Monster of the Week

by Michael Sands

There are monsters out there

And you are mean enough, smart enough, crazy enough, or hurt enough, to fight them.

Maybe you'll defend your hometown from evil.
Maybe you'll take to the road and hunt them down.
Maybe you have magic powers to fight with.
Maybe your name appears in an ancient prophecy.

One thing's for sure.
You aren't going back to your old, safe life.

Monster of the Week is an action-horror roleplaying game for 3-5 people.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Horror, Gaming, Games, Fantasy, Reference, Urban Fantasy

194 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2012

Reviews

[Nathan Sharkey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not love horror but this game seems like a great bridge between actual fright and a fun Friday night! Michael gets a little repetitive if you're reading cover to cover but I imagine the redundancies will be helpful when running the game. Can't wait to try it with Petes, Nats and spawn.

[Nathan Kopper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ran a session with my usual D&D group, character creation and going over the rules was quick and easy. Everyone had a blast

[SeaRob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monster of the Week is another great Powered by the Apocalypse game. MotW focuses the play around gifted monster hunters in the vein of Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In this tabletop RPG game, you and 3-6 friends take on key archetypes from the fiction (The Chosen, The Spooky, The Expert, etc.) and go in search of monsters to understand and then destroy. One person takes on the job of "Keeper of Monsters and Mysteries" and coordinates the actions of the monster while reacting to the moves of the monster hunters played by the rest of the group. The art in the book isn't really my favorite, but does a decent job of evoking the world and there's a good list of inspirational source material in the appendix. If you love monster hunting fiction and are into or interested in tabletop RPG, this is a winner.

[Victor Rodriguez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitivamente, el mejor juego de rol para simular una serie de TV de cazadores de monstruos o investigadores de lo extraño. Vamos, las Buffy, Expediente X y Sobrenatural de toda la vida. Las mecánicas (las mismas que Apocalypse World, pero más clarificadas) son excelentes y la ayuda para el DJ es buenísima. Un juegazo, a ver si la gente de ConBarba lo trae a nuestro país, crucemos los dedos...

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite Apocalypse Engine based games. The episodic nature takes a lot of the pressure off the GM and allows them to focus on things like spotlight time, pacing of story, and dramatic emphasis.

For my group and me, this is the game we keep coming back to.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great system, but the organization is weird, even by PBtA standards.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

We’ve only played one session, but I am very excited about the possibilities of this RPG system. I read through the revised book (2015, Evil Hat) in preparation, and it is very clear and well-written with quite a bit of helpful advice and even a couple of mysteries to get you started. I also recommend the “Tome of Mysteries” companion volume which has more advice and even more mysteries, but you don’t need it to play.

I’ve also been recently reading the Edge of the Empire core rulebook for the Star Wars Fantasy Flight RPG, which is by comparison very repetitive and also obscure and confusing. It helps that MotW is a much simpler game which relies much more on collaborative storytelling and improv.

This is a “Powered by the Apocalypse” game, because it is built on and inspired by the system created for Apocalypse World. Many such games have sprung up because of the versatility of the system and the accommodating nature of the original system creators. Another notable PbtA game is the DnD-styled Dungeon World.

Unlike crunchier systems (like Star Wars or DnD) PbtA dice rolls function less as skill checks to determine whether you succeed at a given task, and more as “moves” to present you with hard choices to fuel the storytelling. World-building by the players is also highly encouraged. The Keeper (this system’s GM) is encouraged not to overplan, but to play to see what happens.

Monster of the Week is meant to emulate tv shows like Supernatural, Buffy, or even Fringe, where each session is a new mystery in an unfolding arc.

I’m still a novice, but the book is great and I’m excited to play.

[Malum · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for something like the Call of Cthulhu rpg but with more of a combat focus and a lighter system, this would be a good one to try. This is also a great first step into the "Powered by the Apocalypse" game engine.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a review of the book and not the game.

Like the other pbta books that I have read, this one is fantastic in both its content and its presentation. Everything you need to play the game is located between these covers, and if you are planning on running a mystery, the book gives you great tools (and the confidence) to make that happen.

