Answering Your Monster Truckers Questions!

Monster Truckers: Long Haul into the Worstlands is the upcoming game from Table Cat Games featuring monsters behind the wheel of big rigs. In order to help generate some interest and to give you an idea of what the game is about, I went around the web seeing if folks had questions about the game.

I’ve collected most of them here! I hope it helps give you a better idea of what it’s going to be about and what it’s like.

If you like what you read, please follow along on Backerkit. You get a free sticker if you follow and back at a physical tier when it launches.

The Questions:

Q. What’s the vibe? Monsters and big rigs are a fun combo!

A. The vibe is mostly weird fun. The truckers are weird (they’re monsters) and they find weird things and meet weird people. And they have fun doing it. It also may be a little creepy at times and potentially a little lonely as sometimes the big open road can be a lonely place. I need to play test more, but so far it’s been: Kinda creepy, funny, fun, exciting.

Q. Aside from the super fun title, what brings monsters and trucking together?

A. During the 1970s the USA went through a “trucker” craze. In movies, truckers were essentially the new cowboys, with more of an anti-hero theme. Helping folks while sticking it to the man. Truckers were independent operators who lived their own way of life out on the open road. But they were also underdogs. Working class people trying to make a living with the law breathing down their neck. Before stiffer regulations in the real world (and a race to the bottom as far as pay goes), trucking was more independent life with opportunities to make good pay.

In Monster Truckers there’s a similar theme. When I started formulating the idea, I needed a way for truckers to be monsters. There has to be a reason since it’s the premise of the game! I also wanted the monsters to be essentially serfs to humanity after a war. When I decided that humanity screwed up the world with their technological/magical bombs, it made sense that the only “people” hardy enough to withstand the rigors of the world were monsters.

Then the idea evolved that the monsters saw this as an opportunity to get some power back from humanity by forming their own trucking guild. And while they’re out on the roads exploring, they not only have to face the challenges of the worst lands, but the “man” in form of humanity threatening to crack down on them.

Convoy would have been better if Kris Kristofferson’s character was a mummy.

Q. What are your inspirations and touchstones?

• Trucker Movies of the 70s/80s: I don’t find them particularly good, but the trucker craze of movies has a lot of the overall themes of the game, and a lot of what I imagine the look is when I picture things in my head. This includes movies like Convoy and Smokey and the Bandit.

• Adventure Time: Particularly the devastated past and the cool, dangerous, and lonely vibes (for fans, I’m talking about the period after the Mushroom War).

• The Road Warrior: The first of the Mad Max movies is closer to the Worstlands in terms of a broken down society and the overall look of the world. In my mind the bandits look more like the gang in this film, as opposed the the extremely over the top looks in later films (but that’s just me).

• Tales from the Loop: Mostly taking inspiration from the original artwork. The large spaces with strange and weird machines.

• Honkey Tonk and Rockabilly Music: These two genres have a lot of the feelings of the game baked in. Bonus if there’s pops and hisses in the recording.

Q. What kind of gameplay can we expect?

A. Monster Truckers is more or less a traditional role playing game. Players take the roles of their characters and go on adventures in this particular world.

Unlike slug fest dungeon crawls, Monster Truckers is more exploratory. Truckers get freight to deliver and on their way meet interesting/weird people and creatures and discover strange sights. And while they’re doing that avoid danger or have to get into fights. While they do that, they keep track of things on a map and in a log book (aka journaling).

This ad captures the cowboy aspect of vintage trucking.

Q. Which is the more prominent theme—monsters, or trucks?

A. It’s pretty closely intertwined. The characters are truckers because they’re monsters and they’re the stars of the show because they’re driving around in their trucks. I’ll have to let you decide!

Q. What makes those lands the worst?

A. The world was screwed up during a war between monsters and humanity. Humanity resorted to using some magical bombs that lead to most of the human population being wiped out, screwing up time and space, and mostly de-powered the remaining monsters. But that’s not all! It’s unique radiation has created new creatures that are lurking in the wilds.

And not only do the monsters truckers have to deal with the literal and figurative fallout from those bombs, but there are also still active leftovers from the war. Weird science machines and creatures that are acting like the war never ended.

Last but not least, there’s the undead Highway Patrol who enforce the law that really doesn’t exist. They can write you a ticket, impound your truck, confiscate your cargo, and more if you run afoul of them.

Just imagine Dracula behind the wheel.

Q. What about vampires, who are notoriously averse to sunlight? And werewolves, who tend to flip out a little every 30-days?

A. This is part of world building, where I wanted to make it as easy as possible for GMs to run a game without having to jump through a lot of hoops. If one player is only a werewolf a night or two every 30 days, that kinda sucks. And if you have a daytime adventure and the vampire can’t participate, that also sucks. The answer was the in-universe bombs dropped by the humans have a lot of averse (and very handy for storytelling) effects. One of the biggest effects are monsters being “de-powered” or altered by their radiation. Basically, vampires are day walkers now, but have less powers. Werewolves were more or less stuck in their “wolf” form (like the form seen in movies like American Werewolf in London or the Howling).

This also explains why a vampires (and all the other monsters) don’t have instant access to a whole host of supernatural abilities and powers. However, they can gain them over time (advancing as your character grows). This de-powering of monsters also helps explain how humanity could win and basically subjugate supernatural powered monsters.

Q. Can my monster trucker be a dead astronaut?

A. Sure! Depends on how you define dead though. A mummy, vampire, or Frankenstein (called zippers) are all dead and could have been astronauts at one point. Or you could be the ghost of a human astronaut.

Q. Can I live out a twisted cryptid Smokey and the Bandit situation?

A. If you mean, “Can a cryptid be chasing me and my truck for an adventure?” Yes. If you mean, “Can we be transporting cryptids illegally while trying avoiding the law?” Yes.

In Monster Truckers there are some guidelines on support vehicles. So let’s say you only have two players: One is driving a big rig and the other is driving a support vehicle. You can have the support vehicle be a fast car that’s scouting the area for the truck. That’s most of the movie right there, besides the song and the sheriff who is a jerk.

Q. How monstrous are the trucks?

A. The inspiration for the look of the game is based on the 1970s and early 1980s, so trucks aren’t intended to be monstrous looking or behaving. However, there’s nothing stopping the GM or players to make vehicle Perks or Quirks that make their trucks more monstrous.

Q. Will you be changing any of the Tricube Tales mechanics, or using the system as-is?

A. The biggest expected changes are mostly terminology (Karma is currently called “Script”) and more clarifications and reorganization. I’m also testing the ability to earn Karma/Script through a method not in the original Tricube Tales, but I need to test to make sure I’m not breaking the system.

Q. How much mechanical weight does driving have in your game?

A. Tricube Tales, the foundational mechanics of Monster Truckers, is rules light, meaning there’s not a lot of mechanical weight in general to help tell a fast paced and loose story.

Without getting too deep in the weeds, a player would basically just have to roll their monster’s trait relating to driving. And that check involves considering if the monster’s Perks and Quirks (basically bonuses and negatives that each character has) effect the roll, if they do then the difficulty gets adjusted.

A vehicle has Perks and Quirks too. So let’s say you had to slam on the brakes to stop the truck in time. The player rolls their Agility, but suffers a penalty because the truck has a “bad brakes” Quirk. Easy peasy!

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Or if you’d like to read a little bit more about it, check out this post.