I wanting to play an introductory game for my players, i want to set it in Central America and need some help with…
I wanting to play an introductory game for my players, i want to set it in Central America and need some help with writing a good mystery
Skull-shaped ‘death comet’ asteroid will fly by Earth after Halloween
I was reading some Michael Sands posts and I was reading about “more weirdness” then his posts just cut off at the…
I was reading some Michael Sands posts and I was reading about “more weirdness” then his posts just cut off at the end of April. It is now September with no update and I’m getting too excited that a post could happen at any moment. I even checked the website to see if it was already out, couldn’t find it. If there is anybody that can tell me a update or just saying that he is almost finished or something will be reassuring.
Hey, Everyone!
Hey, Everyone!
Have you guys heard The Adventure Zone podcast? There is this one character named Angus McDonald and he is the “Worlds Greatest Detective!”. He is like The Flake, looking for clues and figuring it all out, but he also uses magic a lot (he has a book that lets him listen in on conversations in the vicinity) and The Flake doesn’t have that. I’m wondering if there is any hunter class that is close to that idea. I might need to actually make the class, I just need some ideas for moves. I really don’t know if this goes well with the horror trope of monster of the week, I will have to adjust it if I do make a it horror. Anyway I’m very interested in the idea of a magic detective that can find clues that nobody really has thought of. I also am a big fan of the character, if I do make it. How should I start it off? And do you think this is an interesting concept? Also, if you do support it try to think of any moves that might be interesting of that concept.
Thank you!
Hey I’m thinking of running this for my roommate.
Hey I’m thinking of running this for my roommate. Is it possible to play with just one hunter and a GM or is a group needed?
Name: Penanggalan
Name: Penanggalan
Type: Devourer (Desires to consume people) Powers: Body Separation, Blood Drain, Flight
Weaknesses: Fire, Decapitation
Attacks: Slam 2-harm close 2-harm area, Blood Drain 3-harm intimate restraining
Harm: 5 ☐☐☐☐☐ | 0 armor
The Penanggalan or ‘Hantu Penanggal’ is a creature of Southeast Asian folk mythology. “Penanggal” or “Penanggalan” literally means “detach” or “remove”.
According to the folklore of that region, the Penanggalan is a detached female head capable of flying about on its own. As it flies, the stomach and entrails dangle below it, and these organs twinkle like fireflies as the Penanggalan moves through the night. In Malaysian folklore, a Penanggal may be either a beautiful old or young woman who obtained her beauty through the active use of black magic, supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means which are most commonly described in local folklores to be dark or demonic in nature. Due to the common theme of Penanggal being the result of active use of black magic or supernatural means, a Penanggal cannot be readily classified as a classical undead being. The creature is, for all intents and purposes, a living human being during daytime or at any time when it does not detach itself from its body. Sometimes they are depicted as able to move their intestines when exposed like tentacles.
A Penanggal is said to feed on human blood although local folklore (including its variations) commonly agrees that a Penanggal prefers the blood of a newborn infant, the blood of woman who recently gave birth or the placenta (which is devoured by the Penanggal after it is buried). All folktales also agree that a Penanggal flies as it searches and lands to feed. Once the Penanggal leaves its body and is safely away, it may be permanently destroyed by either pouring pieces of broken glass into the empty neck cavity, which will sever the internal organs of the Penanggal when it reattaches to the body; or by sanctifying the body and then destroying it by cremation or by somehow denying the Penanggal from reattaching to its body upon sunrise.
Our hunters are now in the thick of it and things are starting to move and move fast.
Our hunters are now in the thick of it and things are starting to move and move fast. Maybe faster than they are ready for? But then again who is ready for the Apocalypse? Episode 15 is up!
