Draculola: The Kid Monster Game

Draculola is a family-friendly, gentle-spooky RPG about kid-monsters solving problems and helping people.

Tone-wise, it feels a little bit like Golden Sky Stories crossed with Monsters And Other Childish Things---with maybe some Hotel Transylvania thrown in for good measure.

The book is 69 pages, with gorgeous and whimsical black and white art and writing that does an excellent job of making the setting come to life in only a few sentences.

It's also noteworthy for children having been involved with the design of the game itself. This helps to ensure that everything in the book is kid-friendly---and frankly, really GM-friendly too. Everything in Draculola is well-explained, and this is a really good first game to try GMing. You'll have an easy time of it, and your players'll have fun.

Plotwise, there's a fair amount of lore on this thing. You don't have to read deeply to be able to run it or play it, but if you do want to deep dive you can get a very thorough look at the territory of Zitterstein and its inhabitants. There's cultures and histories mapped out that you can use for story hooks or setting dressing, and it all has a consistent and fun atmosphere and mood.

Mechanics-wise, Draculola has a gorgeous, simple engine.

You have two stats, Kid and Monster, which you use to resolve checks. But you also have Heart and Hope. Heart is your "life", but the consequences of running out aren't that bad. Hope, meanwhile, is a pool that you can spend to affect the game---and that the GM can add to by making your situation more difficult.

Alongside your stats, you get monster powers, which are a touch open-ended (you can create them yourself,) and which have a handy table for rolling up random ones as well as a few key limitations---violence isn't something you can do easily, and mind-control isn't something you can really do at all.

With your powers comes an Achilles heel, but it does does a really good job of being a plot hook and it kind of doesn't hold your character back otherwise. To put it another way, your drawback will get you into fun situations---it won't prevent you from having fun.

Draculola does include a simplified version of DnD-style combat, so you *can* have some light scuffles if you want, but how much you want to commit to that is up to you. If you're running Draculola as a fun alternate game for your usual DnD group, you can have a few friendly brawls with spiders or something. If not, there's no reason your scenario has to have combat at all.

Overall, I went into Draculola not 100% sure what to expect, and I came out with what's got to be one of my favorite games of the year. Draculola is a good thing designed well, and it's super polished to boot. If you like games with a warmer, friendlier tone, great world-building, and if you want something that's easy to pick up and play but still has some fun crunch to it, give this a go. It's excellent.

Minor Issues:

-Page 12, "Each Trait starts at 1, 2, or 3". I think this section is saying "split 4 points between your two Traits. Neither Trait may be 0" ? The wording is a little confusing here