Monster Care Squad (Part 2)

The veterinarians that stare at clocks

This is the second part and conclusion to our Monster Care Squad critical analysis. You can find part one here.

5. Disassemble Engine

Games have a flow, which, when you hit, the game pretty much runs itself. It is extremely satisfying. After examining the interactions of game elements, we single out the most important - the one that sets the pace of sessions, or even campaigns. We focus on how that engine works, how it makes the game move along, and what to do to make it do what you want to do - and how to keep it running clean.

Ludo

The most striking element of MCS, and for all intents and purpose, what drives gameplay is its setting.

With a strong premise, front-loaded principles and transparency of assumptions, every page expands the setting in a way that reinforces its focus on Monsters and associated Care labor; here’s a new Monster, here’s a new location, here’s a new event. It creates a continuous series of inputs that remind what the game is about: veterinarians travelling the land to deal with a humanitarian (teratarian?) health crisis of catastrophic continent-wide proportions.

It even has achievements for you to pursue in the game, further reinforcing a certain way to interact with the setting and shape expectations.

Less than 0.1% players have achieved this Achievement

It is a delight to interact with Ald-Amura.

The problem comes with interacting with Ald-Amura as a veterinarian.

The other games we have covered so far are tightly designed to practically run themselves; there is a lot of work and procedures to create the framework where the game happens and make use of negative space to amplify existing systems. If one would consider that philosophy of design comparable to an automatic gearbox, MCS has a manual one.

For those with a more restrictive view of what “gameplay” and “systems” are, the engine is not the setting but the gears you are moving through: the therapeutic process, codified by the phases of play: Diagnosis, Synthesis and Symbiosis. Some can make a valid point that all the game is this cycle of phases; Diagnosis, Synthesis and Symbiosis following each other, the rest of the setting the conjunctive tissue that serves as interface.

It is hard to disagree with that stance, as reductive as it may be; if you asked me “what do I, as a player, actually do?” Stare at clocks. You will be staring at clocks over and over again.

The boys are back in town

Each phase has a clock, specific moves for that phase and an end of phase move. Each phase has its own mechanics. These moves are unlike character moves and orthodox PbtA moves; they are not Conversation checkpoints but compartmentalized procedures.

During Diagnosis you try to gather bonuses for later phases; its clocks are not even binary — you are playing for that extra die. This happens because:

1. You cannot mark segments as failure other than a result of damage

1. The end of phase triggers when, and only when you fill the Clock

So, the default state is that you get that Critical Ace at the end. Playing during these phases gives you opportunities to accomplish narrative goals and/or get additional Session Aces. All it matters is how many of these you get before spending too many of your resources.

The fact that you want to get other things rather than the filling of Clocks, makes it so one has reward-incentives to only start to worry about filling segments when they are done with the Diagnosis face; a weird state of play, making it a chore before moving to the next phase. It is better to think it less as a Clock and rather as a count-down as the squad does things before they choose to move away from Diagnosis.

Binarization comes not from the Clocks themselves, but from the application of failure segments. This is done by the Guide, however, there are given no indication of that, how to pace them, seem to be associated with damage and the guidelines that are offered to Guides focus in pushing focus away from the phases of play, advocating for narrative consequences rather than Clock manipulation.

Synthesis operates the same way as Diagnosis, with a slightly different array of procedures.

Symbiosis is a very different phase. Rather than a straightforward Clock, you have a Control Track with sections associated with different dice sizes — from d12 to d5. You and the Monster spent this phase moving up and down the track. Move procedures focus on this movement and in gaining a binary resource — Control. Once you have Control, you roll to treat a Wound.

Concluding the Symbiosis is also a binary process — you either heal all wounds and receive a reward or you have to retreat and try again. The rewards you get from a successful Symbiosis are the primary tool of character customization.

This simple structure is then paced and regulated by the application of Harm and Monster Wounds systems.

However, as I mentioned above, how Harm is to be used is not so clear. Guide principles don’t establish pacing, guidelines or suggestions of when and how to give failures to clocks. Most principles focuses in doing things that go beyond the three Clocks — which, while fun, make the two Clocks less interesting.

Brad

So, here is where Ludo and I disagree, but there is an important caveat to it. My players enjoyed the engine, but they are people who firmly enjoy the idea of a very locked-in procedural game. They found the loop very satisfying and it brought us all into a fantastic moment or two. However, they are people who enjoy rules heavier games so that may account for it.

