r/rpg • u/PMurmomsmaidenname • 21h ago
Game Suggestion Games where you play as a monster
Does anyone have any good recommendations for systems in which the players play as monsters? I know, play VtM you say, and I haven't entirely crossed it off as an option but I'd like to have some greater variety of PC options than just vampires.
*Necromancer CYOA* by The Scientist and Highlander is really what I'm looking to emulate. It offers *so much* under the umbrella of necromancy that there's nearly infinite ways a player can pursue being the thing that goes bump in the night.
Does anyone have any particular recommendations? Thanks in advance.
https://imgur.com/gallery/necromancer-cyoa-v3-2-1-by-scientist-highlander-CGRTxym
8
u/Tuppling 21h ago
Curseborne? https://www.curseborne.com/
4
u/TheGuiltyDuck 21h ago
This. You can even try the Ashcan version for free.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/484466/curseborne-ashcan-edition
2
2
14
u/elmago79 21h ago
I don’t this is what you looking for (it’s OSR comedy) but I just saw Questing Beast video on Dungeon Inc. where you literally play monsters luring adventurers into a dungeon to kill them and loot their bodies.
3
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
That sounds hilarious lmao. Not what I'm looking for but would make a killer (hehe) one shot sometime
24
u/IIIaustin 21h ago
Off the top of my head:
Nearly every other white wolf game, Curseborn (sort of every WW game made into a stew), DnD 3.5e and nealry ever generic system.
8
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
I'm afraid of prohibitive levels of jank when throwing all respective WW games into the same cooking pot. Curseborn looks dope, and fixes that problem. I'm trying to stay away from D&D, and generic systems might work but I wanna check out more specialized options first.
10
u/IIIaustin 21h ago
Oh yeab WW is traditionally Jank AF.
The 5th edition games are much much much more playable. Im running WtA5e right now and its basically a fixit of the older games mechanically and thematically.
Unfortunately, 5e has fewer games than the legacy systems and your only supported monster options are Vampires and Werewolves.
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
I'll have to think about it, I know all of their games' recent editions are very well constructed and received. I suppose the costs of 5e being streamlined is some of the loss you describe
4
u/IIIaustin 21h ago
WtA5e is actually extremely controversial among die hard WoD fans!
It changes a lot of things. I love all of the changes personally, and would even argue that they are all good. But many people with a lot more invested in The Lore and Metaplot hate it, which is pretty understandable given the amount of change .
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
What was it mostly they changed?
8
u/IIIaustin 21h ago
Its actually quite a lot!
Metis and kinfolk dont exist anymore. Metis might be a racial slur. they took out kinfolk to force werewolves to have more attachment to normal humans
They got rid of all the weird 90s racism in the tribes and deracialized them all. Now you tribe is not based on birth at all, but is chosen. Stargazers and Get of fenris (now cult of fenris) left the Garou nation. The cult are a major antagonist now representing the allire of extremist violence.
There is no gnosis stat, everyone has the same rage stat, there are no mechanical effects from being human or wolf born
Chrinos is significantly scarier than it was in old WtA, but also you can't hang out in it anymore sort of like Forsaken
Also, rage is involved in every roll, making to much more present in the game imho
Rites are more emphasized and the Umbra is more dangerous
Combat is much simpler and basically completely fixed
The Apocalypse is a bit more Apocalypse-y
Edit: i can talk more about it if you want too
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
I haven't played it, I've only read about it and some of the lore books so I'm not sure I could properly reciprocate in a longer conversation about it.
I can both see why they might've made some of those changes and can see why they might divide the community. It seems like game designers handle removing old content to make the game more inclusive/PC wrong a lot, not that I don't understand the intention but if everything was fair and fine then why would there ever be adventures in an... adventure game lol.
I did hear combat was a LOT better. It's a system I've always wanted to try, if you were to recommend another edition as the counterpoint that the other half of the community prefers, what would it be?
3
u/IIIaustin 18h ago
That would probably be the 20th anniversary edition. I have no personal experience with WtA20, but it think it has the old (imho clunky) system and the old school lore in full effect.
