This weekend I got to play a few games of
Monsters and Other Childish Things with my kids, Jon (age 12, almost 13), Becca (age 11) and Connor (age 9). They had loads of fun. I’ll write up the first session here and try to write up the other sessions later. We played in blocks of about two hours, so after each session they were ready for a break—but a few hours later they started asking to play again.
I’ll try to explain everything clearly, but there’s a
downloadable summary of the game’s rules here just in case.
The kids had fun making up their characters. At first they wanted to be different ages, but I asked them to be all in the same grade to make it easier to get them together in the game. They decided they went to Boring Middle School.
I'll transcribe their character sheets here. The summary paragraphs are mine, based on how the kids described their characters. The other stuff (personality, appearance, stats, etc.) is what the kids wrote down.
TOM PHILIP
Tom spends a lot of time reading, making things, and figuring things out. He’s great at science and shop and a born engineer. When he gets older he’s sure to be a computer geek. Tom is very close to his mom and dad. His homeroom teacher, Mr. Boring, comes from the family that the school was named after. Tom is friends with a giant black dragon named Grimhook the Ravager.
PLAYER: Jon Ivey (age 12).
AGE: 12.
APPEARANCE: Brown hair, green eyes.
PERSONALITY: Kind, helpful, funny, a visionary.
FAVORITE THING: Flying on his dragon, Grimhook.
MONSTER:
Grimhook the Ravager.
RELATIONSHIPS: Parents 4, Jake Johnson 2, Grimhook.
FEET 3
-- P.E. +0
-- Kicking +0
-- Dodging +0
GUTS 3
-- Wind +0
-- Courage +0
-- Wrestling +0
HANDS 2
-- Shop +4
-- Punching +0
-- Blocking +0
BRAINS 5
-- Out-Think +5
-- Remember +3
-- Notice +1
FACE 2
-- Charm +2
-- Putdown +0
-- Connive +0
MEGAN McDONALD
Megan is smart and charming, but is a rebel and kind of a troublemaker. Her parents work all the time (mom is a lawyer, dad runs a grocery store), so she spends a lot of time with her best friend Becca and, despite everything, is close to her homeroom teacher, Mr. Peabrain. Megan isn’t all that big or athletic, but she’s got loads of what her P.E. teacher calls “stick-to-itiveness”. Unfortunately, she sticks out enough that she gets picked on a lot, and she winds up in fights that exasperate her mom and dad. Megan’s very best friend isn’t a kid, but a crazy little spider monkey named Mr. Cuddles.
PLAYER: Becca Ivey (age 11)
AGE: 11
APPEARANCE: Purple hair, green eyes, blue jeans, black T-shirt.
PERSONALITY: Gets in trouble lots; often picked on by bullies.
FAVORITE THING:
Candy! And monkeys.
MONSTER:
Mr. Cuddles.
RELATIONSHIPS: Parents 2, Jake Johnson 1, Mr. Peabrain 1, Becca McGillicuddy 2, Mr. Cuddles.
FEET 2
-- P.E. +3
-- Kicking +0
-- Dodging +0
GUTS 4
-- Wind +0
-- Courage +3
-- Wrestling +0
HANDS 2
-- Shop +0
-- Punching +3
-- Blocking +0
BRAINS 4
-- Out-Think +2
-- Remember +0
-- Notice +0
FACE 3
-- Charm +4
-- Putdown +0
-- Connive +0
JAKE JOHNSON
Jake is a very bright kid who loves to build things and loves to read—he has a lot in common with his friend, Tom Philip. But Jake’s slightly less of a bookworm, and takes judo classes for fun. Jake is friends with a mischievous zombie skeleton named Spookster.
PLAYER: Connor Ivey (age 9).
AGE: 11.
APPEARANCE: Aqua blue eyes, black hair and a blue shirt.
PERSONALITY: Nice, playful, kind.
FAVORITE THING: His monster.
MONSTER:
Spookster.
