[Badge and Gun]

Looks good.

The one change I would make is to Badge and Gun, so that it just works, e.g.:

"You're very good at convincing people you have every right to be there, poking your nose into this business. Civilians just believe you are who you say you are, until they get definite evidence you aren't."

Cool, I like the Person of Interest style take on it!

If you seem to be rolling moves too often, or falling back to act under pressure in particular, one thing to aim for is avoiding rolling moves by using Keeper moves for those situations.

Definitely. I recommend 3 normally.

Oh, that's a pretty nifty technique. Yep, in that case you should be fine!

Would I be frustrated? Not really.

For the rest, here's what I've found running convention games.

Firstly, restricting the playbooks will be fine. It's usually better than just having all of them available for speeding things up.

I'm not sure that choosing stats in advance will save much time. In my experience it is picking moves that people seem to take the most time on. I don't think you need to worry about balance as such - having one hunter good at a different rating won't necessarily provide it, either. That said, picking them as you plan to won't cause any problems!

In terms of niche protection, the playbooks should provide that via the moves available without needing to push the stats one way or the other.

For history, I suspect managing the numbers of connections will increase the time to sort it out by at least as much as you will save by reducing it. Again, this is something that I've found goes pretty quickly in play, with a few exceptions when people get stuck choosing a connection to a particular hunter.

To keep character generation going quickly I like to walk around the table, that way you can see if anyone is stuck or confused and help them out.

Also, I constantly forget to set highlights once the history is done, so remember that! That might just be me - I'm usually keen to get started on the mystery by then.

I just made a G+ community for Monster of the Week.

Come join us if you want to chat about your games there.

Derkenfire, I've emailed you details for the action scientist (to the email you have attached to your account here).

I wouldn't worry about rapid level-ups, it's supposed to work that way (there's no per-scene restriction in MotW). It might be a sign you should be varying your moves a bit more, rather than calling for rolls, but that's something you can adjust to taste.

You paid me for a PDF copy of Monster of the Week, but the email address attached to your paypal account doesn't work!

If you can get in touch with a valid email, I'll send you the PDF! Otherwise, I'll refund the purchase in a week or so.

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Interesting! I will also be watching your progress - I'd love an AW-powered Roman game.

There's no little people here, I'm just another gamer!

Cool write-up!

I wouldn't worry too much about moves short-circuiting a situation - that's what they're for, after all. Don't think too much about what you think will happen, just set up the situation and how to deal with it.

Also, remember that just because the Professional might have some kind of authority, the local police might not like being overruled! Evacuation is not going to provide an easy out, either, unless the hunters had some plan for detecting the vampire pretending to be just another shopper.

You could just leave that unstated, let each group decide if their Mundane counts or not (for that matter, a Snoop might be a "civilian" too).

Yes, I think that's a better way to do rotes. The Hex could even create a rote off a partial success or missed spell cast, if they want to have that happen again.

Yes, it's working now. Thanks!

The playbook looks good to me: I like the idea of rote spells in particular. Maybe "ritual robes or vestments" could be another potential requirement? I'm not sure that the need to roll each cast is best - perhaps you could have a roll (of +Sharp?) to create the spell and that sets the effects right there - anytime afterwards it could be cast without a roll. Except that might be a bit easy. Needs a bit of thought, and probably a trial in play.

I think there could be a temptation of "secret knowledge" as well.

I would add to "force of will" that the luck spend can stand in for big magic requirements on a one-for-one basis, too. That's insanely powerful, but luck is intended to be a big deal.

I like the apotheosis and synthesis advanced moves, too. Apotheosis is a little complicated but the basic idea is very good and I look forward to a Hex going crazy with it.

Overall, very nice. I'll probably take it along next time I'm running a game to see if anyone wants to try it out.

Note: your link gives me a "you need permission to see this" message.

Without seeing the draft yet, I'd say the concept has enough different from the Spooky to work. There might also be a bit of overlap with the Expert (especially one with "dark past").