Monsterhearts

[WickedCadrach]

I can see how some word on 'scenes' might help. I'm open to it. 

~~~

It seems just about all of the backstory Strings are assigned. @WritesNaughtyStories are you still up for Dylan being designated Robin's Lover? 

From what we've established, it doesn't seem like they would have a relationship at this point, but I can picture a one-sided obsession developing. 

What I'm imagining (and feel free to alter) we might say that Dylan's abandoned house is on the route Robin walks from work at the concession stand to her home in the southside apartments. The first time she saw Dylan, Robin's cousin Charlotte might have told her something like, "Oh, that's Dylan. He's weird." And then during a chance encounter on her walk, Robin spoke with them, receiving the lie about their parents being in Greece. 

Every time she walks home, she looks for them, magnetically drawn to their eyes—those mysterious deep eyes... like dark wells reflecting starlight from the very bottom (at least, as she sees them). And when she sees them coming and going from the abandoned house, she begins to build a tragic narrative in her mind, growing obsessed with this imagined version of Dylan who understands her pain just like she understands his (she doesn't) and who would be so good to her if they were together. 

If you're good with that, then Dylan gets 3 Strings on Robin, and Robin get's 1 on Dylan (I think I would frame it as her watching him so intently, when she can, that she's caught some of his idiosyncrasies—like carrying that Marlboro box but not knowing what's in it or catching that he goes to the pier, but not why)

8 minutes ago, DreamsnThings said:

So failing any skill gives exp? Or what are the rules there

The quote from the core book is: "You gain a point of experience whenever you fail a roll (a result of 6 or lower), as failure and adversity nudge your character toward growth."

[WritesNaughtyStories]

46 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

Every time she walks home, she looks for them, magnetically drawn to their eyes—those mysterious deep eyes... like dark wells reflecting starlight from the very bottom (at least, as she sees them). And when she sees them coming and going from the abandoned house, she begins to build a tragic narrative in her mind, growing obsessed with this imagined version of Dylan who understands her pain just like she understands his (she doesn't) and who would be so good to her if they were together. 

I think that works, but I think the fascination is reciprocal - the photo booth is by the corn dog stand. Dylan sees Robin a lot and thinks she might share their need to create a life - the broken bike chain feels like a similar deceit to the created parents.

So, I know about your bike chain, you know my lie, and we are an odd kind of obsessed not-exactly-lovers.

Our string are pretty tangled.

[WickedCadrach]

17 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

, I know about your bike chain, you know my lie, and we are an odd kind of obsessed not-exactly-lovers

That's a vibe that makes a lot of sense to me.  Cool.  Yes to everything you said; let's do it. 

[DreamsnThings]

I am not used to things moving this fast on this site xD anyone waiting for anything from me? I think someone suggested a string for velvet and mr hollow? Im not sure if that was ever locked in... or discussed at all really x.x busy day

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Yes, Velvet has 1 String on Dylan.

[Chiyako]

20 minutes ago, DreamsnThings said:

I am not used to things moving this fast on this site xD anyone waiting for anything from me? I think someone suggested a string for velvet and mr hollow? Im not sure if that was ever locked in... or discussed at all really x.x busy day

Depending on how you plan on handing out strings, I wouldn't mind taking one, would maybe just need to figure out what it is I think? You have three to hand out to people, and/or to your mysterious Mr. Ascars. Also you get a string on somebody who thinks they can save you. I believe you were going with Robin for that one?

Selene still has one sympathetic token to snatch from someone. If nobody wants that then I might have her take one from an NPC. Robin has a string on Selene because she caught her pilfering through Celeste's things.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Does Selene have one of Dylan's photos? Maybe the one of a mother holding a young child, The baby's face is blurred because they turned their head. but the young mother is clearly smiling at the baby.

[Chiyako]

3 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

Does Selene have one of Dylan's photos? Maybe the one of a mother holding a young child, The baby's face is blurred because they turned their head. but the young mother is clearly smiling at the baby.

