I’m doing another pass on the Gimmicks as an inclusive set (including putting all of the Moves in an spreadsheet so I can start the Move Deck), and it’s pretty interesting!
I think I posted before about power creep in the statlines, and how I unintentionally was giving the newer Gimmicks higher (or lower) stats than the basic ones. Well, reviewing all of the Moves together, there’s also some “Move creep” in the sense that the newer Gimmicks have more Moves available than the older ones. Some variation is fine and expected, but once you take out the stat-boosting Moves, it pops out as a trend.
Editing is important and I think makes for stronger Gimmicks, so I’m doing a little pruning here and there on the newer ones, but I thought it would be interesting to point out as a process thing.
I think old gimmicks need more moves, not less. The Expanded Fighter in Dungeon World (and the various mages that replaced spell lists with theme triggers) were a a lot more interesting.
I mean, the point of a playbook is to create a few different experiences. In MH, you can play each playbook twice and go different ways with it (psychic hivemind Queen, or vengeful body-trader; “mystery investigator” mortal or co-dependent mistreatment apologist.)
There’s no reason you* can’t come up with add’l moves for the core playbooks, because each one represents at least dozens of existing wrestlers.
*we as a community
I looked, apparently Nathan, I never ended up downloading my copy of the original kickstarter for this. I’ll have to send you an email about it through kickstarter.
…or are the limited amount of stock Gimmick Moves a good incentive to customize your character by taking Moves from other Gimmicks…?
The “incentive” for going out of playbook is that PbtA limits the amounts of moves you can take in playbook to 3-4!
The # of advances you get is limited intentionally so nobody plays “THE Wizard” or “THE Bopper” who can do all those things their archetype does.