Monsters & Masquerades
You have been invited to an exclusive masquerade ball by an elusive host in a rather unusual location. You, of course, are not the only one who’s been invited. “Otherworldly” guests and delicious secrets await you in every corner. Yet, there are those who seek to use your own secrets for their own doings. Will you let them get the best of you? Or will you love the ball for all its pleasures? Tonight you will soon discover whether the real monsters are the ones in fairytales or your fellow "man".
Monsters & Masquerades is a multi-player tabletop roleplaying hack based on Honey Heist, inspired by Commedia dell'arte and Phantom of the Opera. It only requires two d6s to play and a "Host".
This work is based on Honey Heist (found at https://gshowitt.itch.io/), product of Grant Howitt, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Project Overview
GAME DETAILS
Genre: Multi-Player TTRPG
Game Engine: Affinity Publisher
My Roles: Game Designer
LOGISTICS
Project Duration: 3 Weeks
Team Size: 1 (Solo Dev)
Process
Conception:
This game was my final for History and Design of Role-Playing Games (GAM 231), taught by Anna Anthropy during my time at DePaul. For a while, I have considered designing a game based around the Commedia dell'arte or perhaps trying to homebrew Monsterhearts classes inspired by the eleven different masks/troupes. However, the biggest issue was scope - I was already going over the limit of three pages, and I was struggling with writing abilities for half of the Commedia dell'arte masks. So, I decided to make my project a hack of Honey Heist with some elements of my favorite mechanics from Monsterhearts.
Summary of First Playtesting Sessions:
Party Size: 5
The players were invited to a masquerade held by Dylas, a lovesick vampire lord located in a lavish mansion. The notable guests were: Puck the “Loveable” Fey Trickster, who merely wants to “play” with “people,” and The Great Old One…. really wants real friends. They were tired of their cult trying to flatter them. Player A’s character was selling NFTs to the Great Old One (sorry WFTs). Player B’s character performed a hit single and had to deal with a painful proposal. Player C’s character pretended to be a dishwasher and tried to sabotage their ex. Player D’s character was flirting with an NPC named Lilah at the poker table. Player E’s character (who was a secret agent on his break) found out that Player’s C ex and Lilah were both avoiding their taxes, so he arrested them. Sadly due to the Fantasy IRS arriving, the party was canceled, but the party had its own afterparty at a karaoke place—singing until dawn.
Roses/What went well?
● Good Flavor and Themes!
● Someone noticed the Italian theatre theme!
● The secret mechanic was cool in theory.
● Why are you here? The table was well-received.
● People liked the little character sheets I made them!
Thorns /What did not go well?
● Too “wordy”!
● Confusion over setting/time period and themes.
● Lack of description for stats caused confusion. Needs to be ironed out.
● Stats hardly moved.
● I felt overwhelmed with the number of secrets I had and felt I had to juggle them.
● Some preferred numbers over checkboxes.
Buds/What did I learn?
● Make motivations for moves differ from main moves.
● Lower Secrets and Rumors to just 1 false rumor, 1 true rumor.
● Lean into my themes more!