I like that! Sure! That should be all of Selene's stuff finished then, provided nobody plans on handing out strings to her or taking strings on her!

[roll to seduce]

I've been unavailable for the last 16 hours, you'd think that wouldn't leave you with a long backlog of things to do, but here we are.

Scenes are a very common pacing element PbtA uses. Imagine our game through the medium of serialized tv program. Each scene is begun by me framing the scene. Where is it? Who's there? What is happening? And most importantly. What are you doing? This is to build up tension. A scene ends when all when it feels appropriate, that there's nothing more interesting to explore in this scene. Or one of us gets uncomfortable so we just cut.

Every character may not be in every scene. Robin having an argument with Charlotte does not need any other players. Me as the MC can force another player into a scene like that however.

I'm not sure if I dare playing scenes in parallel, might end up with me having to write ungodly long posts. So we'll see about the pacing.

I need to write down a seeting chart somewhere. List all side characters. And frame the first scene. I won't have time to do all that today. But I might be able to finalize it tomorrow. 

I'm not sure if I should separate narration and discussion. Because when framing the scene I'm supposed to ask you questions. So I'm not sure if I should do that in the rp thread and you answer then here. Or I make two posts when I do framing. One here and one in the rp thread.

What do you guys think is best?

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Might be best to keep the MC to character chat separate from the game posts. This thread won't see a whole lot of traffic, so we could use it.

[DreamsnThings]

9 hours ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

Yes, Velvet has 1 String on Dylan.

ok, did we ever lock in what that string meant?

9 hours ago, Chiyako said:

Selene still has one sympathetic token to snatch from someone. If nobody wants that then I might have her take one from an NPC. Robin has a string on Selene because she caught her pilfering through Celeste's things.

what exactly... is a sympathetic token? I would not mind taking it if I knew how to work it in

9 hours ago, Chiyako said:

Depending on how you plan on handing out strings, I wouldn't mind taking one, would maybe just need to figure out what it is I think? You have three to hand out to people, and/or to your mysterious Mr. Ascars. Also you get a string on somebody who thinks they can save you. I believe you were going with Robin for that one?

currently I have the strings for players mainly as the players realizing that velvet is not in complete control for one reason or another, or otherwise helping her out of a situation when she was mostly in control but mr ascars was teetering on regaining his control

2 hours ago, roll to seduce said:

I'm not sure if I should separate narration and discussion. Because when framing the scene I'm supposed to ask you questions. So I'm not sure if I should do that in the rp thread and you answer then here. Or I make two posts when I do framing. One here and one in the rp thread.

for this my Idea would be to use spoiler tags for questions and answers, that way we keep them in the scene where the questions and answers are relevant, but hidden away where you can avoid looking at them if you want to read through the action

[roll to seduce]

A sympathetic token is part of the witch playbook. It serves as a string in most ways, except she can use it to cast hexes.

Just double checking. We haven't given any strings to side characters right?

And I'm starting to think I'll do questions in this thread so we can have discussions about them in parallel with narration.

[Chiyako]

2 hours ago, roll to seduce said:

I'm not sure if I dare playing scenes in parallel, might end up with me having to write ungodly long posts. So we'll see about the pacing.

I'm not sure if I should separate narration and discussion. Because when framing the scene I'm supposed to ask you questions. So I'm not sure if I should do that in the rp thread and you answer then here. Or I make two posts when I do framing. One here and one in the rp thread.

What do you guys think is best?

I think most of the time running scenes in parallel might be fine, depending on your comfort level of course, but when it comes to more extensive things (like if there is a scene that might otherwise take too long, like a sex scene for instance if people wanted to play that out) maybe people could bring it to another thread so that it doesn't bog things down? But I also suppose if you run things parallel then something like that wouldn't require your full attention, and you would be able to focus elsewhere. Unless you were running one of the characters involved.

