[MADcorp / world gone weird] how to make a monster
Marshall Burns:
Latest MADcorp documentation: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9k6jY73glEKNzIzMmQ1ODMtYmI1Zi00OWIwLWFjZWEtZDVkZTlkYTVjYzVk
(the "traschan edition" ones are the newer ones.)
Ok, so, one of the last things I'm not happy with in MADcorp is the monster rules. You can review the current ones in the core rulebook PDF in the "how to be the Ref" chapter. Like, I'm not happy with any of it.
Let's review my philosophy for monsters:
1. Monsters are fucked up.
2. Monsters are rare and for serious.
3. Monsters don't come in species. There's no such thing as a hydra. There might be such a thing as a horrible being with multiple regenerating heads named Hydra.
4. Fighting a monster isn't about trading shots with it until it falls down. In fact, 90% of the time that should get people killed. Figuring out how to get the odds on your side should be necessary; knowing is half the battle. But like all such brain challenges, it should either be a "problem" with an open-ended solution, or a "puzzle" with a more-or-less set and preplanned solution. If it's the latter, it should either be not-required (as in, players should have the option to leave this monster the fuck alone) or there should be a way to discover hints elsewhere in the situation, if you're paying attention.
These current rules don't really arrive at this. They really, really don't. The effects-first thing isn't working. I think I need to start "fiction-first," in the sense of thinking up what this monster is and does in purely fictional terms first, then figuring out the mechanical effects. It should end up looking more like a PC than the mess of rules that it looks like now -- it should be defined in terms of a few numerical rules (bonuses/penalties, frex), but mostly in terms of exceptions and unique functions, like how all the Employee Handbooks are done. So... how do you explain to the Ref how to do this? There needs to be a way to do it from scratch, and supplementing that with rolling charts is high on the list of priorities, in case you have to make up a monster in a hurry.
There are some things it's important to preserve. Classifications are important -- aberration, mechanical, undead, and phantom are all mechanically relevant to various PC classes. But the way these classifications are defined right now is ass.
I got nothing. Any thoughts?
stefoid:
Make a list of monsterous abilities/featuers, according to your various classifications, and let the GM frankenstien those abilities together any way he wants.
For your puzzle ways to defeat monsters, make sure you include defensive mechanisms that make them highly resistant to some forms of attack. Also, make some features offer some relatively devasting or powerful moves, but come with a weakness as a package. Like a video game - the hugely armoured thingy is basically impervious to all forms of damage except when it uses its power attack which momentarilly flares the armoured scales around its neck, exposing it to potential damage for a short time.
or something.
Marshall Burns:
That's pretty much how it is right now. In practice, it doesn't work the way I want it to. I pretty much want to throw it out entirely and come up with something different. It's not even fun to make a monster, and it should be.
Maybe the list of abilities is just made up *of the wrong abilities*. I don't know; it's possible.
DWeird:
Hey Marshall!
I've played the game, so I know my suggestion might lead to a re-tinkering of the rest of the game, as well (which might be just as well for all I know, as when we played, we spent most of the time in withdrawn-from-fiction mechanical combat mode, which is fine in itself but not exactly what you want with all this, if I got it right).
So, how about something of this form...
Werehound of the Kennels - heals all wounds within minutes, except those made by silver.
When the monster attacks you, flip a coin to see if you die. If you don't die, flip it again to see if you're horribly maimed or mutilated.
Driven by bloodlust and instinct.
Faster than a car.
Shreds and tears through anything weaker than concrete.
Human by daylight.
It's mostly just a fictional description of what it does, but it pretty much tells you why you need to fear it and what you could do to escape with your life and maybe kill it. The first two bits are the most important, I think. All of the monsters should have a "unkillable: because! except for..." clause there somewhere. Being unkillable makes them scary (in conjunction with the general rule of them being able to kill everything). The "because" allows the Ref to make judgement calls when the players get creative. Frex, if we dump the Werehound into a pool of acid, it's done, similarly how an otherwise-immortal incorporeal phantom can be dealt with a ghostbustery suck gadget. The exception is there mostly as a mental failsafe - if there's a "it can be killed by X" on the sheet, the Ref can rest easy that the monster is 'theoretically defeatable', and can go plum crazy with the rest of the sheet.
It can also have motivations that give it direction. "It's a monster and it's here to kill you" only gives you options to kill it or run away, but if it wants something other than killing that *makes* it want to kill you, you have room for discovery and improvisation. A ghost of a crazed killer that wants to torture living people and a weredog who just really likes to eat raw flesh have different priorities, and will act differently given different stimulus... Meaning, if players can't beat a monster, they can at least learn how to manipulate it.
Random "this monster is cool and can do this" things are easy, any person who wants to Ref can probably sprout off twelve of these for any monster he thinks up in a manner of seconds.
Various "I win" buttons than are dependant on the setting the monster is in are also a possibility. "Human by daylight" seems to make the monster weaksauce, yeah? But I'm the Ref and I say - in this dungeon, there's no sunlight. Ever. So to press the "I win" button, the players get a logistical exercise of getting light into a dungeon, exploding its roof, stuff like that. Either way, fun.
So basically I think it all boils down to giving it a reasoned physical description (what does Hitler-brain kill-bot really *want*? How does Hitler-brain kill-bot do the things he does? What's he made from and how does *that* work?).
I think that if you give the monster stats, it'll be dealt with by out-statting it, and a player is far better motivated to out-stat a monster than a Ref is to do the converse. Go descriptive, and they'll be forced to deal with the monster in the fiction.
stefoid:
Quote from: Marshall Burns on January 12, 2012, 04:09:41 PM
That's pretty much how it is right now. In practice, it doesn't work the way I want it to. I pretty much want to throw it out entirely and come up with something different. It's not even fun to make a monster, and it should be.
Maybe the list of abilities is just made up *of the wrong abilities*. I don't know; it's possible.
I had a look - maybe they are too granular. Perhaps putting monsters together from larger 'features' rather than granular 'abilities'.
example - tentacles: lets your monster do a lot of things that tentacles would be good for, like reach through small gaps, sweep or grab people off their feet, climb well by sucking onto things and pulling itself up, etc...
I dunno - I looked at your abilities and it seems to me that it would be fun making a PC that way, purchasing different abilities and trying to make an effective character and use it tactically. I love that. It seems a relatively crunchy game for your stated aim of fiction first. Its like your trying to have it both ways.
But yeah, stating up monsters that way, especially if you need a bunch of them, I can see how that could get old pretty quickly. So if you package up groups of abilities into 'features' that are more, I dont know, evocative or something, like 'tentacles' then it could work better? Or maybe at least quicker.
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