Review of A Monster's Tail - a Monster Catching PbtA TTRPG

    I am supporting an ongoing Kickstarter campaign for A Monster's Tail, a monster catching TTRPG inspired by Pokémon and based on the PbtA system, developed by Five Points Games. At time of writing, there are only a few days left.

    I regularly run Dungeon World, and since Palworld came out, I've been thinking about how the monster catching genre might be adapted to PbtA. I was thrilled to discover someone has beaten me to it. Since I want this to succeed, I decided to run a one-shot for my regular gaming group and see how that went. What follows is my review of the game as it stands in the Quickstart. 

The Bottom Line

1. My players and I all had a great time and would love to pursue a longer campaign.
2. The final version is still being edited, and as such, the Quickstart document is a little rough. It has clearly been re-written a few times by now. There are a few errors and poor wording that made it confusing.
3. The Quickstart document is almost but not quite sufficient to comfortably run a one-shot in. I felt it was lacking in the amount of Genmon ("generic  monster," as they call them) and the number of "natures" available to apply to them.

Mechanics Overview

One of the more innovative things about this system is how it approaches the genre. There have been other attempts at converting Pokémon to TTRPGs, and they tend to focus on emulating the combat mechanics of the games. A Monster's Tail, however, is more like the anime than the games. It's about telling a story of a group of friends going on a journey together through a world of trainable monsters. It doesn't get bogged down on the mechanical details of catching, training, leveling, battling, etc.

Players start by choosing a “Journey,” this game’s term for Playbooks. The Journeys don’t just grant different moves, but they describe what the character’s goals are for the campaign. For example, the Champion is the Journey focused on challenging all the gyms. Whereas the Idol is more interested in using their Genmon to aid them in their performing art, and advances through successful performances. The Journeys each have their own victory condition to track, which triggers their “Finale” when completed. Given that this is a Quickstart, this isn’t very detailed yet.

Catching Genmon comes down to a single 2d6 roll, modified by the "grade" of the capture device (like basic pokeballs vs great balls or ultra balls), and with a -1 penalty if you have yet to use another move in the scene. This means it gets easier after interacting with the wild Genmon at least a little bit first.

                The Genmon themselves are differentiated by having one or two types, and having a type advantage/disadvantage over an opponent can grant a bonus or penalty to certain rolls. Each Genmon also has a “Nature,” which describes its personality. This gives the GM a list of “nature complications,” or how the Genmon’s behavior complicates the scene, and a number of moves related to its nature.

One really interesting innovation is how duels are handled. As I learned from speaking with the designers, having to roll the same combat move over and over again for up to 6 Genmon is really boring. Instead, there is a qualitative measurement known as "style," to assess whether a trainer is stronger than, weaker than, or equal to you. Random trainers you meet in the wild can be assumed to be weaker, gym leaders and villain team admins are stronger, and villain team leaders and champions are much stronger. You may then raise or lower your own comparative style by asking questions, like whether or not your team is healthy, or if you have type advantages, etc. Then the duel comes down to a single roll. The results are determined based on whether your style is lower, equal, or higher than your opponents. A lower style might mean a narrow defeat, even on a 10+. With a higher style, even a 6- is a victory, albeit with a complication.

Again, the game is trying to emulate the storytelling aspect, rather than get bogged down in the mechanical exchange that is usually handled by a video game console. I think this is an innovative approach to the monster catching genre that showcases the strengths of the PbtA system and design philosophy.

A Summary of Play

Note: I ran a second one-shot recently for a different group, which happened to include one of the writers of the game. He was able to join up due to, coincidentally, living in the same city as me. I’m only recording my experience with the first group, both for brevity and because my overall impression was the same both times: a lot of fun, very exciting, very much in need of more editing.

I started this scenario with 4 players, one for each of the four "Journeys," i.e. playbooks, that are available in the Quickstart. The players were:

Oris, the Champion. Much like Ash Ketchum, the Champion wants to challenge the gyms of the region, collect all the badges, and "be the very best, like no one ever was."

Jeremy "Gen Man" Filschner, the Idol. The Idol's journey is to gain notoriety using their Genmon in the performing arts. The details are left up to you, as "Gen Man" here was a luchador.

“Cap” the Captain

“The Doctor” the Doctor

    I opened by describing the players setting out from Venture Town, the starting town, and traveling along Route 1 to Tenor City. Route 1 was mostly a maritime forest alongside some short limestone cliffs and tide pools by the ocean.

    We tested out the travel rules, and this is where I felt it needed some more clarification. Routes and Wilds have a "rate" associated with them, and I originally thought you needed to role the Travel move once per rate of the Route. Upon conferring with the designer on Discord, it seems like only one roll is necessary, and the "rate" is tracked with a progress clock. A rate of 3 needs three successes of any kind. Failed rolls could add complications and remove progress, per the GM's discretion.

