Girl By Moonlight
A downloadable game
Magical Girls grapple with destiny in this multi-genre tabletop RPG. Girl By Moonlight explores the heartbreak of denying who you really are, fighting for what you believe in, and the transcendent power of building relationships while embracing your true self.
As a Magical Girl you will clutch your tragic struggles tight, seeking to score defiant triumphs against the darkness of an oppressive society. The game reinterprets the classic examples of the genre to create an allegory for self-discovery and queer identity. The text uses ‘magical girl’ as a shorthand, but your magical girls need not be girls, necessarily, but people whose identities put them at the margins.
Designer Andrew Gillis takes the rules engine beneath highly-acclaimed Blades in the Dark and tunes it to create a unique play experience representing the breadth of the Magical Girl genre.
Girl By Moonlight draws inspiration from many sources. When you sit down to play, your group will pick a Series Playset and tailor it with special rules, themes, threats, and more to make your game truly your own.
The four major Series Playsets include:
- At The Brink of The Abyss. Heroic magical girls fight to reclaim a corrupted world. It’s inspired by Sailor Moon and Steven Universe.
- On A Sea of Stars features mecha pilots struggling against extinction at the hands of the Leviathans and is inspired by Diebuster and The Vision of Escaflowne.
- Beneath A Rotting Sky deals with tragedy and betrayal where magical girls are doomed to an inevitable fate. It’s inspired by Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
- In A Maze of Dreams draws on both Paprika and Serial Experiments. Its central themes are desire, mass culture, and ideas developing a life of their own.
Girl By Moonlight is a complete, standalone game. No other books or supplements are needed. The book clocks in at 224 pages, with full-color interior art.
Girl By Moonlight. Your everyday existence is oppressive and full of compromises. Defy society’s expectations, assume your full power, and transcend into your true self.
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Comments
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Before checking out Girl by Moonlight last year, I had zero familiarity with the magical girl genre, and now I am two full 10-sesssion campaigns behind - one as a player (where I had a truly phenomenal and emotionally intense time), and another as a director (which I consider my current best GMing achievement), and soon I will be gearing up to run my second (and be in my overall third) campaign, one that I'm already confident in being my personal overall best TTRPG game yet.
There are some things I wish the game did differently or had more to it in places (wishing for a rules or playbook expansion someday!), but it is still really special - it wouldn't keep me interested for three campaigns straight otherwise.