First Monsterhearts 2 is great, I’m MCing a season in Bateleur from Small Towns.
One of the character is an Infernal, named Innocent 🙂 , and I have a question on the Sex Move when used with a side character. The sex move says that the Infernal’s Dark Power gains a string on the side character, but normally a side characters can’t have strings on another side character. So what happen ? Nothing ? Or I just play the side character now under the power of the Dark Power ?
Hmm… you are right. Probably I’m going to play the Dark Power interested in and with some regard of influence on the side character, but without giving them any string.
Use it to show growing interest in and influence over that NPC by the Dark Power. I’d also leverage that to see if your infernal feels bad about the other character’s downward spiral, or maybe they don’t care : either way it’s good grist for the drama mill
For bonus points, will the infernal continue to have sex with them to climb over them and out of the Dark Power’s control, or will they stop it because they refuse to do that to someone they care about?
Just play the side character now under the power of the Dark Power. Or have them Rebel and it goes…poorly.
Normally you wouldn’t track Strings side characters have on each other but I’d say the Dark Power is a unique enough case to be an exception. As for what it can do, keep in mind one of the things a side character can do with a String is come out of nowhere with a Reaction – look at the list of Reactions and think of what the Dark Power could do to this side character if they wanted.
Is Side Characters not having Strings on other Side Characters a new thing in 2e? I always played it that NPCs could have Strings on each other, but that almost never happened simply because NPCs interacting with each other without the PCs there is boring.
The whole purpose of the Dark Power gaining String on the Infernal’s sex partners is so the MC can twist the knife by having horrible things happen to those Side Characters right in front of the Infernal. 😉
Chris Stone-Bush, it is a new rule of the second edition:
– – –
“Don’t have side characters take Strings on other side characters. Strings should always involve a main character” (page 97).
– – –
– – –
“Any character can gain Strings. But Strings always involve a main character, and side characters can’t have Strings on other side characters. As the MC, it’s your job to keep track of the Strings that each of your side characters have gained on the main characters” (page 100).
– – –