"Side-Topic" Post Week of 03/17/2014

Shadowrun and its shear Lethality. Any 2-bit thug can drop a frag and wipe the run if you're unlucky.

Paranoia... the system is the villain.

Black Crusade has the players playing as Chaos (one of the "evil" factions in the setting, although none of the factions are exactly good , per se, except from their own point of view). Many of the World of Darkness games have at least some hint of evil in their characters. It's probably most apparent in Vampire, Wraith (the character's Shadow, at least), and Demon. Manual of Exalted Power: Infernals is one of the splatbooks for Exalted (second edition), and has the players playing as one of the fifty Green Sun Princes, exalted servants of the setting's hell-equivalent. A GSP's Yozi master can even punish him or her remotely if the GSP isn't committing "Acts of Villainy." (This is supposedly changing in the upcoming third edition.) The GSPs' overarching goal is to get their Yozi masters released from their prison. Similarly, Manual of Exalted Power: Abyssals (second edition) and Exalted: The Abyssals (first edition) are the splatbooks for playing as one of the 100 Abyssal Exalted, exalted servants of the Underworld. The Abyssals' overarching goal is to send the entire world into Oblivion, so that their Neverborn masters can either come back to life, or properly die. Finally, Graceful Wicked Masques (second edition) is the splatbook allowing players to play as Raksha (Faer Folk), creatures born from the chaos energies outside the bounds of the world. The Raksha, by and large, see the stable form of the world (and everything in it) as an insult, and would like nothing more than to completely unmake the thing.

I've played a lot of systems, but dear freaking gosh Vampire: The Masquerade lead to whole dickery. In Demon, you're carefully balancing between good and evil. In Black Crusade you're Saturday morning cartoon villains in a setting that takes itself a bit too seriously. But Vampire is its own can of worms. Especially when you add in the Lasombra Antitribu. I've run 4 game of Vampire, and the 2 that had Lasombra Antitribu turn into a gosh dare slaughter fest of violently killing anything that threatens the Masquerade. Examples: "I stab my fingers through his eye balls and suck the life out of them with my fangs." "I throw down my shroud and take out all the lights in the city block." "Wait that would asphyxiate all the humans too." "Yes and?" "I blood buff up to 6 strength and punch my fist through his rib cage, then rip out his heart and eat it." "I use Dominate and tell her to do the chicken dance." "Alright so you some how broke the blood curse on the 1000 year old Toreador through the power of True Love, when you don't even have emotions some how. She picks up the 20 gallon container of your blood, and rips it in half while you two have terrifying vampire sex on top of your enemies' corpses, like when the Tzimisce thought feeding you Bath Salt infused blood was a good idea. Everyone else roll Willpower to not be mentally scarred, and Courage to not run away from the terrifying display of horror occurring. Also roll Self Control, difficulty 3, to not try to drink the blood. Dice Gods have mercy on you if you do, and remember you can choose to run away at any point." This is just a handful of the insane stuff my players have done. I need a drink.

Sounds like an interesting Vampire group. They might like playing Infernals, especially the Fiend caste. =) Let's put it this way: Infernals (and all other celestial-tier Exalts) get their power from Exalted shards that become attached to an otherwise ordinary human's soul. When not attached to a human, celestial shards normally return to a cabinet in the office of Lytek, the Right Hand of Power (the god of exaltations). Infernal and Abyssal shards are, essentially, stolen, and are tethered to something to keep them from returning to Lytek. Abyssal shards are each rooted to an individual Monstrance of Celestial Portion, a kind of magical steel cage (made of the smelted souls of the dead). Infernal shards are rooted to Lillun. Lillun was a normal human girl (supposedly the youngest daughter of the Scarlet Empress, but that's not confirmed). The Yozi named The Ebon Dragon came into possession of Lillun in some way (such as a Faustian bargain with the Empress...), and he turned her into the receptacle for the Infernal shards. Lillun is currently swollen ( literally ) with demonic power, and she can barely move. The process of attaching an Infernal shard to a new human starts with a low-level demon simultaneously raping and being ingested by Lillun. A Yozi attaches one of the shards to the consumed demon inside the phylactery-womb, and Lillun regurgitates/excretes/delivers the demon. The Yozi sends the demon out to find a new host for the shard. The Infernal Exalts are taught to love and revere Lillun. Some call her "Mother" or "Sister." Lillun only has one line of dialog throughout the Exalted comic pages: Anhule (demon spider): Assembled heroes of hell, your sacrifices please our masters! Anhule: Rise now, Chosen of the Demon Princes! Pay Homage to she who is your Mother and your Sister! Anhule: Give your respect to she who once cradled your exaltations! Show your love for your phylactery-womb! Anhule: Blessed is she! Assembled in Arena (chanting): Blessed is she! Blessed is she! Lillun (whispering): Daddy... please come get me...

Well it is a tough call, the system or the players. All RPG players are Chaotic Evil, regardless of character or alignment. I ran an AD&D game where the characters were all evil, they terrorized the town, ultimately set fire to it, after poisoning the well of the most popular bakery and murdering a politicians family, including a six month old baby. Finally I gave up on the campaign, by the time I fleshed out a character it was time to write a eulogy.

I'm of the opinion that Fiasco is basically a game of villainy. New topic up !