Monthly Archives: October 2013

Value of Scrying

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This is going to be one of those mathy articles again.

A note on the probabilities on this article: Obviously, the probabilities should change dynamically as we see certain cards. After drawing or looking at each card, we know more about what exactly we have in the deck, but I’m trying to keep this simple, so we use simpler, although not as accurate probabilities. I think they work well enough to make the point.

Lets suppose you have [scryfall]Thassa, God of the Sea[/scryfall] in play. You have scry 1 for each of your turns, just before the draw phase. You are in need of land and will put on the bottom any and all cards that are not lands. If you have 16 lands in your 40 card deck (you got Thassa, in your pool – nice one), that means you have (on average) a 40% chance of drawing land, leaving you with a 60% chance of drawing something else.

This means that your chances of drawing a land are (the probability of the top card being a land) + (the probability of you drawing the next card instead) * (the probability of the next card being a land) or .4 + .6 * .4 = .64. That’s pretty good. Far from certain, but if you are desperately looking for lands, finding three among the next five is much better than finding two.

On the other hand, after we have the lands we need, we are not in the business of drawing more. Therefore, with the same deck, our chances of drawing gas are .6 + .4 * .6 = .84. Drawing a land only once in six cards is great when you don’t need one.

Worldclass players do their best to conserve even the smallest differences in probabilities to their advantage. After all, in a game of high variance, even the small edges will add up over time. You don’t know when you manage to eke out a win through them, but any one win can mean the difference between Gold and Platinum levels (the difference being free flights and accomodations, plus much better appearance fees for the Platinum level pro, all in all benefits of maybe around $15,000 a year, maybe more), as those who manage to get just around the number of points they need for the Platinum level (45 pro points per season)

Scry can be hard to use. This is a simplified example, but sometimes you need something other than land or nonland. Sometimes you scry, put the card on the bottom and then draw a card that would work very well with the card on the bottom. These situations can’t be avoided, but knowing your deck helps. Also, this is where math skills come in handy. This is after all something where experiences can leave impressions in our minds, which are not necessarily right, since we don’t necessarily see what would have happened had we done something different.

Vikings: Orca

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One card which I want in my sea-oriented set, is the orca or killer whale. If you know anything about them, you know why. In our world, they are easily the second most efficient hunters in the world (after humans, if you’re wandering for some reason). The problem: Orcas are obviously blue, but blue has a very limited design space for creatures.

Granted, there already is a card called [scryfall]Killer Whale[/scryfall], but it sucks. Well, it doesn’t actually suck. Its very payable in a limited deck, but it doesn’t capture the brute killer intelligence of the orca. Some of the things killer whales have been observed to do in nature:

  • Making waves by swimming side by side to knock prey into water from safe places
  • Regurgitating to use the contents of their stomach as bait for birds.
  • Understanding tides
  • Using live seals to teach their offspring to hunt – they drag the seal out into the water and throw it away, then let their offspring catch it and then do this again, until the seal is dead
  • Drowning small whales by forcing them to remain under water for extended periods of time by swimming on top of it one at a time

They hunt in packs, which makes them even more dangerous. Dolphins are considered very intelligent (and killer whales are actually dolphins) and are faster and more agile than killer whales. That doesn’t help them. The killer whales are able to confuse the dolphin just long enough for one of them to catch it. They can plan this beforehand, because during the hunt, they are completely silent.

They also learn culturally, meaning they can teach each other these techniques. For example, the regurgitating trick. Once one of them had learned it, the whole pack was doing it. I don’t think they are the only animals to learn culturally, but they are the only ones who have been show to do it this extensively.

Now, obviously most people aren’t expecting this and would be very happy with the old Killer Whale card, but I’d like to bring the real killer whales into the game. Make them unique by giving them an ability, which lets them learn.

Now, blues keywords aren’t going to help. They have Flash, Flying, Hexproof and Islandwalk. None of them seem good for this purpose. Not to worry, blue also has the following, nonkeyworded abilities (as listed by Salvation’s wiki): Card drawing and variants, Counterspells, Change-of-control effects (Stealing), Library destruction, Mimicry, Power reduction, Returning permanents to hand, Tapping and untapping permanents, and Time manipulation. Do any of these work?

