Monster Derby

About this board game

Monster Derby is a 2–8-player fantasy race game that takes about 45 minutes, challenging players to guide monsters across varied terrain while pursuing secret agendas.

At the start, eight monsters are selected at random from a deck of 25, including creatures such as medusas, cyclopes, vampires, zombies, centaurs, dragons, griffins, and djinnis. Each player receives a secret agenda that ranks the monsters by colored mover bases and awards points based on their finishing positions.

On every turn, a monster moves forward by a die roll, but movement can be manipulated. If a monster is not valuable to your agenda, you can waste its movement by zig-zagging or sending it into non-native terrain. Since every monster must move once per round, even unpopular contenders remain in play—and can create opportunities for clever bluffing.

• Terrain tactics: Reversible mapboards provide different patterns of brush, rock, water, and other terrain.
• Monster abilities: Native terrain can improve movement and defense, while flying monsters ignore terrain except when landing.
• Combat and powers: A monster can attack once per move, using custom attack dice to inflict damage and potentially beat an unwanted rival unconscious.
• Wacky die effects: Sword and shield icons can activate special monster powers.

The race ends when three monsters cross the finish line. Players then score the agenda points for those three finishers, making both movement choices and interference crucial. With random lineups, secret goals, reversible maps, combat, and custom dice, Monster Derby combines racing with tactical misdirection and unpredictable fantasy mayhem.