Monsterhearts 2 — Avery Alder

Author: Avery Alder.
Second edition published: 2017 · first edition of Monsterhearts: 2012.

Nearby question

Must mechanical possibility remain broad in order to preserve fictional complexity?

Monsterhearts 2 concentrates its moves, Skins, Strings, and Conditions on relationships, desire, vulnerability, social domination, and adolescent transformation. The second edition explicitly refined and streamlined procedures to lead more directly back into fiction.

What it makes possible

The game does not model everything a teenage monster could possibly do. It deliberately closes part of mechanical space in order to make the gestures feeding its relational drama highly accessible. That reduction does not imply poor fiction; it can increase the density of particular relationships.

For Resonance

Monsterhearts is an important counterpoint to the phrase “do not reduce fiction.” Not every constraint is impoverishment. A closure can be generative when it concentrates attention on a space whose interactions remain rich. The Resonance question therefore becomes: what did we close, why, and can the complexity we intended to preserve still emerge?

Sources: Avery Alder — Monsterhearts 2, What's Different in Monsterhearts 2?.