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thryth-gaming · 11 days ago

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How to be a Werewolf (MotW)

How to be a Werewolf is a webcomic by Shawn Lenore centered around the experiences of a woman who was bitten by a werewolf when she was five years old and has spent much of her life dealing with how to control her wolf-side to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone. It's a great comic and when it drops (usually Tuesday and Wednesday, sometimes only one of those two) it is one of the highlights of my week. It's also one of those stories that really hits that slice-of-life alongside adventure type stories I love so much and which inspired the Mundane Monstrosities team playbook.

This write up uses material from:

the Hardcover edition of the core Monster of the Week book:

The Initiate hunter playbook

The Mundane hunter playbook

No Limits

Use Magic

Trust your Gut

The Tome of Mysteries supplement:

The Searcher hunter playbook

No Limits

Trust Your Gut

The upcoming Slayer's Survival Kit supplement:

The Mundane Monstrosities team playbook

The Changeling hunter playbook

So... it only feels right to do a build of the group as a Monster of the Week hunter team. However, one of the problems of doing this is that How to be a Werewolf has a LOT of characters and MotW is usually best with around 3-4 players. That said, one of the level-up advancements is to create a second hunter to play alongside your own. So that could be part of it.

As a note, to be honest, How to be a Werewolf doesn’t follow the same story structure that MotW series usually use. Instead of a series of short dangers, HtbaW instead has extended, ongoing arcs and troubles. But this is why it is an inspiration rather than a direct one to one conversion.

Anyway.... I'm going to do them as they are at the start, which will still involve some spoilers, but not the biggest ones. I considered having Marin as one of the characters, but decided to keep the focus around Malaya. So the characters I'm building are:

Malaya, The Changeling

Vincent, The Mundane

Elias, The Initiate

Charlene, The Searcher

I'm also going to give characters two level-ups and the Team playbook a single improvement to account for some of the early strips.

First, let's go ahead and start with the Team Playbook.

Walters Pack - Mundane Monstrosities

Three's a few team playbooks aimed at representing a case where all or most of a team are supernatural people in one form or another. Most of them written by me, all of them from the new Slayer's Survival Kit which has been on pre-order a bit and is going into sale sometime in summer:

Escaped Experiments (me) - representing a group of people who were experimented on and escaped a sinister Project that wants to reclaim them. - Definitely doesn't fit the Walters pack.

Coven (me) - a collection of supernatural beings who have made a vow to fight evil, explicitly designed to allow multiple people to play the same type of supernatural being, like being a pack of werewolves. - The Walters pack doesn't go out of their way like this.

Good Monsters (Michael Sands) - a collection of monsters who all try to keep each other in check and supported, trying to live their best lives. - Doesn't really describe the series because most of the characters don’t struggle with being a danger to humanity.

Mundane Monstrosities (me) – a collection of people who have normal, everyday lives, but also happen to have various supernatural abilities. It’s basically slice-of-life interrupted by occasional danger. – And this is what I’m going with.

For style, I’m going to go with the top of the list “Life, Interrupted” which means that at the end of each game system, the players would ask “were we able to enjoy some normal life?” which definitely sounds a bit like the theme of the story in the comic.

Something else the Mundane Monstrosity asks the players to do is set what kind of community the characters come from. And I'm going with "Weird Town".

For enemies, at the start, the team enemy is certainly Connie Greensmith, but on a more general nature, I’d say the overall enemy of the team is “generational trauma”. And for allies, I’m going with The Ross Pack.

For the initial team move I’m going to go with too normal to be weird meaning that most people overlook them when they do or talk about something weird, like magic or werewolves. Moving on to the initial two points of assets, I’m going to go with borrowing innocent front from the Suburban Watch Group team playbook and then I’m adding a clubhouse from Mundane Monstrosities. So they have both a regular business (the coffee shop) and a private location to hang out (the Walters house).

Also, as a note, each character will get an extra move from a list which is how Mundane Monstrosities insures that everybody is at least a little supernatural.

For the improvement, I'm going to give them another move: casual magic.

This accounts for places where the werewolves and witches do just casually supernatural things without having much stress about it.

Malaya Dysangco Walters – The Changeling

I considered going with the Monstrous, and it would certainly fit, because that is about struggling with a curse that separates you from humanity. But the overall story of How to be a Werewolf and Malaya’s relationship to it better fits the Changeling Playbook which is about struggling with ignorance of your own nature. And given that most of the werewolves in the story are just people, it doesn’t feel right setting them up as the Monstrous when I made Changeling to cover this general situation. If the standard werewolf was a maladjusted, cursed people barely under control, then Monstrous would feel more appropriate to me.

