From D&D To Holy Grail: One Man's Monty Python Obsession Exposed

And why Brian Saliba's 350-page ‘love letter’ stands ready to spawn even more absurd expansions

Mar 05, 2025

Monty Python RPG links:

Get the game in print and/or digital from Exalted Funeral

Watch my full review video of the game on YouTube

What Were You Thinking?

Hello Brian. Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your connection to tabletop RPGs?
Hello Dave. My name is Brian Saliba, but most people just call me Brian Saliba. I operate Crowbar Creative, where we design, write, and publish things that don't make sense to any of my family members. These include Dr. Grordbort's Scientific Adventure Violence, Rackham Vale, and Monty Python's Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme. My brother foisted D&D upon my impressionable mind in the early eighties, and my development as a fully functioning human seems to have been arrested and bedungeoned since that time.
2. My notes here tell me that you co-wrote Monty Python’s Cocurricular Medieval (sp?) Reenactment Program (sp?). Why did you do this?
As to the first question, are you asking me whether or not your notes told you this? Second question: misspelled; should be Mediaeval. Third question: misspelled; should be Programme. Fourth question: I created the programme and conscripted my brother (the same one; he foisted Python upon me, too) to write it with me as part of an elaborate 4-year stratagem to gain this audience with you. And you, sir, have sprung the trap.
3. What was the process like for getting the rights to use the Monty Python brand and assets in a tabletop RPG, and when do you expect the lawsuits to start pouring in?
Long, exhilarating, arduous, and ultimately successful, much like Napoleon's invasion of Russia. It started in those heady pre-plague days of 2020 and required lots of meetings, wherein I had to describe with a straight face what a Monty Python role-playing game would be. Fortunately, Exalted Funeral came on board as publisher to lend some funereal gravitas to the proceedings. While we are fairly confident that we've done what's necessary to avoid being hauled up in front of a judge, I am still amazed that the licensor was willing to take a chance on an unknown creator and an indie publisher.
This game has all the jokes, and all the licenses.
4. The book takes an overt stance that this is not a role-playing game, but rather a “Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme.” Were there any other tactics that you wanted to use to confuse and ward away potential purchasers of your game?
On the contrary, our analytics suggest that game enthusiasts are increasingly fed up with silly games involving dragons and succubi, and are famished for serious recreational programmes that present dragons and succubi through a historically accurate lens. Monty Python, renowned for pioneering educational content, seemed like an apt framework for such a lens. Hence, this pedagogical monocle.
The Legacy of Your Betters
5. What is your take on Monty Python’s legacy on sketch comedy, British humor and pop culture in general?
The Pythons have been called the Beatles of comedy, which I imagine the Rutles would have something to say about. In terms of their legacy, I can only speak to the effect they've had on my life, which is profound enough that I spent the better part of the last four years writing a 350-page love letter to them. Beyond that, your question calls to mind a story I read about their early Flying Circus days. They were one season in, and an American distributor expressed interest in acquiring US rights. Almost no one involved put much stock in it, believing that it was way, WAY too British to appeal to any audience outside of Great Britain. But it made its way onto PBS, then onto German television...and it just kept working. Even when translated, audiences loved it. Smarter people than me have devised theories to explain this, some rooted in British imperialism and the near-universal desire to see British people lampooned. Could be something to that. Or maybe a lot of people from other cultures (myself among them) felt intrigued and challenged by the bits they didn't understand, as opposed to alienated or confused, as the Beeb execs presumed. Whatever the reason, it worked--and still does!
This was the only screenshot I was authorized to share from the show.
6. Do you know if any of the original cast have received your RPG or deigned to even read it?
Yes, I do.
7. The cast have published numerous memoirs over the years and I’m sure you’ve read them all. Do you have any favorite insights or anecdotes from any of them?
There was a little axiom I came across very early in the process that stuck with me and served as a lodestar throughout the creation process. Asked to define Python's approach to comedy, one of them (Cleese maybe?) said 'make fun of serious things and take silly things very seriously'. I'm not sure which approach they intended for their bits about Proust. Zing!
The Game’s Mechanics, If We Must
8. You and co-designer Craig Schaffer managed to recapitulate the precise language, tone and humor level of Monty Python, which I personally think is something easier said than done. But you sort of scale back the cheekiness a bit when explaining the rules. How were you able to restrain yourself for that brief moment in the book?
That is high praise, thank you. Craig (that's the brother I've been referring to; was hoping he'd remain anonymous, but oh well) and I did our best to make it sound and feel Python, but a lot of credit goes to our editor, Chant Evans, and copyeditor, Ben Sumner. While Craig and I can amuse each other with our attempts at sounding British and authentically Python, we are neither British nor Pythons, so having a couple of certified Brits around to say, 'That's rubbish', was very useful. I miss that in my life, actually. I wonder if it's possible to hire a Brit to follow you around and say, 'That's rubbish' when you've lost the plot. Speaking of which, your second question: Despite the long-winded cheekiness in these answers, when it comes to game design, I'm very function-over-form. If we could make reading and looking at the book enjoyable, great; but if it lacked utility at the table, we'd consider it a failure. So when it comes to the rules, yes, we rapped ourselves on the knuckles whenever we felt like the schtick was getting in the way of utility.