We can forget about countering, stealing, milling, bouncing and time manipulation. This leaves as with card advantage, mimicry, power reduction and twiddling. Any of these could work.

Card drawing is the usual way to portray learning, but since its used so much, I’d rather do something more appropriate.

Mimicry would be cool, if the rules had a nice way to do this. Think [scryfall]Cairn Wanderer[/scryfall]. Seems nice, but at the same time, its very limited, as it can’t copy any newer keywords, because it can only those listed, and you can’t do it in any other way without huge rewrites to the rules. Also, there’s a flavor problem. The creatures that copy, are shapeshifters, not animals.

Power reduction might work, because one of the newer flavor approaches has been putting the creature into disadvantage ([scryfall]Lost in a Labyrinth[/scryfall]), not necessarily just draining its power. Maybe this is the approach.

Twiddling (tapping or untapping) is problematic flavorwise as well, as mostly using cunning to tap is a white thing. But only mostly. Blue mostly taps through weather, distractions, or ice. Maybe this is the right way to go. After all, [scryfall]Lorthos, the Tidemaker[/scryfall] can tap. Its probably so big it goes under the weather category.

So, here’s a go:

Transient Orca 3UU
Creature – Whale
Whenever Transient Orca blocks or is blocked by a creature, that creature gets -X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the number of Transient Orcas you control.
4/4

Sadly, the Killer Whale name has been taken, so we can’t use that. Also, that Killer Whale is of the creature type whale, which it actually isn’t in real life, but close enough. A marine mammal, which could easily be mistaken for a whale. Aven aren’t really birds either.

Not as powerful as I’d like, but that’s the nature of blue. They aren’t the best fighters. I’m actually pretty happy with this design. Hopefully the idea of their cunning and ability to work in pods shines though. To make their ability count, they’d probably have to be common, or maybe uncommon. Since blue usually gets one big creature at common, I’ll go with common.

Is 4/4 the right size? Not sure. They’ve never had very good guidelines on this. Paraphrasing Brad Nelson, I wouldn’t stand a chance against Grizzly Bear, let alone [scryfall]Grizzly Bears[/scryfall], but I could kick the ass of a [scryfall]Traveling Philosopher[/scryfall]. Still they have the same power and toughness… and of course about 20 years between them. I’m guessing 4/4 is right, because making them bigger would mean higher casting cost, which would mean they wouldn’t be as playable and the ability would become meaningless, as they can’t really be blocked beneficially anyhow. In any case, they’d only be playable in limited.

And that’s almost 900 words on one card…

Baneslayers, Mulldrifters and Titans

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I’ve been reading Patrick Chapin’s Next Level Deckbuilding. A lot of what’s being discussed is more or less familiar to me, often from my own experience or just from me being mathematically inclined. But this was an excellent alternative viewpoint to certain aspects of deckbuilding. Namely creature selection. I don’t know if this was Chapin’s own idea or did he get this from somewhere else, but its a beautiful idea.

Beautiful as in simple and elegant, but extremely useful. Quick search says that apparently this has been somewhat adopted by others, maybe this was a big thing at some point, but I’ve just missed due to my prolonged absence from the game.

The idea is that we put creatures into categories, namely Baneslayer (after Baneslayer Angel), Mulldrifter and Titan (after the M11 and M12 Titans, Sun Titan, Frost Titan, Grave Titan, Inferno Titan and Primeval Titan). Baneslayers are cards that you put into your deck for the value you get when they are on the battlefield. Mulldrifters are creature you have in your deck that have some spell-like effect when they enter the battlefield and Titans do both.

Examples of Baneslayers: Arcanis the Omnipotent, It That Betrays, Blood Artist

Examples of Mulldrifters: Snapcaster Mage, Pilgrim's Eye, Flickerwisp

Examples of Titans: the big three Eldrazi, the Gatecrash Primordials, because they have a definite board presence even after their initial ETB-effect.

What’s the point of this categorization?

