A Monty Python TTRPG is on the way. The beloved British comedy group has been the creative force behind many enduring skit shows and farcical films. Monty Python’s Flying Circus, The Meaning of Life, and Life of Brian all contain many quotable jokes, sketches, and scenarios that continue to be shared across multiple communities. Even if you’ve never actually seen any of Monty Python’s work, you’ve at least seen something inspired by them. Now, that same irreverent and silly energy will be coming to the gaming table.
The news of the Monty Python TTRPG was announced in an exclusive feature on Dicebreaker. First, the signature comedic sensibilities of Monty Python are translated in the official cover art. First, it is officially titled Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme, the illustrations show a group of knights with a collection of polyhedral dice falling from the sky, and a banner with the phrase “A Role-Playing Game” hastily crossed out with black marker followed by an angry scrawl of “no it isn’t” just below.
According to the feature, the Monty Python TTRPG will be a rules-lite system. Character classes will not be wizards or fighters but ne’er-do-wells, oppressed monks, and troubadours. Each character will have a series of traits drawn from over 20 different attributes. These will include glibness, valor, the ways of science, and humility. Skill tests are resolved with different faces of dice depending on a scale between “Silly” and “Serious.” Rolling critical successes or failures can shift this scale as well as trigger dire consequences. Those consequences are rolled on a random table, ranging from a character being killed, to randomly getting arrested by the police or abducted by aliens.
The Game Master in the Monty Python TTRPG is referred to as the Head of Light Entertainment. The Head of Light Entertainment takes on one of twenty different roles, ranging from a stuffy historian, to a sports fan, to even a Member of Parliament. These roles can influence their decisions as storytellers, triggering even further dire consequences. They can even receive complaint letters as one of these consequences, threatening them to switch to another role.
But the Monty Python TTRPG will not just be about quotes and references. In an interview with Dicebreaker, lead designers Brian Saliba and Craig Schaffer, talked about the importance on giving players a toolbox to tell their own bizarre running gags rather than rehashing old ones. However, the core rulebook will contain deep cuts such as the religion of Brianism and the unexpected medieval precursor of the Spanish Inquisition.