Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme - Starter Guide

What Is Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme?

Let's be clear: this is not a role-playing game. It is a rigorous educational programme for serious students of History. It says so right on the tin.

Right. Now that we've got that out of the way.

Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme - let's call it the Programme - is the officially licensed TTRPG based on the complete comedic output of Monty Python. Published by Exalted Funeral in 2025 (following a successful Kickstarter in 2022), it was written by Brian Saliba and Craig Schaffer. The game is primarily set in Arthurian mediaeval England - think Holy Grail - but it draws freely from the full Python catalogue: Flying Circus, Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, albums, live shows, all of it.

The result is a rules-lite tabletop experience designed to generate stories that feel distinctly Pythonesque. Not recreations of famous scenes, but new chaos in the same spirit.

How Does the System Work?

The Programme uses an original dice system built around a Serious-Silly spectrum. Each player character has up to five Traits - chosen from a list of twenty - with names like Valour, Decorum, Chastity, Glibness, Sorcery, Musicianship, and Wisdom in the Ways of Science. Each Trait sits somewhere on a dial between Very Serious and Very Silly, and where it sits determines which die you roll for that Trait: a small die for silly, a large die for serious, with the full polyhedral set (d4 through d20) in play.

When you roll the maximum result on your die, you've "Strewthed" - your Trait shifts one step toward the Serious end, and you get to roll the next larger die and add it to your result. Traits can shift back toward Silly again through play.

Characters also have a "Situation" - the Programme's term for a character class. Options include Churl, Knight, Monarch, Cleric, and Troubadour, among others. Each Situation comes with its own Spiffing Serious Ability (SSA), a signature power that may produce dramatically impressive results - or achieve absolutely nothing.

The game uses a Merits and Demerits system. Merits can be spent before a roll to add extra dice, or to cancel a Demerit. Demerits, left unaddressed, lead to Dire Consequences.

The Game Master - here called the Head of Light Entertainment, or HoLE - doesn't just run the game neutrally. The HoLE actively plays a specific BBC character persona and can actually be fired mid-campaign and replaced by someone else. It's a role with genuine narrative presence, not just a referee position.

There is also Fetchez la Vache, a standalone backgammon-based minigame involving dice catapults and farm animals. It is exactly as it sounds.

What Do You Need to Start?

The core book is all you strictly need. It contains the full rules, character creation, a bestiary, NPC sections, random tables, and several ready-to-run adventures.

Before you buy, there's a free 77-page quickstart available from Exalted Funeral: the Supplemental Educational Resource Materials for Pre- or Inter-Course Study. It includes gameplay rules, three pre-written HoLE personas, and four pre-generated characters. That's more than enough to run a first session.

The standard retail version is called the Sensible Middle Class Edition. The Public School Edition was a Kickstarter-exclusive hardcover with additional quests, more monsters, more NPCs, and a ribbon bookmark.

Optional extras include a GM screen (the Head of Light Entertainment Gamemaster Screen), a custom dice set themed around the Black Beast, a coconut-shaped dice roller, and the Fetchez la Vache 3-in-1 Game Set for that catapult minigame experience. These are fun, not required.

Who Is This Game For?

The Programme works best for groups who want comedy at the table - not incidentally funny moments, but comedy as the actual point. If your group loves Monty Python, this is an obvious fit. But even without deep Python knowledge, the game provides a complete, playable world built on absurdist mediaeval logic.

It's also genuinely beginner-friendly. The rules are light, character creation is accessible, and the tone practically invites people to get things "wrong" in funny ways.

Experienced players who enjoy narrative-driven systems with unconventional mechanics will find something interesting here - especially in the HoLE role, which demands actual performance rather than passive narration.

Where the Programme may not be the right choice: groups looking for serious dungeon-crawling, tactical combat, or long-form dramatic campaigns. The system is tuned for comedy and absurdism. You can do longer play, but the DNA is sketches and chaos, not sagas.

How Does It Compare to Other Systems?

Compared to D&D 5e, the Programme is much lighter mechanically. There's no hit point pool, no spell slot management, no grid combat. The tone is the opposite of D&D's default heroic seriousness. If D&D is a fantasy adventure with occasional laughs, the Programme is comedy first, adventure when convenient.

Compared to Paranoia, both are comedy TTRPGs that build dysfunction into the rules. Paranoia runs on inter-player suspicion and bureaucratic horror; the Programme runs on absurdist logic and Python-flavoured chaos. The Programme is warmer and less adversarial - the HoLE is an active participant, not a smiling executioner.

Where Do You Start?

Download the free quickstart from Exalted Funeral's website and read through it. Play the included scenario. If it clicks, pick up the Sensible Middle Class Edition core book. Whoever is running the game should read the HoLE section carefully - the persona system is central to how the game runs. Build characters together at the table; choosing Traits is a conversation worth having out loud. Start with one of the ready-to-run quests before writing your own.

For online discussion and actual play content, check the Exalted Funeral community channels and search for actual play recordings on YouTube - there's a small but enthusiastic audience around this game.

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