Against the Monster is a story game about a monster hunt, the good of the monster, and the monstrosity of the hunters. Whether it’s a dragon, vampire, tentacle monster, artificial intelligence, or something else entirely—you’ll decide in which setting you’ll hunt what kind of monster. Against the Monster is a GM-less Descended from the Queen story game (you may know the mechanics from For the Queen or from our previous project Viva la QueerBar) for 2-6 players and a flexible play time of about 1-4 hours (one-shot). All you need to play is this zine and a regular deck of playing cards (52 cards). No preparation or previous game experience necessary – just start playing! The rules of Against the Monster are very simple: At first you read the short instructions out loud together. The text has our recommended consent and safety tools already built-in. During that introduction, you also choose the rough setting of your monster hunt. Then the core game starts: You take turns drawing a playing card and looking up the question associated with it in the random tables. Over the course of the game, your monster, your characters , and further details about the context of the monster hunt develop through your answers to the questions. In the end, all main characters answer: When the monster faces you in the end: Do you really attack it? Due to the random selection and order of the questions (you'll typically use around half of them during a 2-hour game) and the huge variability of possible settings, you can play Against the Monster again and again and have a different experience each time.
