Scenes from Satanis

[Zoilus]

Hi... short time reader, first time poster... (so flame on flamers for your fire burns cold compared to that of the hells I have witn--- oh, sorry, I like to write lame stuff sometimes)...

Ok, so Tuesday night's Empire of Satanis session was a lot of fun.  I thought Darrick (our GM and the game's malificent (sp?) creator) did an excellent job capturing the spirit of social interactions between Fiends.  How does a Fiend with a lot of power determine which of his lowly lackies should get promoted?  He has them fight it out in a no-holds-barred exhibition of magical prowess!

Picture, if you will: a raver's worst trip embodied in the flashy shiney cloth-like skin, sagging like the gaudy baggy reflective vinyl pants of a techno-junky, of Batri, a Lurigeatro who knows all the beautiful people, since he's the one who broke their minds!  Imagine the lust and sexual energy flowing through him as he bumps line after line of the demonic relative of coke and exstacy, heightening his every sensation and showing him he truly is the best in all of existence.  As he sings his maddenning song of sinful vanity, the storm overhead forms a funnel cloud, hollow and deep.  Recalling the bilious-green tentacled prostitute he met the night before in the Palace of Putrid Flesh (you know, the one accross from Mezid's Magical Medallions?  No? dude, you gotta check it out! Best girls in town, I swear!)... recalling last night's prize, the funnel cloud forms into the shape of the rotting hole between her legs.  As his song of sin rises crescendos and accelerates the funnel cloud dives down onto the monolith.  Impaled by the monolith the swirling fleshy mist rises and falls faster and faster.  A bright flash of green lightning and a deafening roar of thunder, the rain smells oddly sweet, and one could almost swear it was the delicious juices from the now-fading manifestation of pure carnal lust.

Dude!  And I LOST! ... not that I have any complaints, the guy who won did so on good grounds.  (ok, technically they were unholy grounds, but who's keeping track?).  His magical working was both impressively flashy, and payed homage to the great lord Satanis.  I would have stabbed him then and there... but I didn't have a knife.

And then "the fighter"... essential in every group and a master at the art of stepping on the little guy on his rise to the top by saying something bout his mama, our Zirakian companion was a little skeptical of his chances at working an impressive spell.  Though his ritualistic meditation failed to summon the incarnation of his internal hatred anger and wrath, his sheer strength of will (read "excellent story alteration roll") forced the being into existence.  Towering high above us, it's red flesh burned like flames in the brief illumination of the lightning overhead.  (sidenote: I attempted a story alteration and failed, but had I succeeded let's just say "master your rage, or your rage will anihilate you")

The second part of this "test of loyalty" was to subvert a den of cultists who practiced sex magic.  We encountered an Akturian Head (Darrick, did I spell that right?) and beat him up, then we came to the mausoleum.  Apparently the little twit who had us perform in magical exhibition wasn't really a servant of Satanis.  (I have forgiven all those who have offended me, but I have the list!) so I decided I'd kill him later.

The subjugation of the occultists went smoothly enough.  A demonstration of the potency of my sexually stimulating and oh-so-deliciously mindwarping drugs won over several celebrants.  Others were drawn to Hawk (still the heavy-weight magic champion of Kthana) as he made their most secret sexual dreams manifest themselves and prove every bit as exciting as the fantasy.  But there's always one...

One ass-hole with a stupid arrogant grin on his face (in this case that's all he was... he was a Smile) has to try to be the tough guy.  One jerk always has to try to rearrange someone elses features!  Does he really think he'll get away with attaching bird beaks, fur, moving eyes to shoulders when he performs these deeds on a Zirakian with a short fuse, sharp sword (void saber), and an even sharper wit?  NO!  And let it be known that he did indeed wipe that smile off his face... (oh stop with the puns already!)  The Zirakean impressed quite a few people and even gained a follower.  He also helped me get rid of that puny little scuzball who thought he could make us do his dirty work.  I owe him one.

I think somewhere in there I rolled a 29 (6+6+6+6+5) which is the highest recorded roll in our sessions.  I just wanted to brag.

There was more to the adventure, involving Dead Babies, Vampires, and The Stranger.  But I'll have to write about that later.

[Mike Holmes]

I've been wondering a lot about this game, from comments somebody made about it. I have a few questions.

1. What part of play did you enjoy most personally?
2. Were the other players turned on by that as well?
3. What goals does your character have? How were they determined?
4. Did you encounter any "normal" folks in play?
5. What one thing that you did got you the most accolades from the other players?
6. What role did the system play in all of this?

