Updating Seeds of Doom

I’ve updated The Seeds of Doom with a few things I’ve enjoyed in my games lately.

The Seeds of Doom is a one-shot mystery for Monster of the Week. It’s set in a seaside town, which could be anywhere but is based on my home town of Sidmouth in Devon.  I’ve run it a couple of times before and while it’s been okay, there are a few things I can do to improve it based on recent games.

Changes to the mystery

Stealing from ALIEN: I like the random attacks that the creatures make in ALIEN, as it shakes things up. So I’ve added that to the monster attacks in The Seeds of Doom (although I’ve simplified it by given them three attacks instead of six).

Stealing from Brindlewood Bay: I like how Brindlewood Bay uses questions to help set the scene for different locations. So I’ve done that for The Seeds of Doom: ‘What can you see here that shows that the owners enjoyed gardening and were proud of their garden?’

(Yes, I could just ask those questions anyway, but I find the prompts useful and perhaps if I do it enough then it will become a habit.)

Changes to the playbooks

Monster of the Week is ideal for campaign play, but I find the playbooks are over-complicated for a one-shot. So I’ve made a few changes.

Luck: I found that luck as written didn’t work. I imagine it’s a great doom track in campaign play, but I found it didn’t work for a one-shot. So I’ve changed Luck to being a simple re-roll of the dice (rather than an automatic success) and allowed it to refresh following a refreshment scene (stolen refreshment from Lady Blackbird).

Mark luck to re-roll the dice or avoid all harm from an injury. [] You can refresh your luck by having a refreshment scene with another character.  A refreshment scene is a good time to ask questions (in character) so the other player can show off aspects of his or her PC. Refreshment scenes can be flashbacks, too.

Experience: I’ve dropped experience to three boxes from five, so there’s a chance that the PCs may get two chances to level up. I’ve also limited the experience choices to additional moves and higher stats, to keep things simple.

Amending the playbooks: I’ve made a few changes to the playbooks that I’m using:

• Structure: I don’t understand how MotW’s playbooks are ordered. They make no sense to me, so I’ve restructured them by bringing the ‘Getting Started’ section forward in the character sheet.
• Weapons: As I set The Seeds of Doom in England, I’ve removed some heavier weapons and firearms from the playbooks.
• Curated moves: I’ve removed some moves that won’t be appropriate for a one-shot or The Seeds of Doom, so players don’t accidentally choose them.

I’m not using all the playbooks. For example, for The Seeds of Doom I’m not using The Chosen or The Divine as they have a big impact on the game and are better suited for longer form play.

You can see my playbook changes here.

Questions for team start

I will also use a few questions to help form the team, such as:

• Who founded your team?
• Where is your team’s base?
• How are you funded?
• Are you ‘official’ or ‘unofficial’
• If unofficial, what influence do you have to ensure cooperation with officials?

Did it work?

Yes! I recently re-ran The Seeds of Doom and I was happy with all of the changes. We had a great refreshment scene, and the change to luck worked well.

You can download The Seeds of Doom from my Itch.io page—pay-what-you-want.

And my website contains other RPG stuff--scenarios, larps and more.