The Setting
There is no default time or place of the setting. The only default assumption of the game is that the player characters are teenagers in high school who fight against the supernatural and the paranormal, despite being urban fantasy or science fiction beings themselves. Everything else is left for the GM and the players to flesh out. The setting could be an elite private school in Victorian England, an American high school in the 1980s, or a futuristic academy in Japan and it all works out just fine. Things like whether or not monsters and other things that go bump in the night are public knowledge or a well-kept secret is also left for each group to decide.
The Genre and Tone
By default, Must Be Tuesday lends itself most easily to urban fantasy and horror. But it can just as easily be used for science fiction as well. The tone of a game is also dependent on the group. The nature of the game assumes a mixture of moods, with the player characters' mundane lives being punctuated with lighthearted comedy and maybe romance, while the supernatural side of their lives is filled with action and drama. But groups can choose to focus more on a specific tone that best suits what they prefer. Whether you want to play the game as a silly comedy filled with wacky high school hijinks, an angst-filled drama about tortured teens trying to handle their mundane lives while holding back against the urges and instincts of the monster inside of them, a romance between regular humans and their monstrous lovers, or an action-packed game of badasses taking down the supernatural horrors preying on humanity from the shadows, it can all work out just fine.
The Character Types
The game allows players to choose from twenty different monster types. They cover the classic Universal monsters (Vampire, Werewolf, Frankenstein, Mummy, and Merperson), science fiction B movies (Alien, Robot, Giant Insect, and Blob), and other such creatures, as well as humans who are themselves supernatural or enhanced by science (Secret Agent, Hunter, Witch/Warlock, and Immortal). These monster types act as sort of templates chosen at character creation, and their Attributes are predefined though they can easily be tweaked to fit the specific rules of each group's Universe. For example, the Zombie's default Weakness to "antibiotics" can be changed to something more appropriate like "head shots." These twenty are presented just as starting examples however, and it's easy enough for the GM and players to create additional unique custom monster types to fit their group. It's only a matter of choosing an Instinct, a Weakness, and three Traits (supernatural abilities or qualities). The GM is free to allow players to choose from any of the monster types if they are going for a "monster mash" kind of game, or restrict availability to just a few that fit the genre and tone of their game, such as only allowing players to choose from the human character types like Secret Agent, Hunter, and Witch/Warlock if the game focuses on special people fighting back against monsters.
Character Creation
Character creation is very quick and simple. The player only has to choose a Name for their character, a Desire (a motivation or something they really enjoy doing or are a hobby/interest really interested in), a Trouble (some kind of physical, mental, or social flaw or hardship that the character must deal with), three skills (which can be positive personality traits as well as mundane abilities), and an iconic item that helps the character in some way (such as a signature weapon, a cool car, etc.). Rather than choosing from a list of options, all of these are left to the player's imagination to decide on themselves in their own words, so that each character can be fleshed out to be unique and fit the player's character concept. The player then chooses one of the twenty monster types (the Attributes of which are predefined and require no further choices), and character creation is finished. It literally takes only a few minutes, and makes the game very easy to introduce to players who might be new to tabletop role-playing games or who don't have the book themselves.
The System
The game uses a simple d6 mechanic for resolving Challenges (Actions in which the character either has a chance of failure, or that is being opposed by another character). All Challenges are categorized by being Mundane (when the character is doing everyday, ordinary stuff like schoolwork, house chores, etc.) or Supernatural (fighting against or trying to escape monsters, occult knowledge, etc.). The way Challenges are resolved flows pretty smoothly: the player announces an action that their character is going to take, the GM in response tells the player how many successes the character would need to roll to be able to succeed at the action, the player then decides whether they still want to attempt the action or back down and accept the alternative consequences, and if the player still indeed wants to give the action a try then rolls a dice pool comprised of three dice by default plus an additional die for each Skill and/or Trait they have that is contextually relevant to the action they are attempting along with additional dice depending on whether the Challenge is a Mundane one or a Supernatural one. Once rolled, each die that comes up as a 4, 5, or 6 is a success, while each die that comes up as a 1, 2, or 3 is a failure. Having a relevant item to the task at hand can help by making each die that comes up as a 3 a success as well, making success a 3, 4, 5, and 6. However if the character is in a situation where they are being affected or influenced by their Trouble or Weakness, a die that comes up as a 4 will be a failure so that only a result of 5 or 6 is a success. And so, if the number of successful dice rolled equaled or exceeded the number of successes required for the Challenge, the character has succeeded, whereas not having enough successes means failure. If it's an Opposed Challenge in which two or more characters are competing, rather than having a target difficulty number of successes to match or exceed, all of the competing characters roll off against each other, and the one with the most successes wins.
