#i'm kinda ??? about pc gaming. i can figure it out but my experience is pretty limited actually

[robo-dino-puppy]

Where did you get the character swap mod for pc for Horizon forbidden West? I can find it for hzd, but not for hfw. Im kinda new to modding, and I never modded the horizon games. I just started hfw after finishing hzd, and I love the premise.

And is the photo mod mod you use from otis inf's patreon? Because id be interested in making some of my own photos and exploring more games (rather than just rdr2)

I'm no expert at modding either haha! But as of right now you're right, you can't find a separate character swap mod for HFW, so my (character swap mod) tag being the same for both games is kind of misleading - I just did it that way for my own organization.

I'll put links for everything if anyone else is interested :D The one for HZD is way easier and more versatile, and I hope eventually we'll get something like that for HFW... (I'm not really in the loop of what people are doing to mod HFW, but last I heard it was being worked on...?)

What works right now is to install the HFW Tweaks and Cheats Menu, and then either using one of the files from Play as Talanah (and more) or making your own! The author of those mods provided a list of all the characters and values the game uses for them.

And yeah, the photomode mod is the one from Otis_Inf! It took some getting used to but you can do amazing stuff with it.

I'll continue below the cut for more info about the character swapping:

So when I used the mod to play as, say, Ikkotah, I searched for his name in that list, then opened one of the .ini files I'd already downloaded in a text editor, replaced the UUID and Root UUID with his values, saved it as mod_PlayAsIkkotah.ini, and then copied that into my HFW installation folder. With this method you can only replace one character at a time - you have to switch that .ini out if you want to change to another character, or delete it if you want to go back to being Aloy. If people are interested I could toss the characters I've tried out into a google doc? For each one you'd just copy the few lines needed into a text editor and save as an .ini yourself. Let me know if you (or anyone else!) needs a more in-depth explanation of this.

Also useful: if you want to get rid of Aloy's spear for photos of another character (or her!), go into the player inventory in the Tweaks and Cheats Menu, and delete her spear from your inventory. It would probably not be a good idea to play with a file saved like this, and tbh I always make sure to delete any autosaves that happen when I'm playing around with mods/boundary breaking. If you want to get rid of her bow/other weapons you can just unequip everything and then nothing will show up on her/your character's back. And finally if you set your player faction to... neutral I think? you can wander peacefully without any enemies attacking you :D

[chrimsone]

Hallo! I keep forgetting to link my fics n tumblr but I didn't forget this time!

So fun stuff, I used a clip of my own Crucible match for this chapter. And that clip resulted in a mercy after four minutes! Omg it's crazy how much is happening in such a short amount of time. I promised a friend I'd like show my process for this chapter and I am using this post as an excuse to the process lol.

So first I needed a source video of course. And I couldn't really just take some match off the internet cause I did want to be specific with what I had equipped. I knew I gave Rin an Arc Logic earlier so I had to grab myself an acceptable copy of one. But the Scout of hers isn't based off any in-game one tbh. But I have a massive love for Perseus-D so I decided to just use that as an acceptable replacement. Since Rin is mostly based off how I play the game normally, I ran the usual gear I wear. Wasn't gonna be a problem if knife hands got used at all in the match. After that, I just had to hope I queued into either the Jav-4 or Convergence map. Those two are my favorites and that's where I wanted her first match to be! Happened to be Jav-4 first.

The fun part was trying to adapt this without the Strand stuff lol. Since at the point of my story not even Stasis has been discovered. Anyways after getting the video then I kinda write out what I experienced on some sheets of paper. Think of it as a rough draft. The starting of me translating what I experience into text form.

From there I take that and then put a City Children lens on it. This goes into an actual doc and since this can be more detailed as I give myself notes and ideas for actual writing. Here's a snapshot of that cause it does take a few pages worth of text.

