New Playbook: Horseman

Hey kids! If I could get some feedback on this collection of moves, I'd really appreciate it.

The Horseman is a herald of the apocalypse, riding from place to place spreading ruin and misery. Always good weird, usually good cool and hard, sometimes good sharp, never good hot. And "he" has a "horse," of course, of course.

HORSEMAN MOVES
You get this 1:

Infernal Steed: when atop your steed…
…if you act under fire, add your steed's sight to your roll.
…if you try to seize something by force, add your steed's power to your roll.
…if you go aggro, add your steed's power to your roll.
…if you open your mind to the psychic maelstrom while mounted, add your steed's sight to your roll.
…if you help or interfere with someone, add your steed's power to your roll.
…if someone interferes with you, add your steed's weakness to their roll.

Then choose 1:

Come and See: when you attack a fortress or a building with people in it, you and your steed count as a gang (3-harm gang small).

Conquest: when you charge into battle without hesitation and fight without using cover, you and your steed get +1armor.

Famine: when you manipulate a person towards an action that is actually to their detriment, roll+weird instead of roll+hot.

Hell Follows Close Behind: when you lead a group or convoy across the land, roll+hard. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 1. You can spend your hold to:
·   take +1forward with one of them
·   make them forget the way back
·   add a want of your choice to the group
On a miss, you lead them into disaster, from which you are not exempt.

Herald of the End Times: When you preach doom to a crowd, roll+weird. On a 10+, all 3. On a 7-9, choose 1:
·   you put the fear into their hearts (want: +anxiety)
·   you put them in a state of want, immediately
·   they don't turn on you, regardless of their wants
On a miss, they turn on you, regardless of their nature.

STEED
Choose one of these profiles:
·   Power+2 sight+1 1-armor weakness+2
·   Power+2 sight+2 0-armor weakness+2
·   Power+1 sight+2 1-armor weakness+2
·   Power+2 sight+1 2-armor weakness+3

Choose its type:
Animal, human, or machine.

Choose its strength or strengths:
Aggressive, easily maintained, fast, huge, off-road, uncomplaining, workhorse. Choose as many as its power.

Choose its look or looks:
Blackened, fiery, filthy, frightening, glowing, hairy, magnificent, metal plates, spikes & leather. Choose as many as its sight.

Choose its weaknesses:
Diseased, envious, gluttonous, greedy, infested, lazy, lusty, picky, proud, sloppy, slothful, slow, ugly, vain, wrathful. Choose as many as its weakness.


What do you think?
Is it well-balanced with the other playbooks?
Does this sound like a character you would be interested in playing?
And suggestions for moves and steed options?

Thank you!

I am blown away by this!

And I have no freaking clue if it is playable!

Okay, I'm back.

The concept is awesome, and I use that word in the old way. Things that really grab me are "Come and see", like there is an inherit force to dismantle and destroy what the people build in the horseman, and how the horse can be animal, man or machine, and the horse's weaknesses.

What I see as problematic is, how the heck do I play a doom-sayer? I get the feeling that The Horseman basically does one thing only, bringing ruin, and I also feel that is a bit at odds with the other characters. Violent, manipulative and lost as they might be, Vincent writes in the book that if anyone can bring forth a better world and figure out the psychic maelstrom, it is them. And I can believe in that.

Maybe the horseman should have a move to have people realise their sinful ways and cast down their structures of decay, or build something new in repenting fervor - But that might be straying too much into Hocus territory?

Maybe some method of purging - You identify and change/eradicate an individual responsible for the norms and customs of a place or group, plunging it into chaos, but maybe it'll re-emerge purer?

Would be cool to have more than one "active" move. (Rather than the "passive" steed move)

Thank you Arvid.

This is absolutely a villain. I'm thinking he doesn't have to always be directly antagonistic, as long as he comes bringing news of other terrors, which may or may not be true or as bad as he says. He deflects tensions away from himself, but is the real source of trouble.

And you have to play this bastard motherfucker for 5 full advances before you can reform him by switching to another playbook. I think I'll add this rule to him though:

The Horseman can never be retired to safety with an advance.

Death or redemption, there is no other choice.

I would totally go for this, reaching for Severian & his destrier from the Book of the New Sun with this image in mind.

Remember, one of the things an apocalypse means is revelation, and Severian is going to destroy the world of the old sun to bring about the new one. So I see the horseman as a man in black, and a torturer, but not necessarily a villain.

Tavis, I haven't read any Gene Wolf. It looks interesting.

Would you be able to play a Severian-type with the moves as-is, or do you have any additional moves or details in mind that could be added?

I would choose Come and See - it's something I could see Severian doing, and the others are different flavors than his.

I'd imagine the reason he & his destrier were so bad-ass with this move was that they were fired up with tight-lipped righteous wrath, e.g. the fight with Baldanders for those who've read the books (which I can't recommend highly enough). If I were going to make more horseman moves with this flavor, they'd be kind of angel of death things - punishing someone for their wrongs until they themselves pursue redemption.

