So, I made my first skin, The Monkey.

So, I made my first skin, The Monkey.

So, I made my first skin, The Monkey. Please be kind with your criticism, it’s my first try. Also, I’m not a native speaker, so you might stumble over some weird English.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-_FoRk-rr-cWklrcU5CcWxQdFU/view?usp=sharing

Who is the Monkey? Of course, the Monkey is inspired by everybody’s (well, my) favorite character from Chinese mythology: Sun Wukong. If you think about it, Sun Wukong can be pretty juvenile. He is a rebel without a cause, who defies the rule because he can, and who firmly believes in his own immortality. Okay, so the mythical monkey is pretty much immortal, but his behavior still reminds me a lot of a common condition in teenagers: Horrible stuff only happens to other people. Yeah, Greg ended up in hospital after eating some shrooms… but those are totally safe, guys!

The Monkey is the guy who calls you a chicken because you think that jumping from the balcony into the pool sounds somewhat dangerous. He is the guy who drunkenly pees on a Hell’s Angels bike and then keeps insulting the owner while you try to drag him away.

So yeah, it’s not exactly a “goth” skin, but I think it can be a pretty dynamic addition – and it’s still a very self-destructive skin, because sooner or later the Monkey will do something that costs him dearly. And he will learn he’s not immortal at all. Or even better: his friends aren’t. And it’s all his fault.

I’m taking The Monkey for a test drive right now and it’s working pretty well. We had a nice scene last session where the Monkey entered her darkest self, beat up a guy (he kept getting up, the stupid f***), hit successfully on the Vampire (typical Monsterhearts quote: “She is covered in blood… that is pretty hot.”), slept with her, took the Move “Feeding” from the Vampire, really, really wanted blood, crept stark naked on the floor on the blood trail of the guy she beat up, instead ran into the Witch, jumped his throat, hit her escape clause, because even if the Witch is a total idiot, she does kind of care about him (don’t tell him), lost her Feeding Move, because she just used it and suddenly noticed she had a) a mouth full of blood, and b) was clinging to a screaming, bleeding Witch. Of course, she vomited blood all over him while students and teachers streamed out of classrooms and dormitories to check out the noise.

Fun time. She might even have learnt something. For about two minutes.

19 thoughts on “So, I made my first skin, The Monkey.”

  2. Might work better as a person possessed by the spirit or totem animal. An immortal might not be that fun to play versus someone that has enough flaws to doom them, or the player can get bored as the immortal might be too easy/low consequences.

  5. Darren Priddy While Sun Wukong was immortal, The Monkey is very much mortal 😉

     

    As I said, it’s a play on the teenage feeling of immortality: yeah, yeah, your parents tell you drugs are bad and maybe you shouldn’t drink and drive, but really what’s the worst that can happen? You’re seventeen, so pfsh, whatever, no way you are going to get hurt…

    Several of the origins should work for a totem-like Monkey, e.g. the “wild monkey spirit”.

  6. First, nice, especially for a new skin.  Too many have skins with superpowers.  And really unusually, most of the moves are a little on the weak side.   A very nice start!

    I’m going to be picky here – details matter 🙂  And I wouldn’t bother so much if I didn’t like the skin.  But that doesn’t mean there’s no way to improve it.

    One Hundred Transformations: This move is way too strong.  First transforming is strong in general.  Second you get your transformation target’s knowledge?  Any transformation move needs either something that’s an obvious giveaway or a way to force them out if they slip too badly, and that on a 10+  As it stands, that move is both very strong and almost never going to end up utterly messing you up.

    Buddha’s Word: This feels more like a mandatory than an optional move to me – it doesn’t feel as if it does anything useful to the monkey?

    They Are Just Guidelines Anyway: Isn’t breaking the rules and risking danger half of what MH characters do anyway?  Too easy IMO.  “When you recklessly throw yourself into danger gain 1XP”

    Irreverent: This is the move I was calling much too weak.  +1 to one move under a rare circumstance?  At least let it apply to Shutting Someone Down?

  7. Francis Dickinson Hey, thanks for the feedback! There is always room for improvement, I think. And it seems I have to rephrase some moves, because… well, some things are not as clear on paper as they are in my head 😉

    Case in point: One Hundred Transformations: I meant “knowledge” more as something like “you unwittingly reveal you do not have your target’s knowledge” (like in “Hey Bob, how is your wife?” “She died last week, as you should well know!”). I totally agree that gaining your target’s knowledge would not make for a very interesting move. What good is a disguise if you don’t do something stupid or get caught? Or both?

    Buddha’s word: I actually had this as mandatory in my first write up, but I think mandatory moves should be about the “core” of the character and I don’t see this move as central to the Monkey. You are right, it’s not a particularly useful move for the character, but I think it might make for interesting stories, because it basically pushes you into a dependent and probably abusive relationship. I thought about adding “carry 1 forward while protecting” to make it a bit more powerful, but that might make the move too complicated.

    They are just guidelines: Actually, the combination of “Explicitly Forbidden” and “Dangerous” does not come up as often as you would think (we had at most two instances in our sessions). Only breaking the rules is not enough, so sleeping with the gym coach = no XP, because it’s not dangerous. Sleeping with the gym coach, who is also the leader of the crazy werewolf biker gang, yeah, take that XP, you will need it. Waltzing into the biker werewolves headquarter and insulting them? No XP, because it’s dangerous, but there is no law or rule against it – if your father told you not to do it, then you get an XP (and hopefully start a Monkey-Werewolf-war or something). This gives the MC the possibility to dangle stupid decisions in front of you by telling you what not to do.

    Irreverent: Yeah, you have a point. This move is designed to get you into trouble no matter what, so it should at least help you a bit more. I think a general “carry 1 forward” would distract from the fact that you have to openly antagonize someone you really should not antagonize, but adding both “Hold Steady” and “Shut Someone Down” to the list should give you more of a fighting chance. Well, at least for the moment.

  8. This skin is very thoughtful and clever.  Love Buddha’s Word.  Nice twist on Watchful Golem.  The “Playing as the Monkey” advice is very helpful.

  10. I’m just starting into things here, but I had a thought on your ‘One Hundred Transformations’:  What if you required the player to spend a String from someone in order to transform into that person?

    I know it that Sun Wukong was able to change into other people more freely, but if you require them to spend a String you are making the player interact with his target, bringing him out to interact with other characters more in order to make use of the power.

    It also puts a limit on who they can change into, meaning you don’t have to worry about players deciding to spend the game walking around like the President of the United States or Scarlett Johansen.

    It would make the use of the power a little more intimate, and make it more likely to come back and bite them later because you could only change into people who knew you, and who could hold it against you if they found out you pretended to be them.

  13. Omar Amador

    Ah, sorry, somehow I missed that! Very cool, thank you so much!

    I changed a few little things (most important that you have to spend a string for a Transformation) and linked the new document above. No idea how to add links when you change a post…

  15. Cool, thank you! I also changed the wording on the “They are just guidelines”-Move, because a feedbacker felt it was too strong.

    I’ll also see if I find a nice picture for the Monkey…

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