Against the Monster is a story game about a monster hunt, the good of the monster, and the monstrosity of the hunters. Whether it’s a dragon, vampire, tentacle monster, artificial intelligence, or something else entirely—you’ll decide in which setting you’ll hunt what kind of monster.
Against the Monster is a GM-less story game for 2-6 players and a flexible play time of about 1-4 hours (one-shot).
All you need to play is this zine and a regular deck of playing cards (52 cards). No preparation or previous game experience necessary – just start playing!
The rules of Against the Monster are very simple: At first you read the short instructions out loud together. The text has our recommended consent and safety tools already built-in. During that introduction, you also choose the rough setting of your monster hunt.
Then the core game starts: You take turns drawing a playing card and looking up the question associated with it in the random tables. Over the course of the game, your monster, your characters , and further details about the context of the monster hunt develop through your answers to the questions.
In the end, all main characters answer: When the monster faces you in the end: Do you really attack it?
Due to the random selection and order of the questions (you'll typically use around half of them during a 2-hour game) and the huge variability of possible settings, you can play Against the Monster again and again and have a different experience each time.
Contents:
Complete instructions for play (consent and safety tools included)
4 random tables with questions (13 options for each of the 4 suits = 52 different questions)
Table with 18 monster ideas
Evocative illustrations on every page (100% human-made)
