Bigger Bads is a supplement for
Monsters and Other Childish Things (hereafter referred to as
BB and
MaOCT respectively) that adds new rules, monster options, character options, and a large assortment of foes. It’s also pretty well cemented my attitude that Benjamin Baugh can write no wrong.
Chapter 1: Fiddly Bits – Some minor rules clarifications, new and revised extras for your monster powers, and so forth. Mostly straight forward elaborations and evolutions of what’s already in the core rules, but still kind of nice to have to refer to. One new extra worth mentioning however is “Big”. You buy levels of it the same as any other extra, but you have to buy them for each location of your monster. Big is useful, and powerful, but it can be pretty expensive pretty quickly. I’m assuming that you have to have the same number of levels on each location, so no giant heads on puny legs, but given the nature of monster construction you could have a massive creature with only one location if you wanted.
Chapter 2: Threats – The book says these rules were originally introduced in another supplement (Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor), but are revised and expanded here. Basically, they’re a way to mechanically simulate anything from snake-filled pits, collapsing buildings on fire, possessed toy factories, and so forth. It seems like anything that doesn’t merit being called a character, but provides a challenge, could be statted out as a Threat. Threats have a dice pool that is used for any combination of Attacks, Defends, and Usefuls; 12 dice in one is 12 dice in them all. And Threats –can- roll more than 10 dice. And they can have extras too. Honestly, as a mechanic for handling both environmental challenges and assorted mooks, it’s very simple and consistent. I especially like when the book points out that the Threat rules are a great way to provide a mechanical challenge for climbing up a giant monster and dealing with the smaller creatures that live on it. And game about giant monsters that provides me ideas and tools for having a campaign on (and in) an NPC is doing something right.
Chapter 3: Farness – Farness isn’t a measure of actual distance, but relative distance. Fifty feet apart from your foe on level ground is not the same thing as being fifty feet apart with a chasm between the two of you (or fifty feet of heating pipes or whatever). Also included are some rules for chases. Honestly, it’s all highly abstracted, to the point I’m not sure it adds much beyond making MaOCT feel a tad more complete as a game at a glance. I figure groups will either seldom use these rules and go even more free-form and abstract, or use something more concrete and less abstract. One thing it does add however, is a way to gauge monster movement for big monsters. And by big, I mean…
Chapter 4: Bigness – Okay, so you’ve bought one or more Big extras for all your monster’s locations, giving it a level of Bigness from 2 to 5 (Bigness 1 is normal size and scale). Each level of Bigness modifies how your monster’s powers work according to the Monster Might Scale from MaOCT, as well as increasing your damage and area of attack against smaller foes (who have an easier time attacking you, and generally using your size to their advantage). To determine how much of advantage one monster has over another, a Bigness Differential is used; basically, your Bigness 2 monster (about the size of an elephant or a large truck) is still smaller than a Biggness 5 “civilization destroyer”, but has more protection than your Bigness 1 self. Your monster has a Bigness Differential of 3 (5-2) in this case, and you’ve got a Bigness Differential of 4 (5-1); likewise, you have a Bigness Differential of 1 (2-1) against your own monster. The smaller character gets (among other things) levels of Wicked Fast and Awesome on Attacks/Defends equal to the “ BigDiff”, while the larger character gets Tough, Gnarly, Splash, and can move levels of Farness equal to the “BigDiff”. Oh yeah, and forming giant conglomerate creatures (ala Voltron, or Power Rangers, or lame Voltron) is offered as a sidebar.