I think keeping discussions here should be fine. @DreamsnThings did suggest using spoiler tags in posts, which I think is good for answering certain OOC things (like what move you're trying to use in the moment and dice roll results), but it might take up a bit more room than is necessary if it is a full conversation spanning multiple posts.

Speaking of rolling, how are we going to do that?
 

33 minutes ago, DreamsnThings said:

what exactly... is a sympathetic token? I would not mind taking it if I knew how to work it in

currently I have the strings for players mainly as the players realizing that velvet is not in complete control for one reason or another, or otherwise helping her out of a situation when she was mostly in control but mr ascars was teetering on regaining his control

A sympathetic token is a string that is particular to the Witch skin. It's an important item belonging to someone that she takes from them. Selene is a bit of a kleptomaniac focused around attaining these sorts of things (definitely only to help people and definitely not because she is a kleptomaniac and secretly might enjoy it a little bit, totally not that). I believe we did decide on Selene taking a notebook that belonged to Velvet as one of her Sympathetic Tokens.

Speaking of which I miscounted, Selene has both Sympathetic Token slots filled, she is actually done. It's more whether she has strings on anyone else now (or if they have any on her).

Selene really likes to help people (especially because it might land her friends, which is something she is a bit desparate to do), so I wouldn't see it as unreasonable that she might have found Velvet in a state where she was trying to wrestle control away from Mr. Ascars, and perhaps she misinterpreted it as something else and summoned up the courage to approach and lend a friendly shoulder and someone to listen to her problems?

[WickedCadrach]

1 hour ago, roll to seduce said:

Just double checking. We haven't given any strings to side characters right?

I don't think anyone has Strings on NPC (or vice versa)

 

If I've tracked correctly... all backstory stuff is about done. Only a bit of clarification on string between Hollow and Infernal, and deciding if Velvet's last two strings are going to Mr. Ascars.

Witch - Selene: 
Symp Token 1 : Velvet's Notebook
Symp Token 2: Dylan's Picture
String given to Robin - caught snooping in Robin's younger cousin's things

Hollow - Dylan:
Gained String on Selene - watched her walking on the shore at night, 
2x String given to Robin - Robin has seen they live alone in the abandoned house

Infernal - Velvet:
Gained String on Dylan - (Not really elaborated yet? Dylan thinks they can help/save Velvet somehow)
String given to Robin - Robin helped buy time for Velvet to be independent and escape Mr. Ascars... if only for a little. 
2x Strings unassigned - might be given to Mr. Ascars

Mortal - Robin:
Gained String on Dylan - She watches, awkwardly obsessing over how they live.
3x Strings given to Dylan - She s captivated by them, obsessing over their mysterious allure and believing they are kindred, wounded souls

Our NPCs so far are...

Aunt Mari - Robin's aunt, manager of concession stand, owner of apartment Robin lives in. 

Robin's Mother - lives in crowded southside apartment with Robin, Aunt Mari (her sister), and cousin Charlotte.

Charlotte - Robin's younger cousin, punk, hates that Robin and her mom moved in. Classmate of Selene.

Mr. Ascars - Velvet's dark patron, mysterious older man-about-town

Ellie / Elisa - tall, athletic basketball player with a crush on Dylan. Thinks Dylan is shy enough to be a loyal/compliant boyfriend. Not sure if Dylan is guy or girl and doesn't approach them due to internal gay panic?

Selene's father - Spoils Selene, has custody, says they are separated because mother accuses him of things he didn't do. 

Selene's mother - separated, accused Selene's father of 'acting inappropriately' and it was severe enough to cause separation, though Selene is kept in the dark on the details.

Danny - a younger high school boy who went on a date with Velvet and went missing shortly thereafter. Ongoing missing-person's case. 

Derek Evans - Going into senior year at Bayside. Athletic and tall, MVP varsity football. Owns a car. Thinks he's above rules and respect for others. Works the concession stand and steals from the till, but Robin doesn't turn him in because she desperately wants a friend and is harboring a small crush on him. 

