I can't help but note how rusted barrel's journey here ends in "I'm not subscribing to be told how to play," not when he finds out the game is based on Apocalypse World - perhaps the most notorious game in the last ten years for committing the crime of telling you how to play - but when it tells him his character might feel something queer.

I'm dismayed that in the end, roleplaying conservatism boils down to... conservatism.

Dismayed, not surprised.

I think I've finally got The Renfield Move:

When you promise to aid or protect someone with whom sex is not even a question, roll+cold.
On a 10+, if you have 3 or more Strings on them, they take -1 ongoing when interacting socially with anyone but you. They can undo this when they advance (undoing this does not use up the advance).
If you have fewer than 3 strings on them, they take -1 forward under the same circumstances.
On a 7-9, nothing in particular. On a miss, hard move time.

[ETA or perhaps: on a miss, you take -1 ongoing interacting with them. Lose this when you advance.]

Why did you say elsewhere that this ups the power curve?

What about siring?

And what's the key word for vamps, the way that ghouls have "hunger" and werewolves are in the running for "fear"? Is it "beauty"? (Or "power"? Or do witches get the power. Hmm.)

(Also, have you seen this?)

So what we've got so far on were-nouns is:

Werewolves are all about walking as close to the fire as possible, trying not to get burned. Werewolves have hungers, which are physical things they want, bad. They get a bonus to trying to seize them. At their Darkest Selves, they must attempt to kill or maim everything that stands in the way of their hungers.

...which territory we more or less ceded to the Ghoul in the time since the above was written. So what else can we do for our dear friends the lycra-topes?

Here's my thinking. Werewolves more than any other skin are about fear - fear of being found out, fear of losing control, fear of your literally changing self. It's the fear you feel when you wake up with a face covered in acne, writ large. It's the fear of hair growing in weird new places and that itch between your legs.

This draws more on classic horror archetypes than it does on Twilight tropes, it's true. But the fear of losing control is something we can work with, surely. Or maybe like vampires, we're talking about two skins here? The Oz and the Veruca?

I've been thinking about Cthulhu gaming and looking over the awesome supplement The Armitage Files for Trail of Cthulhu, and meanwhile, my GF has been watching as much X-Files as she can get on Netflix Instant in the next room over. SO I'm thinking about investigation-based hacks.

I have a few moves written, sort of - nothing you might not guess as far as the sorts of things investigators do (analyse evidence, search, interrogate someone, question someone peaceably, race to get there in time, chase someone/something). What I'm getting stuck on, though, is what you get out of them. Specifically, I'm resistant to the thought that the GM is going to be doling out clues that have been prepped... but making up the clues and doling them out isn't a lot better. And having players take the lead by getting their own clues leads to pacing problems that could threaten the feel of all sorts of games, especially Cthulhu ones. Do I just need to get over myself?

Any thoughts, and any moves I'm missing, are welcome.

So now I'm thinking about True Blood and how their fae-ness manifests as psychic powers. Any future in a psychic-mojo skin for MH? Do we have it somewhere already and I missed it?

For some reason Jawbox's "Savory" is firmly lodged in my head while reading Monsterhearts threads.

Ghouls should be about hunger. Drugs, or food, or flesh, or brains, or excess, or denial.