Recently I wrote about the conditions that force Monsterhearts characters into their “Darkest Selves”, the death of that character being one of them. I criticised this approach for its trivialisation of death, and for its contribution to the ubiquity of the Darkest Self condition. Whilst death in a supernaturally themed game doesn’t need to be the end of a PC’s story, it shouldn’t just be a convenient trigger for a roaring rampage of revenge. As Simon Pegg put it: “Death is an impediment, not an energy drink”.

(He was talking about the slow zombies in Shaun of the Dead, but it’s almost relevant.)

As an alternative, I’ve hacked together a series of “Death Moves” for each of the core Skins in Monsterhearts. They are triggered when you take four harm and choose to avoid death, and are a replacement for the “enter Darkest Self or lose all strings” default move in Monsterhearts. Continue reading →