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In the city of Chester's Chasm, four teenagers grapple with lives divided between the mundane and the supernatural: Burt working for Death to save a friend, Crispin yearning to escape a zealous cult, Michael indulging his vampiric nature, and Saline pursued by creatures from the Fae. All Our Faults is a Monsterhearts 2 actual play podcast produced by the Tabletop Talespinners Network.
(All Our Faults Intro) A fault is a weakness, a defect, a fracture.
Faults divide, tear, and consume.
Here in the city of Chester's chasm, we struggle to maintain that precarious balance
over the precipice in the earth, in our lives, and in our hearts.
This story is about 14eagers with faults of their own.
The fault between my faith and freedom.
The fault between my family and identity.
The fault between my choice and my obligation.
The fault between my life and death.
As these fractures grow, we stand at the edge and ask what must we sacrifice to state
the void's endless hunger.
Is it possible that the answer lies within all our faults?
(Mistress Winter) Greetings and welcome to all our faults, a monster hearts too, actual play podcast.
I am the mistress of ceremonies, mistress winter, and I will be your guide through this special
episode.
I will be directing the following exposition to those among our listeners who may not
be familiar with tabletop role-playing games or monster hearts too as a TT RPG system.
My goal is to provide context for some of the things that you may have and will hear
in our main story so that you can follow along with the shift between player and character,
as well as how the dice rolls work to influence the story.
Without further ado, let's jump in.
So first, what is a tabletop role-playing game?
A TTRPG is a game in which one or more players create fictional personas or characters, and
interact as individuals or a group with an imaginary world with a game system providing a common
rule set.
TTRPGs come in all forms and flavors from high fantasy such as Lord of the Rings to modern
Scooby-Doo-esque mysteries to galaxy-spanning, science-fiction, all-astart-track.
The goals of the game can vary just as much to include adventure, exploration, simulated
combat, or to simply tell a story together.
Typically, TTRPGs are played with dice, though cards and other tokens can add an element
of chaos and love.
A game can exist anywhere between a single two to four-hour session or a campaign-spanning
years, both in-game and in our real world.
The most renowned TTRPG is Dungeons & Dragons, as made famous in shows like Stranger Things.
This podcast is called an actual play because the main episodes are edited recordings of
our game sessions.
That's why the drama of the story is interspersed by breaks in character and dice rolls.
We not only want to share the story that we are weaving together as a cast, but we are
inviting you to get a glimpse into all of the elements that influence how that story
is created.
It is a shared process of intention, of improvisation, and inspiration.
With that context, let's talk Monster Hearts.
Monster Hearts and its second iteration, MonsterHearts 2, is a TTRPG created by Avery
Alder.
At a distance, it is a game about teenage monsters and all that it includes - romance, supernatural
secrets, and plenty of high school drama.
The players create the main characters of the story and direct those characters actions
in response to a world narrated and populated by the MC.
You're truly.
But at its monstrous heart, the stories in Monster Hearts are fathoms deeper.
As part of creating a character, players start by selecting a skin.
Skins are the supernatural trappings of a character, providing unique moves, attributes, and a
darkest self, all of which are based on a theme.
If you core themes are classic to the horror genre, and they can include the ghost, the
hollow, think Frankenstein's Monster, the vampire, the werewolf, the witch, and the powerless
mortal skins.
The other themes may not be as classic, but are no less recognizable, and include the
fay, the ghoul, the infernal, and the queen skins.
These themes mirror any number of tropes found in supernatural team drama media, like the
chilling adventures of Sabrina, Teen Wolf, Twilight, or the Vampire Diaries.
But their meaning is so much more than skin deep.
Each skin has both its literal trope, as well as a deep-seated allegory, a metaphor that
ties its theme into common personality types.
The ghost, for instance, represents a person whose people pleasing is so pervasive that
their entire self disappears in favor of others needs.
The infernal is an addictive personality dependent on their next fix, and willing to pay an ever-increasing
price to get that fix.
To that end, the skin is the most important choice for a player to make, as it defines much
of who that character will be.
Several of the skins represented in all our faults are fan-created, and are not presented
in the core Monster Hearts handbook.
Links to those skins are available in the show notes.
Now we move on to moves.
Moves allow the characters a chance to affect their world and the people in it.
And like in our world, actions have varying degrees of success, and that's where the dice
come in.
