The New Sexy

I was thinking about a skin called "The Vessel". Basically someone who's been ritually prepared by a cult or some other creepy organisation (including their creepy parents) to be possessed or play some other part in a doomsday prophecy.

As a skin, it's a little more victim-y and a little less filled with cool magical powers. However, the Vessel might have a lot of mindshare-effectiveness. I'm thinking of playbooks like the Mundane in Monster of the Week and the Slave in World of Conan.

Basically, the Vessel would be for people that have been kept cloistered for most of their childhood and are only now entering the 'normal' world.

[Edited to add:] Actually, I like this so much I think I might mock up a version of this skin.

Oh please, fuck off with your "too weird" crap. What if I want to play a brainwashed cult? If I can't play the teenage psychic mastermind of a whole teenage cult of brainwashed drones your game is bumshit! Bumshit I tell you!

By Exorcist, I don't just mean the one movie. It's the same girl in every movies, like in The Exorcism of whozit wuzzername Emily Rose? She has like a life and stuff too before the possession and exorcism. Is that the Infernal? Well, okay then.

What's the one where you're in somebody else's body and identity? Like a fake or a duplicate or undercover. You know who you are, but you look like somebody else and everybody else thinks you are that other person. Maybe like The Vessel or whatever.

I like the Construct idea. That character should be super-smart and stuff, but unable to interact with society without being attacked.

Oh yeah, and the Construct is cool. I only played a demo scenario of Promethean: The Created, but I can remember that the concepts behind the game really helped our group bring some interesting stuff to the table.

Of course: The Ghoul hits that pretty well.

You need to wig out in other people's beds, in order to be a Monsterhearts character.

This needs to be on the back cover!

Also, Johnstone, if I was me running things, then yeah, that's be pretty dope but they'd be more like followers that hive-mind. I'm mean, a little hive-mind, but not like Invasion styles.

I WANT WANT HIVEMIND INVASHUN OV TEH BOOTY SNATCH0RZZ GIVE ME NAO


Twins maybe? Twins? Or is that predominantly 80s-based fantasy too crass and "if I have sex with two different characters at the same time in different places do their sex moves also affect each other and if so does that make them gay?" played-out that even Monsterhearts won't touch it?

Oh, speaking of the 80s, Joe have you seen Society yet? The one that starts off like the shittiest teen 80s movie you've ever seen and then barfs up Cronenbergist insanity? So good. Howzabout those characters as a playbook? No idea. Is there room for the character who is trying to get out of the crazy cult they are in? Like they don't want to be the Wicker Man?

Brain waves while in the car:

The Alien: Obviously the touchstone here is Roswell, but consider also Escape to Witch Mountain, Starman, and the recent The Event.

The Hunter (/Slayer/Guardian): Your whole schtick is making sure the monsters don't get out of line and killing them if they do, but some of them--ok, that one in particular--are so sexy...

The Psion: May overlap with the Cassandra a bit, but someone who's mostly a mundane except for some weird power or other.  The classics are telepathy and prophetic visions, but there's also psychometry, telekinesis, and so forth.  Much opportunity for Psychic Nosebleeds.  Think Willow before her full-blown witchiness, or Sam from Supernatural.

Awesome, Neon Fox.

The Hunter already exists, but it's called The Chosen. Like, it's done and a handful of people have already played as The Chosen (3, I think?).

TEH HIDRAW
A NU PLAYBOOK BY ME

By default, you start off with like 4 or 5 dudes, all the same. Or chicks, whatever, but then there is a dude who totally wants a threesome, cause like hello? twins? duuuh, winning!

hot 1 cold 1 steady 2 volatile -1 dark 0
this party has like its shit. to. gethah.

So Many Guys!: OMG you guys! you are like so many guys that you count as a medium gang instead of a small gang. are there even gangs in monsterharts? prolly not, whatever. it seems like all these playbooks are collections of powers, not people with extra resources that others don't get, like most of the playbooks in apocalypse world, so i guess this is like the monsterhearts version of the chopper or maybe the hocus. so, like, a dozen or so guys. maybe you are a full witches coven of 13, i dunno, it's your character, as if i even care.

