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Monsterhearts Gothic
Dark goings on among inhuman students at a Victorian boarding school, using the Monsterhearts system.
$15.00
/ Session
Details
Weekly / Saturday - 11:00 AM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
Campaign Length / 8+ Sessions
1 / 5 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
1/5
About the adventure
There is something unspeakable in the cellars; shadows stalk the halls at night, whispering in your dreams; the head of the school has a secret they will kill to keep; and you have an assignation in the library after lights out where perhaps you will learn the identity of your secret admirer. There are dark secrets in every corner of the school, beginning with your own: you are something other than human, concealing your presence as best you can, while heeding the call of your unusual hungers. Monsterhearts is a PbtA game of messy teenage romances between inhuman characters; Monsterhearts Gothic is a hack of that game that transports the setting from Modern High School to Victorian Boarding School, with a strong dose of melodrama mixed in. This is a heavy reskin of Monsterhearts with new stats, basic moves and playbooks but the same underlying principles and themes. The hack has already been thoroughly play-tested in both one-shots and a campaign, though one more untried playbook has been included since then. Monsterhearts Gothic is a character-driven melodrama touching upon themes of teenage romance, sexuality, adolescence, monstrous horror, Gothic gore, class inequality, colonialism & prejudice. The first session will focus on creating characters as a group, to provide a strong, shared background and interconnecting hooks, which will then provide the framework for the story to come. This is a "play to find out" style game, where we create a common starting point and the follow the story in a natural way to see what happens next, with some unexpected drama added by the MC.
Game style
Roleplay Heavy
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
5.0
(3)
Less than a year on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Inclusive, Storytelling, Creativity
About me
Dedicated indie storygamer based in the UK, been playing and running TTRPGs since Black Box Traveler and Red Box D&D (yes, it's a long time.) I like short, character focused campaigns with emerging stories, paying attention to narrative arcs for all players. Favourite games are Monsterhearts, Dead of Night, My Life with Master, Best Friends and others, and I also enjoy play-out-of-the-box games like For The Queen, Women Are Werewolves, Rest in Pieces and many more. I've run multiple campaigns for friends and TTRPG groups since college, both face-to-face and online, along with multiple attendances at UK conventions and have recently been recruited into the Games on Demand stream at UK Games Expo, running games for a new group of players every 2 hours, all day.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Character creation will take place in the first session as a shared activity: everyone will choose one playbook from nine available possibilites and build their character based on that selection. The main characters' backstories have many intersections, with opportunities for players to contribute to each other's character arcs right from the start of play. All characters will be recorded on a shared Google Sheet that you will be given editing access to, as well as access to the notes on the hack for this game.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You will need a Discord account in order to play; when you join the game, you will be sent an invitation to a small private Discord server on which the game will be played.
What James brings to the table
This is a story-driven game where the player characters are alwats the protagonists of the story, or sometimes the antagonists. Beyond the basis setting of a Victorian boarding school, everything will emerge organically from player choices, actions and their consequences: sometimes the story will turn against you in meaningful ways as a result of the above. The NPCs we create through play will become a toolbox for me to use as MC in order to exploit the characters' motivations and each NPC will have some agenda of their own that they are pursuing. Sitting back and doing nothing enables the NPCs push towards their own goals, which may not be in accord with what the PCs want; this is a pro-active story in which you need to advocated for your character's desires or be overtaken by others.
Homebrew rules
This is a modified version of Monsterhearts that relocates the setting to a Victorian-era boarding school, with new stats, basic moves and playbooks to reflect this.
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How James creates a safe table
The following safety tools will be in effect throughout the campaign: Open Table: players are free to come and go as they need to and should not feel they are interrupting the game if they need to take a break or leave for any reason. No Hate Speech: no matter what regressive opinions characters in the game may have, we will exclude any use of the terms hate speech, including an examples of sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, body shaming and so on. Lines & Veils: we will have a discussion about the tone and content all players find acceptable for the game, including trigger issues, phobias and so on. Pause Button: everyone is empowered to pause the game at any time, with an explanation if they desire; this can be used to take a moment, skip unwanted content, rewind & redo a portrayal of their character they are unhappy with, discuss upcomingh scenes and their ton, etc, Decompression: after every game, time will be available to discuss the game's content with each other, dig a little deeper below the surface of character motivations and generally ground ourselves.
Content warnings
Safety tools used