[Out of Hell] first notes for a comedy game

[Damocles]

Hello,

you probably don't remember me, but I used to post a bit here a fairly long time ago. I had some ideas for games that never really went anywhere, I put the idea of designing a rpg pretty far in the back of my mind, and that was that for a while. But I looked at some old notes recently and there were a couple of ideas that actually seemed fairly good, so... here I go again.

For now, I am concentrating on Out of Hell (current working title, may well change). My goal with that is not to ambitious, really. Just want to put it on the web in a form that I am happy with, get some people to actually play it. Also, this is something I will just do in my spare time whenever I feel like it. However, I am resolved to actually finish the game eventually.

So much for the preliminaries.

The concept:

You play demons who have been thrown out of hell and are now being forced to do good deeds. Hilarity ensues. It's mostly a situational comedy game with a little bit of subtext about redemption and stuff to give it a bit of texture.

PCs are somewhat cartoonish demons (think horns, tentacles, bat-winged succubi etc.) or angsty Fallen Angels who, for the last couple of centuries or eons have been in Hell doing whatever demons do there. Then they made the mistake of doing a significant good deed out of some unsuspected bit of goodness in their hearts.

Satan is not amused, but Heaven has taken notice and given them a chance to not be on the receiving end of hellish tortures until the Second Coming. The basic deal is: You go and do good deeds enough and you will get to become a human being (or possibly an angel again if you're a fallen one). We'll cut you some slack because you're just a dumb demon, but don't screw up too badly or it's back to hell. You will get specific missions, but not exactly detailed orders. ("That guy's soul is in peril. Take care of it," would be typical.) Figuring out what you should do is all part of the learning experience.

General approach:

This will be a fairly traditional rpg in many ways. One GM, players play one PC etc. Most of the standard assumptions will apply, really. There will be some unusual stuff, but I want that to be integrated into the rules so subtly that you hardly notice it.

If I am understanding the terms correctly (which I am not sure about) the focus will be about equally narrativist and gamist, with simulation running a distant third. It's supposed to provide a lot of comedy, but to what degree PCs succeed or fail at the current mission will also play an important role, and some attention will be paid to non-arbitrariness of GM-decisions.

Rules ideas so far:

There are a number of ways in which certain kinds of PC behaviour should be encouraged, discouraged, or completely prescribed.

1. To start out with, non-moral behaviour of the following kinds needs to be dealt with in some fashion: Not Nice/Bad/Evil/Horrific

1.a) Not Nice
This is comically mean, unsavory, and naughty bevaviour. This will be encouraged. In fact, engaging in a lot of this is almost the whole point of the game. This includes a lot of things that are illegal and clearly immoral, but don't make characters really unsympathetic. Think things the Marx Brothers, the Blues Brothers, and possibly other brothers would do.

1.b) Bad.
This is kind of hard to define for me, which is bad since it's really important. For now let's say it's anything that is clearly wrong behaviour which doesn't fit into any of the other categories. These actions needs some kind of punishment for the PCs, but should not discourage players completely from doing them. Possibly this needs some kind of counteracting reward for 'staying in character'.

1.c). Evil.
Players should be encouraged to attempt certain evil actions while, at the same time not being able to do them successfully. (Because it's funny.) Killing, maiming, eating people. Possibly other things. Think Spike with chip implant in Buffy.

1.d). Horrific.
PCs should not be able to even attempt things that would be over the line for this kind of game (Rape and torture, mostly). At the same time it should be possible to play a character who would contemplate that kind of thing. (Because you do play demons, after all.)

2. Succesful missions should lead to some kind of reward.

3.There needs to be some kind of provision what happens when a PC is fed up with doing good deeds.  The game's premise is that PC are at least resigned to going out and doing good initially, but it would be preferable if there was a way to keep on playing if they change their mind.

So far I have a really good solution for 1.a), solutions for 1.c) and 1.d) and 2. which I am not quite sure about yet, and some vague ideas for the rest.

1.a) PCs get two sets of abilitites. Goodish abilities and Baddish abilities (terms need work). Baddish abilities are things like Steal, Cheat, Lie, Break Things, Sabotage, Sneak etc. Goodish abilities are things like Repair, Empathy, etc. You get (a lot) more points to buy Baddish abilities. You also get a free specialty for each Baddish ability such as "Lying to Authority, Lying to Children, Lying to Friends" etc. You can also get various demonic powers which will mostly only help you with Baddish things.