Unlike most pbta games, this one requires preparation by the MC (called the Keeper, like in Call of Cthulhu). As the Keeper, you create a mystery, which is to say a monster and the mayhem it creates and map out what would happen if the hunters (the player characters) were to never interfere. Then you create a list of NPCs, locations, and any secondary monsters along with the hook, the teaser that gets the mystery started. I am not one to create a lot of scenarios, so I was very nervous about this aspect of the game, but in the last week, I quickly jotted down 3 different mysteries using the guides in the book, and I am excited to take them for a spin. The rules and guides for creating mysteries are very clearly and usefully laid out.

The book is great both as an instructional manual and as a reference book, with easy to find sections and a detailed index.

[Newton Nitro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excelente Powered By the Apocalypse! Recomendo para inciantes e veteranos! Aventuras estilo Buffy, Supernatural, Arquivo X, etc! :)

[han · Rating 3 out of 5]

read this in prep for a friends game!!! excited and enjoyed the contents

[Benjamin]

How? Found at the library.

What? Even though there is a Buffy RPG (by the semi-late Eden Studios), I think is probably the biggest RPG game in that space: you are monster hunters in a world that doesn't know about monsters. This is a Powered by the Apocalypse game, which is to say, characters are built on playbooks (which are combinations of concepts and moves) and you roll 2d6 + a modifier from your character.

The game is meant to accommodate really anything you could find in Buffy/Angel or Supernatural, so the character types are Chosen (Buffy), Crooked, Divine, Expert (Giles, Willow the hacker?), the Flake (Cordelia), Initiate, Monstrous (Angel, Spike), Mundane (Xander), the Professional (Riley), Spell-slinger (Willow), Spooky, the Wronged. It's a reasonable list, right? And the fact that the book is littered with references to Buffy, etc., is just a marker of how determined they are to do genre-emulation.

But wait, the game is complete in one book, so this book isn't just player info, but also GM info on how to run a game, which includes a breakdown of monster types and motivations, which I have to include:

• Beast (to run wild, destroying and killing)
• Breeder (to give birth to, bring forth, or create evil)
• Collector (to steal specific sorts of things)
• Destroyer (to bring about the end of the world)
• Devourer (to consume people)
• Executioner (to punish the guilty)
• Parasite (to infest, control and devour)
• Queen (to possess and control)
• Sorcerer (to usurp unnatural power)
• Tempter (to tempt people into evil deeds)
• Torturer (to hurt and terrify)
• Trickster (to create chaos)

And the book also includes minion types:

• Assassin (to kill the hunters)
• Brute (to intimidate and attack)
• Cultist (to save their own skin at any cost)
• Guardian (to bar a way or protect something)
• Right hand (to back up the monster)
• Plague (to swarm and destroy)
• Renfield (to push victims towards the monster)
• Scout (to stalk, watch, and report)
• Thief (to steal and deliver to the monster)
• Traitor (to betray people)

Hmmm, that's a lot of types with a lot of good inspiration, but what exactly is the system here for this categorization? How, in fact, does describing a minion as a Renfield help at the table?

And! Of course players have moves to make (like "assess a situation" and "kick ass" -- which seem pretty commonly used in a game about investigating and fighting monsters), but did you know GMs also have moves? Things like "inflict harm, as established" and "tell the possible consequences and ask if they want to go ahead"; and monsters have moves like "appear suddenly" and "destroy something"; and the book even describes moves for minions -- "give chase" -- and bystanders -- "go off alone".

Yeah, so? (Alternate title for this section: "Why did I just list all of that?") I think this game seems perfectly fun for the genre its emulating (monster hunters in a monster-filled but otherwise normal world). And Apocalypse-powered games are meant to be fiction-first or fiction-forward: you don't look at your character sheet and then decide what power to use, you just describe your character's action, and then find one of the broad moves that describe that. (That's the theory at least. I think that flow breaks down a bit the more specialized and powerful the characters get.)

And while that "fiction-first" attitude may explain why monsters have moves like "put someone in trouble," I am reminded of Laurence Olivier's semi-ironic advice to method-acting Dustin Hoffman: "Why don't you just try acting?" I suppose this book is meant to be friendly to new players and GMs -- people who like Supernatural but have never played a game before. (Even though, ahem, there is a Supernatural game from 2009 by Margaret Weis Productions.) But reading it, it almost feels more there's too much here, especially when the book otherwise has a lot of examples and advice re: taking an episode from the show you like and just re-using/-skinning it.

