Category: Monster of the Week Roadhouse: General Discussion

Dirty Monster Hunting?

Dirty Monster Hunting?

Dirty Monster Hunting?

John Wick’s Dirty Dungeon

Each player adds elements to the dungeon by describing how they learned about this element – dungeon survivors, old maps, books, whatever. Each time they add something to the dungeon, a d4 is added to the pot. In the dungeon, players may take out a d4 whenever and add it to a die roll.

While the players are adding to the dungeon, the DM gets a bead every 10 minutes (or whatever time period you like).

Everything the players state is true.

The DM may spend a bead during play to make any player statement false.

So, basically, the players build the dungeon from the ground up, and then adventure through it. However, because the DM can change elements at any point in time, their plans are not foolproof.

Any ideas how to apply this to Monster-of-the-Week?

Hi, all!

Hi, all!

Hi, all! I’m working on putting together a comedy one-off based on the Dancing Plague of 1518 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518), an event during which a bunch of people danced so hard and for so long that most of them died of exhaustion.

I’ve got a pretty good idea of how the countdown is going to go and some ideas for custom moves that’ll involve the hunters having to act under pressure to resist dancing, but…I don’t have a monster! Does anyone either a) know of any monsters from folklore that could conceivably cause an event like this; or b) have any advice on how to create a monster that’s actually a “virus”? I’m open to any suggestions, really.

Thanks in advance! And if anyone has already run a game based on this, I’d love to hear about it!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dancing_plague_of_1518

Hello.

Hello.

Hello. New to MOTW and the community. Thanks for all the great mysteries on the Google drive! I ran a mystery for my family and we all love the system. I had an idea for a story arc that I am currently working on, and I was wondering if there are any examples of story arcs that I could look at. The mysteries that I’ve seen so far are all so compact. But as I work on my story arc and the mysteries in it, I feel as though I’m writing a lot more than in all the examples I’ve seen so far. I want to produce something that is useful to me (I like to have the details laid out beforehand), but also something I can share with the community. I was wondering if anyone in the community has written out a story arc that they could share, or if there is one already up that I missed.

Hey there,I’m running a Monster of the Week this upcoming Monday,and my first Monster is based on Spring Heeled…

Hey there,I’m running a Monster of the Week this upcoming Monday,and my first Monster is based on Spring Heeled…

Hey there,I’m running a Monster of the Week this upcoming Monday,and my first Monster is based on Spring Heeled Jack,He has a 2 Harm Sword Attack,A Ranged 1 Harm Fire Attack,A Custom Move I called Harsh Whisper,and it hits all hunters,they must roll an Act Under Pressure,10+ They didn’t hear it,6-9,-1 Forward,1-5,1 Harm Goes through Armor and -1 Forward,I also gave him a Spring Powered Escape,in which he will jump away from high heights to escape from Danger,and his Weakness is Magic,he can be harmed by other things,but he has 1 Armor due to his cloak,what other weakness should I have?Because 1 Player who was going to be introduced can’t come and they were a Spell Slinger,the other two are Mundane and Snoop

Ok, reading the moves, it says for Investigate a Mystery a 10+ gives you 2 hold.

Ok, reading the moves, it says for Investigate a Mystery a 10+ gives you 2 hold.

Ok, reading the moves, it says for Investigate a Mystery a 10+ gives you 2 hold. But the example given on page 100 says it gives the character 3 hold. Which one is the typo?

I’ve got a moves question here.

I’ve got a moves question here.

I’ve got a moves question here. I’ve run about 6 sessions of MotW (mostly one shots) but we are now 3 sessions into a longer term campaign. For the most part things have been going well, but each of the last 3 sessions I’ve had a particular issue come up with “Protect Someone” vs “Kick Some Ass” vs “Act Under Pressure”.

I’ve got an initiate who uses a sword/gun – and often doesn’t want to hurt the monster, but rather wants to use his martial prowess to protect someone. The first time it came up was when the monster was going to kill a bystander, he decided to shoot at the monster, in his mind – he wasn’t trying to kill the monster but rather protect his friend. I had him roll kick some ass but he was displeased afterwards because that wasn’t his intention.

I tried to clarify that, in my mind at least, Protect Someone is when you are placing yourself in jeopardy in order to prevent damage to another person, reasoning that it would be Kick Some Ass if what you were doing was focused on damaging something [namely because in theory every time you are hurting the monster you are protecting someone by removing the monster from existence – but it is still kick some ass, lest all ass kicking be protecting someone].

Then it came up again the next session, where he wanted to “Protect Someone” by disarming the monster of its weapon. He wanted to chop the monster’s hand off that was holding the weapon. He didn’t feel like it was kick some ass, but I didn’t want to give him the benefit of protect someone and also doing harm to the monster, so I compromised and did Act Under Pressure to “disarm” the monster.

All that to say, am I missing something? How do you guys run these moves? How do you communicate the way you intend to run moves to your players so that Keeper and Players are on the same page and don’t walk away with shattered expectations? How should each of those three moves be delineated? Is Act Under Pressure the default? Does being a fan of the players mean I shouldn’t fight them protecting someone and doing harm at the same time?

I’m the GM for a group of my friends in a MOTW campaign, and since one of my players is full-on masochist when it…

I’m the GM for a group of my friends in a MOTW campaign, and since one of my players is full-on masochist when it…

I’m the GM for a group of my friends in a MOTW campaign, and since one of my players is full-on masochist when it comes to character creation, I have introduced a system of quirks called Maladies that help inform how characters act. They’re like moves, but usually offer little to nothing positive; instead, focusing on adding a thematic complication to make playing that character more interesting and varied. Here’s a link to some of them that we’ve managed to come up with!

But take care; some of them are a bit graphic! You’ve been warned!

I just started MOTW as a keeper and have been having a great time as a new GM.

I just started MOTW as a keeper and have been having a great time as a new GM.

I just started MOTW as a keeper and have been having a great time as a new GM. I’m now two mysteries in and realized I haven’t done anything with my player The Monstorous’s dark master curse.

I was curious how other players have handled this? What were your dark masters orders/objectives and what were the repercussions for your players defiance?

My players Monstorous was a nerdy human who met a demon on the internet who made him half demon in exchange for serving him. My idea right now is for his master to be a big hungry demon who requests my player bring him things to feed on. It will request random things and human victims. As this goes on it grows in size and hunger until it will have to be dealt with in its own mystery. I was also thinking that if my hunter fails the dark master will retaliate by causing the players powers to malfunction during a mystery. It can also send in its other followers to rough him up to keep him in line if he tries to defy him.

What do you guys think?