Outsider moves for ghosts

The unseen world: You can commune with other departed ghosts. Whenever you contact the unseen realm, roll +Superior. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9, hold 2. On a miss, hold 1, but those beyond make an uncomfortable demand. Spend your hold 1 for 1 to:

  • receive a cursed or spiritually potent item that will allow you to use any ability from another playbook once (choose the ability when you spend the hold)
  • consult the memories of the departed to ask the GM a question about the current situation
  • clear a condition through the comfort of contact with your home

Possession: When you touch a mortal object and empower it, roll +Freak. On a hit, you can use this object as a focus to do something impossible. When you roll a 10+, choose one:

  • it works exceptionally well
  • you get an additional use out of it

On a miss, the focus is effective, but it has a completely unintended side effect that the GM will reveal when you use it.

The past is a foreign country: Whenever you openly disregard or undermine an modern era custom in favor of one of your own era’s customs, shift Superior up and any other Label down.

Fetters: You have a set of physical fetters, some otherwise mundane items with special emotional significance to you such as a pocket watch or painting. Detail their history, and choose two strengths and weaknesses. When your fetters are present in the scene, you can use them to unleash your powers, directly engage a threat, or defend someone using Superior.

Strengths: Very portable, very concealable, usable as weapon, easily fixable, can shift between mundane and spirit world, can be used at a distance
Weaknesses: Requires ritual to empower, susceptible to ________, easily detectable, big and clumsy, difficult to repair

In good spirits: When you comfort or support someone by telling them how they exemplify the best parts of the modern world, roll +Freak instead of +Mundane.

History lesson: When you talk about your home time and place, roll +Freak. On a 10+, choose two. On a 7-9, choose one. During the conversation, you:

  • confess a flaw of your home; add 1 Team to the pool
  • mislead them about your home; take Influence over them
  • describe the glories of your home; clear a condition

On a miss, you inadvertently reveal more about yourself than you planned; tell them a secret or vulnerability you haven’t shared with the living before now.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5396323

Nice …

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5396439

Bill this is fantastic. Thanks so much for doing the heavy lifting on this.

Would you mind sharing this on the Masks community? I think people would appreciate it. (A simple “hey the Outsider is a ghost in our new game, so I reskinned the Outsider moves because I rolled 13 on Comfort and Support the GM” would probably suffice as a preface.)

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5398597

So were these original (or “reskinned”) by you, Bill? Because that’s even more awesome than the “Hey, I dug around the Intertubes and found these great things to share” that I thought they were.

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5399207

Yeah, I wrote the text posted above, based on the stock Outsider moves. I want to clean up a couple of them, but I’m happy to post elsewhere if people think they are worthwhile.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5399323

I think they’re great, and I think the Masks community would benefit from seeing how a rewrite of the playbook moves can really change the feel of a playbook. It’s good stuff!

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5399351

Posted here: https://plus.google.com/+BillGarrett/posts/6iSQCSk…
Buckling up to get torn apart by the community.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5400038

I think they are excellent. I’m sure people will have tuning ideas, but I think it’s great stuff.

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5401299

There’s lots of room to change things, yeah. For example, I might have assigned a ghost character a “haunted house” type thing, similar to the Doomed or Protege headquarters, with various ghostly perks instead of high-tech gear. That’s not mobile the way a Kirby-craft is, but maybe it can make up for that in other ways.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5401307

For a Kirby-craft analog, perhaps a familiar spirit – could be a mount (a skeletal horse! a huge demonic hound!), or could be something smaller that simply helps transport the spirit from one place to another (“Teekl! Get us out of here!”). It’s a thin reskinning, but as long as you throw in some mysterious KIrby crackles, it would be fine.

author: *** Dave H.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5402548

I can’t think of a lot of mobile, vehicle-like schticks for ghosts in the fiction. You COULD come up with any or all of those options mentioned, but they don’t feel as central to the “ghost” concept to me. An alternative that I HAVE seen a ton of times, though:

Mirror Mirror: You can appear in one type of visual medium, such as a mirror or television. You can be half-glimpsed by someone you are haunting, or you can emerge from or travel between one such medium object and another one. (blah blah blah insert Kirby-craft text here).

Instead of flying around, you travel from mirror to mirror (or crawl out of a TV, Ring style). If there’s a question of reaching a particular location, unleash your powers to do so. You can maybe open portals for your group to come with you - or have adventures where you’re stuck in the non-space between worlds, and the team has to fight off the Unseen Ones until you get out.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5403881

For THIS ghost girl specifically, a skeletal horse would be very appropriate - a young lady’s riding animal for around the property, maybe, or (since we’re at the Kentucky Derby) an actual racing animal the family owned and raced. In that case, yeah, go nuts. :slight_smile:

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5403891

Hmm. I like that Mirror Mirror thing. :slight_smile:

That said, no reason the Fetters can’t be a motive-enabling thing.

But I do like the Mirror Mirror thing. :slight_smile:

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5403911

Okay. If this is a move Margie might be interested in, and nobody else is working on a final version, I’ll flesh out Mirror Mirror.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5404377

Oh, the preference is all mine. I don’t know if Margie was interested in (or even needs right now) the Kirby-craft thing. :slight_smile:

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5404388

Doyce T. said:

Oh, the preference is all mine. I don’t know if Margie was interested in (or even needs right now) the Kirby-craft thing. :slight_smile:

If she chimes in, I’ll throw out a suggestion for moves unless she works out something better. :slight_smile:

author: Bill G.
url: Community Forums: Outsider moves for ghosts | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop

Sorry for the delay getting onto the discussion. I think these are great - THANKS

From the original rules, I was looking at Between Two Worlds (love your translation to Unseen World), The Best of Them (Cheerful Spirit), and Not so different after all (History Lesson). With your reimagining of the tech moves, I think I like Possessed or Tethered better than History Lesson. At least the cost of failing sounds a lot more interesting.

As for Mirror Mirror, I think deep shadow would be a better transit point. I was also considering a take on the Density Control ability. I can turn one individual ghostly and drag them through shadow, a wall, etc.

author: Margie K.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5406636

OOhhh. I like what that would imply about the experience of being phased through a wall.

(Cue Peter Jackson ring-o-vision effects. :slight_smile:

author: Doyce T.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5406655

Mirror Mirror: Choose one type of medium between the real and unreal - mirrors, paintings, areas of deep shadow, crystal balls, television screens, or anything else the GM allows. Choose two strengths and two weaknesses. You can phase into or out of your medium. While ensconced in your medium, you can unleash your powers, directly engage a threat, or defend someone using Superior. You can also teleport between two instances of your medium, with or without passengers; the GM will tell you if or when this is possible and if anything else is required to do so.

Strengths: easily accessible, subtle or concealable, ubiquitous, easily replaceable, projectable, callable
Weaknesses: requires ritual, susceptible to ________, easily detectable, big and clumsy, easily breakable, difficult to replace

Note: “projectable” means the Outsider can manipulate the medium to project an image or impression of some kind without a roll, such as speaking through a television or making a mirror show someone else’s reflection. I need a better name for this.

“Callable” means that you can ritually invoke the Outsider, usually by calling their name several times while facing the medium, and they will be aware of the call.

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5407727

The comic “Erma” is probably a good resource for any pre-teen ghost Outsider: https://tapas.io/episode/257351

author: Bill G.
url: https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/5409717