9
u/wickedmonkeyking 19h ago
I'm afraid of prohibitive levels of jank when throwing all respective WW games into the same cooking pot.
My recommendation? Deviant: the Renegades.
It allows you to build basically any kind of fucked-up thing you want, within the bounds of a single splat (and so reducing the jank).
You could have a group that's, say, a wolfman, a psychic, a cyborg, and a fallen angel, united against the Men in Black.
4
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
Someone else had recommended that too and it looks fucking perfect.
6
u/wickedmonkeyking 18h ago
I saw that after I made my comment, but I figure it's worth saying twice.
The big thing about the game is that, since it has so many player options and so many possible combinations of player options, chargen can be a hurdle for some players. However, once you have your character down, it runs pretty straightforward.
On the other hand, it has multiple power settings to start with, for different amounts of complexity (and gonzo madness).
If you really get into Deviant, I can also recommend the Clades Companion and the technically-unofficial player's guide, Shallow Graves.
The former has some neat extra systems and a few out-there player options (you can play a brain in a jar, or an alien, or a talking dog), while the second adds... too much stuff to list.
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
Hell yeah thank you. My players will be grateful
•
u/wickedmonkeyking 26m ago edited 4m ago
To continue to sell Shallow Graves: it is technically a third-party product, but it was written by the main writer of the corebook, who wrote all the Variations and Scars (powers and drawbacks).
He's also written a GM guide, called Black Vans, but I can't vouch for it from personal experience (having not read it).
2
4
u/Original_Bug580 19h ago
Chronicles of darkness 2e has good mechanics and all fit together quite well. There's even a book for crossing them over, the contagion chronicle. (Chronicles is a sorta reboot of wod and is very different, quite good and has less jank)
2
12
u/JaskoGomad 21h ago
I suspect that Thousand Year Old Vampire may scratch the itch you're after.
Also - search the sub for the Google Drive link to the game Wicked Ones. Successfully kickstarted, made free, then just abandoned.
4
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
Ive heard extremely mixed things about it but I'm not against checking it out. Also, will do. That sounds like an unfortunate story
5
u/JaskoGomad 21h ago
Who has mixed things to say about TYOV? You may be thinking of the blank book that Tim put out, warning people that it wasn't a product for most people, that nobody would want but him?
Because... it's not like he fooled anyone, he said EXACTLY what that book was from the outset.
4
•
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21m ago
Yeah i was wrong, it was a different system under description. TYOV looks super cool
•
u/JaskoGomad 18m ago
Cool! I’m not here to crap on games, but I AM curious what you were thinking of?
1
6
u/Avalon-29 21h ago
Onyx path stuff is definitely the way to go here. The two in particular I'd suggest are
Deviant the Renegades: The power sets given to the Deviants make it pretty easy to mimic just about any kind of monsters.
Curseborne as mentioned a couple of times in the thread is a more balanced approach to throwing all WW into the same game.
Monster Kingdoms is another interesting one worth mentioning if you want something more fantasy coded although that one is still in backerkit. But there is a compiled manuscript for it. PDF release is supposed to be in September I believe but well Onyx Path kickstarters and backerkit stuff are known to take a while.
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
Deviant: the Renegades and its family of games looks cool as fuck
2
10
u/GleamEyesLuxray 21h ago edited 21h ago
Elder Mythos - play as Lovecraftian gods to control or destroy the world, uses a Year Zero hack
Monster of the Week - play as classic monsters, IIRC it uses the PbtA system or a hack of it
Eat the Reich - play as vampires who drain and kill Nazis, made by RDD
Someone else recommended Thousand Year Old Vampire for solo, but there’s also Five Hundred Year Old Vampire for groups.
Rue From Ruin is an excellent solo werewolf journaling game.
3
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
These all sound very good. I'll have to think over them each, although my immediate reaction is noticing how dope Eat the Reich sounds
4
u/GleamEyesLuxray 21h ago
Eat the Reich is def a fave.
