4 thoughts on “What about unveiling the inspiration (movies, books, etc) for each ont he playbooks?”

  1. That’s a good idea! Well the Apparatus was the first and the inspiration for states vs stats. I basically was searching for a PbTA game where I could play a character from or similar to, Ghost in the Shell. I found there really wasn’t one geared towards exploration of questions, sooo then I started work!

    The Architect is pretty clearly inspired from a fusion of Inception as well as The Matrix. I thought it was be interesting to imply that people could interact with mixed reality, yes – but also that you could use that do delve into people’s mind as well. How would someone interpret someone else’s mind and how would they conceptualize data and memories, etc.

    Initially the Attached was inspired by the Black Knight and his ebony blade in marvel comics. I thought it would be interesting to have mechanics for players that wasn’t support in the system for a direction to go and never be truly alone.

    The Catabolist was originally inspired by Mass Effect, and then took on it’s own life with it’s cyberpunk twist of needing/wanting cybernetics.

    The Dying was actually inspired from watching a video on demand of Roll20 where Adam Koebel was running Apocalypse World. He said that the best advice you could get is to treat your character like a stolen car. Go all out with them and get right to the fiction you want to interact with in the game. So I thought, if you’re dying it would be interesting to see what players do when they literally have a limited time there. What would they do?

    The Empath was inspired by my friend Amber, who was playtesting with us the whole time. When I introduced states and emotional spiked, she thought it would be really neat to be able to use those spikes – a few days later I had a playbook made!

    The Honed is a playbook was initially inspired by the battlebabe when playing my Wednesday night regular AW game. It’s my version of it but with a purpose. It also has a healthy dose of Hercules in it with Glory, which is the labours of Hercules. It’s got some kingsman in it with the parkour as well. A friend of mine, Jake – who is not on social media anywhere! Helped me refine this one a lot. It also has some fight club in it, for sure.

    The Honorbound was a sort of True detective, you are your nature thing – fused with korean film “A bittersweet life”, if you haven’t watched it, do so! It’s great. It’s about a company man with loyalty as an enforcer who’s got this intense obligation to his employer who double crosses him. It has amazing fight scenes and it’s just a sweet flick.

    The Onomastic is completely from Dune. Bene gesserit teachings are the true name. Where in the TV series, which is my favorite, they use that weird voice modulation to sway people.

    The Seeker is just the way I always wanted a monk to play. Probably with a healthy dose of Kill Bill in there when you look at a few choice things!

    With all of them I tried to have ones that are skirting the edge of the system, within it, apart from it, etc.

  2. jan w I actually read Neuromancer after this game was written. I attempted to read it before, years ago and made it maybe 30% in – and didn’t like the writing style so stopped. For literature, the biggest cyberpunk touchstone for me is Altered Carbon. I love it/the series so much.

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