I ran my first MotW game last night (and actually my first RPG since mumbledy years ago when I was in college) and…
I ran my first MotW game last night (and actually my first RPG since mumbledy years ago when I was in college) and it went great!!!
first off a HUGE thank you to Mark Tygart for all the mysteries you have posted on your site. I was able to take the bones of your La Lorona mystery and throw the skin of a local ghost story on top and it made a wonderful first game! My players especially appreciated the fact that the mystery was based on an actual historical ghost story in our area AND an actual type of ghost instead of just some random thing.
Both of my players last night were seasoned RPrs, but this was their first time with a PbtA type game. they both agreed that they loved the simplicity and how fun it was to play and how easy it made it to stay in character and just play the mystery. Although one commented that knowing that a failed roll meant experience made them really want to just keep doing things that required rolls, so I’ll have to research more on how to handle that. (any advice?)
I read and re-read the keeper sections of the book and listened to a ton of actual play podcasts of the game and stuff about PbtA games in general (thank you +1 Forward, The Critshow, and Adventure Zone: Amnesty) which was a good thing because my players were awesome and we were able to keep the action going and the story moving and since I had prepared so much I didn’t have to stop a lot to read rules or choose moves to use on my players.
Mystery wise I feel like I was both over and under prepared: I had a lot more plotted out and planned for my mystery than I really needed, but I also found that my players kept wandering into situations that I hadn’t really expected or planned for, but I found that the game gave me a lot of tools to be able to handle them and improve seamlessly into the story and it was a lot of fun. Funnily enough when I was putting together the timeline for the mystery I found myself thinking about just skipping that step because it didn’t really seem all that useful, but then I found in game that it was super handy to know when and what order everything was going to happen and be able to hint and what was to come if the task wasn’t taken care of right away.
Also, as a keeper I feel like I liked my players a bit too much; thinking back I think I was a bit too easy on them. One player had A LOT of failed rolls and a lot of 7-9’s and I probably should have hurt her character or made things a lot more difficult for her than I did, but I was enjoying her character so much that I just couldn’t make myself. I will have to work on that in the future. Even with a monster that couldn’t do a lot of direct damage I feel like things could have been a bit more scary and dire for them, but I was also afraid of being to hard on them and scaring them away from the system. I’ll have to work on finding a better balance.
Most fun part of the night: one of my players was playing the Flake and kept introducing themselves as “Reverend” when asked by the other character, they explained that they had gotten themselves ordained online because it seemed like it would be more handy when interaction with people and getting information to be able to legitimately introduce themselves as a reverend – people were more likely to open up to a religious authority figure. Then later that night when the team realized that they needed magical weapons to defeat the monster and all they had brought were guns and a butterfly knife. Light bulb moment and a miraculous perfect 12 Use Magic roll later, cue an end of From Dusk til Dawn type montage sequence of them blessing all the weapons and ammo. (sadly it didn’t help the other character who had lost all of her luck by the end of the confrontation when a missed attack roll went right through the ghost and into her shoulder, ah well)
thank you so much to Michael Sands for making such a amazing and fun game!
Hello!
Hello!
This is part of something I’ve been cobbling together as a sort of ‘training wheels doc’ on how to run MotW games for new or otherwise inexperienced Keepers. And most of the stuff will be applicable to most PbtA games, so that’s neat I think.
The final ‘book’ will have a bunch of stuff like what’s in here, including a bunch of mysteries, and how to link them together into arcs and such.
I’ll probably release a simple black-and-white version with no art, and then a nicer one with art for those who want to print it. I’m not trying to make money here, just want to help other folks fall in love with this game like I did. I figure the best way to do that is provide help on how to be a Keeper, you know?
I originally posted this on the MotW subreddit, and forgot to cross-post it here. I usually am on Reddit more often, mostly because work blocks access to most google sites, including G+.
Let me know if what you think.
Here is a post mortem of a mystery I ran yesterday.
Here is a post mortem of a mystery I ran yesterday. Feel free to offer up your thoughts on some of the things that didn’t go well, or answer the rules questions at the bottom. Thanks y’all!
