Howdy everyone. We started a new game today I jumped at the chance to finally play the Mortal, a Skin I’ve been wanting to try for a long time. I had fun, but found it way more difficult than I expected. I’m used to playing my characters as being in charge of their own destinies and standing up for themselves. Which is exactly what the Mortal isn’t, and why I wanted to try playing it.
So I’m looking for stories of how other people have played The Mortal. I don’t mean alternate takes on the Skin mind, just stories of how you’ve played the “normal” Mortal in a game. Thanks. 😀
The one time I played a mortal, was in a convention one-shot, so I went super hot, and super apologetic about my characters lover/girlfriend.
He was a total poser, trying to act like a tough greaser, but was just posing cause he was from the richest family in town.
His entire goal at first was to finally have sex with his gf, and when she would shut him down, or put him in his place, he would always find a reason why she was right, and that he was to pushy.
Sometimes, counter-intuitive approaches to characters are actually perfectly legitimate, if you take a moment to think about how the pieces fit together.
I played a werewolf with whom I had great fun. He was hesitant, scared, a big pushover, the archtypal beta dog. His werewolf instincts were calling him to be dominant, bullish, assertive, violent if he needed to be. And that scared him shitless.
What happpens to someone who is in charge of their own destiny and stands up for themselves, when they end up in a relationship that fucks that part of their personality over, and leaves them dependent and vulnerable?
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I played Tucker, a male Mortal who was basically stalking his “lover” the Queen.
Along the way, he had sex with two different teachers, who both ended up turning into monsters.
Willow Palecek They were teachers,i do not think you can get more monstruos than that 😛
Like one turned into a Pennangalan, and they were alone in the middle of an abandoned rail yard, so he had to kill her.
The other one was possessed by a ghost, and then bad other bad things happened.
Unfortunately the game didn’t last long, but the only time I’ve ever played a mortal he was an absolute mess. His lover was his long standing girlfriend who had become a werewolf like 6 months ago, and was learning she was enjoying the condition. My mortal however was in deep denial over anything supernatural due to an awful home situation in where his mother died while he was young and hung around as a ghost, and his father taught him to keep it a secret and pretend nothing was weird. His mother did not make this easy.
I played a Mortal who was Class President, dating a sexist Witch. Depending on your moves, your job is to actively bring out bad behavior in your love; get them into fights, make them prove themselves, or do dangerous things to show how much you love them. “Denial” doesn’t have to be passive; it can mean a desperate, continual search for the smallest bit of evidence.
Then, when you finally lash out at them physically, you use those 6 strings you have to knock’em out the box and find a new, better Love.
The key is knowing the difference between passive and Co-Dependent. The mortal isn’t passive, and despite benefiting mechanically from bad behavior,
isn’t a victim.Or is more than a victim.Don Quixote, in his endless pursuit of the uncaring Dulcinea, is a Mortal.
You see shades of the Mortal in Young Werther, Cyrano de Bergerec or Ellen Page in Hard Candy.
“And then other bad things happened”. LOL. If there were ever a tagling for Monsterhearts games, that’s it Willow Palecek. 😀
Thanks for sharing the stories. While thinking about it last night, I had the same realization you mentioned Adam Goldberg; being co-dependant doesn’t have to mean you’re passive. You could be totally active and competent in all otherbareas of your life except for your relationship. For some reason, you’re willing to put up with or ignore all the shit your lover dishes out, regardless of how you act towards other people.
I’m in a two player game and the other player has never experienced Monsterhearts. I thought it would be too much pressure to mark his character as my lover, so I went with an NPC. Towards the end of the first session, we find out my lover is gay and is just using my Mortal as cover. She confronted him and started yelling before I remembered what type of character the Mortal is. His sexual orientation and lack of interest in her is the thing she’ll ignore, put up with, and choose to disbelieve.
I played The Mortal in a campaign who was head over heels for The Selkie despite dating an NPC at the start. She did NOT take crap from anyone and was fairly assertive. In other words, not really a good Mortal. LOL But she went Chosen at the end of the first season and when her lover found out she’d slept with The Vampire in a moment of recklessness and weakness, he freaked out and as a result of a failed roll (Ocean’s Breath– he wanted the ocean to take away his pain) her lover ended up COMPLETELY FORGETTING HER. So yeah, not really the best at being the Mortal– her true love didn’t give her a lot of mileage out of her moves. However, he did end up putting her in danger a lot– being kidnapped on a couple occasions and used as leverage against her lover, oh and almost being drowned a couple times. Good times.
I’m considering having my Mortal ditch her initial lover. Of course that means her big moves will be useless until she finds another one. Did you feel hamstrung or useless while you were finding another character to be your lover, Dani L.?
It’s been a while, but I don’t think the mortal can just ditch their love. They must always have one, because if you can ever be alright with being single then that means you aren’t a codependent piece of abuse bait. Now my read on the mortal is that your love doesn’t have to be romantic. If you devote your love to a father or mother figure then it can be just as bad if not worse.
Oh, she had the same true love the whole game.
I think the way to play it is to have them switch their fixation to another character really quickly. That’s what they’re all about, falling hard and fast, likely for the exact wrong person.
You’re totally right David Rothfeder; the Mortal has to have a lover. When I said “ditch her initial lover” I really meant what Dani L. is suggesting, that my character would quickly make someone else her lover. I should have clarified.
I wonder if the playbooks still works if you don’t chose a person as your lover. I mean what if you chose alcohol, then the playbooks can start being about substance abuse. Some moves wouldn’t work like ‘mess with me, you mess with him’ (then again maybe it would) but moves like excuses are my armor become really intense.
I feel that both the Ghoul and the Infernal were the “addiction” Skins. Allowing the Mortal to declare a substance as their lover creates overlap there.
I think the back of the Mortal Skin says something about naming a couple as your lover. Or maybe it’s further into the book.
Joe Zantek You were an awesome Mortal.
I agree about the Ghoul and the Infernal, but those books are about very abstracted addiction, and handle the issue in very different ways. The mortal is also in a way an addiction skin, but I wonder what would happen when the issues of addiction are taken out of the abstract in the game. The mortal moves could make for a very intense relationship with substances in a way that doesn’t just explode like the ghoul or infernal. Both of those are skins where things are fine until they’re not, but the mortal could be a way to run addiction as things are fine but I have a lot of reasons to make them not fine.
The Mortal is about co-depency, full stop. You can’t “make excuses” for the way alcohol treats you, or invoke the name of gambling to hold steady, or get +1 to capture Exercise’s Fancy.
All you need for a new true love is a reason for someone to be amazing, and a willingness to give them 3 strings. Which, with entrenched, can be a good thing. 🙂
Adam Goldberg my response is why not? (Other then the fact that it hasn’t been thought of that way) I’m not saying that substance dependency is the way to play the mortal, I’m asking what happens if you try. Does the skin break down? Does the game get too intense or depressing? Is it too hard to keep dimensions in the character? Does the skin become irrelevant in the face of the issue? I don’t know, but it seems like an interesting way to expand our notion of the skin, and to me that’s a positive even if an attempt results in complete failure.
The thought came up by thinking of how a mortal can abandon a lover without instantly transferring their affection to another person. A person in emotional distress can totally become dependent on a chemical.
You can do whatever you want, but the copy and moves aren’t designed for non-people Lovers.