Has anyone tried the trick with the stats I’m talking about below? The traddiness of it wigs me out a bit.
Originally shared by Robert Bohl
Rethinking the Half-Breed
Right now, the Half-Breed playbook is a social monster. The moves are:
* I have lots of friends
* I’m a human noble
* I run a resistance
* I’ve been everywhere
Is there a reason that a half-troll or half-orc should be such a social dominator? You could make the argument that people who live (or between) in two cultures are going to hone their social skills, but that seems essentialist and in many cases wrong.
Right now I’m leaning toward two changes:
Stats
Instead of add one to:
Serene-1 Brutish=0 Resplendent+2 Canny+1 Effulgent=0
I’m thinking add 7 to:
Serene-1 Brutish-1 Resplendent-1 Canny-1 Effulgent-1
Moves
Rework the moves entirely and give one good one for each of the (non-Effulgent) stats.
What do you think?
I worry that turns it from a “what should I be good and bad in?” to a min-max thing. It feels strange to me, and might draw focus away from the more important parts of the character sheet.
I think I agree with Aaron. My question for the half breed is “what is the core of their experience in this world?”
Ugh. This thing is such a problem I want to ditch it but if I ditch it I’m ditching some really interesting opportunities for analyzing relationships among cultures.
(Plus it says canonically that none of these peoples is that different if they can all have kids with humans.)
What if everything was 0 and you chose where a +2 goes. It makes the stats flat, but maybe that’s fit the concept?
I think the problem I keep having with this playbook is it’s so much more allegorical than anything else in this game. There are many more people who will identify with this between-cultures thing than with being an elf. And I’m not worried about my game harming anyone how identities with being an elf. But I do have a problem with harming multiracial people.
How do I avoid essentializing the multiracial and multicultural experience? Even saying “take 0 on everything and +2 on one thing” is saying these people are utterly average except in one place where they’re extraordinary.
Ugh I say!
What if you made them statless? When they need to roll, they have some other currency to spend to add pluses, like in Librete? And they get the currency by being scorned, ignored, or exoticized by a PC? Perhaps it’s to crunchy to have a separate system, but isn’t that part of the idea, that they are outside all worlds and systems, which is both an advantage and disadvantage?
Yeah that would be something huge to bite and it would stand out in a way that I worry gets complicated. But it’s something to consider. Thanks.
See Battle Between Worlds as an example of varying stats and common moves between playbooks
I guess I’m still curious about what you imagine this playbook should be about. I know dwarves are about strict and unbreakable rules that everybody else ignores. Elves are about being powerful but tired of the world. Trolls are about being obsolete. Gnomes are about being alien to the world. Orcs are about being hated and hunted. The traitor is about pretending to be something thier not. Halfling are about being a impressed to the point of develiping a self isolating culture. So if you were to sum up what the halfbreeds should be about in one sentence, I think it would help clarify what you need to do with your design.
I don’t have a sense of what I want them to be about very strongly. Or rather they’re about a bunch of different things.
Hm, what if the Half-Breed didn’t have a playbook but was instead you picking from each playbook whatever you want?
Honestly they’re mostly in there at all because half-elves and half-orcs are a thing and people will notice if they’re missing.
And because I like the idea of leaving room for people to play out the half-x tensions, especially in this game where enmity between the peoples is very strong.
Then what if instead if it’s own playbook, halfbreeds was a move?
What do you mean?
You can put a move in each playbook called halfbreed and have it about how each race deals with inter-marraige. Like for orcs with half breed, they could get xp when another orc thinks they are a soft because of their human blood.
There’s an interesting idea there. Thanks.
Np, happy to help
I really prefer Monsterhearts 2’s two stat lines – here are two iconic ways you can play this character, go.
I really like David Rothfeder’s suggestion – it means you don’t have a specific ‘mixed-race’ archetype, and instead a wide range of them – might better represent how the experience of being mixed-race varies between parent culture(s). Plus the player is still choosing a strong fiction hook from the race, and then twisting it. The only maybe-downside is that you could have a full group of halfbreed PCs, don’t know if that’s be an issue for you?
I’m currently leaning toward giving every playbook a move that says they have “complicated lineage” or something, per David’s idea. I think the move will say “when making your character, you can choose anything from your other parent’s playbook.” Maybe. I might want something more interesting.