Hey guys ! You’ve been of tremendous help before, your input really helped our game, so I’m back with a problem.
Today our MH2 game was a little less than stellar. I think that my girlfriend (the MC) took MH outside of its domain of excellence, and that’s why it went a bit south. For context :
The end of the season is approaching fast (I got my fifth advancement). It turns out that my elder brother’s college fraternity is a fucking werewolf pack (it explains so much about his sudden toxic masculinity) and tonight he’s supposed to become part of it. The ceremony is a hunt in the woods. And I discovered the preys will be my elder sister and her girlfriend, who have gone missing (he has no idea, and when he does it will be too late for sure).
I’m in the woods with my witch coven, my girlfriend the ghost, and a manipulative vampire who I’ve called for help because she was the only other supernatural being I knew about.
The good parts of the session were the vampire flirting with me, and me unable to completely shut her off (which was awkward because she had been enslaving my ghost girlfriend for a year before I arrived in highschool, intervened, and made her stop). It really felt like the reason I’m playing monsterhearts, drama drama drama.
the bad parts were… everything else. Planning the assault on the werewolf fratboy party, looking for the van with my sister inside… how to say this ? it felt like a “regular” rpg session. too much adventure. The advance of the action was too detailed, it felt like I should have been rolling stealth, perception, persuasion… I was acutely aware that the system wasn’t tailored for that kind of playstyle at all and it harshly threw me off the game, i wasn’t immersed anymore because I kept thinking it wasn’t working.
We cut the session short and the MC acknowledged that something felt off. We think that it’s simply a case of asking the system to do something it’s not supposed to do.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, specifically on how you would personally make this endgame work within the correct Monsterhearts frame of reference and intention. I think the MC let her habits for more regular RPGs get the better of her, scenario-wise, and we both would like to avoid retconning or cancelling what’s been done.
Up until the woods, everything was perfect and i was devastated with anguish about what was going to happen to my sister and brother if I didn’t do anything. it’s just this last session, too adventurous, not monsterhearts enough, that had a problem.
> I think the MC let her habits for more regular RPGs get the better of her
This sounds correct to me. You can do investigation and sneaking and all that in PbtA games that don’t have moves for these actions simply by virtue of the GM making moves/reactions in response. I imagine that wasn’t happening here – there wasn’t a constant ratcheting of the tensions and costs as you searched for the van and did similar tasks, right?
Aaron Griffin Yeah you are right. She did throw in one obstacle at some point : fratboys noticed me snooping around, and had me go topless, thinking I was a groupie. Then, they cornered me and tried to go further, all four of them.
It was obvious the MC wanted me to react strongly, but I was so out of synch with the game that I didn’t. I was passive, shut one down (with no conviction) to be able to hide in a toilets shack, but had to call for the NPC ghost to come and get me out because I was just not immersed enough to be “active” in my own ordeal, and fight back. That’s where we both agreed there was a problem, and we stopped the game.
The problem was, in other circumstances, I would totally have reacted to the challenge, upped the antes, probably would have hexed one of the boys and it would have stirred shit up. But I didn’t because all the rest of the “investigation” had been tedious and I’d gotten disinterested in the game.
I kept thinking “this would work in Urban Shadows, there would be mechanics for this”. I’m to blame, too. I felt so uneasy and out of it that I didn’t make enough effort to get back in, you know ?
I think your diagnosis is correct, though it can certainly still work. The key is to quickly boil the violent conflict down to a series of melodramatic key points, that can be resolved using the core moves and (ideally) the Strings that have been built up so far surrounding this confrontation.
My first thought would be to make the brother the key to everything — for whatever reason, if he can be turned back/away, the hunt will not go through. This places everything in a melodramatic lens, where the goal is to gain access to and confront the brother and somehow convince him not to participate — or if that fails, turn him away at the last minute through some classic appeal to his humanity, before he ‘gives in’ to the beast.
Also, this may not be possible, but there should also be some sort of escalation available to either the witch coven OR the vampire (or both; maybe it’s something only the vampire knows about, but the witches have to help with) — but that will have terrible fallout, or put someone in debt to someone else. E.g. the vampire knows some crucial werewolf lore, that they can share or not; or the vampire can appeal to some Really Scary Friends, but then will be in their extreme debt; or the coven can somehow purge lycanthropy, but it does something horrible to them or to the werewolves. Etc.
I would aim to combine those two/three possibilities in a way that leaves a lot of options on the table, some risky in execution and some risky in outcome — but all of them requiring someone to pull someone else’s Strings to make it at all possible.
Sometimes the MC screws up. It happens, but next session will be that much better. One should probably have some planning and excecuting montàge, a’la Buffy (maybe have the players look into the Darkness?) and then there’s obstacles on the way in, but they’re like:
A friend crying their heart when you pass their room; A teacher cornering you to talk about you academic achievement (or lack thereof); someone is bullying the strange kid with the blue hair (i.e. Next Season Spoiler?), etc…
I’ve screewed up Monsterheart in a few ways: Not explaining the “To do it, do it – if you do it, you do it”-mantra and having players backtrack because the order of the moves are important. The one I’ve done the most is forgetting that they’re uncertain teens, as coming from Apocalypse World I was trained to be a fan of the awesome characters (and Monsterhearts characters are Awesome!)
Being an MC in PbtA games are not always that easy, (but very rewarding), and I think there’s a few things the players can do to help:
The best tip is probably to ask for a break, and some fresh air, and then ask for recalibrating. (Are we not playing a little to much D&D/Shadowrun now, maybe we can montage the planning and there’s really not that many moves for sneaking?)
Make a custom move a’la: When you do a have planned assault roll+Cool and choose
10+ 2, 7-9 1
You or your friends are not hurt.-You do not come barely in the nick of time.-There will be no repercussions from the Law afterwards.If you roll with Volatile while describing a heavier approach, you may choose this instead of the last:
– You will not leave dangerous people behind you, (blocking your escape or adding a potential timer).
So if you choose the two first options, you are hiding in a shrubbery and may get to your brother soon. Some school property has probably been broken though.
Best of wishes, I’m really envious inthe colloquiell use of the word sense. It sounds like a great campaign, with a snag.
Amaury Fourtet Urban Shadows doesn’t have investigation moves either! Investigating in that genre is about going to contacts and asking questions
Aaron Griffin Yes I know ! I was thinking about the rules for dangerous situations, creating openings etc.
Ok so, thanks a lot everyone. We retconned yesterday’s last half-hour of play and I tried my inflitration again, taking everything you said into account.
Also, I kept in mind that players HAD to be proactive, so I was on the offensive, isolated a guy and coerced him to lead me to the van…
on her side, of course the MC didn’t tell me when and how she applied your advice, but in any case everything went very satisfyingly. So, really, many many thanks !