Picture in your mind a far off time ago: Before the AP Site, the Podcast, and even back before this group existed. Way, way back in December of 2010, Sean and I were playing Minecraft together, and he told me that he was interested in playing Monsters and Other Childish things. At the time, I was running the Road Trip campaign for my friends nearby, and I had written a few side scenarios that I wanted to test out. I told Sean about these, and he sounded interested. He contacted his friend Nate and got him somewhat interested.
At the same time, I met Alex through another Minecraft server and asked him if he’d like to play along in some short games with Sean and his (at the time) unknown friend. Over the coming week, I would talk to each person about the characters they’d want to make, and by the end, we had Max Chang (the asian mathelete extraordinare), Daniel Kerington (the hero with as much courage as he has not-brains), and Charlie Bale (the lovable douchebag). In the discussion portion of the first game, we also talked up BattlePet Network, a stupid little TV show about training monsters and saving the world through card games.
As for the full setting, we’re playing Ross Payton’s Road Trip, which is basically a Summer Road Trip to save the world from an evil cult. This setting is wildly different from the standard Monsters and Other Childish Things setting in a lot of ways:
- It’s set during the summer, so no one has to go to school
- It’s a series of adventures all around the country
- Less imperative is placed on the “being a kid” aspect, and more on over-the-top goofy action and fun
- It is very story-driven
One of the reasons that I loved Road Trip when I was starting out with Monsters is that it’s a fully-written campaign. If you don’t know what your player-base is, Monsters is kind of a bear to write for. Road Trip simplifies things a lot by basically being a D&D campaign set in the Monsters Universe. It’s a series of small adventures all around the country which add up to stopping a big bad evil guy. And it’s a whole lot of fun.
Why is this session called “Session 0”? Because this entire adventure is non-canon. As I said, I wanted to playtest some scenarios for my other group, so this was going to be a set of disconnected one-off games. Shortly after we played this game, though, everyone agreed we should play the whole campaign. This session is remembered and occasionally referenced elsewhere in the campaign, and it’s the first game that we (The Drunk and the Ugly) ever played together.
PLAYERS
- Sean – Max Chang / Woodbeard the Pirate
- Alex – Peter Charlie Bale / Buttz the Battlefrog
- Nate – Daniel Kerington/ Mille e Unas Taglio
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Why was this non-canon anyway?
Because a bunch of characters weren’t in it, and we’re not quite sure where it happens chronologically. We reference it sometimes, but it never officially happens.
Additionally, it was the first time I’d ever done a tabletop RP over Skype. Or using my voice at all. So I didn’t exactly RP Daniel in a way that mixes with how he is in the canon. If I’m not mistaken, he actually killed someone in this game. Daniel doesn’t kill people. I was just doing the classic “playing yourself” thing, because I wasn’t comfortable with anything else yet. Daniel didn’t really take shape as a character until the second or third session of the campaign itself.
I think the next monster in the “One Thousand and One ________” series needs to be “One Thousand and One Cats”.