[Monster Hunters] Cracks, Beliefs and other thing I need feedback on

[Anders Larsen]

The former thread for this game is here:

http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18878.0

But you don't have to read that thread. I will be explaining the game here, and the game has changed a lot. But if you want some background, you are more than welcome to read it.

This post will focus mostly on the concepts of Cracks and Beliefs, because that are the major new additions. But I have question for other part of the game too.

And I am sorry if this will seem incoherent, but that is how my brain work. Well, anyway, here we go:

About the game

In this game the players plays Monster Hunters, who are hired by small farming communities or villages that are plagued by a monster. The main purpose of the Monster Hunters is of cause to get rid of the monster. But to do so they have to face a lot of social conflicts and investigation effort. And they have to struggle not to be dragged down by these conflicts or succumb to the monsters influence.

The GMs job is to construct a monster that is interesting and unique, and create the community that the monster is plaguing. There will be a guide in the game for how this should be done. Here are some of the main points:

• The monster should have a mythology. The monster should have some background, and there should be a reason for why it is here. The mythology also tell how the monster work.
• These thing about the monster can be found by searching the surrounding area, and searching in old books and documents, and sometimes by asking the locals.
• The mythology also describe the weaknesses of the monster.
• The monster should have a human connection. It can be that the monster have been a human, or is summoned (or created) by a human. Maybe the monster is like a werewolf, so it is sometime monster, and sometime human. The human should live in the community, and properly have some goals with this monster.
• The monster should in some way interact with the community. Not only will it attack the community, but thing that happen in the community should influence the monster, and the other way around.
• The monster does not has to be one monster. It can for example be a portal to a demon world, or it can be a monster that have a number of minions.
• Because of fear, many old conflict in the community will reappear, so it is not all the trouble the Monster Hunters face that is directly related to the monster.

Exactly how the GM should make the monster is not clear at this point. There could be a set of features the GM could choose from. But, then again, I do not want to limit the GM imagination.

The GM also make a number of Secrets. Secrets are clues about how the monster works, what is its weaknesses, what is going on in the community etc.. The players have to find these Secrets (properly not all of them) to be able to get rid of the monster. But in the process of searching for Secrets they risk coming across things that can affect their mental stability.

The game is set in a not well defined fantasy world, where monster is known but not common. Actually the only important part of the setting is the community that is plagued by the monster, and the immediate surrounding area.


Cracks and Beliefs

Cracks is mental instabilities, that risk being broke open if the character is facing some situation that will tear in the Crack.

A Crack can fall into the following categories:

Desires: This can be something like greed, and in general thing that the character craves for.
Fears: Thing or ideas the character fears.
Hatreds: What the character hates.
Weaknesses: This is necessarily not something negative. It can be something the character feel he need to protect. But it can also be a weakness for power (if that is not a desire?).

When the game starts the Cracks is still not broken open, so even though they are there deep within the psyche, the player do not have to play them. It is first when the cracks begin to break they become a problem. Then the player have to make a test every time the character face a conflict that is related to the Crack. If he fails, the character will not be able to stay clear headed, and take the side in the conflict the crack drag him to, no matter if it is obviously the wrong side.

An example:  Monster Hunter Gustav have a weakness for beautiful women. Emma is a young and beautiful woman. Because of jealousy Emma have killed her former lover, and blaming the monster: "I was just talking to him, then suddenly the monster came and killed him." No one really believes her, though there is no evidence otherwise. This have created a conflict between her and the family of her former lover. Because Gustav have succumb to his weakness he will take her side in the conflict (if he fails his roll). To get out of this mess, he have to get help from the other Monster Hunters.

It is important to note, that Cracks have little to do with sanity. People do not go insane, but they get dragged down by a situation/conflict they can not handle.

I will give some more detail about how Cracks works later.

Another aspect of the character are Beliefs. Beliefs are areas where the character is very strong-willed. When the character do something that is related to one of his Beliefs, he will be more determined to get his way. A Belief can give a bonus to a test, but it is also dangerous. The single-mindedness of a Beliefs can also lead the character into problem; it can open a Crack.

