Update 1.1 - Updated, Finalized Playbooks


Finally, the Playbooks PDF is no longer just something I exported straight out of Scrivener, but a fully-fledged, fully formatted piece of material. Part of the reason it took as long as it did was that this also functioned as a "final" pass over all of the game's Playbook moves. There's a lot that needed to be tweaked, and the changelog is below.

(If you're reading this in the days immediately following this update, you might find that the Google Sheets document isn't up to date. If that's the case, use the PDF for the time being and please wait warmly for me to update it.)

Changelog

  • Replaced Low-Cut Expectations with “Pretty Please?”
  • Replaced Callout Culture with Playing the Fame Game
  • Replaced Clark Kenting with Ubiquitous Celebrity, which is an Angle Move for Living the Dream. All Part of the Show! is now a Flexible move.

    I’m not sure if Callout Culture aged badly or was like that from the get-go, but it felt bad even as an “evil” move. Both of the new Angle Moves help to solidify their Angles’ identities - Living the Dream being an idealistic and larger-than-life approach to the Idol, and Sellout using both sides of their fame to make their lives easier.

  • Slightly reworked the Model Student’s Standing mechanic
  • Enough is Enough now has a free trigger as well as clarification on how many times you can use it
  • Gave Face of the Students a new effect

Standing’s effect was just a bit too narrow, so it was increased and clarified a bit. Face of the Students’ effect was a bit weak, so it was changed to something more fitting its name.

  • Renamed Yamato Nadeshiko to Silk Hiding Steel
  • Made Iron Composure a Flexible Move, and gave a reworked Best Face Forward to the Big Sibling Angle
  • Adjusted and simplified Do You Know Who I Am?

Yamato Nadeshiko as a name had a few different issues; Silk Hiding Steel conveys its intent without the unpleasant implications. Best Face Forward’s old effect was too similar to Eyes Up, Smile On from the Idol. As for Do You Know Who I Am… well, it just had way, WAY too much text for something that wasn’t a core mechanic.

  • Replaced Internet Friends with An Otaku’s True Bond!
  • Made Deal-Finder a Flexible Move; An Otaku’s True Bond! is an Extrovert Angle Move.
  • Adjusted one of the Otaku’s base Friendships.

Internet Friends was a relic of a very old version of Oddity High where getting outside help was a Basic Move. The replacement move went to Extrovert because the Angle was a bit lackluster; An Otaku’s True Bond! Represents a fun and charismatic type of otaku-dom that fits the Extrovert perfectly.

  • Replaced Cleaning Up Loose Ends with Just Shoot Him for the Pragmatist.

At one point, Cleaning Up Loose Ends was the Pragmatist’s starting move. We’ve come a long way since then, and its direct reference to antagonists simply isn’t how Oddity High works anymore.

  • Changed a lot of things for the Prodigy. Consultant is now a Flexible Move and its Angle has been replaced with Sharp Mind, Blunt Conduct. Sharp Mind, Blunt Conduct has two new moves - Dense as Osmium and There’s Your Problem.
  • Reworked Bask in My Superiority’s effect and replaced Just As Planned with “You’re Both Wrong!”
  • Switched the placements of How Does This Work? And Trivia is Trivial
  • Removed Quick Thinker (which has been replaced with Just As I Thought as the Prodigy’s starting move) and Did I Eat Today? (which has been replaced with Eureka!)

Hoo boy, where to start with the Prodigy... Over the course of reworking it, I noticed something - Consultant and Superior Intellect were basically a proto-Idol and proto-Pragmatist, respectively, back before either of those backer Playbooks existed. Consultant was always a weird-ass Angle and shaving off the Idol aspects left it as just a single move, so changing it to a flexible move just made sense. As for its replacement Angle, Sharp Mind Blunt Conduct is basically for the 10,000-IQ killjoys of the world.

  • Gave the Space Cadet’s Melancholy, Sighs and Boredom an entirely new effect

Simply put, this move was made before “when time passes” was a mechanically-established thing. It basically didn’t make sense as a trigger condition, so it got reworked.

  • Gave the Supporter’s Please, Listen to Me! an expanded effect
  • Slightly reworked one of the Supporter’s Backstory questions
  • Gave the Vanilla's Stand Together a new effect

Another character’s public breakdown is just a bad trigger for a playbook move - especially for the Supporter, who is otherwise designed around making sure others DON’T have breakdowns.

  • Reworked the Displaced’s Another Time Deal

Even though the Displaced’s Deals are all pretty low-impact, a Deal that only changed stats is simply bad.

  • Altered the wording on the Directive added by Runaway
  • Removed the Condition-modifying effect from The Institute
  • Replaced the Experiment’s I Will Not Be Chained with No Strings On Me
  • Adjusted the Experiment's Experience triggers
  • Changed one of the Experiment's Backstory questions

The Institute's mechanical effect was weird and unnecessary, and it didn't really need that extra bit. I Will Not Be Chained was just a case of me wanting a different move, and I feel like No Strings On Me easily fits the bill

  • Adjusted the Henshin’s Beneath the Mask move.
  • Replaced Hidden Darkness with Save the Cat

Beneath the Mask and Hidden Darkness were always very similar moves, and having both of them pushed the Playbook in a strange direction. Given that most people that’d do the magical girl or kamen rider song-and-dance are heroic sorts, giving them a mechanical reward via Save the Cat felt right.

  • Gave Administrative Permissions some minor tweaks - it now gives an Opportunity on a 10+.
  • Replaced the Interface’s Backup Unit with Support Unit

Backup Unit is a similar sort of “living fossil” mechanic to Internet Friends, so it also warranted getting the axe.

  • Reworked the Displaced option for the Mascot’s Helper Figure
  • Slightly tweaked the text on the Interface option for Helper Figure
  • Expert Tutelage now lets the trainee spend hold on their Other-Life Playbook’s moves
  • Trimmed some of the specific “on a miss” effects from the Plainclothes’ moves
  • The Shadow’s Where Are You? now no longer relies on other people pointing them out
  • Control Thoughts from the Volatile’s Esper Power Suite no longer can no longer leave targets traumatized
  • Slightly adjusted Divination’s circumstance to no longer be exclusively derived from magic.
  • Gave Flight an additional benefit of the player's choice.

Thought control is a mechanic that's on thin ice enough as it is; the least I can do is remove the bit about it being actively traumatizing. Flight needed more than just flight (hell, there's other moves in the same playbook that give it); since making flight the best version possible for a specialist is something you see in other media, that's more-or-less what happened here.

  • Changed one of the Warper’s Serendipity options

Files

Oddity High - Playbooks.pdf 419 kB
Dec 18, 2023

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