Loser roleplaying

[Marco]

If it's true, it's true. I can't understand how people like coffee icecream but the stuff is in the grocery store.

There's a therapeutic technique called psychodrama that is used to sort of (without going into details--and I'm no expert) roleplay interacting with another person and sometimes being that other person (a real person who is or was in your life). This is some pretty deep, pretty real stuff.

I've been in games where some of the ugly stuff came up--where players felt a prevading sense of unease and in some cases internal feelings of sadness or anger or helplessness or dispair.

One of the most memorable ones was when the players were playing young (college aged) slackers who were, essentially, failures in the world and were dealing with that (and the unusual events going on around them).

It wasn't "struggle" in your sense, although there were aspects of that. It wasn't "winning" in your sense (although there were aspects of that). What was, IIRC, most powerful there was getting in touch with real-life feelings of powerlessness that everyone at some point in their lives feels (and, no, it wasn't powerlessness over the game itself).

I think kpfs is the "straight stuff" in that sense. It's not a drink I'd like to drink all the time by any means--but if some people like that, why's that disturb you?

Do you have any, you know, empathy with your inner loser?

-Marco (who has an inner loser just like everyone else)

[Vaxalon]

Yeah, I do.

I'm not sure it's worth it.

I feel like I'm standing on the rim of a vomitorium, and the guys swimming around inside are telling me, "No!  Really!  It's FUN!  Come on in, the vomit is nice and warm."

I've walked out of games, in the past, when they've slid into depravity, and in this case, I'm looking at it from outside and shaking my head in disbelief.

[clehrich]

I can't understand how people like coffee icecream but the stuff is in the grocery store.

No, but this is an objective failure on your part.  Coffe ice cream rocks.  You are wrong.

Yeah, I do.

I'm not sure it's worth it.

I feel like I'm standing on the rim of a vomitorium, and the guys swimming around inside are telling me, "No!  Really!  It's FUN!  Come on in, the vomit is nice and warm."

I've walked out of games, in the past, when they've slid into depravity, and in this case, I'm looking at it from outside and shaking my head in disbelief.

No no, you're not getting this.  Really.

I do think that part of the problem is that you haven't read kpfs.  I don't mean that as a slam.  Now me, I'm a sicko.  I read the title and went straight over there to read the game.  First Forge game I ever bought.  But honestly, I figured, "Yeah, funny, ha ha, it'll suck."  Then I read it and just laughed and laughed.  I mean, just reading it.

See, the thing is that the whole writeup of the game, and that sets the tone from soup to nuts, is not "you are kind of a loser, and you need to grapple with that."  Not at all.  The writing is, "I, the guy who wrote the game, hate you.  You suck.  What kind of horrible person are you anyway?  Did you cheat?  Good, because I get to punish you.  Ha ha, I love that."

The thing I really think you're missing here is that the whole thing is deeply, deeply funny.

Sure, we can get fancy about whether this is literature or not, and whether literature is an appropriate metaphor, but that's really not, to my mind, the point.  The point is that you read the game and you laugh.  And then you think, "I've got to play this."  And then you feel dirty, and think, "My god, what kind of sick muffin am I anyway?"  And then you start actually thinking.

Vincent will eventually sue me if I keep putting bits up, but here's a small bit that always has me howling with laughter.

and finally other random weird freaky shit
you know how when you've been chasing this damn dog all over town and back and you just can't seem to catch up with it and it's acting like it knows you're there and it's onto you and you start to wonder precisely who's chasing whom and then it surprises you by jumping out of a garbage can and sinking its teeth into your arm and before you know it it's turned into some guy, i mean some fucking guy with a mouthful of your meat? that's this guy.
- vampires, werewolves, ghouls, skinchangers, undead, the whole goddamn freakshow, it's all out there if you know where to look. or if you don't know which side of the fucking tracks to stay on, puppy boy.
- they all have their own stats and i'm not really inclined to make them all up. you've got the pattern by now surely. knock yourself out. i'll do one to get you started. it'll be your fave and mine, vampires.
..... [mechanics cut, because who cares?] .......
- their powers can include turning into a bat or a wolf or mist, mesmerizing people, moving superfast, being superstrong, you know, the whole damn list from that other fucking game. i know you own it.
- here's a character sheet for a random vampire.

a monster i am, lest a monster i wankety wankety wank
my name is elias dumond iii
cultured 5
cunning 3
bloodthirsty 3
immortal 4
hungry 1
i can transform myself into the bat and transfix the ladies with my sinister yet compelling dark eyes, nyorm nyorm.[/list:u]so that's npcs. make your pcs piss their puppy-killing pants.

Now seriously, read this.  It's got everything.  I really think kpfs is one of the best-written games ever; it's certainly the funniest I've ever read.