As for what Harm does and how it interacts with clocks? I rules that harm gives a failure on clocks when it made sense, i.e during diagnosis one of my players slipped into a geyser and took harm, which failed a clock because it helped alert and infuriate the monster. I also added a failure to a clock when it seemed to add a lot of tension, this technique was kind of a gambit that paid off. It made the scene more tense, but its still felt a touch risky.

6. Essentials For Session One

So, you got this game; you are going to play it, but you don’t have the time to read everything. Or even worse, you have read it and now it is all jumbled together. Here we break down the things that you absolutely want to try to get right and/or hit during your first session, so you get the feeling of what makes this game stand out from similar art.

Ludo

I will not mince words: MCS is a game I struggled with bringing to the table. I compared it with a vehicle with a manual gearbox before; like such machines, they shine when you have mastered the skills necessary to make the most of its engine. However, the game does not give you the tools to learn and improve these skills; this results in me being as good running this game as I am driving stick.

But there are some good news! Despite its unfocused presentation, MCS is still a very simple game, with well-designed redundant elements that create complexity by their interactions rather than cumbersome rules. As such, before your first session, you only need to check the following:

• Phases of Play (pg. 32)

• Guide Moves (pg. 42)

• Harm, Damage, Stress (pg. 29)

• Aces (pg. 29)

• Monsters (pg. 46)

As a Guide, you are going to acquire the following skills:

• Sense for when to convert actions into segment progress (success/failure) in Phases of Play

• Fine-tune pacing of Clocks, Successes, Failures and Monster Wounds

• Balance players progresses and resources in such manner that Symbiosis does not end off in a stand-off/death spiral/tug-of-war of attrition.

How a MCS game goes relies on these skills — being able to read and adjust on-the-table flow creates some of the best and most exciting monster handling every brought to role-playing; however, missing a beat and messing up a gear shift can lead to dull box-filling through a doomed play session.

Problem is, there are no spaces or tools to learn these skills, as I mentioned above. The examples of play do not cover failure or examples of “phasing” in and out of Phases of Play. There is no introductory scenario to MCS or the world of Ald-Amura; instead, in an unexpected move, the campaign included in the book is for characters and players with experience and challenges many of the assumptions and spaces of a “conventional” MCS game. Or to put it another way, it teaches you a new spin on the game’s formula rather than teaching how to apply the formula.

I only started to hit the beats when running the game after listening to two excellent actual plays. The skills I mentioned before take time to learn — time that, by definition, this critic section assumes you don’t have.

This is my attempt to come up with the easiest way to experience the joys of MCS; feel free to try these suggestions:

1. Pick your favorite monster from the book (Big fan of Shirin or Arashi for this).

2. Pick any sample Wound from page 46.

3. Simplify character creation — skip picking moves and specializations; let players pick a stat array. Let them pick anything they want and rebuild their character later.

4. Skip Diagnosis and Synthesis. Give players two Critical Aces and two Session Aces; let them establish their characters by awarding them Character Aces.

5. Start playing right at the climax of a Symbiosis; the Monster Care Squad is tangling with the Monster, trying to cure them.

6. Be hard with the players, letting them see the impact of Wounds and the False Gold and figure how important Aces are. Use this to develop your skills as a Guide, making many mistakes as you get a sense for the tools at your disposal.

7. After a retreat or successful cure, take a break and let players finish or change their characters. Once that is done, start a new cycle of Diagnosis-Synthesis-Symbiosis. If the squad retreated, have them try again; if they succeed, they discover a partner, kin or cub of the first Monster is also affected by the False Gold.

Brad

Now, going into my test session my players and I discussed at length the setting and ideas behind MCS and they were incredibly excited. They jumped right in and we had a blast, but I did cheat a little. I followed Ludo’s advice and listened to some actual plays, and two of my players did as well. The end result? Even though I made moves a little too hard (something I frequently struggle with) and my players struggled with Aces, this is one of the most fun things to hit our test table, my players loved it.

7. Playing The Game Wrong

Games are played wrong. Rules will be misunderstood, interactions will be confused, the importance of certain tech disregarded; etc. This is good, and it is good to acknowledge for: you cannot have the designer at your time, and even if they were, they would be just another player - and entitled to play it wrong. After identifying stress points of the game, things that don’t connect that well, we think of the things that are more likely to be (our have been) “played wrong”. What happens when you forget a line in page 273 clearly saying this is impossible?

