Looking for advice on two (out of two) players wanting to use the same playbook
Hi everyone, back with another S&V campaign prep question of the day:
The players have been looking over the playbooks, and two of us (out of a total of 3 players, although the 3rd’s attendance may be spotty, so it’ll most likely just be us two) are dead set on Mystic. Neither of us really has any desire to play another playbook, so there hasn’t been any sort of, “oh, well, alright, you can have it, I’ll just be blank” moment.
Doubling up on classes or playbooks or what have you is something I’ve always been pretty fundamentally against in RPGs. While the book says everyone can theoretically play the same playbook, and sure, I see that they could, it seems as if the major overlap in what abilities they can take (Veteran abilities can only go so far), what contacts they have, what their special items are, their exp trigger– all that stuff that comes with the playbooks that uniquely defines one character from another– would really take away from how cool and unique each character should be in their roles on the team and what positions they fit into narratively.
Something I really like about PBTA and BitD is how unique picking a playbook makes the character. Someone playing something like a Cutter is saying they specifically want to be good at, and get into situations that involve, fighting. Someone playing a Slide might avoid combat entirely, and really play up the social aspect of the game. They both get to shine and feel as if they’re the expert at doing whatever they’re good at. In that heist movie sense, they’ll each have that moment, or moments, where they bring something to the job that nobody else could have brought.
In our game of The Sprawl, high speed chases were all about our Driver. Crazy shootouts and cool fight scenes were where our Killer shined, single handedly taking out whole squads of enemies. Our Hacker was the only one who could even come close to dealing with the type of electronic security we encountered everywhere we went, etc. etc.
Everyone regularly had those scenes or moments where they were absolutely the star. Having different playbooks made each character stand out in what they did. There was basically never a moment where someone was just kind of… doing that cool thing someone else just did a few minutes ago, now, too… >.<
The disappointing thing I see happening when two of us play Mystic is something like: Player A has been looking forward to taking the “Sundering” ability for an advance, but Player B ends up taking it first. The first time Player B uses their cool new devastating space magic powers in a cinch is a great moment, revealing a badass new power they’ve obtained. Player A picks up Sundering at their next advance, buuuuut it’s basically that cool thing that Player B has already done, and it’ll always kind of be associated with them.
Thennnnn one player gets Psy Blade first, and the other has to follow it up, or decide not to take it at all. Then one player gets Visions, and the other eventually gets it too, and so on…
Having players picking from the same list of abilities seems like you’re either constantly doubling up and feeling like you’re not bringing anything particularly unique or stand-out to the table, or you’re intentionally being wary to not pick the same abilities, but every time the other player picks one, it’s shutting off an ability you would’ve had available to you, and now you’re in this shitty race with your friend to snag up all the coolest stuff before they do.
The DM has said they’ll think of ways to make this not be lame for the players, but I’m not very confident that a solution exists. Has anyone ever played with a crew that doubled up on playbooks? If so, what did people do to not feel as if they were competing with each other for recognition in whatever that playbook was all about? Are there even any house-rule type solutions people can think of?
For example, something that came to mind would be giving each player greater access to abilities from a second playbook, maybe even to the starting abilities. That way, one is playing something like a Mystic/Muscle in a bigger way than they normally could, while the other is a Mystic/Speaker (ignoring the obvious power creep involved with having free access to more abilities than usual).
I’m thinking vaguely of the Star Wars RPGs like Force and Destiny where you’d have a group where everyone’s a Jedi, but there’s actually a bunch of distinct classes of Jedi to be, so it’s not like everyone is directly overlapping in abilities. Like, “okay, assuming everyone here is just going to be a Mystic, what class of Mystic are each of you?” I understand that specializing in different action ratings and taking a few Veteran abilities allows for some of this already, but I still feel as if there’ll be problems when the players are still going to be picking from the same major list of abilities most of the time.
Similarly, would it be worth taking another playbook’s list of contacts? I have mixed feelings on this, in that maybe it’d actually be interesting to know the same people. Maybe my character’s friend is the other’s rival. At the same time, you’re introducing fewer potential contacts into the game than you would be if everyone was using a unique playbook.
I was also thinking of stitching together exp triggers from other playbooks. For example, for the Mystic/Muscle character, their new trigger might be something like “You addressed a tough challenge with force or the Way,” (no pun intended). It’d hopefully help with each player feeling as if they’re being incentivized and rewarded in actions that are unique to them.
A good chatacter is way more than their playbook. Is Malcolm Reynolds pointless because Han Solo exists?
