Downtown and Dragons | Metro-Magical Monster Hunting Mayhem

Creating your character

Monster of the Week's character creation process is deeply collaborative, and because of that, our Session 0 is just as much about getting characters made as it is about discussing boundaries and the nature of play. We'll also figure out more about whether this group of hunters is an existing group/how long it's existed for, or how these strangers might come together to fight against evil. I recommend having some ideas on what playbook(s) you're interested in playing before coming in, but otherwise, don't worry too much about having a perfectly fleshed out idea immediately. You can always bounce ideas off the other members of the party and myself, ask questions regarding the setting, and eventually at the end of the process establish existing histories between the hunters (which are helpfully included on your character's playbook sheet). If those histories don't work, we can always invent new ones, or play to have those connections be built through gameplay rather than mechanics.

Preparing for the session

You'll need a Discord account, and a decent microphone and internet connection. If you'd like to use your own dice as opposed to Avrae (a dice rolling bot for discord), feel free to let me know! The campaign will be hosted and played in a Discord voice call in a private Discord server, and the link will be provided once you're confirmed to be in the game!

What Phoenix brings to the table

A REAL, YET FUN LEGEND ⚔️💥 Prepare for fluid, theatre of the mind combat and open ended mysteries you can solve in your own way. The rule of cool is an old friend of mine, and while I'll stick to the rules more often than not, feel free to ask to attempt things that may not be strictly rules legal. The stakes and heroics are real, but the goal here is having fun with this clash of settings. I'm rooting for you, so dare to make interesting or borderline insane choices, because the consequences aren't to punish you, but to create even more interesting moments. A VOICE FOR ALL🥸👤🧌🐦‍🔥 I'll be bringing the world to life with unique voices for each monster, obstacle, and ally in the world we create together. Feel free to talk to folks, they'll almost always have something to say. A BARD WORTHY OF THE TALE🎶🔊 Music and ambience will help inform the setting and emotion during each and every session, allowing for better immersion at the table!

Homebrew rules

My interpretation of Kick Some Ass is that it's basically a waiver saying 'I accept the risk of taking damage past this point.' I won't kill you just for daring to roll it, but be prepared for damage. Furthermore, if the way you're attacking something provides no risk of damage, you just inflict harm. This isn't 'homebrew' per se, but it's an important clarification. I may ask for a luck roll, which will just be the roll of a single six sided dice. Lower results are bad, higher results are good. I also, more rarely, may ask for coin flips for certain events that are almost entirely luck. Every playbook provides a list of 5 pre-made statlines for your character. If you want to play a specific playbook and none of those statlines are of interest, let me know, and we can shuffle some of those stats to better fit your character. XP will be gained by failing rolls and from End of Session XP questions that I'll ask at the end of the session. We won't be using the highlighted stats system that's also mentioned in the rule book. There's a chance your character may run out of level up options before the campaign is finished. That, or your only remaining options may be swapping your playbook or retiring your hunter. If these options aren't of interest to you, and you'd like to continue using your character, that's alright! I'll begin providing custom moves to take, new gear, and sometimes the chance to replenish luck points for your character in the event this happens.

How Phoenix creates a safe table

Session 0 will be used to plan characters, set some base Lines and Veils (anything that players are willing to mention openly), and to send out a link to a Deck of Player Safety session that will allow everyone to anonymously send in anything that shouldn't be mentioned that they'd prefer not to have the whole table know. There's a lot of triggers that unfortunately happen to be part of the setting and style, but don't hesitate to ask if certain things can be changed or avoided. Players are also free to take breaks at any time during a session, no explanation needed, and may ask to pause the game or let it continue in their absence if they wish. I don't often plan in breaks during sessions, but if the players want to take one (dinner/emotional distress/decompress/bathroom/anything) I'm more than happy to take 15-30 and get back to it once everyone is ready. After each session, either before or after End of Session XP is awarded, I like to provide a space for players to debrief. Good, bad, exciting, problems, anything that was uncomfortable this session. Folks all need time to decompress in their own way, and this is the best time to do that, so I provide it. We'll also discuss whether a debrief is necessary in Session 0s, and no answer is permanent. If the group decides against debriefs/aftercare, but later the group determines that they need one after a session, that's totally fine!