Monster of the Week @ Celesticon in California
Greetings, Hunters and Keepers of Mysteries.
Over Labor Day weekend, I ran a game of Monster of the Week at Celesticon in northern California. It was one of TWO official MotW games on fairly small roster of games, meaning I got to run and play the game. I win!
I ran Creature Features, which is just a catch all for my MotW stories. I have 8 mysteries prepped, but I’ve been having fun creating mysteries on the fly, based on the characters and history the players establish during creation.
This one involved a series of drownings at lakes near the hunters’ home town. Investigation revealed it had been going on for years, but very slowly. Our hunters were a Chosen, a Flake, a Mundane, an Exile, a Wronged, and a Spooky. I had a great group of roleplayers who made me think and laugh a lot.
The wronged had some sort of water spirit that had slain his older brother a few years ago. So I made that monster type a minion of the Big Bad so he’d have several possible chances to interact with them and maybe get vengeance on the one who killed his brother.
A couple of the players chose dark issues (drug abuse) for their hunters. But it was a shared addiction that brought the two characters closer together and added to the overall mood.
The Big Bad was an ancient, shadowy conquistador-sorcerer who planned to blow up a dam, sacrificing all the lives lost to bring himself more fully to life. He had evil selkies and some stealthy little water imps as his allies.
I really enjoyed this game and continue a great streak with Monster of the Week. I’ll be running it again at Big Bad Con this coming weekend.
MotW with Zed
I was very excited to play MotW for a change. Zed had a great selection of skins available to choose from including one I’d never seen, The Sidekick. O.O Well, I just needed someone to play a cool hero. Luckily a player I knew created just the thing, a Persian Initiate, a spiritual warrior against evil. I loved playing a damage sponge and trouble magnet. Our group also had a Snoop and a Mad Scientist. All the players were super fun and had good creative interaction.
Zed’s mystery was awesome, with a perfect mix of monster fighting and investigation. The conclusion was not a cookie-cutter monster slaying. The local setting added to the realism, and Zed kept it tight with some intense NPCs and great Keeper moves. I certainly picked up a few cues from Zed.
It was such a treat to play. Now where do I get my hands on this Sidekick playbook?
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5pV27F3R0veVHA0QThtOWhIU00/edit?usp=sharing
Awesome!
W00t! Thanks, Michael. I’ll offer the Sidekick to players this weekend. I had a blast playing it.
Finally read this post all the way through. got to Creature Feature and stopped since I was gonna be in your game at Big Bad Con I didn’t want to spoil anything. Really awesome to meet you Bryan Hitchcock and thanks again for an amazing game, plus letting me play the luchador playbook!
Marcus, it was a pleasure to have you play in my game. I’ll be posting about it here soon and I’ll tag you. I plan to continue running MotW at cons next year.