New to MotW but I had to bite when I saw it. Just some quick questions for the community:
I’ve played DnD for years but I really like what I’v’e seen with this. There are differences though, obviously. What should I pay attention to when creating content? For example, do long form or short form mysteries tend to be better managed? Should it be a mystery as opposed to the classic ‘Adventure?’
The game rules state that a party can only have one of each hunter type. What sort of impact does this have? If I wanted to homebrew a narrative for my players akin to Stephen King’s ‘It’, would that unbalance the system?
Any other ideas or the like are totally welcome and appreciated, excited to jump into this
Mysteries are just like D&D short quests (in my experience, 1 or 2 sessions), while Arcs (this is the word, if memory serves me well) are like campaigns with a common theme, an arch rival or organisation working in the shadows. About 10 adventures are common, here. However, the system is very well founded into the narrative (like almost the PbtA games) so you as GM will have a good sensation of when to close an Arc, thanks to the characters advancements, their moves that push forward the narrative, etc.
PbtA games push you to have all different “classes” at your table, ’cause the players need to emulate different roles during the storyline, and it’s very disappointing to have lot of characters doing the same moves and covering the same kind of archetypes. Like D&D, where you avoid to have a party of 4 clerics, dying in front of the first deadly trap 😂. Sure, there are exceptions, bit you and your players should know well what the system abd the stories want from you all, before to try to modify the suggested “class approaches”.
Finally, if this is true for D&D, this is truer for PbtA games: try to imagine every PbtA game (or campaign) like a very specific kind of TV Series: each series have specific roles covered, and it works, and pleases the audience, ’cause of that. You don’t want an A-Team show with 4 Murdocks 😂
For something like It you might want to take a look at the RPG Kids on Bikes. It might be a little closer to what you’re looking for? Not to turn you off from MotW because it’s a great game. That all said if you really break down the characters in It, they’re all different archetypes. They don’t all align with the playbooks in MotW, sure, but they’re not just all Mundanes or whatever, yknow?
https://www.renegadegamestudios.com/kids-on-bikes/
The hardest thing, I think, when coming from DnD is to not over prepare. The players are the agents. They are at the very least equal partners with the monster keeper. Let them guide the narrative. Also see the Pbta game Dungeon World of you want similar mechanics in a fantasy setting.
C Drakely PS: I have another suggestion, borrowed from the (unrelated) Savage Worlds: it’s called “Trapping”. Ie. if you want the players to play a similar role (let’s say 2 young “Eleven” type girls from Stranger Things-like TV series), then one could choose the Spooky, while the other could choose the Divine: sure, the Divine isn’t a Spooky, but if you change the Playbook’s name, and the “fluff” of the moves, it can easily pass for a “different kind of Spooky”.
Andrea Parducci That makes it a lot easier for me to see, thank you! Players can play their characters however they want, but they need to fulfill a variety of roles to keep it interesting. Thanks!