Author: Richard Williams (Epistolary Richard)

Monsterhearts Death Moves

Michael Duxbury has been working on skin-specific Death Moves (you know, to replace the existing ‘lose all strings’ ‘become your Darkest Self’). I really love the idea and the opportunities to offer your players a difference play experience for a while mid-campaign and kickstart new plotlines.

With his permission, I’ve lain them out and attached the doc. I think they’re pretty good as they are, but they could really use some real play experience/beta testing. If anyone does use them then please do let us know how you find them.

You can find the original post (along with Michael’s blog) here:

http://michaelduxbury.com/2014/11/27/i-would-die-for-you-death-moves-in-monsterhearts/

Finally, as this is a beta doc, feel free to link to it to others, but please don’t host separately.  

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9aDy3dv5nWvM2gwcGVrTG9Lc28/view?usp=sharing

Revised Shut Down basic move

Here’s a revised Shut Down move which better encapsulates for me the role I want the Shut Down move to play and also mechanically works in a way I like better. I’ve named it ‘Shut Someone Down / Put Someone in their Place’.

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Shut Someone Down / Put Someone in their Place

When you put someone in their place, roll with cold.

On a 10 up, you’ve got them, they choose how you show them up and whether to end the encounter. Take a String on them.

On a 7-9, choose one:

– The encounter ends in silence as neither gives an inch. Each gain a String on the other.

– The encounter ends loudly with name-calling and angry words. Each give a Condition to the other.

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I’ve seen Shutting Someone Down confused with actually limiting what the target can do “I grab them, they’re struggling to resist, I roll to shut them down” etc. To clarify it, I’ve previously described it as a ‘social attack’, but really now I see it as a status attack – I am trying to change our respective statuses by either raising mine or lowering yours (or both). 

As to the name: from my experience at school, there is a perceived social order that is maintained by those within it (often by those at the top, but not always and exclusively). “Putting someone in their place” can have both a benevolent and a vindictive angle (perhaps even depending which side of it your own), if a guy’s acting crazy you can say “Back off, man, you’re losing it”, conversely if someone from a lower level goes to a higher level party you can say “Who the hell do think you are, coming here?” So, putting someone in their place is entirely subjective: you think they are acting outside of the place you think they should be in.

Mechanically, the significant change is to flip losing a string into gaining a string (and bringing the 10+ in line with the Turn On move). This is a personal preference as I find it’s more interesting to spend strings rather than lose them. It also makes it easier for a high Cold character to increase their influence without gaining loads of Conditions and avoids the awkwardness of the 7-9 “What do you do when you don’t each have a string to lose on the other?”

If you play with it and have feedback then let me know. If you’d like to go the whole hog then I attach a pdf where you can download 6 copies of the wording of an appropriate size to paste over the Shut Someone Down move in the Reference Sheets.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9aDy3dv5nWvQVRNZ2JXd3J5Skk/view?usp=sharing

I also recommend Ross Cowman’s Crabby Basic Moves if you have them (if I find a public release of them I’ll link it here).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9aDy3dv5nWvQVRNZ2JXd3J5Skk/view?usp=sharing