RELATIONSHIPS: Parents 2, Tom Philip 2, Megan McDonald 2, Spookster.
FEET 2
-- P.E. +0
-- Kicking +0
-- Dodging +2
GUTS 3
-- Wind +0
-- Courage +0
-- Wrestling +1
HANDS 3
-- Shop +2
-- Punching +2
-- Blocking +1
BRAINS 5
-- Out-Think +2
-- Remember +1
-- Notice +1
FACE 2
-- Charm +3
-- Putdown +0
-- Connive +0
Game 1: The Cheat Sheet
One day near the end of the first semester of sixth grade, a few days before Christmas break, Megan McDonald’s best friend Becca McGillicuddy came asking for help. She looked worried, and no wonder. She said that morning she had stolen a sheet of answers to an upcoming test from their homeroom teacher Mr. Peabrain’s desk. But then their classmate Jake Johnson’s parents came to get his backpack because he’d been checked out early, and they took her backpack by mistake, with the sheet inside. She needed to get to Jake’s house fast and get her backpack before his parents found the answer sheet.
Megan knew Jake. First off, Megan and Jake both had pet monsters, and kids with pet monsters usually knew about other kids who had pet monsters. Plus, Megan and Jake had P.E. together and talked a lot. She thought she could get him to turn over the backpack. And if not, her pet Mr. Cuddles, a super-strong spider monkey, might be able to help.
The girls didn’t want to wait as long as it would take to get home by schoolbus, so they found another boy waiting for the bus, a kid who also had a monster like Megan and Jake. Tom Philip’s monster Grimhook the Ravager was a huge black flying dragon that hid in Tom’s shadow. Megan and Becca said they needed help taking Jake’s backpack to him, but they left out the part about the test.
Tom’s player thought he should be able to tell they were leaving something out, so I gave him a Brains + Out-Think roll against Becca’s Face + Charm roll. He had Brains 5 and Out-Think 5 vs. Megan’s Face 3 and Charm 4, so he rolled ten dice to her seven dice. In Monsters and Other Childish Things, when you roll you look for matching dice. Despite Tom’s larger dice pool, Megan’s roll came up with matching dice with higher values, so she won and he bought the story.
Tom agreed to help and took them to a deserted courtyard, where he called up his dragon. Becca backed away, terrified, but Megan and her pet spider monkey Mr. Cuddles climbed up safely. Mr. Cuddles gave Becca his cute little monkey eyes, so she finally climbed up, too.
Grimhook flew them to Jake’s house swiftly and set down in the back yard.
The Plan Goes South
Jake was playing Xbox with his monster Spookster; Jake had been checked out earlier that day to get a tooth pulled. Spookster was a weird sinewy zombie-skeleton with no ribcage. He had extra arm bones that he’d dug up and attacked to his spine to help him dig, and one of his hands wasn’t skeletal at all but a strange wooden hand hand that he could light on fire. He had glowing red orbs in his rotting skull’s eye sockets.
While they were playing, Spookster’s weird wooden hand sparked and caught fire. He dropped the scorched Xbox controller, looked up, and said in a raspy graveyard voice, “Hey, Jake, I think there’s a monster in the back yard.”
Jake and Spookster climbed out the window to the front yard just to be on the safe side. Megan and Becca came around with Tom right behind them and opened the gate from the back yard, and they saw Jake and Spookster right there.
Megan asked about the backpack, but Jake said his mom and dad weren’t home yet with it. Jake was suspicious. Why were they in such a hurry just to get a backpack, anyway?
Then Jake’s mom and dad drove up. As they got out of the car—Mr. Johnson carried the backpack in one hand and a piece of paper in the other—Spookster instantly dug a hole to hide and Grimhook jumped back into Tom’s shadow. The parents didn’t notice them. (Parents don’t notice a lot of things.)
They asked Jake what all his friends were doing there. He told them about the backpack and his dad nodded. “Well, I’m glad they’re here,” Mr. Johnson said, “because I think Becca has some explaining to do. We found this in her backpack.” He handed the backpack to Jake and held up the paper.
