Goto [ Index ]

Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot

This is a review of Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: The Roleplaying Game, a wacky cool 64 page RPG written by Chad Underkoffler, published under the Atomic Sock Monkey banner, and currently available as a PDF from RPGnow for $8.00.

Target Audience: Those who are looking for something fun, easy to play, and without a lot of pretense. Though this could also be prescribed by mental health professionals for those who take gaming too seriously. No, really, if you’re the kind of person that’s out there coming up with banal ten page essays chock full of silly neologisms to explain your most recent theory about why every published game on the market today is garbage because only your view of what a game is supposed to be is right then this game is for you. Why? Because it’s all about gaming, the way gaming is supposed to be: actually playing the game and having fun. If you aren’t interested in actually playing the game or having fun then stop reading this review. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 quatloos. This game is probably not for you.

Rating: 9 out of 10 golden apples. (Graded for uniqueness of concept and wit.)

The very first thing I thought when this game entered my review queue was: That’s an awfully long title. Second, after flipping through this pro-stick figure document, I found myself thinking, with a wry chuckle: zany is as zany does. Beyond that I think my remarks below pretty much speak for themselves. Enjoy.

Summary

This game is simply incredible. It takes what on the surface sounds like an absurdity wrapped in offhanded tongue-n-cheek frivolity and flies it to the moon. All you need to do is take one look at the stick figure illustrations to know this is not your usual bland and boring bit of regurgitated D&D fantasy fluff.

The Setting: A paraphrase can not possibly capture the wide-eyed gonzo awesomeness that this game conveys in statements like, “Monkeys, Ninjas, Pirates, and Robots roam the streets, stealing sweet, sweet uranium, challenging each other for their Mojo, and - sometimes - banding together to defend the Earth from Alien invaders.” Uranium? Mojo? Alien invaders? What the (bleep)!

MNPR- hereafter referred to as Monnipir- is essentially “a cartoony sort of world ... this is a universe where you just hope the shocks on your Suspension of Disbelief don't give out.” There is no easy way to summarize the setting. It’s at once a spoof of role-playing games and science fiction genre tropes. Yet, at times, it doesn’t seem to be either. You simply have to read this game for yourself; even then you may not believe what your eyes are seeing.

Game Mechanics: Monnipir uses something called the “Prose Descriptive Qualities” (PDQ) that looks for all intents, at least to me, like a variant of Fudge. Now I have nothing against Fudge, per se, but as I’ve stated in a previous review: “I just could not move myself to care enough to sit down and force myself to learn this system no matter how many times I tried.” So that‘s going to be a black mark here.

In short there are only two core mechanics here that really matter. The first is the attribute underlying the entire game, Mojo. And what is this mysterious thing called Mojo? Brace yourselves: “Mojo is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. It is the go-juice of champions <…> It is luck, skill, knowledge, trickery, willpower, grit, fame, honor, and moxie.” With a write-up like that you just know it has to be at the core of the game, and it is. Characters gain Mojo in two ways, by playing up their archetype, and by fighting other characters to take their Mojo. Sweet.

Second after Mojo in import in Monnipir is Task Resolution. Task Resolution in Monnipir is broken down into three main categories of actions: simple, complicated, or conflict. What this involves is the GM assigning a Difficulty Rank (DR) against which a character’s QR (Quality Rank) is compared, where QR represents the numerical value in a skill or ability, with the higher numerical value indicating relative success or failure. As with Fudge these numerical values can range from positive to negative values so if you are familiar with that rules system this one should be easy to follow?

Character Creation: Character creation is fairly straightforward: 1. Pick a character type; 2. Determine a Goal; 3. Pick a Name; 4. Determine character Qualities; 5. Roll a character’s Mojo; and 6. Fill out their Challenge Record. Since Monnipir has five main characters in the game- Monkeys, Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, and Aliens- and you can’t play Aliens, unless the GM decides otherwise, that right there should tell you something. I’m not sure what, but then consider this: “Aliens like to fly around in their saucers, freak the mundanes, mutilate farm animals, make crop circles (really, more akin to teenagers doing donuts in the yard with their daddy's Camaro than any sort of communication), and probe the hell out of people. … In general, Aliens hate everybody.” Guess that explains Michael Moore. *groan*

The only real mechanics involved with character creation are assigning Ranks to Qualities and rolling a D6 and then doing some quick division hoodoo voodoo to determine a character‘s starting Mojo. It’s so simple that to write it up here would almost be to give the game away, and that wouldn’t be very fair to the author, now would it?

This has been a conundrum. Not because the rules are dense, but because I was not sure what tack would be best to take in writing this review. Monnipir is a game that looks like someone sat down one day and decided, for lack of anything better to do, like waste time attempting to attain the next level in Super Zelda Vampire Busters Extreme, to write a role-playing game. But obviously this person wasn’t told about all the years of angst and research and frustration and pain that most game author’s are supposed to go through. I mean that is what you’re supposed to do, right?

Let me just take this moment, on behalf of toiling game designers everywhere to ask, who do you think you are Mr. Underkoffler? How dare you come along and just sit down and write a work of sublime humor using stick figure illustrations! Don’t you know you’re supposed to bankrupt yourself acquiring a handful of kewl illustrations from overpaid artists with diva attitudes? Didn’t anyone tell you that you’re supposed to include flow charts about dice roll ratios and other Gygaxisms in your RPG? I mean, really, are you TRYING to make the rest of us look bad by producing a parody game that not only looks like it was a mess load of fun to write but also is entertaining to read?

If so you did a darn fine job! Keep on trucking. Don’t let the bedbugs bite. And don’t forget what your mother told you about wearing clean underwear.

Negatives: This is a very different game that took several aborted attempts to write a review for. Ok, that’s not really a negative about the game so much as my feeble attempt to include a bit of cathartic commentary by way of padding out the review, but then again there’s really not much to say about the game that is overtly negative. Oh, sure, I didn’t care much for the system when I first glanced at it. But that‘s largely because the system uses negative values. I’ve never really liked systems that use negative values. Beyond that how can anyone find fault with a tongue-n-cheek game that uses stick figure illustrations? Oh, yeah, aside from that whole title longer than A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell thing. Oy!

How about officially shortening it to something like. . . MonNiPiR? Yeah. Monnipir! What do you mean that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? Hmph.

Positives: The game doesn’t appear to be burdened with Gygaxisms or otherwise weighed down with baggage obviously dragged in from other game systems. Also the author used the word “penumbra” as an adjective in a sentence referring to game mechanics. You have to give kudos to the guy for that!

Rumors: Ok this isn’t so much a rumor as it is a bit of wishful thinking but I think Atomic Sock Monkey could do worse than applying their brand of gonzo fun humor to putting out a John Titor the RPG. For those who don’t know who that is do a Google search. Hilarity should ensue.

Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.