9. I braced for the absolute worst when I started digging in to the book, but I’ll inform the readers of my conclusion: the game actually manages to pull off a simulation of the absurdist, surrealist, sardonic nature of Monty Python sketch comedy, while also focusing on a particular film (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) as the framework for the whole thing. It is able to pull this off, in part, by employing relatively simple dice resolution mechanics. How exactly did you land on Traits + Retainers + Accoutrements as the way of defining a character?
If I'd heard someone was doing a Monty Python RPG, I'd have had the exact same reaction, so I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. It's deeply gratifying to hear someone who knows Python and gaming, and who has given the book a thorough going over, say that we didn't make a hash of it. Thank you. For character creation, we knew early on that some core tenets of most RPGs were not going to work for this: things like steady upward progression of core abilities and competencies, being rewarded for accomplishments in the form of level progression and additional hit points. So we landed on the idea that every core aspect or ability of a character (we call these Traits) exist on a continuum, with Serious at one extreme and Silly on the other. And a character's starting status in those Traits were not to be etched in stone; they had to move around throughout the game. As for Retainers and Accoutrements, well everyone loves having friends and gear, right?
10. The game features a ridiculous range of dice, including such mythical entities as the d18, d16 and d14. Which most normal humans do not own. Was this an intentional effort to make players question why they didn’t back the game at the deluxe level which included the specialty dice, or do you have a backdoor deal with Goodman Games to drive up sales of their Weird Dice sets?
A scandalous accusation! Our lawyers inform me that I'm obligated to mention that we own every free dice-rolling app and intend to monetise them upon release of the game.
11. In many RPGs, rolling a natural 20 is a moment of triumph. But in this game, if your total roll exceeds 20, it means you’ve taken things too seriously and receive a Demerit. Why do you hate the RPG hobby?
It's well documented that stuffy English-types are put off my earnest endeavoring. Therefore, for authenticity's sake, we had no choice but to impose a penalty on extremely high rolls.
How to Play this Abomination
12. Combat (sorry, "contestation") in the game is deliberately fast, loose, and ridiculous—favoring absurd scenarios over tactics. What do you say to players who are used to measuring out movement in five-foot increments and discussing armor class modifiers?
Cinch tight thy harness!
13. The game makes it clear that players shouldn’t expect “heroic destinies” so much as “surreal bureaucratic entanglements, baffling quests, and occasional bouts of historical vandalism.” If a party actually tried to take the setting seriously and methodically solve its problems, how long would it take before the setting itself punishes them for their hubris?
As a matter of well-documented fact, we do encourage Participants to take--or at the very least, have their PCs take--the programme very seriously. That's in keeping with the Pythons' own protagonists. Arthur and his knights, Brian of Nazareth...they took themselves and their quests quite seriously. We encourage participants to do the same, and let the Pythonesque elements come to them.
Take this game seriously.
14. I need to ask you about the various roles of the GM (aka Head of Light Entertainment, or HoLE). Does every session require them to adopt a Monty Python-esque character, or are they allowed to just run the game like normal, boring people?
Absolutely not! We strictly forbid all home-brewing, alteration, modification, and tweakage.
15. There is a whole aspect of the game where the HoLE initiates a sort of cutaway skit that temporarily puts players in a gameshow or contest or some such contrivance. How do you find players who are able to not only withstand, but actually enjoy, such a thing?
We bribe them.
16. The book actively discourages players from attempting to be funny on purpose, warning that forcing the funny is a bad idea. Instead, the best moments come from players taking things far too seriously while absurdity happens around them. Why does this feel like you’re attacking 80% of the Actual Plays on YouTube?
Am I? Oh dear. I don't watch actual plays, so I must profess ignorance and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Yeah, me neither.
17. The game actively encourages players to lobby the Head of Light Entertainment for rulings, but also warns them not to be "a tosser about it." I don’t want to be a tosser. Where would you draw the tosser line?
Close observation of your Head of Light Entertainment can offer vital clues. If they, for instance, throw a slice of pizza at your head, you may well have strayed into tosser territory.
Ponderings and Presuppositions
18. If you could go back in time and change anything about the Kickstarter campaign, what would it be? Or did you run a perfect campaign?
The schedule. The Kickstarter proved far larger than any of us anticipated, which meant lots of additional content that needed writing, lots more material needed sources, and so forth. Our backers, bless them with all blessed blessings, have been overwhelmingly supportive and patient, but I wish we'd been more precient and could have shortened the wait time or at least provided a timeline that would turn out to be more realistic than our initial estimate.
19. If you could change one thing about the RPG hobby… why would you think you could just come in here and do something like that, just wave your magic wand around that way?
Stop that. They'll be no wand waving. Or singing.
20. What lies in the future of the not-RPG called Monty Python’s Cocurricular Medieval Reenactment Programme?
A book of quests is in the offing, for starters...should the programme earn a fanbase. My brother and I have something like 80k words of content that didn't make it into the initial release, so there is lots more to come, unless we are tarred and feathered by the masses when this thing comes out. Should it come to that, I'm hoping they feather me and save the tarring for Craig.