Pointless, mean-spirited jabs at WoD?  Check.
Nasty, bad-tempered jibes at the GM?  Check.
In-passing slashes at the PCs?  Check.
Composed in a consistent, distinctive style?  Check.
Totally unnecessary bad language?  Check.

Does this start to sound like Saturday Night Live in the good old days?  Because it should.  That's exactly what this is.  Deliberate, pointless, childish pushing at the envelopes of what any sane, normal human being in our culture would consider acceptable, but doing so just barely enough that we go "eeew, ick" and don't actually shut the book.  And instead we keep cracking up.

Forget getting in touch with your inner loser.  Get in touch with your inner child.  Remember how funny fart-jokes and toilet-jokes really are?  Remember that scene in Blazing Saddles that's nothing but people farting?  Remember the "South Park" episode where Mr. Garrison & Mr. Head rant on about how toilet humor isn't funny, while in the back Kenny is having explosive diarrhea (just sound effects)?  Okay, this is the same thing for (semi-) grown-ups.

See, if you get that this is funny first and foremost, you begin to get why it's also quite serious and worth doing.  Not often, maybe, but worth it.

Let's all remember the actual title of the game:

kill puppies for satan: an unfunny roleplaying game[/list:u]So Vaxalon, here's my question to you.

Can you see that this can be funny?  Forget the rest.  Can you see the funny?

Here's a little test, so you don't have to buy the game before really getting it.  Somewhere on Vincent's website [

hey vincent, please put up the link, you know I love this] there is an impassioned letter from a couple of little girls, 12 or so IIRC, who don't like the shtick of the game.  They think they do, but they propose that instead of killing puppies, the PCs should kill Barbies.  And then they explain this as having something to do with the Declaration of Independence and what our country is really based on.

Now me, I read this and laughed so hard I genuinely had tears running down my face.  That was one of the funniest things I've read in a very long time.  And if you get what makes that funny, no really, you just gotta buy and read kpfs.  If you think that is not funny at all, that it's horrible of me to find that hysterically funny, then you're going to hate this game, but there's really nothing to analyze: this is purely a matter of preference, and this game is not for you.

But read the letter before you decide.  I love that letter.  I want to print it and frame it.  I just might, actually.  When I bought the game, I told Vincent that letter sold it, and I still hold to that.

Kill Barbies For Satan.... hee!

[Vaxalon]

Well, see, I have a problem with that too.

Because there are SO many really, really good games out there, and because of some hrm, bad budgetary practices in the past, I have made a promise to buy only games that I have a solid plan to actually play.

Maybe someday I'll get to a con where it's being demoed, or link up with someone IRL for it.

For now, though, I think I've come to the conclusion that I'm just too unhip for this game.

Oh, and by the way?  I can't stand South Park.

[lumpley]

Thanks, Chris!

Don't Kill Puppies for Satan. The rest of my hate mail lives here.

I have a longstanding policy, Fred. It appears at the top of my hate mail page. It's: I wrote a game called kill puppies for satan, for goodness sake. What, did I think everybody was going to like it?

I hope you understand it better. You liking it - that's totally not mine to ask.

-Vincent

[Vaxalon]

I think I do understand it, a little.  About as well as I understand quantum physics, that is to say, I can follow what people say about it but it's so alien from my own experience that I can't say that I grok it.

Not like I grok algebra, for example.

I suppose that's the best I could have hoped for.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This thread seems to have evolved into something beyond the basic principle of loser role-playing. Fred, do you have a specific point-of-issue that we can discuss? As Vincent points out, no one is trying to make you like something (although Chris is getting a bit toward that end of the pool and should stop), and a couple of your posts seem to be trying to protect yourself ...

Anyway, I'm not shutting anything down, don't mistake me on this - I'm asking for a return to the idea that you raised, rather than an emotion you feel about a particular game.

Best,
Ron

[Vaxalon]

Well, how about my postulate, as far as four styles of RP?

That is, Hero, Struggle, Perverse, and Loser?

It seems to have either been ignored or tacitly accepted.

[Paganini]

Well, how about my postulate, as far as four styles of RP?

That is, Hero, Struggle, Perverse, and Loser?

It seems to have either been ignored or tacitly accepted.

Actually, I like that a lot. Maybe it needs it's own thread, but I think it's a pretty good stylistic distinction.

Hero and Loser are most often used to color Gamism (Maybe some Sim? What's it like to be a Hero / Loser?), while Struggle and Perverse are the main driving force for Narrativism.

[Vaxalon]

I think that's because perverse and struggle involve something that gamism don't really care about all that much, and that's character development (as distinct from advancement).  Movement from one state to another.

Does Sim care about character development?  Perhaps, but it's not as fundamental as it is in Nar.