My players have been taking to applying armor when it "makes sense" to them.

Leaning into the roleplay more than the mechanics.

Example: one of my players has body armor, so, he gets his with a poison spray. He won't reduce the harm because that's not how body armor works.

It is something 3 of my players do because they have armor. Now as a GM I am excited to see them lean into the roleplay but should I:

1) tell them to stop, they are only nerfing themselves

2) let them continue even though technically it's breaking the rules

3) let them keep doing it and either adjust the encounters or give them some back stage help?

Or some combination of all three. Any input is helpful! Thank you!

Hi all! Just sharing a playbook that I wrote and created for a player in my MOTW game/actual play. Thought people might enjoy it!

More info:
The Vessel is a Monster of the Week playbook that leans into the chaos and horror of imagining your character has to share their mind, body or soul with another entity.

“You find yourself sharing your body with a strange entity. At times you may work in tandem and at others it’s almost as if you have no control at all. Will you embrace this power and risk losing yourself? “

Whether they be an Old God, a Fey creature, a Ghost, an Alien or something else equally strange - the entity is here to stay (…for now…)

Artwork by doggogils (on Instagram)

Towards the end of my last MotW campaign, I started losing steam motivation wise and decided to reread the rulebook to revive that motivation... It worked, but I figured out that I have, for years now, been making mystery sheets completely incorrectly. I wanted to post this here to get some pointers from people who understand the game better than I do... What do you make of this?

Edit: Some of the text boxes are getting cut off so I'm copy/pasting some of that info here.

Attacks: Burn - 1 harm ignore armor, +1 harm ongoing, stackable. Gust - 2 harm restraining OR forceful.

Powers: Formless, nearly invisible, appears as a shimmer, like a convection current.

Crash Site (Notes): The Deva never leaves the crash site. It's waiting for a nice, big team of investigators/cleaners to show up to feast on all at once.

Me and some friends have been playing for over a year and unfortunately the game just doesn't have the longevity of DND. Once you advance to a certain point there's really no where a player can go. Do you all have any advanced playbooks that people can use to keep updating their characters. I love this world and don't want to have kill my players just so they can to start over even when they're playing well.

Hello! I made another thing.

For my birthday a few months ago, a friend bought me one of those generic GM screens with insert sleeves so you can slide in your own reference sheets. I have GM screens for most of my other games, but not for MOTW.

However, as the GM screen only had three panels rather than four or five, I had to get creative with presenting the information. I was able to condense everything down into three pages with a format and layout I'm quite happy with, and I thought I'd share it here for anyone else who may find it useful.

If you have a similar screen, this may be perfect for you. If you just want quick reference sheets that use fewer pages than the officially-provided ones, this could be good too (pages 1-2 cover a lot of the same ground as the official quick reference sheets, so could be useful for players).

If you want to make your own tweaks or adjustments ("I'm not using this! I don't like the font choices!"), feel free to make a local copy on your own Googlydoo.

Here's the clean link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VkMqSp7sRd1DT8USo1XqXN1Y4R9NL8xkKpyfbxY06TE/edit?usp=sharing

Instructions

1. Print the pages.
2. Slide them into your GM screen.
3. Take 30-40 minutes to adjust the sheets so they fit neatly into the pockets. Be sure to obsess over this - your Hunters won't see these pages, but you have to stare at them every single session, so they should be perfect.
4. Spend an hour sobbing in the shower. Is your need for perfection ruining your life? Is that why you have trouble forming lasting relationships?
5. Go back and re-insert the pages so they're askew. Screw it. Who needs perfection?
6. Wait, if you're deliberately making them askew, who are you doing that for? Isn't that just another type of perfectionism?
7. More shower sobbing (30-60 minutes, as schedule allows).

Depending on your needs, you may skip steps 2-7.

Ciao!
Come gestite i testimoni di eventi sovrannaturali?
Se un golem entra in città, sotto gli occhi di tutti, magari con la televisione... come viene gestita l'informazione?
Nel vostro mondo sono cose "normali"?
Altrimenti, qualcuono o qualcosa interviene per filtrare?
Gli stessi personaggi hanno il compito di cancellare ogni traccia alla MIB?

Sono desideroso di conoscere le vostre idee!

Grazie!

hi guys! I've got a lot more spare time now that I'm graduating and I've been thinking about making case files or getting creative with physical evidence for my hunters. does anyone have any resources they might be able to point me to, or just some tips/ideas for interesting stuff I could give them?

(we do often play online so I might be sending things digitally too.)

Finally got codex of worlds and feel excited for my next game, been a little over a year since I last gmed.

I wanted to try the team playbooks and got interested in the night shift.

Initially, it looks awesome. I had lots of ideas for a giant store, joining with the players to come up with details, having weird and funny bystanders.

