Hey, anyone know how one convinces someone to do something in 2nd edition Monsterhearts without turning them on first?
Hey, anyone know how one convinces someone to do something in 2nd edition Monsterhearts without turning them on…
Hey, anyone know how one convinces someone to do something in 2nd edition Monsterhearts without turning them on…
That’s basically been rolled into Pulling Strings in 2e, hasn’t it? You can use it to tempt PCs as well as NPCs.
Yes. Pulling Strings works on PCs and NPCs. That does mean you probably have to Turn Someone On first to get those Strings though.
Without any Strings, it looks like it becomes a GM move. Make them pay a price seems like a good choice. The text says in part “When one of the main characters is after something, and there are obstacles in their way, you can make it clear what price they’ll need to pay to get what they want.”
Honestly I balked at the removal of Manipulate an NPC in 2E at first too. I’ve calmed down now that I see how to handle it. 😉
It also makes sense that you are a teen who can’t do it. You don’t have the tools…yet.
So, here’s the thing: the players sometimes want their PCs to manipulate adults, or at least try to. And sometimes, those adults aren’t the sort they want to have their PCs try to turn on, like, say, a parent. How do they get the strings to manipulate them?
I imagine there’s plenty of ways you could go about getting a string on someone – digging through their locker, helping them out in a jam, etc
I am in a similar situation Lisa Padol. My Mortal desperately wants to control her vampire younger sister, an NPC. Turning her on is not something my PC would do. There don’t seem to be any other ways to get those Strings though.
Unless you take the Witch move granting them Sympathetic Tokens, I’m pretty sure you can only take a String when a move says to Aaron Griffin.
Chris Stone-Bush I’m wondering if that’s true. I’m pondering whether the way to model, say, “digging through their locker” would be “Gaze into the abyss” with a success having the “get a string” option.
I think it would make sense to allow the fiction to inform the mechanics and give a string when fictionally appropriate even when no Move has been triggered… though Chris Stone-Bush seems to be right:
“Strings are the emotional hold that you have over people.
They are earned through a number of moves: turn someone
on, shut someone down, lash out physically, and various
Skin moves.”
The 1e book explicitly calls out that they’re earned through moves, but that’s all it says on the matter.
I also like your idea, Lisa Padol, but I’m not sure digging through their locker would trigger ‘Gaze into the abyss’ as written
Chris Stone-Bush you’re right! “Strings can be earned by turning someone on, lashing out at them, or in ways specific to each skin.” There is no GM reaction to “offer an opportunity” in order to dangle a string-carrot
In the 2e rules, I’m pretty sure the only Basic Move that gets you a String is Turn Someone On. Shut Someone Down and Lash Out Physically no longer have that option.
+Chris “HyveMynd” Stone-Bush spot on. I knew it wasn’t covered in the Trick or Treat preview is the reason I was looking at the 1e book’s Strings section to see if it spoke at all about dishing them out when not directly as the outcome of a Move.
Ahh, right. I gotcha now neko cam. 🙂
Strings seem to be such a valuable resource that I would be reluctant to allow PCs to gain them outside of a move. You could run into problems of when to award them and why. That’s not something I’d want to adjudicate as an MC.
With the removal of Manipulate an NPC and String gaining options from other Basic Moves, the 2e version of the game pushes very hard in a certain direction. It seems like unless a PC is willing to use their sexuality, there are very few ways to get NPCs to do what you want. That’s probably by design. The 2e version pushes players to have their characters flirt, tease, and get into messy love triangles even more than the 1e version.
That’s not better or worse that the previous version, but it is fairly different.
I note it doesn’t say “only” in these sections, but… on the one hand, I don’t like tampering with rules I don’t understand down to their constituent parts and effects, backwards and forwards. On the other, I’m not sure what to do with this lack.
Okay, “I want to convince my mother not to ground me. I don’t have strings on her, and I am not going to turn her on to get them.” Do I have any other options to get a string on her — or to convince her without a string — or am I hitting a wall of Nope?
