So this is basically the protagonist of Memento, yeah?

I will tell you what I love about this character that doesn't have anything to do with his moves, and that's your chosen statlines for him - low cool. Dude is manipulable and gets into trouble. Sweet!

For gear, you should totally have a clue or a memento of who you are.


One thing I don't like is that this is a very self-absorbed character concept. The playbook makes the whole table's story about the one guy - much like the Quarantine playbook does, say, but the table doesn't get anything back - you have a Quarantine, you get to find out how the apocalypse really happened!

All of the original playbooks have not only a solid theme going, which this has, but also a solid, uh, social function - they do things to other people, hurt them or manipulate them or trade things with them or order them around. You should think about what a Lost does to other people that makes him be still around.

Maybe, like in Memento (or any amnesiac assassin movie), his loss of memory is used to manipulate the Lost into doing dirty work for the persons who are 'helping' him (a simple change of Hx questions could achieve this effect!)? If you want this, you could reduce the sharp line a bit (sharp is experience, after all... where does a Lost get that?) and increase Hard accordingly.

Whatever he's forgotten should also be a big deal - it should matter not only for the Lost, but for everyone. Maybe, like, what he's forgotten is what the maelstorm is? Seems appropriate for the basic character concept, and would get the whole table invested into the Lost's story... "Roll +weird, on a 10+ the MC will tell you what the maelstorm wants. If you give it what she wants, it helps you out, just this once."


The moves... I'm sorry, but I don't like them just because I'm lazy and they're long.

That said, details.

Whispers of the past. How is it different from a regular open your brain move?

Echoes of the future is weird. Seeing a person's future is cool. Controlling what it is? Different thing. "My loved one will be rescued from this world by super nice space-aliens within a week!" "The person I have tied to this table will die within hours!" A "MC tells you" clause could work better, and would totally rock for causing conflict. You have sex with a person and find out that within minutes they're going to die! The ages old "you know fate but can you change it?" question, and you get to play it out.

Deja vu is kind of awesome, but, uh. The Lost can actually turn back time? That is freaky enough to make a whole playbook out of. How about this instead, keeping with the same theme:

Deja vu - remember it or not, you've been around. When you're in danger, roll +weird. On a 10+, you get a vague memory of yourself dealing with a situation much like this one. You can now roll +weird for any of the basic moves, just this once.

Infectious amnesia I just plain don't like. It's a mindwipe - use it often enough, and you're surrounded by empty shells of what used to be people. Boring and not too PC-friendly. Maybe, like, instead of deleting memories, it copy/pasted them, either into your mind (Johny Mnemonic!), or into the maelstorm?

Pulling memory's strings - eh. I pull out a long lost memory of a person and I get a +1 to a manipulate roll? Could be a lot simpler. "When you know something about them they'd rather stay hidden, roll +weird instead of +hot to manipulate them." Lost already has a good-ish hot, so I don't know about this.


And the whole stress mechanic... Do you really need it, as written? It's a bit bulky, and it has the downside of making all of the Lost moves mechanically Lost-specific. You could do with this instead:

When you find out something about your past you didn't know, you're acting under fire from your past. If you fail, you freak out and get lost in a flashback of a memory and confuse real people and things with those from your memories.

Does mostly the same thing you wanted it to, yeah?


I really like the underlying idea, but it needs some serious polishing.

Sorry if my off-hand comment hurt you, Nocker. Didn't mean any harm with it - it was just, at face value, your initial question sounded like "how do I describe things in a roleplaying game?", which just seemed strange. No hard feelings, I hope.

Thing is, I don't think there is really a rigid conversation structure (there's an emergent one based on MC principles and player moves that ask questions, but that's different).

So the thing you mentioned (when the room goes silent and everyone looks to you...) to me seems not like a rule that says when an MC gets to talk, but a prompt in case of an awkward scenario. It's a reminder of the tools you have available, when there is a lull in game activity and the players look at you expectantly. If you already know how to fill that silence, you don't need the reminder.

As for when you use a move and when you don't... Maybe it's worth looking at it a bit differently? Like Christopher says, a MC is in a conversation, is "just describing" all of the time. Some of the times, what you're describing also happens to be a move, but not necessarily so.

Now, most of the stuff you'll be saying will in fact be moves, I'm sure - you use move when things happen and things happen often in AW. But moves are not primary in the way talking about what's happening in the fiction is.

So you don't use moves and not-moves, you just talk and sometimes use moves while talking.

Edit: A bit of this is a cross-post with noclue. Sorry for any redundancies.

They don't have to be unlikable, no. But by definition they have to be the kind of person who has a professional hitman in constant employment. "Inevitably" in the my sentence before meant that there's a strong drive for it due to fictional reasons, not that you will necessarily have to pick what kind of unlikable your boss will be at chargen.

Paul - heh, yeah, that's exactly the inspiration. But I'd like it to be something that the Abacus or people around him would say (compare: "Oh shit! He's like a fucking ghost!", or "Yes, well. I'm thorough"). Easier said than done, of course.


I've thought about various plan/manipulation moves, but there's a problem with plans - they're only really interesting when they fail. I'd rather have planning be something that emerges from the fiction - the Abacus needs to hide and know stuff for his moves to work, so he examines places and researches stuff. Plus, I'd rather have the Abacus manipulation-weak. "Sucks at people" is his big glaring weakness, after all.

The idea behind Problem Solver is that the Abacus, in whatever his responsibilities are exactly, is a touch above as a hired professional, and so helps his employer prosper. That's where both extra barter for the employer and fatter paycheck for the Abacus come in.