Just some to start.

Oh, and welcome to the Forge (you'll find little flaming here).

Mike

[Zoilus]

1. What part of play did you enjoy most personally?
2. Were the other players turned on by that as well?
3. What goals does your character have? How were they determined?
4. Did you encounter any "normal" folks in play?
5. What one thing that you did got you the most accolades from the other players?
6. What role did the system play in all of this?

1. My favorite parts are describing the terrors I unleash upon my enemies.  I think in this particular adventure my favorite part was the near absence of any sort of bond between mine and the other players' characters.  This is not to say we didn't work together, but I always felt like if things got bad or if there was a golden opportunity for my character to advance himself he would pounce on it, even if that meant conning, fighting or killing another character.

2.  I think the descriptive nature of this game can be a lot of fun for some, and difficult for others.  I think for those with what I shall call a "D&D" mindset this is very challenging.  In D&D all spells and spell effects and any sort of actions have pretty much already been spelled out (no pun intended).  You know exactly what "Fireball lvl 21" means and what it would look like, how wide and tall it it, how much damgage it does, enemies resistance to it... all these are predetermined, leaving the player with little more to do than roll the dice.  Satanis, on the other hand, loves it when the GM asks "What do you do?" and you come up with something so unexpected, so vile and twisted, so disturbing, that even failing a dice roll would be impressive.  Imagine digging through your trenchcoat for that last hit of Salkalin Horn powder in an effort to drive you into a maddenning frenzy of wrathful hateful thoughts, only to find you only fail the roll and ingest a large quantity of Happy Bunny Pills.  Instead of the wrath you seek to bring peace and love to all.  Which, in the universe of the Yidathroth, is pretty scary in itself!

3.  My character's motivations centered largely around his "Sphere of Color."  SoC is sort of like a character's aura.  It serves as both a mechanic to inspire the player to describe his actions within a certain paradigm, while at the same time rewarding him for doing so.  A player can act completely outside his SoC, but I think the SoC makes a nice motivation.  I don't have my character sheet in front of me right now, so I can't tell you the color, but the aura around it was Lust, Vanity, Pride.  Also, my character's background contributed largely to his modes of operation.  I decided that since I wanted to be a Raver's Worst Nightmare, I should be well-versed in drugs and seduction.  I used both of these regularly.  Ingesting drugs to increase the potency of my spells (I think I took the demonic equivilant of viagra while summoning the Prostituted Funnel Cloud).  And I used something like extacy combined with my sensual charms to win over a large chunk of the sex-cult we encountered.  I can't really speak for the other players, since I'm not yet telepathic... yet.... but I would guess that for our Zirakean fighter the motivations largely came about from his character's theme which was essentially to create a Demonic Dark Jedi.  In fact, now that I think about it, in a previous adventure (where the Zirakean first appeared) since he had nothing, and yet had amazing skills with a void saber, we spent much of the adventure trying to use story alteration points to somehow get him a void saber.  That's some driving motivations, I tell ya what.

4.  "Normal"?  If you mean Humans, then the answer is yes with a but, no with a maybe.  Yes, there were some humans, but they were behind bars... or rather on stages recreating violent bloody massacres in prehistoric, wild west, and space-age themed arenas of combat.  We didn't really fight any of them, though there was a plot to turn my character into a human temporarily and potentially use me as a champion to fight another human, and when I won my alleged "owner" would collect some important information from the losing wagerer.  This never really carried itself out fully, which is fine by me.  We got the information without it.  Just remember, in Satanis, Normal means billious multple-tentacled horrors that feast on the blood and crimson ichor of their demon god Satanis.  Abnormal would be a cute little fluffy bunny.... who does not have big sharp pointy teeth or a vicious streak a mile wide.

5.  Well, rolling a 29 was impressive, but I think I got the most "props" for my first trick - making the funnel cloud have sex with a monolith.  I also got some props later when just as Darrick (our GM and guide through the disturbingly dark creations of his warped mind) ... just as Darrick was getting to a point in his narration where we approached a bar, I interrupted.  "You know, I was thinking of this really cool bar that could be in Frier or anywhere on Kthana."  The Pub is a large drinking hall that is frequented byFiends of all races, classes, spheres, and appetites.  The hall is divided into three large rooms, each with a stage.  Each stage is themed differently.  The first is set in prehistoric times, humans in loin cloths and wielding clubs beat eachother to death over women and food.  Men forcibly drag women back to their caves for violent sex acts.  The middle section is themed like the Wild West.  Prostitutes performing disgusting and degrading acts of a sexual nature, while gun-toting outlaws massacre eachother in the blood-stained sandy streets of a ghost town.  In the space-age arena, the utopian vision of Gene Roddenbury (sp?) is horrible perverted and twisted beyond all recognition.  Strange alien diseases eat away the flesh of the weak, while the strong vaporize their enemies with fantastic rays of light.  The woman are kept in strange machines with tubes running every which way.  HR Geiger would get an erection instantly.  The convient timing and twisted nature of my bar got some pleasant recognition from Darrick as well as the other players.

