Playbooks

Version 0.12 · not yet playtested

Jon Mayo. PUBLIC DOMAIN (CC0-1.0)

Playbooks

The base engine makes a character from four attributes, a background, a kit, and a vice, and lets everyone try anything. That is enough for a whole campaign. A table that wants defined roles, the sworn shield who is simply better in a fight, the scout nobody hears, the adept who bends the world, bolts this rung on: a playbook is a small package that gives an archetype a reliable specialty and a trick or two, laid over the same base character.

Use playbooks for the whole party or none. A playbook character outclasses a freeform one in their specialty, so mixing the two is lopsided, and a playbook party needs tougher encounters (see the balance note at the end).

1 What a Playbook Grants

A playbook is layered on the ordinary character (keep the four attributes, the vice, stress, and rank). It adds four things, no more:

A calling. One line naming the role. It works like a broad background: it grants permission across its whole domain, not just one trade.

An edge. In the calling’s narrow specialty (its one core act), the character rolls a standing extra die, always, on top of attribute and situation (still capped at five). This is the archetype being reliably good at the one thing it is for, and it is the deliberate exception to the base engine’s rule that advancement is never a bigger pool (The Engine): a playbook trades that minimalism for a defined role.

A move. One archetype ability the base engine cannot do, almost always a stress spend. A move is one clear thing: a trigger, a cost, an effect. It is the engine’s answer to a class power, kept to a single sentence.

Access. What the role simply has: armor, a magic source, a kit of the right tools, a web of contacts. Access turns a whole class of rolls into right-tool rolls, or unlocks something (like wearing the heavy armor that stops two wounds).

2 Advancement

A playbook grows on the rank the starter already awards (Novice → Expert → Master; see Characters). The base rank rerolls still apply; reaching a rank also grants a playbook pick:

Expert: take a second move.

Master: take a third move, or master your edge: in your specialty, a 4 also counts as gold, so your signature act lands clean far more often.

That is the whole growth arc a playbook adds. Heavier progression (skill trees, many picks per level) is a separate rung, not this one.

3 Building a Playbook (for authors)

Name the calling and its specialty. The specialty must be narrow: the one core act the edge covers (a stand-up fight, moving unseen, working your power), not a whole attribute. If the edge would apply to most of a character’s rolls, it is too broad.

Write one move. A stress spend that does something the base rules cannot: redirect a blow, turn a Partial into a Success under a condition, grant an ally a die, ask a true thing. Keep it to one sentence and one cost.

Grant access that fits the fiction and unlocks or cheapens a class of rolls.

List the Expert/Master picks (usually one or two more moves, plus the edge mastery).

Suggest a +1 attribute so the archetype’s edge and attribute point the same way.

Keep a playbook to a short block. If it needs a table or a page, it is two rungs, not one.

4 Four Playbooks (genre-neutral)

Reskin freely: a Vanguard is a knight, a line trooper, or a bodyguard; a Sneak is a thief, a scout, or a corporate infiltrator.

The Vanguard (lean +1 Might) - Calling: violence met head-on, and the line held. - Edge: in a stand-up fight, roll a standing extra die. - Access: trained in any armor, including the heavy sort that turns aside two wounds a fight. - Move — Hold the Line (1 stress): until your next turn, a blow aimed at an ally beside you lands on you instead; your armor applies. - Picks: Bulwark (1 stress: an ally you are guarding also ignores the first wound this fight); Wade In (1 stress: ignore the outnumbered penalty for a turn).

The Sneak (lean +1 Agility) - Calling: going where you should not, unseen, and getting past what is in the way. - Edge: moving unseen or beating a barrier, roll a standing extra die. - Access: the tools of the trade (picks, cutters, climbing kit), which make a barrier a right-tool job. - Move — First Strike (1 stress): a blow from surprise or against an unready foe counts as a Success even on a Partial, and fells a Lesser or Common foe outright. - Picks: Ghost (1 stress: after you act, you are not where they look); Sleight (1 stress: you already palmed or planted the small thing in question).

The Savant (lean +1 Wits) - Calling: knowing, making, mending; the one who understands the machine, the wound, or the old lore. (A caster with no dedicated Adept lives here.) - Edge: recalling lore, tinkering, or field medicine, roll a standing extra die. - Access: a working kit (tools, medicines, references) and the standing to have studied the matter at hand. - Move — Patch Up (2 stress or a spent supply): mend an ally a step up the condition track, short of the dead. Or — Figure It Out (1 stress): ask the referee one true, useful thing about how something works, honestly answered. - Picks: the other of the two moves above; Jury-Rig (1 stress: for one scene, a makeshift tool counts as the right one).

The Voice (lean +1 Will) - Calling: reading people and moving them, by command, charm, or lie. - Edge: reading or swaying a person, roll a standing extra die. - Access: contacts, a name in most places who owes or fears you (named in play). - Move — Rally (1 stress): a word, a plan, a distraction gives an ally a die on their next roll. - Picks: Read the Room (1 stress: ask one true thing about a person’s want or a place’s mood); Cold Read (once a scene, treat a stranger as a contact).

5 An Optional Caster

Magic runs on the base engine already (hold a source, mark stress, roll Will; see Magic), so any character can dabble. A setting with real magic may want a dedicated playbook:

The Adept (lean +1 Will; settings with power only) - Calling: working the setting’s strange power and paying its price. - Edge: when working your power, roll a standing extra die (so your castings go wrong far less than a dabbler’s). - Access: a source and two effects written as three-band spells (Magic). - Move — the power itself (mark 1 stress, roll Will, read the three bands). - Picks: a third effect; Anchor (spend a component so a lasting effect survives a rest); at Master, edge mastery (a 4 counts as gold when you cast).

6 Balance: playbooks make a stronger party

A playbook party fights and works a rung above a freeform one in its specialty: a Vanguard’s fight-edge alone is worth about what a good position is worth, which the sim shows turns a boss from a real threat into a comfortable win. So when the party uses playbooks, scale the opposition up: read the guidance in Running the Game (Tuning the Difficulty) as one step harsher for them, lean on tiers and numbers a notch higher, and remember their edges are narrow, so press them outside their specialties, where they are ordinary people like anyone else.