OSR: The Monster Overhaul is the Best RPG of 2023 (according to some people)

According to this list from GeekNative, The Monster Overhaul was the 6th bestselling fantasy RPG on DriveThruRPG in 2023.

That's astonishing, considering the other works on the list! I'm delighted that people are enjoying the book.

I don't run advertisements or manage a marketing campaign for my books. The Monster Overhaul relies on word-of-mouth recommendations and unsolicited reviews. I'm grateful to everyone who's taken the time to recommend the book, talk about it on a podcast, review it on youtube, post about it on whatever forms of social media remain, order it at their local game store, or shout about it from the rooftops. After many years of work, it's amazing to see the book out in the real world, helping GMs everywhere.

Polygon: The best tabletop RPGs we played in 2023

The Monster Overhaul, by Skerples, reimagines not just the monsters, but the very notion of what a bestiary can and should be. The book is divided into 20 categories, each containing 10 critters that hew to a theme. The categories are unusual: There is “Dragons,” of course, but also “Summer” and “A Wizard Did It.” “Summer” monsters include the Froghemoth and Pyromancers. Some of these may sound similar to classic D&D monsters, others are entirely new. Tables galore help build and flesh out encounters. “Summer” has a set of generic swamp hexes; other entries have lairs and dungeons. There is an entire flowchart table for populating a megadungeon. Every page of this book is designed to make the reader think about monsters, how to make them feel new, or to recontextualize them, or to simply subvert player expectations. Like all great RPG supplements, The Monster Overhaul not only offers answers for these questions and more, it also teaches the reader how to continue answering them long after these published tables and suggestions are exhausted. A monstrous achievement that should be on every GM’s shelf.

-Stu Horvath, founder and publisher of Unwinnable, author of Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground

Cockatrice Nuggets CN230: Best RPG Books of 2023

This might be my favorite release for 2023. I have gotten more use out of this book than most of the things I have bought this year. I have gotten more use out of this book than probably the 5E Monster Manual, and I ran 5E for a long time. This book is not just monsters. [...] The way this book is put together makes a lot of sense to me. The stuff that's in here! Most of these monsters have a lair attached with them. If they don't have a lair they have something else. [...] There is so much good stuff in this book that I keep coming back to it. This is my new monster manual. When I want a monster, I come here first.

-Rich Fraser

 If you're not sure what this book is all about, check out the megapost.