Hello again ! No question this time, not really, but a subject to discuss !
So, the season ended today. And it ended on a twist: I got turned into a vampire. I didn’t choose it. I only discussed with the MC at some point that I would be open to a skin change if it happened logically in the story; I wasn’t expecting she’d do it at this time. I’m exctatic because it’s going to bring soooo much DRAMA in my supernatural social circle (everyone hates said vampire because of things she did to us… and now she has turned me? And by my own fault, because I slept with her? Oooh boy)
HOWEVER, this also made me realise a limitation I see with the AW system. This twist, rght here, shouldn’t have been possible as written in the rules, because I should have been the one selecting “change skin”. And I feel like it’s a limitation. Because of the enormous agency the rules give a player upon the fiction, twists like that aren’t supposed to be a surprise to a player ; I can’t “live” the twist fully as my character does, because I know it’s coming: I chose it as an advancement !
That’s why I told my MC I was open to it, and that I didn’t want to be the one choosing either the new skin, nor if it happened or not. And I’m really glad I did.
Do you guys ever did something similar? it actually sounds like a “rule” that I would expect almost everyone to break in the name of fun and immersion. being surprised along with the character is so much better than “acting as if surprised”, you know?
with all the emphasis of the AW system about letting the game run wild and not writing story-arcs in advance, it feels weird that changing skin would somehow not be subject to that rule.
Without digging into some very extensive work that has been done on these sort of different styles of play, I will say that some people value the idea of “living the twist” above the agency of “I get to be a co-author with authority over my character’s arc”, and some people are the opposite.
So, for instance, you’re really glad that your MC surprised you and took the choice of skin-change out of your hands. I’m really glad it worked out well for you. Other people (myself included) would view that as a “leave the game and never return” level crossing of an explicit red line.
And, just like some people appreciate one style and some another, some games are built to support one style and some another. My sense is that, as you point out, AW is very into a style where you play to find out what story you will all choose to make together, rather than finding out what story the MC makes in response to your lived-fiction decisions.
> That’s why I told my MC I was open to it, and that I didn’t want to be the one choosing either the new skin, nor if it happened or not. And I’m really glad I did.
If you told your MC that, then this is within the realm of things I’d do at the table.
That being said, I’d be real careful. I’d be negotiating consent and ensuring everyone was enthusiastic about the change before it became real — and I’d try to have a fictional way to undo it, beyond even the x-card.
That being said, this is (sort of) wthin the rules. Taking an advance is “both descriptive and prescriptive”, I believe the line is from AW. To put it another way: To do it, do it. And if you do it, do it.
I’d want the player to be aware of posible raminifacations of being turned into a vampire if she slept with one, and then, well: If you do it, do it.
Ha yes, I totally see what you mean Tony Lower-Basch . I really wasn’t promoting one style above the other, I really meant it when I said “to me it’s a limitation”, rather than just “it’s a limitation”. I hope I didn’t sound judgmental.
William Nichols Getting into the specifics of our game, the MC is my long-time life partner, we’re doing a solo game, and the likely “target skins” were a ghost (since I know one), or a vampire (since one of the main “antagonist”,using the term broadly, was one). Both of which we’d discussed, and I had explicitely expressed my willingless to become one if she wanted to surprise me.
The successful surprise came from the fact she did it literaly 3 days after we talked about it. I didn’t expect her to do it so soon, because she knows how I am. When I discuss something I want (christmas gift or anything, really) it stays on my mind for a long time and doing it to me before a certain span of time would disappoint me because I wouldn’t have “forgot” about it, so it would feel expected.
But she turned that way of thinking against me and did it specifically at a time when I really, really thought she wouldn’t because it was too soon.
This isn’t even really outside of the rules of Monsterhearts. The game tells you to give important villains a custom Reaction and I could easily see giving an NPC vampire the move “turn a PC into a vampire”.
As others have mentioned though, this is only okay because you explicitly told her you were okay with it. Sounds super fun though!