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Monsterhearts 2 PDF is out to backers! 
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May 23, 2017 21:17
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Flavivirus posted:Monsterhearts 2 PDF is out to backers! And to non-backers too!
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May 23, 2017 21:41
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Now you can get strings on adults with Shut Someone Down, which is awesome. You can mean-girl your way past problems. Some of the Neighborhood settings are cool (love Potter's Neck.) Is there a changelog posted?
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May 23, 2017 22:14
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If anyone is interested, I have finally got my poo poo together and updated the archetype playbooks for Malleus. The playbooks are a new one-page layout, which is a bit cramped, but I much prefer the single page. The layout and contents of the reference sheets for Moves and the GM are a work in progress, but at least I can get back to playtesting an up-to-date version of the game. The new playbooks are here The current WIP draft of the rules is here. Getting a working version of the Organisation rules is the next big task.
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May 25, 2017 13:01
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thefakenews posted:If anyone is interested, I have finally got my poo poo together and updated the archetype playbooks for Malleus. The playbooks are a new one-page layout, which is a bit cramped, but I much prefer the single page. The layout and contents of the reference sheets for Moves and the GM are a work in progress, but at least I can get back to playtesting an up-to-date version of the game. They don't look too cramped to me, and I like the stats pentagram a lot! I will say that putting specific moves in the Other Moves slot looks a little clumsy, especially if you're only using them if you take a particular move (e.g. The Inquisitor's Fight Fire with Fire). Is there any way to put that text in the move choice column?
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May 25, 2017 14:33
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Flavivirus posted:I will say that putting specific moves in the Other Moves slot looks a little clumsy, especially if you're only using them if you take a particular move (e.g. The Inquisitor's Fight Fire with Fire). Is there any way to put that text in the move choice column? Yeah, it's definitely not ideal but I haven't been able to come up with a better alternative. I'm open to any suggestions you might have.
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May 25, 2017 23:48
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So recently I was thinking about how much I wanted to run Vampire (as in the World of Darkness), but how I really have become more and more frustrated with the rules systems attached to even Chronicles of Darkness. With the recent shift towards mining nostalgia at nuWW, I wanted to create something that would have a lot of replayability and let me run different kinds of vampire stories with the same basic core Gothic horror themes and an easy to follow game system. So over the last few days, I ended up with Vampire World. Right now it's very light on flavor and giving direction, and mostly just the crunch with the flavor written between the lines for much of it, but my hope is to fill that in as I get a feel for how it plays. Part of why I want to show it this early is get a feel for the first kinds of questions players might ask when reading it. Right now it's really in a rough draft state but I thought I'd get some more pairs of eyes to take a look at it. Right now it only has the five basic playbooks: Beast, Haunt, Lord, Phantom, Serpent. These correspond with Requiem's Clans, Gangrel, Nosferatu, Ventrue, Mekhet and Daeva respectively. I mined a lot of the ideas from Urban Shadows but tried to shift the focus to something a touch more Gothic and a touch more cut-throat, narrowed the focus while giving lots of room for new ideas. I have ideas of where to go with more "advanced playbooks" to build on this with, but part of the premise is that the players develop their Clan as well as their character and the identity of their particular kind of vampire, encouraging playing a lineage in certain games if one wants to play with a generational game. With the MC Playbook you start the game determining what exactly vampires are in your universe to set the expectations for the players in writing their Clans and let you create a very different kind of universe from some example options, or writing your own. In addition to the Basic Moves, I've replaced the idea of Factions with Status and "The Game" which provides the core political mechanics to mess with. Right now the game play's rhythm is determined by Hunger on the personal level and one's pawns (that is, your assets) on the political level, kind of like I did with Capers! a bit. I've got five players I was going to playtest over PbP this weekend and try to see how the rhythm plays out; PbP is always different than tabletop though so I'd like other people's feedback to see what they think as well. I set all the Google docs to allow for comments.