1.b)  Dunno. [Yeah. This does need work.]

1.c) If a PC attempts something that would cause long-term physical damage to a human, they will be prevented from doing it and be punished.
Also, something which is good from a player's perspective happens.[Problems here:
-Does this really cover anything that should be considered
"Evil"? I feel like I am missing something here.
-I am drawing a blank on the reward part so far.
-Does this extend to animals?]

1.d) If a PC attempts something that would cause long-term psychological damage, they get sent straight back to hell, do not pass go. (This is so you can play Hannibal Lecter.)
[Problems:
-Should you be able to play Hannibal Lecter?
-Again, what about animals?]

2. You start out with a bunch of Bad Karma. You can get rid of Bad Karma when you complete a mission. Also, sometimes the GM will "spend" Bad Karma to make a situation worse for you. [I'm happy with this in general, but it needs to be a lot more detailed.]

3. No frigging clue.


Misc. notes:

-PCs get a guardian angel as a kind of parole officer. Possibly players get some input into designing it. Or maybe the get to pick from a list of predesigned NPCs.

-Possibly, PCs are almost completely unfamiliar with modern technology, at least initially. Some of them may have been to Earth a couple of times, but that was centuries ago. The point of this is to a) provide an additional source of comedy and b) encourage PCs to interact with humans.

-Possibly, PCs get one specific human they get to take care of. Maybe that should also be a PC role. (Optionally?)

There. That's about enough for now.
Thoughts?
Comments?
Questions?

[Kirk Mitchell]

I find the basic premise quite amusing, "You are demons who have gotten thrown out of hell". It plays upon one of the concepts that really appeals to me, that hell isn't all that bad, sort of like our world...Only hot... (I have been trying to write a play called "Welcome to Hell, third planet from the sun") But I just want to know, why do the demons want to stay out of hell? I mean, they got evicted, don't they want to go back home? Maybe you could have alternate ways of going, not just trying desperately to be good (and not successfuly), but also trying desperately to be bad (and not successfuly).

As for Gamist/Narrativist, it really depends on your goals. Do you want the goal to be addressing this issue, or to be winning the game? Don't worry about GNS if you don't want to, but the instant you start throwing around GNS without a solid grasp (as I did), you're going to get mauled. Sit down and read Ron's various essays on GNS in the articles section, and then come back and decide how you want to design the game, depending on the GNS goals you want to achieve.

Just some thoughts.

Kirk

[Chris Goodwin]

The Sluggy Freelance "Meanwhile, in the Dimension of Pain..." storyline sounds like perfect inspiration for this.

[Jasper]

Sounds great!  

Thought for your #3: If the demons get sick of doing good things, or arent' really too keen on redemption with the promise of spending time with smarmy angels in Heaven, they may still decide they don't want to go back to being Satan's whipping boy; they decide they like Earth better than either alternative.  However, the only way to stay on Earth is to at least pretend they're working towards salvation.  So they go about their business, doign whatever they want, until they get too much bad karma and risk going back to Hell, at which point they help a few grannies across the street to get back some brownie points with St. Peter (or whoever).  Thus they walks a delicate line, having to constantly guage where they are in the karma scheme.

(You might want to pick a different word than Karma, with its obvious Eastern -- or at least not Christian -- connections.)

[Kirk Mitchell]

I think that a player goal while on Earth would help with this, so the various action types could help or hinder this goal. Maybe a choice of the three:

1. Stay on earth (don't like heaven, don't want to go back to hell), so you have to walk the neutral line of Karma. Restrain your evil impulses, but also try not to do any good things either.

2. Go back home (screw heaven, home is where the heart is) so you have to be evil. Let yourself go nuts.

3. Go to heaven (A converted demon. I like this idea, it has a lot of potential for both comedy and seriousnes) so you have to be a good boy and restrain your evil impulses.

About the Karma wording, and the various demons throughout different cultures, how about having the game adaptable for different cultures and beliefs. It would certainly be interesting to play as a Tibetan demon or a Japanese demon, rather than a boring old Christian demon (no offence), just to stir things up.

