We Hate God, Part I (Pretender Playtest)

[xiombarg]

A couple members of my local group were very keen on trying out Pretender. Therefore, last night we did chargen, in preperation for playing in two weeks hence.

Since a large amount of Pretender is creating the Situation and a large amount of the setting, individual to the group, I'm going to have a more detailed account of how the whole thing went (ultrashort version: it went well) later on but right now I'd just like to quickly go over the concepts we produced, because I think they were cool, and I'd like to emphasize the value of brainstorming as a group, something that's in vogue on the Forge (and in a lot of Narrativist groups) but I think doesn't happen enough in RPG groups in general.

We ended up going with an oddly Judeo-Christian theme -- in fact, I had to curb some discussions regarding the nature of God and whether God can break His own rules, as not terribly relevant to what we were attempting. (Tho we might come back to this theme in play, since most of the characters hate God.)

Emily decided she wanted to play "a Death", which I'll go over in a minute. Originally James was going to play a spirit that avenged abused children, but as the very Christian themed character ideas started flying, he decided to play an angel that had been exiled to earth. These were the only two characters that were of a generic "type", in the sense that there was more of that type in the world -- there is more than one Death and more than one exiled and/or Fallen angel on Earth. So, to go over the deal with that real quick:

* A Death is created when Uriel, the Archangel of Death, links a human being to the process of reaping souls. Reaping human souls is addictive, like heroin, complete with a rush and a high. Once a human becomes a Death, they can reap a soul (i.e. get a fix) by being present at someone's death, but cannot kill anyone themselves. So long as a Death gets his fix relatively regularly, he is immortal. A Death can also tell the hour of someone's death -- barring supernatural influence, which is how they detect other Pretenders, as they have no natural hour of death in that sense. A Death can also see someone's life story, and cause someone to re-live parts of it, as in "my life flashed before me". If a Death goes without a fix long enough, they can sicken and die, not to mention heroin-like withdrawel symptoms.

We decided later that unless Uriel or a Death is present when someone dies, that person is highly likely to come back as a ghost. A Death can reap a ghost, destroying it, but it's a very poor fix -- kinda like methadone for a heroin addict, in that it satisfies the craving but there isn't a high. For this reason, we decided that Deaths were fairly common, created by Uriel to help him in reaping human souls -- 1 in every 10 Pretenders is a Death.

(The last bit was decided as part of brainstorming, and highlights something that fits the player's original idea that the player didn't originally come up with...)

Currently, Uriel cannot create new Deaths, as he has been exiled to Earth for a time for being TOO zealous in his duties. (More on that later, as Uriel is a PC. IIRC, we decided AIDS was his fault.)

You know, we never decided what happens when more than one Death is present at a human death... I might need to talk to everyone about that.

Regardless, Emily was playing a recently-created Death named Lola, a "death junky" always looking for a new fix.

James wasn't playing ANY exiled angel -- he was playing Uriel, who is bitter about God's decision to exile him on earth to "experience some of the suffering you so casually created"...

* Angels are usually spiritual beings that can do nearly anything, subject to the Will of God and their own "job". Fallen or exiled-to-Earth angels, however, have a physical form that looks male, but has no genitalia. They can fly, manifesting wings from nowhere (i.e. katanaspace), they are unaging and they can regarnerate damage quickly, and they require no human sustenance. Also, they can perform minor miracles of awe -- talk with the voice of God, manifest a shining aura, and so on. In addition, they can sense other Pretenders by sensing degrees of holiness and unholiness, and any exiled angel or Fallen angel will have some powers unique relating to their "job".

Everyone else was something unique.

* Jamie was very hot to play Lilith. We're talking the complete Jewish legend here, kids -- Lillith was the first wife of Adam, before Eve, but was exiled from Eden because he refused to be subservient to her. In terms of powers, she could shapeshift into three forms -- a serpent, a half-serpent and half-woman, and a redheaded woman that Jamie described as a "sexy librarian". She could read -- and manipulate -- men's minds, as part of her eternal search for a new (and better) Adam. Her weakness was cold -- Jamie was going for a reptillian vibe -- and, in a psychological sense, men.

Here is where brainstorming comes in again. Given Lilith's status as the "mother of all monsters", and her sexual overtones, after some discussion we decided that he could drain men's vitality through their semen to gain power, and that any child she bore was monstrous. (As an interesting detail Jamie came up with, Lilith could do either live birth or lay eggs -- again, the repillian thing.)

As an aside, I really liked this character, as it showcases one of the things I was aiming at in Pretender -- the ability to play big, mythical immortals with some serious archetypal resonance.

* Shawn wanted to play a sentient computer virus, but we pointed out that a Pretender had to be able to pass as human, at least some of the time. The discussion ranged all over the map, but with input from the other players, Shawn decided his character was a computer virus that accidentally ate part of a witch's spellbook, causing him to fuse with a demon, creating a new half-demon and half-computer virus being, literally two months old at the start of the game, which can possess anything with a microchip -- or human beings. (We decided the True Name of the demon was a series of computer characters, like @$^...) Since it was 1985, still in the early days of computing in some sense, we nicknamed it the "Cookie Monster".

* Russ's character benefitted the most from brainstorming. He had a physical form, and some powers in mind, based on an old Nightbane character, so the character could either be human or this thing that looked like a cross between a wolf, a lizard, and a bat, which could breathe fire and give out a disturbing howl.

