Amaury Fourtet – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

Riffing on the question about Harm asked by Aaron Dalton, I have a corollary question.

Bear in mind that MotW is virtually my only experience of PbtA (well, I played a good amount of Monsterhearts but it never ever came to blows beyond 1 Harm at a time) so my observation is probably candid and uninformed ; but that’s why i’m asking the question 😀

I only played two games for now, and they were light on Harm received. Even like that, it felt like reaching a total of 4-Harm (or more) would be quite easy when you’re battling, for example, a pack of demon wolves and for some reason two of them are against you because you leapt in the middle to allow the others hunters to evacuate the civilians.

So, in practice, with your experience of the game, how easy is it, really, to reach high levels of Harm in a single battle ? Are there ways not to take too much damage ? Armor ? Powers ? Am I missing a reason why, through the rules, not THAT much damage is actually inflicted ?

Because from a purely theorical point of view based on the reading of the rules, it looks stupid easy to receive a lot of harm, and healing it one by one seems extremely slow for a game based on killing monsters, and even worse when it’s become unstable.

Hey there.

Hey there. We just played MotW on saturday and I liked it. I’d been reading it so that I could help the Keeper if needed (it was her first time).

I’ve been meaning to GM some pbta urban fantasy for quite some time and was planning to run Urban Shadows, because I thought it was the only candidate (even though the high emphasis on inter-faction political shenanigans is really not my cup of tea). But I’m starting to think MotW could work, even outside the strict framework of a self-contained episode.

One thing I did like in Urban Shadows was the possibility of playing different types of monsters as a regular character option, not limited to the Monstrous playbook. It really helped with the “commonplace supernatural” aspect that I want to install.

So, I’ve been thinking on allowing players to make supernatural characters even if the playbook has a regular human in mind. Like, a demon being The Crooked. I’m using demon in the buffyverse sense, where some of them are just regular people with green skin, little red horns and some basic supernatural power.

What it would look like would be a player taking the “human” playbook they want (The Expert, the Initiate…for example) instead of just The Monstrous.

Then, if their “breed” of monster really HAS to have a power that’s not just narrative polish, and has to have mechanical effects, I would simply have them tick “Take a move from another playbook” and get the corresponding Monstrous move, effectively starting the game with an advancement already, which I don’t think really unbalances the game. I probably wouldn’t ask a demon to take a monstrous Curse, but I may ask so from a vampire (or offer to the player the possibility that their character has overcome their thirst somehow) .

In that perspective, playing the Monstrous would be playing Angel from Buffy: a tormented character with a Curse, who wants to atone/ hates their monstrous nature. it would be a character whose main narrative attribute is that their are a Monster ; as opposed to a character whose narrative axis isn’t that their are a demon, but a private eye. Does that make sense?

So, yeah, what do you guys think of using MotW as a urban fantasy game that would be less centered on a “one game = one mystery” structure, but not “everything is politics, all the time” either?

Hello again ! No question this time, not really, but a subject to discuss !

So, the season ended today. And it ended on a twist: I got turned into a vampire. I didn’t choose it. I only discussed with the MC at some point that I would be open to a skin change if it happened logically in the story; I wasn’t expecting she’d do it at this time. I’m exctatic because it’s going to bring soooo much DRAMA in my supernatural social circle (everyone hates said vampire because of things she did to us… and now she has turned me? And by my own fault, because I slept with her? Oooh boy)

HOWEVER, this also made me realise a limitation I see with the AW system. This twist, rght here, shouldn’t have been possible as written in the rules, because I should have been the one selecting “change skin”. And I feel like it’s a limitation. Because of the enormous agency the rules give a player upon the fiction, twists like that aren’t supposed to be a surprise to a player ; I can’t “live” the twist fully as my character does, because I know it’s coming: I chose it as an advancement !

That’s why I told my MC I was open to it, and that I didn’t want to be the one choosing either the new skin, nor if it happened or not. And I’m really glad I did.

