I’m new to PbtA, but I’ve seen it recommended more than a few times by gamers I respect. Since I’m a huge fan of Buffy, Supernatural, etc, Monster of the Week seemed like a good candidate to dive in with. I’ve read most of the book and I have a couple players willing to Guinea pig it for me. I even have a possible first mystery seed based on a cheesy 80s movie poster (Raw Force: Its nourishment – raw flesh; Its guardian – the undead; Its sanctuary – the island. Seems to mostly cover the non bystander threats). I’ve played a little Fate, which is the closest to the spirit of PbtA I can think of from games I’ve tried.
A couple questions:
Any advice more experienced Keepers have for a newbie to the system like me? The reference sheets seem pretty helpful for keeping the key stuff at my fingertips, but it’s impossible to know exactly what to expect before that first session. First session should be this weekend.
I’m thinking of doing this in arcs as seasons, arbitrarily choosing 10-12 Mysteries to play through for each. I’m not planning ahead so much on the what or the how; I think my improv style as a GM will fit in nicely here. Does this seem like a workable idea, giving the players a sense of how long it’ll take to play through any particular arc? Might this help remaining focused on the countdown? Or am I being too rigid?
Are two players enough to survive, or will I need to adjust anything or add players/hunters? These two have shown interest in the Wronged and Spooky playbooks, so it might get a little Sam and Dean.
Thanks in advance for any insight, thoughts, or suggestions.
Two hunters will be fine – you could start with monsters tending to the lower end of the recommended toughness, just to be sure.
The players are going to surprise you, no matter how well you prepared you are. This is a horrifying yet beautiful thing.
Case in point, I had a six to eight session arc planned, but the players found a creative way to deal with the big bad (an archdemon trying to break into our world) early by travelling to Hell and ratting him out to Lucifer.
That’s just too awesome to not do, so the arc will take less time but will probably end up being way more memorable and fun than what I had in my head.
So I guess my advice is to roll with the punches, but it seems like you’re already well prepared to do as such.
Aaron Shelton For something like that, I’d probably have the archdemon “suddenly” be in cahoots with some Sect. Their plot being foiled, they could ally with someone else to pay the Hunters back for their meddling 🙂
This is helpful feedback, everyone. I’ll go a little easy on them at first, and pay close attention to how successes mesh with my players’ expectations.
Erik Alfkin resist the urge to pull something like that out of the hat. Play to find out what happens, and if the hunters do something unexpected like that, roll with it.
Jared Rascher You’re less newb than I, so I appreciate the perspective.
Michael Sands I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but you’ve done a great job of capturing the essence of the genre and turning it into what looks to be much fun. Major props.
Can you expand on why that would be a bad idea, Michael Sands? I was thinking I’d modify the arc notes to basically turn the original monster into a minion and set the new threat to be the monster. Modify the countdown, etc. I’d never breathe a word to my players, of course, that this wasn’t the original plan. I would still want them to revel in their clever solution before facing the new, hidden threat. I’d probably also be thinking over how I could work Lucifer now being aware of them into a future arc.
If I’ve missed something of what MotW is about in this kind of thinking, please let me know.
It’s about being honest to your preparation. There’s no need to change things in the background. To run MotW, don’t hide your plan: you shouldn’t have a plan. What you do have are monsters that are plotting and planning, but its okay if the hunters stop them
Instead, look at the changed situation and build the new problems from that.
Supernatural and Buffy are good places to look for ideas. Both shows let the monster hunters beat a seeming big bad threat, only to have something new appear in the wreckage. Like the way Spike took over after the Master, then Angel when Spike was out of action, and so on.
That said, the bit of your post where you said: “I’d probably also be thinking over how I could work Lucifer now being aware of them into a future arc.” – that’s exactly what you should do.
Ah, ok, I see the difference. Maybe this is where my idea of a set number of Mysteries for an arc/season breaks down and I should just focus on getting a few games under my belt first.
I think a set number of mysteries is okay, just don’t pre-plan what they’ll be about.
See what hunters get made up and what enemies they have, see how they react in each mystery, and then build off that for the later ones.
No real advice, sorry, but I seriously hope one of your PCs is part of the Burbank Karate Club. 😉 <3
Haha!
I’ve only seen the poster and trailer so far, enough to inspire a Mystery, but I will be watching the full, gloriously horrible movie soon.
LOLs! Excellent! It’s ridiculously awful, but also totally entertaining.
edit: I just realized, you might not know about Hitler and his Hippy Mercs??? Hitler’s probably a minor monster in his own right, the mercs being his minions.
I’ve had to put off running the MotW game, but I did manage to watch the movie. Oh, my, that was so much fun! And way better than it had any right to be, aside from the random party scene on the boat (they kind of gloss over the fact that nearly all of them died horribly…) with all the weird dialogue that had nothing whatsoever to do with the plot (didn’t stop me from getting a giggle or two out of it, though).
And why did that Hitler dude just jump off the plane into the piranha-infested waters??? (Yeah, yeah, I know better than to ask why in a bad movie, but they actually did surprisingly well with several of the characters, so that move kind of surprised me.)
Definitely going to work some of the movie into my game, whenever I get to run this. In fact, this would be a really fun con/one-shot game to run a few times, just to see what different folk do with the setup.