And Now For Something Completely Different
A few months back I was fortunate to be offered a review copy Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme (hereafter referenced as, “the programme”) by my friends at Exalted Funeral. I’ve already covered the Reenactment Programme on my channel, first during a “first look” live stream, and then via an interview with creator, Brian Saliba. This, however, is my full review—what I think after reading the book cover to cover and playing a session myself.
Game Play
There are two pieces of excellent advice which set the tone for the way the programme is run.
First, take things seriously. A character should encounter the situations in the game, even the most ludicrous of them, with the utmost seriousness and dignity. This is, as the rules point, what makes Monty Python what it is. It’s serious people, taking themselves seriously, in the most silly situations. When players attempt to be funny it tends to unravel the fiction, rather than enhance it.
Second, the programme insists players describe their actions rather than declare their rolls. Now, this is simple for the Reenactment Programme because the game tosses formulas, battle maps, and miniatures out the window in favor of a collaborative narration of events—with the Head of Light Entertainment (the programme’s version of a Game Master, also called a HoLE) and players taking turns describing their actions and responses. A player who says “I roll Valor” should be told, “This tells me nothing, stop lazing about and exercise your atrophied imagination!” Why is this so important? Because during the progamme an excellent narration may provoke the HoLE to declare, “Intercourse the dice!” In which case the dice are well and truly intercoursed and the character enjoys an automatic success.
One of the more unique aspects of the programme is that the player taking up the role as the Head of Light Entertainment will, themselves, play a personae. These each change the experience for the players because the HoLEs are offended by different in-game antics, possess unique takes on what behaviors should be rewarded, and have their own thresholds for smiting an unfortunate player. They will make these preferences known by handing out merits and demerits as they deem fit (or when rolls dictate, more on that in a bit). Each of these personaes is drawn from the wider Monty Python canon, and includes such luminaries as Ralph the Wonder Llama.
About Characters
The core of each character are their traits. The programme has eighteen of them, each with two extremes—one at the “serious” end and the other at the “silly.” There are nine steps along this continuum, each represented by a different die—d20, d18, d16, d14, d12, d10, d8, d6, and d4.
Each character has a “situation,” which is a rough analogy to the classes found in less evolved games. Each of these situations comes with a list of prescribed traits, the starting values which can be assigned to those prescribed traits, a trait to which they are indifferent (no appeal to that trait will ever affect the character), a starting status for both “Death” and “Loony,”their initial currency (there are many of them), and a “Spiffing Serious Ability.” Some situations give a player options to choose their social class, assign a “must have” retainer, and a list of professions for their role-playing pleasure.
Once a player fills out their prescribed traits and, if they have one, a must have retainer they may fill in any blank lines with any traits or retainers they desire. A character may not, however, choose any trait to which they are indifferent. After all, how would a character use a trait which does not exist in their personal universe? Any trait not listed on the character sheet is automatically treated as “silly”—that means the player will always roll a d4!
Each trait has a table of accoutrements attached. These all give a +1 to rolls made for that trait, and many also have an additional bonuses and penalties. A Jousting Lance, for example, gives an additional +1 to all trait rolls against knights, but animals know what that lance is for and so anyone carrying one will receive a -1 to all Animal Husbandry checks.
Retainers are valuable because they carry a number of additional accoutrements which they make available to the character. Why would you want this instead of more traits? Well, aside from the additional bonuses for rolls, both accoutrements and retainers may be sacrificed to stave off bits of death received! Because of this, characters with more retainers (and therefor more accoutrements) tend to stick around a bit longer. To retain a retainer’s services, however a per diem must be paid or they will abandon the character and leave them with one less slot filled on the sheet. This payment can be anything from a coin to assisting a retainer to witness a romantic scene so they may author a poem about it (and, if that isn’t possible, enacting a romantic scene of some kind would do in a pinch).
As mentioned, characters also have a status for both “Death” and “Loony”—each with six steps. The world of the programme is both dangerous maddening. When either status is filled that character is no longer playable—they’ve either become an ex-character or run off into the woods to join a colony of bipedal squirrels. The good news is, if that character had a retainer they receive an instant promotion! The retainer takes on a situation, the player fleshes out the former background meat-shield, and play continues without anyone skipping a beat.
Core Mechanics
The core mechanic of the game is split into two concepts—deeds and tests.
A deed is something a character enacts into the world—everything from inviting a grumpy dragon to a cup of tea to lopping the heads of offending bridesmaids [Note: I am in no way, shape, or form advocating violence against bridesmaids. This is a reference to Monty Python’s movie about a certain grail which, if you are watching this review, I would have assumed you’d get. So why am I pointing this out?].
A test is something done to the character—anything from them refuting an argument to blocking the dragon from clamping down on your head when he discovers you were serving him instant tea.
What’s the difference? Well, aside from the narrative differences, which people who pay attention have already spotted, you cannot defeat an adversary through tests. You must use deeds to overcome them. The programme refers to conflicts between the party and NPCs as “contestations,” which includes everything from combat to arguing over who has the better hair-style. This educational endeavor sees no difference between the two.
How do deeds and tests work? It’s simple!
For a deed, once you have narrated your action to the best of your meager abilities the HoLE will call for a trait roll. For a test, the HoLE will narrate the way your character’s day has been challenged, demand your responding narration back, and then call for a trait roll. Pick up the die you have set for that trait and roll it. As mentioned earlier, if you do not have the trait for that roll you are “silly” in it and will roll a d4. The target number is either set by HoLE fiat or determined by a die roll (each adversary has a die they use for all their roles). If you beat the target number, you succeed! There is, however, some complexity added.