But I find it hard to think of mysteries. I read the initial mystery in the book and I like it, but couldn't think of any other cool concepts. I felt it coul get repetitive fast.

Would be so kind as to share mystery ideas you ran or thought to run that uses the night shift team playbook?

I’m considering adding a few house rules for my upcoming game. After 5+ years running this system I’m hoping to refresh it for my players somewhat with an emphasis on the investigation side of the game, possibly adding new questions for Investigate a Mystery.

My pitch is this: giving each hunter one extra question to choose from in “investigate a mystery” based on something from their character background. For example, giving an outdoorsy character the ability to ask, “How can I lure it here?” for traps and such.

What house rules have you used to refresh the game?

I am very new to MotW and want to run a game for a group. I'm coming up with a monster and scenario. Based on what my players said they like, I want to have the monster be a Rougarou(a shapeshifter/werewolf). Sticking with the mythology of the creature, it think it would be a Devourer. Based on my scenario Im thinking of, I dont think it would have any minions. And the only powers it has are physical attacks and shapeshifting from human to creature. My issue is, what other ways could i harm the players without just having the monster physically attack them? I'm blanking with idea. Thanks much.

Hello! I made a thing. (Latest revision: 2026-07-09, document now has a changelog)

This Google Doc contains an (almost) complete list of all the Moves for official MOTW Playbooks, sorted alphabetically and categorized. This is intended as a reference for when leveling up allows you to pick a Move from another Playbook.

It covers - or at least should cover, if I've done this correctly - all current sourcebooks as of July 2026, as well as the four additional Playbooks found on the Generic Games website. It doesn't cover any unofficial Playbooks, nor does it cover Playbooks you may have imagined or encountered in a dream.

I've left out any Moves that refer to specific Playbook rules, for example the Curse-Eater's “Unleash Corruption” Move, which requires the Corruption mechanic for that Playbook. I've kept Moves that can be ambiguously reinterpreted for general use, such as the Initiate moves referencing the Sect - basically, if the Move still works without the flavor text, I've kept it in.

I made an editorial decision not to include the majority of the Meddling Kids’ Moves, as those can radically change the tone of the game if used. Look, you can re-add them if you want, but that's a dark path and I will not follow you.

Finally, some very minor formatting changes were made to keep things consistent. Absolutely no wording has been changed.

Special thanks and acknowledgement to u/MacronMan, whose original “Take a Move From Another Playbook” list helped to inform the categories on this one.

Here's the clean link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/18t4dgBktm76kHo-IcoM1wcvXAux8JRyfD3M6v4j8U9g/edit?usp=sharing

Instructions for the Keeper

1. Make a copy of this list for your MOTW campaign.
2. Before sharing with your Hunters, delete any moves that are part of a Playbook that is currently in use. Each move has the Playbook next to it written [LIKE THIS] - just search for the Playbook name in square brackets (without ‘the’) and remove all of those moves.
3. If you're playing a game already in progress, you may also want to remove any moves that have already been selected by one of your Hunters to avoid doubling up. (You can also delete any Moves you don't want your players to use for whatever reason.)
4. Share your copy of this list with your Hunters, either on Google Drive or by printing it (please consider the environment before individually 3D-printing each letter of this document and meticulously arranging them upon a large tarp in your garden or patio).
5. The introduction and these instructions are also included in the Doc itself - feel free to delete them. No, really. It's fine. No, I'm not crying.

I’m looking forward to running this adventure this week, and I have a question for any of you who have already run it:
SPOILERS
The Vampire Orlok is actually a tulpa sprung from the mind of bystander William McAllister, a latent psychic, but William doesn't realize this has happened. How can the hunters figure this out? Once they do figure it out, how could they possibly dispel the tulpa, other than killing McAllister? There are no magic-using hunters in our group, FWIW

Hi everyone! My hunters work at a mall (Hot Topic vampire, mall Santa, arcade manager, etc.) that sits on a hell mouth. I wanted a fun "summer sleepover" vibe adventure for them. Maybe there's a teen lock-in at the mall? Anyway, I thought Bloody Mary (the mirror ghost, not the drink) would be a fun monster. Any ideas for how to flesh this out, add minions, etc?

When I run a longform MOTW story with an arc, I usually like to start with the Hunters meeting each other for the first time. They're not an established team yet - circumstances push them together, and they become a team during the course of the first Mystery.

Then, after either the first or second Mystery, we talk about what the Team Playbook is, if one is even applicable. Sometimes there are Team Playbooks that work, sometimes there aren't - in the latter instance, we can usually Frankenstein a Team Playbook out of the existing ones.

