Well, it isn't the most elegant or theory driven answer, unfortunately.

I ran a playtest and a lot of people just couldn't get their concept to work. They just felt the playbooks were too rigid or focused for the character concepts they were trying to emulate. So, I ran through a few different things, then tried this out for a go.

This is actually the first draft using this so it might be a flop. We ran a playtest of it, sure, but one one-shot isn't a lot of testing and most of that playtest was spent fixing tons of exploits that somehow missed previous tests (that happens alot).

Hell, it might turn out to be a bust of an idea. It happens, ya know? One step forward, two steps back, as they say. Only testing will tell. Speaking of which, just started the first long-term playtest of the game so hopefully that will provide a lot of feedback.

Oh, also, I started work on the ninth draft. Mostly a lot of exploit fixes. About to do the first long term playtest.

Hi, there!

I just saw this and looked through it. Pretty interesting!

I really like your version of my harm hack (I'm Paul Taliesin, by the way, not Paul Tseng as you credit me in the text). Clever stuff!

Does the player or the GM choose the options from those lists? Unlike the options in my harm hack, a lot of them are about what the villain is doing or what is happening behind the scenes. Is it your intention to give the player a lot of input into that kind of thing during play?

I'm so, so sorry for never responding to you. I don't frequent these forums so I never noticed your reply.

Edit: Yeah, that should be the last version I did.

First off, I'll correct the error in crediting you. Though, I should mention that the project is essentially abandoned, for the time being. I mean, it's playable and it's out there, but I just kind of changed my focus away from it for quite a while. I was going to release it, a while back, but lack of funds got in the way. Don't know why I brought that up.

To answer your question, it's been forever, but I believe it was the player who decides the option from the list. I'm damn near sure of that. I remember wanting to give the player quite a bit of narrative control, for whatever reason. For example, I believe one of the basic moves (or archetype) allow the player to narrate elements of the villain's plan. At least it did in an earlier draft. It was to play up how, if the hero snooped around instead of it being revealed in a monolouge, they explained it in great detail. I remember this one issue (silver age, though, not golden age) which did a great job of that where, in a two pages, batman explained all of the villains plan from one piece of evidence.

Kind of a long-winded response, but I hoped it helped and thank you for your interest.

I should check and see if the revision listed here is the latest revision I made before changing gears.

I want to thank everyone who has provided feedback so far. It's been very helpful and I feel the game has improved alot in a short time as a result.

I hope it's kosher to give an update on the forums. Anyway,

*I've redone the stats to work better with the genre.
*I've reworked the damage system to be more narratively based instead of it being quantitative.
*A bunch of little fixes here and there in relation to moves, powers, and minor rules.

Thanks again for the help so far!