One of the oldest, biggest cons on the US West Coast, Dundracon, happened over Presidents Day weekend. On Sunday night, some friends and I didn’t get into any games, so we decided to play MotW. It’s my go to game for pickup games.
My friends had a room on the 2nd floor with a balcony and a table. The weather was nice (I <3 California), so the four of us hung out and had an awesome game.
Our PCs were a Chosen, a Divine, and a Monstrous (Demon). The group had great dynamics and the backgrounds practically wrote themselves, with the Chosen trying to find her way while guided by her companions of light and dark.
We set our game in San Francisco, since we’re all familiar with it. Our Chosen was a homeless teen (also appropriate for SF 🙁 ). I love creating mysteries on the fly, because the tools in MotW make it so easy! Since it was also Valentine’s day, I gave the Mystery a few twists. I’ll post the details of the monsters later, but in brief they were:
Mad Dogs: homeless alcoholics turned into werewolves by a new drink on the market, Ruby Red, a fortified wine$.05 cheaper than the old familiar brands.
Red Ties: agent looking guys with comm links, .45s and red ties.
The Red Queen – head of Red Queen Industries. Her plan is to inspire a total meltdown in the poor neighborhoods of the city, via fear of Mad Dogs and the total over-reaction of the police/mayor. She had a “Heart of Darkness” device that gathered energy from the Mad Dogs’ violence. Once it was fully charged, it would release a wave of violence and terror on the city.
Her ultimate goal, ownership of the land and complete gentrification of the city. 😉
Things started off with a buzz among the homeless about a crime in the neighborhood. One of the regulars, who was always friendly and mellow, went mad apparently and killed a bunch of people in a convenience store.
On the first failed roll, I decided to check off the Doom clock and have the heroes head to a rampage in progress. This was a pretty cool fight scene in a head shop. The Chosen had magic whips and used them to cast out the Mad Dog, saving the person who’d been rampaging. Nice job!! The Demon PC had some serious bullshitting skill and talked his way into applying for a job as a Red Tie. The queen had been watching him, so she had him delivered to her, where he did a great job of keeping her slightly distracted while the Divine and Chosen teleported in and tried to figure out how to destroy the Heart of Darkness.
Both the Red Queen and the Heart had a vulnerability to Love. 🙂 I didn’t want the RQ to be a complete idiot, so she wasn’t ready to give in to the Demon’s allure entirely, it just delayed her. Meanwhile the Chosen fought off a pack of Red Ties, sustaining severe injuries in the process. The Divine character sacrificed their (NB) divine power out of love for the people of the city to destroy the Heart of Darkness. It worked. Expensive special effects accompanied the RQ’s cry of despair. She’ll be back!
In the end, the Divine took up living with the Chosen in poverty, serving the poeple of the city. And the Demon continued being a rich looking jerkwad with a thing for foiling evil plans from messing up his scam. 😉
Four hours of MotW bliss!
I’ll post stats later.
Demian Luper I’ve seen official games at DDC with 5 people. Also, MotW works fine with 6! Most of the time I run two games at cons, one high prep thing usually with Savage Worlds or Fate and one MotW game I make up on the fly. In that case I always take 6 players and get a 6 hour time slot. Works beautifully, even with 20 minutes for custom Mystery creation.
Online games and most other PbtA games can really slog down with more than 4 players. But MotW connects everyone seamlessly into a team. I run really mean, mostly invulnerable monsters though, so sometimes it takes 6 heroes to defeat them.
So. Much. Fun.