I like the playbook-from-a-single-sheet implementation V uses, 'cause it's sexy and portable and entertaining, but I wonder about its use for hacks. It presents an additional assembly problem for the end-user. (I say this as someone who's made more than enough playbooks to know.)

What do you think? What have you guys done about your form factor?

Maybe the risk needs to be bigger!

I think there's a practical limit to how often you can perform miracles, because they should take some hours to do...but I don't know how to put that in the text, and I feel weird saying, 'once per session'...maybe 'on your holy day'?

Hm, maybe?

I think that if I were to add something like that, it'd have to have a number of options, because a group of cultists that don't like you are going to do a lot worse and weirder things than a group of academics or courtesans who similarly don't like you.

Alternatively, put some GM guidance about negative rep in, so such groups maybe act against you, but not in the random unpatterned fashion of terrorists.

I personally think Keys are pretty dumb! Experience mechanics are broadly unified in, like, better games, so the characters don't tediously diverge.

Rather, think about Specials as moves. Everyone can open their brain; similarly everyone can have sex. Different folks get different things out of it! The thing you get from the Specials system is that it highlights how everyone's life experience is different. Skinners are followed around by drooly girls that have crushes on them; Brainers cruelly violate the privacy of those closest to them, etc.

So, I dunno, answer the question, "What makes this character's life experience different?" and choose a way to express that. You could make a move for sharing meals, or for, I dunno, taking a walk around town, or what have you.

Awesome! Especially what happens when a faction peels off and attaches itself to you. What's your starting "ix" with the "traitor" group?

I like Reputation. Let's run with that.

As far as your rep with the new groups, the rule in my head is that you've got rep+1 with it, but you also own it like a new retinue under your command, and so you can do retinue moves on it. (Retinues can get Leadership, Largesse, and Emissaries, which I'll detail later, but they are structurally similar to AW moves we know.)

Jeff, right, the idea is that the splinter group is composed of the people that really like you. The benefit is that you can boss them around like a retinue instead of having to ask favors of them as an independent faction, and their rep stat is only there because they're unreliable until you have somehow cemented your hold on them. Maybe when you get rep+3 with a group you own, that makes their rep stat go away and they become loyal to you as a whole, so if someone else steals them they get a splinter group rather than the whole thing.

Ben, I gotta think about -rep...

Still thinking about impress. Elizabeth says: "Well, when we first came up with it, it was a move for just one splat, and does it really cover new ground?" I think maybe it doesn't necessarily, so it might just go away. Seduce/manipulate is pretty good.

The following comes from the working text!

To give context, SA is basically an exploration of swords-and-sorcery fantasy as post-apocalyptic fiction. The world has had longer to recover than in AW, but there is still a very important sub-stratum, culturally and materially, of a prior age of greater learning and plenty.


The following basic moves from AW are used in Set Apart: act under fire, go aggro on someone, sieze something by force, seduce or manipulate someone, read a charged situation, read a person, help/interfere, and the session end procedure. You can also consult your preincarnations, which uses the same mechanic as opening your brain (but the MC will respond differently).

You can also do these things:

When you try to impress someone, roll+cool. On a 10+, hold 3. On 7-9, hold 1. While you’re showing off, they have to:
• do something you tell them to
• defer to you
• speak on your behalf
• give or promise you something
...until your hold’s spent.

When you try to show someone up, roll+cool. On a 10+, hold 3. On 7-9, hold 1. While you gloat, they have to:
• concede something they value
• misreact revealingly to something
• commit a social gaffe
• lose a social role to you
...until your hold’s spent.

To make plans, roll+sharp. On a 10+, hold 3. On 7-9, hold 1. You prepare so that when the shit hits the fan, you set up:
• an escape strategy
• who will and won’t be there
• where it happens
• a trap
...until your hold’s spent.

To rule a thing of power, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 3. On 7-9, hold 1. As you wield it, you:
• make it bow in obedience
• learn its worth
• use its power
• enlist its cooperation
• terrify someone with it
...until your hold’s spent.

Healing
Debility in SA isn’t always permanent! When someone heals you, they can try to heal your debilities, even if they’re old and unrelated to the injury at issue. That’s the radiant spirit at work!

To do so, they roll+weird, independent of other healing efforts. On a 10+, the debility is healed. 7-9, it isn’t. On a miss, you find out the debility is permanent for sure; it can’t be healed by any means.

So, I'm looking at my Tarot-fantasy-Exalted hack, and it's from way back when when there were red and white dice, and because of that there are some moves that depend on dice color to work. Can you guys help figure a way to convert them?

Fortune Smiles: When your red die rolls 6, on your next roll, don’t roll white. Get a white 6 instead.

I like how this creates streaks of luck.

Champion’s Wager: Instead of rolling+cool, you can roll a red die; the MC rolls the white die. If your die shows a higher number than his, you get a 10+. Otherwise, you miss.

This one, I'm not sure about at all, since it bypasses the whole dice system, but the all-or-nothing effect is pretty neat to me.