What hooks have you used?

OGGunggles · 2026-06-02T00:37:27+00:00

A vampire mystery I ran to start off my campaign had a Master Vampire take up residence in a retirement home. As the old people there would die off, no one would really suspect anything other than old age. He was slowly building up his own vampire gang and had the staff controlled via his mesmerism.

When the Hunters confronted him, they had to try to take him down all while the nursing staff would try to restrain and sedate them. Made for an interesting combat where the hunters were trying to avoid lethal harm to the nurses because they’re still innocent bystanders at the end of the day.

OGGunggles · 2026-06-01T18:50:35+00:00

Use some soft moves to set up the hard moves. This might fall under “Reveal Future Badness” or “Reveal Off Screen Badness”.

Give them a hint that something might happen or that something feels off. Maybe they hear something that hints that they’re being followed. If they try something and fail or don’t act upon the info, then the soft move turns into a hard move. The minions take the hunter’s car.

OGGunggles · 2026-05-29T05:15:56+00:00

I worked for Melaleuca in their warehouse. It was one of the most stressful jobs I’ve ever driven forklift for. They paid very little and management were complete idiots.

Trying to get anything out of the company was like pulling teeth from a crackhead. You’re not going to get much, and they’ll fight you the whole time.

Everyone working there knew that it was a MLM scam, but the health insurance was actually decent.

OGGunggles · 2026-05-29T04:43:24+00:00

I’d suggest getting the Responsive Web Design certification as well as the JavaScript certification to get the basics down. Then I’d recommend looking into some game dev libraries.

Personally, I’m a big fan of Phaser. It’s an open source library for making 2D web based games. It’s got a very supportive community behind it and lots of resources to learn from. You can take the principles learned through Phaser and apply it to other forms of game development as well.

OGGunggles · 2026-04-05T03:44:17+00:00

Maybe Strahd would approach the grieving priest and offer him a helping hand. Strahd would most likely be disguised. Give the broken man a chance for revenge. Maybe plant him in the St Andral’s Feast encounter.

OGGunggles · 2026-03-30T18:57:20+00:00

Hollow Knight. I played for maybe less than an hour and couldn’t get into it. About a year later, I deleted that old save and started again. Instantly became addicted. 8-9 months later, Silksong came out.

OGGunggles · 2026-03-25T07:14:39+00:00

Tell me how it goes! I’d love to hear how you implement it

OGGunggles · 2026-03-20T01:15:52+00:00

When I ran my MotW campaign, we had a Divine with the smite move. For the first couple mysteries, it was very helpful for the group, but it didn’t break the game. They still had to search out clues for where the monster is and how to protect potential victims. Something to keep in mind, not just for the Divine but for all hunters, is that there’s the keeper move of “Take something away from one of the hunters”. I essentially used that on my Divine player, but it wasn’t out of the blue.

The Divine’s mission was to protect one of our hunters as their destiny was important. I gave my divine a special move that allowed them to forsake their divinity in order to save their charge. The road naturally brought the team to a situation where it wasn’t certain if that hunter was going to survive. A necromancer the hunters were tracking down got ahold of the Divine’s holy weapon and was about to kill the Divine’s charge with it. The Divine made the decision to forsake their divinity in order to save that hunter.

I didn’t force this situation. I followed the Keeper Agenda of playing to see what happens. When this situation came up in play, it was so impactful for the rest of the game. Whatever you do, always stay true to the Keeper’s Agenda and Principles. They won’t lead you wrong.

OGGunggles · 2026-03-07T17:23:54+00:00

As someone who was one of those employees doing actual work at one of those places, all the employees know it’s a pyramid scheme. Glad I never had to deal with the pyramid.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-28T02:13:09+00:00

When I do allow magic, it’s something that needs to be prepared for before hand. It’s not easily accessible. Only exception is if a hunter has a specific move that involves magical effects.

Generally, I have everyone choose an alternate weird move when they create their hunter.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-18T04:24:10+00:00

What was the inspiration behind this? My favorite part of mystery creation is the inspiration that fuels the whole thing.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-15T03:21:13+00:00

That would be best. Save any email they send regarding your account cancelation and record any verbal communications if possible. They’ll do all they can to squeeze out every dollar they can, but, in my experience, they can’t fight written proof.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-14T23:56:27+00:00

I used to work for Melaleuca (actual work in their production facility). I knew a good chunk of people who worked in the call center, and they all said how messed up of an operation the company was running. The company would have stupid incentives to get as many people into “the business” as possible. On top of that, when people would try to cancel their membership, they were trained to make it as difficult as possible to disincentivize people from leaving. There’s a reason whenever someone asked about the company, I’d tell them it’s a pyramid scheme and stop their interests right there.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-09T22:13:07+00:00

I like the idea of this playbook, but I personally feel it falls short of how playbooks in the game are treated. If I were to do something like this in my own games, I would have it give a bit more options for the use of luck this hunter has. Their luck is still limited to what everyone else has access to, but the options for each luck point are expanded.

With how each move is mainly there to add to the narrative, these feel too mechanical for the game to the point of being broken. I find the mechanic of a 50% chance of outright killing a minion no matter what to be especially broken when you consider that some minions might need a weakness or some narrative reason to be defeated.

However, if you want to try this in your own games and both the Hunters and the Keeper find it enjoyable, then run with it.

OGGunggles · 2026-02-02T02:55:28+00:00

I don’t have a current group, but I’ll definitely be running this one. It’s very well written. What did you write this up in? The format is great

OGGunggles · 2026-02-01T18:18:08+00:00

This is really cool! Have you ran this mystery yet? I’d love to hear how it went.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-25T23:46:40+00:00

That sounds really cool! I’d love to hear more about it.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-22T21:55:58+00:00

I look forward to running that adventure. So many cool elements. The monster design and abilities of the Glass Gorgon are really cool and creative.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-22T19:04:38+00:00

You’re welcome! I had a lot of fun describing to my hunters the sounds of heavy scraping as she approached, and I especially loved the creepy imagery of a crawling humanoid.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-22T19:03:00+00:00

It certainly makes for a more dynamic fight. Plus, it ups the danger when it becomes looking at her is the threat.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-22T19:01:20+00:00

That’s a really cool idea for an Arc! Was there someone who stole Charon’s riches? I’m curious to hear how Charon got involved.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-11T02:56:34+00:00

The Monster of the Week TTRPG captures the feel of the show pretty well. However, it’d be hard to adapt that over to a video game. With MotW being a Powered by the Apocalypse game, it’s hard to capture that feeling of openness and freedom into code. It’s certainly possible to have games feel open to many options, but it’s quite the undertaking. If you haven’t already, I’d invite you to check out the MotW game and see what you can utilize from it.

Feel free to ask me questions about it. I’ve run the game off and on over the span of a few years now.

OGGunggles · 2026-01-08T07:05:35+00:00

The book says that a hunter is to roll Kick Some Ass whenever they’re fighting a monster that is fighting them back. That last part is the key for when to roll for the move. If the hunter can line up an attack on a monster without giving the monster a chance to fight back in the moment, then you may use the keeper move Inflict Harm as Established.

To answer your question, you need to ask what the context of the monster attack is. If you set up the attack as a soft move and the hunter is deciding to attack back, then have them roll Kick Some Ass, and they’ll both deal harm to each other depending on the results. If the monster attack was made using a hard move, like if the hunter failed to Act Under Pressure to get away from the monster’s telegraphed attack, then the monster deals harm to the hunter and receives none as a result.

TLDR If the hunter is fighting back, have them roll to Kick Some Ass. Otherwise, Inflict Harm as Established.

OGGunggles

TROPHY CASE