Do you guys ever did something similar? it actually sounds like a “rule” that I would expect almost everyone to break in the name of fun and immersion. being surprised along with the character is so much better than “acting as if surprised”, you know?

with all the emphasis of the AW system about letting the game run wild and not writing story-arcs in advance, it feels weird that changing skin would somehow not be subject to that rule.

Hey there !

So after our current season of 1-on-1 Monsterhearts2 between my girlfriend and me concludes, it’s likely we’ll take a break from it and we’ll switch MC charges. I’d like to MC Urban Shadows (and just for kicks, have it take place in Portland, since our Monsterhearts setting is a fictional town near Portland). i had two questions.

1/ MH isn’t supposed to be playable with only one player and one MC, but we did it anyway and it’s working great, we didn’t even have to change anything in the rules (beyond a custom move to resist seduction when it comes from NPCs) : knowing this, would US be the same, do you think ?

2/ Among all the playbooks (both Core and Dark Streets), my girlfriend really really loved the Vessel. Of course, she chose the only one that breaks the mold of Corruption. Do you think it’s ok to play US for the first time like this, or will we miss a crucial part of the game by not experiencing Corruption ? (this really bothers me).

She doesn’t want to avoid Corruption, it’s just that as far as “monster types” are concerned, this golem/frankenstein creature archetype really excited her, rather than a more classic urban fantasy archetype.

I’m sad because one of the things I love in US is the fact that Corruption is so enticing; you can keep telling yourself that you just need this special power it gives and then you’ll be careful and never raise your score again.

Hey guys ! You’ve been of tremendous help before, your input really helped our game, so I’m back with a problem.

Today our MH2 game was a little less than stellar. I think that my girlfriend (the MC) took MH outside of its domain of excellence, and that’s why it went a bit south. For context :

The end of the season is approaching fast (I got my fifth advancement). It turns out that my elder brother’s college fraternity is a fucking werewolf pack (it explains so much about his sudden toxic masculinity) and tonight he’s supposed to become part of it. The ceremony is a hunt in the woods. And I discovered the preys will be my elder sister and her girlfriend, who have gone missing (he has no idea, and when he does it will be too late for sure).

I’m in the woods with my witch coven, my girlfriend the ghost, and a manipulative vampire who I’ve called for help because she was the only other supernatural being I knew about.

The good parts of the session were the vampire flirting with me, and me unable to completely shut her off (which was awkward because she had been enslaving my ghost girlfriend for a year before I arrived in highschool, intervened, and made her stop). It really felt like the reason I’m playing monsterhearts, drama drama drama.

the bad parts were… everything else. Planning the assault on the werewolf fratboy party, looking for the van with my sister inside… how to say this ? it felt like a “regular” rpg session. too much adventure. The advance of the action was too detailed, it felt like I should have been rolling stealth, perception, persuasion… I was acutely aware that the system wasn’t tailored for that kind of playstyle at all and it harshly threw me off the game, i wasn’t immersed anymore because I kept thinking it wasn’t working.

We cut the session short and the MC acknowledged that something felt off. We think that it’s simply a case of asking the system to do something it’s not supposed to do.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, specifically on how you would personally make this endgame work within the correct Monsterhearts frame of reference and intention. I think the MC let her habits for more regular RPGs get the better of her, scenario-wise, and we both would like to avoid retconning or cancelling what’s been done.

Up until the woods, everything was perfect and i was devastated with anguish about what was going to happen to my sister and brother if I didn’t do anything. it’s just this last session, too adventurous, not monsterhearts enough, that had a problem.

My Witch just devised a new Hex as an advancement.

My Witch just devised a new Hex as an advancement. It was mainly to keep in touch with her girlfriend three states away, but since dark magic can’t be THAT positive, the hex had to be a weapon of some sort.

Hot Flash

You caress the victim’s mind and whisper salacious thoughts that cause them to become uncontrollably aroused. They get the Condition Incredibly Horny. If the target is consenting, this hex doesn’t inflict the Condition and can instead allow an astral sexual intercourse between you and them, at a distance. They will fully remember it, and will recognize you as the astral figure who made love to them. This astral intercourse doesn’t trigger your Sex Move, nor the target’s.