Beliefs is not necessary something good. In many cases they are related to pride. Here are some example of beliefs:

* My character is very keen on proving himself a good bowman.
* My character is always ready to charm a sweet girl.
* There is no knowledge you can't find in a good library.
* Everything have an explanation.
* My character want to be view as the person that always can crack the riddles.

System

I will skim rather quick over the system. If you cannot quite follow me, try to read the old thread, or ask me.

The characters have three attributes: Socialise that is used to face the social conflicts, Investigation that is used to figure out the working of the monster and Fighting that is used when making defences against the monster and to fight it.

There is a set of abilities (skills) that each are associated with one of the attributes.

Another concept in the game is Story Points, which is the reward mechanic. Players can spend Story Points to get a bonus to a test. Normally there is a limit to how many Story Point there can be spend, but if the player uses a Belief he can spend as many as be want (I am not sure about this). Story Points is gained when the character find a Secret (there may be other ways to get Story Points).

The test is done with a dice pool of d6, where 5 and 6 is counted as successes. The number of dice is: Attribute + Ability + possible spend Story Points.

I am not quite sure how Cracks, Beliefs, Story Points and Secrets should fit together. But see the questions about this.


The flow of the game

The game starts when the Monster Hunters enters the town or community that is plagued by the monster. The spokesman for the community will tell the Monster Hunters what the problem is, what has happen until now and the current state of the situation.

The Monster Hunters will now begin to make their investigations and inquiries. here it should be necessary for the players to use the Beliefs often to get the needed information; to get to the Secrets.

Of course the community and the monster will react on what the Monster Hunters are doing. And if a character dig too deep or pushes to hard, he risk facing a situation he can not handle, and then a Crack will break open.

A Crack will open in states. A newly open Crack will be at state one, and every time the character is in a conflict that relates to the Crack he have to make a roll to see if he can resist. If he fails he will be dragged down by the conflict, and the Crack will open to the next state. The more the Crack have opened, the harder it is for the Monster Hunter to resist it.

If a Monster Hunter get completely dragged down by a Crack, the other Monster Hunters have to help him back.

When the Munster Hunters have found a good number of Secrets, it will be possible for them to get rid of the monster, if they can get the support of the community.


Questions

The most important question:
I don't know exactly how to handle Cracks and Beliefs. I want Beliefs to be used fairly often, and when they are used there is the risk of opening a Crack. Beliefs should also be used to get to Secrets, but I am not exactly sure how this connection should be made. Of course it should only be in some situations that it is possible to dig for a Secret with a Belief, but how can the player identify these situations. Any ideas?

Other question:
I have for some time thought about dropping the Fighting attribute. It seems to me that the physical conflict become less and less important, the more I think about the game. The problem is, if there only are the social and the investigation aspect in the game, the number of different type of characters will be somewhat limited. So, should I drop the fighting attribute?

One of the core aspect of the game, is that the gamemaster make an interesting monster. I really want as much input as possible about how to construct an interesting monster.

I have problem with the term 'Beliefs', because they are really not beliefs. They are areas where the character is very strong-willed. Does anyone have an idea tor a better term?

And any other comments are of course welcome too.

- Anders

[Bailywolf]

I like the concept- it offers some neat possibilities for episodic or one-shot gaming, and structured game/session design.

Based on this, in addition to creating the Monster, you'll need to define the Community as well. 

The Monster and the Community can exist in different states in relation to one another...

>  A New Threat... the Monster has only just begun terrorizing the Community, and things are in turmoil.  The old stable order is threatened by this new (and locally unstoppable) threat... the fact that they have to seek help from outside must rankly with the local elite- especially if the Hunters might uncover their buried skeletons or their connection with the Monster.

> A broken concord... the village had been managing the Monster for some time, and a stability has been achieved, but something has happened to upset this arrangement.  Perhaps the Monster wasn't even regarded as such prior to the break- perhaps the monster was a guardian or ally of the community. 

> A Community Divided...  the elite of the community wishes to maintain the Accord with the monster- to send the Dragon a virgin every year, or tithe ten percent of their crops to the ogre to keep it satisfied.  But a rebellious faction wishes to be rid of the monster- and perhaps the elites as well.  Those wishing to maintain the devil's deal with the Monster may be more dangerous than the creature itself. 