After this I start actually writing the chapter. While that happens I do cross out the text on the second draft doc. Just helps my eyes from glazing over as I look over all the funny words. Honestly doing all this helped me actually realize some of the callout names for Jav-4! Since the radar provides a name for an area, and to keep my mental map proper I ended up figuring out a decent chunk of the names! Who knows I might actually use them when playing lol.

Pretty much any chapter that focuses on the action has this kinda process to it. The Sundial went thru it! Tho since I didn't have a good PC back in Dawn, I never saved a video of one of those runs. Esoterickk is a true god I used one of his videos on it for reference. Which was still kind of fun! Had to interpret someone else's perspective.

Uh, I guess that's it for this chapter! The process details ended up taking a lot more time to write down than expected lol. If I'm lucky the next chapter won't be 7k words and get out a little quicker. It's not combat focused this time so I don't really need to go thru this process! Though. I have has to use another Esoterickk vid on the Corridors of Time as my memory is fuzzy. Fun hint-hint on what the next chapter is about hehe

[cidthesquid]

The origin of this account! Answering Questions+ Quick Update 03/26/24

Quick Update 03/26/24 + The origin of this account!

Hello all, It's been a while since my last post, so I figured I'd post a short update regarding new content.

In short I'll continue to update this blog when something of note happens in Style Savvy Trend setters, but it's still been pretty quiet/slow, and with FF7:Rebirth out soon, my progress will be slow. ---

Also, I'd like to take some time to respond to a few questions that were sent in. For some reason, I can't see my question inbox, so I'll just be making a short reply based on what showed up in the email preview.

Since, I'm not sure if this person is comfortable with me sharing their name, So we'll just call them 'sender', and I'll 'find and replace' it later if they're okay with me sharing it.

Anyways, 'sender' mentioned that they have a two-week wait before they can post comments. I did not know tumbler had a wait system like that. I'm still fairly new here.

From what I've seen 'like' and 'reblogs' are the most common forms of interactions, so comments are pretty rare, (Fairly different from other social media.)

I've actually been a bit hesitant to comment on others posts because of this. (don't want to rock the boat) But anyone is free to comment here, and I'm open to constructive criticism as well. So if you have an idea of how an outfit could look better (in the style I'm going for) feel free to let me know!

---

'Sender' Also mentioned various setups I could use to make playing ' MODEL Debut 3' easier. Holding up my phone to my pc screen was very uncomfortable, so their suggestion of using a phone tripod setup would have helped a lot, if I go back to the game, I'll give it a shot!

---

'Senders' Third message mentioned how they'd been enjoying reading through the content I'd been posting, including both the game commentary, and the sections that tied it into some of my related personal stories.

And that really meant a lot to me, I honestly considered just switching to 'Outfit of the day' style posts, as in a comment-lite platform like this, it was hard to see what from the content people enjoyed most.

This is why I started front-loading a lot of the outfit pics, After posting them, I'd add a line or two about what happened that day (in-game) as a quick summary, then I'd say "hmm, maybe I should explain a little more about thought process behind the outfit", followed by "ok, but wow, X was done way better (or worse) here compared to Fashion Forward", and next thing I knew hour and hour had passed, XD

As for the little personal stories and connections to my experiences with fashion, and why these games mean so much to me, that has its own story behind it, (buckle up!)

---- /!\ Caution: End of blog updates, Mostly unedited Ramblings beyond this point /!\

The short version is, a few years back I was looking for a way to try to practice being more social, and open about stuff. Normally people would just post online to do that, but I'd been using the same online name since high school, so most the people I knew IRL new it, and it was used on all my social media/online games.

And as it was prime covid time, everyone I knew irl was at home on social media, so any post on my normal social media would likely actively promoted to the people, who I did not really want to see it.

So I figured a 'fresh slate' would be the best way to practice being more social, without having to worry about what people thought about me!

It sounds kinda crazy now, but I ended up making a new discord twitter, reddit and steam account, tumbler was honestly just an afterthought, as I hardly ever used my main tumblr.

So I played some online game, joined some discord groups, and followed and messaged people on twitter…

…and after the first year, I was borderline right back where I was before. Still second guessing everything I post, leaving tons of replies in the drafts, and while I had 'mutuals', there were just other people I followed so I could get more of the content I already enjoyed, there was no real connection outside of a quick reply here or there.

I spent so much time thinking "oh I'm just not comfortable with these IRL people", that simply having a new 'pool' of people to interact with would fix all my social issues, and while I did feel a little more comfortable talking about a wider range of topics with these new people, I'd still feel held back in many of the same was as before.

Every action had to be fueled by multiple layers of second guessing.

"I like this art, I should tell them…well they probably already hear that all the time, it won't matter" "I Also like the thing they're talking about, but they're WAY more interested, so I can't really add much to the conversation" "I really like that outfit/artwork, but it is a tiny bit suggestive, so would that sound creepy coming from a guy?"

…and much more. Addintally, when I often have trouble wording things in a natural sounding way, I'd have to worry about not just 'what' I said but "how I said it" And with multiple questions behind each action, just like with my main account, I just stopped interacting.

And it really took a lot of positive exposure to situations for me to be able to see, sometimes the intent matters almost as much (or sometimes more) than wording.

I've already gone into details on the process here, and in my reddit post prior to posting on tumblr.

But in short, playing in the fantastic Final Fantasy XIV community, gave me a lot of great places to experience this.

You could get carried through a dungeon by a tank that only speaks in the 3rd person, or get great healing from a cat girl, who's every single message contains at least one cat-related pun.

How they presented that help, did not matter, it's the fact that they were willing to help. And you could also look however you wanted, Even if that meant you were protected by a 2.5' very angry munchkin of a tank, people would just roll with it.

Style Savvy was just as helpful, I may never understand modern fashion or trends, But if someone comes into my shop asking to look a specific way, I get to help them achieve their ideal image!

I got to explore a small section of the fashion world, without having to worry about "well, technically that's out of season" or "ooh, that was IN last year, but now it's OUT", or "Why am I dressing this person that way, what would they really want?"

I just got to have fun living in my own little fashion cubbyhole, a comfortable little cutout with only the parts I enjoy.

And Fashion Forward had such a big impact on me, I just really had to share it, so I made the above reddit post, I kept playing and kept enjoying the game, and started sharing my thoughts here as well, as it's much better for images than Reddit.

And just like with playing the games, over time I started sharing more of my thoughts, and eventually explaining "why" I felt specific ways about some parts, it felt fairly uncomfortable at first, but I remember just telling myself, "It's still topical, and if they've gotten this far, they kinda know what there getting into",

My main concern was not making anyone uncomfortable, or upset

but still trying to be open, and I think I've managed to strike a fair balance. As in general, I want this blog to be more about my adventure with fashion, rather than simply sharing screenshots, or just me venting. And even if a majority of people are here for the screenshots, it still means a lot that others are interested in my content!

---

Anyways you all for reading, hopefully this little look inside the creation of the channel was insightful! (I have to head start work, but I'll do a quick edit pass later) I still have a long ways to go when it comes to 'social improvements' , but I feel I've made a ton of progress in the last year or so. These games have helped far more than my 'dramatic social media change', and now I'm getting some external support to manage as well!

And while I won't yet be providing exact details of my situation, Questions and comments are always open!

[bahamutgames]

AFTERTHOUGHTS - ROUNDUP ROUND 4

June 2023

Hello again and one last (slightly late) Happy Pride everyone! I'm extremely late to posting about what I played last month because originally I was planning on combining it with THIS month since I wasn't expecting to play much. But I actually ended up playing a LOT of games in July so, I'm separating them again. BUT it's never a bad time to celebrate Pride! Woohoo gaymers....

Anyway....

Metagal (May 23, 2016) - PC

Starting off with Metagal! I got this a little while back because I was starting to get into Megaman and it was like, 99 cents on sale I think? Which was nuts. So I decided I wanted to play something short, and since I finally started the Megaman Classic games, I figured I had no reason not to try it out! Ultimately? I'm pretty pleased with it.