Unwashed Massez: you have like sleeper agents all around, especially homeless people. at session start, roll+cockbite. on a 7-9 hold 1. 10+ hold 1+1. whenever there is a crowd of random people, you can spend your hold to have one of them turn out to be one of you! The first time you use this power, it is always Alice Cooper and he kills a dude with a broken bike. On a miss, one of you is FUCKING DEAD bitch, deal aight?

Darkest Self: assimilate! assimilate!

that's it right? im done? suhweeet...

FUCK YES

TEH HIDRAW

Great. It's fine if I publish this, right?

Oh please, fuck off with your "too weird" crap. What if I want to play a brainwashed cult? If I can't play the teenage psychic mastermind of a whole teenage cult of brainwashed drones your game is bumshit!

"Too weird" was totally the wrong choice of words. Things can be "too weird," and that doesn't bother me.

Here's the thing I think: playing the teen psychic mastermind is awesome. Having an army of drones is awesome. Having a move called "Hivethink" which gives you all psychic communication at near range is awesome.

I'd love to make a Hive Queen playbook, and have the emphasis on being the leader of this hive. Leader, not teeming masses, for a few reasons: it will be easier for more people to wrap their hands around, meaning it will see more play; it will make it easier for other PCs to push hard choices on this PC; it allows for amazing "What hath bugsex wrought?!!?" moments when the hive and the queen don't see eye-to-eye.

When you're your Darkest Self as the Hive Queen, I think someone else takes control of the swarm and you need to take it back.

Great. It's fine if I publish this, right?

You wanna fuck up your own game, it's none of my business.

In all seriousness, sure, I see the point of having a leader and stuff, and not just total control over all drones, which I guess is the point of The Hydra. You could make it slightly more ambiguous though, like drones can lose touch with the hive-mind, and the center of that hive-mind can be one (or two maybe) bodies, or it can be where most of the bodies are gathered.

Basically, I guess your rolls and actions and description could determine exactly what the true nature of your hive-mind is, yeah? Your Darkest Self could be losing that hive-mind, whether that's losing control to someone else in the hive, or just losing the hive and reverting to your original personality -- or the original personality of whatever drone you happen to be playing at the time.

Then whether this hive-mind is the result of a ghost possessing multiple hosts, or two girls who want so much to be exactly alike they force it on other people, too, or one dude psychically controlling his weak-willed followers, would be something you discover in play, not before play.

Oh, the other idea I had was sort-of related.

The Quitter.
Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time -- join the bike gang, worship satan, live forever* -- but now things have gotten out of control! The cult, the gang, the family, the frat house, whatever it is, you want to leave but you can't get out. Everyone you turn to seems to get caught up in trouble between you and your so-called "friends," no matter how much you care about them. What will you do? Who will get you out of this?

I guess it's sort-of like the mortal, but I'm thinking your "group" is all NPCs and the player can actually manipulate them to a fairly high degree, as long as it causes trouble for other PCs so that they do things to help you.

Although I guess one person could play the Hive Queen, and another could play a Quitter trying to quit the hive...

*Psychomania, 1971.

Dr. Frankenstein
The Invisible Man
Mummy
The Blob
Godzilla (ha!)

oh and how about these

the gremlin
someone who is physically deformed in some way, otherwise ostracized, maybe homeless or forced to live in the woods ala Black Hole

the goblin king
imagine young david bowie, he's got goblins to do his bidding. sometimes this works out great, sometimes, well, they're goblins.

The ogre
scary big kid, does great on the football team but has a serious anger problem and tends to break things

So, The Invisible Man is so totally The Ghost. You take "Boundless" (You can walk through walls and other solid objects) and "Creep" (When you secretly witness someone in an intimate moment, something you've never seen before, mark experience).

The Ogre is awesome, but I'd need some way to distinguish them from The Werewolf. The Werewolf's deal is that they are awesome at dealing out physical harm, and converting physical harm into social control (When you harm someone, take a string on them - that's one of their moves). How can The Ogre be not The Werewolf? What's the new social niche?