Becoming Monsters

My most recent play of Blood & Water has given me pause to reflect on the role of monsters in the game and what happens when the residents start to become them... If you're just joining here (hello!), let's back that up a bit before we dive headlong into an analysis of what I mean.

So, Blood & Water is a storygame that's shamelessly inspired by the British TV series Being Human, and to a lesser extent the New Zealand film What We Do in the Shadows: the premise is that some supernatural creatures who were once human (a ghost, vampire and werewolf in the TV series; just vampires in the film) share a house in a modern urban setting and have to deal with all the problems that set-up entails.

Why Don't You Use Magic?

This is a pretty straight forward story game, with elements of party card games such as Apples to Apples, You've Got Problems and the one that shall remain nameless. There's a little bit of set-up before you can begin to play, but there's some help with that in the guidelines below.

All I Do is Magic

This is going to be one of those games where you can play pretty much any kind of character you want, but not absolutely any kind, because you need a little bit of consensus around the table. You all have to agree to play in a particular setting and then to create characters who are not considered extraordinary in that setting; so, if you go modern day, then play taxi-drivers, retail clerks, police officers and so on, but don't be the President, the Queen, a movie star, etc. On the other hand, if you all agree to play that type of game, maybe something set at an exclusive resort or international event, then those characters would be perfectly acceptable. The same goes for other assumptions, such as playing in a fantasy world with elves & dragons, a comic-book world with aliens & robots, and so on.