Metagal is a short Megaman like where you play as Metagal and defeat her 4 sisters in order to break them free of their mind control and gain their powers ect ect. It's got some pretty nice sprite work and some pretty good music. I think the girls themselves aren't necessarily PERFECT but I think they're pretty cute!

The gameplay itself is pretty standard but does some things to make it stand out from Megaman. The first thing is that special weapons don't require weapon energy. They recharge over time. PERSONALLY I think this is a great change cause lord knows Megaman has some situations where you can get screwed over by not properly spending every bit of weapon energy perfectly (the Megaman 2 boss. You know the one.) And secondly, the lives system is pretty neat. Rather than having a set amount of lives, you have infinite lives. Dying sends you back to the last checkpoint every time. BUT, you can collect extra lives and spend them like currency to respawn right at the screen you died at instead. It's simple but it's pretty neat!

The low points from what I remember are the boss battles. They all kinda suck. I just remember one miniboss I think in the fire stage that took SO long to take down cause it was hyper specific how to avoid its attacks and when I beat him I accidentally clipped into the wall and got soft locked. I also remember the final boss being HORRIBLE and more gimmicky than the other fights. Overall the game certainly isn't amazing, but there is some unique stuff in it and if you're a Megaman fan I think you could get something out of it especially when it becomes so cheap! Also the same team made another game more similar to the X / Zero games and it looks AMAZING! Will absolutely have to check it out!

Kitsune Zero (September 12, 2022) - PC

Next up is another game that's like an NES game! Kitsune Zero is a simple Mario like that's all about Yokai! You play as a Fox girl and you platform across various levels fighting Yokai and collecting power ups to beat back the Ogre Clan!

It's simple but I mean, it's Mario! You can't go wrong with it! It has ADORABLE sprites and art, cute reimaginings of Mario enemies as Yokai (Kappa Flappa is sucha good name), cute music. What's not to like? It's been a little bit since I played it but I do recall it feeling a little off compared to Mario which made some levels a little difficult to get through. But overall it's a simple and fun platforming experience.

Weirdly enough this is actually DLC for a game called Super Bernie World which is, more of the same. Except you play as Bernie Sanders. Which is funny, but so insanely random. Really feels like Super Bernie World should've been the DLC for THIS game. But regardless, it's neat and I will absolutely check out the game this is a prequel to eventually!

Paradise Marsh (October 13, 2022) - PC

Last but not least, probably my favorite thing I played in June: Paradise Marsh! This game is just a simple walking around and doing fuck-all simulator. Which by this point you should know is always a favorite of mine. The whole goal is to go around and catch animals so you can restore constellations and go home. There's lots to interact with, lots to catch, and there's no enemies or time limits. Just relaxing in this big open Marsh.

There's not a whole lot to say on this game cause again it's pretty simple and short. I loved figuring out how to catch the animals, I loved just interacting with random junk, I loved how relaxing the game was, I love the graphics and the visuals. I ADORE that it had a day/night cycle that's always a good call in my book. The constellations were funny (Dragonfly was probably my favorite?) and the ending was very cute. I liked the game so much I even 100% completed it!

The only real negatives I have about it do shockingly come from that day/night cycle. A LOT of this game focuses around night time. You can only put the constellations back at night, a LOT of the animals are only available at night. Which is fine but I feel like night is way too short, and day too long. I know you can sit down to make time go quicker and I found myself using this CONSTANTLY but sometimes I also found I couldn't get up off the seat at the proper time. It's small but it is still a little frustrating. My only other complaint was the STUPID LILLYPAD ACHIEVEMENT TOOK ME SO LONG TO GET WHY IS IT LIKE THAT WHO DECIDED ON THAT UGH!!

But yes, good game.