Hey all, another question !

One thing we have a problem with, is : everyone’s gathering to play high school drama with monsters. It’s the basis of the game and the setting, and it’s what draws us to MH.

How do you maintain that setting for more than 2 sessions? As in: how doesn’t the setting go FUBAR the second one player unleashes their darkest self?

I mean, even one of the official examples is the Witch who causes her mother’s tongue to fall in the soup, twitch a bit (perfectly unnatural) and shrivel. In front of the whole family.

HOW do you recover from that without ruining the settings basis as “regular highschool life with horror”? How can the highschool daily life go on after that, multiplied by every player with whom it can happen? And for the tongue, we’re just talking about a family, it can be “fixed” if the Witch terrorises her family and trap them at home (but even then, goodbye normal life for that player). But when it happens in front of the whole school which gets half destroyed/killed in the process (hello, werewolf), I don’t see how you can salvage anything beyond that point.

As a corollary, how can you challenge the Vampire or the Queen when their powers let them hypnotise and control any inconvenient NPCs ? (since these powers work with their best stat, usually, 7-9 is usually the worst they can roll, and even that lets them succeed). So, how do you not have them easily take absolute control of the whole school (even city) in three sessions, through key officials under their thumb?

So, sure, one answer is “well that’s the point: to deal with the consequences”. And I agree, but the point is that everyone came at the table to play in a highschool setting with horrible social drama and crippling teen anxieties. So for that, you need an illusion of normalcy about the daily life, otherwise it’s another setting entirely.

I’m not we’re ot the only MH group who got faced with that problem, so I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ve already been adivsed to try something like the Veil in White Wolf, whereas humans just can’t process supernatural and rationalize event againsts their best judgement and the evidence from their own eyes. It could work but it feels like it would remove the burden of responsability and consequences a bit too much. another advice was to do like Buffy, where the town is invaded by demons and vampires on a weekly basis but nobody notices because normal people just don’t want to see.

Hello!

We just rebooted our Monsterhearts game after a 3-years hiatus and it’s like starting anew: rediscovering the rules and all that. For example, everybody had forgotten that the MC didn’t roll dice.

Which caused a problem when she wanted to test me and see whether I succumbed to the charm of the most popular guy at school (a NPC).

Since she couldn’t roll for him, what we did was make me roll Cold and inverse the success ladder on “turning someone on”. 10+ was “resist”, “7-9” was a reaction or a string (the same as turning someone on), and 6- was a string + a reaction.

It worked well. Do you guys do other things like that? We would be interested to get a few ideas so that NPCs are less “passive” and subject entirely to what the PCs do. (because I have to point out, we’re very bad, as a group, to play characetrs who act against each other. We tried and didn’t like it, but don’t want to stop playing MH…)

Bought the game, loved reading it.

Bought the game, loved reading it… And couldn’t get past the first session. World creation, character creation, first hour of play, and that was it, experiment failed.

Neither the players nor me managed to make it work. As a GM, I felt lost and oppressed by the imperative of thinking about the moves and applying them and interpreting them according to the situation.

As players, they complained about not being able to immerse themselves in the game because they always had to think in terms of moves, they felt restricted to limited options, and thinking in “moves” destroyed their immersion, they weren’t able to just “be their characters”.

The Apocalypse engine turned out to be incredibly hard to understand, impossible, even. We’re not D&D players, we play a variety of mainstream and indie games, but none has stumped us like AW did. This is very frustrating. And nothing I’ve read on the net helped me. The book itself was already doing everything it could to help me and it didn’t work.

For this specific game, I think I’m one of these GMs who need to play it first under someone who knows it like the back of their hand. Concrete examples, concrete situations, lived and played instead of read about. Which means it’s never gonna happen, I don’t have such a GM around.

But, guys, seriously : reading the game was great, and if only for that pleasure, I’ll never regret buying it !