Monte Cook Games MCG00074 "No Thank You Evil" Game

Product Information

Character Sheets: The character sheets are designed to be beautiful and clean, with lots of room for writing, drawing, and erasing. They include everything the player needs for her character on a single side, eliminating the need to turn the sheets over. The elements are positioned so that the tokens are placed closer to the top of the sheet and writing spaces are closer to the bottom to decrease the chance of token-flying mishaps! All that to say I've tried a lot with my son and if you're on the fence about any of the above options NTYE has been what's worked best for him and I.

We’re making an RPG for smart kids and their families called No Thank You, Evil! It’s based on a slimmed-down version of the rules system from Numenera and The Strange, and it’s designed to be fast, easy, and fun for kids as young as 5.

How Do I Get It?

My son and I are having a blast with this. He has an amazing imagination. We had been playing Amazing Tales and still enjoy that game but NTYE comes with a lot more substance (i.e. Visuals I don't need to draw, premade adventures, great character sheets for different levels of players) that makes it super easy for me to just pull out the box and get to playing with less than 5 minutes of prep time. I really enjoy playing as the guide for my son. Amazing Tales is AWESOME but I found myself continually exhausted after sessions trying to keep up with the mind and enthusiasm of my son's amazing imagination--especially after a long day of work. NTYE provides me with a bit less mental gymnastics with the premade adventures and is incredibly easy to create new adventures using the available materials! It’s been incredibly inspirational, and a bit awe-inspiring, knowing that something you had a hand in is bringing families together in such a cool way. When I was a kid, I didn’t know a single parent who played roleplaying games. But now that so many of us gaming geeks are old enough to have kids, that’s completely changing.

I've been playing Numenera using the Cypher System from Monte Cook Games for 2 or more years. I very-much enjoy the game play system. I have 3 kids - 12, 9, 6. Each at a different level of game playability, so Dungeons & Dragons hasn't really been a good fit. I was probably about six years old when I played my first roleplaying game, Bunnies and Burrows. I was obsessed with Watership Down, and all I really cared about was the fact that I could be a bunny and that I could wear the bunny ears from my Halloween costume when we played. I honestly remember very little about the rules, except that you could fight things with a special kind of karate called Bun Fu. (We had pet rabbits at the time, and I thought I knew an awful lot about how rabbits acted, so my Bun Fu was mostly me thumping my feet on the linoleum floor as hard as I could until our babysitter–our GM–couldn’t take it anymore and told me that sometimes bunnies fought very quietly so they didn’t give themselves away to their enemies.) I am starting to think of ways to integrate some life lessons into these games too if I can. There are some very obvious "don't judge a book by its cover" stories here, but I imagine you could build a story around just about any lesson you wanted to propose. Starting with character creation I have been approaching this game with the idea of the "profound power of YES". If my boys think of something they want to do "Yes, let me figure out how to make it work." It requires a little more effort on my part, but the rewards have been stunning. My 5 year old spent 15 minutes telling me about every piece of equipment, every detail of his guy that he literally just made up. He couldn't stop himself, and I was only too happy to let him keep developing his ideas.

Play Tokens: The game comes with two additional types of tokens: No Thank You, Evil! tokens and a My Turn token. If the game gets too intense for a younger player, he can play his No Thank You, Evil! token, letting the Guide know it’s time for a break or a change of tone. The My Turn token gets passed around from player to player, prompting excited players to remember whose turn it is. So.... I'm doing a My Little Pony adventure. Starting w/ the 3 core stories and then branching off from there. Olivia is a Super Smart Princess who Experiments with Science. Rowan is a Cool Robot who Plays withOoey Gooey Things. Their best friend tells them that a dragon has stolen all his chocolate coins. They’re the only ones who can enter Storia and save the chocolate—how will they do it? It’s all up to them! As they walked through the forest, they came upon a path which led to a small town. Outside the town they saw a big wanted poster. I was able to take the poster from a premade adventure and laid it right in front of them. Their eyes got big, their mouths dropped open a little bit, and, since Clara is learning to read, I made her sound out the word. “W…A…N…T…E…D? What’s it wanted for?” And I told her they should go into town to find out! So they did. Winner! ENnie Award Gold: Best Family Game. A tabletop game of make-believe, adventure, and storytelling for creative kids and their families!

A game that is, more than anything else, tons of fun. One that inspires creativity and connectivity, and creates a sense of wonder. Kids can be anything they want to be, from a Cool robot who Loves Ooey Gooey Things to a Powerful fighter who Experiments with Science. Every character also has a companion, a special friend that knows secrets and travels with them. They may have a floor-thumping dust bunny named Mabel or a fiery dragon who roasts marshmallows on the tip of his tail. Scalable rules adapt easily to the abilities and interests of kids from five on up, so everyone can play together. How will your adventure play out? Your options are limited only by your creativity. Together, you and the other players create a story as you work together to make your way through the adventure! Game play is simple, relying on standard D6s. The Guide will designate a difficulty level to a task and the player must roll above that difficulty. They can use their skills to bring the difficulty down by one or use an awesome point to help another player bring that difficulty down. Building the hot air balloon that I mentioned before may be a difficulty of 5, but a player can use a point from their Smart pool to make it a difficulty of 4 while another player uses an Awesome point to lower the difficulty again to 3. A game that makes it simple for families to roleplay together. This meant creating rules that accommodate the youngest, newest players as well as older, more experienced players. To achieve this, there are different rule levels, each one geared toward a particular age group, from 5 on up to the point where the players are old enough and experienced enough to try running the game (probably around 10 or 11). So families can play together easily, even if the players cover a wide age range. Adventures are designed to be short but flexible, running anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. All you need to play is the rules, a character sheet, and a d6.The cypher cards are designed to be drawn randomly whenever a player is ready for a new cypher. (Cyphers are one-use skills that only companions know how to do!) I've played Amazing Tales and NTYE with my son. I've also created mini Starfinder adventures (that are age appropriate and focus on solving problems without violence) that use a hybrid FATE CORE system ruleset/FATE dice. I own Little Wizards but found that to be too advanced for a 4 year old--will panky need to wait a year or two to try out that system. A game that’s accessible to the widest variety of players. We are working hard to make sure that the game is accessible to players with challenges like dyslexia, color-blindness, visual impairments, and autism. Character sheets are large, and colorful Pool tokens and character cards means that there’s very little writing or math involved in gameplay.