[chrysanthemumgames]

Could you talk a bit more about why you wanted gender and pronouns to be seperate options? I'm making my own twine game, but I'm kinda confused on how it would affect the story.

Sure! So.

For one, as you probably know, they just are factually separate things. You can be a nonbinary person and use exclusively she/her, and it doesn't make you a woman. One way to handle this coding wise is, of course, to just let people choose the pronouns so the game knows what to display, and let the reader imagine their character as whatever gender they are! And that's totally valid, as long as the game never needs to know what gender they are, which honestly... most don't.

So why bother setting gender at all? Well, as far as I can tell, there's two reasons why you might want to. One is just... a certain sense of official-ness. I think I can safely assert that a lot of nonbinary and trans folks are used to kinda... finessing headcanon and maybe occasionally ignoring canon to be able to sneak in anything that feels like rep of themselves in their player characters, never mind the rest of the game.

Everyone being on the same footing in terms of "your gender is whatever you imagine and the game doesn't declare it" is one way of bringing parity (a way I also use sometimes), but of late I've been kind of coming down on the side of letting the player make it explicit because even if, say, a trans and a cis man are treated exactly the same at all times by the story and the characters because the difference doesn't matter to the game at all, well... I think there's something to be said for the player with the trans PC knowing that the character is trans, is recognized as trans, and is still treated the same by the game. Speaking for myself, it can actually be super refreshing when I play an NB character and the game "knows" but nobody cares or bothers me about it or gets my pronouns wrong haha.

But the second reason you might do something like this (at least that I can think of right now), is that, well, it might make a difference sometimes! I'm not talking about like... writing in discrimination for "historical accuracy" or whatever—I think there's probably a time and place for that, but it'd take a whole lot more effort and sensitivity than most people probably want to give it, etc. But what I'm really referring to is chances for the topic to come up, e.g., with cast members who are also trans, or enby, or what have you. It can be refreshing for it not to matter, but at the same time, generally speaking being of one gender is a different experience than being another, even if that's just in terms of something like 'what other people tend to expect of you.' When you consider being enby, or trans, or fluid, there's additional different life experience on top of that, and it can, sometimes, feel like a lot of what comes one's way in life has to do with it.

And it can be nice, too, if rather than making no difference, this locus of experience is something that can be discussed and shared, particularly with characters in the narrative who would realistically be able to relate. Based on what kind of world it is, gender might not matter too much (it barely does in FoA), but there's still elements of experience that are going to be shared even then. For example, whether or not anyone makes a big deal out of it, Alekto has transitioned. That's a thing she's done, and a PC might also have done. That's a pretty natural thing for them to talk about at a certain point in a friendship.

So even if I just end up giving a few small conversational opportunities for something like this, I think, for a game like FoA, that's worth it, because FoA has a lot of emphasis on getting to know its characters not really because you're all out to save the world/solve the mystery/win the war, but because you're all living together now and need to figure out how to get on. It might not be the kind of thing that fits into every game, and that's okay!

[retphienix]

Digging my 360 out is always a weird blast from the past for me, especially if I hook it up to an ethernet and look at more stuff (I recall getting really emotional over a lost family member's account still being there the last time I did this, I won't this time I promise).

Instead I just wanted to point at some of what shows up on My Games tab because it's a fun mix of good memories and things I don't recall at all.

Beat Hazard, played a bunch of songs on that.

My nerd ass getting all the achievements on Fallout 3 and NV because I was obsessed.

GAME ROOM existing, oof.

Hitman Absolution was my first hitman game if you don't count a handful of minutes at a relatives! I LIKED it! What the FUCK! lol I'm glad I liked it, but I honest to god could not go back to it today, I'm certain of that.

Maxed cheevos on I Am Alive- a game most don't respect at all but I really enjoyed it at the time- it came out when I was obsessed with post apocalypse stuff so it scratched that itch at just the right time.

I Made A Game With Zombies in it is a MASTERPIECE of a game, highly recommend looking up a playthrough for the music alone.