Megan said, “Dang it! Mr. Cuddles, get the paper! And rip out his eyeballs!”
(Don’t worry, Mr. Cuddles can put eyeballs back in again with no harm done. But Megan always had kind of a problem with her temper.)
Mr. Cuddles rushed forward with a screech. Tom yelled to Grimhook to block him, and the big black dragon leapt out of Tom’s shadow to stand in the monkey’s path. Spookster jumped out of the ground and tried to clobber Mr. Cuddles with his flaming wooden fist.
In
Monsters and Other Childish Things, kids who have monsters are used to seeing scary monsters. But all other normal people tend to freak out when they see monsters attacking. In fact, they have to make Freakout rolls. A Freakout roll is a Guts + Courage roll, which means you roll dice equal to your Guts stat value and your Courage skill value. So if you have 3 in Guts and 2 in Courage, you roll five dice and look for matches.
Mrs. Johnson made her roll, but Mr. Johnson and Megan’s friend Becca both failed. Jake’s dad fainted dead away and Becca ran screaming into the back yard to hide.
One Fast Monkey
We switched to combat rounds. The first part of each round is the DECLARATION phase, where players take turns saying what they’re going to try to do. In combat, players usually take control of their monsters directly, so we started the first round with declarations for the monsters.
Megan declared first since she had the lowest Brains + Out-Thinking dice pool at 6d; Jake was next with 7d, and Tom was last to declare with a 10d pool. (The most out-thinkingest kid gets to declare actions last so he or she can take what everybody else is attempting to do into account. And yes, this is a brainy bunch of kids).
Megan’s player said Mr. Cuddles was going to rip out Spookster’s glowing red eyeballs first since he was in the way. Jake’s player said Spookster was going to attack with his wooden flaming hand. Tom’s player said Grimhook was going to use a defensive action to block Mr. Cuddles’ attack.
The next phase of the round is rolling. Mr. Cuddles had 8d with his Crazy-Fast Razor-Sharp Eyeball-Grabbing Claws, and it had the Awesome quality, which lets you set one die to whatever you want. Spookster’s skull and eyes were hit location 10, so Megan’s player set one die to 10 and rolled the other seven. One of those came up 10, too, so she had a pair of 10s: 2x10.
Spookster had 5d with his Cracked Bony Arms with Zombie Sinew and One Charred Wooden Hand That’s On Fire, and he rolled a pair of fours, 2x4.
Grimhook had 10d with his Huge Scaly Black Body, and he rolled a pair of twos, a pair of nines, and three fives: 2x2, 3x5 and 2x9. None of them would work against Mr. Cuddles’ attack—his defense roll’s height had to be 10 to beat Mr. Cuddles’ 2x10—but he used the highest roll just because it would look good.
The final phase of the combat round is resolution. That’s where we put the various rolled actions in order by width (then height) and see what happens.
Mr. Cuddles’ crazy-fast claws had FIVE levels of the Wicked Fast quality, which increases your action’s width just for seeing who goes first, so he effectively had a width of 7 for initiative. That was way higher than everybody else’s widths of 2. Mr. Cuddles’ claws also had four levels of the Gnarly quality, which added 4 to damage. Base damage is width – 1 in Monsters and Other Childish Things, so with his width of 2 (2x10 is width 2, height 10) he did 1 damage, plus 4 for Gnarly, for 5 damage to Spookster’s hit location 10. That was his Cracked Bony Skull with Glowing Red Eyesockets, where he had 6d.
The attack left Spookster with one die in his skull. And since Spookster took damage, he lost a die from his highest set. In this case it was his only set, the 2x4, so Spookster’s attack missed.
Result: Mr. Cuddles darted in around Grimhook’s big scaly body and jumped on Spookster, yanking out one glowing red eye orb with his crazy-fast razor-sharp claws. Spookster staggered and his fiery charred wooden hand flailed uselessly.
