The players chose to do the Cruise mission which is kind of cool because I had done the least amount of prep for that one.  I was really blown away at how organically the mission manages coalesce based on the results of dice rolls.  Because it was a one-shot, the action was really out of control but it was a LOT of fun!  At the end of the first session one of the players got his arm coated in proto-shoggoth after reaching into burning Shoggoth goo to get his sword back.  Another player "survived" the explosion but is currently trapped as a spirit in his laptop.  Our telepath was accidentally downloaded her intelligence into a small, Asian assassin who had gotten torn up pretty good in a fight with the other members of the party.  We are thinking about doing it again soon! 

Shame this place is not quite as vibrant as I had hoped.  I am still debating about the transition to Google+ but I see it in the stars.

Trouble in Trinity

A demon has been summoned by a group of either kids or kids and parents (haven't decided) to help their little boy, Brad Pitameyer, play football better.  He gets hooked on the power and attention and the demon begins asking for more and more.  Eventually Brad hands the demon his girlfriend who he's been having trouble with anyway.  On the upswing, Brad is playing better than ever and on track to play for whatever college he wants.  In addition, the town is downstream from a hydroelectric dam that, unknown to most, is also an occult dam that blocks demons from entering the Kauwanee valley.   The summoned demon is doing his best to get the dam inactivated so that all of its buddies can come through too.  The man in charge of watching the dam, a member of the Lucent Oculi, has gone missing. 

Monster: Demon (Tempter, to tempt people into evil deeds)
Powers: Invisible, Move Quickly, Horrible Strength, Heal when in water. 
Attacks: Drowning touch: 3 harm.  Suffocates someone with water.  Killing someone with this makes it look like they drowned.     
Armor:  2
Weaknesses: Salt, holy water (2 harm, bypasses armor), magic.
Harm Capacity: 10
Custom Moves: Fearful Entrance, Roll+Cool, 10+ means that you act normally, 7-9 quiver in fear for +1 xp, or fight through, take -1 forward.  On a miss, quiver in fear for +1xp or take -1 ongoing. 

A small town, Trinity, Colorado.  Strange brownouts, a high school quarterback who is throwing like an NFL pro, a teen disappearing rate that is reaching epidemic levels and a member of the Order of the Lucent Oculi that has failed to check in.  Something big is happening in this small little town. 

1)   Day:
2)   Shadows: Donna Sutton, Brad Pitameyer’s girlfriend, goes missing.  Brad seems unconcerned.
3)   Dusk: Brad breaks all the high school football records in the history of the state of Colorado.
4)   Sunset: A transformer blows leaving the town in darkness.  People see strange visions.
5)   Nightfall: An unnatural storm blankets the area in darkness. 
6)   Midnight: The dam is breached and a Gate opens.

Characters:
1) Brad Pitameyer (Thief, steals people and gives them to the demon).
2) Lucas Melendez (Deceased, Witness, to give info to the players), missing member of the Lucent Oculi, a powerful sorcerer.  Likely eaten by the demon. 

Hey all!  Figured I would drop these on here and see if anyone had any input.  I have a real tendency to do heavy prep for my games and I really wanted to prevent that from happening so I decided to go for 3 different scenarios that the players could choose when we sit down.  That way, I spend my time on the skeletons of the mission and play to see what happens as opposed to having it all planned out.  I will post them all in three separate postings. 

The first, Massacre in Massachusetts. 

The hunters hear about a grisly massacre where some apparently wild animal broke into a bingo game and savaged 20 people.  What didn't make it into the reports is that the  people apparently were eating each other.  This is a result of a ghost of a child starved to death by his aunt who can make people ravenously hungry.  He is exacting revenge on the town for hiding his disappearance, either willingly or unwillingly (it is the spirit of a kid so it might not be rational).  His aunt is a Futakuchi-onna, a Japanese monster disguised as a dainty woman with a horrific second mouth in the back of her head.  One of the stories says that she starved one of her stepchildren to feed her own children.  So the characters are drawn to Greenfield, Massachusetts by the actions of the ghost that lead them to destroy the real monster disguised as Susan Truesdell.  My mission outline is as follows:

Futakuchi-onna Stats:
Monster: Devourer (To consume People), disguised as Susan Truesdell
Powers: Deceptively beautiful, Climb Walls, Feign Weakness, Bestial Strength,
Attacks: Harm 0 (Body), Harm 3 (Evil Maw)
Armor: 0 (Body), 1 (Head)
Weaknesses: Distracted easily by food (meat and sweets are best), anti-emetics cause 2-Harm that bypasses armor but must be given orally.  Futakuchi-onna are attracted by the scent of rice.  If they consume a large quantity of rice they will explode as the rice swells in their belly. 
Harm Capacity: 5 (Body), 7 (Head)
Custom Moves:
•   Entangle: When someone takes Harm from monster apply Harm move and have player roll 2d6+Tough, 10+, no additional effect.  7-9, -1 Forward.  Less than 7, Enveloped!  -1 Ongoing until you escape!
•   Swallow: When you take Harm from monster, add the additional Harm move, Swallow Whole.  Begin countdown.  3 actions available to rescue person until Swallowed person is killed. 

