A few sessions ago, I noticed “Nyryx” is the name of a prostitute contact on the Slide playbook… and the name of a possessor ghost on the Whisper playbook. What an interesting coincidence! There’s no guarantee they’re the same person of course, but giving tables that option is really cool.
It made me wonder what other potential match ups I could find in the playbook contacts so I did some quick analysis this morning:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HFXIldOF6OYl-PQzLCT0X1dnN1BSFzWLJwXMJM9y1L0/edit?usp=sharing
I had hoped to find more match ups than I did, to be honest. Tying playbooks together by their contacts (especially when their descriptions are so tantalizingly different) is something I plan to explore in my own design work. Anyway, thought folks here might like to see this too!
That very thing came up in my Blades game, so we ran with it!
I had this too, with Nyryx, made more interesting by one being a friendship and the other a rivalry. I decided to go with the possessor ghost currently inhabiting a prostitute and go from there.
I too was disappointed to find this was the only really concrete crossover. It seems like an opportunity missed to create a tighter web of contacts to frame the early sessions.
I was rather excited by that inclusion, and a listen disappointed to not find more.
There’s certainly a lot of potential here! Keeping the connections rare will help to keep them special, but it was cool to discover that this stealthy kind of worldbuilding can make such an impact on a game.
I noticed Hutton is in the book in 2-3 places.
I’m not familiar with Hutton Toimu. Who is he/she?
There’s more crossover if you look at the Faction, District, Vice Purveyor and Doskvol Notables lists. The one that sticks out in my mind is “Salia, an information broker” in the Spider playbook, and “Salia, a spirit of the Reconciled” from Vice Purveyors. I believe that came up in the Rollplay Blades series.
Eli O’Sullivan Kurtz Hutton is a Skovlander NPC.
Charhollow Notables, p261
The Grinders, p290
Vice Purveyors, p299
Thanks Toimu. I realize now I’m actually using The Grinders in an upcoming game, so getting to know this guy will really come in handy!
Thomas Berton I suspected as much but didn’t have my book handy while I was putting this together. Thanks for confirming!
I think there is a material difference between scattering them in diverse contexts where repeated names or partial names are easier to miss, and presenting overlap in a single case, like character playbooks.
I guess the former rewards re-reads and the eagle-eyed, but its harder to use more obtusely presented information.
In the first playtest sheets it was just five playbooks and only the War in Crow’s Foot quickstart. I belive the contacts/relationships were aimed to create drama, like the Slide having Baszo Baz as a sly friend…
I think Andrew Shields made lists of contacts for players to pick from, and in my current game we have a drop-in campaign with 15+ people, så this is probaby a good idea.
It’s good storytelling to reincorporate and involve a recurring cast anyhow, so… and the player’s are encouraged to involve the contacts in their DTA-lives for +1d to action.
Michael Esperum what do you mean by “DTA-lives”? I’m not familiar with the phrase.
DTA = Downtime Actions, lives as in non-missionbased , i.e. ‘regular’ life.
I claim characters do Scores to afford DTAs … doing cool stuff with their lives, instead of working the rut of regular life.
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Ah, an interesting distinction! My players so far have used Downtime as a preparatory space for their “Score lives.” Mostly Downtime for them revolves around indulging their vices or long-term projects that build on what their Crew is doing in the “A plot.” Even when they indulge their vices, the RP is usually no more involved than a few sentences. Sometimes no more than “I went gambling in Brightstone” or something like that.
Yep… there are lots of connections scattered around.
For the folks who have already commented: I’ve updated the document since I originally shared it. It’s probably not 100% accurate but it’s above 90% at least.
John Harper it’s a great feature! Makes for nice, stealthy worldbuilding that remains responsive to player choice during initial setup. Pretty inspirational design wisdom!