Mystery that I ran (self written, posted to the Mysteries! section a few edays ago): https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QdXYPo9yQazHrFfFMRCQYpxw1-NdhhD7gf8Gxqf419o/edit?usp=sharing
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Things that went great:
The final fight was cool. The hunters did a good job preparing a battleground, and giving the monster ranged and melee attacks made for more interesting fight.I could have used some more of the
One of the hunters had a really cool Roleplaying moment at the end.
Maybe some other stuff went well, but that’s what I see from my side.
I think the Divine did some cool role playing and had a lot of fun with their character.
The players said they had fun, but I think the general consensus is that things felt a little flat.
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Things that didn’t go great:
Three hours didn’t feel like enough time. We played through a mystery from start to finish, which was the intent, but it just felt rushed.
The monster was too complex. The light form / reflection was cool and the hunters liked the idea, but they barely interacted with it that way. I realized it was just going to be…. Obnoxious. So, while it was a cool concept, it needs to work in the game, too.
I had to do a out-of-character Q&A with the players so that they could understand how it worked and what they could do. I honestly felt this was the right thing to do at that point. Symptom of monster being too complex.
Pacing was off. The countdown clock went pretty well, but the investigation wasn’t satisfying. The hunters got very little information, and then got it all at once from Laura, with a Manipulate Someone + Help Out roll. There just wasn’t any more ways to gather information. Symptom of the monster being too complex.
Laura’s character might be defined wrong. Mayber her motivation should have been different. The hunters got a 10 on Manipulate Someone on her, which included a death threat with a trident at her throat. I couldn’t think of a plausible reason for her not to spill all the info she had. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do.
The minions didn’t really work out. My goal was to have evil humans, but the characters fell flat. I think having the plot hook in be a minion limited options for me at the start of the game. There were only so many things Rob could do as a minion. It was really difficult to know what to do with him when the hunters were asking him questions or trying to use Manipulate Someone on him. I was just doing “reveal a secret” over and over. In the future it might be best to make it so that if minions have significant information, they are willing to die to protect it.
Having an undefined number of people in the mall didn’t really accomplish anything. It might have been better to have less people, but make them all more interesting. In this mystery, they just became nameless corpses.
Trying to finish the mystery in one 3-4 hour session meant there was no time for anything other than the mystery. Our first mystery took place over an 8 hour session, and the players had lots of time to do more role playing and more investigating, which we all really enjoyed.
I didn’t give the hunters enough of a chance to shine. They weren’t put in stressful situations often enough, and couldn’t really use their abilities. Until the final fight, there weren’t too many rolls.
Several hours after the game ended, I realized I was “protecting my plot” a little too much. Just a thing that I need to keep in mind in the future: Play to see what happens. I also think I wasn’t a big enough fan of the hunters.
I don’t think the Professional, Crooked or Flake felt as badass as the Divine. I think it’s partially because the Divine is a more assertive roleplayer, but also because the Divine has all these cool powers. Maybe they felt a little vanilla. So I need to work on figuring out how to make those other players feel as impactful as the Divine.
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Questions that came up:
Working from RAW…
On a Kick Some Ass 6-, can I use some other keeper move, such as “separate them” instead of, or in addition to “deal harm as established?” Example: “The monster grabs Bob and jumps out the window with him. No harm taken.”
How to deal with things that narratively would kill a human? Example: hunter has a human minion pinned, and has a gun at the minion’s head. Minion has taken 2 harm with cap of 7. Player says “I shoot her in the head.” What happens?
Why can’t the Divine use Angel Wing to always avoid damage, or just generally blinking all over the place and making challenging combat narratively impossible? Example: “I stab the zombie and then angel-wings away before it can touch me.”
Can the Divine Lay On Hands targeting themselves?
When there is no specified failure effect, what happens when a hunter rolls 6-? Examples: Divine’s Angel Wings carrying 1 or 2 people, Crooked’s Pickpocket.