Countdown:
1)   Day: Some cows go missing from Farmer Stanley’s pastures.
2)   Shadows: 
3)   Dusk: Sally Hemstrong (daughter of Harold and Maggie) goes missing (eaten by the monster)
4)   Sunset: Denise Hemstrong goes missing (eaten by monster).
5)   Nightfall: The girls’ mother, Julia, goes insane and tries to kill Harold. 
6)   Midnight: The two Truesdell daughters in the attic will mature and enter the world as ravenous demons.  Just like their mom!

Famine Ghost (Ravengheist) Stats:
Monster: Executioner (Punish the people of Greenfield for reinforcing the inadvertent lie of him heading back West).
Powers: Induce Hunger, Insubstantial, Fly, Manifest. 
Attacks: Harm 3 (Intense Hunger).  This will work better if there are Bystanders there, too.  The hunger will cause them to attack the players and cause harm that way. 
Armor: 0
Weaknesses: Rock Salt (2 Harm), exorcism, will evaporate if those that wronged him are vanquished. 
Harm Capacity: 8, impervious to normal weapons.
Custom Move:

Countdown: (make sure at least one of these occurs while Susan Truesdell is confined or carefully watched by the players). 
1)   Day: A humungous school of fish wash up on the riverbank, some fish eating the others.
2)   Shadows: Kills a couple walking down by the Connecticut River.
3)   Dusk: Kills Marty Hendricks, he is shot after attacking police as they enter his house.  He has eaten his dog.
4)   Sunset: Kills two small children at the park.
5)   Nightfall: Kills Julia Walton, daughter of Gerald, who helped hide the young boy’s body.   
6)   Midnight: When the town gathers at the Community Center it will drive them all mad with hunger, gaining enough power to slip its anchors keeping it here in town.

Characters:
•   Harold Hemstrong (Minion), ex-husband of Susan Truesdell, he worships the ground she walks on.  She, instead of eating him, had him remarry and provide more “blood kin” to consume and feed her starving daughters.
•   Sally Hemstrong (Bystander, Victim), daughter of Maggie, stepdaughter to Harold.  A headstrong teenager who has no idea how much danger she is in.  She is, like stereotypical teens, extremely contrary and will actively resist efforts to cordon her off and keep her safe.  She dislikes her stepfather, Harold (with good reason, apparently!). 
•   Susan Truesdell (Monster), a diminutive woman of half Asian descent, remarkably beautiful and on of the town’s more wealthy citizens. 
•   Marty Hendricks (Victim)
•   Julia Walton (Victim)

Hey all!  Got a one-shot game scheduled for next weekend and wanted to get some things clarified.  I have played Dungeon World but never run any *world games.  That said, I am REALLY excited to run Monster of the Week.  Out of all the world games it was the one that really sparked something in my brain (although I think I would like to go back and run some DW someday soon!). 

Question: With kick ass being a move where, even if successful, your character will likely take a lot of damage.  It seems like it pushes things through the investigative phase with a big battle at the end where everyone gets messed up pretty good.  Does having another combat earlier in the game mess people up so bad that they don't have enough get up and go for the final battle?

Thanks!  I will post more as it occurs to me. 

I would say there are a few ways to go here. 

1)Decrease the XP that players receive at the end of the session.  You can do this by eliminating XP points for failures (I actually like this rule a lot as it is kind of a consolation prize and makes failure a LOT more palatable).  You could only give 1 XP point max at the end of the game for all the things they ask (learning about the world, completing a bond, etc).  I like this idea less than the next one.

2)Increase the amount of XP it takes to go up a level.  I kind of like this idea better.  Instead of Level+7, make it Level+(7+Level).  XP requirements to go up levels steps up each time higher and higher (twice as much, actually) but you still get to give rewards for completing bonds and rolling failures. 

Just my 2 cents. 

It just struck me that a warrior shouldn't be able to do the same amount of damage with a sword as he does with his fists.  I like the Hack n' Slash rationale.  If you can tag a bad guy with your fists and have it do significant damage then allow the Hack n' Slash.  It just seemed like such a classic move to me and I wanted to be clear on how I would handle it, particularly if it happened to a player. 

A little bit of a non-sequitor here but what does being disarmed do, mechanically speaking, to someone?  Does it prevent a person from doing damage until they roll a defy danger roll?