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As for those who don’t know if the game is yet for you, go here. The blurb on that page will give you an impression of whether MaoCT will be your sort of fun than anything I can do myself.
Now, onto actual details of the product. I know. I’m as shocked as you are.
A New Animal.
The biggest difference between the two editions is size and richness. The first edition of MaoCT clocked in at 48 pages and didn’t feel scanty because of the content. This new edition comes in at about 180, and those pages are filled with art that completely fits the tenor of the beast: kids drawings fill the book, along with some beautifully atmospheric images from Robert Mansperger. The design makes it look like a ring-bound school book, which is perfect, and it’s also filled with very cool microfiction so as to illustrate the ongoing world of kids and their monsters.
This means that if you liked 1st Edition, or were tempted by 1st Edition, then this is exactly what you wanted before but weighed down by voluptuous sacks of raw awesome, encrusted with crystallised Sex-Concentrate.
For those who aren’t familiar with the core concept, I’ll boil it down thus: Imagine Calvin and Hobbes, except Hobbes is also a Lovecraftian reflection of universal entropy – who nonetheless still has a thing for the ladies.
Players are children, with a wide playable age-range and suggested seeds for age-level, who have an imaginary friend who isn’t quite as imaginary as their family and friends would like.
The Mechanics
How to describe the rules system changes… The rules system is not fundamentally changed from the variant of the One Roll Engine (ORE) used in the 1st Edition - but it is explained in a vast amount more depth. The 1st Edition was working on the principle that you’d probably need NEMESIS or Wild Talents to expand from, and it simply wasn’t true. The 1st Edition stood on its own – but wasn’t self-confident about it and needed a hug.
A hug that, clearly, it has received. The Completely Monstrous Edition is soaring towards being my recommended book for introducing people to how the One Roll Engine works, because of the sheer clarity and ease-of-comprehension to be found in the writing. Mr. Baugh and the rest of the Arc Dream crew are polishing and honing their own comprehension and capacity to articulate the One Roll Engine as more and more games are released that use (and tweak!) its rules, and it’s really starting to show. GODLIKE was a damned good game, but it’s amazing to see the extent that the underlying ORE has been polished since then, despite the fundamental core mechanics remaining unchanged. There are many examples where there was rules confusion in earlier games regarding things like Dodging or Defensive Powers, where the rules here are perfectly elegant. It’s lovely to behold.
For anyone unfamiliar with the ORE, the basic gist is that it’s a Stat + Skill system, rolling 1 d10 per point in either Stat or Skill, and with a maximum of 10 dice being rolled at once. You look for matching numbers: The higher the number, the better you do; the more numbers in the match, the faster you achieve the result. As such, what match is better is going to depend on circumstance. Two matches of ten (2X10) in a footrace is going to be in perfect athletic form… but still be beaten out by the guy with 3X1 who ran like an undignified burning goose.
The Completely Monstrous Edition also adds a Botch mechanic to the ORE, for those that want it: If you fail to get a match in a roll, and all numbers you rolled are 5 or lower, then something Especially Exciting happens.
Basically, all mechanics are clear, in more detail than the 1st Edition, and entertainingly written. I loves em.
There is even, and I am mentally hugging it now, a One Roll Conflict generator, which is a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. It has examples of how everything fits together, along with how that can be interpreted in context. Example:
2x7, a casual academic entanglement: Madison’s Parental Units were quite suspicious of Tommy’s last prize-winning science project, an experiment involving a rare species of large Venus flytrap (wink-wink, nudge nudge). They think Tommy didn’t do his own work, and so robbed Madison of her transcript-building science- fair win. They have hired a private investigator to investigate Tommy, thinking that if the flytrap were an endangered species, then Tommy’s project would be disqualified. Problem is, poking into Flytrap Joe’s business is likely to make you the endangered species.
And lets not forget the One Roll Monster generator…
The Tone.
Both books have an entertaining narrative voice, which I’m extremely pleased to find has been continued and actually deepened into the Completely Monstrous Edition. Block being described as “Using a thing to stop a thing hitting you in the thing,” returns, for example, and that also serves as a good guide to the game’s Awesome: it’s fun. The writers had fun making it, playtesting it, and editing it. You know intellectually that this was a labour of love, but what’s even more evident is the joy and mayhem that went into the production. How can you not love a game that has sidebars entitled “Unique and Special Snowflakes,” and headings such as “Great, Now I’m on Fire”?
The biggest difference in the Completely Monstrous Edition is how much time is spent talking through What Can Be Done in the game, so as to fix one issue that was discussed in 1st Edition: The dreaded syndrome of “This looks awesome, but what do I do with it?”
There’s a whole GM section entitled “The Janitor’s Closet” that goes through the different possible themes of the game, and how you can use them to build up campaigns. A lot of this can be summarised in this wonderful fiction-snippet:
“What did you do today?”
“We found buried pirate treasure, but it was cursed, and then there were zombies, but Gnarlytoes ate them, and then we had icecream at Judy’s house.”
“It sounds like you were very busy today. I hope you have some room left for dinner!”
Mr. Baugh knows kids. More importantly still, he remembers being one.
Monsters and Other Childish Things felt closer to what oWod Changeling was trying to be at times than Changeling itself managed to be, and this edition just fleshes out that beautiful element and gives you more tools to bring the game to life.
There is even a sample campaign called “What Did You Get for Christmas?” which seems great for tying together many of the major game themes, and introducing the PCs to the game while providing opportunities for Horrible Antagonists to shine.
Conclusions
I normally write huge long reviews. It’s not something that happened on purpose, but normally I just rant about all the awesome things that the book contains. This case is a little different, in part because I’ve reviewed the 1st Edition before.
The Completely Monstrous Edition contains everything from the 1st Edition, but polished up and added to with a vast amount of well-written greatness. It’s a standalone book where the 1st Edition had low self-esteem on that score, confident and proud of itself.
I was reading through the PDF and writing the review, and was in real danger of either repeating myself or saying “Seriously, just buy the book.” Which I try to avoid. I’ve been trying to avoid giving 5 by 5 reviews and to be stricter, but the 1st Edition honestly earned a 5 for Style, and a 4 for Substance. The Completely Monstrous Edition contains all the 1st Edition’s Style, and blows its Substance out of the water. 5 by 5 it is.
We are essentially dealing with a similar analogy to the difference between Unknown Armies 1st Edition to UA 2nd Ed: the first one contains much the same awesome, but the second edition polishes everything, makes it self contained, and takes the potential found in the 1st edition and gets all transcendant with it, without even meaning to show off.
In short, as I said at the beginning, if you liked the 1st Edition or were tempted by it, I cannot recommend this Product and/or Service enough. I would even specifically recommend its purchase to those who have the 1st Edition, which is not normally something I’d do. My justification is: I think you’ll enjoy it.
Now I think I’m in real danger of turning people off by seeming unbalanced, which I’ve been worried about the whole time. Ah well – I think that’s partly due to the fact I’ve already reviewed the 1st Edition, which means my framework is hard to move from “Just like that, but even AWESOMER.”
I cannot wait to play this game. I cannot wait to run this game, and I already know from experience that simply showing them the book is going to get more volunteers than I can handle.
As an additional bonus, Monsters and Other Childish Things is its own gameline, with new products scheduled to come out in coming months, such as the Candlewick Manor campaign book. It's a great setting, a great system, and it's just getting started.
- The Unshaven.
