Hee.

I actually remember the first time I found out AW had some kind of behind the scene rules at all - the result was a kind of dumbfounded awe.

The internet has actually saved a copy of my reaction!

Knowing doesn't make the game worse, but it does make you want to run it for yourself.

Yap, this is totally a thing.

MC-side, for me, this is totally a feature. If something interesting is happening, I can keep asking the player "you want that, huh? Well, how about now?" If something vaguelly difficult (moving difficult territory with a car or something) but not really in the focus of the game yet is happening, give 'em one roll and be down with it (or not, moves can snowball).

Player-side, this can do... stuff. Either good or bad, depending on how you look at it. For me, this setup has the tendency of exacerbating my natural tendency to go for the jugular in games. The possibility to screw up increases with every move, and undoing screwups will generally necessitate doing more rolls, ergo more possible screwups. If you win the roll, well, you won, so mostly good stuff happens to you. If you lose, well, you get a pretty hefty safety parachute in terms of 'are you dead yet?' mechanics. And, since I'm initiating the action instead of allowing it to develop, I'm probably using my best stat to do whatever it is I'm doing. Which means a good chance of winning the roll, which means 'on a miss' conditions might not matter.

(Granted, following this inclination has gotten me shot, stabbed and strapped to a table by a brainer, but I also got to drive straight through a local warlord's face and eventually retired to safety).

This is good in that it urges the player to cut to the chase. What do you want to do? Do it! 'cause covering your ass might actually be counterproductive. Keeps play lively.

If you want to play it safe and prepared as a deliberate character choice, it might be harder, though.

There's two problems here. One is that the other player may not exactly like you taking their stuff without them having a say (like, they'd probably be fine if you convinced their dudes to follow you by a big speech, but would be less okay if you just took their dudes by an advancement option).

The other problem is that "co-ownership" of NPCs in AW is definitelly going to be weird. Some NPCs "belong" to you the same way something you can do by virtue of a more personal move, and yet they kind of don't, 'cause they're people. This interplay is all fine and good when there's only the MC and the player sharing control over the group... But I suspect as soon as there are multiple mechanical claims on a group, that'd you'd suddenly have to start caring very deeply about which player gets to roll first, which can get pretty frustrating.

Still, if you're interested in a story about shifting loyalties at all, I'm pretty sure AW can handle it, just not as well as straight-up ownership or moves.

I personally would like to see you play through it anyway, for science if not anything else. :)


So basically... Several ways you can handle this. Two obvious ones are just playing with the rules as they are and gritting your teeth through the hard parts, or just getting the gang from a non-troublesome source (fast-forward time if needed).

You can also repurpose a bunch of other AW rules to make dealing with this easier. If you go that route, more than one way to deal with it... I can think of two, either complimentary or independent:

1) Custom move with hold! Get hold either on a per-session basis (On session start, roll +x...), or a per action basis (When you sway your gang to your favour, roll +x). Then, during that session, you can cash in on that hold to do something that the other co-owner would disagree with.

2) Player-personalized front! The gang becomes a front that's about losing loyalty to the cult (or vice versa), and ticks down as usual unless action is taken, and becomes fully one player's or the other's once the front gets resolved.

And so on.

Not directly applicable, but related:

During playtesting, I asked Vincent if the Driver's car bonuses applied to the optional battle moves. It doesn't say they do, but the logic seems to imply that the moves gets you bonuses to all relevant basic moves, of which the optional battle moves are a part (as in, you don't have to be no one special to do them). Vincent said yes, the bonuses apply.

If you look at it like that, the question is whether the custom move is or is not basic.

Custom moves are always more specific than the original basic moves, but they can be in the same-ish area, as you noticed - "when you pickpocket something, roll +appropriate stat" is going to be different from "when trying to catch Ratsie in the warrens, roll +cool" applicability wise.

So say you have a kinda-sorta basic move, but it has that tinge of specificity that that doesn't allow you to just let someone use a stat without anything - and when you do, you can bridge that gap. Ask the Battlehardened gunlugger if he thinks his move would apply to refined act under fire pickpocketing move. If he says no, cool. If he says yes, ask him what kind of battles teach a man to steal. Listen to answer, reincorporate later if you want. Usual MC fare.

You might end up with a situation where Battlehardened does different things from game to game, but I'm not sure if that's that big a deal.

Oh cool! I've actually been working on a somewhat related concept, the Abacus. Take a look if you want!

The Abacus is a hitman for 'the boss', so basically a more direct version of the Turncoat - worse gear and default fictional position, better moves.

More importantly, I wanted this playbook for so long, right since my first AW game! Playing that bitch from Firefly is going to be awesome with this.

Could I steal ambition/cabal as an advancement option for the playbook? I tried to do much the same thing you did with it, but yours is perfect where mine is thrown together haphazardly.


