Review of Curriculum of Conspiracy

Goto [ Index ]

In Short

Curriculum of Conspiracy is a small, charming adventure supplement for Monsters and Other Childish Things that focuses on the one place the protagonists will face their greatest challenges – school. If you want school maps, schedules, and teachers that really are evil for your Monsters game then Curriculum is an excellent choice.

The Good: The support material, such as school schedules and maps, is very helpful especially if you’re a little foggy on what middle school was like. The NPCs are interesting and believable, the setting setup works great, and the included adventure has a lot of good ideas.

The Bad: While I always like to try and provide some contrast, I can’t find anything notably negative about the product. I think it has too much white space, but that’s a pretty minor gripe considering the quality of the product overall. Be sure that you’re picking Curriculum up because you want support for adventures focused around a school and not for additional content for some other game focus.

The Physical Thing

For $9.99 this 56 page softcover showcases good production values, though it isn’t without a notable flaw. The writing and editing are wonderful, and the art is just as charming as it is in Monsters. The inclusion of school maps, schedules, and other resources really helps the product to reach its potential. My only complaint remains the white space, as mentioned above.

Under the Cover

Curriculum presents Spring Crescent Middle School, a typical little school where, just like every school, the kids think the teachers are out to get them. In this case the kids are right. The history of the school sets up the present day conflict. Some time ago a Dr. Levitt became aware of the connection between children and monsters. After studying some children and various occult tomes he hatched a plan to better understand the relationship and, hopefully, harness the power. He became a reputable educator and administered Spring Crescent in the 60s. With other staff brought into his power hungry cult he began dispatching children and stealing the power of their monsters in order to infuse it into himself and his followers.

This ultimately sparked all out war between the children and this new cabal. The results were disastrous, with both sides taking heavy losses. The cabal learned from this mistake and ultimately returned to what they had been doing, but with a little more emphasis on patience and secrecy. Powerful wards could protect the school and their persons from monster attacks, and by isolating the children (attacking relationships) they found them far easier to destroy. Many monsters have been drained of their strength, giving the occultists abilities on a level with the children they work against.

With the school forged as a weapon against the kids and the staff working against them, the setting is pretty harsh for the poor children. At least, it would be if they didn’t have monsters. For all their formidable strength and organization the conspiracy is still rightly scared of the monsters. A single monster, after its child has been beaten down through their machinations, they can handle. A group of monsters driven by angry, scared, or hurt children? That’s a furious storm of death that they can do little about, and they know it.

Because of this, the conspiracy has to be subtle and gradual in its machinations. They’re interested in making a child humiliated or damaging a relationship with the kid’s parent, and because of this the conspiracy is an excellent villain for the campaign. All the troubles of being a kid in middle school are compounded and, at times, given a horrific bent not just because you have a monster (which is already a bag of trouble) but because you spend most of your day in a hostile environment. It’s fantastic.

In addition to the support material I’ve already mentioned (map, schedule) and the setting information, Curriculum also provides a host of well done NPCs. Evil cabal members (teachers) have a few paragraphs of flavorful description in addition to mechanical support. Other kids and community allies are also provided to help fill out the school. What’s more, plot hooks and adventure ideas are sprinkled throughout and it’s hard to imagine a reader not walking away with a variety of session plans.

To top it off this short product does two more very useful things. It provides explicit discussion of how to use Curriculum, complete with explicit game suggestions (as opposed to the plot hooks which are all over the place). These are wonderful and it’s surprising how easily the tone can be changed here. It also includes an 11 page adventure which is very well done and perfectly captures the sort of feel I want in a Monsters game.

My Take

This is a charming, well done mini-supplement for Monsters that provides a host of useful ideas and tools for playing kids fighting against teachers in middle school. The GM aides are wonderful and I have no doubt that I’ll be pulling this out the next time I want to run a standard Monsters game.