Playbook: Professor

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Today, I am doing something a bit different, namely a new playbook to be used with Forged In The Dark, taking advantage of One Seven Design's gracious licensing rules. This playbook owes its name to a nickname I got a few years ago while working a menial job with some minor criminals, and ne'er do wells, courtesy of my glasses and having somewhat better education than them (though it was not a particularly high threshold to pass). At least once I was asked to read an official letter to a co-worker and explain its content to him in simple words.

Playbook: Professor

An intellectually-inclined smart-ass.

Not all criminals are uneducated scum. In fact, a lot of academical students end on the wrong side of law—for common reasons such as parties going out of control, illicit vices, debts, boredom—or less common ones such as inquires into restricted topics. Occasionally even established academicians fall through the cracks—for the same reasons as students or for academical intrigues they were victims of, or perpetrators.

When you play a Professor, you earn xp when you address a challenge with research or instructing others. Sifting through hoarded lore, years of education, books, and accounts, finds you both immediately useful information, and, even more often, pieces of trivia stored for later.

Are you a fallen academician or a self-taught street kid? Were you a student or a teacher? Do you have a particularly favored topic or field of study? Have you chosen the path of crime of your own volition or were you pushed that way?

Starting Actions Study 2, Sway 1

Starting Builds—a few sample templates for starting characters

• Dabbler Attune +2, Prowl +1, Survey +1. Following Instructions.
• Pretender Consort +2, Sway +1, Tinker +1. Wiseguy Lingo.
• Seeker Hunt +1, Prowl +1, Survey +2. Savvy.
• Troublemaker Command +1, Finesse +1, Wreck +2. Party Hard.

Learned Friends, Rivals

• Arlington, PhD. Perhaps your former teacher or a past student? A contact at the university or the one who you blame for the end of your promising career?
• Brushwood, the bursar. Perhaps an accompliance of the embezzlement you committed, who still owes you for not giving him out? Perhaps the one who caught you cooking the books?
• Clarmont, the doorman. Perhaps he remembers your antics during your school years fondly? Perhaps he remembers your antics during your school year bitterly?
• Framworth, the rector's daughter. Perhaps your old friend? Perhaps your old scorned lover?
• Verity, the librarian. Perhaps she is your access to the books you need for your research? Perhaps she is still out to get you for the rare books missing from her library?

Professor Special Abilities

• Another All-Nighter: When you gather information, you can spend your special armor to push yourself when doing so or to resist one of its consequences. When you resist a consequence, you avoid it completely. When you push yourself, you gain its benefits without paying stress. Your special armor is restored at the beginning of downtime.
• Following Instructions: You gain +1d when you perform an action or activity for which you have professionally written instructions, such as a technical manual, a map, or a set of schematics. You suffer –1d when they are erroneous or obsolete, though. You don't know if the instructions are accurate or not until you actually test them.
• Introvert: You really enjoy yourself during long intellectual pursuits. When you work on research, science, or invention-related long-term project, or train during the downtime, you can also remove one stress. How more boring could you get?
• Lecture: You don't pay stress when you assist a teammate if your action rating is higher than theirs. If you are better at it, why aren't you doing it yourself, though?
• Party Hard: No one can party with greater abandon than students after their finals. Or before finals. Or in the middle of the semester. Take +1d to indulging vice rolls. An ally why joins you in your vice can also benefit from that effect. Overindulging in a vice is a feature, not a bug.
• Quiet Time: You can put your education to good use, making yourself handy to guards or other prisoners to have around, getting better treatment and maybe even a bit of time for yourself. You can either take one downtime activity while incarcerated, as long as you can explain how you accomplish it in prison or get +1d to incarceration roll.
• Savvy: You are apt at piercing deceptions and connecting the dots you weren't looking for. Take +1d to resistance rolls with Insight.
• Wiseguy Lingo: You can talk like an academic, gaining +1d on rolls made to influence people who respect learning and to fit in among the highly educated.

Professor Items

• A sturdy cane. Possibly with a blade hidden inside. [Load 1]
• Fine clothing. An apparel fitting an academician. [Load 0] Counts as Load 2 if you carry it as a second outfit to change into.
• Old library card or academical credentials. Might belong to you, or to someone else. Still useful to gain access to some places, impress some folks, or be left as a calling card or red herring. [Load 0]
• A book regarding a specific academic topic. Quite Handy for consultation in the field. Is it yours or have you borrowed it? Does the owner knows? [Load 1]
• Notebook. Helpful with taking notes and making plans. [Load 1]

And now a Study-based Reduce Heat downtime activity... Er... Legalese:

This work is based on Blades in the Dark (found at http://www.bladesinthedark.com/), product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).