Quick Question About Monsterhearts

[The Rose Dragon]

How flexible are the supernatural types when it comes to actual supernatural powers? Does the system directly involve them at all beyond thematic bonuses (like a werewolf getting a bonus to physically lashing out when in wolf form)? How hard would it be to create your own monster archetypes?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

The skins are all about driving a character's play in a specific direction. Mind you, it doesn't force you, but a skin is the reason why, say, a Witch will tend to do certain things. Again--a skin doesn't generally force you to do something, because you can always avoid triggering any of the moves related to the skin. But you'll get a much stronger experience the more you play to your skin. It's actually an interesting dynamic--I tend to think of it as modeling the tussle between your nature and your free will.

Then there's the Darkest Self. When bad stuff happens, there's things that can cause you to snap into your Darkest Self--that's when you lose control and turn full-tilt monstrous for a time. Things like a werewolf rampage, the ghost going all poltergeist, or the chosen warrior going on a rampage against the biggest monsters in town.

A couple samples...

The Chosen has a move that gives them the option of having an armory of supernatural weapons and artifacts. The Witch has a move that lets them cast hexes from a list. The Vampire has a move that lets them control people.

Any given character won't have all of the moves, though, and they encourage you to work with whatever mythology you want. The Vampire has a move relating to being invited inside, but if you don't take that move, maybe the "has to be invited in" rule doesn't apply to vampires in your game. It's pretty flexible in that regard. Your moves are your way of building a particular type of supernatural in the world, I'd say. Well...they're a way, at least.

It's technically simple enough to create your own archetypes, but it's a bit of an art, and the skins are actually well-primed to create drama and vibrant play. The best skins are heavily, heavily thematic and use every move to reinforce a facet of the character. A skin is like half a character in itself; you provide the other half.

Here's some sample skins for the game (http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Monsterhearts-Skins.pdf)
Here's a list of important basic moves and principles for the game (http://buriedwithoutceremony.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Monsterhearts-Reference-Sheets.pdf)

Both of those are free downloads from the official site! Even if you don't know the rules, you can get a rough idea of how they work, especially if you've played a *World game.