Monsterhearts: 'A lot of queer youth are made to feel monstrous by people around them'

Canadian Avery Alder created her tabletop game Monsterhearts to channel her own experiences of LGBT adolescence. Characters are teenagers but with supernatural powers, where a roll of the dice is as random as a hormonal surge

Pete had been having a rough day. First he was late for school, then he'd been cruelly mocked by his classmate Britney and her posh-girl clique. Now he was developing a horrible suspicion that he might have eaten his neighbour's cat.

Fortunately for the local feline population, Pete was a fictional character. A bemused and terrified teenage werewolf, he was part of a pen-and-paper roleplaying game called Monsterhearts, whose players assume the roles of supernatural creatures traversing the social minefield of school.