Most moves call for the players to roll two standard six-sided die, then total the result
with one of four attributes, hot, cold, volatile, and dark, whose value is determined by their
skins.
Many results below a seven is a failure, and everything above a nine is a success, but
it is the seven to nine range that is most interesting.
This is the range that I call success with consequences.
The character has succeeded in what they are attempting to do, but there is usually
some repercussion that is visited on the character in return, whether it's a new condition
on that character or a string taken by another.
So what move options do our players have?
Well there are general moves that all characters can enact, and they include turning someone
on, shutting someone down, keeping their cool, lashing out physically, running away, and
gazing into the abyss.
While how a general move is described can be flavored at the player or the MC's whim,
their intent is in the name.
The only one that may not be self-explanatory is gazing into the abyss.
This move allows a character to glean information about the story or situation that is either
not readily available or would be impossible to know through mundane methods.
Not able to get a straight answer from your crush on if they like you?
Tap into the well of darkness and look for answers there.
Beyond the general moves, each skin, grants its character moves specific to their theme.
Skin moves either enhance general moves or grant special abilities only available to that
skin.
The hollow, as an example, has a move called Strange Impressions, which allows the character
to mimic another skin's move once.
The move, mess with him, mess with me, allows the mortal to increase their chances of shutting
someone down or keeping their cool if they use their lover's name in a threat.
Frequently, though, there is a trade-off for using these moves.
Some moves grant strings, others incur conditions, provide forwards, cause harm, or even trigger
the character's darkest self, which we will return to in just a moment.
Strings are the true underlying threads of monster hearts.
Very much like the metaphorical heart strings, they are the currency of influence.
By pulling a string, a character can hoax the attached person to perform some favor
or provide some service to the bearer of that string.
Do you want your friend to ask the head cheerleader out for you?
Yank their chain by reminding them of the deep dark secret you have on them.
Some results of different moves can grant or dissolve threads between characters.
Strings are a powerful tool that directly influence the fabric of the story.
Conditions are the character flaws that society and perception label us with.
The actual labels or conditions are up to the discretion of the MC and players, regardless
of the wording, and applied condition imposes a penalty to roles in the specified context.
Have a condition called "for eyes?"
The next time you lash out physically, the targeting question might use your impaired
sight to their advantage.
Conditions can only be removed if they are directly dealt with, unless a move says otherwise.
For words are pretty simple, they grant a bonus to the character's next role, giving
what could be a determining factor in an important role.
Harm can come in any flavor, emotional, mental, or physical, and represents the character's
proximity to death.
A character, typically, can only take three harm without consequence, but on the fourth
harm, the player has a choice to make.
Die or skirt death.
To skirt death, a player must decide to either lose all the strings that they have on everyone
or to enter their darkest self.
So in this scenario, let's imagine that this player is choosing to send their character
into their darkest self.
What does that mean?
While each skin has a unique darkest self clause that sends the skin's literal and figurative
theme into overdrive.
The ghost, for instance, becomes invisible and intangible, only able to affect physical
objects.
The werewolf wolfs out and goes on a rampage.
The vampire goes on the hunt for vulnerable prey to manipulate and destroy.
The darkest self can be devastating to interpersonal relationships, destroy a character's sense
of self, and encourage them to do things they normally wouldn't.
But they don't have to stay that way.
The darkest self always has a way out.
If another character genuinely laments the ghost's disappearance, the ghost's darkest self
ends.
The vampire must be put into their place by someone more powerful than them.
While the werewolf regains themselves either at dawn the next day or by hurting someone
that they care about.
The darkest self is a serious state for a character to be in and often impacts the story in very
powerful ways.
Monster Hearts is both a simple and elegantly complex game.
Its rules and mechanics are simple and easy to learn, but the breadth and depth of characterization
and storytelling that is possible through the theming and available choices is limitless.
I personally fell in love with Monster Hearts the first time I played and often dream of all
the tales that I could weave through this game's loom.
Thus, all our faults is a passion given form.
The sheer excitement and joy that the cast and I have in creating this story session after
session has not diminished and is only amplified by your amazing attention and support.
It is my hope that this primer has provided sufficient context that may have been missing
from the episodes you've listened to and enhances further listening moving forward.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to me on social media.
I'm always happy to discuss MonsterHearts.
Until our next meeting, may your hearts be safe and loved.
This has been a tale from the Tabletop TaleSpinners Network.