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Jun 2, 2017 01:56
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So, I haven't dived in very far, but it looks like a version of Vampire I'd actually want to play! One question, I can't seem to find the leverage sympathy move. Am I just being blind?
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Jun 2, 2017 02:33
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Capfalcon posted:So, I haven't dived in very far, but it looks like a version of Vampire I'd actually want to play! Oh! I forgot to link the Peripheral Moves, which include the stuff for Session Intro/End, Hunger/Atrocity, and Sympathy. That was my bad.
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Jun 2, 2017 02:46
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Tricky Dick Nixon posted:Vampire stuff... I haven't had a chance to look properly at the stuff you posted—I am at work—but have you looked at Undying at all? If you haven't seen it, it's a diceless PbtA game drawing on similar inspiration, so you might get some use out of the concepts in there.
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Jun 2, 2017 02:58
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thefakenews posted:I haven't had a chance to look properly at the stuff you posted—I am at work—but have you looked at Undying at all? If you haven't seen it, it's a diceless PbtA game drawing on similar inspiration, so you might get some use out of the concepts in there. Thanks, that's really interesting actually. They are going for a very different approach to the central idea of blood, whereas I actually liked the idea Ken Hite of tracking one's hunger/composure instead of actual "mana" points of blood, but a lot of the same impulses are here and I'm digging into it now. This is something that's more implied in between the text rather than stated outright, but one thing I also wanted to do with the theme is focus both strongly on Gothic horror as Requiem did but also make an effort to re-evaluate the whole idea of "vampires as predators" to "vampires as parasites", though with them often pretending to be something they are not (like a predator, for instance), just like parasites do. Looking at this will help me figure out how best to find the daylight between the concepts.
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Jun 2, 2017 03:11
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I recently ran a game of Johnstone Metzger's War Between Two Worlds and it was pretty great! It's a stripped-down version of Dungeon Planet (itself a science-fantasy hack of Dungeon World) designed for one shot play. It looks like he did a stand-alone follow-up called 'Space Wurm v. Moonicorn' which is supposed to incorporate rules from Monsterhearts? Anyone familiar with this? I've not played Monsterhearts, so I'm not familiar with how well it's incorporated. The book is super pretty though.
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Jun 10, 2017 19:54
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Space Wurm v. Moonicorn is gorgeous but I haven't played it.
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Jun 16, 2017 00:36
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I'm going to be running session zero for my first Dungeon World campaign next week, and I'm looking for any advice on how to make that work. I know that, for PbtA games, you aren't really meant to do much preparation before you start, so I've mostly just got an idea of what the overall threat is going to be, a couple of ideas for things that are likely to be important, and how the game itself is going to start. I want to do as much of the world-building collaboratively as I can beyond the bare skeleton that needs to be in place for the campaign to work, so I've got a list of questions to ask the group once we've gone through character creation, but most of my players have very little experience with tabletop roleplaying - the guy with the most experience has played a few games of DnD, but that's about it. Is there anything I can do to help it run smoothly and keep them interested? Should I be expecting them to come up with most of the background and just helping direct and keep the ideas flowing, or should it be me describing most of it and getting them to give input?
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Jun 18, 2017 22:06
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NAME REDACTED posted:Is there anything I can do to help it run smoothly and keep them interested? Should I be expecting them to come up with most of the background and just helping direct and keep the ideas flowing, or should it be me describing most of it and getting them to give input? Questions are key. Some players will get into world-building easily, but most will need motivation. In theory, during session zero you should think of yourself as just another player -- you all have equal authority to determine what is True and no one has pure veto power. In practice, your players are very unlikely to have brought as much to the table as you and will need a lot of suggestions and pushing to help them along.
