Monte Cook Games

Monte Cook Games is an independent tabletop roleplaying game publisher founded in 2012 by designer Monte Cook and writer Shanna Germain. Its first major project was Numenera, a science-fantasy roleplaying game set on Earth one billion years in the future. Rather than presenting a conventional medieval fantasy world, Numenera imagines civilizations living among the remnants of incomprehensibly advanced predecessors, using devices they barely understand as “magic.” Monte Cook developed the setting and core rules, while Germain contributed writing and editorial direction. The game's 2013 Kickstarter campaign raised $517,255 from 4,658 backers, making it one of the prominent tabletop crowdfunding successes of its period. Its publication established the Cypher System, a rules engine built around player-facing task difficulty and the principle that the gamemaster generally does not roll dice. Numenera expanded through books including Numenera Discovery, Numenera Destiny, and The Ninth World Bestiary. In 2014, Monte Cook Games published The Strange, another Cypher System game in which characters travel between fictional worlds called recursions, including Earth, fantasy realms, and science-fiction settings. This premise made genre switching a central rule rather than a cosmetic option. The company subsequently released the generic Cypher System Rulebook in 2015, allowing groups to build campaigns without using either Numenera or The Strange. Monte Cook Games has also published games aimed at different audiences. No Thank You, Evil!, released in 2016, adapts the Cypher System for young players and uses a deliberately playful presentation. Invisible Sun, a surreal roleplaying game about magic, mystery, and an occult society, was funded through Kickstarter and became notable for its lavish physical components and unusual release model. The company also publishes Ptolus material, revisiting Cook's earlier megadungeon setting, originally released by Malhavoc Press in 2006 as an exceptionally large hardcover. Before founding the company, Cook worked on Wizards of the Coast's third-edition Dungeons & Dragons line, including the Planescape setting, and later wrote or co-wrote books such as the Dungeon Master's Guide for D&D 3.0. MCG has maintained a close connection between Cook's setting design and Germain's fiction and editorial work; its products often combine campaign settings, core rules, and extensive guidance for collaborative storytelling. Through Numenera and later releases, Monte Cook Games built a distinctive catalog of settings.