Opponents aren’t necessarily interested in killing Mulldrifters. They have done their job and now all that remains is generally a body, which you might have to kill eventually, but they aren’t exactly racing with a Pilgrim’s Eye (obviously, Snapcaster Mages have been used to win plenty of games, but they are not that interesting target for removal). Therefore, if your deck consists primarily of Mulldrifters, adding Baneslayers is a bad idea, as its making your opponents removal better. Adding a few Mulldrifters to a deck of Baneslayers, on the other hand, does not do anything for your opponent.

Think about it. If you have say 30 Baneslayers in your deck, your opponents removal will have plenty of targets and you will lose at least some of those to all kinds of removal. On the other hand, if you have 30 Mulldrifters (which would probably make it an EDH deck), yes some of them will be targeted by removal, but that removal is pretty weak as you have already had your value, but if you add a few Baneslayers, that removal will regain its value at least partly.

Four Movie Oneshots

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Just a few movies to use as a basis for a bit different one-shots.

Le Corbeau

Le corbeau is a 70 year old movie by the director of few of my favorite movies (Les diabolique and Le salaire de la peur) Henri-Georges Clouzot. Its about a small village where a series of “poison-pen” letters (spreading malicious rumors) emerge. All sorts of secrets are uncovered and the community falls into disarray.

Ever since seeing this back in the day, I’ve been thinking how to do this correctly in an RPG. Now I feel like we are at a point where I have a group where this could be a viable idea and the games, like tremulus (no, they are not paying me despite my continuous mentions of their game), are at a level where this kind of strange idea is something I could really work on.

Especially the idea of a framework works great here. Probably better than the other frameworks I’ve made. So, lets make one, although it pretty much writes itself.

Stalag 17

One of Billy Wilder’s several masterpieces, Stalag 17 is a movie about a traitor among POWs. Sgt. Sefton has been dealing with the Germans, so he’s the primary suspect and needs to play his game carefully, trying to flush out the real culprit and get out of the camp with the recently brought-in rich guy.

Since we probably have more than one player, this needs some more attention, as the original story revolves around a single main character, with most of the others simply as his foils. But, we don’t necessarily need the player characters working together. One of them could easily be the camp commandant, or a soldier responsible for the POWs. One could be closely modelled on the Sefton character, while others could be parts of the makeshift organization amongst the POWs. Of course, someone could be the traitor.

Tropa de Elite or Elite Squad

A Brazilian film about an elite squad (yes, really) of police in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. Actually the movie is pretty much all over the place, with not much of coherent storyline (but is still very good), so here I’d like to emphasize one of the plots: The pope is going to visit Rio and wants to sleep in a very specific house. The problem is, the house is located right next to a slum. So, to keep the slum clear, the squad is ordered to clean the closest blocks of weapons. Thirty nights in a row.

Okay, the first night might be bad, but the few nights after are going to be pretty easy, as the weapons are gone. Then the locals will begin to see a pattern. This will lead to traps, ambushes, people with scores to settle and so forth. After a while the raids will become more dangerous night after night.

I don’t know what the right amount of raids is. Thirty is clearly too many, but if someone informs the residents about what’s going on early, maybe four or so is enough.

Reservoir Dogs

A movie I expect more of you have seen than the others on this list, but I could have gone with a number of other movies for a different emphasis. For those of you who haven’t seen this, its about a group of criminals trying to find out what went wrong with a robbery. They suspect an undercover cop among them.

You don’t necessarily need to know who’s the cop in the beginning. I think the ideal would be to do this like the movie did it: in other words, not chronologically. Begin with the criminals gathering at the meeting place and then return to what happened in flashbacks. People can accuse each other freely, or move the blame to others. Maybe come up with different versions.

For a lighter game, do a heist. Just give your players some rough information and put different hazards on their way. Let them roll and explain how they took this into account in their planning. An AW-hack would work wonderfully here.

Vikings: First Mechanic

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Having now put some thought into this set, I decided this set would be a land set. This goes well with the vikings themselves, as they went everywhere. Well, relatively for medieval people, but still. Their travels took them to quite a few places.

So, to show how these people have reasons to go to new places, I’m going to use Landfall, or something similar. On top of that, I’m going to have more lands than usual in the set. Not like a huge amount, but more than usual. Zendikar had 25 lands, including basic lands, which is maybe about 50%-100% more than normal large sets, or up to 200% if you take out the basic lands. I’m not doing more than that.

One thing about the vikings was their ability to find these places. This leads me to my first mechanic for dual lands:

Whenever you search your library for any kind of card, you may search for this card instead.

This doesn’t have a name, so many people don’t think of it as a mechanic, but it is one.

These cards would come into play tapped and produce two colors of mana. Of course, to make these usable, I need to put some searching abilities into the set, or these will become a sole possession of green, which can search for stuff anyway.

On the other hand, we don’t want “loading screens” that result from continuous shuffling. So, maybe searching should only happen in part of the library. This might result in feel-bad moments, as you might often miss.

On the other hand, I can minimize that problem by adding cards like these lands into the mix. Maybe even another monocolored cycle which come into play untapped, but have some minor upside to make them better than the dual lands.

On top of that, if the set has plenty of good landfall cards, people might not even be that bummed by finding one of these lands instead of whatever they were looking for.

One thing that might come up with my silly little searching thing is notes. If you can look at – say – top ten cards of your library to search for something, you will want to make a note of the cards you saw… which takes time. Maybe not in casual play, but in tournaments people would do this for sure. Maybe even use strange codes to keep their opponents away from the scent. Or maybe just put those cards on the bottom of your library. I guess its hard to call this actual searching, but calling it searching lets the aforementioned mechanic be much less parasitic (in other words less dependent on the microenvironment, parasitic cards are the reason Kamigawa-block is still very popular as a draft format, but doesn’t get much attention in constructed).

Anyhow, searching will be involved and it would be good to mitigate its downsides. Also, if I’m going to use this for other cards, I need to keep their power level low, as there are cards like [scryfall]Ranger’s Path[/scryfall]. Also, its hard to keep these consistent. I probably can’t make any cards that use this mechanic, which aren’t permanents, for just such reasons as Ranger’s Path.

In Defense of Liliana (of the Dark Realms)

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I might be a bit late on this, as she is now seeing some gameplay, even more just before rotation, when [scryfall]Mutilate[/scryfall] was still legal. Still, I don’t think [scryfall]Liliana of the Dark Realms[/scryfall] gets the recognition she deserves.

Like most Planeswalkers, this one might just eat a counter or [scryfall]Hero’s Downfall[/scryfall], or worse yet, just save you from some damage. However, what do you generally want from you planeswalkers? Two things: recurring card advantage, and an ability to protect itself. Liliana can do both of these things.

First, she can get you a swamp each turn. You won’t be able to use them all, if you use this ability each turn, but you are still thinning your deck, letting you draw more gas. Never missing a land drop is great, if you don’t have to get flooded to do it. Liliana is very good in this regard.

Second, her second ability has much synergy with the first one. Her main problem is that she can’t use this ability the turn she comes to play without getting rid of herself, but if she could, this card would be ridiculously good. If you are playing monoblack, this is still a good option. Lets compare: [scryfall]Lash of the Whip[/scryfall] is an instant with casting cost of 4B, which give target creature -4/-4, same as our Liliana on the fourth turn, if playing monoblack. Granted, that the Lash isn’t exactly constructed playable, but we still see that Liliana can do something the R&D (mostly the D) sees are very valuable in terms of mana. And this is if Liliana is played on the fourth turn.

If you play her later, destroying the indestructible Gods is a matter of routine for our heroine. If you manage to keep her alive, this may happen plenty of times. This was easier before the rotation with Mutilate, but its still doable with all the spot removal available. So basically, this is another form of recurring card advantage.

… and this ability has another side as well. I’ve oneshotted an opponent in standard with this ability. I was very flooded, but managed to use Liliana to kill enough opponents creatures to keep him from killing me. The game went pretty long (well, 15 rounds to be exact). Then I pumped a [scryfall]Vampire Nighthawk[/scryfall] into a 17/18 and killed him by attacking exactly once.

