thread: 2012-04-29 : Monster of the Week
On 2012-05-02, Steve Hickey wrote:
On behalf on Michael (and cos I've run it about 15 times now), yep: character creation is fairly short, and the reason you're describing (having options and moves being designed around fewer procedures) definitely helps.
Familiarity with Apocalypse World or one of its hacks also helps (because the steps are basically the same).
The character creation step that can take the longest is 'History', simply because the temptation is there to nail down exactly who met who first and what happened when they did. I don't mind that so much though: depending on the number of sessions I expect the game will run, nailing that stuff down specifically can be very helpful for creating a sense of coherence to all the hunters' relationships.
(Unsolicited Pro-tip: make your first session the 'Episode 2' of your monster hunting series. Origin stories are (a) implied in the history, and (b) slow the game down a lot. Related to this, I think the game plays best when it's a lot like old-school D&D: instead of starting outside the dungeon, start already on the trail of the monster.)
