What Do I Know?

Supernatural season 14 just hit Netflix, so to commemorate me watching yet another season, I’m posting my rough draft of a Monster of the Week move inspired by this season. Without spoiling too much, there is an added element of managing other teams of hunters that caught my attention.

In addition to the elements of the show for this season, I’m also reminded of one of my favorite moves from The Sprawl, which lets you direct someone to do a job for you while you are busy doing other things. That move is specifically tailored to a cyberpunk “job” structure, so I took it for inspiration, and then kind of built the equivalent for Monster of the Week from the ground up.

Some hunters have friends and family that they can count on, even if they don’t travel with them on a regular basis. When this is true, hunters can call in a favor to have another team run a job for them while they are currently investigating another mystery. Alternatively, sometimes hunters want to stay on scene while another team of hunters accomplishes a task or retrieves and item that is needed, but is removed from the site of the mystery.

Run A Side Job

Whenever a hunter directs another team at a distance, roll +sharp

10+; The team manages to get the job done with no hitch. They stop the monster, rescue the victims, do the thing they needed to do offsite, or retrieve the object. If the action or object is needed in the current mystery, the player hunters have access to the benefit in the next phase of the day after they make this move.

7-9; The team gets the job done, but it’s not pretty. Choose one of the following:

• They stop the monster, but the victims didn’t make it
• They rescue the victims, but the monster got away
• They stop the monster and rescue the victims, but they lost a hunter
• They get the item, but it’s damaged or cursed
• They get the task partially done, but the player hunters will still need to do something else to complete the task

6-; The job went sideways. Choose one of the following:

• The team was wiped out or captured
• One member of the team was turned
• The item was destroyed or circumstances have changed that make doing the task impossible
• The monster has the item
• The monster knows what task the team wanted done, and has sent a guard to a critical location

Remember, the key to this move is that the hunters have to have established other people that they know in order for this to work. If they are asking characters that have been established in their backstories or that they have met during mysteries to do these things, it makes the consequences of the move much more meaningful.