YMMV / Monastyr

• Audience-Alienating Era : Monastyr was the climax of the ongoing trend in Polish RPG scene to make and run Grittier, Darker and Edgier games - and as such, it dialed it up to eleven. The resulting game is so grim and edgy, it eventually spawned a parody in form of Agony: The Gloomy RPG. It also had a long-lasting consequences on the RPG scene as such, since first it equated RPG with "unbearably dark and gritty fantasy" and then, once everyone got sick and tired with it, successfully barred anyone from going back to the hobby, since looking for new players meant you were stuck with 1d3 people who came from either Monastyr or similarly bleak Neuroshima background.
• Enjoy the Story, Skip the Game/Play the Game, Skip the Story: Depending on how you look at it, either one or the other. The game is generally regarded to be written evocatively and to "have potential", but you have to work around the mechanics- and intended playstyle-wise pitfalls left by the toxic author.
• Fandom Rivalry: With Polish WFRP playerbase, since they were both gearing for the same type and style of gameplay, trying to one-up each other who's gonna go grittier. Ironically, the creator of Monastyr is responsible for both — before he became a game developer himself, he was already influential in the roleplaying community for a series of articles where he advocated playing Warhammer in an exceptionally grimdark way.
• Narm Charm: How the game is being treated — and played — nowadays. Everyone and their dog is aware what sort of mess it is, both mechanically and tonally. But it's still picked for one-shot scenarios (which finally allows problems like potential Total Party Kill to work as a feature) or as a curiosity thing (due to how entertainingly silly the game and its premise are).
• Scrappy Mechanic: The RPG. The horribly convoluted 3d20 system was created specifically for Monastyr. And it's not that the mechanics are bad by themselves, with loads of exceptions, confusing wording, obvious loopholes and plethora of contradictions — the section for GM openly states to just ignore unwelcomed successes in case of RNG still favouring players.
• That One Rule: Rules for ranged combat elevate the already awful 3d20 into new heights of bad game design. Not only all sort of ranged attacks are underpowered, it's near impossible to hit even a broad side of a barn, while firearms are more likely to kill the shooter than the target. Expect dozens of homebrew fixes to do something about it.

---