So do people’s character’s have jobs? My Mortal started out with one, as I imagined her family wasn’t well off and she needed to help mom make ends meet.
I’m asking because being torn between friends and the responsibility of work seems great for causing drama. However there’s only so many times you can ditch work before you get fired (my Mortal actually got fired in our first session and is looking for a new job), but being at work takes you out of the action.
Thoughts on balancing what I thought would be a good source of drama?
(I’m answering this from the perspective of a MC, because they are the ones who would set the problems and tone most of the time)
Short answer: Use Tv show logic.
By that I mean when running a game ask “is this something that a character could get away with in a Tv show without facing real repercussions.”
When it comes to jobs and employment you have to ask wether this Job is a multi season arc, a season arc, a multi episode arc, or a single episode plot; and most of deciding that is going to down to how invested the character is to having a that job and role playing it and how much blood the MC feels they can squeeze from that particular stone.
Plenty of shows will have a character hired and fired in the same episode because the job ran it’s course and there wasn’t much there, however plenty of characters in show hold down steady employment throughout the run (or at least for several seasons before they resolve that plot line).
If a character needs or wants to hold down a job then the MC should look for reason why they are getting into trouble but aren’t getting fired.
Perhaps when a Character misses work they get a condition on them that allows their boss or other employees to have advantages over them.
Don’t forget that a character who needs to miss work has the ability to Manipulate NPC on multiple targets (fellow employees to get them to cover for you, supervisors for direct ability to leave.) Sure if they fail they are separated from the group but I’m fairly certain that’s a hard move on the MC’s list to choose from and it makes real sense.
Additionally it doesn’t have to always separate characters, but it might just mean that when the characters are coming to see you or gathering to plot their wicked schemes they are doing so at the diner where your character works (or library or movie theater or garbage dump or hospital watering room… Take your pick)
Most of my Monsterheartsing has been in 1-on-1 games, so it’s probably an easier manage than in a group game…
But I think it’s a great source of drama, and think of it akin to their school responsibilities. When we stage school conflict and tension we do it in a way that will create constriction and tension and danger, but we introduce that in ways that doesn’t blow up the school…. until we want it to. And we don’t let third period bio get in the way of a character’s involvement with the action unless it is narratively interesting to do so.
A job is the same way. It’s a great tool for hard moves (separate them/announce offscreen badness/announce future badness/announce the consequences, then ask), but shouldn’t be used to bog the character down in responsibility unless that’s interesting and feeds the dramatic arc of the character and/or story.
Edit: Xposted with Branden Leavens !
Agreed with Branden that the job exists in the story as much as it’s used to frame scenes and explain character actions … just like any other piece of character setting.
If a character is working to renovate their family home, some conversations will be framed with their friend(s) lolling about drinking sodas, and occasionally handing them requested tools, while the worker is up to her shoulders in duct-work and out-of-code wiring. When they offer folks a ride, they’ll have to move lumber and insulation out of the back seat. All of that sounds like awesome and non-disruptive flavor to me. Saying “I can’t come to the dance with everyone else, I have to work on the house” seems less so, so I wouldn’t do it.
Similarly, working at a convenience store means conversations with friends nursing smoothies while you ring up customers, and opportunities to see what unexpected couples furtively hit the birth-control aisle of a Friday night, and late-night inventory sessions with your co-worker from school ending up as make-out sessions in the storage closet. That sounds cool. “I can’t come fight the rat-lord, I’ve got a shift at the Gas-And-Sip” seems less so.
If at all possible, get them a new job that brigs them IN to the action, not out of it. Possibilities include:
Tutor: gives her an excuse to hang with friends, might force her to spend time with PCs, or NPCs, that she would otherwise try to avoid.
Works at the favorite hangout scenes: gets to be a part of the scene, but has to do so quietly, and is more vulnerable to certain social attacks because her bosses might see/hear
Job depends on popularity: anything with tip money would be good for this.
Corrupt boss: You can skip as many boring work scenes as you want, for the price of doing unsavory/more dramatic work to make up for it.
Supernatural boss: the job IS the plot. Maybe a government agency is paying her to spy on her supernatural friends (works extra good with the Mortal skin). Maybe she works for a semiretired Chosen and her job involves battling, or at least irritating, the forces of darkness.
“Irritating the forces of darkness” … sort of like a supernatural Steve Irwin? “Ahh, look at that bridge troll … wot a beauty! Let’s poke it with a stick!”
I would like to take the time to say Tony Lower-Basch’s “I can’t come fight the rat-lord, I’ve got a shift at the Gas-And-Sip” isn’t always a bad idea, just usually one. As Mo Jave pointed out, one of the Hard Moves is “Announce the Consequences, then Ask”. Forcing the players to make hard choices can be really interesting so long as it’s used sparingly like hot pepper or other spice on food. If used in the right places it enhances the overall product immensely, but if used all the time, every time it is just unappetizing.
Branden: Agreed. Conflict is a narrative “sometimes food.” I think it’s worth figuring out what else you’ll fill out your story diet with.
Indeed, Branden Leavens – and one of the themes of MH is around your life as a teen not being your own, and about how the monstrousness of the “normal” world makes you need to hide/unleash the monstrousness of your self. Jobs, like school, and parents, and excellence hobbies (lacrosse team, academic decathalon, school paper, cheerleader) are all excellent places to put strain on the normal vs monstrous dichotomy, and the autonomy vs. control dichotomy in the game, as well as the other stuff about hard choices.
Ooo! Someone needs to play the Serpentine but have the family own a family business, like a restaurant. Bonus points if the restaurant serves “strange and icky” foreign food.
There is the compulsion to have games follow every moment of a character’s life, but really jobs don’t need to intrude unless the other PCs visit them at work. If everyone needs to do a thing but someone has work, skipping work is just one option. They can alternatively wait until that character finishes their shift, probably when the worker is tired and cranky and more volatile (potentially entertaining), or they can just do it anyway whilst that player is working (as long as, by being a fan of that working character, you can introduce some fun reward, storywise, for staying at work).
Yeah, there’s always an option to just rule that the action happens when the character isn’t scheduled to work. Two characters in my game have jobs at the local hardware store; we mention it in the background but it never comes up unless the other players need hardware or we want those two characters to have a scene together.
We had a Werewolf who was a butcher’s apprentice. He had a late night sex scene in the butcher’s shop, after hours.
Hey, the Queen decided he would turn someone on in a room full of raw meat. The scene was weird but also totally hot, in a strictly non-vegetarian sense.
Wolfboy was easy pickings… he thought he was straight, and ended up asking himself plenty of questions. He also called in sick the next day so he wouldn’t have to face customers buying those particular cuts of meat…
Also, for a job, if they keep blowing it off, sledgehammer them with economic consequences. A homeless Werewolf literally tried to murder a Vampire for throwing his cell phone in the river. “DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET ONE OF THOSE WHEN YOU’RE HOMELESS!”
Also if they DO go to work, find good reasons for people / monsters they don’t like to fuck with them at work. When someone unexpected and problematic (one of the clerk’s exes) came to the bookstore I worked at in high school that was a major problem / incident the staff talked about for weeks. Imagine if he was a fucking monster.