Edited Sunday at 03:10 PM by WickedCadrach
edit Dylan's string on Selene

[Chiyako]

10 minutes ago, WickedCadrach said:

Hollow - Dylan:
String given to Selene - watched her walking on the shore at night, captivated

I think the only thing you got incorrect was that Selene received strings from Dylan. I believe he has strings on her from watching her.

[DreamsnThings]

I... do want to suggest possibly making an entire seperate club for this especially if we want extra side scenes and multiple ooc's (rolls, conversation, character sheets, etc) I think part of this club was to make a jumping off point for these kind of things, not necessarily constrain us to the club (and flood the tabs with our specific things)

[roll to seduce]

I'll try to type out something resembling an opening scene, and we'll see how the story goes from there. But first I must rest.

I think we'll try to do just one scene at the time, and then we'll work together to make sure each main character gets enough screen time.

If this this game turns out to just gain more momentum as we start we can consider making it a club.

For dice rolls I'll just trust you. Roll your physical dice, use a digital dice roller, ask your mom for a number between 2 and 12, pick one yourself. I tend to find people who play ttrpgs love rolling dice, just let me know the results as I get to do an mc move when you fail.

[DreamsnThings]

Would anyone like to have one (or more) strings on velvet to start off? I have 2 left that could just go to mr ascars but id rather give them out to others

Spoiler

P.s....as a side note, i wanted to check if i could flavor the "darkest self" abit as mr ascars actively viewing the world through my eyes to ensure im doing as im told, atleast partially?

Spoiler

...p.p.s. I was wondering if i could... start off in my darkest self with me playing as if mr ascars is actively in control... if that works?

 

Edited yesterday at 04:57 AM by DreamsnThings
Added p.p.s.

[Chiyako]

5 minutes ago, DreamsnThings said:

Would anyone like to have one (or more) strings on velvet to start off? I have 2 left that could just go to mr ascars but id rather give them out to others

I wouldn't mind taking one! Any specifics behind Selene having said string? Like, how she might have acquired it?

Edited yesterday at 04:56 AM by Chiyako

[DreamsnThings]

5 minutes ago, Chiyako said:

I wouldn't mind taking one! Any specifics behind Selene having said string? Like, how she might have acquired it?

Well since it can be physical or nonphysical I can certainly see it being something... along the lines of dirt on me... aaaannnnd you happen to have a hex that lets you see through my eyes... maaaybe you saw abit of mr ascars true self or the tasks he sends me on? 

[Chiyako]

Just now, DreamsnThings said:

Well since it can be physical or nonphysical I can certainly see it being something... along the lines of dirt on me... aaaannnnd you happen to have a hex that lets you see through my eyes... maaaybe you saw abit of mr ascars true self or the tasks he sends me on? 

Oooh, I like that idea! Which would you rather it be? Or both, if you want her to have both strings (although I wouldn't mind giving someone else an opportunity to snag a string).

[DreamsnThings]

Either works for me!

Though this third option seemes nice... it could be that well the connection worked for a moment... something sinister spoke in your head chastising you for poking your nose in where it doesn't belong before the connection snapped? Leading to that exchange itself being a string?

Edited yesterday at 05:11 AM by DreamsnThings

[Chiyako]

1 minute ago, DreamsnThings said:

Either works for me!

Though this third option seemes nice... it could be that well the connection worked for a moment... something sinister spoke in your head chastising you for poking your nose in where it doesn't belong before the connection snapped? Leading to that exchange itself being a string?

Oooh. I like that! Let's do that one. A good string and a hook for more investigation!

[DreamsnThings]

Any added details there?

[Chiyako]

2 minutes ago, DreamsnThings said:

Any added details there?

What I put into her sheet was:

While performing the Watching Hex upon Velvet a spooky, scary voice spoke to me in my mind! I think. It felt like something ominous was speaking, at least. Chastising me for poking my head where it doesn't belong. And then it ended. Really spooky. Is there something more to her?