6.  What part did the system play?  That's a tough question for two reasons: 1) I'm not sure exactly what you mean... and 2) I've only got a couple other systems to compare to.  If your question is "could any of this fun be had while playing under a different system?" then I think I have an answer for you.  My first contrast would be with the D&D system.  With all its rules and predetermined spell and action effects, I think this adventure would only have been possible in either an extremely high level campaign, or in a campaign setting so customized by the GM that it's no longer D&D anyways.  I think Mage: The Ascension would have trouble with this adventure, but it's possible.  I just think that you'd need more than just a beginning character.  Also, both of these games view Evil in a very wimpy fashion in my opinion.  In The Book of Darkness for D&D, there is a treatment of Evil as though it used to want to be good and that it is only Evil because of the various reasons preventing it from getting along with and following the ideologies of good.  In Mage, I think the sheer paradox involved with the things we did would be enough to complicate things beyond repair.  The last system I'll compare this to is Daniel Bayne's Wushu.  Wushu's core rule is "the more you embellish the description of what you want to do, the more likely you are to accomplish it."  It is extremely rules-light and allows for a lot of impressive narratives.  That is the only system under which I think this adventure could have run in a similar fashion.  However, when I've run Wushu in the past things have gotten sillier than they tend to in a game of Empire of Satanis.  This is not to say EoS takes itself too seriously, but rather that people tend to be more mentally prepared for the mood of EoS than for my haphazardly assembled Wushu adventures.

Hope I could answer your questions.

[Mike Holmes]

In the following, please try not to read in any judgment at all. All the questions are informational only. The only good answer to them is based on your perceptions of the game, not on what you think the question may be about.

I think in this particular adventure my favorite part was the near absence of any sort of bond between mine and the other players' characters.

Is this standard, or just the result of this scenario? That is, is play normally "party" play? Or do characters just have their own agendas, and the players drive them in whatever direction seems to be best for the character?

Satanis, on the other hand, loves it when the GM asks "What do you do?" and you come up with something so unexpected, so vile and twisted, so disturbing, that even failing a dice roll would be impressive.

How does it do this? That is, it's obviously different from D&D somehow, but you haven't really said how. I don't need the detailed mechanics, but what mechanisms in play lead to this feeling that even failing is fun?

I don't have my character sheet in front of me right now, so I can't tell you the color, but the aura around it was Lust, Vanity, Pride.

So you're incentivized to have the character do things that deal with these drives? Does this constitute the character having goals of it's own, or just information on how to react to situations?

Also, my character's background contributed largely to his modes of operation.

How did that background come to be? All your creativity, or was there something about the game that suggested it? Does the game make you have an interesting background somehow? Mechanically?

Are these answers the same, do you suspect, for the player who made the "fighter?"

If you mean Humans, then the answer is yes with a but, no with a maybe.  

I meant humans, yes. And I think your answer is that your character never talked to any really, or ever considered them much at all. What I'm wondering is if this is typical, do you think? That is, is the game about monsters messing with each other? Or about monsters messing with humans at all? I mean other than to just kill or frighten them. Other than as objects?

... I think I got the most "props" for my first trick - making the funnel cloud have sex with a monolith.

Is this generally what people get rewarded for? Cool ideas about the environment? Or was this non-typical, do you think?

What part did the system play?  That's a tough question for two reasons: 1) I'm not sure exactly what you mean... and 2) I've only got a couple other systems to compare to.  If your question is "could any of this fun be had while playing under a different system?" then I think I have an answer for you.

Well, your answer seems to be that the system had some features that uniquely handled the action such that other systems would not have done as well. This is what I'm looking for. What mechanisms exist that may have contributed to this unique handling, and, very generally (please don't go into mechanical specifics here), how do they handle them.

For example, if I were asking how D&D made dungeon crawls fun, someone might answer, "Hit points are a resource that you have to measure out over the course of the game to be successful" or something like that.

