So I’m starting a PBP game via a group on Facebook with some friends. Well since part of the appeal is being able to post via the Fb app, I’m not sure how to handle rolling. My first inclination was to just use the honor system and trust everyone to be honest about their rolls, but I wondered if their was any kind of app or something that could be used for the rolls for a PBP/PBFb game.
Any other advice concerning doing MH or AWE games in general this way is also welcome.
I’ve played over Skype and Google Hangouts using the honor system. It worked fine. I was playing with people I trusted though.
MH games are more narrative than most other RPGs and results tend to fall in the 7-9 range anyway, in my experience. AW-descended games have a balancing mechanic many other RPGs lack — if you succeed all the time, you don’t mark experience.
In fact, failure usually makes a more interesting experience in MH. Even a cheater is going to see how much fun the “losers” are having!
Failure has nothing to do with XP, except in Dungeon World. Highlighted stats give you XP in MH. Although in fairness, as MC I would most likely hi light the character’s worst stat for session 1.
Thanks, Joseph Le May . I am most familiar with DW, followed by MH. I was unaware that DW’s practice wasn’t followed in other AW games.
So, in AW and MH, you have five and four stats, respectively. At the start of each session, the player whose character has the most Hx (or Strings in MH) with/on your character picks a stat to highlight. The MC then picks another. There are no criteria other than “moves I think would be interesting to see your character do use this stat.”
For that whole session, whenever you roll a Move with that stat, you get an XP (usually limited to once per Move per scene).
You could ask for rolls via Invisible Castle? Honestly, anyone I couldn’t trust on the honor system I wouldn’t want to play with in the first place.
Interesting! I like the idea that experience emerges from failure, however. That encourages risk and drives the narrative onward.
Monster of the Week also uses the “gain experience when you roll 6 or less” method. I could use that rather than the highlighted stat method. Having a benefit for losing a roll will encourage honesty.
Oh for sure you could. I’m just saying it isn’t necessary. If people’s highlighted stats are their bad ones, the fails will happen of their own accord (if they care more about XP than about succeeding all the time). Just don’t worry about players cheating. Just worry about making failures and partial successes interesting.
This has become a separate issue, but I personally would not use the “mark XP on a 6- result” for Monsterhearts. Between using highlighted stats, Skin moves that mark XP, and spending Strings on other players to offer them an XP to do what you want, players are usually marking two, three, or even four XP a session. I feel that switching over to marking XP on a 6- result would accelerate that even further.
Also, from a fictional standpoint, I don’t really feel that Monsterhearts is about learning from your mistakes in the way Dungeon World and Monster of the Week are.
Chris Stone-Bush , much as I revere your opinion on all things MH, I must differ. Surely Monsterhearts is all about learning from mistakes? Isn’t that the growing up bit?
I don’t feel Monsterhearts is about growing up though Michael Barry. If characters were to learn and grow up, they wouldn’t get themselves in the sort of situations the game thrives on, leading to a boring game. There’s a reason the season ends after someone takes a Growing Up move as an advancement.
The fail for xp would replace the highlighted stats xp, so wouldn’t it balance out?
An interesting point about “growing up,” Chris. The starting point is definitely monstrous — but I’d find it boring if there was no chance of improvement, and if play ended the first time someone made an improvement in their gawdawful attitude. You could still have a revolving door of emotional basket-cases to keep things interesting.
It might, if you keep the Singleton rule on place. Players can never mark XP nor take a String on someone more than once per move per scene.
It’s not that _Monsterhearts_ characters can’t grow and change Michael Barry. But I feel the focus of the game is on teenagers making bad choices and digging themselves deeper and deeper into trouble. When I think of the media this emulates, the characters are either all teenagers or act like teenagers; those that are or act like adults are often NPCs.
Again, I feel the game falls apart when characters think things through, act responsibly, and solve things like adults. So if a character grows up enough to leave all the petty backstabbing and bullshit behind, my feeling is they’re not really suitable to be a Monsterhearts PC anymore. That’s why you have the season break after someone takes a Growing Up move; characters move away or head off to college, making space for new, teenage-minder characters.
Can’t growing up occur in stages? Each season could be a year of school — MH could be like Harry Potter, with dirty bits.
It could Michael Barry. But, and this is probably just personal preference, the less like impulsive teenagers the characters act, the less drama they’re creating, and the less they’re fueling the game.
Chris Stone-Bush , you are of course my guru in all things MH. However I see drama as including several dimensions — one of which is of course the chaos of someone perpetually acting the prick.
Yet the teenagers I work with can also be surprisingly thoughtful, compassionate and “mature” at times. I think maturity just appears with greater frequency as one gets older…it never reaches 100% in anyone, of course.
Impulsivity includes the impulse to be kind, at times; I find that the contrast makes the violent, horrific and spiteful moments all the more so.
XP on failure instead of highlighted stats would result in fewer XP per scene because of the Singleton rule. With Highlights, you get XP for making the Move. With fail XP, you only get XP if you fail the Move.
XP on failure should encourage risk-taking, and what are our beloved Monsterheart teenagers but risk-takers?
Lest this descend into Forge-ish assertion and counter-assertion, might I suggest an experiment?
Could we use this twist in our next game (even if only part of the game, eg “spin the blood-filled bottle”) and report back about the effect on gameplay?
I’d be very interested to hear how the experiment goes. 🙂 I’m game for more discussion about teenagers and growth if you want to take this to another thread Michael Barry (I really derailed this thing. Apologies to Colin Spears.)
Well I intend on trying it out for my game, so I’ll let you know how it goes.
Colin Spears , you are my (new) guru. Sorry, Chris Stone-Bush !
De. Throned. 🙁
Please include me in your post-session post, Colin Spears! If you could include a count of XP per player that would be great.
Idk about “guru” but I will definitely post an actual play once it gets far enough. Obviously as PBP game, “sessions” will be kinda nebulous.
Joseph Le May sorry this comes late;
Why do you highlight the character’s worst stats in Session 1?
I see session 1 as the pilot to the series and in that pilot I want to see what the character’s are best at. I want the +2 Hot Vampire to be Hot and show how Hot he is. I want the Volatile Werewolf to show her beast side and beat people over the head.
I don’t want to start out the series by seeing people do stuff they are bad at. Yes it creates more failure and therefore more consequences and entanglement but I don’t feel like that is being a fan of the character.
Could you elaborate why you do that?
Typically the other player with the highest Strings will pick that best stat anyway. I like to pick one that subverts the character in the first session, to see how (or whether) the player will interest the character in making those sorts of moves. I play with a group of MC-capable players, though.
This will be the first AWE game any of them have done. I can see how the highlighted stat xp would work, but I think for this group and this format, the failed roll xp will be preferable.