(Yes, there are other ways to get out of a grounding, like sneaking out the window, but that’s not what I’m looking at here, obviously.)
Lisa Padol you could sneak out the window later
I think this gets back to Yoshi Creelman’s comment Lisa Padol. The characters are teenagers and don’t really have the tools necessary to manipulate people other than by flirting with them. If you aren’t willing to do that, then the best you can get is the MC telling you what it will take to get what you want.
I got ninja’d there. In that situation, it makes fictional sense that the MC would simply tell you what it will take to not get grounded. You’re the teenager, the NPC is an adult. You are almost guaranteed to not like the response you get.
It reinforces the core idea that teenagers are not in control of their world, or even their own bodies.
Or, say, “I want to convince the sheriff not to mention this incident to my dad — can I do this without trying to turn him on if I don’t have a string on him? Like, you know, reminding him of his kid, so he feels paternal, or making him pity me and give me another chance? Or is it “turn him on or suck it up”?
As far as I can tell, there’s no mechanical way, without a string, to bargain, e.g., have the GM say, “It will take X to get him to do this” (mend his fence, promise to keep your nose clean, get your mother to buy tickets to the policeman’s ball…), but I would be within my right to decide, as GM, by GM fiat, that the sheriff said, “Okay, I’ll let it go, if you get your mother to stop in and get two tickets to the policeman’s ball” so long as I never used the string mechanic, correct? Or is that incorrect?
If it is correct, the reason this makes me feel uncomfortable is that I am deciding, by GM fiat, whether the NPC will or won’t make a deal when there is no roll to go by, and that feels odd in a PbtA game. Possibly it shouldn’t?
I believe you are correct Lisa Padol, and that seems like the MC Reaction of “Make them pay a price.”
If it helps, you’re not really deciding if the NPC will or won’t make a deal. That’s left up to the player. You’re simply telling the player what it will take to get what they want. Whether or not the player pays that price is totally up to them.
Ah, okay, that makes sense. Thanks!
The only other option to get strings is to choose the move most skins have that give another way of getting a string on someone (creep, mess with them,…) but basically it means you’ve got no real choice during creation.
Also, by putting on Sexy the only mean to get strings, you’re sending quite a message to those starting with a -1 in Sexy. Before, you could earn strings with 3 stats and then use one to get +3 to manipulate npc, so even with -1 Sexy, manipulating npc was possible for every skin.
Finally, if you have a string on a npc, what did you get ? The old 7-9 of manipulating npc. If you want to be sure of this you need a 10+ turning someone on.
When you tempt one of the MC’s characters, the MC will tell you what sort of bribe, threat, or coaxing it’ll take to get that character to do what you want right now.
Doesn’t it look like “Make them pay a price”, as if my character didn’t have a string to pull strings ? ^^’
For me, if it’s not in the basic moves, it’s not a focus of the game, and that’s why it’s not important if GM has to decide by himself what happens. But in a teen drama you clearly know there has to be some lies, influence on others, influence parents if they know where to hit… Maybe PCs shouldn’t get the opportunity to manipulate adult NPCs, but here we are know clearly restricted with how the game support social interactions : turn on, shut down. That’s quite limited and not representative.
In a personal version of MH1 I gave the opportunity to lash out and runaway socially (with +Volatile), that extanded quite a lot the possibilities of the players while leading them to “bad choices” in communication, which led to more drama (even went with a diceless version where you can only flee difficulties, hurt the other or be hurt) and it also put less weight on shutting down which is the only move you’ll look at when the talk between PCs becomes heated
📌
top notch discussion, a pleasure to read.
Kalysto de la vacuité Good points. Also, as Joshua Kronengold , one of my players, noted, using “Make them pay a cost” means there’s a de facto hidden move that the players don’t know when the GM will use to give them the benefit of a string without requiring a string (and, indeed, don’t know about if they don’t read the GM rules). A lot to think about here (assuming no extra section on additional ways to earn strings in the full 2nd edition, which is my assumption).
