Monsterhearts 2

By the time most people reach their teens, they have stopped being afraid of the dark. Not you. You know exactly what lives in the shadows, because you are one of them. School weighs on you, everyone wants something from you, and underneath it all runs a hunger you never asked for.

Monsterhearts 2 is Avery Alder's roleplaying game about the messy lives of teenage monsters. Everyone at the table plays a student at the same small-town high school, and every one of them is secretly something else: a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a ghost, a fae, a ghoul, the queen of the school, or a mortal who keeps falling for exactly the wrong people. The monster is never only a monster. It is a way of talking about what it feels like to have a body and a social world that change without your permission.

The game runs on the Powered by the Apocalypse engine, so most of the time you simply talk. When things get risky you roll two six-sided dice and add one of four stats: Hot, Cold, Volatile or Dark. Ten or more gets you what you want, seven to nine comes at a price, and anything lower hands the scene to the MC. What makes Monsterhearts its own game are the Strings: the hold characters have over each other, earned by turning someone on, by keeping secrets and doing favours, and spent to push people around. Every Skin also has a Darkest Self, the version of the character that takes over when the pressure becomes too much. And you do not decide who your character is attracted to; the dice do, and the book is honest about why.

Inside this compact book of around 175 pages you will find the complete rules, ten Skins (the Hollow is new in this edition), advice for the MC on running a season of play, and guidance on playing with care. This second edition tightens and clarifies the 2012 original and adds rules and advice on asexuality; it is the version most groups play today, and it was a finalist for the 2018 Origins Award for best roleplaying game.

Monsterhearts 2 is for an MC and two to four players, for a one-shot or a short season of sessions. It is a game for adults who want to play teenagers, inspired by Buffy, The Craft, Ginger Snaps and Twilight, and it does not flinch from sex, cruelty or heartbreak. If your group would rather have drama than dungeons, this is one of the best reasons to sit down at a table. Fans of Alder's The Quiet Year will find the same sharp design in a very different mood, and there is more of this kind of game in our Crushes & Quests collection.

Ready for your table - free shipping within the Netherlands.