Chapter 5: Weirdness – If anyone ever wants to play a game of Children and Other Monstrous Things, this chapter has you covered. Weird skills are introduced, which are basically ways for kids to have dice of powers like monsters do; up to 7 dice to start in fact (plus one to three more, which I’ll get to in a sec’). Which is good, because weird kids don’t get monsters too; monsters just don’t like ‘em. And worse than that, dice of weird skills make your character stand out. The more “weird” he is, the easier it is for people to notice the soul-dead eyes, the cybernetic implants, and the demonic acne. On the upside, weird skills also allow you to purchase “weird relationships” which work just like normal relationships, except only for “weird” stuff. So no invoking the ancient Lords of Lemuria in order to impress Sally with your skateboarding skills, unless Sally is a dragon or something I suppose. Worse than that though, is that while additional weird relationships give you more dice for weird skills (above and beyond your initial 7), they make it harder to maintain and repair normal relationships. And if you’ve got weird skills, you’ve got weird relationships; one to three of your starting relationship dice have to be “weird” (but they give you extra weird skill dice to play with, so there’s that). So why take weird relationships or weird skills at all? They’re an option for players wanting to play something different, and they also provide a neat system for creating non-monster monsters (and wizards, and ninja-cyborgs, and so on). I really like the idea, and in games where monsters are played as causing lots of trouble for the PCs, some players may appreciate the option of playing something more “under player control”, but I can also see some groups chaffing at the restrictions weird kids operate under.
Chapter 6: Agonizing Antagonists – Coming in at nearly two-thirds of the book, the only negative thing I can say about this chapter is that it really requires groups to be playing in the default setting of MaOCT and that they’re using the rules for big monsters. Having said that though, I imagine there’s enough stuff for every game to find at least a few foes to play with. Anyway, this chapter continues the light-hearted-but-occasionally-gruesome tone of the default setting from the core rules. It also pulls together pretty much all the rules presented earlier, creating a world where the characters discover that bigger (and more organized) threats exist in the world than they’d initially believed. You want robots? They’re covered. Lovecraftian elements? Yep. Giant naked Canadians? I don’t know why you’d want one, but you got it. I don’t want to say much else, except that I don’t think there was a single entry I hated. They all seemed clever, fun, and screaming to be put into a game, even if only to be splatted by the PCs within moments.
Chapter 7: Campaign Jumpstart – Go Go Monster Force Zeta! Need I say more? Okay, this short chapter essentially spells out everything that the last chapter had hinted at. Namely the idea that the PCs slowly discover a world where monsters are real, then that other people know about the monsters, and that there are monsters that are really, really, really, really big. Under this campaign idea, the PCs eventually find themselves not only joining a secret government agency devoted to handling monster attacks, but eventually having to deal with a media-starved public that wants to know everything about these kids and their monsters once the truth breaks out. And the truth will break out, in the form of massive property damage and giant screaming abominations tramping across the world.
Style: I’m giving this one a solid 4. The writing is fun, comparable to that in MaOCT. Art is good, if maybe a bit on the sparse side. Layout is clean, with some “white text on black background” sidebars that manage to not cause my eyes to bleed. Editing is decent. Honestly, it’s an all around above average product. The only gripe I can find is my copy was rather poorly bound.
Substance: Like I said back in my overview of Chapter 6, the big catch of this book is that it plays heavily on the default setting and atmosphere of the core rule book. If you’re not interested in the creepy-kooky-comical-crazy-crawly vibe, there’s not much here for you. Maybe a high 2 or low 3 for substance, for all the new rules and weird skills? I imagine any group playing MaOCT would find the new mechanics useful, but they make up a small portion of the book. But I’d also argue people who didn’t like the core setting really aren’t the target audience for BB. For those who did like the default setting, BB is great. It expands the setting, revisits some of the original characters (more might have been nice), adds some new campaign ideas, and really feels like a natural evolution of the original game. BB is a grab bag of ideas, meaning nobody’s going to love everything, but I feel confident giving it a solid 5 for Substance.
Conclusion: Okay, this is the book that officially makes me a Benjamin Baugh fanboy. It takes the core mechanics and setting of MaOCT, expands on them in all sorts of simple yet fun ways, and gives me clear ideas for all sorts of games. Even the stuff I didn’t care much for or found to be a tad bit confusing was still fun and engaging. I can’t say that if somebody hated MaOCT this book will change their mind, but if you liked the game at all you’ll probably love Bigger Bads.
Review Summary