Then there’s the ultimate ability. Well, since I don’t build my decks around it, I actually have never had any real use for it. The one time I managed to ultimate her in standard, I did have a [scryfall]Griselbrand[/scryfall] in play, but I had gone through most of my deck by that point and couldn’t really draw any more cards. The one time I ultimated her in EDH, I did it just to be able to use the emblem at least once. Again, I didn’t really have a use for it. I think I did sacrifice a [scryfall]Gravecrawler[/scryfall] to my [scryfall]Grimgrin, Corpse-Born[/scryfall] for a couple of dozen times, but that was unnecessary and somewhat risky, as there was always the risk of some stealing my GG.

Still, its nice to have four times the mana.

She also does contribute two to your devotion, if you end up playing [scryfall]Gray Merchant of Asphodel[/scryfall], [scryfall]Erebos, God of the Dead[/scryfall], or [scryfall]Abhorrent Overlord[/scryfall].

Also, I should note Liliana is my favorite of all the planeswalkers just as a character. Not that I’ve read the novels (except for one early, maybe the first MtG novel back in mid-90s), but she evokes the most interesting character just through the cards (and maybe the comics on the Wizards website, although they try to make her look more relatable by making her past more tragic).

Vikings, continued

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So, as I’ve thought about this (losing some sleep last night), I came to the conclusion that I’m going for a full three set block, despite the fact I didn’t even finish the first set of my last attempt.

To make a block, you need a story. Nothing complicated. Just some change in the environment. Granted, back in the day they had a storyline with characters whose lives we followed, and so forth, but who cared about Gerrard? Therefore, we just need three points in a the history of the environment we are in. Of course, these need to be interesting points with some relation to each other.

What’s a good Norse event, which changes the environment in an interesting way? How about Ragnarök? Now, the question is whether its the second or third set. If its the second set, the third set would be the surviving world with rebuilding, if its the third set, the second set would be just foretelling.

Since the game already has an Ice Age set, perhaps its not a good idea to have the second set be the long winter before the Ragnarök itself, which would be the obvious choice. However, as the whole set, I could do this differently, with emphasis on the humans enduring through the bad years… and Ice Age was almost 20 years ago.

So, I don’t really have a name for the first set, but I do have names for the other two (which I thought up right now):

First set: Unnamed, probably just an evocative place name, like Innistrad. World of adventuring seafarers out there seeking opportunities and using them.

Second set: The Long Winter. Sort of middle step before the real Ragnarök. Some strange beings begin to surface (or move down in rarity) and there are bad signs. Lots of hardship for the common people. Larger communities break down.

Third set: Twilight of Gods. All sorts of calamities. The last battle. Gods and humans meet all sorts of monsters and the denizens of Hel in one last ditch effort to save the world.

In any case, that would give me three very different, but clearly related sets, with all the things people would expect from such a block, including (perhaps) even some of the gods, although they probably wouldn’t be indestructible like the Theros ones.

I decided to order a couple of books on Norse mythology, both versions of the Edda included (in English). Some of the more interesting books on Amazon (UK) were only available for British addresses, so I couldn’t get them, but I think I’ll make due.

Exiled Out, Vikings In

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As I’ve mentioned before (when I talked about the activation costs of planeswalkers), I’ve been working on my own MtG set for a while. It currently stands at 179 cards, but the thing is, I have a writers block. I don’t know where I’m going with it. I have several mechanics, which seem pretty good, but just don’t seem to relate to the theme of the set (which is that its supposed to be a place where the remnants of the conflicts between planeswalkers end up, if they don’t just die on the battlefield, and it has attracted some planeswalkers who scavenge on those resources, or try to protect the survivors). I have the world pretty well thought out in my head, but I just can’t it on the cards. I suppose this is lack of experience in design.

Maybe I should stick with it, but I won’t. I’m going with something else. Namely vikings. Yes, there are probably dozens of these on the web and it must be on the Wizards’ shortlist of mythologies to do. They might even have plenty of ideas on file. Still, I’m going to do this differently.

The thing is, Norse mythology is very interesting. Its pretty well known, although usually through the lens of American popular culture. However, the people themselves were like a nation full of adventurers. They were warriors, conquerors, explorers, traders, and so forth. Have there ever been people more like player characters in the history of the world?