    In any case, they explored the route, captured a few wild Genmon, and agreed to help an old man find his missing Genmon, a platiquent named Admiral.

    They soon found a group of Spade Gang grunts, the local villainous team. One of the grunts had stolen the wayward platiquent and refused to return it.

    Oris challenged the grunt to a duel and won, forcing the grunt to return the stolen Genmon. Gen Man, however, couldn't leave well enough alone, and demanded to know what the villains were up to. The Admin, a man called "Clubs," challenged Gen Man to a duel.

    The interesting thing is, the way Gen Man's player rolled, he could have chosen to win the fight, but barely. Instead, he decided that it made more narrative sense to lose. So Clubs defeated Gen Man and warned them not to follow.

    After this, they returned Admiral to the old man who rewarded them with some Gear (the currency you spend for equipment), then asked Cap to watch Admiral for a while. Cap's journey, the Captain, has certain part time jobs associated with them. Cap chose "Genmon babysitter" for one of them, and thus earned a civic commendation.

    Before arriving in Tenor City, they also saw a couple of trainers who had fallen down in a cliff collapse. The Doctor provided medical care to the NPC trainer's injured Genmon, and thus progressed their journey as well.

    Upon arriving in Tenor City, Oris wasted no time before challenging the gym. The gym was of the "Mantle" type, an earth and stone themed type, and before Oris could face the gym leader, Chuck, he needed to complete a rock climbing course with his Genmon. Despite having the "Reckless" condition at this point and taking a -1 penalty to Overcome (a generic move similar to DW's Defy Danger), he rolled well and the battle commenced. He was able to successfully defeat Chuck and earn his first badge.

    Afterwards, Gen Man arrived at his wrestling match to perform. He rolled well enough to succeed, but added one to his "audience track," which is kind of a measure of how tired of him the audience is. This indicated that while he did well, he would need to do better.

    After the match, Gen Man met with a "talent scout" to discuss the match, only to learn it was Clubs, the villain Admin from Route 1. Clubs warned Gen Man to keep his nose out of the Spade Gang's business if he valued his career, and Gen Man, defiant, vowed to become the greatest luchador in the region regardless.

Concluding Thoughts

    On the whole, I’d say this is an innovative and elegant way of translating Pokemon-style stories to TTRPGs. Despite the rough spots I encountered in play, it’s clear that this is a diamond in the rough. And the developers are active on Discord and have been very receptive to the feedback that myself and others have been giving them. I’m very excited to get my hands on the final release.

Skycrawl - My first big Dungeon World Campaign

 

A staple of any TTRPG blog are accounts of play sessions for ongoing campaigns. I'd like to talk about my first major Dungeon World campaign, and another excellent book that laid the foundations for it.

Skycrawl by Aaron A. Reed offers a unique, systems-agnostic framework for running a TTRPG campaign all about sailing airships in a realm of infinite sky, dotted with floating islands inhabited by all kinds of strange creatures.

The Setting

The Azure Etern is a plane defined by an infinite air-filled void and no objective gravity. A number of magical metals, the so-called "Heavy Elements" generate gravitational pull. They also serve as the setting's currency and the basis for a unique system for mixing potions, called "orcery."

The void is dotted with several free-floating islands, or "Lands," with its own attendant "Sol," a miniature, sentient sun. And these lands are populated by "Folk," the book's term for fantasy races. These can come in a wide variety of strange and unusual forms, quite unlike the elves and dwarves of more conventional fantasy settings.

The Tools

But here's the real beauty of this book. It provides you the foundation, but the details of all these weird floating islands and fantasy races are left up to you. It provides examples, of course, but it also includes robust random tables for generating ideas for Lands and Folk. It's simple (and addictive!) to roll up some basic facts about a Land or a Folk and connect them into a weird, unique set piece for your campaign.

As I alluded to above, it also includes some basic, system-agnostic procedures for handling things like ship-to-ship combat and exploring/charting an infinite, ever-shifting void with no fixed landmarks. And the author lists Powered by the Apocalypse games as a primary source for inspiring these mechanics. They are mostly contained in discrete "moves," with suggestions for degrees of success.

In addition to Skycrawl, I also used some content from Inverse World, by Jacob Randolph and Brandon Schmelz. Their book describes a similar campaign setting, but with floating islands orbiting a sun in a hollow Earth type scenario. I may have lifted a few ideas here and there, but I mainly got that for the Dungeon World compatible mount and vehicle rules.

I also used Owlberar's Big Book of Races [sic] to give my players class-independent racial move options. That was the very first thing I decided to house rule for my campaign, and I recommend it to anyone playing Dungeon World.

