The Basic Moves

No rules yet, just sketching out the possibilities.

- You get into bar fights, duel dead men, and fight monsters with Dangerous.

- You surveil tattooists, decode secret writing, and search for missing persons with Watchful.

- You chat with spies, compose poetry, and mock the unworthy with Persuasive.

- You catch talking cats, purloin courier messages, and rob passers-by with Shadowy.

I have a perverse desire to make extremely simple basic moves for this hack. Even along the lines of "When you do something dangerous, roll+dangerous." A little silly maybe, but it's appealing to me at the moment.

Also, given Vincent's ideas around getting new custom moves according to your Minor Qualities, it might be smart to have very simple basic moves as a foundation.

Still pondering...

Thanks to a chat with the clever (& stylish!) Mr. Matt Wilson, I have a better handle on things now.
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Each quality has a basic move associated with it. Here is the basic move for Persuasive.

When you're persuasive, roll+Persuasive. On a hit, you have the desired effect on them. On a 10+, choose 3. On a 7-9, choose 2.:
- The effect is especially long-lasting
- The effect is far-reaching
- They are unaware of your manipulations
- Choose an item from one of your Minor Qualities, as appropriate

As you can see, your Minor Qualities factor in to these basic moves. Each Minor Quality that you earn will unlock various tools with which you can modify your basic move results. Most MQs will give you an extra item to choose when you get a hit. Some will also give you +1 forward under certain circumstances. A few are also moves in their own right, with their own rolls and outcomes (often generating hold of various sorts).

This spider's web of Qualities, Minor Qualities, outcome choices, +1s foward, and hold forms the basis for the Knife & Candle experience, which is sure to be an exciting challenge for even the most devious of players.

As an aid to memory, here is a list of Minor Qualities to be employed during play...

Daring
Heartless
Hedonist
Magnanimous
Ruthless
Subtle
Direct
Melancholy
Steadfast

Connected (various)

Voice of the Masses
Free of Surface Ties
The Darling of the Ambassador's Ball
A Survivor of the Affair of the Box
An Admirer of Art
An Admirer of Beauty
A Veteran of the Battle of Wolfstack Docks
A Scholar of the Correspondence
Master Thief
A Fearsome Duellist
A Bringer of Death

Inspired
Fascinating
Running Battle
Seeker
Investigator
Lurker
Fog-Shadow
Officer of the Troublesome Rose
Officer of the Extinguished Candle
Officer of the Midnight

... the discovery of which shall be no small challenge in itself.

Oh yeah baby. So my beloved Connected: Bohemians gives me new options for at least my Persuasive move, and maybe for all four of my basic moves? So that my basic moves expand to incorporate my exploits? That's pretty hot.

-Vincent

Yup.

"When you're persuasive, roll+Persuasive," sounds lame, though.

Can someone write something better sounding for the four basic moves? Okthx.

I dunno, your examples in the OP are pretty good guidelines, and very evocative, the only trouble is that someone might view that as an exhaustive list.

The basic moves might need a little setting color in them, is all.

When you resort to behaviour of a quite savage nature, do please roll +dangerous

When you seek the approval of others, kindly roll +persuasive

When you must skulk about, it is necessary to roll +shadowy

When you demonstrate your extraordinary powers of observation, you must certainly roll +watchful

something like that -- I urge you to consult Scott Dierdorf on such matters.

There are so many minor qualities! And they can be so specific. Here are some of mine, for instance:

having Recurring Dreams: Is Someone There?
having Recurring Dreams: Death by Water
marked by the Eater-of-Chains
investigating the Secrets of St Dunstan's
Vermin-Free
a Finder of Heiresses
an Annoyance to Jack-of-Smiles
exacting the Urchins' Vengeance
an agent of the Cheesemonger
an Occasional Guest at Mr Wines' Revels

I think we'll need good rules for the MC to create these on the fly. Creating a whole from-scratch custom move every time probably isn't workable, but I bet something like gear tags would work, or gigs' profit and catastrophe. A quick and intuitively-named set of small-scale moves, for mixing and matching.

These don't mean anything, but this is the kind of thing I'm imagining:

having recurring dreams: Is Someone There?
dreams 1-menace escalating intermittent

marked by the Eater-of-Chains
flesh-corruption 2-menace slow-burn triggered

So for the MC, creating a new one would mean assembling a selection of tags, like creating a new weapon, not going straight into the custom move deep end.

-Vincent

Oh wait, I lost the thread of the thread. THIS is what we were talking about:

marked by the Eater-of-Chains
To dangerous 7-9, add:
* You bite your opponent for 1-harm 1-dismay.

investigating the Secrets of St Dunstan's
To watchful's list of questions, add:
* Does this have the feel of St Dunstan's about it?

...Which remains super hot, and better than what I just said before.

-Vincent

I have no idea what this Knife and Candle business is, but the minor qualities are really hot.

Yeah, Vincent, that's the stuff.

I have no idea what this Knife and Candle business is, but the minor qualities are really hot.

Me either, but the bits and pieces sure are tantalizing!

This is fucking amazing.

Ooh! I recognize this!

This is probably not constructive in any way, but I had to share:

I had tea with rats! And it increased both persuasive and dangerous! That is fucking cool.

This is so intensely packed with awesome that I just got a little lightheaded. I approve.

I think the best thing is that it will clearly appeal to people who haven't ever played the original game. Hell, Shreyas just started playing based on reading about this hack.