Today I ran a sci-fi/horror one-shot based on Monsterhearts. I hacked the game to bits and came up with this:
The setting was Depression-era Arkansas, and the characters were entirely mundane, human, people. (Not teenage monsters, in other words.)
But as the game progressed, they experienced otherworldly forces and gradually were transformed into something rather alien and/or monstrous. In the end, it seems, alien forces were trying to make their way onto the Earth, slowly infesting humans with inexorable purpose.
In our playthrough, it’s pretty clear that they succeeded.
I should write this up sometime to share the mechanics bits and pieces – they are a lot of fun. The only regret was that we didn’t have longer to stretch out the game and explore the ramifications piece by piece. (Particularly the character transformations which took place.)
Dirk Detweiler Leichty, I used some of your Academy moves, and also the modifications we’ve discussed before. That part worked great! The fundamental mechanic of the game was inspired by your Level Up move. (Mark Causey was in on the discussions, too.)
Rachel E.S. Walton, since The Long Orbit was, in many ways, the inspiration. I’ll have to share the rules with you sometime, since they’re a bit like Michael Crichton’s “Sphere” in spirit.
Sounds cool, Paul. I’d like to know more. On the other hand, this post just makes me feel even more frustrated at the lack of news/info on The Long Orbit.
Well, my hack/scenario doesn’t share anything with The Long Orbit, except for the general idea of using Monsterhearts for a horror/sci-fi game.
The Long Orbit uses the Monsterhearts rules straight up… mine hacks at them in various ways (for example, I didn’t use any of the Skins).
Joshua Kronengold is working on a hack called Beautiful Senshi Hearts. He and his partner in crime need to get moving on that, maybe get it into a state where I can look it over or where it’s ready for a second round of playtesting. Right now it’s, mmm…. let’s call it playable-BUT.