To start, for the ratings, I’m going to shuffle around the standard assortment because none of the five default rating lines really feel quite right. The creator of the game has said this is perfectly fine as long as you reach the same balance as the rest of the lines in the playbook.

So, I think:

Charm +1

Cool +2

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird -1

So, Charm makes her good with people, accounting for her customer service experience. The Cool stat means she’s better than most people at keeping a cool head and handling hazards. Cool is also the stat that handles the help out move so she’s good at teamwork. Malaya is pretty observant and intelligent, so I gave her a good sharp. Tough is about average. Actually judging how survivor stats compare to hunter stats, she might actually be better than the average person at +0. Anyway, that governs fighting and protecting people. Having her weird very low feels strange… but I do think it fits given her troubles controlling her werewolf side at the start of the series.

As a note, for those that don’t know, the most common way experience is gained in Monster of the Week is by rolling low on a move, so having a low stance on a stat you’ll be using a lot is a way to get experience quickly… and add a lot of amusing drama along the way.

For the unknown heritage, she obviously understands that she’s a werewolf, but she doesn’t really know what that means, and for the three issues she has, I’m picking erratic power, strange thoughts, and unearned reputation. This covers her power doing things she doesn’t understand, the difficult to control emotions, and also the way people that meet her expect she knows a lot more about this stuff than she does.

For her moves, all Changelings get Glamour, which lets her look human and also allows her to get one 10+ result per session in a way that immediately reveals what she is and causes her unknown heritage to give her trouble… so like what happened when she shapeshifted, scared off Aubrey, and ended up a bit regressed into her wolf-mind for quite a while. The werewolf form being her "true appearance" isn't quite right, but it's close enough to fit the situation.

Then she gets two more moves. One of these is going to be they are my people which lets her masterfully protect someone once per session and gives her a bonus when dealing with her werewolf issues. And then I'm going to give her inhuman talent and we'll have to specify a narrow sort of "magic" for her to specialize. Since her weird move is going to be No Limits instead of Use Magic I'm going to think of a narrow physical thing she's good at. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I'm going to go with endurance, so she has an bonuses when she uses No Limits to persevere against pain, fatigue, or other such things, possibly including fear. Seriously, if there's anything you can say about Malaya, it's that she's a bit of a determinator.

And, of course, like pretty much every werewolf character, her basic weird move will be No Limits because, yes, of course I want the implausible and superhuman action hero physicality for the werewolves. Just how much is "physically possible" for a character varies based on how fantastical the table wants to get and on the sort of character the person who has the move. A baseline human with no limits is going to be like an action TV or movie star while a super-soldier or werewolf is going to hold helicopters in place while they try to fly away.

(also, just look up some of the weird and amazing things real life people have done... like surviving falls from airplanes into jungles)

Now, since this is a Mundane Monstrosities team, she gets an extra move from a small list drawn from other playbooks.

And Malaya is going to take shapeshift, because of course she is. And obviously she turns into a wolf and wolf-like shapes, because werewolves.

For Malaya's improvements, I'm going to give her +1 Weird to bring that up to 0 and then I'm going to have her borrow the natural attack ability from the Monstrous, while not usually stated as a move, the creator of the game has stated he sees no reason it can't be borrowed.

So, with this, she gets either two base attacks or one base attack with an extra. I'm giving her two base attacks in the form of Claws (2-harm, hand) and Fangs (3-harm, intimate). For reference, "hand" is like sword and boxing range while "intimate" is grappling range. 2-harm is the same damage as most swords and guns, 3-harm is the same damage as big-melee weapons and shotguns. This is largely unimportant within the context of the actual comic, but adding it in makes me feel like I'm adding in something that's missing.

As a further note, I have definitely done the thing where I level-up to gain a move and then played it off as "no, I could always do this, I'd just never showed you until now."

Charlene Masters - The Searcher

I waffled a bit on what playbook to go with for Charlene. She is a witch that uses magic, so The Spooky might have fit except that her magic doesn't really have a dark side. Initiate and Hex have fortune teller moves, but those can be borrowed later. Charlene isn't part of an organization really (which rules out Initiate) and doesn't involve herself in reckless and dangerous magic, which means not really a Hex.. She doesn't really do combat magic either, so Spell-slinger doesn't fit. Spooktacular is tempting, but it's one of her parents that is the performer not her. Instead, I decided to look into how she had a sort of vision that led her north and go with Searcher. Searcher is someone that looks for answers. The normal application is to the cryptozoologist or UFOlogist, but a witch who received a vision fits.

