Something unique for our review this week!

If you are tired of playing the hero who saves the day and want to try something different, then you could try being a cat! Be Like a Cat is a solo/two-player TTRPG crafted by Tim Roberts where the player(s) experience the world from a cat’s perspective, as already implied by the title.

Content

The game begins with a short, slightly silly, but very charming and well thought-out tale about a kitten’s journey to the front door, designed to gradually immerse you in the setting. Chapter 1 provides a brief overview of the game, including what you will need to start playing and some general objectives. It also encourages you to keep a journal and record experiences that shaped your skills. I am very fond of journals, as I believe that character creation doesn’t stop when you assign numbers on a sheet, but is an ongoing project. At the back of the book you will find a cat stat sheet, a territory tracker sheet and a note page. You will also need a few six-sided dice when generating places, encounters, and when making skill checks.

In Chapter 2, you will choose one background from feral, stray, or domestic that will associate you with a location, a bonus, and a weakness. Then you develop skills that match real feline abilities and are divided into four categories:

• Survival has prowl, hunt, mark, and preen,
• Social has cute, scare, play and signal,
• Travel has jump, climb, balance, land, and
• Combat has claw, bite, pounce, and evade.

To be honest, cute being an actual skill is exactly what I hoped to find in this game.

Chapter 3 presents the game’s core rules. It is a turn-based game with four phases for each turn. You may move or stay in place, check and resolve encounters, check and resolve random events called Yes, and…, or try to take control of a location. There are prompt tables for each phase, so that’s where the dice come in handy, or should I say, paw-y. Then the chapter provides guidance for skill checks and encounters. A cat has 9 lives indeed, and it’s the only attribute that only goes down. If a cat’s health drops to 0, it loses one life.

System

The system is light and revolves around skill checks. Your score for each skill ranges from 1 to 6, and when you attempt something, you need to roll some dice to see whether your cat succeeds or not. Instead of advantage and disadvantage, we have courage (reroll any dice that didn’t yield a 1) and timidity (any results of 4 do not count towards your success). One important thing to note is that your cat doesn’t gain levels in the traditional way, but moves through different lifecycle stages starting from kitten, to young adult, mature adult and senior, eventually. Each stage has a different impact on your skills, as for example, a senior cat travels with timidity but socialises with courage.

Oh, and the game even includes zoomies or frap(frenetic random activity period), because no cat game would be complete without them. A sudden run to the other side of the room(or map) for no reason? YES! You are encouraged to document these moments in your journal for extra laughs. The chapter concludes with two-player options and a one-page cheat sheet for your turn. I really enjoyed that the game doesn’t try to turn cats into a miniature game, but reinforces what cats actually do in a simple and well-thought-out way.

Scenarios

The biggest part of the book is its scenarios. I find them particularly fun as they take the same cat framework and throw it into different settings. In Urban Cat, you are an ordinary cat exploring the neighbourhood, while in Brave Mew World you take the role of a hacker’s feline avatar in a virtual universe. The book of Bastet features ancient Egypt, Star Paws is a futuristic scenario in a far-away galaxy, and A Purrfect Storm takes your cat into a world of pirates.

Each scenario comes with random roll tables that generate locations, encounters, and even curses as you explore them, so the result of the game could feel different every time you play. They are quite humorous, as for example, in Brave Mew World you could get Electromagnetic Toe beans as an augmentation when defeating an opponent.
As if the premade scenarios were not enough, there is an appendix with guidance on how to create your own tale. It explains how to build objectives, locations, encounters and Yes, and… events, encouraging you to expand beyond the book’s content.

Layout & Art

The layout is well organized and practical, with a table of contents at the very beginning to get an overview of the book. Bold headers and clear chapter divisions are used effectively, separating the rules and system from the scenarios. The one-page cheat sheet mentioned before is a welcome addition, too.
All illustrations are presented in black and white, but are surprisingly detailed and full of character. They are carefully placed across the pages, without cluttering them. Moreover, there is a cover image at the start of each scenario that beautifully captures the playful nature of felines.

Final Thoughts

Be Like a Cat is a charming TTRPG that lets you explore the world through the eyes of a cat. It uses simple mechanics and authentic feline behaviours, while it welcomes a journal system to track your development. I believe that it is a nice addition to any TTRPG collection, and definitely mine.

Stay crafty and pawsome,
Your new favourite author.

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