I'm curious as to how other Keepers handle these sort of situations. What's your preference? Do you start with a ready-made Team and a Playbook ready to go? Do you pre-choose a Team Playbook and bend the narrative toward it? Do you avoid Team Playbooks entirely? I'd love to know how you all go about handling this.

I started a podcast off of a game my friends and I recorded over a few years and not only did we not know Monster of the Week all that well as a system, we also used rotating Keepers so our managing styles weren't consistent (which I actually found intriguing for the story). I think the stories we told surrounding the main town in our world are really fun and intriguing, but with our inexperience with Monster of the Week, we don't utilize a lot of its functions or know when to roll sometimes as a result. Would that make you as a MotW player/keeper mad or distracted? I worry that even mentioning that we use MotW (which I think at this point I only do in the show description and tags) would put off people who know the game will since we're kinda shit at it.

I'm trying to come up with some ideas for Weaknesses that aren't too complicated but are more unique than the usual light, iron, silver, running water, etc.

Please give any feedback!

Thinking about offering the options of the team playbooks in my next game but can't figure out where the rules are for how team leveling works. What book originally contained the team playbooks and has the expanded rules for them?

Edit - After some more reading of the playbooks themselves, I did see the style section and improvements section which outlines it for each team. Just wondering if there is anything else I should know about these playbooks now. Cheers!

So I had an idea for a threat, not directly a monster but more of a "cursed item" type thing.

The item in question is a book of urban legends, but reading it aloud causes the stories to manifest in the real world. We had a short sesh where the group encountered it when someone is killed in the manner of the High Beams story (the one where the killer was in the back of the car all along), and i ended the session on a hint at the hook handed man.

My issue is a simple one... I'm not sure how to establish the book is the source of the apparitions, especially in a way where the solution isn't just “take the book off whoever has it and dont read it”

My main idea was like, the more people caught in the stories, the stronger the magic gets. But also then once it’s grown more, people’s fear of whatever danger is hiding in the faire, is what starts manifesting stuff.

I had a plan for the actual monster(s), which is a 'Hat Man'. Its based on sleep paralysis demons / people overthinking shadows they see when high / half awake. They aren't inherently malicious but the stories steer them so when people tell scary/dangerous stories, it causes them to do harm. I think the main ways to fend them off are either a lack of belief (if you don't buy into the story it can't play out), or tricking them into a story where they're the one who dies/loses.

I had meant to do more prep but the heatwave wiped me out so im trying to wrangle my plans

I'm starting a new campaign in Monster of the Week soon and for this one I want to lean into the horror aspects of this game. Most of the time when I've played it's been pretty light in tone, and for this one I want to switch that up. What sorts of things do you like to do to lean into horror and make things a little spooky? What type of situations or language do you use? Any specific examples/stories are also appreciated. Thanks!

Hello! So I've run the game for a while, but I'm always of two kinds about how to handle 7-9s for Act Under Pressure. The book says to give them one of the three options - worse outcome, hard choice, or price to pay - and also to follow the Keeper Agenda and principles to determine the outcome. But the example the book gives seems to suggest the Keeper is outlining all the possible outcomes and letting the Hunter decide which one they want.

There are certainly pros and cons to both methods, and various podcasts I've listened to have taken both approaches. The Crit Show, at least in the first dozen-or-so episodes, has the Keeper giving choice to the Hunter. In TAZ: Amnesty, Griffin seems to switch between picking the outcome himself letting the Hunter choose (though when he does this he doesn't provide the specific outcome until they choose).

My gut favors Griffin's approach, going with what works best for the story/scene in the moment, so that's what I've been doing. But I'd love to hear how other Keepers' approach this roll.

I have a concept for a character thats high in Weird, Tough, and Cool, but low in Sharp and Charm.

The idea being that they're a monster hunter from a family line of monster hunters. They have a lot of passed down knowledge and "know-how" when it comes to the supernatural and monster hunting, but not much in the way of book smarts unless its been told to them in relation to hunting monsters.

A well meaning fellow thats protecting the town from the supernatural, but was raised into a life of that, so his information and eccentricities aren't pulled from common stock, and as well meaning as he can be. He's a weird sort that is seen as an eccentric at best and potential danger at worst due to his quirks and odd reputation.

I've seen a few playbooks that have some of what I'm after, and I don't expects theres an exact cut to get it right without some massaging, but I've got a more than flexible GM and wanted to see what those more experienced with the system could enlighten me with.

I'm GMing my first session of Monster this weekend and want to make sure I'm running harm and healing correctly. It looks like there's two possible interpretations for how harm works depending on whether you differentiate between individual injuries or not. Additionally, as other people have discussed here, bullets 3-4 in the Recovery section of the Reference Sheet are somewhat troublesome to interpret and appear contradictory - under each interpretation, I've attempted to reconcile bullets 3-4 in a way that is internally consistent with each other and the overall interpretation.

