There’s an old niche RPG I’m fond of, Monsters and Other Childish Things by Greg Stolze, which simplifies rules from Godlike and Wild Talents to imagine a world where kids and their out-of-control imaginary friends solve problems.
Preamble
To briefly summarize MaOCT:
- You are a kid (probably, you could do an adult game where every PC is an emotionally-stunted manchild and get similar results.)
- You have a monster (probably, one of the extra books depicts rules for “Weird Kids” with monstrous powers instead of monstrous companions.)
- You need to keep your monster in check by making sure they aren’t seen, they aren’t eating people, and they aren’t ruining your life.
- Your monster keeps you safe from harm with fire breath, interdimensional portals, copious amounts of tentacles, etc.
- You can determine what your monster acts like, what it enjoys, etc., but the GM controls it when it’s interacting with you or your peers.
- Whereas Godlike and Wild Talents allow PCs to be very exceptionally good at combat, MaOCT humans are squishy and awful, and monsters are good at mindless savagery but run into complications as their kid gets emotionally hurt (they take real physical damage), they get hurt (die penalties), or as their kid is threatened (ignoring orders.)
There’s an obvious setup for a kid and their monster, and for a Weird Kid who has no monster, but what if you were to play as a Lonely Monster? What goals does such a character need to pursue?
To summarize a human’s gameplay loop and advancement:
- You should expect 1 to 3 EXP per session.
- Improving a stat costs 3 EXP, giving you a +1d bonus to a wide category of rolls and +1 effective HP.
- Improving a skill costs 1 EXP, giving you a +1d bonus to a narrow category of rolls. This die can’t be lost to damage.
- Improving a relationship costs 2 EXP, giving you a floating +1d you can gamble on any roll with decent justification, or use to soup up your monster.
- Weird Kids can improve their supernatural abilities by gaining Weird Relationship dice, which are only gained by permanently losing a normal Relationship die.
- If you have a monster, you can spend EXP at a rate of 5:1 to give it dice, Qualities, and Extras.
- If your monster beats another monster into submission through any means, it bites a big chunk out of them, taking…
- one die from any of the victim’s body parts (inflicting a Scar) ― this die can be transferred to the kid, if desired, making them smarter, faster, stronger because their buddy happened to kick another monster’s ass.
- if they have 3 or more hit locations that are completely broken, one source of relationship dice from them ― your monster doesn’t pay penalties related to losing these relationship dice, but you also can’t restore these dice when you lose them.
MaOCT also provides the following advice to GMs:
- Relationships are a good means of generating conflict, especially between players.
- Characters should be presented with challenges related to their abilities so that they have the chance to shine.
- If you need to ad-lib a quick NPC, you can give them a stat based on their overall potency and a few skills relevant to things they do.
- Children experience a very different reality compared to adults: cliques, clubs, friends, fears, wonders, the constant change that comes with growing up… and also “relationship conflict and bitchin’ monster fights”.
- “Kids are powerless”.
- “The back yard is full of adventure”.
- “What other people think really, really matters when you’re a kid.”
- “When mom says it doesn’t matter what people think about you, she’s lying to save your feelings.”
- “School is a microcosm of the whole of human society.”
- “Things are changing crazy fast, and from year to year there’s no telling what’s coming next.”
- “Friends grow apart, parents become human, old toys are forgotten.”
However, what’s a monster to do without an unbreakable human bond to motivate them? Much of MaOCT’s content is written with the presumption that monster protagonists have human counterparts. Yet, there’s still a kind of romance in a horrible, soft-hearted monster navigating a world that doesn’t know it exists, and finding common ground with the dregs of humanity (psychics, mutants, conspiracy theorists, the Men in Black, etc.)
Show Me the Goods
This set of houserules allows players to command “Lonely Monster” characters who seek human and monster companionship while also existing as a kind of counterpart to Weird Kids. While they don’t experience the same reality that children do in MaOCT, a monster still seeks to bond with others, protect itself emotionally, experience the wider world, and throw its weight around without attracting unwanted attention.
- A Lonely Monster player retains full control of their character, but various rules are used to encourage specific behaviors.
- A Lonely Monster will want to start with at least one Quality that enables them to hide their monstrous nature while also speaking with humans for long stretches of time and interacting with the physical world in significant ways, but this isn’t a requirement, and a relationship with a (preferably friendly) human will allow them to unlock this capability later.