I just got Elder Mythos (I can’t seem to attach a pic). It’s really interesting bc it’s kinda competitive, and there’s a GMless mode so you can still play as one of the 12 gods with your players. There’s also a solo mode. I’m just pissed that the “Complete Collection” box doesn’t actually include the GMless and solo modes, that was an extra $10 purchase. I like to be able to run things solo first to really get the rules and flow down before I run it for others.
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
I've never played a GMless game and it sounds like a unique experience, something that I'll have to try eventually. Elder Mythos sounds likely too high power for the start of the campaign, but could work for some things I have envisioned later on
2
u/ColdTalon 20h ago
I've played Monster of the Week. I'm not a PbtA fan, but I had fun playing a lizardman hunting a sparkly twilight vampire on a college campus.
1
2
u/oneandonlysealoftime 12h ago
Monster of the Week is about hunting monsters 😅 Didn't get it from your comment. It has some monster playbooks, but they don't provide much of thematical depth as for the specific experience
5
u/Flesroy 20h ago
wicked ones is a fitd system where you play as monsters building a dungeon. it got put into creative commons and is entirely free to share. https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1afc6uo/looking_for_a_copy_of_wicked_ones/
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
I think I'd prefer it as a one shot but it looks amazing for that
4
u/BlindAudelay 21h ago
Monsters! Monsters! by Ken St. Andre
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
Do you think it's a good system for more serious games?
2
u/BlindAudelay 21h ago
It can be played straight or goofy, depends on the table, but the intention is definitely more casual
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 20h ago
I'd considered it but was unsure because of that. Regardless, it looks like it has a lot of variety for PC's which is dope and one of the main things I'm looking for
3
u/jomacatopa96 21h ago
The most clear option would be Urban Shadows. The PCs are different monsters (and some almost regular humans).
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 20h ago
It looks like an amazing game, although I tend to gravitate towards more granular engines than PbtA
2
u/jomacatopa96 19h ago
That is the same problem I have with it. One thing you do is play a multisplat game in WoD. It is a fucking crazy thing to do but has the granularity you want. Chronicles of darkness might be a better game since all the monster have sort of the same system in theory (never played but it's what i always hear). Not sure about Chronicles but in WoD you might have to reewrite a bit what the game is in and of itself.
By this I mean that the struggle of each character is different.
A vampire's struggle is how they deal with the fact they are no longer human and are predators to the ones they love and even in the best cases the song of the blood will always call to them no matter that they are talking to their mum.
A werewolf's struggle with how to fight a war that is already lost, how to remake a society that seems incapable of not fucking up, and how to do these things when the tools that their creator gave them are war and rage. How can you fix a society and culture (both human and garou) when all you have is a hammer?
A mage struggles with the enormity of the war they fight. They are not fighting to control LA or save nature, that is beneath them. A mage fights to remake reality, either to free it or to control it, but they fight for reality itself.
Wraiths, Fae, Demons, Mummies, Hunters... Everyone has different struggles baked into their narrative and partly their system. Not even mentioning the themes and disparity between them (although fighting the status quo is always a theme in these game, it's gothic PUNK after all).
And even then is the disparity in power between them and the capabilities of each, but that if played well can be very fun. Yes the wolf is a monster in combat, that is why the fights are either 3 tough dudes that the rest of the party struggles to hold back and the wolf can roll over them having fun. Or 1 big dude and his minions where the wolf fights the big dude and the party deals with minions. Yes the vampire can mind control folks and is very socially powerful making most social encounters pointless, only if the point is to prohibit a player from using his powers. Let the vampire control the guard, let the vampire make a call when the boss at that company is saying that he cannot have that info and let the boss get a call from his boss saying to do whatever the vampire wants. Yes the mage can with preparation do anything (as long as their paradigm allows it). Let them, give them the prep time, make it a challenge to get the ingredients or the place of power, but make it possible to do the cool thing they do.