Into one of these situations, the Hunters come, and it will frame how they are treated by the community at large.

The community may have one or more Cracks itself- lines of social tension ready to burst under pressure... class envy, slavery, old hurts unhealed, the sins of the fathers...  the way the hunters handle the Monster- and the Community- could leave things in many different states, not all of the improvements over the way they found things. 

I like the idea of Secrets- things the Community (or members of it) would rather not come out.  In addition to investigating the Monster and its habits and mythology, Hunters could uncover Secrets which would offer clues as to the hidden life of the community they are aiding- secrets which relate to either the Community's cracks or its relations with the Monster.  I can almost see the Community as a complex logic diagram of if/then reactions to what the PC's do... what they uncover...what they act on. 

Perhaps they accumulate Story Points (or whatever) through investigation and interaction, and then use them to buy scenes- Resolutions (where cracks are healed), Confrontations (where opposition is met directly), Revelations (where Secrets come out, and things change... for good or ill).  Reaching endgame with the Monster will involve covering certain narrative ground- accumulating a certain number of Resolutions, Revelations, and Confrontations.  The bulk of the hunters actions will be dealing with the Community itself, with the Monster as the darkhorse, the unseen but always felt motivator working opposite the Hunters, applying pressure from the other direction. 

I got off a bit there... well off... but I find this game's concepts quite exciting.


Some possible inspirations... Beowulf seems obvious, as does Dragonslayer, Brotherhood of the Wolf, or Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow, but also something Hammer'rific like Captain Kronos or Peter Crushing's VanHelsing. 



-Ben

[Anders Larsen]

Well, it seems like you have some better ideas for possible games, than I have had.

I like the idea that the community have Cracks too. I have not yet thought deeply about how the community should be structured; my focus have been more on the monster.

But this have certainly given me some inspiration.

- Anders

[Bailywolf]

Well, it seems like you have some better ideas for possible games, than I have had.

I like the idea that the community have Cracks too. I have not yet thought deeply about how the community should be structured; my focus have been more on the monster.

But this have certainly given me some inspiration.

- Anders

One more thing- I think you need a stat to cover Fighting... or more properly Action- for fighting, chases, evading death traps, running from possessed wolves...  that kind of thing.

-B

[Anders Larsen]

It suddenly hit me that the examples I have of Beliefs, is actually also Cracks. A beliefs like "My character is very keen on proving himself a good bowman," will have a related Crack: "My character hates everyone that is a better bowman that him." Likewise the Beliefs "My character is always ready to charm a sweet girl," can have a related Cracks that have something to do with jealousy.

So Cracks and Beliefs does not have to be two separate thing, but comes in pairs, like:

My character is very keen to seek an explanation for anything...
...But if he can't find one, he will loose himself in the search.

And it will properly be easier to make interesting Beliefs/Cracks in this way.

But I still need some ideas of how to tie Secret and Story Point into his.

- Anders

[Bailywolf]

It may be because I'm thinking in these terms because of Threshold, but it strikes me that things like Secrets sould be part of the community ,and that story points should be used to 'keep score' in a sense, measuring how far into the community's real situation the Hunters have delved.

If you map out your Community in terms of Cracks, Characters, Places, and Secrets but also in terms of scenes which players can only access when they have the Story Points to "pay admission" to that scene...  you could have a flowchart of these events, with only the cost and the link which leads to the new scene to give players clues as to what it might involve.  Each scene could have specific formalized elements, defining the kind of conflicts the characters would engage in there to move things along, and the elments of the community drawn in.  At stake, learning Secrets, getting hurt, and moving closer to the final confrontation with the Monster.  Almost like a... I don't know... a role-playing board game.

If you had a set of 3x5 cards with these things on one side, and the Story Point cost on the other when the players finish on scene, you lay out the possible linked scenes face-down.  They pick (and pay) for the one they want (or can afford) and then you flip it, and run that scene.

Gah... I'm off in left field here...  sorry to get off your point.

-B