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We Are All Mad Here

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This is the full version of We Are All Mad Here. Check out the free preview.

“You must be mad,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

Jack climbing the beanstalk. The little mermaid finding her voice. Alice struggling with the madness of a place unruled by the laws of reality. The queen. The child. The woodsman. The knight. When you think about fairy tales, who do you become? Where does your imagination take you?

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Fairy tales tap into myth and archetype, exploring the fundamental nature of the mind and of human experience. They’re filled with magic that’s big, bold, unexpected, and wondrous—and characters who, despite humble roots or broken foundations, achieve feats just as grand.

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Run one-shots based on traditional stories or those of your own devising. Or build entire campaigns that take the fairy tale concept in whole new directions. We Are All Mad Here includes:

  • A thorough exploration of the fairy tale genre: how it differs from conventional fantasy, how to build on common tropes, and how to bring fairy tale elements into other genres.
  • Advice for running fairy tale games, including tips for one-and-done adventures reminiscent of fairy tale stories.
  • Everything you need to build characters for fairy tale adventures. Become a Frumious Princess who Befriends the Black Dog, a Fragmented Knight who Feigns No Fear, or a Bewitched Woodcutter who Sheds Their Skin.
  • Loads of fairy tale creatures and characters—specific names from tales you know, and archetypes you can use in any fairy tale game.
  • The Heartwood, a complete fairy tale setting that draws upon the fictional concept of “madness” in a way that addresses our modern, realistic, and sensitive understanding of mental health. In this setting, characters touched with mental illness in the real world discover a realm where they are empowered, and the wild and imaginative adventures they have there allow them to find even greater strengths within themselves.
  • An awesome index of fairy tale elements that makes it easy to find characters, cyphers, and mechanics individually, or to assemble all the components of a specific fairy tale.
  • Three full-length adventures for use in the Heartwood or your own setting, plus two Cypher Shorts.

We Are All Mad Here is a setting and supplement for the Cypher System. It requires the Cypher System Rulebook for play.

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Discussions (12)
Customer avatar
Angel\'s C October 12, 2020 1:15 am UTC
Angel's Citadel did a review of this title here: https://angelscitadel.com/2020/09/25/review-we-are-all-mad-here/

TL;DR A very surprising title, well worth your money if you are a fan of the Cypher System from Monte Cook Games.
Customer avatar
Paul M October 08, 2020 1:08 am UTC
Would this work for a game along the lines of the TV series "Once Upon A Time"? And if you order physical copies directly from MCG do they add the pdf's?
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Customer avatar
Mike G October 27, 2020 2:23 pm UTC
They, unfortunately, do not add pdfs with hardback purchase.
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Paul M October 27, 2020 10:58 pm UTC
Thank you for the reply.
Customer avatar
GAIL H September 23, 2020 1:45 pm UTC
That Thumbnail/Cover is beautiful, love it!
Customer avatar
Benjamin L September 22, 2020 6:12 pm UTC
It’s a decent book but the advice on gaming safety is jarring. On one hand it mentions mental illness isn’t a superpower and to not make fun of it...then gives a setting in a game that actually does this. It says the book’s not a manual for therapy but goes pretty deep into the weeds about how to handle things, going so far as to include a suicide hotline in a sidebar. This bit would’ve been better served as a free PDF, not pages of the book. More esoteric and unknown faerie tales would've fit better, I feel. To put it bluntly: It’s a section that deals with things it shouldn’t in a rather cognitively dissonant way. That said, it shouldn’t be a no-sell but I would want people to see that part, in case they find it as jarring as I did.
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Customer avatar
Pierre S October 12, 2020 4:08 am UTC
Gaming safety is a condescending thing to talk about with adult players. If they start giving psychological advice or grant players a veto over the GM, it will backfire. I want mentally resilient players who can take their character through storming the beaches of Normandy, if necessary to the story.
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Customer avatar
Benjamin L October 20, 2020 11:50 am UTC
I agree 100%. The coddling has gotten out of hand and it stems from much larger issues than RPGs.
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Customer avatar
Sean C November 26, 2020 5:41 am UTC
Not everyone playing is an adult, it might be worth pointing out, and not everyone is suited to playing the kind of hardcore game you're talking about. Maybe both are especially true in a book about fairy tales?
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Customer avatar
Gerben V November 27, 2020 6:30 pm UTC
I agree and it has become more and more prevalent over time. I hate RPG books defining me as part of an identitarian group (race, gender, orientation, physical disability, mental illness, etc.) and then telling me I am so much more than just a member of that group.

