So I’m brainstorming a MotW adventure for Owlcon and I wanted to pick the brains of folks who have done this before. Usually when I run stuff at cons, I prefer to make pregens, often times using characters everyone’s familiar with (for instance, I ran a Mutants and Masterminds round last year with the Guardians of the Galaxy). But character creation in MotW is so quick I was wondering if folks had had success with giving folks a list of playbooks to choose from and just taking off from there. Thoughts?
So I’m brainstorming a MotW adventure for Owlcon and I wanted to pick the brains of folks who have done this before.
So I’m brainstorming a MotW adventure for Owlcon and I wanted to pick the brains of folks who have done this before.
My usual tactic for convention games is to have people do full character generation.
I have run MotW many times at cons in California. Here we have more variable slots. 6 hours for 6 players is best but 4 players in 4 hours is also doable.
Letting players make their own characters is way better, if you have the time, since they’ll be much more invested in the PCs.
At the start of my games, all the playbooks are laid out for the players to look over. Importantly, you are within your right as GM to limit the available playbooks as much as you like. I don’t like the hardcase so I don’t offer it. When the players and I feel more like sci fi than supernatural, we ditch the Initiate and add the Action Scientist. that sort of thing.
I usually alot 1 hour for character creation and background/relationship discussion. Once everything is ready to play, we take a break for 20-30 minutes and I either customize one of my pre-made mysteries or (more often) design something specifically for the group. This usually leaves us with 4ish hours to play. Plenty of time.
Creating mysteries at home, using the Gm tools in MotW is great practice for this. I like creating mysteries on the fly, because then I can make the mystery really meaningful to the PCs. If someone chooses the Wronged or the Chosen, I can make sure the monsters and issues of those playbooks is integral to the story.
Having a name generator or book of names handy is super helpful.
Hope this helps. MotW is a great game. Hope you have a monstrously good time at the con!
One other thing: the relationship/history process actually takes more time than filling out the playbook. I usually recommend people look that section over first, because it has details that can be awkward if you didn’t incorporate them into your character concept from the outset.
I’d take the route of you selecting the playbooks they can choose from, then they each pick one and make characters together at the table.
I had 2 con sessions And let the players pick theyr playbooks And create the Charakters . Took Max 20 min. But the histories Took way longer… Might be a good idea to Limit those
Yes, making sure people don’t take too long on history is important. I remind people we have limited time if that’s taking too long.
I’ve run MotW at cons. 4hr games and I usually have 5 players. CharGen usually goes pretty quickly, with history being the longest. Although I don’t remember it going too long. Really it’s just a matter of always keeping a firm when hurdling cats…I mean players.
This thread was very helpful. I posted today asking about running MotW at a convention.Should always do a search first