Mike

[MatrixGamer]

Satanis, on the other hand, loves it when the GM asks "What do you do?" and you come up with something so unexpected, so vile and twisted, so disturbing, that even failing a dice roll would be impressive.

Not that I recommend playing to people' base instincts, but there is a technique that can bring this out of people.

People tend to do what they are rewarded for doing. In an old D+D game I ran years ago, I wanted to cut down on dirty dog play so I awared experince for joining in a fight, getting a kill, and doing good, honorable deeds. They got the most for the last. Not so strangely people did more of this. In other games I've seen meaning less (and I mean literally meaning less because they did nothing in the game) point awards urge players to commit henious crimes on helpless victims. I was disturbing to see how face civilized players descended into barbarism. Very Lord of the Flies like.

I imagine a game master could get all kinds of vile behavior if they ask people for it. But wouldn't it get old and repetitive pretty fast? The trouble with shock value is that is has such a short shelf life.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[daMoose_Neo]

Twould depend on the game certainly. And, from my followings of Satanis, it does. Course too, with this game, THAT is what the system wants to elicit from the sessions, like Munchkin wants to draw out that inner gamist-extremist or such. Get tired of it, drop the system for another one.

[MatrixGamer]

Honestly playing a game that elicits nasty meaness isn't for me. I work in psychotherapy so if I want to see twisted reality all I have to do is go to work. (Real reality is some much nastier than our worst fantasies - and at the same time banal).

Coming up with rules mechanism to bring out this play, on the other hand, is an interesting intellectual challenge. I imagine the guys at Los Alimos felt the same way.

One rules point that comes to mind is a question. Do you believe that everyone knows all this evil stuff from word go or does the game have to teach them how to be evil?  Peolpe with more conservative leanings tend to believe that people are intrinsically hunters/killers. More liberal folks think hunter gatherers lived in a paradice state of nature with fluffy bunnies. I suspect neither is true (that must be why I'm a moderate!)

If you have to teach evil (which I would hope you wouldn't do - but if you must) then the information needs to be delivered in a way that people can git it by just glancing at the rules. Cartoon rules could be the best mechanism. If they are evil to begin with then a few mood setting paragraphs should do. Then the actual play has to reenforce the behavior you (the designer or game master what to see). Does Satanis do that? I've looked over the PDF and it is heavy in mood writing but not a cartoon. I'm not certain if the rules lead to nastiness but I expect they do. The auther should tell us what he thinks about if it workd that way. If it does, can it be improved?

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[darrick]

hey, good thread!  i feel gratified that a EoS discussion has lead to the nature of evil...

simply, yes, Empire of Satanis does try to bring the nasty out of its characters.  i've played heroic games too and sometimes that's rewarding, but i appreciate horror, evil, and darkness a lot more.  the rule mechanics that encourage such vile behavior are two fold:  Social Standing where PC's get points for sucessful power struggles, and Hideous Paradise where PC's get points for weird, gross, and supernaturally dark behavior.  higher point scores are advantageous, allowing for more control over other PC's and NPC's, control over surroundings, and it also makes Story Alteration easier.  EoS's setting and description of races, skills, customs, and history of the Yidathroth universe and the realm of K'thana invites wickedness as well.

is this a good idea?  encouraging evil, i mean.  in my opinion, yes.  i believe that people are free to choose their morality; exemplified by the biblical story:  eating of the apple from the tree of good and evil.  additionally, i feel very strongly that evil is a part of humanity.  sometimes evil is right and sometimes it is wrong (from my relative perspective) but evil exists nontheless.  in my view, it should be celebrated.  we are a species motivated by greed as well as our self-deluded blindness towards this motivation.

for more on human nature, take a glance at the Nine Satanic Statements from the Satanic Bible and Church of Satan (of which i am a member):  http://www.churchofsatan.com/Pages/NineStatements.html

Darrick Dishaw
http://www.cultofcthulhu.net

p.s.  no, my creative works are definitely not for the mass market or mainstream, another reason i went the indie route.  Empire of Satanis is for Fiends not like most.

[MatrixGamer]

Opinions on the nature of evil really do get down to theology real fast. Which can get some people really heated up. Not that these arguments change anyone's minds. Still they can be fun.

I took one of those "test your religion" on line surveys a few weeks ago. One othe the theologies they measured people against was the Church of Satan. I found that if you know the theoplogical answers of any religion you could screw the results anyway you wanted. In a way this is useful if people play with it so they would learn these party line answers. I scored 96% Muslim which makes since being a Muslim. Duh!