The Campaign

Here is the premise of my Dungeon World campaign which I gave to all of my players:

    "Your world teeters on the precipice of doom. Apophis, the Shadow Wyrm, has awoken from his slumber. All efforts to slay or contain him have failed, and soon he will devour the sun, plunging the world into eternal darkness and dooming all life. Your liege and ruler, Princess Claire, has devised a novel solution: find a new sun.

    An ancient legend describes a world where new suns are born. A world of endless sky, where villages cling to small rocky spheres lit by sentient suns, brave souls sail far beyond the reach of gravity toward far-flung delves and enchanted clouds, and strange skybeasts swim wild through vast and distant twilights.

    A world known as the Azure Aetern. And Princess Claire’s magical adviser, Vandroth, the Good Warlock, has devised a miraculous flying ship, and a ritual by which he may open a portal to this other world. Your mission: find a suitable replacement for the sun, and save your world."

I changed the spelling to Azure Aetern, with an A. I'm kind of a Latin nerd.

Anyway, at time of writing, we're 10 sessions deep. I had some difficulty with players dropping in and out for the first few sessions, as is to be expected, but I seem to have found a pretty solid gaming group now. I've been writing session recaps for my players for each session, and I intend to clean those up and post them. I would also like to post some of my prep for this campaign, which anyone can mine for inspiration or just lift outright for their own games.

Why Dungeon World? An introduction, of sorts

Introduction

Greetings. I'm having another go at blogging after a long time away from TTRPGs in general. I got my start in D&D 3.5, and in my time I've run Mutant Future, Mutants and Masterminds, Tekumel, Numenera, and most recently, Dungeon World.

What is Dungeon World?

In case you've found this blog by sheer accident and this is your first time hearing about it, Dungeon World is a fantasy TTRPG by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel, published in 2012. It has more or less all the familiar trappings of D&D and D&D-like games, with elves, wizards, fighters, the six attribute scores, etc. 

The difference is, Dungeon World is based off the "Powered by the Apocalypse" engine, originally from the game Apocalypse World.

In practical terms, that means Dungeon World does a few things differently.

• Instead of rolling d20 + modifiers to hit a certain DC, every action in Dungeon World is resolved by rolling 2d6 + modifiers. A -6 is a failure, a 7-9 is a partial success or a success with a complication, and a 10+ is a success.

• Basically every action you take in the game is covered by a distinct "move," which has its own rules and usually its own recommendations for what goes wrong on a -6 or a 7-9.

• The game is more narrative focus. Things happen because they make sense in context more often than because of sheer mechanics. There are a lot more rulings and a lot more abstraction.

Why Dungeon World?

As a fantasy TTRPG, Dungeon World sets out to accomplish much the same things as D&D. I got my start playing 3.5E, and I feel like Dungeon World offers novel solutions to many of the issues I have had with that game.

• Prep time is a breeze. Preparing adventures and encounters as a DM in D&D 3.5E was an agonizing slog. There's so many mechanics to keep track of: you have to make/compile complex stat blocks, calculate encounter difficulty, calculate XP, calculate level-appropriate treasure, etc. Prepping for D&D 3.5E felt like more work than doing my taxes. Prepping for Dungeon World is so much easier, it allows me to focus on the fun part: coming up with unique worlds and scenarios.

• Homebrewing is a breeze. As an extension of above, fewer rules, less emphasis on everything being "balanced," means making new monsters, classes, magic items, etc. is much easier.

• Combat is way faster. There's no initiative, for one thing. There isn't even rolling attack rolls for each individual monster, per se. When a character would take damage from more than one monster, you roll the dice for the highest damage-dealing monster and add +1 for every other monster aiding them. It's simple, it's deadly, and it's lightning fast.

• Degrees of success make every turn feel more meaningful. When I first started getting back into TTRPGs, I joined a local 5E game and rolled up a warlock. Combat usually boiled down to: cast eldritch blast, wait +30 minutes, cast eldritch blast again, etc. Combat is so slow you might only take two or three turns per hour. And when rolling d20 versus a fixed DC, it's hit or miss. Multiple turns can go by without you accomplishing or contributing anything. In Dungeon World, since you roll 2d6, one, it makes a nice bell-curve where you're less likely to just fail outright, and two, having three tiers of success means that a turn where you accomplish nothing is more rare.

• There's only one book. There are others, of course, but you only need one. For just $25, you get your character classes, core rules, GM advice, monsters, etc. all in one book. Whereas D&D typically requires you to buy 3. Getting into D&D might require an investment north of $90, not that I've checked the prices at Barnes & Noble, lately.

Conclusion

Dungeon World is great. I highly recommend it to any connoisseur of TTRPGs. And since it's so great, and TTRPGs are so great, I want to write about them in a somewhat public manner. And away we go.