It's Gojira!
I generally have multiple irons in the fire regarding roleplaying games, and this month is no exception. On Wednesday night, I’ll have the first session of a short Rōnin campaign, and next week, I’ve volunteered to run a game using Pirate Borg. If you need the explanation, that’s a system about pirates, though you probably don’t.
A heftier project, literally and figuratively, is the one-shot I’ve proposed to run at the end of the month to coincide with the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. That involves the Everyday Heroes system and its supplement for Kong: Skull Island. Yes, I’m talking kaiju.
A kaiju scenario is more challenging to create than you’d think. Those unfamiliar with the genre might imagine it’s as simple as having two giant creatures square off. Still, if they took time to watch some kaiju features, they’d realize the movies are about two-thirds regular people to one-third monster fighting. Reflecting this reality is the challenge. You want your players to engage with the story as people but allow them the building-smashing catharsis of the films.
I think I’ve managed to pull this off. The adventure is meant to run in a three-hour slot, and two hours of it should suffice to tell a story of human heroics in the face of kaiju destruction, like people battling a natural disaster. Then, the game shifts gears for the final third, and the players take the roles of their favorite MonsterVerse kaiju and go to town.