- This doesn’t have to mean disguising yourself as human, it just needs to be a way for you to sustain a disguise while affecting the world around you in major ways.
- Remember that in MaOCT, every monster is assumed to have A Way to Hide (shrinking, invisibility, slipping into an adjacent physical dimension, disguising as a mundane animal or object).
- This “passive” disguise is not effective against people such as psychics, crazies, stoners, the very young and very old, etc., and it also is ineffective when you perform actions that require dice rolls (or those that cause audiovisual effects impossible to pass off as coincidence.)
- Emotional damage affects you as if it were damage from a monster attack.
- Lonely Monsters buy Relationship dice at the normal rate of 2 EXP.
- Lonely Monsters gain a Relationship die for free every time a Weird Kid takes a Weird Relationship die related to them.
- The Lonely Monster doesn’t have to assign their new Relationship die to the associated Weird Kid.
- Lonely Monsters buy Monster dice (or Extras or Qualities) at the normal rate of 5 EXP.
- Lonely Monsters absorb dice from defeated monsters as normal.
- Lonely Monsters gain no experience or dice benefits from defeating or slaying humans, except when allowed by the GM.
- Lonely Monsters track two additional resources: Human Karma and Monster Karma.
- Actions that specifically advantage monsters (breaking down seals and other anti-monster objects) award Monster Karma.
- Actions especially monstrous in nature (the torturous murder or consumption of a human) award Monster Karma.
- Actions that specifically advantage humans (providing quality aid or protection to a human) award Human Karma.
- Actions especially human in nature (going to an office to file out a job application) award Human Karma.
- Antisocial acts remove Monster Karma or Human Karma as appropriate. An action may affect both kinds of Karma at once (defeating a monster for the specific purpose of protecting a human is a gain of Human Karma and a loss of Monster Karma.)
- You can’t be reduced below 0 Karma of either type except after particularly heinous acts or a long pattern of bad behavior.
- Slaughtering a human family may inflict negative Human Karma.
- Burning down a haunted house may inflict negative Monster Karma.
- Karma may be spent as if it were Experience, with the following conditions:
- Monster Karma can’t buy additional Qualities except when allowed by the GM. Hanging out with other monsters will not give you the ability to hover.
- Human Karma can’t buy Extras or Dice except when allowed by the GM, but can buy Qualities appropriate to things your human contacts do (including basic Skills that all humans have access to), or Qualities appropriate for hiding yourself among humans. Sympathy or antipathy against an ESPer will make you good at card games, but won’t affect your natural capabilities.
- Monster Karma can only buy relationships with other monsters, or Weird Kids.
- Human Karma can only buy relationships with humans, or Weird Kids.
The Method Behind the Madness
One particular little wrinkle behind monster gameplay is that they are very slow to experience character advancement. Human characters can spend every last point of Experience with relative immediacy (including actual immediacy if the GM rules they’re doing cool kung-fu training shit mid-session), and outside of combat gets more mileage out of every purchase.
Humans can also make contested rolls that cause them to immediately beat a monster attempting an action they don’t have a specific Quality for (it’s trivial to outrun a monster that has no legs.)
In all, a monster with no kid to hold it back is a force to be reckoned with in combat, between their natural resistance to mundane damage (human weapons, for example), ability to buy resistance and immunity to extraordinary damage, and a reduced need to act defensively, but they also miss out on opportunities to get advice and protection from a closely-bonded human.
Thus, I find that it’s interesting to quantify a Lonely Monster’s relations to humanity and monster-kind in a way where combat and social/investigative investments come at different costs. An endlessly loving teddy bear monster with a handful of close human friends can pick up a wealth of social and investigation abilities, but will need to murk other monsters to get significant combat progression.
In this way, a Lonely Monster, depending on their Karma relations, experiences a problem: one that’s overly friendly with humans may be ill-equipped to defend their loved ones from evildoers, one that’s overly friendly with monsters may find it harder to deal with unwanted attention or achieve specific goals that require proximity to humans.
Of course, the power of friendship is mighty indeed, that’s a theme that’s present in all versions of MaOCT, but that might be even more important for a monster who’s simultaneously at odds with their species and unable to show themselves before most humans.