Adventure Calendar 202511:
Beauty And The Beast
Someone enters a mysterious isolated palace under some kind of curse due to a breaking of the rules of hospitality, and only true love can break it. But since the cursed royal is a guy he’s an active participant in the story, but at least the female lead gets some things to do as well.
Still, as a fairytale romance it has that advantage that both of the characters involved are active.
Beauty And The Beast has a seemingly monstrous kidnapper turn out not to be so bad after all and win the heart of his victim, which is not as good a message as the one about looking past appearances to judge people.
The story dates back to 1740, a novella by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, though of course characters cursed to be monsters and possible ways out go back further - the Greek gods do this to people who vaguely bother them all the time. It includes Beauty being a secret princess and dreaming of the prince in human form, which is usually dropped in later versions starting just a few years later.
The soulful monster and the one person who understand them is a classic motif. it often works visually by having the Beast be dashing in his own way so he audience can root for the couple.
I’ve written about
the loose adaptation for series TV before where Vincent isn’t cursed but just mysteriously beastly, and saves Catherine rather than forcing her to stay at his palace, putting them in a better starting position for them to become close. The secret community under New York provides more episode sources than Vincent, but he stays the defining image of the show even after Catherine leaves.
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| KISS HIM YOU FOOL! |
The Disney version (released just over a year after the end of the show, so I think of them together) establishes the curse at the start, in a new version also tied to the rules of hospitality, in a super harsh way. It also adds an outside villain so the Beast has someone to fight like fellow X-Man Wolverine.
Of course there are also monsters you can love without them changing into regular dull humans. Guillermo del Toro has a few.
Romance story games cover this ground most directly. Borrowing some GMing advice of old, you can tell a romantic story without any of the PCs being in love if they help it along - getting the young couple out of danger, that kind of thing.
Would that work here? Maybe if the PCs are animated crockery.
Aside from those of course we have curses and misunderstood monsters and the like all over fantasy.
Fantasy and horror PCs could certainly find themselves in a mysterious palace with a strange host. Could they resist taking something more than is freely offered?
In a game with a suitable Weird Level, one or more of the PCs could be transformed and the others have to break the curse by recognising them.
Maybe slightly too late, as when Buffy only recognises Giles after stabbing him in A New Man.
Love And Monsters
Can the PCs help a couple escape the disapproving family of one member, and the angry mob chasing the other?
