Monsterhearts – Page 52 – Powered by the Apocalypse G+ Archives

A couple of things I’ve been wondering as I work on some more Japanese-inspired Skins.

First, has anyone added 0s to the stat arrays, rather than just using two sets of 1/-1? If my math is correct (and it may not be), there are only six possible starting stat configurations if you use only two 1s and two -1s. Using one 1, one -1, and two 0s (1/0/0/-1) adds another six possible configurations, while still keeping the total of the stats at 0. Thoughts? I don’t see some of the Skins I’m working on to be particularly bad or good at certain stats.

Second, how do people feel about not being given any optional moves at character creation? Meaning certain Skins would start with two or three “mandatory” moves only? Does that feel like too much of a straightjacket?

Skins for the Skinless is updated!

Originally shared by Topher Gerkey

Skins for the Skinless is updated!

And I mean really pretty updated. For reference, here’s what’s in this revision and what’s changed:

The Beast : minor text edits, improved artwork

The Calaca : minor text edits

The Creature : minor text edits

The Fury : minor text edits, layout improvements, new artwork!

The Gargoyle : newly added, significantly revised moves, improved artwork

The Minotaur : newly added

The Mummy : minor text edits

The Proxy : minor text edits

The Unchained : newly added, minor text edits

The Unseen : minor text edits, layout improvements, new artwork!

Plus of course “Under the Skin” MC advice for all ten skins in the collection.

So what’s coming up next? Well, I have two skins (The Creep and The Muse) pretty much ready for layout. They have artwork done and just need one more revision pass on the moves. I expect to get those out in January.

Another skin (The Bogey) is in a similar state but without artwork. The Elemental still needs some major mechanics work before it’s ready. And just today I got inspired with a neat idea for The Harpy, but I’ve literally done nothing with it yet – it’s just an idea.

Anyway. Thanks for your interest in my skins, and thanks so very much to my super awesome Patreon patrons, who help make it worth my while to create these and release them for free! I’d love to hear your feedback if you use any of my skins in your game. ^_^

Check out Jeremy Kostiew’s super cool new skin!

Originally shared by Jeremy Kostiew

The esteemed Topher Gerkey of Rosemont Bay and Skins for the Skinless did the layout for my own Monsterhearts skin The Shadow. That guy is super talented, in addition to being a generally quite radical human being.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7MY0xQ1QUJMVy1VRm9rSXJRUjQ/edit?usp=sharing

The Minotaur is here!

Originally shared by Topher Gerkey

The Minotaur is here!

Angry, lonely, and willing to be used if that’s what it takes for people to talk to him, he’s ready to join your Monsterhearts game and scare the dickens out of all those pencil-necked geeks. If you use him, please let me know how it went – I love getting feedback!

As always, my skins are free to download and share – don’t let anyone bully you into trading something for them! A big thank you to my Patreon patrons for continuing to make my skins possible – if you’d like to help to, check me out at www.patreon.com/topher !

As a side note, I have two more skins very close to done, and they will probably be released in January. Because of that, I’m going to hold off on releasing an updated Skins for the Skinless collection until I can include all twelve (!) skins in it. Please be patient! ^_^

Has anyone toyed around with adding a second player/character resource to #Monsterhearts? Besides Strings?

For some reason, ideas for a Changeling: the Lost hack (that I had given up on) started popping back into my head last night (while I was trying to get to sleep). But this time the idea to introduce a new resource showed up for the first time. Completely out of the blue.

In C:tL, the Lost can harvest glamour from the emotions of mortals, which they then use for various supernatural effects (like powering Contracts, activating special abilities, opening gates into the Hedge, etc.). While Lost can “feed” passively by just being around strong emotions, it’s easier to try and evoke that emotion from a target.

That sounded like it would be a great move, as all kinds of things can go wrong when a Changeling is getting someone all worked up to “feed” from them. You’d want players to harvest emotion fairly often so that their lives are constantly interesting, so you’d have to give them an incentive to do so.

My original idea was to allow characters to clear Conditions or take +1 forward after harvesting emotions. Sort of like a healing move, but that didn’t exactly line up with the fiction I imagined. You don’t heal from harvesting glamour, you just have it to use. Then I thought about giving characters a number of hold they could use to trigger special effects. This seemed like a better idea, as Lost can hold onto glamour to use at a later time, rather than it being a “use immediately” kind of thing. From there my mind went to giving them points of a whole new resource (glamour) that they could spend to activate or enhance special abilities. There would be some basic moves that all Changelings had access to, that cost a point of glamour to use. Each Skin would also have special things the player could spend glamour on, making them all feel different from each other.

Of course this means tracking both Strings and glamour. That might get complicated or clunky, or just be more trouble than it’s worth. So I’m curious if anyone has done something similar, and if so, what happened.

Felt this needed to be here.

Felt this needed to be here.

So I’m working on a new Skin.

It’s not finished yet. There’s plenty more that needs to be written up and tweaked and figured out, but I thought I’d post the work in progress here in hopes of getting feedback and critique to help hone it on its way to being something fun and playable.

You know how when you’re a teen, and it feels like you’re invincible? Like you’ll never die? Like nothing but the now exists?

Do you remember when you first realized you would die? When the realization of your own mortality drained a bit of the color from your dreams? Do you remember the sinking dread of thinking everything you’d accomplished would be for naught, or worse, that you wouldn’t live to accomplish everything you were going to set out to do?

The Returned does. They got a second chance, and now they’re going to seize live by the horns.

Even if it keeps killing them over and over again.

Just started playing my first ever Monsterhearts game and so far I’m loving it!

Just started playing my first ever Monsterhearts game and so far I’m loving it! However, we’ve come across a lack of “investigation” or “perception” type move.

I’ve noticed other ApocWorld games (ApocWorld, Monster of the Week, Dungeonworld) have such a move, but why not MH? If it helps, I’m playing the Chosen, and it’s there’s a type of ghost/spirit haunting the school that we’re trying to track down. I know that the Chosen has the Hit the Books move, but nothing more general. Any idea why?

I haven’t seem much discussion of Menaces and Threats yet.

Have you used many menaces / threats? How do you use them? Is there any examples other than the one presented in the book?

#menace #threat

Hey guys!

Hey guys! Looking forward to getting my copy of Monsterhearts (won’t be able to get it until Christmas, unfortunately) but that’s not why I’m posting. I had an idea while I was looking through the skins: what if they were superheroes, specifically X-Men? Instead of the Vampire, what if it were the Cyclops, or the Beast, or the Iceman?

Has anyone tried to do anything like this before? And if nobody has, would anyone like to help me make it so?