[Cole Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Played this recently with a friend at a local hobby store and was immediately impressed by the RP depth and simultaneous ease of this game system. Being able to set up a mostly fleshed out character in 10 minutes, while also having group growth be a major part of the system really got me on board, so I bought the book to have a gander at it and ripped through it in a week.

The Good

If you are someone who comes from a group of friends with a drama background, or have ever done any sort of improv, this is going to be an incredible system for you. If you're not, you'll still be able to get a lot out of this system, and also grow your abilities as a "Keeper" or a Player by using its ultra loose, be cool, fly by your pants sort of setup.

The art in this book is fantastic and suits the aesthetic perfectly. Each character type feels unique, well balanced, and while reading I could easily imagine playing each and every one, and how that would play out at the table. The monsters and mysteries presented are great to help you get a grasp on what being a Keeper entails.

10/10.

The Bad

Though I still love this system, and am equally impressed as I was after my first introduction to it, this book could have realistically been half the length, or more of the repetitive content converted into additional mysteries or monsters.

A LOT of what is in here is slight rewordings of things that have already been established at the beginning of the book. Even the parts where they mention that they're doing this to 'go into more depth for the Keeper' are slight variations of a copy and paste job with little to no additional information.

I also found the layout of the book downright wonky at times.
- Information for making key worded weapons is given long before what those keywords mean, and even before learning how combat works.
- Basic moves are copy and pasted multiple times through the book
- Often asked myself if I had already read this chapter, then realized there were some minor variations.
- Paragraphs that seemed pretty important would sometimes be shoe horned in a chapter wide wall of copy and pasted text from earlier in the book.

Conclusion

This is a fantastic system, with a lot to love, and feels like a warm hug from the 90s sci fi / monster shows that we all came to love. If you pick it up to play with your friends, I guarantee, you will have a great time. I'd be willing to give it a 10/10 with better formatting and editorial choices.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book I read was the revised edition from 2015, just to clarify since my page count does not match up at all with goodreads.

This sounds like a really awesome gaming system. I bought the book after listening to The Adventure Zone mini-arc series. Once I heard it was the game play of Supernatural, I knew I wanted to read more. The episodic, monster of the week style was what made me fall in love with Supernatural. This module really lends itself to an episodic adventure in a way I don't think you can fully enjoy in Pathfinder or D&D. MotW is far simpler, even than 5th edition, involving just 2d6 and easy moves like kick some ass or protect someone.

It was a bit of a hard read just because I was just reading and not taking any notes like I'd normally do for a new core rulebook. The really simple examples would just ignite my imagination and send me on several Google searches and Pinterest boards. Each section/chapter can really be read on it's own; the book is set up to skip around and get what you need. If you were really gun-ho, you could fairly easily pick this up a few minutes before a session start, read the keeper section and play from there. So much is colaborative, you don't need too much set up or hoursssss of planning. The book even provides multiple examples that are easily playable, as long as you're good on the fly.

If you're not good on the fly, at improv, or a creative thinker... there's hope. The game is geared towards the keeper just setting up the setting, and having to play all the NPCs, but the players create the story. It's kinda choose your own adventure with a tiny bit of madlibs.

[Sam Hanawalt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An awesome book, fun to read. One of the more engaging RPG rules books out there. It lays out the excellenct Apocalypse World engine in a digestible, applicable format. Its playbooks are flavorful and inspire good play in its genre--monster of the week shows like Buffy, Supernatural, X-Files, etc. If you like any of that stuff you will be able to put it into play with this book.

The main area I think it could improve upon is advice for that critical first session (called a mystery, in MotW). A greater framework for leap-frogging from character-building into the meat of the mystery would be appreciated, as many GMs inexperienced in the Powered by the Apocalypse games come at it from too traditional a split (character-creation then we play this mystery!) rather than building the mystery out from character creation and player input. That's just how I felt, of course, and now it's annoying that most of my review's occupied by a complaint that's overshadowed by how good the book is.

It really is one of the best introductory texts for Apocalypse World (right behind Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World itself).

[Matthew Gilliland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm excited to try out this game (and yes I read it cover to cover).

The system seems super easy and reflects some of my favorite shows such as Supernatural, Buffy, Angel, Haven and Sleepy Hollow.

My only complaint is that many of the sections are repetitive. It gives simplified rules, then restates them and adds for the player, then restates them and adds for the story teller. It seemed like a waste to keep repeating the simplified rules over and over.

