Hey Tavern!

Hey Tavern!

Hey Tavern! A few weeks ago I posted some tweaks to Jacob Randolph’s Initiate* playbook, mostly taking out the +1 bonus moves and making them a bit more narrative. Well here’s a PDF of it. Other than some moves that I thought were somewhat lacking, some of the gear feels off. I think that there are enough Armor moves in the book that taking the scale mail is somewhat of a trap at level one. Not to say that heavily armored monks can’t exist. I just think that waiting until level two and multiclassing Heavy Armor Training is a better way to do it.

So, my question is what starting defensive-type thing should replace the scale mail option? Or just something cool in general?

And this should not be taken as dissing Mr. Randolph’s excellent playbook. It shows a good familiarity with wuxia source material, and is one of my favorites. Seriously, like 90% of the credit is his, I just rewrote a couple moves.

*The Initiate playbook and my changes to it are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0gXpyetqmSOWmJYU09LdW96RHc/view?usp=drivesdk

15 thoughts on “Hey Tavern!”

  2. I’d actually just take Scale Mail off the list and not replace it with anything, especially since you’re adding another list of items to pick from anyway.

    That said, maybe replace leather armor with something a little more personal, like “Armor in keeping with your tradition, describe it (1 armor, 1 weight).” That way you can have your esoteric stuff like Andrea suggests.

  4. James is right. However, please notice that one of the DW strengths is the quick character generation, coupled with ready-to-play hints (for example, Looks, or list of equip, or suggested gods for clerics etc.). So, I’d suggest to put something like:

    Armor in keeping with your tradition, describe it (1 armor, 1 weight). Maybe: golden parry bracers, or a richly inlaid wooden breastplate, or an antique reinforced leather vest. 

    This way, an uninspired/in-a-hurry player can find a starting point (then he could describe better). Or, he can create from the start something new (like the Look, of course you aren’t forced to choose one of each list).

  5. PS: in Weapon Using, there is a “comma” at the end. Typo? Also, here you could add a “describe it” too. And/or suggest some fancy martial initiate weapon, like Jian, Bo, Karambit, Tetsudo, Kanabo, BaghNakh.

  8. There is a type of armor called Lamellar (Sp?) that might be more fictionally suitable? I’m not really sure, but I know it was used in a form of Asian armor. Can’t really remember what kind.

  9. Also, your brutal style adds messy and forceful, I would think they could use STR for that style when they hack and slash instead of being precise? Just throwing it out there.

  10. Scott Selvidge As I’ve always read it, Precise is an optional tag. The description of it reads “You can use Dex instead of Str when using this weapon,” implying to me that you can use Str instead if you prefer.

  11. James Etheridge​​ I took my understanding from the SRD.

    “Precise: It rewards careful strikes. You use DEX to hack and slash with this weapon, not STR”

    I am not a strict GM though, so I wouldn’t make them use DEX for a precise weapon anyways if they didn’t want to lol

  12. I didn’t write the Signature Style move, that one is taken as is from Jacob Randolph’s original playbook, but using Strength for the style is certainly an option. If someone wanted to use Strength, I’d let them.

  13. Scott Selvidge Huh. Looks like that is also the wording in the Equipment chapter of the book, but the Tags appendix has the optional-sounding definition. Such inconsistency! Still, I take the same attitude and wouldn’t force them to use dexterity either. 😛

  14. The intent, I believe, was to avoid multiple ability dependancy like the monk from d20. Since most of the other moves use Wis or Dex, precise helps narrow down which stats you want to focus on.

Comments are closed.