Anyone who rolls a 1 spams—which has two immediate impacts. First, the HoLE gives the offending player a demerit. Second, the die type for the trait that was rolled is moved one step toward silly because they’ve just made a fool of themselves in front of the other players, the NPCs, the HoLE, and the entire television viewing audience.
Anyone who rolls the maximum number on their trait’s die strewths. This also has two immediate impacts for the player. First, they move that trait one step toward serious. They have shown off their aptitude in front of the players, the NPCs, the HoLE, and the entire television viewing audience and need to be rewarded! Second they get to roll the new, larger, die and add that total to the first roll. Players also chain strewths—moving their trait ever further toward serious and racking up huge tracts of…numbers. But watch out! If you roll over a 20, as well as any multiple of 20 thereafter, you will receive a demerit from the HoLE! Why? Because, while the programme is a serious educational endeavor, no one likes a self-important scene-stealer! Accept your demerits with grace and learn your lesson! Oh, and when you strewth you only add in accoutrement modifiers to your rolls after you have rolled all the dice and totaled them.
When demerits accumulate the player runs the risk of Beshrewment. Each of the HoLE personaes has their own d30 Beshrewment table with a host of ways for the narrative to go sideways. A character may have a giant foot come down from Heaven, squashing them like a bug. The television viewing audience may get the urge to channel surf, shuttling both the party and the HoLE into something completely different. Or the HoLE may receive a complaint letter which puts them one step further toward being sacked and replaced with a whole new personae. Beshrewments are plain zonkers, and as far as I’m concerned players should seek them out with utmost haste!
Merits are a meta-currency which can be spent in two ways. First, if you are the type of player who likes to avoid any sort of random wackiness happening to them (that is, a boring one) you may spend merits to cancel out demerits. In this way you may hold off the hammer of a beshrewment, as well as avoid any additional fun for the rest of the table. Second, a merit may be spent to add a second die to a trait roll—both dice are rolled and the preferred result is taken.
The game plays fast, whacky, and fun.
Interior Design
Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme looks as though it was picked up from the minds of the people behind Monty Python and dropped into the book. The artwork is wonderful and absurd, with many call-backs to the whole range of Monty Python’s canon. New artwork, such as the portraits for the HoLE personas, fit in perfectly.
The design language of the book is consistent in being inconsistent, as each chapter has its own design language! My brain enjoys consistency in the rulebooks I read. This is one reason I enjoy reading games like OSE, Shadowdark, or anything put out Monty Cook Games. But for this game, it feels right that the book is an inconsistent mess of a tome which looks as though it’s been shoved together by a room of TV executives who were all trying to make their mark on the final product. The wild design-swings also serve as a visual cue to the reader that they have moved to a different section of the book. It’s terrific.
Physical Product
Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme is a “full-sized” book, with US Letter sized pages, of which there are 351. There are also eight pages of helpful tables in the back, including a table of tables, followed by a blank character sheet. The rear end-pages display a nice index for the book, while the front end papers display some of the excellent random generators. My favorite of these is the “Thoughtful Expression Selector,” complete with artwork.
It is printed on glossy paper, which makes me sad. It does, however, include a book ribbon—this cancels out my sadness and leaves me feeling happy to be holding the book. It’s also sewn binding and folds open very well.
The front cover looks as though it could have been a Monty Python movie poster, complete with “A Role-Playing Game” being crossed out and “NO IT ISN’T” spray-painted below. The artwork is wrap-around, but most of the detail is on the front. The rear cover is left open for a recitation of what’s included in the book, as well as several quotes from the Pythons which will forevermore remain genuine in my head-canon. I mean, the top banner on the rear cover reads, “Will you please stop asking me for a blurb for the back cover of a role-playing game?”—attributed to Terry Gilliam. It’s amazing.
Conclusion
If you haven’t figured it out by now I love this game, but I do have a couple of points to highlight.
First the whacky dice are amazing, but it creates bit of a road block for new players as most of us don’t have those dice in our dice goblin bags. And, while most of these dice can be found in the extended polyhedral set used by Dungeon Crawl Classics the pesky d18 is not—and finding one for sale by itself somewhere is…somewhat challenging. This leaves new players needing to pick up the official set from Exalted Funeral. Now, these dice are presented really well—they cost $25 before shipping and are color coded to help differentiate between similar-looking dice (which is nice). It does however, offer a bit of a barrier for a pick up game with new players unless the GM wants to shell out for a couple of these sets beforehand. And that can get expensive.
Second, at some point during play the table may be forced to play “Fetchez la Vache,” which requires dice catapults, a backgammon board, and meeples—or a separate $120 game. The rules for the game can be downloaded for free, which is nice, but it left me feeling like it was almost too “completely different.” That does not mean the my collection-goblin personality doesn’t want the $120 set, or that I’m not looking to dig out a backgammon board to bring it to a table. It’s that I think the game would run fine without it.
Those two points aside, this is an excellent game which I loved playing and am looking to running at a Brewery in the next month or two. It’s just fun. You can pick it up at the Exalted Funeral web site for $50. If you like British humor, and Monty Python in-particular, this is worth checking out.
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