As to getting people to explore evil - I'm reminded of one of Mark Twain's stories about the Devil coming to Haddiesburg. By the end of the story the people have overcome their sins and change the moto of the town to "Tempt us" or something like that. Very Taoist of them - you can't know good without knowing evil.

One thing I do know for certain is that no one should kill anybody over theology! Everyone should have one, they are helpful in dealing with life problems, but they tend to be real individual.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Zoilus]

Twould depend on the game certainly. And, from my followings of Satanis, it does. Course too, with this game, THAT is what the system wants to elicit from the sessions, like Munchkin wants to draw out that inner gamist-extremist or such. Get tired of it, drop the system for another one.

I think EoS is perfectly capable of being more than just a one or two session game get-tired-of-it-and-drop-it kind of thing, and I think it succeeds.  At least for me it has.

I started on D&D, and while I had fun imagining stories for it, I felt extremely limited in what I could do.  It seemed there were a limited number of stories to be told in that world.

I moved on to White Wolf games, and there too I felt the constraints.  In selecting a theme like rage, pride, or lust the stories seemed limited again in theme.

Maybe this sentiment could be achieved through other games, but Empire of Satanis is like a blank canvas.  There are no dots to connect or lines to color inside, in fact, the canvas is not limited to the flatness of two dimensions.  It extends far beyond, probing the depths of our wildest dreams and nightmares to create a reality that suits the user.

I suppose in the end it all comes down to personal opinion.  I recall a discussion I had with a high school friend about HP Lovecraft.  I explained that since the horrors are too terrible to be described the fear is all created by the reader.  That was why I liked Lovecraft, because I envisioned my own demons and Great Old Ones and experienced the level of terror I created for myself.  He disagreed, arguing that "oh my god the thing was so scary I couldn't even believe how scary it was because its scariness was scarier than any scary thing had ever been" was not frightening at all.

Just an anecdote to illustrate two sides of a multi-faceted issue

[Larry L.]

While this thread has focused in some detail about what occured in the Shared Imagination Space, I'm still not clear on what sorts of interactions occured between players in this game. For example, the phrase "story alteration" (intriguing) suggests there is some mechanic happening here which gives a player a degree of creative control that in D&D is reserved for the DM. I'm not so much interested here in what's going on in your imaginations as what the dudes sitting around the table are saying to one another, who's telling whom to roll dice, etc.

Mike Holmes is asking the right questions. Do attempt to answer these.

[darrick]

hey Miskatonic, thanks for weighing in.

when i'm the GM, i try to remind players that if they want to change something, they should are encouraged to either just tell me what they want and we can try to incorporate it in the story or they can just roll a die and try to alter the story with Story Alteration.  since every player gets a chance every scene, and can increase their chances by spending Social Standing and Hideous Paradise points, if a player or group of players wants the story to go in a certain direction badly enough, eventually it will happen.

player 1:  i want to be able to find a book on unusual forms of blood magic.

gm:  well, since the librarys in Frier were burned to the ground last week... it's going to be extremely difficult.  and you don't have the necessary skills.

player 2:  well, i'll help search, i have Whispers in the Night and so i'll ask around trying to gather information.  (rolls abyssmally)

gm:  ok, no one has heard of such a book.

player 2:  i'll be asking around and alter the story so someone owns a copy of Blood Magic for the Chaos Mage and will allow me to borrow it or buy it.
(rolls his Story Alteration and fails)

player 1:  i'm going to try that too.  but i'd like to improve my chances by spending a couple points of Social Standing.

gm:  the idea isn't that far fetched, so since your spending the points i'll say you automatically get to alter the story.  you come across a Fiend with the precise book you mentioned.  he'll sell it for a 100 zirkas or let you borrow it for a favor...
_________________

i'd like the game to be even more fluid and cooperative, story-creation-wise.  here's an article i just posted on my site that tries to encourage this with a diceless approach:  http://www.cultofcthulhu.net/eos2.htm

in a few moments, i'm going to open this up in indie rpg design section of this forum since i want opinions on changing the game to increase a more narrative director stance game.

thanks, Darrick
http://www.cultofcthulhu.net

[darrick]

a friend brought this great star wars fanfilm to my attention...
it's called Contract of Evil:

http://theforce.net/fanfilms/shortfilms/contract/

it's a sith lightsaber battle royale and if kicks ass!  really reminds me what Empire of Satanis is all about.  in fact it's a perfect example of Actual Play...

D

http://www.cultofcthulhu.net