Selkie's skin from other playbooks

  • 3 Replies
  • 4895 Views
Selkie's skin from other playbooks
« on: March 20, 2013, 09:34:49 AM »
The Selkie has two moves linked to her skin: One lets them swim like the dickens (including swimming away forever) and one lets them have it be stolen from them to force them to do favors (for which they get strings and bonuses).

Am I right in thinking the two are split for elegance's sake, and that another skin (i.e, a Witch – "I made it with a ritual!" – or a Fae "I am a spirit of the ocean!") who took one with an advance could reasonably get the other for free? They seem kind of sad when separated, and given that one is a limited-applicability power and the other is an excuse to be messed with it doesn't seem h4x.

(Obviously Joe isn't going to lead-pipe me in a dark alley if I Choose Poorly, but I thought I'd poll the crowd.)

Re: Selkie's skin from other playbooks
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2013, 02:51:15 PM »
The two are pretty distinct from each other.  Outer Skin is "I have this thing that gives me cool superpowers", while Their Word is "This is how I react when my important thing is taken away.

I can imagine each move being taken independently from each other, especially if you allow them to be tweaked.

An alien hive-mother queen whose Outer Skin is Chitinous plating that lets her fly and can use it to return to the mothership.

Or a witch whose Their Word covers a spellbook that's been passed down through generations.

Re: Selkie's skin from other playbooks
« Reply #2 on: March 21, 2013, 01:09:21 PM »
Ah, you're quite right. To clarify: I don't consider them inextricably linked, but if someone wanted to take one with an advance, I'd offer them the other one for free if they were actually going for the Seelie feel. I feel like this is cool for the reasons stated above, plus the fact that the Seelie skins gets both plus one more at chargen, but I wanted to check my thinking.

If you were a player who wanted a some Seelie in their Witch/Fae whatever, would you feel sad you had to take both move separately to get the full package? If you were another player at the table, would you feel like that was too much fiction-control for the cost of one advance?

Re: Selkie's skin from other playbooks
« Reply #3 on: March 24, 2013, 06:35:31 PM »
If it happened in my current game, I'd feel pretty cheated.  But then I'd play a Selkie.

But in general, I don't think you should be able to get another skin's core concept at the cost of one advance.  Take both those moves and you're a Selkie.  That's why it takes two advances.

Compare the Witch (whose central concept requires both "Sympathetic Tokens" and "Hex-Casting"), or the Infernal and the Werewolf (whose central concept relies on their Darkest Self and thus can't be copied by taking their skin-moves)