So, I’m emphasizing the humans in the world. At the same time, I do get that if I was making this for wider audience, I should probably include more fantasy elements. However, since this is for me, I’m putting the fantasy elements into the higher rarities. The lower rarities are full of vikings themselves and their deeds. I’ll probably have plenty of vikings in the higher rarities as well, as I am mostly an EDH player and I need my legendary creatures.

So, I’m not sure this is the right approach, but it helps me: What does each color do in this context?

White is the color of organization and community. So, our white vikings are the ones who went out and conquered nations. Historically, the vikings who went out and conquered large tracks of the Britain would have been white.

Blue is the color of rationality and planning. The blue vikings are therefore the traders. These were the vikings who formed trading posts all over Europe, some of which are still major cities today.

Black is the color of ambition and amorality. They are the central color in our set. They are the ones out for personal gain. They are probably the least flashy of the vikings, but they are everywhere. Since sacrifices are mainly a black thing, black is probably also the color of priests.

Red is the color of emotion and recklessness. I guess. Well, poorly put, but I need to distinguish them from the other colors, so red is the color of the berserkers and other warriors, but also the color of the skald (the troubadours of the norse).

Green is about growth, so our green is about exploration. These would be the vikings who went west into Iceland, Greenland, and even North America in search of new places to settle.

I do have major problems though. The biggest being ships. How do I represent those in such a way that people will actually want to play them (as they are very central to the theme)? If there isn’t much magic on the lower rarities, what do I do with blue creatures? Are there fliers? I guess I’ll have to have plenty of birds, then.

GMing on a Budget

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No, I’m not talking about money. I don’t know if Lauri came up with this term himself, but it sounded good, so I’m using it here.

A definition:

GMing on a Budget is a form of GMing where the GM doesn’t have a full control of the environment. The GM has resources they can use as they see fit, but the rules limit them.

Examples:

Agon gives the GM a number of points, which he can use to build opposition to the characters. Basically the game is about the players competing with each other and the GM plays against the players. With this unique dynamic, giving the GM limited resources is good. Also, the players have some control over the GMs resources, as GM will get more points to use if the players rest.

In tremulus, the GM (or Keeper) can only make moves when the players make moves, the players are silent, the threat track lets them, or the Keeper can spend a hold to do it. Again, the players have some control as being active they can thwart the GM (and give GM more powerful tools, if they are unlucky).

I guess D&D has similar rules (or probably more like guidelines) these days, but I haven’t read the DM Guide of the newer versions (or the Players’ manual, for that matter).

The idea here is to change the dynamic between players and the Keeper. Back in the day the GM was a (hopefully benevolent) dictator, who controlled the whole world. This left the players more like an audience than active participants.

Thankfully, now the GM is more like a member of the group with a different role. Like our company. There isn’t much hierarchy. Obviously, someone is the CEO and not every one has equal stake in the company, but generally no-one orders anyone around. We just try to get things done. The gaming group doesn’t need this sort of hierarchy either, although the GM generally controls all incentives (which is also often the real basis of GM power).

So, how should a GM approach this new situation, where he is limited by the rules. Depends.

In Agon, this actually requires more planning than I’m used to. Also, this approach means I have to railroad the PCs somewhat. I have to “buy” my monsters beforehand and I can’t really do it at moment’s notice. Also, when the players rest, I might need to come up with more obstacles just because I now have more points, which I can’t use to make the final boss tougher since it has its own limits on how many points I can use on it.

This means, you should probably leave some room for the final boss to have more abilities. It would probably also be better if you plan beforehand how you are going to improve it. If you still have more points to use, you can always thrown in some more of your stock baddies, if you have a chart with how many you can buy.

Planning for Agon is really mathy, which I generally don’t mind, but since its more about just calculations then real math, this is basically pretty boring, but its difficult to do on the fly.

In tremulus, the point is not to plan. Your players will give you resources and those are your tools for moving the story along. Enough points is the best way to move the game into a new stage. Using a “hard move” should be a big thing, which gets the players going when the game slows down (although, the game should slow down every once in a while). This means saving those moves. You don’t know when you’ll get more. Gladly, its enough for you to mess with one character. The others will react appropriately, as long as they know something has happened.

