Monster horror show

Back in the 1980's many soft paper-back book publishers tried to enter the role-play craze, having seen success in single player adventure books such as Fighting Fantasy or Choose your own adventure. Few if any got to see a second printing, usually due to being too limited in scope. One of these that did come to be was the Monster Horror Show.

What was it?

The Monster Horror Show is a soft bound book written by J H Brennan, author of the Grail Quest series. It was published in 1987 under Armada, the Collins Group publishing sub division for children. The book included some cut out card monsters, a strange sense of humor and some advice on how to run a role-play game and be a Games Master ( Werewizard in the books terms). The core engine is based on rolling d6 and the rules are pretty simple with the "Absolutely anything" table for resolving issues by beating a targeting number of 36 after rolling dice and choosing appropriate difficulty bonus. The game has a weird touch in that players play themselves! The only classes there are is wizard,healer, tirckster and fighter and items worn in real life can turn into in game items such as coins in your pocket becoming copper or silver. The game has one solo adventure to teach Werewizards and one for multiple players after they read the solo quest ,not unlike red boz Dungeons and Dragons approach except that for a beginning scenario it had a bit of a steep learning curve as one of the players was the source of the scenario, the werewolf that ate villagers. The best section in the book was on how to GM with the words "Give your players a good time" and tips on making a fair and fun rpg session. Too simplistic in approach and lacking any real depth the book never took off.