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Jun 19, 2017 07:29
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Ask loaded questions. "Rogue, you seem like a gallant an dashing man. why are you hanging out with this meathead of a fighter?" Whatever the player answers, either they agree with you and give some sort of motivation for their character and set up tension (good!) or they disagree with you and you set up some sort of friendship bond with the fighter (also good!). Both of these are better than a blank, "I hadn't thought about that." So ask questions! "The captain of the guard is glaring at your party. Thief, what crime does he suspect you of? did you really commit it, or were you framed?" that kinda stuff. If somebody is playing a dwarf, ask them if they're a city dwarf or a forest dwarf. subvert expectations. If somebody plays an elf, ask them why so many elves no longer live in trees. Etc. This makes people think about the worldbuilding themselves. EDIT: though on the subject of worldbuilding before the first session I usually try to give everyone a feel for group dynamics (why are you raveling together?) to make sure everyone is on the same page re: character motivations and overall tone, and then fling cool ideas at each other like "oh what setting do you want? Ancient themed? Traditional high fantasy? Steampunk? You like airships? What about magitek?" etc. Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 10:15 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 09:52
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Deltasquid posted:Ask loaded questions. Okay, that's really interesting! So it might be a good idea to focus on character motivation before figuring out the rest of the world? I think all the players are mostly on the same page with regard to tone but I can definitely use that to help spur creativity. Building on the loaded questions - I'd seen recommendations to ask leading questions, but loaded questions actually opens up a lot of options I hadn't really considered before. Stuff like "Character X, why does character Y get under your skin?" or "Character A, what misconception about your home town did character B accidentally step in when you first met?"
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Jun 21, 2017 11:12
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Literally just keep loving with them with loaded/tricky/weird questions and eventually someone will drop a really cool idea you can run with for wider world-building.
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Jun 21, 2017 11:17
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I find it also helps to focus at first on the characters and their little corners of the world. Ask about their families, where they hang out, what they want or worry about. It's still worldbuilding, since if they say "my dad is a blacksmith" you can ask stuff about what weird thing blacksmiths smelt down, and what's been causing trouble for dad's business recently, and who commissioned a sword he swore he'd never make, and so on. However, it feels more like character creation, and that can be more comfortable for newbies -- they're used to dreaming up people, not geopolitics, but if you look carefully at people's lives you can see the reflection of the world around them. You can move to more abstract questions later, maybe after the first session. e: Oh, and a really simple trick someone taught me: when you ask questions to get people being creative, don't phrase them in a way that can be answered with 'yes' or 'no.' So instead of, "Does Vincent have any dangerous enemies?" you instead say "So, what dangerous enemies has Vincent picked up?" In the former case, the snap response is to say "No, not really," because they haven't thought of any. In the second case, they might say "What? He doesn't have any enemies," but now it's more of a decision than a reflex: "he's the kind of guy nobody hates," rather than "I dunno, hadn't thought about it." megane fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jun 21, 2017 |
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Jun 21, 2017 15:21
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Im about to start up a Play By Post urban shadows campaign. Ill be designing a few threat clocks and then letting the players loose and see what they are interested in. Im worried about the first steps in GMing and PbTA campaign, since it seems like the start is where things can fall apart quickly. I also come from the DnD Gming part, where you'd ask the player to roll dice, or have an orc interrupt them if you wanted to get the action going. How do you "move along" in a PBtA game, since you can't force the players to roll dice. Any tips for the starting session for a PBtA session? It feels like the world building part is doneish, there are lots of areas for players to explore, im more worried about missing the mark of what the players are interested in or the action lagging behind.
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Jun 21, 2017 17:47
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Exmond posted:Im about to start up a Play By Post urban shadows campaign. Ill be designing a few threat clocks and then letting the players loose and see what they are interested in. Im worried about the first steps in GMing and PbTA campaign, since it seems like the start is where things can fall apart quickly. Bolded because this is completely false. One of the main principles of PbtA is that if there's a pause, make a move, and while you can't tell your players "roll Perception" you can certainly tell them "a giant, furry, clawed hand just tore through your front door. What do you do?" If they're not making rolls after that, they're in even more trouble.
