I am reworking The Clockpunk playbook, and decided that she needed backgrounds.
This is what I came up with. I decided to move away from moves to broader story hooks.
Ideas?
◊ Rogue time lord.
Will you annihilate the universe by causing time-space paradoxes? Who is hunting you and why?
You have a time-space interdimensional traveling machine. Describe it.
◊ Human mad scientist.
What are your plans for world domination? Why are you still dangling at the bottom of the food chain? You have a gang of minions, for example a tribe of hunchback goblins. What useful services do they render?
◊ Gnome tinkerer.
You have a rich and powerful patron. Who is it? What services does he require of you? What protection will he give you when you are in trouble? What are the advantages of being small and smart in the big people world?
◊ Orc prodigy
How does your tribe react to individuals who can do unnatural things like count and read? You have +1 Str. When you level up, you may take a move from the Fighter playbook, once.
Out of all the options I would take the rogue time lord all the time. All the other background moves feel lacking in comparison, that’s something you might have to look into. For the Tardis esque machine, perhaps you could make an INT move that when you use it to travel you have to roll and make the player choose from a list, like
on a 10+ choose 3
on a 7-9 choose 2
– You arrive at the location you wanted to
– You arrive exactly in the time period you wished for
– You don’t attract unwanted interdimensional attention
– the machine is still fully functional after the travel
Or something along those lines.
I would also suggest not tying the backgrounds to any race, that way you can be any race you want and just go for the background that suits your character’s concept.
Victor Julio Hurtado
Thanks for the feedback!
My idea for the tardis was more that the GM would use it as a story hook, not that the player would use it do do moves. A tardis could potentially break the game:
“I go back in time and kill your mother.” Or “I went back an time and built a trap where you are standing now!”
It was an idea… I need to think about it more.
You are right about the races.
Wynand Louw Sounds fair. If you decide to go full time machine, this article might help you set some rules for time travel chronocompendium.com – Principles of Time and Dimensional Travel Once you revise what you have feel free to contact me for feedback
Thanks!