Iron Brigade is actually a game I've brought up before! For good reason! It's a game I love wholeheartedly and I think to date it is the only game I became THAT invested in the COMMUNITY side of things.

And what a unique experience that was.

Picture a game, right. You love it, it is niche as heck and you love it. The game has an official forum and pretty much no other place on the internet- so the forum is active! The devs are there! The best of the best and the most obsessed are there!

Now picture my nerd ass diving in, making an ass of myself, becoming at least recognized by a great portion of them, receiving a gift from the DEVS THEMSELVES, building the wikia with them, writing guides with them, stupidly turning down the opportunity to be involved in world first perfect runs with them (what the fuck was my problem) building broken strats with them-

I was incredibly active on the community side for that game, I miss that dearly. I really should take such a big commitment step again for the next niche game I enjoy :)

Enough about IB.

I went and maxed out Minecraft on 360 for some reason? What a bizarre thing to do. I'm pretty sure the achievements were stupid as hell (I ain't checking) and I don't recall really "playing" much? But that's also the biggest platform I ever played minecraft on? Oof.

Monday Night Combat, that was a fun game during its time.

Maxed out oblivion- fun story on that one.

Oblivion was one of those few games that I was hyped beyond words before release. I would watch the trailer again and again, I'd talk with friends and family about it nonstop, I recall going on and on about being able to choose how you used weapons, dual wield, one hand, two handed, magic, bow- I was blown away by the concept.

I did a similar bit of "gushing about basic mechanics" with Halo 1 to parental figures, that was fun.

But anyway- I was hyped for Oblivion, and I got all the achievements as you can see- but to this day I have not actually done much in Oblivion lol.

Little kid me was new to the entire concept of an open world RPG!

Little kid me JUST followed the quest markers and ONLY for the main quests and guild quests!

Little kid me did NOTHING in Oblivion! lol

So I have all these hours in it, I went and did a lot of the traditional Oblivion things like making a 100 chameleon armor set with duped sigil eyes or whatever but I haven't actually "just played" Oblivion, outside of stealing, I did a lot of stealing. But side content? Nope.

OH HECK YEAH PAYDAY 2!

I played Payday 2 on 360!

For those who don't know, PD2 on 360 is the OLD version, the OG skill system and the like. It's kind of a train wreck, but I played it nonstop for like a week? Maybe just a weekend? I recall telling my cousin to get it and then I don't remember us actually ever playing? I played with some friends, then by myself, then quit.

Fast forward and I buy it on PS4 and play it TOO MUCH then buy it on PC and play it TOO MUCH lol.

Oh, Rainbow Six Vegas is in the mix. Vegas and Vegas 2 were extremely fun IN THEIR TIME. I'd revisit them with a friend I'd bet, but the liklihood of that is kinda low.

You could use the 360 camera to add yourself to the game which was sick, and I'll never forget that sniper rifles could pinpoint blind fire due to an oversight. If you went against a wall (it's a cover shooter) and clicked in the zoom toggle for a sniper you would "zoom" your blind fire reticle which actually made the sniper go from "blind fire inaccurate" to "pinpoint directly on the reticle accurate" so snipers were busted lol.

If my reckless ramble wasn't a hint at what I'm about to say at the beginning: The 360 was the true height of my gaming history. It was the console I played as a teen which is to say it was the console I had infinite time and resources to pour into, and pour into I did.

Even today I don't just sit around playing games nonstop, sometimes I wish I would, but it just doesn't "fit" anymore- but kid me? He loved that shit.

So when it comes to stories I have about games, most of them are about the 360 which means a lot of them aren't really the most entertaining to share I think?