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Jun 21, 2017 17:51
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admanb posted:Bolded because this is completely false. One of the main principles of PbtA is that if there's a pause, make a move, and while you can't tell your players "roll Perception" you can certainly tell them "a giant, furry, clawed hand just tore through your front door. What do you do?" If they're not making rolls after that, they're in even more trouble. Basically this is it. Throw stuff at them that they will want to make moves in response to. Some ways you can do this: Have a menace show up like admanb said. Show something amiss which will make them want to read the sitch, like a torn open door that wasn't that way before. Have a NPC confront them over something, justified or not. Have gunfire and fire everywhere, meaning they'll probably have to act under pressure just to get anything done. And so on. Really, review the GM moves for a toolbox of stuff. You'll want to read the GM section in general, it's absolutely crucial.
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Jun 21, 2017 18:13
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I also find PbtA games work better when you start with a cold open. Just throw them in the middle of a situation where they already know each other and have a goal, and figure out how they're working towards that goal and why as the session progresses. For example, maybe start that Urban Shadows game with "Okay, you just got the money. Who has the money, and who is waiting in the car outside?" And after they answer, "Okay, [third player], what are you doing about the cops who are going to show up in 2 minutes?" If you've already done a bunch of world building, might as well start playing in the world right away.
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Jun 21, 2017 18:37
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Kaja Rainbow posted:And so on. Really, review the GM moves for a toolbox of stuff. You'll want to read the GM section in general, it's absolutely crucial. It is really depressing playing in a *W game where the GM clearly hasn't read the GM section and just runs Their Adventure, because they know how to run D&D so who reads GMing advice anyway. Okay everyone roll perception uh wait everyone roll discern realities
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Jun 21, 2017 20:15
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xiw posted:It is really depressing playing in a *W game where the GM clearly hasn't read the GM section and just runs Their Adventure, because they know how to run D&D so who reads GMing advice anyway. Tell me about it. My friend tried to Run Dungeon World once and it totally turned out like that. I sent him the GM's guide from the site and try to explain it to him and that didn't work. Total klusterfuk. Then one of the players from that botched dungeon World game ran their own game. I didn't like the guy so I didn't play in it but I heard stories from that. He gave out tons of +1 magical item, hosed with the core resolution mechanic, punished a player for asking for a reward for saving orphans because she was "being greedy", and constantly complained his characters kept falling rolls because they couldn't meet DCs. Ugh!
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Jun 21, 2017 20:35
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I'll second starting the first session with the PCs in the middle of a poo poo-show in media res and going from there - it's usually comedy gold. "Whom are you killing right now, and why?" or "Hey, so why are the cops chasing you right now?" or "Why is <established NPC> so pissed off at you right now?" or "Right, so that heist you're about to describe to me? How is it going pear-shaped?" or "Whom are you in the process of loving when armed goons bust in through your front door?" The key is to immediately create a situation that can't be ignored. Bonus points if you can rope in multiple PCs at once, and props if you solicit a tidbit of input from each involved player. This produces instant buy-in on the part of the players. In this regard, Urban Shadows is loving aces because of its beginning-of-session move. This move explicitly asks players what rumors or conflicts they've heard about looming on the horizon, which is a great way to figure out what interests them. And it's virtually guaranteed that someone's going to miss the roll, which gives you a great way to start a session. That's exactly how the opening session of our (gaslight London) Urban Shadows game started - the Fae player's beginning of session move mentioned a new group of Demon Hunters from "the colonies" arriving in London and causing trouble. But he missed the roll, so it turns out these Pennsylvania Quaker motherfuckers were kinda fuzzy (and not overly discerning in any case) about the difference between faeries and demons. They jumped the Fae and the Aware as they were on their way back from a clandestine visit to the British Museum to look at interesting paranormal artifacts. The ensuing combat was a comedy of errors that nicely set the tone for the evening.
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Jun 21, 2017 22:55
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Is there anything good to read about running mysteries in PbtA? I'm not sure how to make mysteries compelling without compromising the core AW collaborative style.
