Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU
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I love some WoD, but I'm looking for something a little different.
Werewolves, other shifters, some vampires.. I'm just considering some options.
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I have tentative interest. Am I going to be forced to play a teenager?
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One of the things I appreciate about Teen Wolf as a setting is that sexual orientation is not portrayed as problematic. Having previously played on a game in the Teen Wolf setting where this was not the case (which tbh kind of ruined it for me) I'd like to know your approach on that issue, as it relates to my interest.
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I'd love to see either, but ...yeah. Grownups would be nice.
The Mercyverse would be especially interesting, but you'd have to write the hell out of theme to get people to understand that submissive and Omega werewolves are different things in Brigg's work, neither of them sexual in nature and probably not as suited for their snuggle party and hurt/comfort fic as the players attracted to that kind of character might think.
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Which brings up another issue, as the structure of how werewolves work is different between the two franchises, so which one would be utilized?
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@cobaltasaurus
Not if you don't want to! There are plenty of adults in TW, and it's not going to be focuses on that age group.
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I personally don't care what sexuality a character has. That is not going to be something we would try to regulate. I was aware of a game that incorporated TW theme that was fairly close minded as to sexuality, unlike the show. I will not be allowing that sort of nonsense.
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Mercyverse is definitely for grownups. I would be explaining the way things for pack structure, etc, would be altered.
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@cupcake
That is still a work in progress, atm. Trying to merge the TW structure into the Mercy structure a bit more than the other way around.I may just simplify it.
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When I read Mercyverse I thought of something entirely different. Still would mess with Teen a wolf I think.
image url)http://www.mercywatson.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/book4.jpg -
I think there could be a lot of potential there. The way the Mercy books handle the fae and vampires, for instance, would make for some truly terrifying monsters of the week for a Teen Wolf-style pack.
I think the biggest hurdle is the power difference.
For those who don't follow either the books or the tv show, Mercy werewolves are absolutely terrifying. Not quite as powerful as Anita Blake werewolves, but we're still talking about hulking rage monsters who are functionally immortal, until depression or major structural damage kills them. (Seriously, there are at least three werewolves in the series who are over a thousand years old.)
Teen Wolf werewolves ... get kinda cute/ugly with a minor partial shift and are stronger/faster/regenerate and have super senses, but only the Alphas can manage to go WoD-style crinos or full wolf. In terms of raw power and danger factor, they are a few steps down from Mercy werewolves.
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I like the whole werewolf thing, but I never really did anything that was centered around actual pack structure and all that. I've watched a little Teen Wolf, and I've heard of the Mercy Thompson stuff, but that's about the extent of my knowledge.
It sounds like the types of werewolves in these two worlds would be difficult to integrate without some balancing, unless the question is about doing one setting or the other instead of blending them.
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I have interest if it's adults. I vote for Mercy Thompson as well.
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So I was curious about this Mercy Thompson and looked it up and...I have a question that I'm going to ask in what may appear to be snarky but this is honest and straight-forward: Once you get past the Mary Sue special-snowflake romance-novel fan-service nature of the image of the woman on the cover, is this a decent series?
Okay, that was snarky, but you get what I mean.
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@Thenomain I like them a lot. It's an interesting world.
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I enjoy them quite a bit. The world building is solid and interesting. The world itself is dynamic. Werewolves come out of the closet a couple of books into the series, for instance, and the Fae are theoretically confined to Native American-style reservations.
Her vampires are the anti-sexy. Or rather would appear sexy to people who are screwed up in terms of self-esteem, but even the 'best' of them is slowly killing his or her harem of human followers with no real thought of moving them off a path of self-destruction.
Similarly, her witches are not superheroes with Charmed style powers. They are awful people who do awful things and even the 'good' ones are kinda shady.
Sexuality and gender are interesting topics in the books. Some (maybe most) werewolves were raised in societies that saw gay people as perverts and women as second-class citizens. On the other hand, when the gay guy or girl can beat the shit out of you (and will, in the occasional dominance battle), you either learn to suck it up or move to a hyper-conservative pack. Two of the most interesting supporting characters are strong werewolves who have to work that much harder for their respect because he's gay and she's a woman.
But by the far, the strongest selling point of the books for me is that they provide an example of how a character who spends all her experience in social attributes can be absolutely amazing in play. Mercy never really gets that much stronger, thus far. She learns some self-defense and how to shoot, but her main strength is in networking and making allies.
Also, the character on the covers does not reflect the character as written, according to the author herself, who noted that her contract doesn't give her a final say in the cover art. Mercy is a short, hippy, noticeably Native American-blooded character (in terms of features and skin tone) with less than giant tits and one small tattoo in a place nobody but her husband usually gets to see.
She is not 'roller derby Indian Barbie', as presented on the covers.
The weakest parts of the series are Mercy's quest to figure out (and then understand) her own heritage as a coyote shifter without most of the cool superpowers werewolves get and the fact that the author relies a little too heavily on coincidence in her stories. Not ridiculously so, but more than she'd have to if she plotted them a bit more tightly.
Also, none of the 'old guy' club of werewolves are particularly good people. Don't read these books if you have to like the authority figures and loved ones of a protagonist. Mercy has blinders on, because she was raised by Bran and his sons, but the older werewolves are total dicks to everybody except the two point of view women of the interlocking sets of novels. (The Mercy books and the Omega books both share the same supporting cast and world.)
More than you wanted to know, but I seriously enjoy these books, so I gush a little.
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@bad-at-lurking said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
More than you wanted to know, but I seriously enjoy these books, so I gush a little.
This makes you a positive advocate, and someone who would find good things in a Mu* of this stripe, so gush away!
I am still going to make fun of her, er, wolf paw tattoo, though. Is that some kind of new thing to indicate that you’re, er, smooth down there?
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos -
@thenomain said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
@bad-at-lurking said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
More than you wanted to know, but I seriously enjoy these books, so I gush a little.
This makes you a positive advocate, and someone who would find good things in a Mu* of this stripe, so gush away!
I am still going to make fun of her, er, wolf paw tattoo, though. Is that some kind of new thing to indicate that you’re, er, smooth down there?
If it is, wouldn't we have seen it popping up on the rainbow haired sex pixies on MUs by now?
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@bad-at-lurking said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
@thenomain said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
@bad-at-lurking said in Interest check - Teen Wolf/Mercy Thompson MU:
More than you wanted to know, but I seriously enjoy these books, so I gush a little.
This makes you a positive advocate, and someone who would find good things in a Mu* of this stripe, so gush away!
I am still going to make fun of her, er, wolf paw tattoo, though. Is that some kind of new thing to indicate that you’re, er, smooth down there?
If it is, wouldn't we have seen it popping up on the rainbow haired sex pixies on MUs by now?
Well we will now.
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@thenomain It's the trend right now in adult Urban Fantasy covers; the protagonist standing / sitting / crouching in some probably dramatic or action pose. Sometimes they will have another person on the cover, or an animal if they are associated with it in some way, ad very rarely actually tell you anything about what the story is about.
You know, the whole don't judge a book by it's cover thing.
