Author: Camden Jenkins

Problems with the Protégé’s Powers

Alliteration aside, I’ll be the first to admit that v2’s Protégé’s abilities were far too broad and unfocused.  In a game designed around guiding archetypes and letting people enjoy narrative niches, “Common Power” and “General Power” didn’t do much to inspire.  However, I feel that v3 went too far in the opposite direction and closed off a lot of the Protégé’s narrative potential.

First, several of the available abilities are either too narrow or uninspiring.  Hacking is a power more suited for the Beacon and can easily be covered by weapons and gadgets (ie, a hacking minitool).  Detective skills is a nice subset, but not very versatile as a main power.  Powerful armor is just dull sounding, even if it was meant to invoke the idea of Power Armor.  A counter example is power mimicry, which is very cool and versatile and adds to the narrative potential (especially in the case of the Protégé mimicking their mentor’s power as part of training exercises).  The current list mostly nudges Protégé’s towards one specific role and in the words of my own Protégé player, “Not every Protégé is Robin.”

Second, and this is admittedly a problem from v2 as well as v3, it’s unclear how to select the Protégé’s abilities.  Everyone else is given a list with available checkboxes and told to check off a certain number.  Even the Legacy is told to pick two to cross out.  But there is no guideline for the protégé.  Even now, I’m confused as to how you are supposed to pick them.  My natural assumption is to pick one from each list, with the first two being yours, but I’m not entirely sure.  I feel this should be made more explicit, at least on par with the other playbooks.

Thirdly, assuming my interpretation of how to pick character powers from above is correct, this new version cuts off one of the best narrative angles for the Protégé:  the story of a mentor with an unusual ability finding a young person with the same and tutoring them on how to control it.  The current shared abilities are all things you are trained in, not inherit gifts.  With this ability set, you can’t play Jean Grey learning telepathy from Xavier or Sticks showing Daredevil how to use his super senses.  You are only left with learned skills, like Robin or Speedy.  Cutting off that narrative angle is rather disappointing.

My thought would be to have a list of narratively open powers, like Power Mimicry or Weapons and Gadgets, and have the player choose one of them to be Shared, one for Themselves, and one for the Mentor.  That would make it easy to pick, remove the ambiguity, and allow the player to decide if they are being taught a skill or learning to master a shared gift.  More clarity and more narrative freedom can only make the Protégé a more interesting playbook.

How Do Teenage NPCs Gain Influence:

One of the things I’m intending to do with my group is have them face off against other super teens.  I think it will lead to some truly interesting RPing and self reflection, along with the possibility of a heel faced turn or two.  However, I want these teens to affect the PCs and possibly gain Influence over them.  But there isn’t a lot said about how an NPC takes influence over a PC.

The Influence section says, “All adults have Influence over you when first introduced. They can lose that Influence when you reject what they say or through other means, but they can regain it during the story.”  It also says that “When an NPC tells you who you are or how

the world works, accept what they say or reject their influence.

If you accept what they say, the GM will adjust your labels accordingly; if you want to keep your labels as they are, you must reject their Influence.”  This seems to imply that anytime any NPC tells the PCs about who they are or how the world works, the PCs have to accept or reject it, regardless of whether or not they have influence.  If this is the case, what is the benefit to an NPC already having influence over the PC?  If it isn’t, how does a teen or an adult who has lost influence regain it?

I know one of the GM moves is “Take influence over someone.”  But it seems rather… against narrative if influence can just be inflicted without characters being able to reject it.  If it’s just enacting the “tell the PC about who they are or how the world works,” refer back to my previous question.  I suppose inflicting influence could be a hard move, but I’d like an example of how that could be done in a narrative fashion since I’ve never seen that before.

Thoughts on the Kirby-craft

The Kirby-craft is an oft talked about move for my group, largely because it’s such a popular choice for character advancement.  My Legacy who is based off of the Nova Core is getting one and my Beacon may be stealing one as time goes on.

However, there is an important aspect of the Kirby-craft, an narrative aspect, that is missing.  How many people can it hold?  While leaving it up to the player and/or the GM might be just fine, I believe that this needs to be something that should be represented as a Strength or a Weakness.  If the Kirby-craft can hold the entire team, a whole new avenue of mobility is opened up, changing the narrative potentials.  If it can only hold the team, suddenly we could have a story where one or more of the team is stranded as their allies use the Kirby-craft to ferry away important NPCs.  If the Kirby-craft is only large enough for one person, none of this happens.  If it’s of Whovian proportions, there’s no reason it couldn’t act as the PCs base of operations.

That’s a lot of scaling left up to the GM’s discretion, when such things as weaponry and fueling isn’t.  I’d love to see this codified in the updated version of the playbook.

Super excited about how far this Kickstarter has come, even since when I joined.  As I get closer to actually running a game, I came across a question about Directly Engaging a Threat.  Now, the move says that on a hit, you trade blows.  Easy enough.  I understood this as the NPC and the PC both take a condition, unless the PC chooses to resist or avoid the blow.  And maybe if the NPC was super strong or ridiculously dangerous, the PC might take a Powerful Blow instead.  However, in every example that Brenden Conway has mentioned the move, the NPC always deals a Powerful Blow.  If the PC doesn’t resist or avoid the blow, should they always take a Powerful Blow?  Or does that depend upon how dangerous the Threat is?

A question about Changing Their Self-Image:  According to the rules, “When you have Influence over someone, take +1 to all moves targeting them, including rejecting their Influence.”  However, you can only use Changing Their Self-Image if you have influence over them.  See:  “When you use your Influence over someone to change their self-image, roll + Mundane.”  Does this mean that Changing Their Self-Image is always made at a +1 bonus?

New potential GM here!  As I’m optimistically looking towards the future, I’ve got a question about Advancement.  Certain moves that everyone should be able to acquire are linked to elements of characters that are not necessarily transferable.  

Ex.  The Janus wants to take Venting Frustration from the Protege’s playbook.  But they don’t have a mentor with a Label they denies.  Do they acquire a mentor then?  And does this mean they have to decide the mentor’s powers as well?

Son of Ex.  The Doomed wants to take Words of the Past from the Legacy’s playbook.  Does this mean they get a Legacy?  Just one person or four of them?  Do they also have to roll to see how their Legacy is feeling about them?

It’s easy to brush aside these questions by saying it wouldn’t be appropriate, but I can think of situations where they would be.  The Janus finds another hero with a secret identity to help them along or the Doomed finds out they aren’t the first to struggle against this fate.  And if it’s narratively and mechanically  sound to take one of these conditional moves, what do?

I’ve got a few ideas, but I wanted to hear what other people thought first.