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Jun 21, 2017 23:20
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Pope Guilty posted:Is there anything good to read about running mysteries in PbtA? I'm not sure how to make mysteries compelling without compromising the core AW collaborative style. Well... it actually works very well, because RPG mysteries should be improvisational and react to the PCs questions and actions. A mystery that is just a static list of clues that points towards or away from a static list of characters is a good way to get yourself in a lot of trouble during a session, as your players will think of completely different stuff to look at and people to talk to. If you're not prepared to be flexible you're gonna end up answering a lot of questions with "no, you don't find anything" and that's going to frustrate and bore your players. They'll also shoot your most important clue in its stupid face -- sometimes literally.
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Jun 21, 2017 23:43
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Monster of the Week has "when you investigate a mystery..." as one of its core moves. The results are understandably monster-centric, but there's no reason you couldn't use the same idea.
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Jun 21, 2017 23:44
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It struck me recently that PbtA would be a good system for something like CSI or Law and Order or any number of other Homicide Investigation Team type shows. You have a handful of weird quote-unquote professionals with bizarre specialties working together to accomplish a twisty task despite their personal problems, and while they inevitably succeed it's usually due to somebody happening to mention a seemingly-unrelated detail that turns out to be the crux of the whole case or something. Sounds like PbtA to me. Playbooks include Creepy Forensic Autopsy Girl, Guy Who Really Really Hates Crime, and Ice-T. Actually, you could whole-heartedly embrace the sort of retroactive causality admanb is talking about : When you notice an unusual detail, roll +something. On a 10+, it's of vital importance to the case. On a 7-9, it's connected, but you're missing a piece of the puzzle -- you need to dig deeper. megane fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Jun 22, 2017 |
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Jun 22, 2017 00:02
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The Marmot playbook from aw1 has investigation mechanics. and also widdle paws, lookatem
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Jun 22, 2017 00:33
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Hi folks, first post here.  Just passing to say I'm a big fan of Apocalypse World and it's hacks, specially those who do the intra-party conflicts well like Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, Sagas of the Icelanders, etc. Though I also have fun with the more "adventuring party" ones now and then. xiw posted:It is really depressing playing in a *W game where the GM clearly hasn't read the GM section and just runs Their Adventure, because they know how to run D&D so who reads GMing advice anyway.
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Jun 22, 2017 18:10
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lessavini posted:He even rolled dice for monsters to hit. XD Why can't people just read the book?
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Jun 22, 2017 22:36
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Because all RPGs are basically the same. It's just what setting they're in. You roll your D20, check against a DC, and move on.
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Jun 22, 2017 22:57
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DemonMage posted:Because all RPGs are basically the same. It's just what setting they're in. You roll your D20, check against a DC, and move on. Ryan Dancey just smiled and he doesn't know why.
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Jun 23, 2017 00:59
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lessavini posted:Hi folks, first post here. What happens if the monster rolls a mis--you know what, nevermind. I don't want to know.
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Jun 23, 2017 01:00
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I once played with a guy who wasn't satisfied with the list of moves for Apocalypse World, and added moves for "dodge a bullet," separate from "dodge an attack," plus rolls for drinking, stealing, running... skill checks, basically. There was a whole page of them. I think they involved adding stats together, too.
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Jun 23, 2017 01:02
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"Hmm, this game is different than what I'm used to. Instead of meeting it on its own terms I better bend the loving thing into the shape of D&D because change scares me."
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Jun 23, 2017 01:58
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I feel like if Dungeon World had used approaches (like Fate Accelerated) instead of stats the working parts would fit together better.
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Jun 23, 2017 02:09
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The KS for Happiest Apocalypse on Earth. I was about to drop $10 on PDFs when, https://www.dropbox.com/s/i3clxzhhz2mhk9r/HAoE-Character-Sheet.pdf?dl=0 Then Basic Moves happened. None of those have proper Triggers at all ! What is this ? Is there a good reason for it ?
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Jun 27, 2017 03:54
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