"Respect the natural differences and freedoms of others and the (further) differences that can occur as a result if/when they don't limit your own freedoms."
There, one sentence. No divisiveness and nobody left out except those forcefully pushing their views onto others.
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Customer avatar
Jeff B September 28, 2021 4:08 am UTC
May I point out that storming the beaches of Normandy led to many cases of PTSD among adult soldiers and sailors who were intensively conditioned to deal with the trauma. Dealing too much drama to fit a GM's script is, at least insensitive, and at worst near sociopathic.
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Customer avatar
Benjamin L February 23, 2022 7:18 pm UTC
These annoying conversations are exactly why a book like this is cognitively dissonant to the point if irritation.
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Customer avatar
T. G October 30, 2022 3:55 am UTC
That was actual war. This is a game of make-believe. If people are suffering PTSD (hint: they really are not, no matter how dramatic they make it out to be) from a game of make-believe, maybe they shouldn't be playing at all.
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Customer avatar
Ria O March 14, 2023 10:35 pm UTC
yes to this. I have a pretty messed-up past, and the only things that ever triggered me had not to do with the content of games but the behavior of people out-of-character... you know, in the real world.
Customer avatar
Tom M September 12, 2020 8:54 am UTC
PURCHASER
I enjoy it so far very much!
Currently I am in the "How to run and fairytale adventure?" part of the book and it is written in a way, you can take away a lot without using the cypher system rules. The writer(s) clearly know their stuff and write with passion. As a GM I specialize in horror, fairies (tales) and folklore. I love it, when games consider their source material with questions: how does my genre work? So what makes a fairytale a fairytale and how does this translate into a game? I praise CTL for it's mechanics to include narrative structures into the game and I feel the fairytales as origins of this game as well. But don't get me wrong, this isn't Hansel and Gretel the RPG. The book gives the power to you to make the fairytales your own and encourages you to bring them to new places. Want to play a rpg within the FABLES universe, Shanna got you covered. Want to explore space red riding hood? Here are some ideas how to make that work. And more!
I read the part about mental health...See more
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Customer avatar
Forbidden K September 15, 2020 3:34 pm UTC
You should post this as a review instead of as a comment. What are your top 3 books?
Customer avatar
Verena G September 11, 2020 3:40 pm UTC
Is this possible to use (or at least adapt) to play with D&D 5e? I would love an Alice in Wonderland themed module and can't find anything!
Customer avatar
Robert R September 11, 2020 6:16 am UTC
The "preview" is just 2 color plates. Pretty, but pretty much worthless as a preview.
About all we know is it is Fairy Tail/Wonderland based and uses/needs the Cypher System.
I like Cypher, but this is insufficient to induce me to spend nearly 20 for the pdf.
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Customer avatar
Charles R September 11, 2020 1:15 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Sorry! This title comes with the book itself (224 pages) plus the endsheets and the poster map in separate files. Due to a glitch in DriveThru, it was showing the preview of the endsheets instead of the main file. I've turned off the preview feature to avoid confusion over that. But not to worry: You can grab a quite substantive preview here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/321330/We-Are-All-Mad-Here-FREE-PREVIEW

--Charles
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Customer avatar
Robert R November 04, 2020 12:40 am UTC
Thank you for your quick and helpful reply.
Sorry mine took so bloody long.
Customer avatar
Oliver K September 10, 2020 9:53 pm UTC
I guess the preview shows the (quite gorgeous) endsheets? It would be good to see some actual layout and content, though. :)
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Customer avatar
Charles R September 11, 2020 1:16 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Sorry--that appears to be a glitch on the DriveThru end! This title comes with the book itself (224 pages) plus the endsheets and the poster map in separate files. It was showing the preview of the endsheets instead of the main file. I've turned off the preview feature to avoid confusion over that. But not to worry: You can grab a quite substantive preview here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/321330/We-Are-All-Mad-Here-FREE-PREVIEW

--Charles
Customer avatar
Igor L September 10, 2020 6:54 pm UTC
Astonishing preview...
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Customer avatar
Charles R September 11, 2020 1:16 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
Sorry! This title comes with the book itself (224 pages) plus the endsheets and the poster map in separate files. Due to a glitch in DriveThru, it was showing the preview of the endsheets instead of the main file. I've turned off the preview feature to avoid confusion over that. But not to worry: You can grab a quite substantive preview here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/321330/We-Are-All-Mad-Here-FREE-PREVIEW

--Charles
Reply
Customer avatar
Igor L September 26, 2020 12:53 pm UTC
Thank you Charles ;-)
Customer avatar
Joe R September 10, 2020 6:15 pm UTC
This looks cool. Does anyone know if a hardcover version will be available at some point?
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Customer avatar
Charles R September 11, 2020 1:16 pm UTC
PUBLISHER
The hardcover is available from MCG (www.montecookgames.com) or your FLGS!

--Charles
Customer avatar
Chris J September 10, 2020 1:42 pm UTC
PURCHASER
So far I'm enjoying this immensely. Shanna Germain writes with a practical sensibility that is refreshing. This is one of the better Cypher supplements (my least favorite being the Stars Are Fire and that's still better than 90% of the pablum out there.)
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Customer avatar
John S September 10, 2020 7:08 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Bruce Cordell wrote Stars are Fire
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Customer avatar
Chris J September 10, 2020 8:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Yeah, generally I really love his work but the setting used in Stars didn't do it for me. The book is still good, but it's not my favorite. I was just saying by way of comparison I really love Mad and Stars is my least favorite. Apropos of nothing, I suppose. Sorry :)
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Product Information
Gold seller
Author(s)
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224
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MCG212P
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File Last Updated:
September 09, 2020
This title was added to our catalog on September 09, 2020.