Don’t get hung up on your abilities as the essence of your character. Blades (and S&V) aren’t about the special move your character can do. They’re about who they are — what the care about, the choices they make.
RPGs aren’t Overwatch. There’s so much more to gameplay than your abilities.
(An S&V game with a pair of Mystic PCs sounds fantastic to me.)
I’ve run many Dungeon world and monster of the week games with duplicate play books. But then with 8-10 players it would be hard not to. There is still plenty to flesh out on most play books to make them unique….two characters with the same abilities can still be played differently.
Don’t worry about it too much. Just talk to the other player and see what kind of direction you’re each interested in going. Don’t forget that you don’t need easier access to Veteran abilities; they’re already just as easy as getting things from your own playbooks.
In the long-running Blades campaign I play in, we had several playbook overlaps and so many Veteran advances that I’ve often forgotten which character is which playbook.
So yeah, don’t worry about it.
John Harper While I’d argue there’s a reason you don’t see two Han Solos or two Malcolm Reynolds-es in their respective fictions, I’ll take everyone’s advise and try to relax about it ^~^
There is still crew positions; pilot, mechanic, hacker, etc… If you both want to be the witty pilot who doesn’t want to get their hands dirty with ship repairs, that could be a really silly-fun game!
“I’m driving.”
“Nope, you drove last time!”
“Didn’t not!”
“Did too!”
Brock McCord I think everyone’s tackled this pretty well, so rather than tell you not to worry I’ll tell you about the super memish bros!
One of my favorite S&V games me and a good friend of mine both wanted to take muscle, so we ended up making a pair of fighters. He was the brash, heavy hitter (purplish-red scales) and I was the shy, more quiet brother, higher in strength, but usually playing the support role. We had similar friends, and allies, and came recommended as a pair.
It was great because we had epic scale teamwork, when one failed, the other would protect and step in, and our strategies synergized perfectly. Plus there was some great rp when one was wounded, or we had family troubles. It was pretty awesome ^_^
The one thing I can suggest is to talk to your GM. Mystics (more than others perhaps) have different religions and sects, and you should check out the Advanced Abilities and Permissions. If one is a Memish mystic, and the other a Nightspeaker you’re talking about VERY different veteran skills and advancement paths, different goals, drives, factions you’re allied with etc.
I encourage you to give this a try with an open mind, and see what coolness can come from doing something unusual like this (we’ve had multiple mystics have passionate debates about the nature of the way, and squabble over which was more right or how to approach a Precursor ruin in-game).
I can personally vouch from play experience that my groups had a good time, it’s no guarantee that you will, but I’ve seen it happen more than once for sure. 🙂
This is already been answered super well by others but I’ve gotta throw out some of my favorite games have been where we’re all playing Jedi.
Game 1: Jedi in the Vineyard (Dogs in the Vineyard hack). We had a master and and former padawan, now knight traning a new padawa, who was super conflicted (read: give me all those dark side dice). (No link, before I was recording games).
Game 2: Star Wars: Episode II – Bad Ass Mother Fuckers. Jedi generals, Jedi ninja, Jedi everything. So good: seannittner.com – Actual Play – Star Wars: Episode II – Bad Ass Mother Fuckers (1/29/2012)
Game 3: Jedi Blackbird by the amazing John Aegard (modeled after Lady Blackbird by John Harper…full circle!). So many good discussions about the force. Loved it. http://www.seannittner.com/actual-play-jedi-blackbird-2202017/
In all of those games were all Jedi and they were fantastic. So I’m confident two mystic would be AWESOME in Scum and Villainy!
Out of curiousity, how did Dark Side Dice work in Jedi In The Galaxy?
Benjamin Davis, it’s a ways back, but the presence of the Dark Side worked just like sin in dogs, so the more they discovered the bigger the pool got. The difference though was that at any time the player could invoke any level of the darkside for those dice as well (up to 4d10 I think), which scaled up the threat as well.
Oh, and I looked at my notes and realized I remembered it wrong, we just called it Jedi in the Vineyard.
Stras Acimovic Thanks for the anecdote! I can see from literally everyone telling me that it’s not a problem that I was worrying too much about it. >.<
I’ve already started talking with my fellow mystic a bit and it’s become immediately clear that we have very different ideas for what type of characters we want to be, so I don’t think we’re gonna have any problems feeling like we aren’t unique. ^~^
Also I hadn’t thought about it at first, but I think exploring different mentalities and approaches to the Way will be really interesting. We’re playing with the Firedrake, so it seems like there’s going to be a pretty big focus on politics and warfare and all that, but I think the Way will obviously be a pretty major component for us as well, and I’m looking forward to all of that. ^_^