Monster Hearts Actual Play Session 4
Agendas clash and everything comes to a head in this final episode of Monster Hearts! Secret machinations revealed and desperate bargains are made, with final, fatal results.
Relevant Links
Trigger Warnings
- Heavy on the sexuality, veiled
- Detailed descriptions of injuries.
Crunchy Bits!
- Intro Song main theme from Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines by Rik W. Schaffer
- Outro Song “” by Rob Zombie
Podcast: |
Pretty sweet wrap up!
I did want to comment that it seemed like some of the players were approaching the game in a “mechanics first” kind of way, looking at what Moves they wanted to trigger and then saying so, rather than saying what their characters did and then everyone watching to see if moves should trigger from it.
This especially seemed to be the case with Dan. From the beginning, during highlighting, he was talking about how he wasn’t going to ever use Hot, because it was low, and so he’d just never use it, and I was thinking “That’s not really your call… there are moves that use it, and you might make those moves.” And then, the first thing Mara did (run naked and crying up to cop, wailing about Omar attacking her) seemed really clearly, to me at least, to be Manipulating an NPC. He said he wanted to Turn Someone On, but wow, I kept thinking “that really doesn’t sound like the move happening here.” But I guess you were all cool with it, and that’s what counts…
It similarly seemed like an awful big stretch to me to claim that Mara was “heedlessly pursuing a hunger” when she attacked Omar. It had already been established that Omar wasn’t the biggest, easiest, source of fear in the area. It really felt to me, as an outside listener, like Dan just wanted to attack the biggest threat and was trying to justify it being part of the move for the bonus.
But all of you seemed happy with how things went, so that’s what matters, and it was definitely still great to listen to.
On a more abstract note, but related to Dan’s attempt to Turn On the cop… it says in the book that PCs don’t get to say things like “That wouldn’t turn me on, I’m straight” but it seems unclear to me whether that’s something the MC should be able to say about NPCs. I get the rationale of it being off the table for PCs… a big part of the theme is the weirdness and unpredictability of teenage sexuality. But not all NPCs are teenagers… it seems like it might be reasonable that adult NPCs have sexual identities that are more “set” and thus maybe it’s okay, sometimes, for an MC to say “Yeah, no, this person isn’t going to be turned on by that. Try something else if you really want that move to work.” But I’m not really sure…
The “announcing moves” thing is something I plan on bringing up in the review! Keep in mind, Dan hasn’t played an AW style game before, and I’m still finding my feet as MC. It is something I noticed during editing, and I am going to use this experience to refine it in for future AW style games.
i’m definitely looking forward to hearing the review (and interview?) and very much enjoyed the AP ‘casts over all. very interesting characters (both PCs and NPCs) and a nice, horrible, terrific disaster of a story.
was kind of hoping for CJ’s character to actually have a “good” ending though… his character never really did anything that bad…
are you planning to run other games on the show in the future, Allegra?
Brain,
Thanks! I’ll let Allegra answer that last bit (though if I were to venture a guess, she’s got the bug and that def won’t be her last time behind the screen, not that we use screens anymore).
We talked about some of the comments you’ve made in the review, they were quite helpful for fostering some of the discussion. And, yes, we’re currently scheduling an interview with Joe, tentatively set up for next week but he’s currently travelling so it might have to wait a bit.
Thank you for making me want to play this game. I did back it when it was on Indiegogo, because I love Apocalypse World and am interested at the very least in seeing how hacks of it tick (and also because Joe seems like a cool guy), but I honestly wasn’t sure a game about teenage romance and social powergames was ever going to be the sort of thing I’d want to run or play in. (And to be honest, the Twilight associations didn’t help). Your sessions here helped me realize the full array of narrative potential these character archetypes and mechanics have, and how deliciously creepy things can get. Might still be a tough sell for my friends, though. I guess we’ll have to see. For right now it seems like they’d much rather I keep running tremulus.
Brian – I plan on running future games, though I look forward to being in the “player” role again, too. Creating a world and invoking a tone was a blast. I’m also finding lots of games on my own now, which usually means if I want to play them, I have to run them!
Malkav – I was originaly really “meh” about this game when I first heard of it, but reading through the book changed my thoughts pretty quickly. Pitching it as “self aware Twilight” might help. I hope to run tremulus sometime, too.
i know what you mean, allegra. sadly, i’m really the only person in my local group into RPGs in a big way… which means i’m pretty much ALWAYS running the games (or “facilitating” gmless ones).
I hope you do too – for the podcast, that is. I’m trying to apply some of the things I’ve learned about other * World games, but of course all of them have their own unique quirks and design intentions, and there’s just not a lot out there to help grasp tremulus in particular quite yet. Though Sean Preston’s been very active on the Reality Blurs forums, I note.