[Monster of the week] Brainstorming help request

[MikeSands]

So, I have the basic shape of a game sorted out, which is inspired by the TV show Supernatural and Hellboy and other stuff in that vein. The basic system is going to be a hack of the FATE 3.0 rules from Spirit of the Century.

I want it to play with no pre-game preparation, so it's going to run a little like InSpectres, with the monster generated as play goes on.

The GM will set up the initial mystery and give the monster a few stats, and then the rest will come out in play.

When the players make any sort of investigation attempt, they get to roll to define something about the monster. If their roll succeeds, then they get to either give the monster an aspect, or give it a new power and a new weakness.

A weakness is something that must be done before you can permanently take the monster down.

My problem is that I don't have that many ideas for weaknesses - so far, they're pretty generic and not very inspired. So, if anyone has some ideas for more, I'd really appreciate more suggestions.

Here's what there is so far:

• Vulnerability: Some specific type of thing is required to kill the monster (e.g. Salt, ash wood, hazel wood, cold iron, fire, sunlight, running water).
  Item: There is a specific item that is required to kill the monster (e.g. The blessed sword of St Bob). This item will be hard, but possible, to find before the end of the episode (I.e. No 'this one rock on Mars').
• Trap: The creature may be trapped in a certain kind of place (e.g. Sacred ground, crossroads) or via a special kind of trap (e.g. Pentagram, magic spell, ring of salt, ring of earth).
• Aversion: The monster has a special fear of a certain thing and will flee from it (e.g. Sacred symbols, children, fire, moonlight).
• Banishment: The monster may be permanently banished by some process (e.g. Exorcism ritual, perform a task).

[Adrian F.]

• Obsession:The monster is obsessed about something and will ignore almost everything else when its obsession is present

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• Predictable: The monster has a predictable habit
• Enemy:There is someone else who hunts the monster too
• Limited activity: The monster can only appear at a specific time or at a specific place.There you must fight it
• Bribe: The monster can be persuaded to stop its attacks,when it got what it want
• Linked: The power of the monster is linked to something or someone else

[MikeSands]

Thanks, Adrian, that's exactly the sort of thing I was after.

[Adrian F.]

Here are two more:

• Master:The monster has a master that commands it to attack
• Fading:The monster looses its powers when it don't perform regularly a action

[hix]

Belief: the monster's power either derives from your belief in it, or from the belief of others (this could be a cult, or onlookers)
Pacted: the monster must fulfil the terms of some legalistic agreement.
Addiction: the monster must regularly have a specific substance - either to survive, or to satisfy its overwhelming cravings.
Wronged: the monster is simply in the business of taking vengeance for a recent or long-ago injustice.

[MikeSands]

Cool, those are also good stuff.

The key thing is that there is something for the player characters to do that enables them to defeat the monster for good, and that it will be fun to work out how to do that.

That means that the 'belief' and 'predictable' weaknesses don't quite get at what I want - there's not such a clear way to get at those weaknesses. Particularly not in a fairly action-oriented way.

Now, predictable could be reworked to fit - something more like this (kind of combining it with Adrian's 'fading'):
- Ritual Actions: The monster has some specific ritual that it must complete, and this ritual must be prevented or interrupted.

Rather than just being a weakness in the general sense of something the hunters can use against it, now there is a course of action that they need to complete.

So, I think my list will now have:

- Haunt: The monster is tied to a place, person or object. Their connection must be severed (e.g. destroy the object, sanctify the place, free the person).
- Obsession: There is something that the monster is obsessed with, and it will be vulnerable if that is brought into its presence.
- Ritual Actions: The monster has some specific ritual that it must complete, and this ritual must be prevented or interrupted.
- Unfinished Business: There is a specific act that is tying the monster to the world, and if you help it complete this (or do it in the monster's place) then it will no longer be kept here. (e.g. classic ghost story - resolve the ghost's issue)
- Master: The monster is controlled/summoned by a person. You must stop them giving it power.
- Addiction: The monster needs a certain thing very frequently and the hunters must stop it getting this.

That gives me eleven variations, which should be enough. I don't really want to have too many to pick from, as this will be being done during play.

Thanks Adrian, Steve!

[David Artman]

Are you intending to provide a list as examples and inspiration, or as a comprehensive pick-list?

If the former, great: make that clear and encourage the reader to get creative; if the latter, yuck. Let folks go afield, if they want (viz your statement that "'belief' and 'predictable' weaknesses don't quite get at what I want - there's not such a clear way to get at those weaknesses. Particularly not in a fairly action-oriented way."). Suppose I want a way to win via belief--so we gotta git rid of all of the cultists and then make some kind of Will or Courage test to close our eyes in the face of its wrath and *poof* it's gone. Why can't I play that game with your game rules?

There's a pretty strong trend in indie games to provide player (and GM) empowerment to tell the stories that they want to tell. You seem to me to me to be heading back to the days of Top Secret's "knife versus sword" charts....

[MikeSands]

I was thinking of the list as being comprehensive, although that was an unexamined thought.

It makes more sense to have the list as examples, really. The important thing is that the weakness is something the hunters can take advantage of or get at somehow in order to take the monster down.

[David Artman]

Great, glad it got re-examined.

But all the more reason to list some things that might seem a bit "wild" or "weird"--it shows the readers that weirdness is OK and should be expected, so long as it results in a disadvantageous characteristic. "Requires Others To Believe In It" is a pretty big disadvantage, I think, as is "Always Does X When Y Happens." Maybe it's just in how you phrase it; maybe when a weakness seems "off," it just needs tto be restated to make it clear it's disadvantageous?

[MikeSands]

Definitely.

When I talk about weaknesses here, it's actually a little more than just something disadvantageous.