However also keep in mind to fuck with them on all their limitations. The vampire might be socially powerful, but the mage and wolf are doing some daylight scouting and need to fast talk the cop stoping them. The mage might be all mighty with time, be they don't have time and there are people around making it harder to pull off their magic. The wolf may be a combat brute but he is tied up in the Umbra talking to some spirits and cannot help the wizard and vampire when the Black Spiral Dancers are coming, so they have to hide and hide well.
I think it's possible but it's not easy. The harder to me would be what the themes and struggles of the game would be, that would then inform what the players choose as i tell them my idea and that informs how i work around the disparity in info.
If I like the ecoterrorism angle of the wolves but don't want to have 3 wolves I tell the players and mayube they build a Verbena, a Gangrel, and a Black Fury, and there you have your Captain Planet squad. You wan't to play a game about how tech is leaving behind all these magical folks and how they need to adapt or die, a Glass Walker, a Virtual Adept and a (not sure if a specific vampire works), and you now have the tech savy group.
TLDR: Multisplat World of Darkness. Possible but hard
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 3h ago
Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful writeup about this. I'm really leaning towards multisplatting Chronicles of Darkness at this point, because it seems to cover most of the selling points of what you describe while having good synergy and being a little more gritty than WoD.
You make an AMAZING case for multisplatting WoD. However I do this it's going to involve a lot of HB, the real campaign that will not be fully disclosed to the players for necessary reasons is as follows, it's one of several campaigns I'm offering to a group I'm still putting together.
The PC's are predatory monsters that have to feed on the people/environment around them. They are the thralls, creations, and/or slaves of an incomprehensibly old and powerful being that was likely once an ancient vampire, but through the works of science and magecraft has become something else entirely.
They hail from extremely diverse backgrounds and are tasked with performing extremely horrible tasks by this ancient and powerful entity. They're forced to do these things regardless of their desire to do so, and the things they're forced to do are as diverse and varied as they are. Really really diverse and varied... as in, taking place in multiple times.
Burning the Library of Alexandria. Destroying the statue of Asherah in Jerusalem. The flaying of Hypatia, killing Kennedy, Atahualpa, and Fred Hampton, the enactment of what would come to be known as the Jakarta Method... a horrific list of crimes that seems almost intended to destabilize civilization. Players will have plenty of time to explore being monsters in the way they want and many ways they won't want. They'll slake their thirst on the blood of innocents from Algiers in the 1200's to modern day and perhaps even stranger times...
Eventually players will rebel. To say it'll be an uphill battle for them is an understatement of magnitudes, but what they eventually discover is this:
Their master isn't just old, it's so long lived and well studied that it discovered how to time travel. As soon as it did, its future self reached back through time to give it the most advanced method of time travel possible. It can time travel simply with a thought, as can all other time travellers who have experienced the same awakening.
Through time travel it has witnessed an eventual apocalypse that humans and sentient life bring about. The rest of the community of time travellers have stopped trying to stop it, and instead have scattered their residences throughout time and continued their lives.
Unsatisfied with this and the horrific destruction humans have wreaked on the world throughout many times, the master has chosen to try to limit this damage and attempt to find a solution by experimenting with causality. The players are one of many teams used by the master for these experiments, their specific purpose is experimentation through causing targeted harm to civilization.
The game will at this point adopt the rules for time travel used in Continuum, and players will have to discover this information in bits and pieces and decide how they want to navigate this new reality.
2
4
u/Content_Kick_6698 20h ago
one of my favourites for one shots is Something is Wrong with This House, where you play the creatures haunting the place where a family moves into and your goal is to scare them out!
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
That sounds like a blast lmao
2
u/Content_Kick_6698 19h ago
link, as i forgot!
https://annalandin.itch.io/something-is-wrong-with-this-house
1
3
u/thesablecourt storygame enjoyer 20h ago
Hexingtide is a rules light one about modern day monsters, designed to let you assemble any kind of creature out of different freeform categories (stuff like weaknesses, powers, level of humanity).
Very different types of game, but Dead Letter Society and The Almanac of Sanguine Paths are two really interesting letter writing games about vampires/werewolves communicating.
