The Guide
In most games of Monster Care Squad, the players will be helped along on their quests by a Guide. The Guide plays the world around the other players, they control the non-player characters, the Monsters, they dish out quests and generally work to set the scene. A good Guide is kind, and welcoming, and always a fan of the characters in the world. Their role isn’t to punish players for their failures or revel in their losses, it’s to present a warm world, help players get back up, and remind them why they’re here. That’s why we call them the Guides.
Always remember that Guides are players too! Just as the Guide is encouraged to make the world fun and engaging, the rest of the players should also be working to make sure their Guide is having as much fun as they are.
More specifically, the Guide has a number of duties they have to fulfill in their role. Their first duty is to Brief The Team. At the start of every adventure, the Guide should tell the players something about the town they’re headed to, the Monster they’re hunting, and the stakes at risk. Guides don’t have to tell the players everything, just enough to get the players excited and invested in the adventure. Tell them some fantastical detail about the town, some magnificent power the Monster has, and some terrible outcome that might arise if the Monster’s pain isn’t soothed. Be bold!
Next, the Guide has a duty to Set The Scene. Whenever the party enters a new place, or the world shifts in some fundamental way around them, tell them what they see, what they hear, what they smell. This can be as detailed and in depth as you like, or it can be a basic one-line description; it depends on the scene. Use the information they have to tease what’s to come, and to inspire action from the players—it’s always a good idea to begin a scene with something the players can act upon immediately, such as an irate shopkeeper yelling at someone, or a falling stalactite on the ceiling above. Inspiring the players to act is almost entirely what the Guide’s job is, so doing that as often as possible is important.
Finally, the Guide should Use Moves, Describe Consequences. Just like their Mentor character, and the other player’s characters, the GM has Moves. Their Moves work a little differently than the rest of the Moves in the game. They don’t have triggers or contexts, and instead of triggering on a specific narrative beat, they trigger whenever the players look to the Guide to see what happens. Mostly this will happen on a roll of 6 or below, though you can also trigger Moves whenever the players enter new areas, learn new information, or any time there’s a downturn in the action or a pause in the story. They’re tools that are designed to help the Guide build a specific kind of atmosphere and push players toward the sort of adventures Monster Care Squad is designed around.