Ordinary World, AK 'hood

'hood is all about holding on: all the player-characters are small fish in a big pond, chancers and petty criminals looking for ways to make ends meet without becoming of interest to the authorities, who might send them to prison, or the real villains, who might send them to the graveyard. The PCs are part of a network, or better still, a network of networks: families, friends, colleagues at their day job, suppliers, customers, rivals and more. Surviving is all about avoiding upsetting the people in your networks; prospering is all about taking advantage of them.

Currently, I'd appreciate any ideas and feedback for this game, particularly suggestions for unique moves to go in the 12 playbooks; it's early days for this project, so there's plenty of room for contributions.

Here's a taster of what I'm working on: there's more detail on my website.

Stats:
Name: being respected, being reliable, being connected.
Hush: being discreet, being subtle, being close-mouthed.
Brass: being bold, being determined, being pragmatic.
Wise: being prepared, being cunning, being aware.
Straight: being clean, being lawful, being a citizen.

When another PC gets one over on you or makes use of your services without paying for them upfront, they owe you a debt. This hack uses debt instead of Hx to represent the relationships between the player-characters: it’s not about how well you know each other but how much you owe to each other.

When your life gets loud and messy, it bring the heat down on you; heat can come from the police, who start investigating things you’ve done, or other authorities who poke their nose into your life, such as the Department of Social Security or the Trading Standards Authority. Heat can also come from the bigger fish in your pond, the real villains who sit at the centre of all the nets and pull on them: upset them and you’ll be looking at the daisies from the wrong side.

Playbooks:
The Bastion - There are sharks circling this 'hood, ready to eat it whole and spit out the bones; maybe if you give them what they want, they’ll leave some of it alone.
The Blur - It can’t have been you, because officially, you don’t even exist.
The Fallen - You took an oath to uphold the law, but you had your fingers crossed behind your back.
The Feelgood - If you can smoke it, sniff or stick it into yourself, you sell it to those who need it.
The Go-Between - Everyone’s looking for something; you bring together those with a demand and those who can supply.
The Heavy - You provide manual labour on the wrong side of the law: moving crates, guarding doors, breaking arms.
The Ice - You’re a killer.
The Lever - Once you know what they’re most afraid of, you’ve got them in the palm of your hand.
The Merchant - It’s all about buying low and selling high; the commodity doesn’t matter, only the money.
The Mover - When it positively, absolutely has to **** get there tomorrow.
The Thief - All property is theft, so on balance you’re not really doing anything wrong.
The Trickster - Black is white, up is down, hot is cold... all it takes is a word to change the world.

Some more tasty nuggets of goodness on the website now: a foundation for the first four playbooks, including stat choices and unique moves, and a framework for the system that replaces harm. Violence is handled a little bit differently in 'hood: there's no 'magical healing' available for one thing, so getting seriously injured is seriously bad news.

Very cool, James. I'll be following this one.

Some more updates:

 - Four new playbooks have been started, but I'm still looking for contributions to all of these, especially unique moves, handles and looks.

 - Expanded and polished the article on Streetplanning, which largely takes the place of Fronts.

 - Added an article on the Hard Moves the MC can make.

I'm getting the idea that the Blur's main stat should be hush, rather than straight, and that a standard or optional move for the Blur should something like the following.

False Faces. Roll +hush rather than +straight whenever pretending to be someone else.

I'm getting the idea that the Blur's main stat should be hush, rather than straight...

Agreed. When I roughed out the playbooks, I was thinking in terms of the Blur appearing to be an ordinary citizen, but then straight didn't quite end up meaning that and I never got around to reassessing the stat blocks.

Having made that change, I now know what his other two moves should be; a revised Blur should be up on the website by the time you read this.

Nice job on the Blur.

So, where's the pimp?

Charles

So, where's the pimp?

This is a good question and one I've given some thought to; in a very early draft of the hack, I wrote down The Escort as one of the playbook names, but then erased it without doing anything more about it. It just didn't seem to fit with the tone of the rest of the game, but The Pimp just might; I'm open to further suggestions on such a playbook...

How about this for the Pimp? The write-up doesn't have a preamble, a list of names, or a special move, but I think you should be able to see what I'm driving at here. Feel free to use and/or modify as you see fit.


Choose one set:
name=0, hush+1, brass+1, wise+2, straight-1
name+1, hush+1, brass=0, wise+2, straight-1
name+1, hush=0, brass+1, wise+2, straight-1
name+1, hush+1, brass-1, wise+2, straight=0


You get this one:

Stable of Hoes: Create 3 NPCs hoes who walk the streets for you. As long as you have at least 3 hoes walking the streets for you in the 'hood at the end of each week who are not also on your payback list, you get +1 dough.

Then choose one:

Panderer: When someone's sexual needs are known to you, you may roll +wise to pander to those needs. On a hit: if an NPC, remove that NPC from your payback list, or else gain +1 dough; if a PC, you gain +1 debt with him, and he takes +1 forward.

Pimped Out: When asking around, roll +wise instead of +name.

Pimpin' Ain't Easy: At the end of each week, roll +wise. On 7+, choose 1: take -1 heat but put one of your hoes on your payback list; or, take one of your hoes off of your payback list. On 10+, you may instead choose to get 1 more ho; name her and move her into the 'hood, and put her on your payback list because she still has to be broken in. On a miss, take +1 heat.

Smack My Bitch Up: Against females, roll +wise instead of +brass when taking the hard way, and +wise instead of +edge when getting rough.

After giving myself most of the weekend off, I've now posted the final four playbooks of the planned 12, but I'm still looking for:

• Handles
• Looks
• and unique moves for almost all of the twelve.

Happy to see any suggestions anyone has. :-D

Charles: I hadn't thought of treating a Pimp's hoes like a Feelgood's users! That's an interesting angle on it; I'll think it over later but am very tired right now after several hours travel.

Having had a bit of a break from the project, I've come bak to it fresher this morning and can see a potential model for the dough/barter system that i intend to use. Also, some extra moves or remodelled ones for:
The Fallen
The Feelgood
The Heavy
The Ice
and The Lever.

Still looking for any suggestions for Looks (and wondering just how important they are to the Playbooks)

Also, as stated on other threads, the 'Open Your Brain' move may be quite important to the basic game: is it needed here? What sort of move should take it's place?

Open you're brain is really setting and colour specific; as such, it serves to allow the players access to specific information outside of the read move, but mostly, to continually put the psychic maelstrom (that thing that's what's wrong with the world) on the table. It lets the players prompt you for barf or other moves related to the PM.

I don't think you need it for Ordinary World. When the players need to know something specific they can either go look it up on the internet in game or you can leap forward with named NPCs by saying "Jimmy the Squid probably knows where you can find Suzy."

You could have a minor move in one the playbooks that's like "Spend one dough, find out some piece of hot information."

I think maybe there's room for a "When you feel your gut,... gain some intuition..." type of move, something like that, maybe?

Good ideas: I'll be adding a move to The Go-Between that lets them ask around without naming any specific target or goal: on a hit, the MC throws them some juicy titbit for their trouble and they choose 1 less option.

I think the first nine playbooks (from The Bastion to the Merchant) now have their six unique moves plus their special, though I welcome anything I've missed being pointed out. Hopefully The Mover, The Thief and The Trickster will get fleshed out tomorrow. :-D

Right, sorry, with ask around, you've already got it covered.