Vampires DO Sparkle

[HyveMynd]

I'll be running two Monster [Blank] games for JackerCon 3: TPK Goodness.

Game Slot #1
Japan Time: Sunday, March 16th @ 10am
UTC/GMC Time: Sunday, March 16th @ 1am

Game Slot #2
Japan Time: Saturday, March 22nd @ 10am
UTC/GMC Time: Saturday, March 22nd @ 1am

I can accommodate up to four players in each slot, and we'll decide as a group which game we'll play after people sign up (based on a majority vote). We'll either be playing Monsterhearts or Monster of the Week.

Regardless of which game we play, the first 30 to 45 minutes of the four-hour session will be devoted to character, team, and/or high school creation, which is integral to both games. There are no pre-gens and no adventure synopsis, because these are hippie games, meaning most of the plot will be made up on the spot.

[D.T. Pints]

I've had a realization HyveMynd for my Fallout: Apocalypse World game it may be clunky to attempt but I'm going to try it. Just because I want to take full advantage of the character gen/world building co-op time. I'm going to try to have a pre-game game the week/or a few days before. Where we create characters/build world for 1 hour. Then I can take all that player input and stew on it for a few days to modify whatever mess I was planning for the actual game. Again because this is a "virtual con" I feel like there are interesting new twists that can be incorporated into the "old flesh space con" idea. It will still be a one shot but perhaps a tad bit more tailored to the individual group. I love my gaming experiments.

[HyveMynd]

Oi! Unless you're talking about sparkly vampire facials, get your own thread!

Kidding, kidding.

As hippie games, Apocalypse World-based stuff can be run from the hip with practically no preparation. The only prep I had for that game of Monsterhearts you, Forresst, and scubasteve played in was a list of 40 names (20 male and 20 female) and couple of juicy classroom questions to kickstart the drama. Everything just went from there.

That's not to say you can't or shouldn't prepare for an AW game. Every game of Dungeon World or Monster of the Week I've run has had some kind of preparation. That usually includes a BBEG and their nefarious plot, some minions, a few locations or a dungeon map, and some custom moves that are relevant to the events of the adventure. I also try to have at least one question per player that both helps set expectations and gives everyone a chance to shape the setting. (Of course that kind of backfired when tomes said the name of the undead chaos titan was ""Dog Face". LOL.)

I've found that things start to get interesting in the second or third session. That's because, as you mention D.T. Pints, the GM has had time to let all the player generated content percolate in their brains. You've had some down time to see how all the puzzle pieces you created fit together. It's a shame you don't normally get that in a one-shot con game.

Go for your game-before-the-game and let us know how it turns out!