Changes in Tone

Perhaps the most subtle yet far-reaching consequence of changing Sanity for Humanity (while also making Humanity no longer about morality but instead about self-control) is how much it changes Monsterpunk's tone.

The introduction section describes Monsterpunk as a game set in a world of gray morality, unsuited to simple "us vs them" dichotomies. A game where many classes are naturally suited for murder, brainwashing, necromancy and other distasteful activities... But doing most of those things slowly makes you more monster than human (and thus an NPC), makes you less trustworthy and also literally drives your party members insane. The idea was to make PCs balance their own personal values with those of their community or their team and how much this changed them as people, for better or worse. This ties into how humans are still adjusting to their new role in monster society and also becoming more like the monsters themselves.

With the rewrite to Humanity and the deletion of Sanity, this is no longer the case. Or rather, the themes are still there, but the emphasis has shifted. Characters are no longer penalized for their dirty deeds and while some of them come with a cost to Humanity, that's more of a balance mechanism than a mood-setting mechanic (though it still serves that purpose, I won't deny that). In fact the primary way to lose Humanity is through Limit Breaks, which power up your character. Arguably, the rules encourage you to treat your Humanity points more as a resource that goes up and down than as a life bar. You do get penalized for losing all your Humanity by transforming into a Fiend, but the rules make it explicit that the intended way to resolve that scenario is by talking sense into the Fiend and make them human once more.

This comes at the same time that I expanded the section for playing as independent groups, making it much easier to play games where PCs don't have to belong to any of the major factions in the hellscape. I also added an abridged timeline and delved more into the way that monsters have adapted to the stalemate they're caught in and how Gestalts in particular blur the lines further between species, it is not just that humans are turning into monsters but that the monsters are turning into humans.

The result is a game that still has moral ambiguity, party conflict and involves looking for humanity's new place in the world, but makes it much easier to solve those issues and play it like an anime action game with post-apoc or weird fantasy vibes.

It's still in many ways the same game. Even if you use Monsterpunk for post-apoc pokemon but with more murder, you still play a PC who toes the line between human and monster, doing whatever it takes to live another day as part of a tight-knit group of survivors finding their place in this absurd, harsh world. It's just that flipping the tone and mood is a lot easier than it used to be.

And I think that's a good thing, because roleplaying is many things to many people. In the end, I'm just a guy who wants to give players toys and a playground to do whatever they want with them. Flexibility is a good thing, in my mind, but it would be dishonest of me if I failed to mention the rules of the game are a lot less strict than they used to be.

Which is not to say that the game has gotten easier. Oh no, that is not the case at all. In fact, it has gotten harder. PCs get their shit kicked by NPCs around a lot more. The thing that keeps the game playable is that Limit Breaks allow any PC to turn a fight around at the cost of Humanity, which sounds awesome until you're out of points and you're forced to play super safe. If a campaign goes sufficiently long, all the PCs may end up turning into Fiends with no one to help them change back. That's dark. Much darker than a TPK or sanity loss, at least from where I'm standing.

Anyway, that's all for now. I got some feedback from people trying out the game that has been immensely useful. As soon as things here settle down and I don't have to deal with being 2-3 days of any given week without electricity I'll write a castle of words with a summary of all changes and put the pdf up.

Gimmick Out.