NPC "brainers"

Well, Oftener Right doesn't make you roll.  Lost IS weird based but gives you everythig you want on a 7, so Weird +1 is fine as far as I'm concerned.  And sure, a Hocus does it better, but the point was that even if nobody started out as a Brainer or Hocus that plenty of Weird stuff can still happen.   

A Failed Lost roll is also interesting without being particularly bad news. 

Another idea: Put Fraying Edge of Reality on anyone with decent weird, especially a Hardholder.  Officially it affects "part of your workspace" but mechanically it's unrelated to the workspace rules.  Let the Hardholder have something in his court be the antenna, and you get Denethor clutching his palantir and gaving into the eye of darkness...

So I'm a skinner and I've got someone alone. I can: waste a move on Hypnotic and roll+hot to put hypnotic on them, or I can just roll+hot to sleep with them to do the same thing (hypnotic).

Oh my god, ew.

If I'm a skinner, I use hypnotic on people I DON'T want to have sex with. I mean, what if I'm straight? Or what it it's Tum Tum? I'm not sleeping with THEM. Ew.

-Vincent

Quote from: Chris on July 23, 2010, 07:16:39 AM

So I'm a skinner and I've got someone alone. I can: waste a move on Hypnotic and roll+hot to put hypnotic on them, or I can just roll+hot to sleep with them to do the same thing (hypnotic).

Oh my god, ew.

If I'm a skinner, I use hypnotic on people I DON'T want to have sex with. I mean, what if I'm straight? Or what it it's Tum Tum? I'm not sleeping with THEM. Ew.

-Vincent

True. Ha ha. To me, Hypnotic has an.. intimate feel regardless. It's just how I see the skinner, where sex isn't a negative thing, it's just a thing. Not a whole lotta EW in the AW, gnome saying? It would be interesting to play a skinner with sexual hangups, though. :)

Plus, I always forget that the skinner isn't ALWAYS sexual. It's just as easy to play an old man who plays the last remaining cello. I need to broaden my skinner horizons, clearly.

Yeah, my Skinner concept is a martial artist/dancer who thinks of himself as a warrior, but is just a little more effective at the show than the fight. 

Yeah, my Skinner concept is a martial artist/dancer who thinks of himself as a warrior, but is just a little more effective at the show than the fight. 

Yeah, I wrote up one, but haven't yet played him, a skinner named Sword who was like a wuxia movie/ ballet dancer.

Plus, I always forget that the skinner isn't ALWAYS sexual. It's just as easy to play an old man who plays the last remaining cello. I need to broaden my skinner horizons, clearly.

That's true... except then you run into that (optional, granted) move that makes people only pay attention to you when you remove clothing (of yourself or someone else, granted) which is a weird one to try to make work with most non-sexual skinner takes.

So, don't take it.  Starting with Breathtaking and Artful/Gracious makes perfect sense.  After that, well, it gets a little weird, literally.  You either have to pick up Lost and Hypnotic or ignore the "new skinner move" options.  (Though hypnotic music makes sense to me).  If you don't like that psychic angel, your best best bet is to take all the +1stats and change type to Operator as soon as you hit ungiven future. 

So, don't take it.  Starting with Breathtaking and Artful/Gracious makes perfect sense.  After that, well, it gets a little weird, literally.  You either have to pick up Lost and Hypnotic or ignore the "new skinner move" options.  (Though hypnotic music makes sense to me).  If you don't like that psychic angel, your best best bet is to take all the +1stats and change type to Operator as soon as you hit ungiven future. 

Yeah. "You can make some headscratchers. I don't recommend it."

If you're going for a non-sexual skinner, you'll probably be dipping your toes into other playbooks and such.

I think it wouldn't take more than reskinning (so to speak) of the Skinner playbook as is.  The moves remind me of the "Artist" class I had in my early (and not good) attempt at a post-apocalyptic game some 25 years ago.  Removing clothes could be looked at as the exchange of clothes into a dramatic new persona, some acting job thing, just as an example.  Or substitute a paint brush swiping or some-such.  But it would take, to the point stated above, some reworking in cases like that, granted the Skinner move as stated is more pushing towards a sex-attractant nature. 

Y'know, the skinner doesn't have to be removing things in a sexy way, either, to be arresting in a sensible way in the fiction.

Picture a dapper violin-cello player whipping his battered top-hat off with a flourish; the last lounge singer removing and hanging up her shawl with an "I own this place" attitude; the skinner whipping off his trademark ankle-length leather coat and flinging it over the back of the chair as he enters/interrupts the meeting. Consider that such non-sexy uses of the move might be the only way these skinners ever invoke it.

You can have lots of fun with this interpretation of An Arresting Skinner if you fully embrace the colour-first ethos of the game. Go ahead and make a skinner that isn't about the sexy; don't worry about restricting the move with your character's colour. Leading with the colour is way more interesting than leaving every mechanical use of the move open.

Moving slightly back on topic: Imagine an NPC brainer starting from the Skinner as a template. They command attention where-ever they go, everyone does what they want, and they can just call people to them like nothing. And everyone will swear up and down that there's no psychic mucking about going on… they just happen to want to do whatever this NPC suggests. That's almost creepier, standing on the outside looking in, than if they were an obvious brainer analogue running roughshod over people's brains.