Most people want to hear about classic game stuff, or modern game stories- but I have all this weird and out of place knowledge about what it was like being obsessed with games on the 360- an experience a lot of people my age also have so, again, they aren't interested in hearing :P

[zarekthelordofthefries]

Any tips for putting together a Monster Of The Week game? I'm making a campaign and haven't ever played before 😅

Oh, sure! Some of this might be kind of basic stuff that you might’ve covered already but since I don’t know where you’re at in the process yet I’ll try to give some general starting stuff advice. (From your phrasing I’m gonna assume you’re the GM for this.) (Also, uh, some of this got kind of long-winded, but mostly it’s stuff I feel is really important)

Initial thing to consider: Have you played a Powered By The Apocalypse game like MotW before? If not, it’s important to get into the right headspace for it, especially if you’re coming into it off of playing another game, like D&D. D&D and MotW have pretty different design philosophies. Getting into things like “You as the GM don’t plan scenes, you plan a situation” and “You literally never roll, only the players do, you just make your moves” – or hell, the entire concept of GM moves – can be difficult to grasp if you’re like most roleplayers and are coming off a background primarily of D&D, where the GM plans dungeon setpieces and is encouraged to make a ton of rolls and doesn’t really have a system of responding to players’ roll failures in the way GM moves function. I don’t really have any particular advice for this, it’s just kind of a mental unlearning-relearning process anyone has to go through when they pick up a new game. But again, I don’t know your gaming background – you might’ve already cleared this step, it’s just something to keep in mind!

So, I think an important early step in ANY game is having an in-depth conversation with your group about what you want to get out of the game. In fact, I would say the most important early thing in MotW, moreso than the players picking their playbooks, is to have a group discussion of what style of game you want. MotW supports several styles of play that can give you very different-feeling games. You can use MotW to play Supernatural, Buffy, The X-Files, Scooby-Doo, The Dresden Files, or something in between two or more of those – and it’s not gonna be fun if you start playing what you want to be Supernatural and the players want to be Buffy. Talk to your players about tone first and foremost – do you, as a group, prefer something very silly (Scooby-Doo), something grim and brutal (Supernatural), or something in the middle (Buffy)? The MOST IMPORTANT part of this is talking to your players about boundaries. MotW is an action-horror game, and horror comes in many forms that can be touchy for some folks. Talk about what might or might not be comfortable for everyone at the table when it comes to serious subjects that might come up in the game.

Another aspect of that early discussion, less important than boundary-setting but definitely important for the type of story you want to build together, is what kind of setting and style you want for the game. I think it can be useful to establish early on what ties the player characters together. It could just be a location, maybe all the characters just happen to live together in the same weird monster-heavy town and happen to work together, but it can be stabilizing to have something more concrete. The book goes over some of these ideas (I believe it mentions the idea of belonging to the same organization investigating monsters or all the player characters being family members). An important aspect of this is also deciding whether you want the game to be mobile, with the PC hunters traveling from location to location to deal with monsters (this is, funnily enough, both Scooby-Doo and Supernatural style), or centralized in one location with repeated monster attacks (this is more Buffy style). I technically only have direct experience with the latter, but I think both require roughly the same investment on your part, just in different ways (you don’t have to map out every town you go to every session in a mobile game, but you may want to sketch out a map of town in an immobile game, or just use an existing real town and see if you can find a map online – rule 1 of GMing is knowing when and what to steal!).

I think this initial conversation may be more important than playbook-picks, but it shouldn’t be a huge deal if your players already have an idea of what they want to play, as long as you make sure to get on the same page re: tone and style. Additionally, I assume you’re using the updated ruleset from the revised edition of the game, but I’d advise you to check out the old MotW site and its free downloads of other classes that didn’t get added to the revised edition: Here. You’re not obligated to allow any playbooks in particular in the game, of course, but I’d at least say check ‘em out and if you think they work for you, let your players see them too. (You might be discouraged from some of them by tone, and that’s totally fair, some of them are definitely built for sillier games, but keep in mind that can be changed by the right player. My group has both a Luchador and a Meddling Kid that are really human, multidimensional characters, so if that’s what you want and it’s what your players want to do with them, that can work. Of course, if you want cartoon characters, they’re also very good classes for playing cartoon characters.)