I think in general, this idea of limiting what the GM can do is something that warrants further innovation. There must be design space here, which hasn’t been explored yet. Granted, there might have been innovations I’m not aware of (and there probably are)…

Wayward Sons Playbook: Evangelist

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This is for Lauri’s game and I haven’t asked him about this, but I’m just putting this out here for later comparison and as part of the transparency of the project.

I don’t know the exact form Lauri’s playbooks will take in the end, but this is my proposal or prototype for one. We did preliminary characters the other day and this is what I came up with: A small-time televangelist, who has been part of an exorcism where something unexpected by the quite secular character didn’t expect. So, now I just have to make this more generalized so that others might be able to play this some day.

The subheaders in bold, the text in italics and my comments in normal text. The template is from tremulus.

Who Are You?

Despite humble beginnings, you have been able to grow rich by abusing your congregation’s beliefs for years. Whether you actually believe or not, you are able to inspire belief in others. With shallow wisdom and simple brainwashing techniques you are able to hold those looking for meaning in their lives in your hands. But something happened and your world was broken. Suddenly you were in over your head, but you are going to survive, as you always have.

Name

I can’t stop thinking about Oral Roberts, so that would lead me to have good, strong American last names and strange first names from Western side characters. Than again, people like Billy Graham, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have very basic, likable names, with shortened first names.

Jimmy Smith, Bob Gordon, Norm Baker, Clint Jones, Howie Lee, Benny Carson

Look

Gender: Man or Woman

I thought about only having men, because this is a male-dominated profession, but there have been famous female televangelists, such as Tammy Faye Bakker, so no reason to limit this one.

Clother: expensive tailored suit, fine suit, worn suit, rural casual, or puritan robes

Expensive tailored suit is the one we’d most likely see in most fiction, because its just so stereotypical, but I don’t think all these people are making that much money. Some are simple bible salesmen, or they need to attract simpler rural people by appearing more like them or what they would expect.

Face: condensending, aristocratic, serious, or somber

I’m not sure about this. I guess this is fine for now.

Eyes: sharp, peaceful, or accusing

Body: Slim, athletic, full, lithe, or angular

Moves

Okay, so Lauri had a bit different view on how these will work. Instead of the usual way AW hacks work, we’ll have access to more powerful moves in the future, so I’m keeping these moves less powerful than the usual moves playbooks would have. These are largely based on moves from playbooks from tremulus, but with influence from both Apocalypse World and MonsterHearts, although the latter has so many moves related to strings, it doesn’t come up much here.

Lauri asked us for two, but I’ll make some more just for more options. Future players might not want to use the same path I do. I’ll rework these if they are too

Inspire a Crowd: You may use INFLUENCE on crowds of people with time and give them abtract promises in return. On a failure, the crowd may become hostile, or may draw their own conclusions on what to do.

Pretty basic evangelist stuff, riling up crowds with semi-intelligible speeches about the will of god and the bible.

Confessor: Gain +1ongoing after successfully reading or influencing a person to read or influence the same person.

Some stuff for a more classical version of a priest. People often want to trust their religious leaders. After they’ve accepted this character as their link to their god, they will continue to associate with him.

Cold Reading: You may ask an additional question when using INSTINCT on a person. +1forward if using INFLUENCE on the same person.

Having worked with a lot of people, the evangelist has learned to find the angles they can use.

Congregation: If you are surrounded by your flock, they will protect you.

Don’t know what this means at this point. Maybe they are an AW-like gang, maybe not. Maybe they are just some requirement to get hold of the character physically.

The Faithful: When usimg experience to reroll INFLUENCE rolls with people of roughly the same faith, gain +2forward.

Hard to balance this. Is +2forward too much? Probably not, since many moves simply give +1 to a trait and this is quite situational.

Faith Healing

I don’t know what this should do at this point. This isn’t real healing, but maybe you can remove someones minuses for a while or something by making them think they’ve been healed. I think this will get removed later, but just put it in here, since it has so much resonance in how these people are seen in the public. Maybe some other “magic trick” like snake handling could be a move too.

Gear

A worn or expensively decorated Bible, a cross

Don’t know much more about the gear at this point.