Leaping Zombie, Hungry Dragon
New round, new declarations. With two monsters against hers, Megan’s player said Megan was going to yell for Mr. Cuddles to come back and get them out of there, so Mr. Cuddles was going to jump back and use his Stretchy Prensile Tail to grab Megan and swing from the tree out of the yard. Jake’s player said Spookster was going to try again to clobber Mr. Cuddles with his flaming wooden hand. Tom’s player says he was yelling for Grimhook to eat Mr. Cuddles!
Mr. Cuddles had 3d in his tail, but the tail has two levels of the Awesome quality, which meant he could set one die to any value AFTER rolling the others. Megan’s player rolled 6 and 8, so she set the third die to 8 for 2x8. We called this a defensive action to see if Mr. Cuddles could grab Becca and get away without getting pounded by the other monsters.
Spookster rolled two eights with his fiery hand, for 2x8.
Grimhook had 7d with his Fire-Breathing Maw with Immense Fangs, and Tom’s player rolled three fours, 3x4.
Resolution: Grimhook’s bite went first at width 3, so it hit Mr. Cuddles. (Mr. Cuddles’ roll was taller at height 8, but since Grimhook’s roll was wider it went before Mr. Cuddles could take his defensive action.) Grimhook’s maw had four levels of Gnarly, for +4 damage. It also had four levels of Area and the Burn quality for his flaming breath, but as GM I said those didn’t count since he was just biting and didn’t want to set all the kids and the house on fire. Width 3 did two points of damage, plus four for the Gnarly. Mr. Cuddles took six damage to hit location 4, his crazy-fast claws. Mr. Cuddles had 2d left with his claws.
Mr. Cuddles took damage, so he lost a die from his 2x8 set, which ruined his defensive action. That means Spookster’s 2x8 attack hit. His charred fiery wooden hand had the Burn quality, of course, and three levels of Gnarly. The width 2 attack did one point of damage, plus three for Gnarly, for four damage to Mr. Cuddles on hit location 8. That was Mr. Cuddles’ Soft But Surprisingly Resilient Body, where he had four levels of Toughness. That reduces the damage by four, to zero.
Grimhook’s mighty maw snapped down on Mr. Cuddles and shook the monkey like a doll, sending him flying. Spookster slammed the monkey with his flaming hand, but the attack only singed Mr. Cuddles’ fur. Mr. Cuddles skittered up anyway.
“It Was Just, Uh, a Dream”
Next round: Megan’s player said Mr. Cuddles was still trying to grab her and flee. Jake’s player said Spookster would come back to him. Tom’s player said he would call for Grimhook to come pick him up, and he would try to run grab Becca’s backpack out of Jake’s hand.
Since nobody was interfering with Mr. Cuddles this time, I said he could grab Megan and swing with her out of the yard without having to roll for it.
Tom needed to roll to get the backpack, so he rolled his three Guts + Wrestling dice against Jake’s four Guts + Wrestling dice, and I gave Tom a bonus die since it was such a surprising move. Tom’s roll came up higher, so he grabbed the backpack and ran with it. He told Grimhook to pick him up. Jake didn’t chase him.
Just for fun, Tom told Grimhook to let out a mighty roar. I decided that would force more Freakout rolls from the non-monster-owning people who were still conscious, and Becca and Mrs. Johnson both failed. They both screamed and fainted dead away.
Grimhook leapt into the sky. A few minutes later Tom dropped Becca’s backpack at her doorstep, then went home to start his homework.
Jake and Spookster carried the Johnsons up to their bed and tucked them in. Spookster hid. When they came around they looked around wildly and asked about the monsters they’d seen. Jake tried to convince them they’d just had a bad dream, but they didn’t seem to buy that story. It was Time For a Talk.
The next day, Jake turned in the stolen test answers. Poor Becca did indeed have a lot of explaining to do.
Linear Mode
