Playbook expansion: The Shark

Inspired by Chryckan's trader I wrote up this playbook expansion.



The Shark

When you have four or more barter and via the Reputation move establish a rep as a money lender you may turn into The Shark.

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You get this move:

• Predatory lending: When you help someone out financially roll + barter given. On a hit you hold 1 over them. On a 10+ you also have +1 ongoing against them as long as you have hold over them. On a miss paying you back is interely up to them. When they pay you back you lose your hold over them. The hold always counts as leverage when manipulating.

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You may also take these moves as playbook moves or as moves from another playbook when you advance:

o Market sense: When go into a holding’s bustling market with a piece of merchandise looking to sell roll+sharp. On a hit you're offered 1-barter more than you'd expect. On a 7-9 the MC picks one:

• the payment is in a difficult to move commodity
• the buyer is broke and asks to borrow it
• a guy knows the guy who wants it (maybe Shigusa?)
• someone will buy it if you throw in a little something something

On a miss you have attracted the attention a thief.


o Solid gold name: You can always borrow some barter on your good name. Write down your debt. When you miss your reputation roll one or more of your creditors will come looking for you.

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Whatever special move you had is replaced by this:

Shark special
When you have sex with someone you lose all hold over them.







Any thoughts?

Patronage: When you graciously cancel someone's debt, roll +barter owed and count it as though you'd rolled for hypnotic.

No recursion!

Market Sense is the best of them.

Predatory Lending could use a bit more colour (+1 ongoing is rather boring). You should maybe be able to spend the hold for fictional effects, like being able to find them anywhere. Or when you gain a hold over someone, you choose one of several different effects, like being able to find them wherever they are, or being able to interfere in whatever business they are borrowing money for, or whatever else. Then you have a reason to loan more money to someone in order to have more control over them.

What about the other moves from Chryckan's thread? You changed your mind about the other ones you wrote?

What about the other moves from Chryckan's thread? You changed your mind about the other ones you wrote?

Yeah I don't want it to be too big. An operator turned shark will be different from an angel.

Hmm +1 really is sucky now that I think about it. I want a permanent effect, something that makes you want to keep them in debt for as long as you need them and something you can use to milk more money out of them keeping them in your debt. Maybe:

When you hold debt over someone and manipulate them with the debt as leverage you always hit as if you got a 10+? Or maybe this list (I'm thinking the hold represents how the community thinks about the debt):

You can always:
- Know what they are up to
- Know how much barter they own
- Bring them to you

I really dislike anything that gives you automatic leverage (the "auto-parley move" I call it, because Dungeon World), because it takes away the MC's ability to portray the world. It should be obvious in the fiction if and when a debt can be used as leverage -- which is usually, but there can also be that one character who borrows money not because they intend to pay it back but because they want to take advantage of you before they try to kill you.

I like that list. Maybe mimic the reputation move and go with choose 1 to hold over them and on a 10+ also take +1forward against them? Then you have incentive to get more strings on them so you have more control over their life and encouragement to make follow-up moves involving them.