Gotham - Forged in the Dark - Playbook Ideas (+)

[Ratskinner]

I was picturing more of a three way tug of war, where the players have to balance gaining power at the expense of other criminals with trying to avoid costumed hero intervention. The latter is probably unavoidable past a certain point. Playing factions of against one another should a key component of survival in what is really a pretty overpopulated Gotham underworld. I wanted the game to start in a state of 'you can have what you are strong or clever enough to take" rather than having a ton of unpopulated spots on the map.

Only hitch I see is some Gotham-y types don't care about having/taking so much as destroying. At least, in some incarnations.

 

[Fenris-77]

Only hitch I see is some Gotham-y types don't care about having/taking so much as destroying. At least, in some incarnations.

That's why in my post above "watch Gotham burn" was one of the mission statements.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Hey @Fenris-77 - just checking to see if you've made any progress on this?

Sage Latorra's "Doomed" playset is now available. It's a super-villain approach to Blades. It was a KS backer reward, but took years. It's availabel to non-KS backers for $5. I've looked it over, and although it's not bad, it feels woefully incomplete compared to what I had hoped.

 

[Fenris-77]

I haven't done a lot with it since my last post, no. I have a ton of little tinkering jobs on the go and I've been busy with other stuff. I'm glad you poked me about it though, I like this idea enough to generate some actual follow through.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I haven't done a lot with it since my last post, no. I have a ton of little tinkering jobs on the go and I've been busy with other stuff. I'm glad you poked me about it though, I like this idea enough to generate some actual follow through.

Very cool. I've been thinking about a supers hack a lot. When I saw that The Doomed was available, I figured it would be pretty complete, and my efforts would no longer be needed.

But it's really just some altered playbooks, each one kind of conforming to an archetypal character, and then a couple of modified crews. Nothing for factions or world or setting at all, which seems a missed opportunity.

And the playbooks.....I guess maybe I'm a bit torn on how the playbooks might translate for a supers game. I feel if they get too specific, then it's a problem because you're really locking the player in to something like "Okay, so I'm Bane" as opposed to giving them the tools they need to craft a variety of characters within a role.

For me, the playbook should be less Colossus, and more team strong guy. If that makes sense.

 

[Fenris-77]

I wanted the playbooks to stay pretty low-powered for the most part. Gotham is less super-y than most of the rest of the DC universe. I think it would take a separate set of books and some rules consideration to run higher-powered heroes, although that sounds like a worthy project as well.

Here's a thought, if we have a good template for how factions and settings would work in Gotham, we could probably bang out Metropolis versions using the same set-up. Metropolis could be the higher-powered version. We can call it a Tale of Two Cities. Obviously you wouldn't have to run Metropolis to play that tier, it just sounded like a cool way to name different tiers of play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's pretty cool for sure. I like that idea.

What I mean by the playbooks isn't so much about power level as it is....diversity? I don't know. Obviously, characters can fall into more than one category....but within that category should still have different options.

So if Killer Croc and Bane and Mr. Freeze are all made with the "Tank" playbook (just as a for instance) because they're all big and tough and can take punishment, how do you allow for their other abilities that are less tied to their role. Bane's venom boost and Mr. Freeze's freeze ray and so on.

Is this just a matter of veteran advances allowing them to take powers/abilities from other playbooks? Or do you come up with a more traditional "power list" that many supers games do?

 

[Fenris-77]

That's a fine question. I dont have a great answer. It might work to provide some bare mechanics that can be customized in some way perhaps. Tags could be another mechanic that could carry some of that load. We could also provide something more like building blocks and leave a lot of the custom trim in the hands of the players. Lots of options. I dont really want a huge powers list though.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That's a fine question. I dont have a great answer. It might work to provide some bare mechanics that can be customized in some way perhaps. Tags could be another mechanic that could carry some of that load. We could also provide something more like building blocks and leave a lot of the custom trim in the hands of the players. Lots of options. I dont really want a huge powers list though.

Tags seem to be a pretty good idea, I think. You ever look at City of Mist? It’s a PbtA game that has some pretty interesting concepts that could help here (including tags).

I was struggling with that. I want to allow for interesting combos but I agree that I’d prefer not to have a big power list like many games.

 

[Fenris-77]

Tags seem to be a pretty good idea, I think. You ever look at City of Mist? It’s a PbtA game that has some pretty interesting concepts that could help here (including tags).

I was struggling with that. I want to allow for interesting combos but I agree that I’d prefer not to have a big power list like many games.

I have a copy of Mists around somewhere. I'll take a look at it and see if theres anything there to yoink. Raw mechanics plus tags would get us a lot of the way to where we want to be though, I think.