Alright, here we go: Draft #1 of The Pixie. Here are the Moves and Darkest Self that I have planned so far.
Anything to Help
If someone without the Pixie’s Friend Condition gains 5 Strings on you they gain the condition Pixie’s Friend and you mark Experience.
Anytime you Lash Out at someone, you take a penalty equal to the number of Strings they have on you.
Eager to Please
When someone uses a String to offer you Experience for doing something, you carry 1 Forward to do what they ask and when you complete their request they also mark Experience.
Flirty
When you Turn On someone, you gain a bonus to your roll equal to the number of Strings they have on you.
Faerie Food
Anytime you prepare food or drink you can choose to enchant it by rolling Dark. On a 10+ you may choose one effect from the following list to befall anyone that eats or drinks that food or beverage (as little as one bite or sip will do). On 7-9 you choose one, and the MC chooses one (MC does not need to disclose their choice until after food/drink is imbibed).
– They gain the Drunk condition
– They gain the Hallucinating condition
– They gain the Amorous condition
– They suffer 1 Harm
– They become their Darkest Self until the end of the scene
– They fall asleep
Sprite
You can manifest translucent wings and fly. Anyone that witnesses you in flight gains a String on you.
Tinker
You can perform any mundane chore or repair in 1/10th the normal time it takes, as long as it is for someone else. Anyone that witnesses you working like this gains a String on you.
Silent Helper
If you spend time and/or resources to help someone else without them knowing about it, gain a String on them. If you do it in such a way that they think someone other than you is responsible for helping them, give the string to this third party and also give that third party a String on you.
Darkest Self: All you do is give, give, give, and all they do is take take take…all of your effort to help and eagerness to please is soured into mischief and malice. Every string that someone holds on you is lost and becomes a string that you have on them. You will use them all to ruin lives and relationships however you can, but with lies and trickery if possible. You leave your Darkest Self either when no one has Strings on you and you have no Strings on anyone, or when someone gains two Strings on you.
I would abuse that DS so hard…
…is that a compliment or a complaint Tim Franzke?
I know it can be drastic, but the character is so much about giving strings away, and normally about helping rather than hurting, that it makes a large reversal. It also fits the mythology of the spiteful little fae that turn everything against you when you spurn them.
Also, as Darkest Selfs go, I think it may be one of the easierr ones for people to pull you out of.
Complaint I think. Have you looked at how this interacts with the Infernals Dark Gifts?
No, I hadn’t. First draft, and all. The interaction with the dark gifts would be a bit of a nasty combo though, looking at it.
I am of two thoughts: Before I throw the Darkest Self completely out the window, I could try rephrasing it:
“All other player characters lose all Strings on you, and you gain one String on each of those characters” or adding the phrase “While you are in your Darkest Self your moves do not give others Strings on you”, or changing it to “You can use the Strings that others have on you as though they were Strings you had on them”.
The second thought is: Yes, that could make a nasty combination with game mechanics, but it also makes for a real asshole of a character, and is likely to get everyone else turning against you pretty quick. Maybe that’s just how the story should go?
To agree with above comments, that Darkest Self is gamebreaking. A DS reversing all strings is far far bigger a mechanical effect than any other I can think of. If you instead change it to “Strings may not be gained or spent against you” it would be less overwhelming.
I don’t see the real purpose or draw in “Anything to Help” which seems too similar to “Entrenched” but with cumbersome, confusing and frankly pointless add-ons. It feels like this is the main move you are trying to build off of but I can’t really see what idea you are driving at with the move so I can’t provide any feedback.
Eager to Please seems decent in it’s simplicity though on the cusp of too convoluted. The offering Xp back to people to encourage them to get you to do things is a decent idea as is the carrying one forward to do things other people tell you to
Flirty is dangerous because of string reversal, which also makes it fiddly and complicated because you have to know how many strings everyone has on you. I would ditch this entirely.
Faerie Food has great promise, but it’s been bogged down by needless additions. I would highly suggest the move be simplified to “When some eats or drinks something that you have offered to them, give them a condition” possibly with a “They mark experience” tag on the end as an enticement.
Sprite is decent but I would word it as “When you try to Run Away from a situation where you are not being physically restrained, instead of rolling you give give everyone in the scene a string on you to get away safely”
Tinker is decent as is though I don’t think the title “Tinker” is the best fit.
Silent Helper seems like a bad retread of Watchful Golem. I would think a better tact for this would be something more akin to “Misdirection” from the Shadow “When someone credits your actions, good or bad, to another party they mark experience” mostly because I am not really sold in the giving away strings on other people idea.
Darkest Self has issues as stated above. Personally I don’t think that a darkest self should really provide much benefit to player and being able to wipe out all strings against you is a huge benefit and makes the game boring. If the skin is about giving away strings then the player who plays the skin should accept that others are going to have a lot of strings on them.
My suggestion on darkest self would be going with
“All you do is give, give, give, and all they do is take take take. Your efforts to help and eagerness to please have soured into mischief and malice. Ruin lives and relationships, turn friend against friends and prod foes into action against each other. Escape your Darkest Self when no one has Strings on you, or when someone captures you and forces you to help them.”
If you are dead set on giving an advantage to the darkest self to turn all those strings against their holders I would go with adding this sentence “When you roll against someone carry one forward for each string that person holds on you.” which will encourage people to start ditching their strings but still not be a complete wipe against their will which is super cheap.