A couple questions about the Operator

I just wanted to see if I'm reading the playbook right:

1) Operator starts off with some starting gigs. She assigns crew to each one.
2) Before she even rolls moonlighting, it is assumed that these gigs are hanging jobs waiting to be worked. In other words, someone has employed you to do something and is waiting for that job to finish.
3) You roll moonlighting and take profit or catastrophe.
4) You erase the profited and/or catastrophic gig because they are done. And you deal with the consequences.
5) Whenever you get a new gig, any new gig, you add one to your juggling.
6) Whenever you finish a gig on-screen, you take profit or catastrophe (based on the narrative).

So does that mean it is possible to have more juggling than gigs?

So with unworked gigs, does it literally mean you haven't touched that job, or does it mean it's ongoing (the crew member is still in the middle of employment and it hasn't reached a conclusion either way)?

4) You erase the profited and/or catastrophic gig because they are done. And you deal with the consequences.

Gigs are ongoing, hopefully gainful, "employment" for the Operator, they aren't one-shots... they're what the Operator does... like a Gunlugger lugging guns; it's what the Operator specializes in... making the moonlighting move is performing a specific instance of a job in that specialty.

If the Operator has "brokering deals" as a gig, she'd be known as a fixer, someone who knows how to put people together to get what they want, then she gets a cut... if they have "doing murders", they're an assassin for hire... it's what they're good at.

And you don't, necessarily, have to assign crew to each gig, the Operator could be doing it themselves, or with some crew, doing them all at once or one-after-the-other.  Also, the Operator could take along another PC who could aid (or interfere!) with the roll to try and get things done.

Hope that clarifies at least part of this.

That's helpful, yes!

Here's the question I am unclear on, and that's why anyone would actively seek to roll on Obligation gigs?

My best guess is that because if you do and get a hit, that means that whatever that gig is about can't bother you at all this session, while if you ignore it, the MC has it available as a threat to call in if one of her Moves allows? Otherwise, it seems like you'd never bother, because why risk it?

-JC

The playbook itself says that unworked obligation gigs are opportunities for the MC. So the player would have no incentive until after the MC responded with fuckery.

Here's the question I am unclear on, and that's why anyone would actively seek to roll on Obligation gigs?

Because, when you are "Seeking answers" about the fuckers that stole your family away from you when you were a kid, so can track them down and brutalize them, it may be a greater motivator than just making some jingle.

Maybe you don't care to see your beautiful, blind wife dragged off and raped by the Nightraiders, so you make "Protecting someone" part of your active life.

The obligation gig is the colour for the character, their underlying motivation or drive; they're in the game to act as a source of not-boring events in the character's life.

That's why the Operator is cool!  *laugh*

Yeah, like Chroma says: you work an obligation gig because you want to. That could be framed negatively or positively, but there are some things that barter just can't... barter-for.

And it's sometimes complicated.

Captain Mal Reynolds is an operator with the obligation gig of protecting The Doc and his sister from the Alliance. Why does he do this?

He says it's about sticking it to the Alliance. And maybe that's it. Or maybe he's the kind of guy who wouldn't turn his back on people like that and that's why.

You do it because it's an obligation.

The playbook itself says that unworked obligation gigs are opportunities for the MC. So the player would have no incentive until after the MC responded with fuckery.

I don't get this. There is the incentive of NOT letting the MC make little moves that lead to you get fuckery-ed.

Basically, if you work and succeed, it's all good. If you work it and fail, that sucks. It's a countdown clock all the way at midnight.

If you don't work it at all, it's a countdown clock that starts at maybe nine. The Alliance shows up and they're in town and looking for River, but they're not sure where you are.

That's helpful, yes!

Here's the question I am unclear on, and that's why anyone would actively seek to roll on Obligation gigs?

My best guess is that because if you do and get a hit, that means that whatever that gig is about can't bother you at all this session, while if you ignore it, the MC has it available as a threat to call in if one of her Moves allows? Otherwise, it seems like you'd never bother, because why risk it?

Unworked gigs give you neither profit nor catastrophe. A lot of the obligation gigs are things like (everything is okay/horrible disaster), so if you don't work it...everything is not okay, because that would be profit.  There are some specific examples of this on p. 264 and 265; if you have the (you keep them happy/you fucking blow it) obligation, for example, and you don't work it, you don't blow it, but they're definitionally not happy.

So, yeah, basically as you say, an unworked gig is an opportunity to the MC. Or an opening for a threat, if you prefer to think of it that way.