About Monte Cook Games
Incredible Worlds. Great Games.
Monte Cook Games specializes in unique and imaginative tabletop roleplaying games. Our games—Numenera, The Strange, the Cypher System Rulebook, and No Thank You, Evil!—are built on groundbreaking concepts, feature breathtaking art and stunning production values, and are driven by the Cypher System, a set of game mechanics that are flexible, easy to use, and focus on narrative.
“One of the coolest, most original games I’ve played in a very long time.”
“Beautifully illustrated and designed, informatively and entertainingly written.”
“The perfect system to introduce new players to, and it will inspire future games for a long time to come. And that is saying nothing about the amazing, visionary and singular setting!”
Explore a world of mystery and danger, a world a billion years in the future. A world defined by the detritus of bygone eras, when humanity spoke to the stars, reengineered their physical bodies, mastered form and essence, and ultimately disappeared or transcended. These ancients left behind the numenera—bits of their civilizations inscrutable to the people of the Ninth World. Items and places of power and wonder. Explore this world, find and master the numemera, and build a better future!
Learn more, and download the free quickstart rules and adventure The Spire of the Hunting Sound.
Winner: 7 ENnies including Gold: Product of the Year
Winner: Origins Award Best Roleplaying Game
Do you think you live in the real world? You don’t. This world you see around you is Shadow—a world illuminated only by the Grey Sun. You think it is your home, but that’s because you have forgotten your true self. Awaken, and return to the Actuality and Satyrine, the city under the Indigo Sun. You are a vislae, a wielder of fabulous powers and capabilities, a shaper of reality itself. You sought shelter in Shadow to escape the war, but the war is now over and your home has called you back.
Invisible Sun is a game of surreal fantasy, secrets, and magic that is truly magical. Wield fabulous powers as you uncover the secrets of reality itself.
“This is fantastic!” ~a parent
“I want to play again right now.” ~6-year-old
“They had a tremendous time playing and all four boys agreed this was easily one of the best games they had played.” ~a dad
“I really like that you don’t have to have a robot who is super smart and has programming. You can have one that is like a kid, and has a fiery dragon.“ ~11-year-old
Olivia is a Super Smart Princess who Experiments with Science. Rowan is a Cool Robot who Plays with Ooey 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!
No Thank You, Evil! is a tabletop game of creative make-believe, adventure, and storytelling. In No Thank You, Evil!, each player creates a character based on a couple of cool, descriptive, imagination-firing traits. The Guide (a special role often played by a parent or older sibling) presents a dilemma, and the players set off on an adventure of the imagination. Along the way they use their character’s special skills, companions, and equipment to overcome obstacles—perhaps fighting a slime monster, winning over the suspicious Mayor, or beating a rabbit at a race.
Whereas conventional board games constrain players’ actions, No Thank You, Evil! sets kids’ imaginations free: Their options are limited only by their creativity. Together, the players create a story as they work together to make their way through the adventure! Learn more.
Winner: ENnie Gold Best Family Game
Winner: Origins Award Best Roleplaying Game
“Beautifully simple, elegant, and engaging . . . the Cypher System is simple and powerful enough that designing creatures, adversaries, cyphers, and everything else is a breeze.”
“The Cypher system is both unique and easy to use . . . It puts the story in the hands of the players.”
“The system is fast, fun and cinematic—loose enough so that players have freedom but structured enough so that storytellers can react without having to refer to the book too often.”
(Comments on the Cypher System rules from reviews of Numenera and The Strange.)
A Cypher System campaign of Victorian horror? High fantasy? Espionage? Galaxy-spanning space opera? With the Cypher System Rulebook, running any of those is as easy as running or playing The Strange or Numenera. Take the Cypher System to the limits of your imagination with this hefty rulebook that extends the system to fantasy, science-fiction, horror, modern-day, and superhero settings—or any setting you can imagine!
The Cypher System Rulebook adapts the Cypher System to an unlimited range of campaigns and genres, giving you the complete rules set and hundreds of character options, creatures, cyphers, and other resources. It’s everything you need to play virtually any game using the Cypher System rules.
Start a new campaign set in a fantasy land of elves and fae creatures, a science fiction setting spanning the galaxy, or a modern slasher horror game—or add scads of new options to your Numenera or The Strange campaign. The Cypher System Rulebook gives you everything you need to run the game you want to play using the critically acclaimed, award-winning, and just plain fun-to-play Cypher System! Learn` more.
We’ve all had them: games where the party clicked perfectly. Climactic moments when everything came together amazingly. Favorite characters everyone loved. Sessions and campaigns that became the stuff of legends—moments that were talked about for years! Sometimes, everything just turns out right. But why not every time?
You can make these games happen, and happen whenever you get together with your gaming group. You can make every adventure, every session, every campaign the most it can be. Your Best Game Ever unlocks the secrets of consistently awesome RPG experiences—for players and GMs.
Inside this gorgeous hardcover (perfect for your game table, but just as beautiful on your coffee table, too) you will find advice and suggestions for enhancing your RPG experience at the table and away from it. This is an insider’s look at everything that isn’t part of the game rules—building chemistry for a gaming group that really clicks, making a character you will love and remember forever, running engaging and exciting games your players will always look forward to, creating thrilling adventures, finding all the right ideas, hosting memorable game nights…and that’s just for starters.
5e-Compatible Products
Since the very early days of tabletop RPGs, gamers have experimented with mixing a bit of science fiction into their fantasy. From Empire of the Petal Throne to Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, early adventurers into the realm of RPGs saw the amazing promise that mysterious and weird science-fantasy elements could add to their fantasy campaigns.
Nowadays, who knows science-fantasy better than Monte Cook Games?
Arcana of the Ancients brings the wonders of mysterious technology and weird science-fantasy elements to your fantasy campaigns. Designed by fantasy masters Monte Cook, Bruce R. Cordell, and Sean K. Reynolds, this gorgeously illustrated sourcebook gives you everything you need to add a whole new element to your Fifth Edition game.