Run Away

I don’t think I have a whole lot to say about Run Away but it’s probably my favourite move in the game! I think it’s really unique among pbta games, which generally don’t have an escape move – or I guess, encode it into an information-gathering move as the picklist option ‘what’s my best way out’. But we’re teenage monsters in terrible trouble, of course we wanna run away!

The text draws our attention to the way this move and Lash Out Physically both use the Volatile stat. I some games would make you good either at fighting or running away (not that a good Lash Out Physically makes you good at fighting), here violence and escape are the same thing. Alder calls this ‘fight-or-flight instincts’, and maybe there’s something interesting there: the moves start with intentions (to turn someone on, shut someone down, keep your cool) then shift to instincts which really are actions (to lash out physically, to run away). That’s not exactly right because I talked about how Turn Someone On isn’t about intention/agency, but the move is named for a moment of intent rather than action (Turn Someone On comes before fucking, Lash Out Physically hits directly).

I am trying to use the word ‘interesting’ less in these posts but I just find all this so interesting! It’s interesting the way a given designer assigns moves variously to moments of intention or action. (Sure, it’s a false distinction, or at least a spectrum. But a useful heuristic?) I often find myself thinking about alternative choices Alder could have made, and I wonder if those are worth speculating about? What if Run Away was just an option on a hit when you Kept Your Cool, say? What if harming someone was just an option when you Shut Someone Down?

Making them their own moves does a series of things in MH; it focuses attention on them, it mechanically distinguishes characters who are good at particular things (i.e., being good at Shutting Someone Down does not make you good at Lashing Out Physically), it lets you offer a playbook move that allows a character to roll something with a better stat. Those are probably/hopefully in decreasing order of importance. Are there other reasons?

Again, a stunning and flavourful picklist. “You run into something worse” is perfect; if I played Monsterhearts, I would constantly be angling for opportunities to roll this move so I could run into something worse. Yes, I am that kind of player. It’s always incredible to me when I’m MCing MH and someone rolls a 7-9 on this move and doesn’t choose something worse. (Yes, this also means I have only MCed and never played MH. Is that true? Maybe I am forgetting a game somewhere.)

Off topic; I am at the airport right now and I realised I could type this up before my flight boards. It’s just a short holiday to Sydney but there’s kind of an unavoidable thematic resonance now I’ve stopped to think about it. If I roll a 7-9 running away from Melbourne, please let me make a big scene and not run into something worse. Oh, actually considering my disorganised packing it will surely be ‘leave something behind’.