The most interesting thing about the game's mechanic though is the Character Slider. It's a scale going from one to nine, both for Mundane and Supernatural. Every Challenge (dice roll) that a character makes is influenced by and will influence their position on this Slider. If the character's position on the Slider is within the Mundane range, they will receive extra dice to roll on Mundane Challenges. If their position on the Slider is within the Supernatural range, they will receive extra dice to roll on Supernatural Challenges. Whenever a character fails at a Mundane Challenge, they are forced to become less Mundane or more Supernatural (reflecting a loss of respect and/or trust, or growing suspicion from ordinary people, as well as rumors and gossip starting). If they fail at a Supernatural Challenge, they instead are forced to become less Supernatural and more Mundane (reflecting injuries and negative magical effects). Basically failing at Mundane Challenges affects the character socially, and failing at Supernatural Challenges affects the character physically. Succeeding however can either empower the character (making them a little less Mundane or a little more Supernatural) or relax the character (making them a little less Supernatural or a little more Mundane). In addition to representing a character's "Power Bar," the Slider also represents their "Health Meter" as well. If a character ever goes off the Mundane side of the Slider (going past 9), they have become too injured, weak, and ordinary to defend themselves and in horror movie/slasher film style they are killed off, becoming the next victim of the monster. If however a character ever goes off the Supernatural side of the Slider, they have given in to their darker nature and instincts, casting aside their humanity and morals to instead embrace life as a true evil monster, thus making them the next villain-of-the-week for the rest of the player characters to have to deal with. In either case it's "Game Over" for the character, as it means either the death of their body or the death of their soul.
Truth-be-told the Character Slider, being the most unique aspect of the game, is also the one that takes the most getting used to for new GMs and players of the game. Most GMs and players I think are used to knowing that failing at a combat roll to dodge an attack, or some kind of action-adventure situation in which the character is trying to avoid dangerous hazards in the environment, can have lethal consequences if failed. However, it can be easy to forget that in this game, failing too much and too often at Mundane tasks like taking a math test or losing at a game of basketball can also lead your character to a "game over" as well. Once you start to remember to keep this in mind though, the Character Slider becomes a lot of fun, as it adds a bit of drama to the game in which the player characters have to struggle to keep themselves in balance: becoming very Mundane will make the character more adept at everyday life activities but also makes it much easier for them to be killed by a monster, whereas becoming very Supernatural will make the character far more powerful against other Supernatural creatures and magical effects but will make them more likely to soon go off the deep end and become a heartless monster themselves.
Overall
The game is quick and simple to run. It includes a plot generator that follows the Five Act Structure used in most novels, movies, and television shows so that each session can be episodic, with a beginning, middle, and end, with most sessions being resolved by defeating the current "Monster of the Week." This means that the game can be run with very little advanced preparation. And although the game is inspired by television shows like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," even if you're not that familiar with the show (as I'm not) you can still enjoy it. Must be Tuesday works just as well when running a game inspired by supernatural and occult detective anime too (which is how I run the game), such as series like "Devil Hunter Yohko," "Yu Yu Hakusho," "Ghost Sweeper Mikami," "Combustible Campus Guardress," "Phantom Quest Corp.," "Witch Hunter Robin," and "Rosario + Vampire." So if you like that type of anime, this game can emulate it very well.
Another thing to note is, despite the game claiming to have a very narrow focus, being simply about high school supernaturals fighting monsters, I found nothing about the game's mechanics that would restrict a group from going beyond those default expected conventions. The game doesn't need to be focused around a high school, and can just as easily take place during a never-ending Summer vacation, or always taking place on weekends (remember how the original "Scooby-Doo" series, despite being about teenagers, rarely involved the characters ever being at school?). It doesn't even need to be about teenagers either, as the game seems like it would work just as well with a group of college students living on campus at a university, or adults who have nine-to-five jobs. The premise doesn't even have to follow the default assumption that monsters are antagonistic and need to be fought either. The game could just as easily be used to run a romantic harem comedy anime that follows an ordinary human involved with several supernaturals that are all in love with them (take "Rosario + Vampire" or "Everyday Life with Monster Girl" for example).
So in conclusion, I think "World's In Trouble? Must Be Tuesday" is a great little game with lots of flexibility and versatility, perhaps even more so than the game itself realizes. It's inexpensive, and despite being short (thirty-one pages) gives you all you need to run a fun game without having to memorize tons of mechanics, powers, charts, etc. to do so. It's a handy game to have especially for when you want to introduce a simple TRPG to players who are new to the hobby, or if you want to run something at a convention since the game is set up for each session to be self-contained and have a resolution at the end. That isn't to say that the game can't be run for a longer campaign, which it can, but its default episodic nature also works well as game to play when you're between other games and what something that you can have fun with for a session or two without having to develop a large, long-planned plot and story arc.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |