Creating a second edition of Monsterhearts wasn’t about adding tons of new content. It was about refining the writing and mechanics at the heart of the game, and incorporating lessons learned throughout five years of play.
Here are the major changes in Monsterhearts 2:
- The Agenda is now player-facing.
- Manipulate an NPC has been removed.
- Pulling Strings is now an elegant & straightforward move, rather than two bulky lists that applied in different situations.
- The MC’s Principles and Reactions have been refined and reconfigured.
- Basic moves, including Turn Someone On and Shut Someone Down, have been redesigned to lead more compellingly back into the fiction.
- Conditions are now exclusively social in nature, and any reference to things like “drained” is gone. Advice on how to handle conditions is more thorough.
- Rules and advice on asexuality have been added.
- A four-page guest-authored section on race and racism has been added to the text, thanks to Ciel Sainte-Marie, Jeeyon Shim, and James Mendez Hodes.
- Sections on texting and violence have been added as well.
- Villains have been streamlined considerably and the advice/mentality around incorporating them has shifted.
- MC advice has been added about convention play and how to channel enthusiasm between sessions.
- The Hollow has been added to the core book, while The Chosen has been nudged out (though is still available on the website, along with The Serpentine).
- Small Towns have been added to the game, featuring a diverse group of writers including anna anthropy, Kieron Gillen, and Ciel Sainte-Marie.
- There is new cover art, and several pieces of new interior art.
- All of the examples of play in the book are new.
- The book has been re-organized and rewritten.