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Game mechanics

PITF is played with Monster of the Week, a game about hunting monsters in which the game master is called the Keeper and each player character is built from a playbook. This page covers the rules as they are used at this table: each character's playbook, ratings and moves, how Luck, harm and experience have come up, the house rulings, and the rolls that changed the story.

Everything here is what was said aloud during the sessions. Character sheets are never shown, so a rating or move appears below only if someone read it out.

The basics

  • The roll. Two six-sided dice plus a rating. A 10 or more is a full success, 7 to 9 is a mixed success, and 6 or less is a miss. Ezra asks how rolls work in the first session, and as late as the second arc Zack is reminding the table that the dice are "2d6, it's different." (Radford Horror 01, Summer Service 06)
  • Experience. A missed roll marks experience. Andre opens the second session with the reminder that "we need to remember to do the experience stuff when you guys screw up a roll." (Radford Horror 02)
  • The basic moves heard in play are Act Under Pressure, Help Out, Investigate a Mystery, Kick Some Ass, Manipulate Someone, Protect Someone, Read a Bad Situation and Use Magic.
  • Ratings are Charm, Cool, Sharp, Tough and Weird.
  • Advanced moves. A basic move can be marked as advanced on a level-up, which unlocks a better result on a 12 or more. (Radford Horror 02, Walkers 01)
  • Combat. Andre's warning in the second session: "Monster of the Week combat tends to turn into like a slugging match where people die really quickly unless you're being kind of tactical about it." He recommends Help Out as the way to contribute to a fight without taking damage. (Radford Horror 02)

The non-canon one-shot uses a different game. See The one-shot below.

The player characters

Andrew Howard (Rita)

Andrew Howard has had two playbooks.

The Divine (Radford Horror 01 to Walkers 07):
Ratings Charm is negative. Rita: "It's just you can always tell there's something wrong with me." His other ratings as a Divine are not read out.
Lay on Hands His healing move ("It's my actual move"). Healing someone causes him to take on some of the harm himself.
What I Need When I Need It "I can store any small object into a magical space, and I can retrieve it at any time": any small object he owns "or could feasibly own." In the fiction this is his satchel.
Cast Out Evil Used twice in Walkers 07, on rolls of 12 and 14.
Holy weapon From the Divine's gear list: a three-harm weapon, first a mace and then re-themed as pepper spray that sprays "nothingness."
Harm reduction "I have two different things that let me negate one harm": two harm off every hit, three with his pendant. One of the two is a Resilience move under which "wounds count as one harm less."
Text bonus +1 on "rolls that involve looking through books, newspapers, or other text for information."

(Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 03, Summer Service 05, Appalachia 07, Appalachia 08, Walkers 07, Walkers 08, Roulet Estate 01)

The second point of harm reduction arrives in Appalachia 08: "I got another upgrade, so I reduce all damage by two now." (Appalachia 08)

The Monstrous (from Walkers 08): after the real Andrew dies and revives, Andre tells Rita "You are now the Monstrous," and the two rebuild the character in a private scene after the session. Andre's instruction is to "pretend as though you'd been Monstrous the whole time and had done the same level-ups."
Ratings Charm −1, Cool −1, Tough +2, Weird +3. Rita plans to raise Tough to +3 on a later level-up, and by Radford Horrors 04 she says "I'm three Weird."
Dropped Lay on Hands and Cast Out Evil, on the idea that the transformation "has severed me from that power source."
Kept What I Need When I Need It, as a move from another playbook, because "it's tied to an item." Resilience is taken again.
New moves Unquenchable Vitality and Immortal. Mental Dominion, Unnatural Appeal, Preternatural Speed and Unholy Strength are discussed as later picks.
Natural attack "Life drain at a range."
Curse He "now has to drink blood."
Harm reduction Two harm without the pendant, three with it.

(Walkers 08, Roulet Estate 01, Radford Horrors 04)

See Andrew Howard (the Monstrous). Between the end of the gym scene in Walkers 07 and the swap back in Walkers 09, Rita played a duplicate instead. Its instructions included the line "I deteriorate," and Andre's summary was: "you have leukemia, and you don't feel great." (Walkers 07, Walkers 08, Walkers 09)

Kurt Larson (Dante)

Kurt Larson is the Expert. Andre looks one of his moves up "under the Expert" and later checks, "you're the Expert, right?" (Appalachia 09, Walkers 04)
Ratings Sharp +3 from Summer Service 01 ("Guess who has a plus three to Sharp now?"), Cool +2, Weird +1, Charm 0, Tough 0.
Haven "Dante got an armory as part of his character build": the basement arsenal under the barbershop.
Preparedness Rolled with Sharp to have the right thing on hand. Andre: "You need something unusual or rare," which can be information as well as an object; "if you roll a full success on Preparedness, you just have it."
Often Right "If they come to me for advice and they take my honest advice, they get a plus one ongoing while following it."
Dark Past "Just for the record, I took Dark Past as my level-up."

(Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 04, Radford Horror 05, Radford Horror 07, Summer Service 01, Appalachia 03, Walkers 04, Roulet Estate 01)

Kurt also has a resource of Dante's own invention: four molars loaded with different drugs. Biting the amphetamine tooth in the church fight is worth +1 forward. (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 07)

Dante mentions further level-ups in Radford Horror 08 (held over because "there wouldn't actually be time in the story"), Walkers 06 and Walkers 08. What he took for them is not said. (Radford Horror 08, Walkers 06, Walkers 08)

Dick "The Biz" Baxter (Ezra)

The playbook of the Biz is never named on a recording. His moves are.
Ratings Charm +2 at the start and +3 by Walkers 04. Cool 0, raised to +1 as a level-up in Radford Horror 04 and +2 by Roulet Estate 03. His other ratings are not read out.
Crime bonus "When hiding evidence of a crime, he can add one to the roll."
Fixer "If I need to buy something, sell something, or hire someone, roll +Charm." Zack calls it "Know a Guy."
Grifter When he is about to manipulate someone, he "can ask the Keeper what will convince this person to do what I want." Ezra: "I don't know why I always forget I have it."
Charlatan Taken in Walkers 01: "When you want people to think you're using magic, roll +Cool." He uses it for a card trick on Letterman.
Advanced moves Investigate a Mystery and Manipulate Someone, both marked advanced in Walkers 01.

(Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 04, Appalachia 09, Walkers 01, Walkers 04, Walkers 08, Roulet Estate 02, Roulet Estate 03)

The Biz gained experience faster than anyone in the first arc, because Ezra missed so often. His track was "full up" in Radford Horror 03, and by Radford Horror 08 he was "marking X's over top of the X's" and one failure from "a double level up." He spent the backlog in Walkers 01, before the Letterman interview, on the grounds that "this could be the end of the Biz, so I might as well go out with a bang." (Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 08, Walkers 01)

Huell Kendrick (Zack)

The playbook of Huell Kendrick is not named on a recording either.
Ratings Cool +3, Sharp +1, Tough +1, Charm −1. Weird is not read out.
Cool for Sharp "My thing that lets me use Cool for Read a Bad Situation."
Interview bonus A +1 when interviewing an uncooperative subject.
First aid "You have a full first aid kit and training to heal people. Roll Cool. On a 10-plus, the patient is stabilized and healed of two harm."
Hoodlum His first level-up pick, borrowed from another playbook: "the Crooked has this one that lets you use toughness for instead of charm. I'm taking that." It applies to Manipulate Someone "as long as I'm using violence."

(Radford Horror 01, Radford Horror 02, Radford Horror 03, Radford Horror 05, Radford Horror 06, Summer Service 05, Appalachia 03)

Huell was the first character to level up, in Radford Horror 03. In the Marblehead finale Zack marks experience and announces, "That gets me to level four." (Radford Horror 03, Summer Service 06)

Daniel Webster (Ezra)

Almost nothing mechanical is heard for Daniel Webster. Ezra arrived at his first session without a name for him, and his playbook and ratings are never read out. (Radford Horrors 01, Radford Horrors 02)

Luck

"Everybody starts with seven." A point of Luck turns a roll into a success, and it can be spent after the dice are seen: asked whether that is allowed "after you roll and it's not good," Andre says, "Yeah, yeah, no, you are." A character who runs out is Doomed. (Summer Service 06, Appalachia 01, Radford Horrors 03)

Luck spent on the recordings:

Session Who What it bought
Radford Horror 07 The Biz "I'm just gonna use luck to force it," late in the church fight.
Summer Service 04 Kurt Andre offers the spend out of character, and Kurt's weapons contact sends a Davy Crockett. "It would have been a Scorpion if you hadn't burned the luck point."
Summer Service 06 Huell A 7 becomes a clean hit with the Davy Crockett.
Appalachia 01 Huell Rescuing a bad roll. Zack: "I can appreciate that it's maybe a waste, but I don't give a shit."
Walkers 01 The Biz "I'm gonna burn a luck point to change that to a twelve," on David Letterman's show.
Walkers 03 Huell Winning a game of darts.
Radford Horrors 03 The Biz Several points in one action sequence in Russia.

After Radford Horrors 03, "Dick has three Luck left before he is Doomed." Ezra: "I don't know what Doomed means." (Radford Horrors 03)

Harm

Characters have seven harm boxes. A character over four harm is unstable and keeps getting worse until someone stabilizes them. (Radford Horror 07, Radford Horror 08)

Magic

Magic at this table has mostly come through Andrew's Divine moves rather than the basic Use Magic move: Lay on Hands, Cast Out Evil and his holy weapon. When Andre first asks for a Use Magic roll, to heal Kurt, Rita corrects him: "No, it's Lay On Hands. It's my actual move." (Radford Horror 03, Summer Service 05, Walkers 07)

Use Magic proper is rolled in Radford Horrors 04, by which time Andrew is the Monstrous and has dropped his Divine moves. Rita rolls a 10 and adds Weird +3 for a 13. Andre reads out the effects she can choose from: inflict harm; enchant a weapon; do one thing that is beyond human limitations; bar a place or portal; trap a specific person; banish a spirit; summon a monster into the world; communicate with something that you do not share a language with; observe another time or place; heal one harm from an injury, or cure a disease, or neutralize a poison. Zack's advice: "Summon the monster!" (Radford Horrors 04)

For how the supernatural works in the fiction, see The paranatural.

