I’ve just started running a MotW campaign online for a couple friends. We’ve got a tight schedule of 2 hours for each weekly session, and i was hoping to knock out a Mystery per week.
After the first game last night, i’m thinking that a Mystery-per-week might be unnecessarily ambitious. Beyond arbitrary preference for tidy episodes, though, i cannot think of a compelling reason that each session needs to be a stand-alone Mystery, as long as we’re having fun together. Maybe a cliff-hanger every other week is fine. As the author notes, MotW is about the Hunters, not the Mysteries, and i want to give the players ample opportunity to play the Hunters so we can learn about them.
Last night, their first session after character creation, the players tended to engage scenes to learn about NPC motivations, figure out who is culpable, who is innocent, who is a patsy to some nefarious party, etc. It led to great interaction, and gave me some insights into their interests as players. But it doesn’t help with pacing for a 2 hour mystery.
I’m thinking that i could provide the players with these rough “goal posts” of the game, to help them stay focused on how to progress through a Mystery:
1) Learn what kind of Monster it is.
2) Learn what the Monster’s weaknesses are.
3) Defeat the Monster!
While framing scenes, we could use this to keep a “goal” of the scene in mind, to help keep focused and prevent chewing the scenery. On the other hand, we might miss out on some fun bits of dialogue that help breathe life into their characters, and inspire me for future opportunities that they may enjoy.
Do any of you have any experience running or playing in short sessions of MotW? Do you have any advice to run tight sessions, or just embrace the idea of letting Mysteries take as long as they took?
I’d appreciate any insights the veteran Hunters and Keepers could share!
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From my point of view, the game is designed so you can get a mystery completed in a single short session, but not in a way that rules out longer/more detailed mysteries.
So from my perspective, any of those styles you describe is groovy.
Thanks Michael Sands. I’ll play around with it, and i’m sure i’ll see pacing change some as the players become more used to the Hunter Moves.
I found your guidance in the book on building a mystery very helpful. I enjoyed setting up what i thought would be a quick session.
While the Hunters explored the scenes and interrogated the bystanders more thoroughly than I anticipated, the Mystery prep gave me plenty of notes to improvise on to stick to the Keeper Agenda.
Thanks!