So, with that said, I'm going with the following line for her ratings:

Charm +0

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +2

So, she's not particularly good with people, and she's noted that she wouldn't deal with people as well as Malaya does. As a note, Charm isn't really about how likeable you are. You could be terribly rude and annoying and have high Charm and very likeable with low Charm. Charm is more about how well you leverage people to do what you want. She does keep her head on and is observant. In a fight, she doesn't go power to power, she's sneaky, so Tough isn't her forte. And she is quite good at the magic, so yeah, she's getting high Weird.

So now on to moves. Anyone who takes Searcher gets the first encounter move and has to choose one of the variations. For Charlene both psychic event and cosmic insight fit, and I'm going to go with psychic event giving her a chance to use the sensitive basic weird move if she focuses.

For her other two moves, she's going to get guardian representing her spirit crow friend and Ockham's Broadsword representing how she's a bit in the know on a lot of supernatural things.

For her main basic Weird move, she's definitely getting use magic because she's definitely a witch. For a long time, that was the only basic Weird move and it is still a good default. As a note, use magic has a long list of possible effects, glitches, and requirements so I'm just going to post the basic move here. And that can be expanded on by taking some moves (usually by adding to the list of possible effects).

Now, on to her "Minor Weirdness" option for being in a Mundane Monstrosities game. The ones that stand out are inhuman talent, the sight, and third eye. I think I'm going to go with inhuman talent and define it as her skill with illusions. See where I posted the text for it on Malaya's stuff.

For her level up improvements I'm going to give her +1 Charm (to be honest, all the characters in Malaya's pack are pretty empathic and good at negotiating and working with reasonable people) and then I'm borrowing The Show: Magic and Illusions from the Spooktacular.

She hasn't actually been part of a show, but that move still fits her powers to a tee.

Elias Ross - The Initiate

So, I considered Elias for both the Professional and the Initiate. Each of these deals with a character whose main story is about their connection with an organization, so both work for his situation. The Professional was tempting due to the bureaucratic way werewolf society operates feeling a bit more modern agency rather than ancient sect. But I decided Initiate worked better over all. Also... for stats, there's a weird rating line for the Initiate that creates one great stat, one good one, and three average ones, so I'm going with that.

Charm +0

Cool +0

Sharp +0

Tough +1

Weird +2

So, he's not particularly bad at anything, but he's good in a fight and in controlling his powers.

First let's define his Sect, giving it two good traditions and one bad tradition. For this situation, I'm going with werewolf society as a whole.

Good Traditions: Like Family, Modernized

Bad Tradition: Factionalized

I considered grabbing bureaucratic from the Professional's list of tags, but on the whole, I suspect that's a symptom of the factionalization rather than the core problem. Like Family is one of the new tags from Slayer's Survival Kit that can apply to either organization and there is a counter to that which is False Family for cases where the "like family" statement is a lie. In this case, the organization very much is like family and in many cases very much is family in a literal blood-related sense.

Now, for Initiate moves. Every Initiate gets this unnamed move I refer to as "the Sect move".

Then the Initiate gets three moves to choose from. This is different from Changeling and Searcher, each of which has a strong, beneficial mandatory move and then gives two optional ones. In the Initiate's case, the mandatory move is more neutral and could even be seen as a downside. Therefore it also gets three optional moves.

For the basic Weird move, like Malaya he's taking No Limits and also like Malaya, his Minor Weirdness pick from Mundane Monstrosities is shapeshifter. (see above where I pasted those two moves earlier)

For these optional moves, I'm going with mentor, that old black magic, and helping hand. This also accounts for him being a bit good at teaching (tough you would expect his Cool to be higher in that case, possibly improving that would be the first thing he chooses on leveling up). Mentor covers his relationship with his mother pretty well. That old black magic usually applies to use magic, in this case, I think it will represent him using his senses... which with the shapeshifter bonus could give him a +1 on top of his Weird for a total of +3 in some forms.

As a note, when a move gives someone new effects for use magic and they don't have use magic I generally assume they have use magic only for those effects or I attach it to their actual weird move. Attaching this investigative ability to his No Limits works well and would go towards him being good at investigation while also being a bit unobservant in some other situations.

For his advancements I'm giving him +1 Cool, because he's good at teamwork, and I'm having him also borrow the Monstrous natural weapons like Malaya did.

Vincent Dysangco Walters – The Mundane

So, now we come to the fourth major character introduced at the start of the story, Vincent, Malaya's protectively taciturn older brother. He's a bit younger than her, "hot in a Vulcan way" as Elias notes and while his sister's been a werewolf for as long as he's been alive, he himself is pretty normal. So, I'm putting him as The Mundane.

