Barf Forth Apocalyptica
powered by the apocalypse => Monsterhearts => Topic started by: Steve Hickey on February 04, 2011, 06:14:23 PM
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So I'm starting to prep fires for the second session of my Monsterhearts game. (Fires are like Fronts in Apocalypse World, a way to present conflicts, antagonism and adversity to the characters.)
Jenni, Emma, Ellen: you can read this post, but there will be spoilers from the second post onwards!
Before doing anything, I decided to draw up a relationship map of all the characters and the NPCs they've met:
Monsterhearts relationship map (https://docs.google.com/drawings/edit?id=169wBlIaSzw4IrKJIZqv6W-FLcG3SMfDVPVraX3XMrKg&hl=en&authkey=CNfDgMcP)
The first thing I noticed through doing this is that I hadn't finished determining the Wants and Methods for each of the NPCs. Rather than doing that all at once before writing up the fires, I've decided to wait and figure out each NPC as they get involved in a fire.
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The second thing I did was simply write a list of all the tensions I could see on between these characters. I used the relationship map and my own gut to come up with the following things:
- Simon Harris has returned from the dead, having made some sort of "Bargain" with some sort of power. Simon also seems romantically focused on Vincent.
- Seed's sister/brother, Blossom, is in town pretending to be Seed.
- Seed has turned on a number of people in town, creating a little mob frothing with lust.
- Vincent has just found out that his girlfriend, Alba, is a witch.
- Seed has requested two magical artifacts from her father. One of them is a blade designed to kill witches.
- Alba's dad totally mistrusts Vincent. Her dad is also involved in a weird, complicated, definitely not-sexually-abusive but possibly quite-dysfunctional-about-roles relationship with Alba ever since Alba's mother died.
- Seed has left Nicky (who says she's pregnant with Seed's baby) in the Fairy Realm.
- Seed's English teacher (who Seed's turned on) is pretty sure she knows Seed is a Fae.
Immediately, I could see that it'd be useful to combine a couple of these things. The lustful Mob and Mrs Aberdein's curiousity can work together in a 'Seed is Hot' Fire. Vincent and Alba's relationship, on its own, doesn't really make a Fire, but when you add Alba's Dad into the mix, a potentially creepy little love triangle starts to form.
Joe, I'd be right in thinking that tensions between player characters don't form Fires, right? As MC, you just give the players opportunities to work that stuff out.
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Steve,
You're right in your assumption - don't turn PC-PC disputes into Fires. Those are already raging problems. Just follow your principles with them.
I'm going to be honest, I think Fires will be eliminated/cut down in future iterations. Wants and Methods are going to remain, because they're golden, but the rest might be a bit obtuse.
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Joe, if you've got any rough ideas about how to cut down Fire that you're willing to write down, let me know. I've worked up rough drafts of 4 or 5 of them already but I'm always willing to save myself unnecessary work!