Note that the idea that this is a playbook you have to abandon fits fine with the Severian archetype.

Man, I'd love to see something like this:

Pick one of the following, and you can never, ever get any of the others:

Death: Whenever you publicly proclaim the death of some particular person and they hear it (either first-hand or through the spread of information), the MC will make sure they die, and soon. If you want, specify a method of death, but the MC isn't beholden to make it so.

Famine: Whenever you enter a new holding or community, roll+weird. On a 10+, they immediately gain want:famine. On a 7-9, they gain want:hunger. Either way, if you can offer them food, or direct them to food, take +1 ongoing with them.

Pestilence: You're immune to the negative effects of any virus or disease you may contract; it just remains dormant. But you're, like, super-contagious. Whenever you enter a holding or community, pick one of your diseases and roll+weird. On a 10+, there'll be a massive outbreak of it within a few days, like some sort of epidemic. On a 7-9, a few people, maybe a tenth to a quarter of the population, gets it, but it'll only spread at it's normal rate. Oh, and whenever you touch someone and will it, they'll contract one of your diseases.

War: Whenever you lead a gang into battle, treat them as one size larger. Whenever you speak sermons of doom to a group, roll +weird. On a 10+, they'll go into battle against a target of your choice, and they'll treat you as a present leader even if you don't go with them. On a 7-9, choose one: They go into battle against a target of their choice, or they don't go into battle at all.

Okay, so Pestilence is hella complex, and maybe some of these are better than others, but I really like the idea of exclusive moves tied to the iconic Horsemen.

This is totally fun to read, and I would love to see it statted up as an NPC type. If someone chose it as their character type for a game I was in, I hate to say my first thought would be "Man, what a dick."

I think there's enough antagonism built in to AW that the group dynamics would be pretty skewed by an inherently villainous PC type. But it does give me some interesting ideas! So there you go.

@Antisinecurist: You have some good ideas there, rough as they are. I think I'll use the gang part of War instead of Conquest, which is too much like Daredevil. I didn't want to go with the iconic stuff because they're rather open to interpretation, even in the original Greek.

@Elizabeth: Cool beans. I agree this is the wrong choice when players want to be the good guys. I wrote it for players who want to fuck shit up and burn shit down, and I expect everybody at the table to be on the same page for a game like that.

Here's a question, though: If I wanted to play this guy, and I only took Come and See and Conquest before switching to a different playbook, and played a staunch defender of the community, do you think that would work for you?

I don't see any humanity in this Playbook. I mean, you may have to direct my attention to it. At first read though, it seems like what me and my friends have called "puppy-kicking evil." Like, in order to get use of your cool moves you have to go out of your way to be a total asshole.

What Tavis is describing is something I could see more as a playable character. A metaphorical horseman of the apocalypse who's hanging around to make sure it sticks, but not necessarily evil. Perhaps someone who sees the old ways as evil, and destroys them to make room for newer better ways.

As it is I would be hesitant to put this playbook on the table for fear that someone would actually pick it. :p

Seconding Bret and co. Not a splat I'd want as a PC in a game I ran or played in, but hey, to each their own game. However, the moves 'Hell Follows Close Behind' and 'Herald of the End Times' are interesting, especially for a Hocus.

Cool, thanks for your perspectives. I must admit I thought this one was a bit tame, and I can come up with playbooks I'd like to use in play that are far more evil. But that's me. I like Under a Serpent Sun, too.

I'll be sure to include a warning when offering this up as an option.

I would just prefer the option to be evil or not evil, and not have the evilness so hard-wired into the character. That would make it infinitely more playable, in my opinion. Like all the core playbooks can be pretty terrible people or they can be pretty decent people, and I think of the ability to make that decision as a core component of a solid playbook.

Some of that is available here, but some of the moves run deeply into 'chaotic evil' territory. Maybe if I have a few minutes either I'll type up some suggestions.

Bret, what makes this guy moral position (or whatever) different from the Gunlugger?

Oh, beside Famine. I rewrote Famine, now its:

when you manipulate a person to part with possessions or belongings, roll+weird instead of roll+hot.

Does that change your perspective somewhat? I admit "actually to their detriment" is pretty shoddy work. Now you can use it to get people to put down their guns. Or give up all their food. Or finally ditch the radioactive junk or whatever.

Anyway, my point. The gunlugger is built for basically one thing: dishing out harm. Everything about that character is geared towards that, but nobody would seriously call that a chaotic evil playbook, right? Hell Follows and Herald are for sure ways to screw with people, but I see them as rather more interesting than wounds. And they can still be fixed, just like wounds when you have an angel around.

Now if I wrote a move where you get a hold that increases your psychic powers every time somebody commits suicide in your presence, that would be my idea of an always-evil character.