Black Lantern Production’s Mansters funded quickly on Kickstarter. In part, it’s because the Greek publisher has built up a good reputation and partly because the cynical game looks good and has a good point.
Mansters argues that our real-life evils, corrupt politicians, people-smugglers and vile bosses are all probably now scarier than classic monsters. In the, these monsters attempt to restore the balance.
Geek Native had an early look at Mansters. The 31-page demo is still live and free to download from DriveThruRPG.
The rules engine is called Hack & Slice and designed to suit narrative-based games, and Black Lantern even go as far as to say they don’t recommend it for dungeon crawlers.
The system uses a Monstrosity counter, a measure for how far a character (or NPC) has distanced themselves from their monster nature. There’s also Skutendo and D(oo) M’s Clocks, the former representing unlucky events that happen near unlucky (failed rolls) monsters and the latter a measure of how that attracts Hunters.
Hunters are problems for any monster.
The world has changed. In the good old days, things were simpler: one lived a plain, frugal life, and promptly died at 35… assuming one wasn’t tangled up in some war, famine, inquisition or terminal toothache first. Despite the hardships of life, though, humans lived a more or less content and carefree life, with less stress, more romance and other such naive notions.
Gamers can support Mansters by spreading the campaign across social media, telling friends, running demos or offering cash.
Those supporters who pledge €15 or more get a corebook PDF as a thank you.
Gamers who pledge €30 or more also get the corebook hardcover as a reward for that contribution.
However, I suspect the physical kit is a key attraction of Mansters for some collectors and at €58, there’s also the Mansters game box, dice, the Skutendo event deck, character sheet pack and GM screen.
The tiers go higher, and at €500, these generous backers become villains in the game.
Black Lanterns estimates that Mansters will ship in August 2024, and the Kickstarter closes on the 22nd of November 2023.
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