Author: T. Franzke

Playbook Build of the Day #1

The Angel

Hey cool people. I want to post a playbook “build”, a Playbook with the original move and look etc. choices and the 5 advancements before the unsure future. Most of the them will resolve arround cool combinations of moves you can take to enforce a particular style.

These are not meant to be taken and played like this, it’s just a thought experiment how you can take moves and make an interesting character from them.

So Day 1, well meaning combat Medic

The idea here is to make an Angel that is really good in combat situations without really using violence himself. People will be happy to have him around but he is not much use without those situations. 

You start with

Cool +1 Hard +1 Hot=0 Sharp+2 Weird -1

woman

Utility wear

strong face

hard eyes

sturdy body 

Start with a Stun Gun and these moves

Battlefield Grace 

Infirmary 

your Angel Kit is for combat use, your Infirmary is for really healing people back to health. Try to spend your stock not often, but use 3 of it when you have to. The good thing about your Infirmary is, that Shigusa & Mox might be able to heal you back up when you took a bullet.

To get you more stock you should spend Advances on 

+1 cool and

Moonlighting (Surveillance and Bodyguarding maybe?) 

The cool will also help if you get under fire from a patient. 

 

To help you survive in battles you should maybe pick up another gun and some armor, if you find your 1 armor is not enough.

To minimize Harm done to your patients pick up the Quarantines 

Disciplined Engagement from the wording of it it should stop harm they take from a miss on a Angel Kit move. So when you have this move you might not need to spend 3 stock all the time. 

If you have buddy that goes with you into danger think about taking Inspiring from the same playbook to ensure you get a lot of help. If you are more in the mood to help other people  then pick up Professional Compassion

To get more done outside of those situations maybe consider Easy to trust to get better at manipulating the people in your area. If your game sees a lot of battle and you always get whacked then think about *Daredevil* to get 3-4 amor in the end. 

So this are the 5 Advancemts i would take

+1 cool

Moonlighting

Professional Compassion

Inspiring 

Daredevil (if there is enough violence by itself) / Easy to trust (to maybe start some fighting yourself by proxy)

Not sure if i want to do the Valkyrie Battlebabe or the Sniper Battlebabe next… 

Who do you like your Angels?

Can i help/interfere on a beginning of session move?

When i spend last session helping the hardholder setting up his rule and helping out the merchants, can i then help him on his Wealth move this session? 

How do you present Playbooks to new people

I also tend to present Playbooks by “role”. 

People in Charge

Social People

People that kill stuff

Weird people

*the rest

there are pure types of this and hybrids. I tend to start with the People in Charge and the Hardholer. He is pure control (i know he is also killing stuff but that is not as deep in it i think) 

Then i present the hybrids. 

Maestro’d – In Charge and Social

Hocus – In Charge and Weird

Chopper – In Charge and killing things 

Killing people 

Gunlugger – pure 

Faceless – pure (weird)

Juggernaut – killing + the rest

Touchstone – killing + social

Battlebabe – killing + social 

Social People

Skinner – pure social 

Solace – social + (anti)weird 

Weird people 

Brainer – pure Weird 

Hoarder – weird + rest

Savyhead – weird + rest 

Rest

Angel

Driver

Operator 

Quarantine 

I explain them a bit more of course but this is the first general direction i give people. But i only did this once. Just spreading out all the Playbooks could work too i am sure but would make it a bit harder for everyone. 

My GF for example thought the Chopper was a professional Executioner, chopping heads. 

How to pitch the Operator

I can pitch basically all off the Playbooks (Solace and Faceless are hard though) but not the Operator. It’s hard to really get them down because they are really diverse. 

Here is how it usually goes 

“Well they are like Dany Ocean (or Mel if you know Firefly), a lot of stuff going on. They have like 4 jobs at once and have to manage them all at the same time” 

but that doesn’t really cover why they are cool and how they play. (i am not sure about this myself since i haven’t seen them in play) 

Can you help me out?

(we could also collect general pitches about the other (custom made) playbooks. )

Threats and Fronts Part 2  

So i posted about my problems using the Front creation process. I tried again for my game on thursday and it went at least a bit better. 

You can check out what i have here (comments are enabled).

Explanation. 

The PCs are 

Smith (Brainer. Wants to totally destroy Balls reputation and spirit)

Killer (Gunlugger assassin for hire. No parents anymore. Secretly n love with Lena that has joined Seahorses peace cult)

Oz (Savyhead with a violent gang. Want’S to stop opression by killing Opressors. Currently has a deal with Smith and Killer is part of his gang) 

Key ( Angel with Mental problems. Keeps killing people by trying to heal them)

Bettle (Oz’ Pet. A weird beetle mutant that can communicate with him through the maelstorm)

The Maelstorm is about family, sex and keeping care of children and pregnant women. 

The Target gang works together with Balls. They give him food he gives to the Angel Falls (hardhold) people but he has secret deals with them. In the end they will use him to totally destroy the people of AF. 

Seahorse and his peace cult joined just recently. They where raided by the Target gang and only 30 or so could flee. They are currently living in the empty factory next to Oz workplace. Oz has joined the cult by sleeping with one of Seahorses women. 

The things in italics have allready happened. 

Here are my problems. 

