Well, here’s another logo for one. Don’t worry previews of the cover are coming soon. But that ain’t what this post is about. It’s about the basics of the game and a little about one of the classes, The Survivor.
Let’s talk about the Basics. It’s designed around the much loved White Box rules. So if you’re an OSR fan, you’ll be able to pick it up and play with no problem. If you’re not then it’ll be real easy to learn. Now there are a few changes and additions.
Gary Vs The Monsters uses Saving Throws as Skills. This is a time honored mechanic in many old school games. It’s quick and easy. There isn’t a long skill list. There isn’t a skill list at all. All the player characters are assumed to be average folks who end facing monsters. So as part of character generation, the characters have a “Day Job”. You know the normal things like retail clerk, slacker, pizza delivery. When a character attempts something that may be related to their day job in some way, they get a +2 bonus to the roll. It’s that simple. Yep, it does sound a lot like the Occupations from Dungeon Crawl Classics.
The second big difference is that all player characters have a +1 Attack Bonus. It doesn’t get better as the character gains levels. (Note: There is an optional rule to add it if the GM wants to play nice.) Attacking supernatural monsters isn’t easy. But characters do get better at ducking which translates to a bonus to Armor Class. And speaking of Armor Class. This is deliberately left as very light rule. It doesn’t matter what armor a character is wearing. It can be a Kevlar Vest, something from the Ren Faire, or sheet metal duct taped to their chest. It give a -2[+2] AC bonus.
Now, I’ll move onto the Survivor. In comparison to the usual fantasy RPG classes, the Survivor is sort of like the Fighter. They have the best Hit Points. They gain the Armor Class bonuses. See above. They gain a bonus to Save versus Fear. Plus they’ve got some other neat tricks. Survivors have their Boom Stick. This is their weapon that they gain a bonus to hit and damage. They have the ability to quickly heal a few Hit Points. They’re also The Last One Standing. What this does is give them an additional bonus to hit and damage for each player character killed by monsters during the current combat encounter.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s a deadly game. I should have mentioned it sooner. Gary vs The Monsters is deadly dangerous. The monsters have the player characters out classed just about every time. It’ll take wits, ingenuity and a lot of luck to survive. So with that. I’ll leave till my next rant. If you want info or whatever, you can join up the Magic Pig Media Community over on Google Plus.