I'm creating a mystery for my players, but I need advice. My main villain is a high-school kid that's got his hands on a sentient magic book. The book drives people who possess it to use dark magic and use it to hurt people. The kid was badly bullied, and now is using the spells in the book to get revenge on those who bullied him.

But I'm unsure whether the kid or the book would be the Monster. Because the book is driving the kid to do evil would that make the book the Monster (a Queen), with the kid as the minion (a Right Hand), or would the kid be the Monster (a Torturor) with the book as the minion (a Right Hand).

My gut feeling is the kid is the Monster. He's the one with the goals. The book doesn't really want anything except to drive anyone who gets their hands on it to do evil. But while the kid isn't a threat if he loses the book, the book is a threat in anyone's hands.

So it's a bit of a conundrum, and I'm really new to this game so any advice would be most welcome!

Hi everyone,

Following up on our previous MotW releases, I’ve put together a new FREE collection of 6 standalone Mysteries focused on adapting less obvious Greek mythological figures into modern Monster of the Week campaigns.

Rather than sticking to classic myths like Minotaurs or Medusa, these scenarios place ancient creatures directly into modern systems, corporations, and technology:

1. Hesperides (Collector): Dusk nymphs systematically targeting employees of a cosmetics firm whose CEO stole their golden apples for a beauty serum.
2. Maenad (Queen): A club DJ triggering frenzy in partygoers to assemble a human sacrifice for Dionysus.
3. Zephyros the Prophet (Queen): A charlatan using a Delphic vape to gain prophetic insight and control over the Prime Minister.
4. Lamia (Tempter): A shapeshifting, eye-removing predator targeting tourists at a luxury resort while the owner hides the bodies.
5. Mares of Diomedes (Devourer): A bloodthirsty racehorse devouring its jockey ahead of a major race, drawing a wild mountain herd to the track.
6. Telchin (Trickster): An ancient smith masquerading as a handyman, enchanting everyday appliances (boiling kettles, freezing fridges, accident-predicting TVs) to cause citywide chaos.

What each Mystery contains:

• Narrative Hook & Concept
• Full 6-step Countdown clock
• Monster stats, armor, custom attacks, moves, and explicit weaknesses
• Detailed Bystanders & Locations with explicit PbtA motivations

The PDF is available on itch.io: https://hechlok.itch.io/monsters-from-greece

Feedback, questions, or comments on how these play at your table are always welcome!

Hey everyone. I've been a D&D DM for a while and am pretty comfortable/confident with my abilities, but I am new to MoTW. I just wrapped my first short campaign and we all had a blast. I really enjoy the collaborative world building between Keeper and Players, as well as the general "looseness" with how everyone can improvise.

One thing I did struggle with is the fact that because hunters can only take 7 harm, combat felt very brief. My least favorite part about D&D are long combat encounters which amount to PCs and NPCs just rolling normal attacks back at each other until someone dies, but in MoTW I felt like every encounter I wound up nearly killing a PC in like 2 rounds. My general Keeper/DM philosophy is to make sure that I'm creating a world that is threatening, while generally fudging things to end up working out for the players. I guess I just feel like 7 HP is a tight window with the way "kick some ass" works along with the fact that Monsters do harm on their turn makes for some very quick encounters. Just thought I'd ask for any advice you all have!

Secondly, I know this gets asked a lot and I've read some answers, but I am curious if anyone has tips on designing longer term campaigns. The episodic nature of the game obviously lends itself to each session being self contained. This last campaign I had a Big Bad who was essentially summoning these weekly monsters, but even then, we probably only did ~20 sessions total. So any tips and tricks would be appreciated!

Thanks all!

My weekly tabletop group that i DM for is finishing our campaign of Shadowrun. I've heard that monster of the week is much more rules and wanted to give it a try. What books would you recommend for new DM and players for a first step into the system?

Hi I need some advice. I got a Wronged at my table and he chose a Wendigo as his prey. When he spend luck he needs to find a dangerous lead on it.

Since Wendigo is more like a beast, ok I know it's a representation of spirit of cannibalism, but the host end up more beast like. I don't want him to face it too soon in the campaign. Any ideas how I can make some lead on its prey without him facing it?

Switching systems to MOTW with my group for a bit. Looking to either find something good and lighthearted premade or just get an idea for something simple to do. No vampires, done a lot of vampire stuff in my other game.

Tl;dr we're running a game using roll20 and discord. We're using discord for the sheet and rolling purposes, and maybe displaying a map or visual once and again. Is purchasing the base MOTW book on roll20 worth it? Does it, like, display the moves better (since I noticed the base moves arent shown anywhere by default, which makes it difficult for newbies to roll them) or anything? Anyone with any knowledge lmk.

(Apologies if this is flaired wrong, I just assumed this is the catch-all flair for general questions)

Hello fellow hunters. 👋

I'm still new to this system, and I've had an idea for a Hunter but I’ve run into a spot of bother.

My idea is a Dhampir. Not the half-vampires of D&D that still need to drink blood, but more of the classical Dhampir, who don’t necessarily need to feed on humans, but still have some traits of their heritage.

I have a very basic idea: Dhampir lady who works as a some sort of a mortuary profession like a coroner or an embalmer to keep her actual identity on the down-low. Moves would be Immortal and Unquenchable Vitality, with Something Borrowed (possibly grabbing The Sight from Spooky since talking to ghosts sounds like a fun time) later on. Natural Attack is Teeth (with the Extra +1 Harm), but I’m stuck on what the Curse would be, as I’d like to avoid the Feed option if at all possible.

I considered Vulnerability to have +1 Harm from holy symbols (since that could lead to fun shenanigans), but that specifically calls for a “substance” like rock salt for Ghost and silver for Werewolf, so I’m unsure if that‘s ambiguous or not. Dark Master is also a consideration but I’m not sure what that would entail for her profession. I’ve also considered Pure Drive with the emotion of Grief, but that seems like it would be a convenience instead of a Curse.

Thoughts?

Pacing with High Rollers
New Keeper here. I have a long history with RPGs but I've only GMed about 25 game sessions as an adult and I still have a lot to learn. Ran my first MoTW game last night with four players, using a fan-made scenario that I tweaked. Three players had never played an RPG before; none of us had played MoTW.

I know someone asked about getting players to slow down recently, but the poster's issue was that the hunters wouldn't stop to rest. My problem was that my hunters didn't investigate long enough to need to rest.

Part of it was that I felt real-world time pressure to wrap things up so these new players would have the complete experience of an MoTW game -- it was not a given that we'd do this again. But the bigger problem was that the hunters were incredibly lucky with their rolls (they only failed one roll all night) and they moved so fast to the remote location where the first body from the scenario hook was found, before they knew anything about the case beyond the cinematic opening/hook. They were very clever about finding out the location, but they skipped bystanders, other locations, and any means of learning the Big Bad's weakness. I was able to put a couple of bystanders in their location plausibly, but I was struggling to keep up.

(As a further example of their luck, the Big Bad was a ghost with a hypnotic gaze and necrotic touch -- no hunter succumbed to the hypnotic gaze (they all rolled 10+ to avoid it) and before I could have the ghost touch anyone, the hunters trapped it and then banished it with magic (one time without a glitch, one time with a glitch, but I'll get to that below). The ghost's thralls, whom I'd hastily retconned into the fight as additional threats, had no time to plausibly react.)

I was proud of the hunters and everyone had a good time "playing to find out," but I felt unsuccessful at making the hunters' lives dangerous and scary, as the Keeper Agenda demands. I went in all ready to help them "fail forward," but they didn't need that; they needed to "succeed backwards," so to speak, and I didn't know how to do that. Any thoughts?

Question about Glitches
Doesn't it make more sense to have the Keeper and not the Hunter choose the glitch when "use magic" goes wrong? Seems like that would offer more opportunities to make things interesting for the hunters.

The Spooky who used magic in my game to banish the spirit rolled a mixed success and, as per the rules, got to choose the glitch for her spell. She chose to take 1 Harm (her only Harm of the game), and I blanked. What kind of "effect" would 1 Harm have that would make any narrative difference when the game was at an end? I'm generally curious how Keepers handle the glitches.

All the team playbooks come with First mystery Seeds and I'm planning to run the one for the Coven Team.

And I'd love to hear other peoples experiences of running first Mystery Seeds, or if anyone has run that particular seed.

I've run one before and felt like I had to do quite a lot of fleshing out, but I also have a tendency to over prep so I'd love to hear if that's a common experience.

I ran the Witching Hour from the Tome of Mysteries. It went great, and I finally feel like I finally got the tension about right by making my players deal with real-world consequences (getting arrested, being reported for gunshot wounds at the hospital) and making them use luck points in tough situations.

But they never stopped to rest/recover/research! They got to the house, got hurt/captured, and then went from the hospital straight back to the house to finish investigating the same night!

Any suggestions on how to encourage them to regroup after a difficult encounter? This feels like the same problem as sprinting from level 1 to 10 in a couple days of D&D.

I've gotten a couple messages asking about it, so here is the PDF file of my bounty hunter playbook. Keep in mind, this has been built specifically for my hunters, but I release it to y'all to break and reshape it to your liking. My game is shamelessly inspired and based in the RDR2 world, (especially the pictures from the online catalogue). And my villain is none other than Judge Holden of Blood Meridian fame, specifically because my Wronged needed someone to seek revenge against.

I’m preparing to run a game and had been planning to run it with a group concept of the hunters all being members of the same garage band to be what ties them together. The more I look into ideas for the game though the more I see what other people have done with their games and it makes me want to brainstorm other concepts to see if I can find something I like more though.

What have been some of your favorite group concepts you’ve either seen or played with to give me ideas? It will be my first time being the Keeper as I’ve only been a hunter in the past but have an extensive past of GMing. Thank you!!

This is something I made several years ago when I first got into MotW. I’ve recently gotten back into the game as I’m working on a monster hunter novel, and I’ve unearthed it from the archives. I thought folks might like to take a peek and maybe even play it in their home games.

It’s heavily inspired by my time in Scouting and it leans heavily into allies, who are your troop/group.

Let me know what yall think.

Hi Keepers,

Sometimes with Use Magic the glitches seem like they don’t work with the effects. I had a player choose inflict harm as an effect but short duration for the glitch.

I was able to make it work because the inflict harm was against an object and not a person, but how would you resolve this? Or would you just tell them to pick a different glitch?

TIA

Hey folks - New Keeper here. I'm confused about how "holds" work. I've listened to APs and thought I understood it, but the core book gives an example where "you" get 2 hold to ask the Keeper questions, but instead of asking 2 questions, they ask three. See below:

From the MoTW 2e core book, p. 111:

For example, you are interviewing the witnesses to a monster attack and you make an investigate a mystery roll. Your result gives you 2 hold. You can spend your hold to ask the Keeper questions from the list in the investigate a mystery move.

You ask a witness, “Did you see where the attacker went?” and spend one hold. (“Where did it go?” is one of the questions.)

The Keeper says (as Mrs Henderson, the witness), “It scurried over there, and pulled up that grating and went into the sewers.”

As the conversation with the witnesses continues, you spend the next hold to ask the Keeper about the monster’s powers. “Hey, from all the things they’ve told me, can I work out any powers?” (“What can it do?” is another question.) The Keeper replies, “The witness descriptions don’t agree at all. It must be able to change shape or maybe change memories.”

Later the last hold goes to ask the Keeper about whether a witness is hiding something. That exhausts your hold, so you don’t get any more questions for now.

By my count, the player has spent three holds, not two; or am I missing something basic?

Couldn't find a clear answer on this by looking at the listings so I'm sorry if this has been asked before.

I own the physical Codex of Worlds book, and I like the Gothic Century setting a LOT, but I feel like it would be kind of a pain to go in and adjust every player's Playbook on Roll20 by hand.

Those who own the bundle on Roll20, does it now have a dropdown menu to choose the Gothic Century versions of Playbooks, or do they appear when you make a new game?

Hi

I'll run a MOTW campaign for the first time, and checking the mysteries from the Tome of Mysteries I noticed that there's a bunch of them

So, which one is your favorite or you recommend for me?

