Just curious, has anyone ever played Monsterhearts where there were no monsters? The playbooks are still used, but basically all the monsters are just really twisted and broken people that act like monsters. The idea just boiled up as I’m reading MH2 and wondering how messed up of a game that would be.
Just curious, has anyone ever played Monsterhearts where there were no monsters?
Just curious, has anyone ever played Monsterhearts where there were no monsters?
Do you mean no other monsters apart from the PCs, or no monsters period? I usually run my games where only the PCs are monsters but I’ve often thought a non-supernatural game would be cool.
I think they mean no monsters period, just using the skins as metaphors and nothing else. It could work – it might be a little odd since you’d probably have to avoid taking certain moves and some skins are probably going to need to be left out. But it could lead to something like Heathers – a movie I recently watched and thought to myself “This is like a Monsterhearts game with no monsters.”
Already started with human PCs having the option of becoming supernatural when they take advancements, like they awaken something they already had in them.
I’ve run one-shots with no explicit supernatural elements. It is (predictably) far more horrifying when you pull away the distancing veil of metaphor.
A werewolf responding to attempted vampiric hypnosis by raging out is like “wow, monster movie!” A girl whose personality has been transformed by probably-consent-related trauma, responding to a smooth-talking predatory teen boy by screaming, clawing at his face, then stabbing him with a sharp hunk of wood is like “Whoa, everyone remembers that the X-card’s available if you need it, right?”
Isn’t that the metaphor, really? That like these “monsters” are just types of teens?
Sure, I was looking at it more from a psycho-horror angle. Perhaps even in their own heads some of the PCs indeed think they are monsters. Heck you could even run with it to the point that the whole game takes place inside of an insane asylum and the inmates only think they’re still in school. Maybe something like Sucker Punch.
Isn’t this just sort of literalising the metaphor?
I’m not saying it’s bad, mind you.
We’ve talked about it, and come up with ideas, but that’s about it. You know, like, if you do something mob-themed, the Mortal married into the crime family. The Infernal has a sugar daddy and is maybe a literal addict. That sort of thing.
We’ve also done “so, if this were Monsterhearts…” for Call/Trail of Cthulhu, where all the PCs are human, but if it were Monsterhearts, well, this one would be the Ghoul, that one the Mortal, this one the Champion, and this one… hm, I think he wandered in from a Monster of the Week game.
And we’ve done that for this season of Gotham. (Last season had some very Dogs in the Vineyards moments, but this season is pure Monsterhearts.)
I put together a game recently which used the Monsterhearts rules but no Skins – all the characters were regular people.
It worked great! However, I did have the characters “pick up” or develop supernatural moves/abilities as the game went on – that was the basic premise of the scenario.
Neat! Play to find out… what your character is. 🙂