Calaca Skin [Monsterhearts]

[Milo v3]

I saw the Calaca skin and thought the flavour was abit disjointed, but one of my friends loved the idea of playing a perky goth undead girl with day of the dead fluff. So I made my first attempt at a Monsterhearts Skin.

Link (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9hAiAhDT9ISd3NMX2RvRGd6Y1E/view?usp=sharing)

[Amechra]

The Sex Move is unlike anything else in the system; it's also too touchy-feelie for a Sex Move, and feels somewhat random.

Smiling Skull is overcomplicated and is against the general "idea" of PbtA; rolls should only happen when there are concrete triggers in the fiction. I'd change it to something like...

When you smile and pretend everything is fine, you may roll +Dark instead of +Hot when you Turn Someone On or Manipulate an NPC.

Burying Your Problems also has some issues - why are they getting one forward? How does being told "everything is fine" by the Calaca give them significant help on whatever they end up doing next, which could be anything from hitting on that chick in BIO to punching someone in the face? And boosts the next roll they make regardless of when they make it?

Dance Macabre is... OK, I guess.

Flowers of the Dead should probably give you a String on them if they accept the flowers, but give them a String if you get rejected. I'll explain why later; suffice to say that giving flowers and then being better at delivering a snub is... odd.

Grim Reminder... you really like handing out Forward like candy, don't you? Forward stacks - you do know that, right?

Sugar Skull is a bit of a weird one, but it works.

Under the Skin is out of character for the Calaca. The only time I've seen comparable effects have been with Skins that are hardcore manipulators, like the Anansi or the Unseen.



Basically, you ended up making something that was much, much less focused than the original.

The original Calaca is mainly focused on being a spookity skellington; it focuses mostly on Dark - in much the same way as the Werewolf focuses on Volatile.

All of their moves either lend something to the fiction of being a spooky skeleton (Connected, Ossuary) or allow them to focus on Dark (practically all the others). Since they focus on Dark, they have a definite tilt towards using Gaze into the Abyss; Cast the Bones boosts Gaze into the Abyss, but tangles you up into other people's problems. Heck, their Sex Move is "have visions and dispense advice to the person I just slept with".

Now, let's look at yours:

You start off with a strong theme - you're focused around repression. You get XP when you pretend everything is fine (in a way that's broader than anything that the Abuse Magn- I mean Mortal gets), and you get to repress an emotion-based Condition (in a clunky way) when you roll Hot (which you do too much; it's one of your weak traits, so you shouldn't be using it all the time).

But then we get two moves that boost Shut Someone Down (one in a way that doesn't make much sense in the fiction), the Sex Move and Grim Reminder are based off happy memories, and the last two moves are "suddenly I is hawt manipulator". It's totally disjointed.

Also, Forward tends to represent bursts of confidence, so the Moves you've got that hand it out don't make a whole lot of sense to me.



Now, the issue is that you kinda decided on a bunch of stuff that pulls you in a number of different (mechanical) directions, and wrote a lot that doesn't mesh with the rest of the system; an OK attempt for a first go.

If you take my advice and want to fix this, I'd personally go with one of two routes:

• Play up the Perky Goth stereotype, and push that button hard. Base moves around being a smiling face regardless of how messed up things get - you've got a morbid sense of humor, swap a few things over to Dark, avoid Cold rolls like the plague, and maybe get some moves about how your persistent cheeriness creeps people out. To help play up the dark aspect, give them moves that reward them if they ignore how serious someone else's problems are, in favor of playing up how everything is fine and we are one big old happy family.

• Play up the repression and "smiling face" aspect - focus around pretending that you are fine. Block people's attempts to play off of emotional Conditions, get XP for pretending things are fine, take strings on people who know things aren't fine, etc. The only issue here is that you start veering into the Mortal's territory, if only because you need to be having problems before you can pretend things are fine, right?