Jump to content

Monday Preview - Propagandist


Nef

Recommended Posts

Happy Monday Wyrdos!  It's time for another Monday Preview.  We are continuing to look at another pursuit from Above The Law.  

Wyrd_MondayPreview_11_27_2017.thumb.jpg.1f945bf3b1f7b3bda035654bdb6f09de.jpg

The Propagandist is a new Social Pursuit found in Above the Law. The Propagandist's core mechanic is The Voice of the People: each time the character succeeds on a Social Skill duel, they gain stackable a Condition that increases the final duel total of their Art, Printing, and Convince duels for the rest of the session. This encourages a Propagandist to stick their nose into other peoples' business right from the very start of an adventure, as it just empowers their ability to spread rumors and propaganda later in the session.

As a Propagandist advances, they gain the ability to spend their Voice of the People condition for other effects, such as repeating failed Social skill duels, buffing their allies, or even transforming a group of people into an Angry Mob subordinate character. While Propagandists tend toward social and supporting roles, but they do have a few offensive tricks. One of the most interesting is Deadly Slander, which allows the character to so thoroughly shame an opponent that they not only suffer damage but also suffer an extremely long-lasting penalty to their Social Skill Challenges. Better yet, if the Propagandist hits their "Tell It As It Is" trigger, they can immediately lower their Voice of the People Condition by any amount to draw that many cards!

Whether Guild reporter, Gremlin crier, or Union recruiter, there's plenty of room for a Propagandist in every campaign!

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Codifying turning NPC into PC-ally like that (especially to have the power inactive until work is put into it) has some potential to keep that from getting out of hand, and I say that as someone who doesn’t generally agree with social skills being bound by game mechanics.

Is there any mechanical penalty as well, for ‘spamming’ and failing to raise Voice of the People, or is backlash up to the fatemaster?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Gnomezilla said:

Is there any mechanical penalty as well, for ‘spamming’ and failing to raise Voice of the People, or is backlash up to the fatemaster?

It has a cap on what it adds to skills  (+3), though you can still build higher to get a nice supply that you can burn off for other effects.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So this is basically the agitator class then? Definitely seems very interesting. Albeit is means that the investigator and face  (cunning, talks their way out of things, acts like they belong. etc.) pursuits that I feel are missing from the game will not appear for a while, NB book will likely contain much more specific classes like those form under quarantine. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Mason said:

That Pursuit is called the Infiltrator. It can be found in Into the Steam.

Yeah, I should have seen that response coming. I did not properly articulate the concept I was describing. I was meaning along the lines of a very generic pursuit, like the one's in the core book, based around social situations and being good at cunning to complete an intelligence/academic charm/performer triad for social pursuits. Should have just said that.

Also, I feel like 'Agitator' would be a better name than Propagandist. Different conotations come with the word. One suggests someone whose entire purpose is to rile people up and will them with strong emotions, the other suggests someone who "interprets" facts and distributes them through a network. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information