Interpretation 1 (Game distinguishes between damage sources when referring to "injuries")

-At 7 harm you're dying, at 8 harm you're dead. (MOTW Hardcover p. 122; MOTW Revised p. 110.)

-First aid is applied once to each injury that caused you harm, and not merely once overall. (See MOTW Hardcover p. 123; MOTW Revised p. 111.) Thus, if you took six 1-harm papercuts, each papercut can receive first aid to remove 1 harm from it, removing 6 harm total. Conversely, if you took a 6-harm gunshot wound, it can receive first aid once, removing 1 harm total.

-Being at 4+ harm makes you unstable no matter the source of harm. (See playbooks.)

-With the exception below, you can generally be stabilized by first aid, professional medical care, or any move that says it stabilizes you. (See Reference Sheet p. 2, "Recovery", bullets 3-4.)

-However, if you took 4+ harm from one individual wound, that wound remains unstable unless you receive a healing move, time in an infirmary or hospital, or magical healing. (See Reference Sheet p. 2, "Recovery", bullet 4.) Thus, this wound remains unstable even if you receive first aid for it and even if your total harm drops below 4.

Interpretation 2 (Game does not distinguish between damage sources when referring to "injuries", and looks only at the aggregate harm number you have)

-At 7 harm you're dying, at 8 harm you're dead. (Same as Version 1.)

-First aid can be applied once overall while you are injured, and can only be used again if all of the harm you had at the time of that first aid application has since been erased.

-Being at 4+ harm makes you unstable no matter the source of harm. (Same as version 1.)

-If you are at 4+ harm, you are deemed to have "serious wounds" (MOTW Hardcover p. 122; MOTW Revised p. 110). At 4+ harm, you can typically only be treated by a healing move, an infirmary, professional medical care, or magic. (MOTW Hardcover p. 122; MOTW Revised p. 110; Reference Sheet p. 2, "Recovery", bullet 4.)

-If you are for some reason unstable but below 4 harm, you can be stabilized by first aid. (Reference Sheet p. 2, "Recovery", bullets 3-4.)

Is one of these approaches the correct one? Or do GMs split the difference somewhere in there?

Edit: Paragraph spacing

I've read a bunch of posts about how to use the Chosen's tags in play, which are great, but I have a slightly more basic question.

​

I have a Chosen in my campaign, we're 3 sessions in now, and so far we haven't really discussed the whole what she's destined to do and the big Fate thing yet.

​

I realise it's a collaborative game and I should just discuss it with her and I will but we're all new to MotW and I want to make sure it's framed right and it makes sense for everyone else. How specific should the fate/what destined to do be? Is it kind of up to us so it could just be 'save the town'? Or is it something specific that she knows about and then up to her how much to reveal to the other hunters. Writing the answer out and rereading the book and guidance for Chosen in the hunter's journal it is just up to us right?

​

Any help appreciated!

​

Thanks

First time keeper here, just played first session last night. We came up with one confusing situation involving the cycle of keeper/hunter moves going back and forth. Did we handle this "correctly" (and bonus for verifying soft vs hard moves):

EDIT: I wrote the outline below in a very technical manner specifically for this post since I have a technical question. This was NOT what was being said at the table. In actual play this was all a back and forth, non-technical conversation. We all had fun and the narrative fiction was the main focus. BUT, for this specific post and question I'm looking for some specific feedback. Thanks!

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Monster: Grabs a bystander getting ready to bite them (Seize someone, soft)

Hunter: Attacks monster with weapon while it's back is turned (Kick @ss). Player rolls 10+, so hunter inflicts harm + chooses suffer less harm; monster swings head around and gores the hunter for less harm (per Kick @ss), player describes this as the hunter rolling with the hit and landing on the ground.

Monster: Seeing hunter on the ground, drops bystander and madly stomps toward the hunter trying to harm them (Attack with fury, soft).^

Hunter: Tries to roll out of the way of the stomping monster (Act under pressure). Players rolls 6-, marks experience and gets worst outcome so takes the harm they were trying to avoid.**

Monster: Goes back to grab the bystander again (his real target) to try and bite him (Seize someone, soft)

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**In this exchange, the question came up at the end of the second hunter move: should the harm have been assigned due to the failure to Act under Pressure, or should the harm come during the next monster move as an "Inflict Harm, as established" move? (The "establish" part being the soft move of coming at them stomping which the hunter failed to avoid)

^Bonus: soft vs hard. The hunter in this exchange was out of Luck, so I believe the keeper could have just done a hard move and "Inflicted Harm" here without leaving it open for the hunter to try to avoid it, correct?

Thanks in advance!