I feel like there are often situations where you have to accomplish things without reaching for a move. Like: act out trying to convince your parent not to ground you. Over the course of that conversation, it’s very likely that opportunities to use other moves will come up, but if not, you can still figure out what happens through the fiction. The GM just plays their characters hard and you find out what happens through the interactions between the players/characters.
The MC will also be restrained by her MC moves/reactions in what she can answer, mostly :
Make them pay a price.
Leap to the worst possible conclusion (= more talking)
Announce drastic measures (= no price would be sufficient)
Take a String on someone (= a price)
I say add Manipulate an NPC back in. There is an endless amount of teen fiction where characters get what they want w/o seduction: blackmail, whining, appeals to self interest. If you say “OK, you can get what you want from the janitor, but only if X” then you’re doing two weird things:
-Skipping “play to find out what happens” (no die roll = no randomness)
-Having a referendum on player persuasiveness.
Adam Goldberg That is the one thing I don’t want to do, as Avery is very clear that removing it was deliberate, and also clear on why. Obviously, your mileage may vary, and that’s totally fine, (and when I’ve got the full rules and see them in play, mine may as well, but we’ll see).
Lisa Padol could you point to where Avery has clearly addressed the ‘why’? I’d like to give that a read.
I’ll try to find it. If I don’t before we head to Arisia, my recollection is that Avery didn’t like the asymmetry between NPC and PC.
Substraction in game design, 4rth kickstarter news
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/averyalder/monsterhearts-2/posts/1728153
Ah — try here: kickstarter.com – Update 4: Subtraction in Game Design · Monsterhearts 2
Thanks Kalysto de la vacuité and Lisa Padol both. I know I’ve read it already, but a re-read in light of this discussion might help develop a better appreciation/understanding
Hmm… It doesn’t address the topic of this discussion as directly as I’d hope. Bugger.
Well, yes — it explains why the Manipulate an NPC was cut, which I’m fine with. It doesn’t address the “are there other ways to get strings?” question.
There aren’t.
Edit: After a few playtests, I feel the same way I did in November (in that post) and hope Avery finds a solution that combines simplicity and emergent play.
At the risk of spoilering an interesting conversation, I will say that it is likely that you will be able to gain Strings on people using basic moves other than Turn Someone On in the final release of the new edition.
Daniel Wood Oh, I don’t mind spoilers — I’m well aware we don’t have the final rules yet. It makes for an odd campaign, using the Sneak Peek pack with 1st ed filling in where necessary.
No doubt. In any case, playing without Manipulate an NPC and limited options for acquiring Strings is, IMO, mostly about embracing the powerlessness of teenagers to get people — particularly adults — to do what they want in straightforward ways.
You aren’t going to convince your teacher to let you out of detention by smooth-talking them — if it’s that important to you, you’re going to have to do something a little more desperate. Something that’s probably going to create more problems later, in order to get you what you need so badly, right now.
Oh yes. One running subplot is the Fae’s continuous attempt to put off the history pop quiz. I think it will actually happen the next school day, now that everyone’s studied, and by studied, I mean “most folks have bought the answers”.
Daniel Wood that would make sense, but it would also make it harder for people wanting to use MH in a setup with older characters, say late teens-early twenties (see the other discussion thread in this community about that). Of course, MH IS, at its core, about the messy lives of young teenagers, so one can’t actually complain about the rules focusing on that to the detriment of whatever else we would like to do with it.
I don’t see how it would make that harder, honestly, unless you have moved the game so far that it is no longer about teenage-type-people — in which case you will want to rework many of the moves, and reintroducing a ‘manipulate an NPC’ type move would certainly be a solid option at that point. As you say, the game has a specific focus, and the basic moves are fine-tuned to that focus — both in terms of what they do, when you use them, but also in terms of what situations they actually apply to.
Sure. Anyway, I think we need to see how the final text ends up before we have a clear idea of what we can do for manipulation.