Ludo

Unfortunately, MCS has many stress points that can get in your way of enjoying the game.

MCS feels both too big and too small. I want even more, but what we already have is already plenty to juggle. There are many pieces added on top of the simple, solid mechanical core that, despite being cool tech, it just rattles around the engine. Without having the critical eye of a skillful Guide, it is not clear how these pieces fit together and work. This is a lot of cool stuff, but it is also the points that one may Play Wrong.

This feeds directly into the main stressor — the Guide learning curve and skill acquisition. MCS is a toolkit, but is one full of tools that don’t teach themselves.

Character moves are so disconnected from the Play Phase engine flow that they almost look like they are a thing because PbtA games are supposed to have character moves. Besides that, not all moves are designed equal; some fail to create interest situations on their own and others are useless before being improved by a Monster Gift.

For example, Pack Rat is amazing - it basically counts as a five segments clock that can absorb failures per play cycle! On the other hand, Soft Narrative Whisper requires you spent a resource to get either the same or a worse version of that resource next session! Other moves make Symbiosis and other phases more fun, but in an exclusive, non-permissive manner: instead of being a process open to all, is something that you must commit between 1/5 to half of your character customization. Two moves cover, respectively, climbing and fishing, but in a way that those activities do not feed into the Phases, even if they seem intended to. A few moves only give Aces, but even that is not equivalent: Union Strong gives either an Ace or other great benefits, while others just give an Ace — and some not even that.

This absolute motherfucker

The weird character move design also makes character characterization feel odd. Moves and Monster Gifts are the primary tools to make your character unique, but they compete with obviously better/obviously useful options. On top of that, Monster Gifts require successful missions; like other PbtA games, you probably not going to get over four successful missions per campaign, but even if you do a longer-campaign, at most you can get three Monster Gifts during advancement.

As a campaign goes on, the gap within a Monster Care squad between those that spend character customization vs. those that pick the obviously better options widens drastically. Anecdotally, my attempts at a catgirl fisher and a mermaid veterinarian ended up with them rendered useless in Symbiosis after the Guide scaled up Wounds to match the rest of the Squad.

You can circumvent these problems if you run a short campaign, but that may make it so players that need a few missions to build the characters they wanted to play get to play the characters they wanted to play. You may need to take more drastic measures as a group.

In my own attempts to tangle with this issue, I took a drastic measure: removing all character moves. They all became procedures available to all, either during phases of play or divorced from them. Optionally, a compromise may be making character moves Squad moves instead: as the squad progresses, they unlock new procedures that widen their options.

To compensate/facilitate character customization, instead of moves I tried giving players 2-4 starting Monster Gifts. Each of them had a narrative effect and provided with a character-specific Ace.

Mentors are another piece of the game that does not always come together. The mentor is the Guide’s character, with its own unique ability. However, they are supposed to play a role in Retreats and to be also a shared character — but when and how is never made clear.

I swear one day you will find me agora with a lantern, covered in piss with a dog behind me, asking people if they can explain this to me

The role of mentor really hits full chaos configuration in solo modes: if there is no Guide, and this is the Guide’s character, does the Mentor exist? Is your character the Mentor? Who has Mentor?

Brad

I personally lean towards Ludo’s “Run a shorter campaign” concept. Work carefully with your party, discuss what you want to do, and focus on keeping it short and sweet. Ald Amura’s setting and The Monster Care Squad premise also seems really suited to troupe style play, with a big pool of possible PCs all investigating different problems across the setting, so you could probably find some very solid mileage out of that, and get use of some of the more unique abilities.

Ludo

We have discussed other games with solo options before, namely Wanderhome and Flying Circus, but there was little to remark on those. I delved little at the time, as the former has the same challenges and opportunities of other modes of play without sacrificing the artistic potential of the holiday-based character narrative and the later works the same as a piece of art, only changing in the form of entertainment it creates — it is after all, already full of company members, so all it needs is extra crew, confidants and company workers. Whoever, MCS has not only a solo mode, it has one that not only is not supported by the game system and that is introduced with a declaration that cannot be ignored.

