Friday, August 30, 2013

Avatar World: The Monk, The Warrior aka The Rest of the Fiddly Bits


This is from Jack Wall's Lost Planet 3 soundtrack. I gotta say, this soundtrack is THE BOMB. Genre'd as "Alien Country" but Wall, this is what Borderlands 2 or RAGE should have had. Actually, you know what this sounds like? This could be straight out of Firefly. Hells yeah. There goes Jack Wall, kicking ass all over again.

Holy shit, you're reading the last player-side update of Avatar World before I release a whole alpha draft! Just for the record, two pieces will be missing from the alpha draft that will be included in later versions: name lists and sub-playbooks. I'll be including one or two sub-playbooks as an example (thinkin' The Plantbender and The Doctor since those are written), but otherwise they're not needed to play the game in its basic form. Technically, this is good enough right here to play - MC Threat Types is a nice step but not explicitly necessary either.
Oh, and technically the Scholar and Waterbender don't have flavor text yet, but those will just show up, I'm not dedicating a post to them.

I should toss out the idea that I realized that potentially an alternate name for The Monk could be The Enlightened, which avoids the whole "D&D Monk" issue while keeping the same vibe. Maybe. I don't know.

Also, because I ended up not making a big deal of Chakras in the Monk, I've decided that that's what I'll be calling "Chi Keys". Just a heads-up.

THE MONK
Flavor Text:
The world has secrets even the brightest scholars cannot fathom, secrets of the spirit and the soul. The cosmos saw fit to whisper to you, and now, more than ever before, you understand. You understand.
Stat (Pick One Array):
* Natural +2, Hot +0, Solid +1, Keen +1, Fluid -1
* Natural +2, Hot -1, Solid +1, Keen +0, Fluid +1
* Natural +1, Hot -1, Solid +1, Keen +1, Fluid +1
* Natural +1, Hot -1, Solid +2, Keen +1, Fluid +0
* Natural +1, Hot +1, Solid +2, Keen +0, Fluid -1
Look (Pick One From Each Set):
* Carefully maintained beard, hairless, symbols of your order, unkempt.
* Brightly-dyed robes, tattered rags, temple clothes, dull and simple clothes.
Gear:

You have nothing but the clothes on your back and the mark of your order.
Oaths:
Your monastic order requires a vow to stay away from a particular sort of corruption. Name your order, and promise yourself that you will never: (choose one)
* afford yourself any luxury,
* cause no intentional harm,
* tell anything but the honest truth.
Yes, I've only provided a couple options for the major vows. It's the Vow of Poverty, the Vow of Pacifism, and the Vow of Honesty. If the MC allows, you can pitch your own idea, but it needs to be a really serious vow. If you're interested in writing your own, check out the special below.
Chi:
* Faithful and preachy,
* Calm and reserved,
* Sensitive but disciplined,
* Hard and jaded,
* _________ (write your own)
Special:
When you study under an enlightened soul you have a chance to renew your vows. Make a new oath to yourself that makes something valuable to you off-limits. When you uphold your vow at the cost of a significant opportunity, mark XP.
So here's the thing: if you want to renew your starting vow and still have it around, you need to vow an amped-up version of it. Maybe you'll not only afford yourself no luxury, but also give any luxury you come across to those who need it. It's just as nasty, except now you'd probably want to give away the stuff you find to people who don't happen to be your companions. The trade-off for this being an amped-up version is that you get a much stronger benefit from it than most oaths-with-yourself (also quite fitting, as it's not "completable").
This lets you write your own. The MC should be a part of the writing process to make sure they aren't going too easy on themselves, but be lenient, and remember that they're always the ones in charge of it.
This is one of my favorite Special moves, and I've been really fond of most of the special moves I've written over the past week or so.
Improvement:
When you have 5 XP, you can gain no more. Reduce your XP from 5 to 0 at any point to take an advancement:
__ You have +1 Natural (max +3)
__ You have +1 Hot (max +3)
__ You have +1 Solid (max +3)
__ You have +1 Fluid (max +3)
__ gain a new chakra from the list, or write your own.
__ gain a new Monk move
__ gain a new Monk move
__ gain a new Monk move
__ gain a move from another playbook
__ gain a move from another playbook
///////////////////////// (these improvements can only be taken once you've taken 5 of the above improvements)
__ You have +1 to any stat (max +3)
__ Retire your character to safety
__ create a second character to play side-by-side with this one
__ change your character to a new type


THE WARRIOR
Flavor Text:
Death is never to be taken lightly, but there are always those who simply deserve to die. Who better than you to put them down, or to keep your friends from meeting the same fate at their hands?
Stat (Pick One Array):
* Natural -1. Hot +2, Solid +1, Keen +0, Fluid +1
* Natural +1. Hot +2, Solid +0, Keen -1, Fluid +1
* Natural +0. Hot +1, Solid +0, Keen +1, Fluid +1
* Natural +0. Hot +1, Solid -1, Keen +1, Fluid +2
* Natural -1. Hot +1, Solid +1, Keen +0, Fluid +2
Look (Pick One From Each Set):
* Humble clothes, uniform, stealth garb, obviously armed.
* Cold eyes, dangerous eyes, relaxed eyes, cunning eyes.
Gear:
A deadly weapon: (choose one)
Blade (3-harm), Polearm (2-harm, armor-piercing), Archery (2-harm, long range), Many small weapons (1-harm, infinite, short range)
1-Armor, appearance is up to you. No matter what you're wearing, you have 1-Armor.
This is the first real instance of descriptive tags. They should be self explanatory. The exact definition is up to you - blades can be swords, axes, scythes, whatever, polearms tend to mean lances and the like, archery is obvious but if the technology in your game supports it, that's what a gun would be as well, and Many Small Weapons would be like knives, shuriken, kama, and other small things, and you can always pull out another one. Short range means it includes throwing stuff, but can't get near as far as bows or guns. Note that for the bow's Long Range, you can Hard Move them about it if they shoot it in point blank combat, but there's no reason they can't use it close up. Legolas managed just fine, you know.
Oaths:
* Someone needs your protection and you've promised it to them, whether they want it or not.
* You've promised vengeance upon someone who deserves it. Who?
Chi:
* Intense and unflinching,
* Violent and frightening,
* Honorable and fair,
* Ruthless but respectful,
* __________ (write your own)
Special:
Once you've trained with a master warrior, when you you enter battle you may vocally single out out one target. Until you attack a different target or an ally of yours attacks them as well, you have +1 to Commit Open Violence and to Move With Intention against them, and if they attack an ally of yours instead of you, you may Stand Fast to intervene and take the hit yourself.
This is the former Samurai's Duel move, expanded to include assassination-style attacks. Like with Apocalypse World and the Gunlugger, it's up to you to define how broad "enter battle" means.
Improvement:
When you have 5 XP, you can gain no more. Reduce your XP from 5 to 0 at any point to take an advancement:
__ You have +1 Natural (max +3)
__ You have +1 Hot (max +3)
__ You have +1 Keen (max +3)
__ You have +1 Fluid (max +3)
__ gain a new Chakra from the list, or write your own.
__ gain a new Warrior move
__ gain a new Warrior move
__ gain a new Warrior move
__ gain a move from another playbook
__ gain a move from another playbook
///////////////////////// (these improvements can only be taken once you've taken 5 of the above improvements)
__ You have +1 to any stat (max +3)
__ Retire your character to safety
__ create a second character to play side-by-side with this one
__ change your character to a new type
Rock it.
End Recording,
Ego.

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