Monte Cook Games' Darkest House Is Designed For Online Play

Monte Cook Games' newest Kickstarter has just launched. It's a plug-in horror location/interlude designed to work with any game system, and built for online play.

The house itself can fit in any game by simply placing a door -- they give examples of the apartment at the end of the hall or a strange unit in the station quarters sector. In that sense, the house exists in all worlds.

As a digital product, everything is shareable and formatted for the screen, with plenty of handouts, images. It has been deigned with VTTs in mind, as well as Zoom or Discord.

The house itself has several dozen rooms. You get two an app, and two PDFs -- the GM's Secrets of the House, and a Player's Guide. The GM downloads The Darkest House (mac or windows ZIP files) -- you can actually download a little demo, which is the intro page.

It's $45, or $85 with exclusive additional content.

The Darkest House

A descent into horror for 5e or any RPG that will make your campaign and characters better—optimized for an awesome online experience.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Zaukrie]

Pricey, but it looks great (you can download a sample)......and creepy. I'm very tempted by this.

 

[Aldarc]

Another MCG Kickstarter that I will pass on.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Love MCG, but yeah pricey. Looks great, although 2 versions with one double priced for "extra" content makes me want to pass.

 

[jerryrice4949]

I looked at it. I like horror but it is pricey especially considering there are no physical products. I am going to pass. Don’t play online much. Would just end up being one of the projects I backed but never end up using.

 

[eyeheartawk]

So, it's a VTT module, only with no direct rules integration built in. What a steal.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I like the concept, but it seems expensive for what it is.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I don't even play online, we are traditionalists that don't use electronics to game (aside from one who keeps a digital character sheet). Its us around a table with dice (when safe to do so). So this product would have no use for me.

The concept and idea are really interesting, though. I'm sure it will have a niche and people will want to use it. I'm generally a fan of Monte's stuff; huge Cypher fan, and while I love the idea of the Invisible Sun, it's way to pricey for me. If the Tidal Blades RPG kickstarter hits this year, I know I'll back that.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I am playing online and am likely to continue doing so, at least some of the time, when the pandemic ends (I've got players in four countries, sooo ...). That said, MCG's Ptolus campaign was run horribly, from the "guess what's in my pocket" stretch goal system to the "please put all of your comments in the Comment section, so we can ignore all of them in one place" form of non-communication.

I think this will likely be good -- as a two-time Ptolus backer, I am a big believer in their ability to organize a product in such a way that it makes it easier to use than anything the competition can do on their best day -- but yeah, pricy pricy.

For people who want an alternative, there's this on DriveThruRPG. (I don't own it, but it's been on my wishlist forever, waiting for the right time to scare the crap out of my players with a good haunted house adventure. I winged one years ago, and it worked amazingly well, and I'm looking forward to turning some hair white with a product like this or the Darkest House.)

 

[Emirikol Prime]

Far too pricey without a physical book.