, or have to wait to catch up the long way around. :p
Good luck and Godspeed, Lieutenant…
¯\(◡◝)/¯
(not the only way to describe it… right? …but, I like that show too.)