As for, y’know, playing the actual game, I would advise you to avoid my mistakes and try to really follow the book’s advice when it comes to early mysteries. Try to make fairly simple, straightforward hunts at first before you start getting complex or esoteric. If you’re like me you might get excited to try to mess with the formula before you even establish a formula for your players, and in a game you’re new to, that can be overly ambitious. (Although you can, of course, get really creative within the formula. Just look at the two example mysteries in the book – in their STRUCTURE they’re very standard, one big monster with a handful of minions that the players have to find a kill, but with radically different styles.)

Remember you aren’t making scenes for your players to run through, you’re making a situation with many dangers (not just the monsters – remember locations and NPCs are dangers, too!) and a ticking clock that the players have to figure out their own clever ways to overcome. It’s their job to be proactive and your job to put things in their way, but let them shove the things out of their way if they figure out how. (Also keep in mind the players can always prevent things on the countdown clock! This is a minor point that I think the game states directly, but don’t start your countdown clocks at something the players have no chance of stopping and/or already happened.)

Don’t worry too much right now about setting up arcs – your players, through their choices in character creation, are likely to give you a ton of fodder for that stuff. IIRC the book advises to start thinking about arcs after you’ve already had the first session, and that’s good advice, but you can probably wait even later than that if you can’t think of anything yet.

Some advice on magic: Let cool stuff happen, but keep in mind the tone and style you set up with your players before allowing something. Magic is flexible in the game, but don’t let clever magic-using players walk all over you. Like I do. A lot. But uh yeah, keep in mind you get to pick the restrictions on a spell. This is one case where GM fiat kinda has to come in to regulate things slightly and you have to decide what makes sense narratively as a cost for the action being attempted. Some characters, like the Monstrous or the Spooky, will logically in the fiction be (super?)naturally magical, so they can get away with fewer of the material-component-type stuff for Use Magic rolls that seem like they should be part of the characters’ natural abilities, especially if you’re going for more of a high-magic game where magic is a little less limited, but you can still put restrictions on things like time in those cases.

Lastly, I don’t want to overwhelm you with options, but I’d advise you to give this PDF a look-see if you haven’t already. It’s about introducing other forms of the supernatural into MotW in addition to the basic magic stuff that the game assumes by default. It adds new “monster” types that are built to emulate threats posed from weird happenings or alien phenomena, to give more of an X-Files or Warehouse 13 feeling where instead of hunting a physical monster, the players are unravelling a strange circumstance and trying to prevent the phenomenon from hurting more people. It also adds options for characters replacing the Use Magic basic move with some other different Weird-based move, which might be near-superhuman physical feats, mundane gut instinct, psychic powers, etc. You don’t have to allow or use these options in your game, but it can make more sense for specific styles of game if you and your players don’t want a setting where everybody can use magic, and/or your players want more thematically appropriate Weird powers for their character if they don’t see themselves using magic often. It can be a good incentive to avoid Weird being a dump-stat for players who don’t want to play a magic-user, but the game is perfectly playable and fun in either style. Again, don’t want to overwhelm you or your players, but I really like the More Weirdness rules and remember how I could’ve used them in some of my earlier sessions, so I want to make sure you’re at least aware of them even if you want to play a more Buffy/Supernatural-style “everybody can use magic fairly easily if they know the rituals” type of setting.

(Okay, actually-lastly, one more minor thing: This isn’t really advice on playing the game, but I would advise you and your group to come up with a title and theme song for the monster-of-the-week TV show that your game is telling the stories of, purely because I found that really fun in my own game. Our theme song is “Stone Cold Sober” by Paloma Faith, if you’re curious. I link the music video in our game chat every time we start a game, after I narrate a cold open.)

I think that covers all the basic stuff I can give advice on off the top of my head. If there’s something I haven’t covered here that you’d like more detail on, or you have a more specific question about how the game is played, feel free to ask! Happy to see more folks playing the game and happy to help out!