What do you guys do if I am trying to read a new NPC? Are they lying? What’s different about them, ect.,..?
My initial desire was to just make a new move for it, but I would like to hear everyone else out to see what they do first?
What do you guys do if I am trying to read a new NPC? Are they lying? What’s different about them, ect.,..?
What do you guys do if I am trying to read a new NPC? Are they lying? What’s different about them, ect.,..?
Don’t make a move about that for 2 reasons.
#1 The Werewolf already has that move. If you want to read NPCs you need to take that move.
#2 You are a Teenager, you have no idea what is going on and what people are like.
If the players are asking you if a character is lying, make a GM move.
As Tim Franzke says. There’s a rather solid reasoning behind the decision to leave the ‘read a person’ move out of monsterhearts…
If you need to find stuff out, just Gaze Into the Abyss.
Your #1 is pointless if there are no Werewolves in the party, and your #2 is just a presumption.
I had tried Gaze into the Abyss, but it feels forced.
I was already making GM moves, but it still feels pretentious.
#2 is talking about the player characters.
For the #1 thing, if a Werewolf is in the game or not doesn’t change anything. If you want to be able to read people you need to spend an advance to get that move from that skin.
You could of course simply introduce a a reading move for everyone to use but the lack of information you have on other’s motives is a big deal in Monsterhearts. It helps to emulate the teenager genre.
If there are no Werewolves in the party, that’s great. You won’t be steping on another player’s toes when you use an advance to take that Werewolf move.
I don’t know what answer you want here Tommy Rayburn. Gazing Into the Abyss is the move for piecing together, figuring out, or just somehow knowing sonething your character wouldn’t normally know. What feels forced about the move?
Let’s try it like this.
I think I remember reading the game’s author explaining that the absence of a ‘read a person’ move (or similar) is a deliberate choice, because teenagers are not as good as adults at understanding others, and I think the ambiguity and confusion, as well as the feelings of loneliness and the difficulties in communicating this causes are an integral part of the game experience for monsterhearts. Introducing a move that lets you truly and surely understand someone would really change the dynamics of the game, and, in my view, not for the better. I would advise against it.
(also, the werewolf move does not apply. It mimics AW’s read a sitch, not read a person, IIRC)
Ah true, forgot that detail.
My suggestion would be to have them roll to Manipulate an NPC, trying to goad them into revealing something about themselves somehow or Gaze into the Abyss.
good point! you can do that!
Manipulate makes sense!
I’m usually pretty transparent about the NPCs to begin with, per the principles, which works out fine. The thing about not having read a person as a standard move is that, mechanics-wise, it pushes the players towards getting and using strings, because you can’t ask what the NPCs/other player wants to get them to do something.
More emotional manipulation and sting trading = more drama.
If I were to include a read move I would probably limit the results to being able to tell if someone is lying and maybe how they’re feeling. But many times, as mc, I tell them that anyway.
Yeah, NPCs — at least teen NPCs — should be pretty transparent in the first place. Teenagers might not be so great at reading other people yet, but they’re also not so great at hiding their own motives either, so it balances out.
The easiest way to find out more about people(that usually makes sense, that is) is to use Manipulate and see what they try to get out of you in return. You can also piece together things from how they react to other things like being Shut Down or Lashed Out at. In the most severe case, you can use Gaze, but it needs to be justified(What are you doing?).
I’m not sure how comfortable some people would be with this, but as the MC I’m usually pretty okay with PCs establishing things about NPCs when they spend strings, within reason. In most games, you’re playing PCs who have a bit of history with their classmates, and the setup portion of the first session can only cover so much, so putting some more stuff out of the table later is really no big deal. So if you want to know more about an NPC, maybe . . . you already do?
I am curious what kind of teenagers you guys were, because i was a pretty good liar.
Being a pretty good liar supports why there isn’t a move to read people. Just assume all teenagers in Monsterhearts are viciously good liars.
My choice to usually tell my players when they’re pretty sure someone is lying is really an aesthetic choice, not a reflection of how good teenagers are at lying.
I’m always interested in putting more information in the hands of the players because I want to see what they do about it. Confronting them with the fact that someone is lying to them leads to interesting play. It doesn’t tell them exactly what they’re being lied to about or why they’re doing it.
That said detecting someone lying might be important in your game. Just be aware that the traditional read move gives the PC’s an out of the cycle of emotional control and manipulation that is part of the core of the game.
But it might be important for your game. That’s totally cool. Especially if it’s the Harry Potter hack.