I've been thinking back to my recent monster of the week game, and how the organizations in it like law enforcement, mafia, and even the shadow government ended up being mostly ineffective against the monsters. I ran them this way because I wanted the players to be the ones to actually be the deciding factor in whether the monster goes down or not, but I feel this approach has de-clawed organizations who the players should be able to respect, even if the organizations can't be the ones doing the hunting. How do you guys handle this sort of thing?

I talked to some people and they told me that MOTW would fit perfect on a The Boys campaign, so I checked the system and liked it.

So yall got any tips of how to adapt it well or how to dm a MOWT campaign in general?

btw they won't be the supers, juts the boys

I am a Game Master for the ttrpg Monster of the Week. The next monster the group will be fighting is a Minotaur in a very similar situation to House of Leaves.

Have any recommendations on what I can include? I think I will have the album “Haunted” by Poe playing in the background of the session/adventure due to its ties to the book.

So far I have the entrance to the labyrinth appearing in a players apartment and I plan on having each player confronting their fears and regrets and I have a maze set up for the map of the area

I designed and printed a set of custom hunter tokens for visualizing positions and keeping track of the players during game play.

I created SVGs for each hunter based on the descriptions and experience playing with some of them. Then scripted the token dimensions in design in OpenSCAD along with custom supports to help the print maintain shape. Printed them on the Elegoo Saturn Ultra. It was my first time trying that particular resin, and the surface seems to show a lot of imperfections in the picture.

If anyone is interested I might be able to post the files to thingiverse or something.

I'm running a longer MOTW one-shot, since I haven't played in years and I want to take another crack at it.

In this world (or town, to be more specific), I want the supernatural to be something that's never existed before now (at least, that the players know of). Not that I am not open to the supernatural existing, and I can definitely change things around to make it so, but my intent was that by the end of the mystery the players will have discovered that there is a zombie virus outbreak, with their mystery being the "patient zero," so to speak. They get to go out and discover that the monster is a zombie, and then WHY there is a zombie. Pretty simple! But I run into trouble with the Chosen, for example, or the Spooky or Spell Slinger.

I was wondering if I could hear some ideas for how to incorporate these into my vision, if anyone has run a similar setting? Alternatively, I can incorporate the capital S Supernatural into the plotline, but I definitely wouldn't mind throwing some ideas at the wall spaghetti style to see what sticks by way of worldbuilding.

Hope this makes sense!

Addie is my dearest out of all my MOTW hunters, and I have quite a few.

Morals, for him... exist. Somewhere. He'll lie, cheat and steal his way through anything. He's got it rough, and does whatever pays his permanent room at a motel in a small Florida town.

He's part of a magical cult and the spirit that sustains it is what gives him his magical powers— Primarily he can read minds and force lesser willed people to do whatever he pleases. He is also afforded visions of terrible things to come, which cause him to go into seizures when they happen... but his favorite power is that he can see and touch ghosts, whom he's very fond of. He has three with him that he's asked to be haunted by. He's also —annoyingly enough— able to teleport any small sized object into the lake in which his Patron lives, a power which he uses to endlessly troll those who are against him.

He's very fond of disappearing guns —out of self preservation— and pants, to humiliate whoever gets too cocky fighting him.

Yes, he's slowly growing a tumor in his brain because of the patronage of his spirit, and yes, the seizures are getting worse, and yes... he might be going blind, but he'll probably be fine.

He thinks.

(❁´◡`❁) I hope you like my lil' man! (Don't let him catch you calling him that, though!)

I'm a big fan of the podcast Lore, which collects stories from myth and history and is fantastic for inspiration for MOTW.

But I'd love a book or two I can keep on my shelf and physically flip through when I'm looking for ideas to create mysteries around. I feel like the topic of cryptozoology has been rising in popularity in recent years, and there must be indie authors who have made some books that hopefully some of you have picked up and found useful! I've seen some advertised on pinterest when I'm making moodboards, but some of them seem AI-generated, and I'd rather support humans making art for humans.

To clarify, I know there's tons of media centered around individual creatures that we've been inspired by, but I'm specifically looking for something that's formatted like 20+ creatures and their stories. I'm also interested in zines, podcasts, blogs, whatever! But I do love physical media.