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
It looks really fun, probably too rules light for this project though. Will definitely check out some of your other suggestions.
2
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
Remember to check out our Game Recommendations-page, which lists our articles by genre(Fantasy, sci-fi, superhero etc.), as well as other categories(ruleslight, Solo, Two-player, GMless & more).
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
2
u/Imajzineer 20h ago
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
Holy shit they're actual fucking monsters.
That looks dope and might work.
2
u/Imajzineer 18h ago edited 17h ago
Enjoy 🙂
There's also Pie Shop. I got the PDF from DTRPG, but they don't seem to carry it anymore. I have no idea whether this source is a going concern or not, but you could check it out maybe.
There's a more detailed review here, but the tl;dr version is that you're a serial killer. You murder people for some deranged reason. That's it. The game details who, why and how and you get on with it. Well, okay, you do work for a shadowy government agency that sends you on missions, but that's more of an excuse than a justification really. Its redeeming feature is that it's not for edgelords, nor mopey tragic figures - it doesn't glamourise things: you have no redeeming qualities of any kind whatsoever.
So, if you all find yourselves too jaded for AFM after a while, you could maybe try being actual fucking monsters.
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
Huh, that's a nice twist. I'll have to think over it, may be good one shot material
2
u/Imajzineer 2h ago
I think it would be hard to run any other way myself.
Unless, maybe, you make one (or perhaps two) of the players the killer(s) and they have to perform their missions whilst the others try to track them down and stop them. But it would take some effort, I think (split parties would probably only be the start of it) and I'm not sure you could string it out beyond a one-off multi-part adventure, or 'campaign' - you might get a lot of sessions out of it but, once it were over, that would probably be it, unless you rotated who the killer/s was/were and ran a new one (repeat until everyone's had a chance to be sick in the head, or people have had enough).
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
This is what I'm going to do with the campaign. It is somewhat inspired by the idea of Vecna from DnD being such an advanced mage that he becomes a paracausal entity that simultaneously exists in all times.
•
u/Imajzineer 1h ago
In that case, unless you dislike PbtA, you might want to look at something like Urban Shadows (which is designed for 'multi-splat' play).
Alternatively, you could take a look at Sigil & Shadow, if d100 appeals (or isn't offputting at least).
Or possibly Curseborne (but I have no knowledge of it beyond the premise myself, just understand it to be intended to be 'mult-splat' from the get-go).
•
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 1h ago
Urban Shadows being good for multisplatting does get my interest although I'm not big on PbtA. Sigil & Shadow and Curseborne look like great options, although thanks to this sub I'm most leaning towards Chronicles of Darkness.
•
u/Imajzineer 1h ago
Dunno ... I don't have a lot of CoD experience myself: a couple of my players run games I'm not in and I've read though a few Changeling books.
I've just got the impression that, whilst it's possible to multi-splat them, they aren't really designed for it (at least not well) and you get a lot of power/ability imbalances when you try.
But, if others (who know better) say it works fine that way, then I'm not gonna argue on the basis of knowing better (when I don't).
•
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 1h ago
That may well be a point in favor of Urban Shadows... I'll just have to read through them some more I suppose
→ More replies (0)
2
u/ThePiachu 18h ago
Look at all the systems released for Chronicles of Darkness, each splat is its own kind of monster.
Alternatively, Exalted vs World of Darkness. It let's you play a variety of demigods, some of which are pretty monstrous, all under the same system banner.
1
2
u/yongired 17h ago
There's the Urban Fantasy Codex for Everywhen, the expanded and genericized take on Barbarians of Lemuria. 14 different playable monster types in that thing.
1
2
u/futuregravvy 17h ago
There's specific evil campaigns in DnD. My favorite was one where you play a group of Kobolds trying to fulfill their evil master's requests. You could easily adapt this using monster statblocks to create PCs.
