Monsters! Monsters!
Monsters! Monsters! is a role-playing game first published by Metagaming Concepts in 1976.
Description
[edit]Monsters! Monsters! is a fantasy system in which the player characters are monsters who prey on adventurers and the civilized world.[1] The game's rules systems are essentially compatible with Tunnels & Trolls.[1]
Publication history
[edit]Monsters! Monsters! was designed by Ken St. Andre with Jim "Bear" Peters, with art by Liz Danforth, and was published in 1976 by Metagaming Concepts as a 40-page square-bound book.[1] Monsters! Monsters!, St. Andre's third game,[2]: 36 was developed by Steve Jackson based on a design by St. Andre related to his Tunnels & Trolls role-playing game.[2]: 78 Metagaming Concepts released a second printing in 1976, which was saddle-stitched.[1] Howard M. Thompson provided illustrations for Monsters! Monsters!
Flying Buffalo got the rights to reprint the first edition of Monsters! Monsters! in 1979.[2]: 36 [1]
In 2020 Ken St. Andre with Steve Crompton, published an all-new 2nd edition of Monsters! Monsters! which was financed via a successful Kickstarter and published through Trollhalla Press Unlimited (ISBN 978-0-9836929-8-0). That release also included a new 26 page gm adventure specially written for monster characters and the release of a new edition of The Toughest Dungeon in the World, a solitaire adventure also written especially for Monster characters.
In 2024, St. Andre and Crompton released an expanded edition, numbered as edition 2.7, intended to move the Monsters! Monsters! setting from the Trollworld of Tunnels & Trolls, to the new world of Zimrala.
...in this 2.7 edition you will see references to Zimrala. That is the new world in which M!M! adventures will be taking place.
— Ken St. Andre, Troll Talk--About Monsters! Monsters!, Monsters! Monsters! 2.7 edition December, 2023 [3]
Later in 2024, St. Andre and Crompton followed up the new edition of Monsters! Monsters! with a supplement for playing human and humanoid characters, named Humans! Humans!, published by Trollgodfather Press.[4]
Reception
[edit]Ronald Pehr reviewed Monsters! Monsters! in The Space Gamer No. 34.[5] Pehr commented that "Monsters! Monsters! is a good game for beginners, or anyone who wants to be a troll, but experienced gamers who enjoy complex campaign games offering more than bloodlust won't find anything they want here."[5]
John ONeill of Black Gate commented that "The game is well written, with plenty of delightful Liz Danforth art, and my games library is no longer missing an important piece of gaming history."[6]
Reviews
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e Schick, Lawrence (1991). Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games. Prometheus Books. p. 199. ISBN 0-87975-653-5.
- ^ a b c Shannon Appelcline (2011). Designers & Dragons. Mongoose Publishing. ISBN 978-1-907702-58-7.
- ^ St. Andre, Ken; Crompton, Steve (2022). Ken St. Andre's Monsterary of Zimrala. Trollhalla Press Unlimited. p. 4. ISBN 9781732546837.
- ^ "Humans! Humans! 1st Edition". DriveThruRPG.com. Retrieved 31 August 2024.
- ^ a b Pehr, Ronald (December 1980). "Capsule Reviews". The Space Gamer (34). Steve Jackson Games: 31.
- ^ "Black Gate » Articles » Get Out of the Dungeon with Monsters! Monsters!". 2 May 2013.
- ^ "The Playboy winner's guide to board games". 1979.