[Kinda Book Report] Rat Queen Vol1 Sass and Sorcery

I have been distantly involved with the folks at Lurking Fears who produce some really good gaming stuff, particularly with Call of Cthulhu. Recently, I saw a post from them asking for volunteers to play a streamed game of Rat Queens, with the PCs taking on the roles of the titular Queens.

Therefore, reading the first trade paperback was required for the game. It's been a long time since I did something with required reading. In fact, I think it was an interview... I did not get that job (thank God!)

So on to the story. The Rat Queens are one of many adventuring/ mercenary parties in the town of Palisade and well... like most young people with a lot of money and not much to spend it on, they get drunk, fight each other, and cause a lot of damage.

Yep, they are pretty much the typical D&D party. They talk trash. Curse. Sex. A lot. Then booze. And drugs. In short, they are the stereotypical 20-something college crowd with money and power!

Now the good points: I like the four Queens. They each have their personalities and the conflicts generated by these personalities are interesting and really sells the whole piece. I've a feeling you could put these four into whatever situation/ adventure and they would play out with similar hilarious results.

The main villain of the piece is also efficient (though I've a feeling he will suddenly become completely incompetent so the Queens can prevent him from doing his nefarious deeds).

The art is topnotch and really effective. The writing is competent. The characters are good. The story has some interesting twists. The world has some consistency in a gaming sort of way.

So why do I not like this? Why do I get the feeling this book is "not for me." The in-your-face, over-the-top rowdiness turns me off. Now I don't "hate-hate" it... But I don't think I would read much more of it either.

So... what do I rate this? If you like this sort of thing, you may go as high as 4/5. But I can't go that high. I thought about giving it a 2/5 but there are a lot of things here that I liked that don't warrant that. So, I have to settle on 3/5 but with severe warnings. This has an MA rating (or should).