Game combines miniatures with roleplaying

By MICHAEL ERB

www.newsandsentinel.com

PARKERSBURG - A great roar echoes across the tropical landscape. The very ground beneath your feet trembles as 100-foot-tall monsters battle one another with tooth, claw, tentacle and fiery breath.

Welcome to the world of "Monster Island."

"Monster Island: The Game of Giant Monster Combat" is a miniatures/roleplaying game written by Bruce Harlick and Patrick Sweeney and published by Firefly Games.

In “Monster Island” players take on the role of a kaiju, the Japanese term for a giant-sized monster, trapped on the human-designed Monster Island. There, contained by a giant force field, the kaiju fight while humanity studies them, intent on finding a way to eventually cure or destroy them.

The game seeks to recreate the feel of the old rubber-suit monster movies from the 1950s to present day. Players choose origins for their monsters, which range from the classic irradiated creature to something from outer space to a lost species of dinosaur. The book gives more than a dozen sample kaiju that are ready for any game, and they all pay homage to the great creatures and movies of the genre over the past 50+ years.

Characters… I mean monsters… are built using a point system, with each kaiju totaling 30 points. Players purchase stats - Strength, Reflexes, Health and Mind - to show how strong, fast, durable and smart your monster is compared to other beasts. Other stats, such as Toughness (the monster’s ability to resist damage), Evade (how hard the creature is to hit) and Movement are calculated using the creature’s main stats, and play a major role in combat.

With such a limited number of points to spend, most monsters come out fairly similar to one another, at least stat-wise. Where the kaiju differ is in their powers, different movement or attack forms unique to that creature. There are only a handful of special abilities to choose from, and they vary in point cost according to power level and usefulness, but the game does a very good job of covering most of the quirky powers seen in the genre. From flight to tentacles, extra heads to breath weapons, the special abilities really allow you to design a monster that suits your play style. However, with few points to spend, most monsters will end up with three or less special abilities.

The second book in the Monster Island series, “Escape from Monster Island,” adds additional abilities for your kaiju and gives rules for creating and playing human armies. It also expands on the rules for mobs – groups of people trying to flee from the path of the monsters - and how to have a kaiju run loose in a major city. It is a nice addition to the game and a much needed one, as many of the classic giant-monster movies revolve around humanity’s attempt to contain and destroy monsters such as Godzilla, Mothra and King Kong.

Combat in “Monster Island” is resolved by rolling several six-sided dice. Monsters can dodge attacks using Reflex and Evade, but as most giant monsters aren’t known for their grace (as the book points out, they are just guys in rubber monster suits after all) most attacks either are resisted through Toughness or cause damage. As monsters take damage, they loose Health, and the first critter to loose all its health loses the fight. The book provides a variety of special maneuvers for monsters, such as charging, throwing items or grappling, so the kaiju have a surprising numbers of options to play with.

Combat is simple, fast a fun. Most giant monster matches don’t last very long, but it is almost impossible to “kill” a kaiju, meaning they can come back again and again. A couple of players could sit down, design monsters and fight them within under an hour. Add more monsters, armies and storylines, and you can make for a longer game or campaign.

You can use any kind of toy or miniature or even tokens or cardboard/paper pieces to represent your monsters. The game book gives a handful of cardstock miniatures that can be cut out and used to represent the sample kaiju or new creations. It is nice to have a game where you can come to the table with high quality miniatures or stuffed animals and still have the same basic and fun game experience.

My favorite part of the book actually has little to do with the game itself. Throughout the text and at the beginning of every section are quotes from various monster movies, and half the fun is in the ridiculous nature of the genre. Several times I laughed out loud at how perfect a quote was or while remembering the movie it came from.

But even if you aren’t a fan of giant-monster movies, this is a great game to have. You can pick up print copies of both “Monster Island” and “Escape from Monster Island” at Firefly Games Web site as a package deal for relatively cheap, and there are several other supplements that can be purchased online either as print products or as .PDF files.

Visit www.firefly-games.com/catalog/ for more information on “Monster Island,” its supplements and other Firefly Games products. For more of my review of “Monster Island” and some sample monsters, visit my blog at http://merb101.livejournal.com.

Contact Michael Erb at merb101@gmail.com.

Please help support RPGnet by purchasing the following (probably) related items through DriveThruRPG.