In general i don’t know if my countdowns are good. I made them rather broad, using only 4-6 segments. More make it hard for me. 

I am totally unsure about the Sandstorm. 

I have also no idea how the Target Gang and the Hardholder work together. Do i need a threat for the gang when i have the warlord? 

I still need to think what Bettle wants in the end.

I have no actual idea what the fear of the Target Gang would do to the people of Angel Falls. In reality, they have fallen to the wayside in the last few sessions and only a few people where used by me. I will have to bring them back into currency next session. 

I need to do something with these things but don’T know where to put them. 

T-Bone got killed by Key (Healing Hand 6-) and no one found out yet.

Rum is a to active kid. Doing lot’s of random shit to get appreciation to a point of self destruction. I brought him back into currency last session but everyone realted to him is dead allready. Killed by Oz and Killer. Key wants him dead. 

Balls has “brought” some people to work for him. They are much more happier now but neither i nor the players have a real idea what they are actually doing for him. 

Sorry for asking so much on here but this Community is just such a great ressource of sharp and weird people that can Help my 

Design for a game

move.

Thanks guys. 

Would this work in AW

What do you think about playing the people in the “antagonist” Hardhold for one session? They where mentioned a few times but no one has a real idea about what these guys are about. Giving us each a view into the life at this hardhold would be interesting as players. The characters would know at least a bit of the stuff going on there and the threat would be clearer in the next session. 

Does this defeat one of the principles or is this totally okay? 

Design Question

Handler Playbook  (sorry for Spamming the channel with my stuff)

I am still thinking about my Idea of the Handler, bascially a dude with a big scary monster that he can kinda control. 

I think he doesn’t really need more moves then a way to control his monster and maybe one more. Kind of like a Hardholder or Chopper. 

The two problems i have right now are monster creation and monster control. 

My first instinct about the creation was to create a few lists that you can choose from, like a Hardholder builds his Hold. Bodyform and a few features. All this choices would also include an instinct/impulse that the monster would follow. To be really scarry i think you need 3 or 4 instincts. 

The list right now looks like this 

—

Choose a basic kind of body

* Lizard I instinct : to hoard

* Mammal I instinct : to mate

* Mutated mess I instinct: to shatter sanity

* humanoid I instinct : to get away

* insectoid I instinct : to mate 

In battle it counts as a 2 harm small gang 

Give it two additional abilities 

* Fire breath 3 harm close, area, fire I impulse: To destroy

* Immens strengh and claws 3 harm hand, messy I instinct : to show power

* More than animal cunning I instinct : to corrupt

* It’s heavily armored 2 armor I instinct : to rest

* It’s gigantic +1 armor I instinct : to destroy whole buildings 

* It has wings/can burrow or has other unique movement modes I instinct : to get away 

* It can carnouflage itself I instinct : to scare

* Uses psychic powers to destroy your mind 2 harm ap quiet I instinct : 

* Is grows strange diseases ridden fungus on his skin mechanical stuff I instinct : to infest

* It’s extremy sleek and agile I instinct : to get away 

* Can carry a ton of stuff I instinct : to rest 

– 

The list isn’t so cool and not all of the instincts are that memorable. 

Some abilities also might be cool but would lead to more or less the same instincts.

Right now you can pick your cool stuff but you have to take the downsides that come with it or you pick your poison and have a beast that is not as cool. I kind of like this. Giving people the ability to choose instincts for themselves would take away some of the animalness of the beast and lead to strange things. Also people could just take the “harmless” instincts but still build a killer monster. 

I am also not sure how may abilities you should get. Are there any cool things i am missing or better instincts i could use? 

to be continued

Who of you has played with homebrewed Playbooks and how was the experience? 

How do you deal with playbook extentions (or Micro Playbooks) like the Wurm, Devoted or Catalyst?

Do you put them on the table right away or do you have to “explore” some of them through In-Game actions like you would a compendium Class in DW?

So i was thinking about School in Monsterhearts. I allways felt that the actual going to school has very few mechanical stuff or general help in the text. 

Then it hit me. 

1. There is no moves about writing tests, but there are moves you can use on your teacher. You can manipulate her or turn him on (and then he can be monstrous) or even lash at him with violence. Those are all not good ideas in general but it could work. You can use strings against them in general. 

You can maybe gaze into the Abyss during a test (good luck on a miss)

2. School has still so many cool moments you can use. Alone project work is amazing. Okay, maybe one guy can work with his favourite partner but Amy (PC) really wanted to work with Juliet (NPC) but Juliet is working with Claus now (who Amy has a crush on) the only people without partners are 

Fathma (keeps to herself, is not cool but knows a lot) Herman (he is fat and smelly but an okay guy maybe) and Joey (violent, lazy, bad-boy-cool) What do you do?

Also class work where the teacher assigns you random partners. 

3. A really simple move

When you do someones homework for them, gain a string on them

Maybe another move for 

When you give your homework arround for people to copy 

School is in Monsterhearts, you just don’t get what you want easily. 

Would you say it’s worth it to take Merciless and another +1 harm move with a Brainer to get a 3 harm mind Go-Aggro with Brain-Whisper-Projection? 

It’s the closest thing you can get to remote “mind control” i have found.