I love how the game rewards you for failure. I also like that the each character has its own abilities and build paths. That both gives you choices, but also keeps you in the flavor of the character type.

Also recommend The Critshow and The Adventure Zone season 2. They play this game and show what it can do and how easy it is.

[Billy Kid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Monster of the Week is a standalone action-horror RPG for 3-5 people. Hunt high school beasties a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, travel the country to bring down unnatural creatures like the Winchester brothers of Supernatural, or head up the government investigation like Mulder and Scully. It seems OK, nothing extraordinary or unique other than the conceit.

If you and your friends are into Monster of the Week style shows, maybe you would be into this system?

This feels like a rulebook made for people to buy and keep on their shelf rather than play though.

There's nothing extraordinary about the ruleset itself, it seems a little too loose for my tastes.

But I don't expect to be playing it any time soon so what do I know?

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the requisite similarities to its parent game Apocalypse World, Monster of the Week doesn't quite achieve the same kind of sharpness in its writing. However, some of the changes to the PCs' bespoke power level I find very interesting. Every mystery, the book overtly states, ends with a fight of some kind against a monster. If every session of Apocalypse World had a fight, it would make for even shorter campaigns. It's also interesting seeing the proto-Blades in the Dark experience system where the players as a group answer questions about what they accomplished (or at least attempted) in the session.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good RPG book. The rules are coherent and the book presents the material in a sensible order. I have only two criticisms:
1) I would prefer the basic moves be condensed from 8 to 4 or 5.
2) The keeper is encouraged to learn a jargon name for each threat type in addition to the motivation that is always tied to each type. But the keeper is discouraged from using these terms at the table, or taking them too literally. So why even have the terms instead of just listing possible motivations?

[Hudson Christmas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Monster of the Week is a Tabletop RPG (D&D but a different style and with a lot less rules, numbers, and dice) that manages to somehow make the players feel like they’re in a monster of the week show (direct inspiration for the creator is X-Files, Supernatural, and Buddy the Vampire Slayer). An incredibly well written guidebook, the reader is carried through exactly how a Monster of the Week campaign should be run. With practical examples, easy to understand rules, and pictures (YES PICTURES) I loved this book. And yes I did finish the whole thing in two days.

[Paul-André Beaulieu · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome modern RPG in the vein of Supernatural, Buffy and the X-Files, Monster of the Week is a hack of the narrative rpg Apocalypse World. The book just oozes with theme, style and great ideas, both for players and Keepers (GMs). When a rpg book has me thinking about both character and campaign concepts as I'm reading it, I know I've found a winner.

[Nikolay Golubev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Более "оптимистичный" подход к теме охотников на монстров, чем Delta Green или Chill. Как и в Urban Shadows, стиль написания и сами правила весьма понятны. После прочтения есть ощущение, что с проведением игры справился бы - вроде все необходимое разъяснено, особо непонятных моментов не помню. В общем, желание сыграть есть, а это главное, что требуется от правил.

[Bebertfreaks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent jeu de rôle motorisé par l'Apocalypse (PBTA).

Règles simples à prendre en main et ce livre regorge d'exemple et d'aide pour débuter dans ce jeu.

C'est d'ailleurs ce qui fais ça force, car les exemples sont autant de scénarios possibles, avec plus ou moins de travail derrière.

Bref, un bon système et un livre qui prend vraiment les débutants par la main.
Je recommande fortement.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great game design. Easy to learn, teach, and play. I love that the emphasis is on story-telling rather than continuous die-rolling. Great system (based on PBTA). Finally got around to reading most or all of it after poking through it as-needed for the last two years.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems fun. I really need to see the "Powered by the Apocalypse" system in action to really wrap my head around it.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy to read and maneuver through, lots of good suggestions, and fantastic structuring.

[Ian Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hugely succinct with a penchant for distilling critical information into tables -- a lot of PHBs could learn a lot from this one. Well organized and well written.

[Tone · Rating 5 out of 5]

The premise and mechanics fit right into my life. I just need to figure out how to run this thing.

[Fiona Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

really excited about how easy these rules make it to run mysteries, with a big focus on narrative. seems good for one shots, with lots of notes on long-running campaigns.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great way to introduce people to tabletop RPG. It's not as complex as D&D and is a lot more roleplaying based than combat and rules.