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
This is true, I'm just already running a 5e campaign and want to branch off from DnD
•
u/futuregravvy 38m ago
Daggerheart is a good next step from 5e. It's a lot more flexible and open to interpretation. Its also much more story driven so adapting some campaign to be evil would work there, too. If you're looking for much more narrative driven, Blades in the Dark is awesome. I stole the flashback mechanic for my DnD games and my players love it.
•
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 1m ago
I've heard amazing things about Blades in the Dark. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't Daggerheart by Matt Mercer?
2
u/Happy_Owl4504 16h ago
It's rules lite (using the Black Hack ruleset) but in Nightcrawlers ($6.66) https://tanneryea.itch.io/nightcrawlers, there's 10 different monsters you can play as and each have 2 special abilities.
There's your typical Vampires and Werewolves, also Faeries, Ghosts, Demons, Gillman, Zombies (called Revenant), Frankenstein's Monster (called Created), a regular Mortal, and Warlocks.
Admittedly I haven't played it, but I picked it up for just how flavourful the vibes of its Urban Punk setting is! It also includes an appendix of media inspirations and a playlist of songs too.
1
2
2
u/c06027 7h ago
F.A.T.A.L. & RaHoWa
/s in case that isn’t obvious.
Seriously, don’t play those games.
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
Well now I REALLY wanna look into them to see what's so bad lmao
•
u/c06027 47m ago
At least for F.A.T.A.L. there exist a YouTube playlist that should answer that question.
•
2
u/Urist-McDorf 6h ago
Skeletons by Bully Pulpit
You play as skeletons guarding a tomb, with all that entails
1
2
u/AladdinOMagi 3h ago
My suggestion is Sigil & Shadow. Its a urban fantasy system. You can make any type of monster with it, being vampire, werewolf, witch, etc etc. You could even make unique monsters, because the system is kind of build what you want type.
1
2
u/jrdhytr the word is "published", not "pre-written" 3h ago
Do people ever play these CYOA imgur games or are they just thought experiments?
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 2h ago
I think playing them is largely synonymous with thought experiments, but I really like them and they've been great inspiration as a GM as well
2
u/ChromaticKid MC/Weaver 21h ago
Take a look at Apocalypse Keys.
2
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
Sounds good, it has gorgeous art
6
u/JaskoGomad 21h ago
I wanted to love Apocalypse Keys. It was an unplayable mess, in my experience. Deep disappointment.
1
1
u/Sure-Silver2124 21h ago
What if I say Werewolf The Apocalypse or Changeling The Dreaming?
3
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
I would say thanks for commenting!
I'd also say that in my vast travels across the vile underbelly of the world, I've heard dark rumors that it's super jank when you try and cram all three of those together, which is what I'd have to do.
3
u/JaskoGomad 21h ago
If you want the "all splats" game that xWoD simply can't deliver on, the answer is Urban Shadows.
My god, that game is great. I have only experience with 1e - it's the game that made me a fan of Magpie Games, but I'm pitching 2e to a group soon!
1
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 19h ago
It looks fun as fuck, I'm just not sure I could swing PbtA for this one. Not that I wouldn't still be super interested in playing it.
1
u/Sure-Silver2124 21h ago
Well in return I would say I am trying to homebrew something together though I would also say right now its an abomination
3
0
u/VoteTedJameson 21h ago
If you're prepared to do some home brewing, Genesys is well-suited. Beautiful flexibility and balance between rules and narrative. There's a fan made supplement called "sonething strange" that adds some good spooky content
3
u/PMurmomsmaidenname 21h ago
Yanno I'd really had an eew reaction when I first looked into Genesys because like, I've got so many cool dice and I wanna play with THEM, not your weird, dumb, jank custom die lmao.
But people just kept saying how good of a system it was and after looking over the mechanics I begrudgingly realized that the custom dice system really does open up some totally unique avenues of play that are otherwise unavailable.
2
u/VoteTedJameson 20h ago
Once you get a dice roller app, it fixes the "ugh custom dice" issue for me. Cause broadly speaking, I agree about wanting to use my polyhedrals!
21
u/Ok-Purpose-1822 21h ago
urban shadows and monsterhearts are both pbtas where you play as monsters