House rules and rulings

Dread

Andre added a dread track in Summer Service 03, when he asked Rita to "roll for dread" during one of Andrew's dreams and told her, "You take five dread." Asked what dread is, he said, "You don't know yet. Well, you're gonna find out," and then, "I'm borrowing it from some of the Lovecraft games." In Summer Service 05 a group roll with no complete success cost everyone five dread, and the players asked where on the sheet to write it. In Walkers 07 it was Zack who asked whether a scene was worth any ("I've got this little marker that hasn't gone up in a long time"; "I don't think my dread has gone up since we nuked a kaiju"), and Andre gave everyone one and the Biz two. Zack prompted him again in Walkers 09: "Remember the dread mechanic if you want to use it." What dread does when it builds up has not been shown. (Summer Service 03, Summer Service 05, Walkers 07, Walkers 09)

Other rulings

  • Two questions on a 12 before the advanced move was unlocked: "Well, you still get two." (Radford Horror 02)
  • A perfect 12 required. "If you roll a perfect 12 on a Sharp check, I will let you modify this thing to go faster. If you don't, you are going to either injure yourself or break it." (Roulet Estate 02)
  • Flat luck checks. Andre rolls a plain 2d6 "as a luck check for you guys" when the question is whether the world cooperates. (Summer Service 04)
  • A secret GM roll for Kurt's bluff against Jan Martense: "That's not how we're doing this one. 'Cause it's more fun that way." (Appalachia 08)
  • Rolling for NPC gear. "I am gonna do something I haven't done before here, and I am going to roll for Freak and his maintenance of the Cessna." (Radford Horror 07)
  • Cocked dice are rerolled. (Walkers 07)
  • Proxy rolling. When a player's dice roller is broken, Andre rolls for them. (Radford Horrors 03)
  • Rolling for casting. Whether Chevy Chase guest-stars in the show was put to the dice. It was a mixed success. (Radford Horror 01)

Notable rolls

Session Roll Result What it changed
Radford Horror 02 Andrew, Investigate a Mystery 12 The sheriff's folder of missing-dog complaints, and the two-questions ruling.
Radford Horror 06 Huell, Manipulate Someone with Tough Not stated First use of his Hoodlum move, knife to the face of the figure in the spaceman suit. Minutes later he falls from the craft for four harm and a broken arm.
Summer Service 03 The Biz, investigating 14, twice Both at the lighthouse; the first finds a bloody fingerprint by the door.
Summer Service 05 Andrew, with his holy weapon 2 The spray takes the attacking dog's head off and passes through Kurt's hand for three harm.
Summer Service 06 Huell, firing the Davy Crockett 7, raised by Luck The shot lands.
Appalachia 08 Huell, Kick Some Ass 10 He puts a bullet through the neck of one of the ape-men.
Appalachia 09 Kurt 11 "Oh, thank god, I was about to be fucking ripped apart by chimp-men."
Appalachia 09 Andrew, Kick Some Ass 10 He severs Big Bob's arm with the pepper spray.
Appalachia 09 Kurt, Kick Some Ass 11 A shotgun blast into Big Bob in the same exchange.
Walkers 01 The Biz, on Letterman 12 with Luck The interview goes his way.
Walkers 04 The Biz, Fixer 12 He knows a guy in Salt Lake City.
Walkers 04 Huell Double sixes, twice The second is a 15.
Walkers 07 Andrew, Cast Out Evil 12, then 14 The first banishes something from the naked intruder; the second, in the gym, drops a horse.
Walkers 08 "Andrew," in the firefight 3 "There's no amount of addition that will save that." The Andrew at the table is the duplicate.
Roulet Estate 01 The Biz Natural 12, for 15 Ezra: "okay, hell yeah."
Roulet Estate 03 Huell, at the pharmacy 13 The gunman goes down.
Radford Horrors 01 The Biz, with Charm +3 11 on the dice "It's going really well." He sells his story to his Russian captors.
Radford Horrors 03 The Biz, Luck spends Successes Boris Yeltsin survives the ambush.
Radford Horrors 04 Andrew, Use Magic 13 Wilbur Whateley wakes.

The one-shot

Non-canon

Philosopher's Fist 3.J/2: Unchainable is a non-canon one-shot and uses a different rule set.

The one-shot runs on a different game, which is not named at the table. Andre calls it "a really wordy game document" and looks rules up as he goes. (Philosopher's Fist)

  • Ratings heard: Danger and Savior.
  • Conditions: Afraid, Angry, Guilty, Insecure, Hopeless.
  • Moves heard: Directly Engage a Threat (rolled with Danger) and a Defend move.
  • Derk (Dante) is "the Bull": as a defender he can "roll Danger instead of Savior." His best roll of the session is a 15.
  • Mirabeth (Rita) has Danger −1 and a move called Symbol of Authority, and refers to one of her moves as "a Legacy one." She is told to mark Insecure after one exchange.

(Philosopher's Fist)

See also