When comparing Monsters & Magic vs Warrior, Rogue, & Mage, the Slant community recommends Warrior, Rogue, & Mage for most people. In the question“What are the best tabletop RPGs?” Warrior, Rogue, & Mage is ranked 11th while Monsters & Magic is ranked 42nd.
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro The Effect Engine
The game uses a single core mechanic, which is flexible enough to cover a wide variety of situations. This helps GMs immensely when characters want to do things that aren't already covered in the system.
The mechanic itself works thusly: all rolls are 3d6 + modifiers minus difficulty. The result is how many effect points the player can apply to the action -- or, if negative, how many consequence points their opponent can apply to a reaction. Dealing damage is one use of effect points, but there's a limit on how much can be dealt at once, so additional effects (e.g. distracting, disarming, unmounting, etc.) see constant play instead of only being used rarely or by super-specialists. This also means failure is interesting, since it results in consequences!
This mechanic is used to do everything, and the game essentially consists of nothing but examples of how to use it.
Pro Interesting combat
Attacks generate effect points, which you spend to do things to your opponent. However, the amount of damage you can do is limited, which forces players to do other things... and the effect system is broad enough that these can be things like cutting off a carrion crawler's tentacles, knocking an opponent's sword out of their hand, and so on. Failures on attack generate consequence points as well, which your opponent can use to do things to you.
Pro Mental defense and hit points
Characters have a "Mental Defense" score and "Mental Hit Points". These are used to help provide a unified system for handling social encounters and mental attacks via magic.
Pro Light ruleset
Pro Easily expanded and adapted
Pro Beginner-friendly
Pro WR&M derivatives can be shared and even sold freely
Released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, which means you can create WR&M derivatives and share them freely or even sell them. It’s the same open license Fate Core uses.
Pro Good if you like Simulationist RPGs
If you like RPGs putout by the big publishers, you will probably like this game.
Cons
Con Not currently available in print
Is only available in PDF.
Con Few monsters & spells provided
The included rules have only about 20 monsters and 1st and 2nd-level spells. Third party publishers have supplements that provide more, or you can use ones from old D&D.
Con Simulationist
GM-based
Unequal distribution of authority
If you like Story Games (i.e. GMless, Collaborative RPGs) this is not for you.