19 thoughts on “Hey, tell me about Monster of the Week!”

  4. It’s a lot of fun!  Very much mission-based (hence the name), which in some ways makes it more accessible than AW or MH, but perhaps also more limited in the long run.  Evocative playbooks.  Very team-focused; no rules for interference because, well, you’re a team!  The game play is much the same as the rest of the family of games.

    Three things that stand out most for me:

    The interpersonal relationships created during character creation have no mechanical weight (nothing like Hx, strings, bonds), yet really do inform the color of the game.

    There’s a move for investigating the mystery that can get a little weird.  The MC needs to be careful with what can realistically be learned, but also careful to avoid being overprotective of one’s precious mystery.  If the chracters figure it out, they figure it out.

    Magic is very loose, akin to the workspace rules in AW, and can be really powerful if you’re not careful with establishing the fiction.  I’ve played mostly one shots where I let people rain down fire from heaven without too much explanation because, well, one-shot, but in an ongoing game I’d want to tighten that up.

  5. Hellboy, Supernatural, Ultraviolet, X-files. It has the Mystery Arc that keeps the investigative angle and shys away from Bond/Sex move mechanics. More focused on episodic play. Great game!

  7. For me Buffy is more Monsterhearts, yes there are monsters but it’s also a lot about growing up and the changing of relations in a group of teenagers.  MOTW for me is Supernatural, if you are a fan you instantly apply in your head the rules to the series 😉 

  11. My favorite part of MotW is the Luck mechanic.

    Each character has 8 or so Luck points. You can spend a point of Luck to either negate all damage from a hit, or to treat a roll as a 12.

    But here’s the thing: Luck never refreshes. Once you spend it, it’s gone, and when you’re out the GM is allowed to make as many hard moves at you as he wants.

  12. Think more Angel than Buffy : more about being a family and doing what’s got to be done instead of being a band of teenagers and growing up. 

    It’s very episodic, the way Dogs is : the GM preps a mystery that’d go wrong if the Hunters don’t come, full of victims, monsters, minions and bystanders. 

    It drops from the original AW design what’s not needed for action/mystery the way Monsterhearts drops what’s not needed for romance/sexuality.

  15. Daniele Di Rubbo I don’t have a whole lot to add to what’s already been said!

    Supernatural is the number one inspiration. Somewhere in season two I decided I needed a game to play that sort of story. I took bits and pieces of inspiration from other places, but that’s the initial one.

    Oh, and a playbook for Dean? He turned out to be really hard to pin down! Maybe because he’s changed over the show, or maybe I just couldn’t work it out. I’d probably use the Hard Case. But that’s not quite right either.

  19. I haven’t read enough of it yet to consider myself qualified to make too much of a response, but I was struck by how differently the game treats relationships between PCs. On the one hand, there is a complete lack of mechanical support for the bonds between the PCs, but on the other, there is a really compelling basic move for aiding your pals. 

    Between that and the Luck mechanic, plus the Mystery Arc scenario setup, I’m definitely interested in playing. Also, the Chosen’s system of Tags is killer. In fact, the Chosen is pretty much just all-around amazing.

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