Oh, and a slight worry of mine is that some of the moves are very dependant on other players taking action in regards to the Turncoat. Which is cool in a lot of cases, since the Turncoat is by default situated so that other players will want to interact with her if they want to stop her from blowing shit up. But what if they don't, what if they want to be fellow agents? Just as cool a game to be played fiction-wise, but then it narrows down the mechanical advancement options a Turncoat gets by quite a bit.

Secrets in the form of weird surroundings aren't a player-side thing, they're a MC-side thing, and thus moves aren't the best way to interpret them, because AW-style moves are possibly the most player-centric mechanic, ever.

You should mostly be looking at i) what different kind of threats you want to add; ii) how the PCs interface with these threats (maybe they get XP for discovering them instead of through stat highlights, maybe they get some threat-like move when they figure the place out (Burning bridge: deceive or entrap someone), or use figured-out secrets as some kind of a barter mechanic).

The Abacus

In the Golden Age, the bosses had guys to cook the books and crunch the numbers.  Nowadays, there ain’t nothing left to crunch but the bones and no books left to burn, let alone cook.  But there’s still bosses and there’s still those that owe ‘em.

And there’s still fucking fools who think they can get away without paying.  But the boss's accounts gets balanced, even if payment is a hunk of bloody flesh.  They send a man for it - calculates what needs to be done, which buttons to push, where to apply leverage to get those fuckers stamped “PAID IN FULL.”

That's the Abacus, here to collect.


To create your abacus, choose name, look, stats, moves, boss, and Hx.

Names:

Joe, Gray, Moss, Pierce, Case, Jules, Mirth, Rain.

Adams, Bach, Carter, Evans, Young, Thomas, White, Price.
 
QED, Once, Boss's Man, Mirror, Thirteen, Pi, Carver.

Looks:

Man, woman, transgressing, or ambigious.

Formal wear, vintage wear, casual wear, signature wear, or luxe wear.

Concealed face, sharp face, stern face, scarred face, striking face or featureless face.

Slender hands, subtle hands, steady hands, clean hands, dancing hands, strong hands.

Tall body, wiry body, gaunt body, crippled body, hard body, or fit body.


Stats:

Cool+2 Hard-1 Hot-2 Sharp+2 Weird+1
Cool+2 Hard0 Hot-1 Sharp+1 Weird+1
Cool+2 Hard+1 Hot0 Sharp+1 Weird-1
Cool+2 Hard+2 Hot-2 Sharp+1 Weird-2


Boss:

By default, your boss, Summit, is powerful, ambitious and ruthless.

Choose 2:
Patient, Honourable, Flexible.

Whichever one you didn't pick, that's what the boss is not.

Also, choose 1:
* Your boss runs a business. Target: rivals & deadbeats.
* Your boss runs a city. Target: soapboxes & troublemakers.
* Your boss runs a flock. Target: heretics & unbelievers.


Gear:

You get:
* 1 precision weapon.
* At your option, 1 punishment weapon.
* Oddments worth 5-barter.
* Fashion suitable to your look, including at your option a piece worth 1-armor (you detail).

Precision weapons:
* Silenced 9mm (2-harm close hi-tech)
* Sniper rifle (3-harm far loud hi-tech)
* Garrote (3-harm intimate)
* hidden knives (2-harm close infinite)

Punishment weapons:
* Machette (3-harm hand messy)
* Scalpel (3-harm intimate)
* Smg (2-harm close area reload loud)
* Shotgun (3-harm close messy)


Hx:

On your turn, choose 1, 2 or all 3:

One of them knows you from before you started working. Tell that player Hx+2.
One of them has seen you do your last job. Tell that player Hx+1.
Tell everyone else Hx0. You don't keep public, but everyone knows who you work for.

On the others' turns, choose 1 or both:

One of them has something that belongs to your boss. Whatever number that player tells you, write Hx+3 instead.
Everyone else, whatever number they tell you, give it +1 and write it next to their character's name. It's your business to know these things.


Moves:

Served cold - when you take your time to settle a score, roll +cool. On a 10+, hold 2. On a 7-9, hold 1. On a miss, they get 1 hold on you. Spend your hold one-for-one to do the following:
* You catch them where they're alone or vulnerable.
* They don't know you're there until you show yourself.
* It doesn't take you until next session.

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.

Aware - roll +cool instead of +weird to open your brain.

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

Lethal - whether using a weapon or not, always inflict at least Cool-harm, before armour. If there's a weakspot you know of, ignore that armour and do ap-harm instead.

Thorough - when you methodically hurt someone to learn about them, 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?


Special move:

When you have sex, they get 2-hold which they can spend as if they had the Served Cold move.


Advancement:

Retire as a threat.
Get a new Abacus move.
Get a new Abacus move.
Get a move from another playbook.
Get a move from another playbook.
Get a gang, and Leadership.
Get 2 gigs (detail) and Moonlighting.
Hard+1.
Sharp+1.
Weird+1
Cool+3.