Molly House

After the dungeons, we found ourselves facing a very different enemy. I see Cole Wehrle on the box—despite not being his biggest fan—and, through some inexplicable association, my brain expects Thomas Spitzer and gets instant FOMO. I saw Molly House in pre-orders, read the title, and imagined a heavy euro about trading MDMA, something like After Pablo married to Kohle & Kolonie. Thankfully for my dignity, the moment I opened the box and picked up the manual happened off camera.

In practice, the game is not the grounded, “do my little business and count profits” euro I had constructed in my head. It is a distinctive design, with a distinctive theme and distinctive mechanisms, which gave me the feeling of a Pax filtered through Arcs. For the system to work properly, though, it is not enough to roughly know what you are doing: everyone at the table needs to understand what is at stake and treat it seriously.

And that is my main sticking point. The manual and its historical context have things to offer—at the very least, they better explain the atmosphere and the threats hanging over the theme—but the experience does not easily forgive a group that is still finding its feet. If the players are not, effectively, Molly House scholars, willing to read, remember, and feel out its subtle balances, I fear its interaction and decisions lose their meaning amid ambiguities and possible rules mistakes.

I cannot help but acknowledge Wehrle’s nerve. Molly House’s theme is so specific and difficult that, in the hands of someone less committed, it could have become completely ridiculous. Here, by contrast, there is a clear intent, and the game genuinely has something to say, even if the old-fashioned prejudice at the heart of its story is not something that particularly moves me.

As is often the case with Pax games, then, I suspect this will reward a very specific group: people ready to take it seriously and invest time in learning it properly. Someone might say that not fully understanding the game and making rules mistakes does not diminish the fun at all. On the matter of fun, I disagree. Personal vice—chic. The rest of us mere mortals will probably have a better time with something more grounded.