Image: Théodore Chassériau, Othello’s Speech to the Senators of Venice, 1839. Public domain source.

”[Njal] was so great a lawyer, that his match was not to be found. Wise too he was, and foreknowing and foresighted. Of good counsel, and ready to give it, and all that he advised men was sure to be the best for them to do. Gentle and generous, he unravelled every man's knotty points who came to see him about them.”

- The Saga of Burnt-Njal, Chapter 20, trans. George W. DaSent

Starting Gear: A weapon given to you by someone who admires you, fashionable clothes

Starting Skill: 1 Lawyer | 2 Mendicant | 3 Noble

A Good Counsel, Gentle and Generous

B Discerning Eye

C Unraveller

D Hold Peace

Good Counsel

When another character solicits your advice, if they act on it, they add your Wisdom modifier to their next relevant test. If they act against it, they subtract your Wisdom modifier. Offering advice takes an action during combat and other times where moments matter.

Gentle and Generous

At the end of an adventure, if no creature died by your hand, you gain +25% experience.

Discerning Eye

For each of your Counselor templates, once per day you may take time to closely examine a situation or person. When you do, you may ask the GM one of the following questions. They must answer truthfully.

• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• Who’s really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?

Unraveller

Add the following questions to your list from Discerning Eye:

• What is X’s greatest strength?
• What is X’s greatest weakness?
• What does X really think of Y?

Hold Peace

When violence seems imminent, no one can make an attack or cast a harmful spell until you’ve had your say.

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Designer’s Notes:

I firmly believe that classes are not just a bundle of abilities and modifiers. They’re also a vote for the kind of fiction you want to experience in a game. Want to talk about arcane secrets? Play a wizard. Want to talk about daring heists? Play a rogue. If we take one lesson from Apocalypse World and it’s ilk, let it be that one.

In a recent conversation with xtinak on the Shattered Coast GLoG server, we talked about the difficulty of playing a character who doesn’t want to fight and pillage their way through a dungeon in an open-table setting in particular and, perhaps, in GLoG in general. This class is an attempt to address that gap, imagining (and outright cribbing) other modes of play.

It feels like there is a lot more design space to explore here and a lot more room to make this class a little mechanically crunchier. "Good Counsel" may lead to some toxic gameplay loops of constantly asking advice, but I have a morbid curiosity about making it prompted by other players. There's also nothing that says the advice has to be good, only that they follow it. The whole class has a certain weaselly-ness about it that feels of a piece with other GLoG rogues and miscreants.

It bears mentioning that Njal was burnt alive for the sins of those who followed his advice...