I'm fiddling with this for Dragon World. Thoughts, comments, revisions sought after!
Thanks to Jay Treat for the initial idea of the style of moves. That guy is a thought leader.
When you Seize By Force, spend Keep and mark jaded. Choose an option and mark it off:
-- Win. You take definite and undeniable control of it.
-- Lose. You take harm and do not have it.
-- Draw. You exchange harm, and have a tenuous hold.
When all are marked, gain an XP and erase those marks. You can spend XP to unlock:
-- Dominate. You take hold, do damage, and it is safe, secure, and undamaged in the fighting.
Notes:
-- Keep is a resource and one of the three stats in the maybe next version of Dragon World. Its all your gear / money / etc. So maybe you've got a +3 sword? Is that a thing you have? Cool, then its a sword worth 3 keep. You can use 1 of those to do this move.
-- Have some Keep you've not yet specified? You can use that for this move, too.
-- Jaded? That's like corruption from Andrew Medeiros's Urban Shadows. He's a cool guy. 10/10, would play with again.
-- Five XP to an advance. The Advanced option may only be available to some playbooks, not sure of that yet. There may be alternative advanced options for different playbooks, too.
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I like it. How do you reduce jaded?
ReplyDeleteAaron Griffin There's a couple of ways!
ReplyDelete1. There's a way to do it when you Pay The Rent.
2. A couple of other moves.
.. But, mostly? You don't. Instead, you get to five, erase and mark a jaded advance.
So siezing something by force always makes you jaded? That's kinda neat, and definitely encourages a specific style of play. I assume there are persuasion moves or something that don't make you jaded?
ReplyDeleteCool.
ReplyDeleteI'm not clear on Keep. If I start the game with Keep +1, does it drop to 0 the first time I Seize By Force? Does getting a +3 sword increase my Keep stat? Does it ever reset?
Aaron Griffin Right.
ReplyDeleteAs of now, there are three stats: Keep, Bond, Credit. Each is a list -- a list of your gear and ratings, a list of your bonds with people and ratings, and a list of your credit with communities and ratings.
Each of these has three basic moves: a manipulation move -- named, for now: Manipulate The Needy, Bargain As Equals, and Make An Offer They Can't Refuse. They each have a gathering information move: Read a Situation, Read a Person, Open to Blight. They each have a violence move: Seize by Force, Fly At Someone, Incite Violence.
As of now, I'm thinking the violence moves will always cost both a stat and make you mark jaded. Using violence makes you a worse person, and is damaging (at least short term) to your stuff. The others don't. I may have gathering information always give you an additional stat of the appropriate form.
Jay Treat That's because I wasn't clear!
ReplyDeleteKeep is like bonds or Hx -- it is a list of stuff you've got. For keep especially, I'll let it be nebulously defined for a good long while, but definitely defined when you use it.
To answer the questions:
1. Yes!
2. Yes!
3. No, but the most a single thing can be is probably +3 or +4, like a normal pbta stat.
William Nichols that's kinda funny because my PbtA hack has 3 basic moves as well: Take a Chance (for risk/violence), Learn the Dark of It (information gathering), and Talk the Talk (manipulation).
ReplyDeleteWhen I see others with similar ideas, it makes me feel like it's not so bad of an idea :)
Niiiiice, Aaron Griffin .
ReplyDeleteAssuming we spend XP to advance to replenish these resources, make sure it's not possible for a player to fail to get enough XP to do moves, or to spend their XP on other things so that they don't have enough stats left to act.
ReplyDeleteCool. I dig it.
ReplyDeleteJay Treat Agreed, finagling the economy is key. I've had playtests where they ran out of money and playtests where they had way too much. Having three resources makes it even harder.
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if XP could maybe bused, 1 for 1, to increase the three stats, and five for one for a bigger advance. I dunno, its in the brain hopper.
William Nichols what if it's something like "spend 1 keep. if you can't or won't, mark 1 jaded". As long as the cost is only there for the violent type moves you want to discourage, I think it'd still work.
ReplyDeleteAaron Griffin That's actually perfect.
ReplyDeleteHere's revised, all three violence moves. Comments welcome.
ReplyDeleteSeize By Force (Keep)
When you Seize By Force, spend Keep. If you can’t or won’t, mark jaded instead. Choose an option and mark it off:
Win. You take definite and undeniable control of it.
Lose. You take harm and do not have it.
Draw. You exchange harm, and have a tenuous hold.
When all are marked, gain XP and erase those marks.
Fly At Someone (Bond)
When you Fly At Someone, spend Bond with them. If you can’t or won’t, mark jaded instead. They choose an option and you mark it off:
You Win. They submit and do what you want.
You Lose. They evade any damage, and do not have to do what you want.
Draw. They force your hand and suffer the consequences.
When all are marked, gain XP and erase those marks.
Incite Others To Violence (Credit)
When you incite others to violence on your behalf, spend Credit with them. If you can’t or won’t, mark jaded instead. You choose an option and mark it off:
Win. They do the violence you want.
Draw. You can get it done, but choose 1: They fight back, or have you have to make an example of someone in the group.
Lose. You have badly misjudged, and the violence will come for you.
When all are marked, gain XP and erase those marks.
I want the violence to always be terrible and costly, either to cost a stat or forcing you to gain jaded. Players seem to like jaded, which I find a little frustrating.
Plan now is to either put these on each of the playbooks, or make sure everyone has their own copy of the basic rules.
Thoughts / Comments / Questions? Is that bad?
I'm applying the system to the premise I had recently (about people who can portal between any two doors by knocking) and since mine eschews stats entirely, I'm thinking I'll put every basic move in every playbook, modified for that sheet's idiosyncrasies.
ReplyDeleteJay Treat sounds vaguely like the "Cats in the Grey City" hack which had different variations of moves for each playbook (coin flip based, though)
ReplyDelete