Anyone know any good monster PC rpgs?

[Belac93]

Pretty much what it says on the title. I've been wanting to play a game with weak monsters (like kobolds and goblins, or stranger things), but nothing seems to work really well.

Kobolds ate my baby has annoying mechanics, pathfinder and d&d are too high powered, and I'm bad at making rpgs.

So, does anyone know any games that could help for this?

[LibraryOgre]

Palladium Fantasy has monster play available as a core aspect... the mechanics are meh, but they're there.

You might also look at older editions of AD&D, or, my go-to game for "I want to play a thing without having to fight the mechanics", Savage Worlds. It would be relatively easy to create a kobold or goblin race, assuming the fantasy supplements haven't already done that for you.

[Jenrock]

There are also a few games (that I've admittedly not played) such as Window which might prove useful simply because they're so flexible. A rather interesting choice might be Paladin. I'd rather not link you directly to a pdf, but Google "Paladin RPG game" and you'll find it easily. And yes, I see the redundancy.

[Khedrac]

I suppose Lost Souls counts - usually everyone is playing some form of undead (it is possible to play a living medium).
It is pushing it as everyone is an ex-human rather than a genuine monster, but it just about slips in.

3.0 D&D had the book Savage Species which was all about playing other races.

And then we come to BECMI/RC D&D - or some of the expansions for it:
Gaz 10: The Orcs of Thar - Orcs, Kobolds, Goblins, Ogres etc - the basic monstrous humanoids
PC1: Tall Tales of the Wee Folk - sprites and other small fey
PC2: Top Ballista - set on a flying city this had a weird race selection, many of which are not even in 3.5: pegaturs, nagpa, gnomes, gremlins
PC3: The Sea People - Tritons, Shark Kin, Merfolk, sea giants etc
PC4: Night Howlers - all sorts of lycanthropes, though you also had to be a more conventional (demi-)human as well.

(Yes, gnomes were not playable before PC3 in BECMI, on the other hand they got Time Travel.)

[Bohandas]

In Toon you can be whatever

[ImNotTrevor]

Monsterhearts does this, except not as weak monsters. You're generally pretty hardcore (it's a PbtA system, after all). But it could work if you scale up everything else.

It achieves the general feel you may want, though. (The whole world seeks your death.)

It is very narrative-based, though, and so low on numerical crunchyness and high on conceptual crunchiness. (The latter is much more nebulous and can be hard to get used to, but is a lot more flexible.)