As to ratings' lines, every Mundane has +2 Charm, just like every Initiate has +2 Weird. Changeling and Searcher from above juggle things about. Again, this doesn't seem like a thing you'd get out of the way Vincent is very silent, but like Malaya, he does a good job at working with people, even a little bit better than her. And I am again going to play with exact placement of values a bit here and go with this:

Charm +2

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +0

This makes him a bit more accepting of weirdness than Malaya is and thus better able to go along with it. He keeps a cool head well and is observant as well. In the context of the characters in this comic, however, he's not that great in a fight. So low Tough.

Mundanes do not have any mandatory moves and they get to choose three moves from their playbook's list. So, I'm going to go with these options: the power of heart, what could go wrong, and always the victim.

These moves cover Vincent's occasional tendency to need rescuing, his ability to tip things in the heroes' favor, and his practice of pushing into situations that should intimidate most non-magical people.

As for his Weird basic move, I'm going for something a bit low-key and taking Trust Your Gut. Which is an ability to just get hunches that point important things that will drive the plot forward.

Now, as to the Mundane Monstrosity bonus move from Minor Weirdness I'm going to give him another low-key ability and give him the Divine move soothe as it is one of those on the list. Because Vincent is weirdly good at calming people down and comforting them. (Not so weird when you consider his upbringing, but that's kind of the point.)

For his advancements, I'm going to have him take a move from another playbook and have it be The Searcher and take Cosmic Insight because even when he is scared and upset, he holds it together and doesn't usually lose his tactical/crisis mind. Important distinction, this move doesn't say you aren't terrified, it just says you don't have to roll to deal with it.

I'm also going to have him take another Mundane move, let's get out of here which lets him use Charm for the Protect Someone roll. Note that despite the name, he doesn't have to actually leave the scene, he just has to talk someone through saving themselves.

All told, the character sheets look like this:

The Walters Pack

Team Playbook: Mundane Monstrosities

Team Style: Life, Interrupted - “Were we able to enjoy some normal life?”

Community: Weird Town

Team Ally: The Ross Pack

Team Enemy: Generational Trauma (currently Connie Greensmith)

Team Move: Too Normal to be Weird, Casual Magic

Team Assets: Innocent Front, Clubhouse

Improvements

Take another Team Playbook move: Casual Magic

-------

Malaya Dysangco Walters – The Changeling

Charm +1

Cool +2

Sharp +1

Tough +0

Weird +0

Unknown Heritage: Werewolf

Unearned Reputation

Erratic Power

Strange Thoughts

Moves

Basic Weird Move: No Limits

Changeling Moves: Glamour, They are my people, Inhuman Talent: Endurance

Borrowed Moves: Natural Weapon (Monstrous)

Minor Weirdness:

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Weapons:

Claws (2-harm, hand)

Fangs (3-harm, intimate)

Improvements

Get +1 Weird, max +3

Take a move from another playbook: Natural Weapon (Monstrous)

Charlene Masters - The Searcher

Charm +1

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +2

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Use Magic

First Encounter: Psychic Event

Searcher Moves: Guardian, Ockham's Broadsword

Borrowed Moves: Magic & Illusions (Spooktacular)

Minor Weirdness: Inhuman Talent: Illusions

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Improvements

Get +1 Charm, max +2

Take a move from another playbook: Magic & Illusions (Spooktacular)

Elias Ross - The Initiate

Charm +0

Cool +1

Sharp +0

Tough +1

Weird +2

Sect: Werewolf Council

Good Traditions: Like Family, Modernized

Bad Tradition: Factionalized

Moves

Basic Weird Move: No Limits

Initiate Moves: The Sect Move, Mentor, Helping Hand, That Old Black Magic

Borrowed Moves: Natural Weapon (Monstrous)

Minor Weirdness: Shapeshifting

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Weapons

Claws (2-Harm, Hand)

Fangs (3-Harm, Hand)

Improvements

Get +1 Cool, max +2

Take a move from another playbook: Natural Weapon (Monstrous)

Vincent Dysangco Walters – The Mundane

Charm +2

Cool +1

Sharp +1

Tough -1

Weird +0

Moves

Basic Weird Move: Trust Your Gut

Mundane Moves: Always the Victim, The Power of Heart, What Could go Wrong, Let's Get Out of Here

Borrowed Moves: Cosmic Insight (Searcher)

Harm: 0/7 (Unstable at 4, Dead at 8)

Improvements

Take a move from another playbook: Cosmic Insight (Searcher)

Take another Mundane move: Let's Get Out of Here

#ttrpg #roleplaying games #rpg #monster of the week #tabletop #urban fantasy #character creation #evil hat productions #how to be a werewolf #Shawn Lenore

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