Strong (and cool) image, but no concept to hang it on. Ideas were bandied back and forth -- a sentient biological virus, a mutation, the results of a Thing From Beyond pushing into our world, a being of primal Chaos from before God made the world... Taking some ideas from our biblical theme and the latter idea, we came up with the idea that Russ's character was an animal that Adam forgot to name when he named everything else. Because of this, he came to represent the fear of the unknown, and the rage and anger of the natural world. Therefore he could take any shape, though the beast-shape I mentioned is his preffered form. He-That-Is-Unnamed feeds on fear, made strong by people (even Pretenders) being scared of him, and weak by those who are not afraid. Because he was not named, he even escaped death, becoming immortal.

(Ironically, this made him the only character older than Lilith, as we decided he was created during the "six days", before man and woman was created.)

In human form, he went by Terry, and in the modern day he makes snuff films. That was 100% Russ's idea, and I thought it was a nice touch, after all the other stuff the rest of us had come up with -- an almost sophisticated side to a primal creature of fear.


Now, I'll go into more detail later about how these characters are connected and the Situation (in the GNS sense) the group created, as well as their interesting take on vampires, but I just wanted to point out how the discussion between everyone produced much better characters than might have otherwise have come about. Not a big revelation, but always worth repeating, IMHO -- letting other players in on your chargen doesn't take away your power, it enhances your own creativity. It's notable that though we toned some of Russ's numbers down a touch, his character was still a lot more interesting -- and powerful -- than the early sketch.

Also, I wanted to hear any early comments or questions people might have about how things went. The bigger post will happen once I have my notes with me and have some time, but I wanted to get a quick post ASAP in case it inspires anyone to do their own Pretender playtest.

[lumpley]

Wow.

That's a whole different cast than I'd've expected from the "WoD but less stupid" picture I'd gotten from the threads in Design.  I'm really impressed.

Like, really impressed.  Uriel, Lilith, a creature Adam failed to name...  That's about as cool as a person could ask for.

-Vincent

(I thought the Angel of Death was Azrael?)

[Valamir]

Wow...very very cool.  The only character I'm not totally enthralled by is the computer virus...just doesn't seem to fit.  Even the beast thing at the end which I initially knee jerked against I'm totally sold on as the "unnamed beast"  very rich.

My one concern is how are you going to come up with a situation that does justice to such powerful archetypes.  I can see them being seperate short stories in a themed anthology...but I have trouble seeing them all together.

[xiombarg]

Thanks! I'm glad y'all liked it. ;-D

As for the virus, Shawn has a habit of not rolling with the group. However, the character is designed to be very "develop in play" (i.e. it has no memories beyond the last couple of months and doesn't understand its demonic nature fully), and actually links into part of the Situation that the players came up with. I'll go into more detail later, but in essence it is this: Legion, as in "my name is legion, for we are many", concieved as a single powerful demon with many parts (the demon of multitasking?), is trying to manipulate all God-hating Pretenders who aren't connected directly to Hell (i.e. most of the PCs) to help him in an attempt to de-throne Lucifer and take over Hell for himself. Shawn's character links in in that Legion is sort of scattered around, and the virus "ate" a demon that was part of Legion, and Legion wants it back -- but has to tread lightly because of the connection to Lilith (see below).

He's connected to the group in that he has possessed Lilith's current Adam (Lilith re-names all her current boyfriends "Adam", and makes 'em believe it with her mind powers), and they have become very close friends.

Also, the other Situation the group came with with involves a member of the secret order of the Knights Templar, who is trying to convert all the PCs to the side of God. (Fat chance, that, but he has supernatural powers, the backing of an organization, and the patronage of the Archangel Michael.) There is another personal connection here: The virus is possessing the brother of the Knights Templar character.

I think that use of Discovery dice, and the GM right to introduce stuff when the GM narrates, will allow me (and the rest to the group) to hook Shawn's demon virus into the themes quite easily during play.

As for who the Archangel of Death is, depends on who you ask -- Uriel, Azrael, or even Gabriel is listed by different sources, and James wanted to go with Uriel.

On the "WoD but less stupid" end of things, it's notable that nearly all the players are WoD veterans. I think this shows that the ground the WoD covers, in its scattershot way, can be very fertile if developed diferently by some creative players. The whole Biblical thing is a big part of the Vampire metaplot -- which PCs never get to touch, because it's the metaplot. This is the same ground, only more interesting because of the increased protaganism.

(And let's face it, the WoD is a fertile source of ideas for this genre. The group decided on vampires being "Cainites", but in a very non-WoD way. In this game, "vampires", insomuch as they exist at all, are descendants of Cain in the literal sense -- humans with certain recessive genes, inherited from the First Murderer and his wife. These genes make you sensitive to sunlight (think xeroderma pigmentosum rather than "turning to ash") and place the "mark of Cain" on your body (a cross-shaped birthmark, we decided, after much discussion), which makes you show up as a slightly unholy Pretender. Using various magickal rituals that require the blood of a human not descended from Cain, they can do various "vampiric" things -- retard aging, turn into a bat, et cetera... though these rituals only work at night. Cainites are opposed to the Knights Templar, but show distain for any of their member who is a "poser", pretending to be actually undead. Connecting back to the fact that Cain's mark indicated he wasn't supposed to be murdered, a Death gets no "fix" by being near a Cainite when he dies. As a digression to a digression, we decided the Mark of Cain was a cross because we're going with a pseduo-Christian thing...)

As for getting everyone involved in one plot, well, between the Knights Templar and Legion, I figure they'll be busy enough. More on that later...