Not that good a move though, I agree.

Okay, so. I thought I'd maybe split Thorough into two moves -

Making it count - any time you inflict at least 2-harm, you can choose to also cause some lasting pain or break something important.

Thorough - any time you take the time or effort to really hurt someone take time or effort to closely observe someone seriously hurt, roll +cool. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1. Spend your hold 1-for-1 to ask questions:
* What weakness does your body exhibit?
* What are you hiding from people you trust?
* What would you die for?
* What do you usually do to dull the pain?

The questions are either physical things you find out by watching how a body reacts to pain, or uncomfortable truths a person reveals when they're pushed to the limit. Pushes any session with an Abacus into fairly dark waters, but, uh, lets say that's a good thing.

Or heh, not necessarily. I looked at the new Thorough move again... And it's basically like any House MD episode. Made a slight change to reflect that insight.

Naw, Lethal is comparably weaksauce (aside from the possible ap tag). You do the cool-harm as normal and then it gets modified by the armor as usual (unless the ap rule applies). It doesn't really do much in regards of increasing an Abacus mechanical killitude, as 2-3 harm is already baseline harm for most weapons.

What it does is make the Abacus impossible to disarm, and he can do cool things like kill dudes with bare hands or random household objects. It's a lot like a Battlebabe's Impossible Reflexes in that regard - it gives a bonus that's already covered by Battlebabe gear, but is thematically apropriate and has a few possible uses in the fiction.

The current iteration of Like a Ghost is exactly like a specific interpretation of Acting under fire, yeah. Generic acting under fire is very much a "it depends" move, though, and Like a Ghost tells you "hell yes, you can do this." It's a bit like taking an optional move and making it a playbook move instead (like the Maestro'D does). Here's a small change to further clarify the general idea here:


Like a Ghost - when you appear from nowhere to inflict violence, roll +cool. On a 10+, you get your shot off before getting spotted and inflict harm as appropriate. On a 7-9, one of them notices you - either hightail it or trade fire.


An Abacus shouldn't very good in a battlefield, but he should be good at killing, which is different. As far as I can see now, an Abacus *can* be as good at violence as a Gunlugger is, but to achieve that, it will usually take him two or more moves to a Gunlugger's one - an Abacus needs to set up properly for violence, hide and learn the opponent's weaknesses, the Gunlugger does not.


Oh, and I'm thinking about about the Employer section, but haven't yet picked how exactly that will work.

Lack o' genders - no reason other than me forgetting. Consider them added. Eunuch too, maybe?

Christopher, yes and no. An Abacus is supposed to be very dangerous if you're alone in a room with him, not that good in direct combat (think of the times that an "I attack him!" is resolved not by go aggro or seize by force, but by acting under fire of getting caught, and you get a good idea of ), and also good at getting and acting on information.

The getting and acting on information is not really there from the moves as is! I'd love something that would interface with either Aware or Eye for Detail (or just generally having read-hold), but haven't thought of anything good.

Oh, and yeah. Eye for Detail is for reading people, not sitches. An Abacus has difficulties getting people to do what he wants, but he understands them quite well.

I'm not fully happy with the last pick for Thorough - the player-to-player thingies are always an issue regardless of the move in AW, and they get worked through by paying closer attention to what exactly is going on in the fiction. There is a problem in that it runs against the AW principle of letting the other player have a choice in the matter though, I guess? It creates a roadblock and not a pricetag for an action.

Thorough as a move idea I like, though - it lets an Abacus learn about an opponent... And also doubles up as a lot more violent version of a Brainer's Deep Brain Scan.

As for 'getting' the Abacus... Yeah, it's difficult, right? There's nothing on the sheet as is that says what an Abacus *does* in the fiction, which all of the other AW default playbooks cover.

What I'm imagining is mostly this: there is a warlord or some other person of power in the setting, and the Abacus is his problem-solver. He either 'solves' problems by direct application of murder, or is the guy the warlord asks for advice ("and, as you can see from this chart, that's how many slaves you need to kill to solve the insufficient food problem"). Whether or not he likes that is another question, but solving problems for someone power is his function.

I'm thinking that maybe I should add a 'Employer' section to the sheet, which will show what kind of boss and work responsibilities the Abacus has. Should all something be highly profitable, but very grey-black on the moral spectrum.

What the victim perceives is irrelevant (except that he usually has to perceive a threat for go aggro to work in the first place).

What 'actually happens' in the fiction should allow for the guy who's going aggro to act in a way that does whatever damage the player says he does, though. Which is easy in the case of zero harm! You just don't do whatever you say you would do.

To me, the difference between regular aggro and Disciplined Engagement is roughly equivalent to the bellow:

"Move, and I cut you."

"Hands on the ground! I see a twitch, there's going to be a hole 'tween those pretty little eyes."

When you do regular aggro, your instincts are in control. When you do disciplined engagement, your training and brain are.

You look at threats through crosshairs, so yeah, it's either being a threat or being safe.

Again, that's not something you need to decide alone. Give him options, make sure he's aware of the consequences (Diamond in safety/"somewhere else" in the fiction" == we don't see much of him in play; Diamond as a threat == you need to start looking for ways for him to die), ask him to choose.

Your job is basically to give biff options and have him choose what he wants while simultaneously making sure the game will still be fun for the rest of the folk.

I'd deal with this straight at the table with everyone present, so if there are any questions or anything, you can take care of them right there.