Monster Care Squad can be played alone, if one so desires. Most of the actions can easily be adapted to solo play, with the player determining the outcome or most likely next action based on what makes the most sense or what would be most interesting. The Clock and Track-based systems were designed specifically with this in mind.

Baffling as it is, it is not even worth delving into this particular claim; either it is true or not, every aspect of this game that feeds into the Phases of Play is so team and squad focused that playing solo ranges from impossible to an unpleasant slog. All my solo attempts have been dreadful — you can easily make a character that has less of a coin flip chances of progressing in Clocks and Track, it is really difficult to gain more resources than you have to spend, and you are always two bad rolls from death spiraling. It is slightly better if you make a Mentor, but it only remotely approaches the functional joy of other play modes when you use moves to get more characters into the team — at which point you are de facto playing a squad alone. Even then, with this simulated teamwork, the game is just a Clock-grind, missing all the fun bouncing off between squadmates in-built in all Phase procedures.

As it is, the solo mode lacks the support it needs to be enjoyable.

8. What to Steal

Experiencing good art is the most important step in making good art. We look back at the things that worked and did not work about this game, see what we learned for design work, interesting tech and just a general overview of things that we will take from this game and bring into others. Or more honestly: since many of us may not play this game and we have it in our library, this way we can get some use out of it.

Ludo

Steal openly and with joy from the setting. Go to your shelf and grab a random role-playing game; bring the assumptions and setting from MCS to it and I guarantee you will have one of the best role-playing experiences.

To designers, MCS can teach as much about positive-space design as Wanderhome can teach about designing with negative-space; if you have a very narrow view about what system and mechanics can be, MCS is a great game to challenge and expand your horizons. Every element of the book makes a strong statement about what the game is, and if you ask “What is Ald-Amura?”, you will find yourself lost in the most amazing conversations with the book, as the text respects vulnerability and honest engagement, delivering the keys to a massive world that cannot be contained by its pages.

The question of crime in Ald-Amura made me ask the book about justice; the answers contained within inspired me to make a game about the detective work in Ald-Amura. A throwaway line about the 87th Self Defense Union has fired my brain in all cylinders: for months I have been thinking about the weirdos that in a hard-won post-scarcity socialist society live as quasi-lighthouse keepers. Born too late to take part in the mass disarmaments, born too soon to have been made obsolete; the people of the 87h must preserve the knowledge about how to build, contain and handle terrifying weapons that should not be and guide local militias with their expertise, while every day training for a war that they hope never comes. What makes one choose this path? I want their stories. I want to experience their odd melancholy.

Another thing one can learn as a PbtA designer is to question what a move is and what is its role in the Conversation — if your game has one at all. I know I went pretty hard at MCS for its move design, but that is because there is actually something to talk about them and what they do in this game. PbtA moves are filled with moves that don’t really work. Yes, especially your favorite one. And the thing is, it does not really matter, because it is a flexible framework that you can work around it most of the time without missing a beat. Raise your hand if you ever used or thought about using another game’s moves before having to stop and double check the rules of the PbtA you are playing.

MCS moves are more integrated with the positive-space rich design; when they sing, you barely notice, but when they fail to harmonize, they stand out too much in a piece of art which is most of the time a delight to engage with. Even otherwise minor nuisances stand out.

As for designing for MCS, Sandy Pug Games has a custom license that can I only sum as extremely good: You are given many assets, permission to adapt all text and outright live a substantial section, make use of all intellectual propriety — as long as you are not a corporation. Sandy Pug Games is not only happy with letting you use their material, they also support artistic development: they have provided generous grants to allow artists to expand the world of Ald-Amura. Few have been released at the time of this analysis, but you can follow as they are released on their page.

At the time of this analysis, there is the first Ald-Amura Historical Society Jam going on; I’m hooting and howling because this is just what I wanted: more Ald-Amura from more voices. It is definitely worth checking it.

Finally, I can’t end without returning to the website of the game. This is something that everyone should check at least once; a window into a possible future for digital releases.

Brad

Monster Care Squad rules. I fell in love with Ald-Amura, and the custom license rules. You should steal so much from Ald-Amura, and if you are willing to you will find a more beautiful setting than you can imagine. Also from a design standpoint its important to mention that Monster Care Squad has some very good sidebars, even discussing alternate design ideas and concepts that could be playable. Read it, come back to your other games with an open mind and see what you could do.