With FATE, the monsters can be given aspects (and I'm thinking that the players should be able to offer compels to the GM based on them, as well as the usual GM compel to player characters), so a lot of things that will be weaknesses in the general sense will be able to be managed that way.

In this game, what I'm calling a Weakness (capitalisation to distinguish jargon use) is something that has to be taken care of before the monster can be finally dealt with.

E.g. A vampire might have an aspect of 'likes to prey on young women' that can be used against it via a compel or just using that knowledge to predict its behavior. But stopping it preying on young women wouldn't be enough to destroy it if it had the Weakness: Must drink human blood. After all, it can just go after less desirable targets. However, if you stop it drinking blood completely, then you can put it down.

What all that's getting at is that some of the suggestions strike me as more like setting an aspect on the creature, whereas the Weaknesses are intended to be how you kill the creature. So that's the main reason some of the suggestions don't work as a Weakness - just that they seem more suited to being an aspect.

[JohnG]

Hi Mike,

I had an interesting idea, maybe it would be good for your game and maybe not but I thought I'd let you hear it.  What if the monster is undefined in the game and the actions of the players define it.  Start off with a simple nondescript "monster attack occurs in city park" type set-up, the players go to investigate and their questions help you shape the creature.

Let's say their looking at the body, a player says "I'm looking for claw marks or teeth marks."  The GM then decides, randomly perhaps, which they find.  If they find claw marks but no teeth marks the GM could say.  "You find claw marks on the body but no teeth marks, it seems like the creature killed the victim and left."  What does that tell us?  Well it tells us that the creature has claws and it did not feed on the victim, so it did not kill to feed itself, or at least it did not feed in a way the party can detect.

Obviously this is just a rough idea but I think it could be fun, especially since you're not likely to get the same monster twice.  Throw the same crime scene at 3 different groups of players and I'd be willing to bet money they all come up with different questions or ideas.  Of course what is defined by this method is not set in stone, if they think the creature doesn't kill to feed they may be wrong, it could have run off when it heard more people coming and not gotten a chance to feed.  Another scene with new investigations and questions could change the monster around until they track it down and learn enough about it to kill it.

Anyways that's the idea that popped into my head when I saw your game idea, maybe it'll help you out a bit.

John

[MikeSands]

John,

That's exactly what I have in mind, when I talked about the monster being determined Inspectres-style.

At the moment my plan is that the GM will start things off by picking a few things - maybe one or two aspects, one power (i.e. special ability/stunt) and one Weakness. Then they'll kick things off with a typical monster of the week show pre-credits death scene to give everyone the basic idea of what's going on.

As the game goes on, the hunters will investigate. When they try to find something out, they'll make a roll. If they fail, the GM gets to add a new aspect, a new power and a new weakness, or (maybe) give the monster a fate point. If they succeed, then the player gets to pick one of those options (or ask the GM to reveal something they don't know about yet).

Eventually the hunters will know enough to take the monster out, and there'll be a big fight scene.

[JohnG]

Mike,

I would definitely give the players some kind of "inspection" stat that dictates how many questions they ask and maybe put some other guidelines in to keep people from asking the same question at the same scene over and over again or asking 300 questions and making it impossible for the game master to keep track of all the details they're uncovering.

I can't count the number of times I've run dungeons and dragons or call of cthulhu and gotten "I'm gonna search again" until I finally have to come up with some reason the party has to move on.

Other than that this could be a really fun idea with a group of people who enjoy puzzles and investigations.  For the more combat friendly people though perhaps another aspect to add could be that they create their own encounters with the path they take and questions they ask.  Are there more than one creature, maybe they fight some weaker monsters until they find the queen baddy like in Aliens.  Or the cultists who worship, if their investigation decides that it's worshipped, and so on.

John

[David Artman]

Why does combat and investigation even have to be a dichotomy? In many horror films, the protagonists learn details of the threat through action--more than investigation, by my perspective--and so an "investigation" scene could very well have a ton of combat (or slaughter).

The notion of a progressive threat, though, is a GREAT idea and could very much be in the structure of the mechanics. It doesn't have to follow the progression of "Clue To Lair > Fight Mooks > Fight Sub-Boss > Fight Boss." I could go through environmental threats (ex: The Abyss) or through some red herrings (murder is actually possessed: Fallen). Mechanically, each scene will provide either (a) a marker to move forward or (b) a setback which is educational, in addition to whatever the actual NPCs and such bring with agendas and what-not. Something akin to a Dogs town or maybe PTA episode setup...?

HTH;
David

[MikeSands]

John,

I don't think I need to limit the number of investigation rolls that the players make, given that every failure means the GM gets to set some part of the monster. Plus, if they dither, the monster won't stop killing people (or whatever bad thing it is doing).

I'm also thinking that there will be a monster template, so that the number of aspects, powers and weaknesses will max out at some point (possibly this might be variable, picked at the beginning of the session).

David,

I'm pretty much thinking that any kind of scene could lead to an investigation roll. So yeah, fighting the creature... chases... rescuing someone from its clutches... lurking where you think the creature might turn up next, those would all be just as valid as a Buffy-style hitting the library scene. Even the final battle should allow the hunters to suddenly spot a new weakness and use it then and there, I'd say.

I haven't worked out the structure to aim for each session, but I think it will be more "steadily increasing tension (from increasingly known monster powers and increasing victim count) as the hunters struggle to find out things that help them and then in a big fight they take it out" rather than something more formal. So yes, false leads and other things going on should still allow the hunters to discover something of use against the main threat.

I'm more interested in a 'throw down some initial ideas when you sit at the table and go play' model than one that requires pre-game prep, so I'm not thinking of anything like Dogs towns. There's no reason that everyone couldn't chip in to the initial monster definition, though (e.g. "hey, I'd like to fight a werewolf this week!") so the PTA analogy is about right.