Still, looking good. I wouldn't mind playing this, so let me know when you get the playtest version up and running. (and now my concept for a comedy game where you play evil monsters has already been taken. Damn you! ;))

Kirk

[Damocles]

Thanks for the replies, folks. It's nice to see some interest.

Sluggy Freelance will definitely in the reccomended reading list, both for the Dimension of Pain, but also for the Bun-bun as Easter bunny story arc.

I rather like the Bad Karma term and I am not really trying for theological exactitude here, but I am open to alternate suggestions.

I'll have to think about non-Judeo-Christian demons and the final goal on Earth a bit more. Good points there. I actually have been thinking about whether characters should get some kind of choice once they have worked off their Bad Karma: Become an actual human (lose your powers, get human appearance etc.), get status as a human as far as the afterlife is concerned but stay a supernatural creature, become an angel. As I said, this needs more thought.

I have actually done a bit of work since the last post, though not much that is read for posting yet. I do have some notes for sample characters who, once they are finished, should give a more concrete picture of the kind of game I am aiming for.

I am getting close to a final decisions about character generation and skills/abilities however. Here is what I have on that. It's fairly unordered as yet, and still needs serious work, but conceptually I am fairly happy with all of this.

-Spend X points for "favored" abilities. Chose one specialty for each, except one. [Specialties give a significant bonus. You will be competent at almost anything, and either very good at several or extremely good at one thing.]
-Spend Y points for "unfavored" abilities. Chose a specialty for one ability only. [Much less points here, and lower default values. Specialty is still significant though. In effect, you will be lousy at most things, barely competent at some, and half-way decent at one.]
-Chose three Special Powers from list. [There should be a list of at least 20 powers or so and guidelines for making new ones.]

Favored abilities: Lie, Steal, Intrusion, Cheat, Hide, Disguise, Scare, Hurt, Destroy, Sabotage, Trap, Flee, Seduce.

Example specialties:
Lie: To authorities, to children, to people who trust you, vicious lies, by omission, about money, about love.
Destroy: Valuable things, machines, personal property, building parts(walls, doors etc.), with fire, stealthily, beyond repair, for no good reason.

Unfavored abilities: Arts, Honest Appeal, Medicine, Empathy, Modern Technology, Modern Life, Repair, Animal Handling.

Specialties are what you'd expect, mostly.

It's important to note that the abilities are not just named for flavor. For instance, Fleeing can only be used for running away from danger or something unpleasant, not for running track or whatever.

-Modern Technology and Modern Life actually start at a negative value.

Im unsure how to handle things like awareness/investigation, general athletic feats etc. It seems like characters should have varying abilities at that kind of stuff, but I don't want to add attributes. Maybe I'll just have them as unfavored skills with a slightly higher default value.

Example "powers": Flight, firebreath, detachable limb, extra limbs(tentacles, prehensile tail etc.), claws, melding with shadows, gremlin, seeing in darkness.

-Standard abilities: All PCs can go without sleep, food, and water indefinitely (although it will make them cranky.), they also heal really fast, can regrow limbs etc., and are pretty much unkillable.

-Two basic kinds of demons: Fallen and Offspring. Fallen were actually angels once. Offspring were... created later (probably best not to think about details here), mostly for specific purposes. No direct mechanical consequences (Although there will be notes on which skills and Powers are more typical for one kind. ), but concept and psychology will vary greatly. Fallen tend to be arrogant, pompous, intellectual, tortured,  conflicted, subtle and highbrow. Offspring are more likely innocently malicious, instinct-driven, funloving, uncomplicated, direct and lowbrow. For instance, a professional buyer of souls who is Offspring might behave like a steretypical used car salesman (or like Mephisto himself actually), one who is Fallen would be more like... a cross between Professor Moriarty and the manager of a really, really exclusive jewellery store.

Basically, Fallen are Straight Men while Offspring are, uh, the other thing comedians are when they are not the Straight Man.

Next up probably one ore more of these: Sample characters, more details on skills and powers, table of contents/outline, the guardian angel as character and plot device, reward mechanics.

[Damocles]

Done some more thinking on abilities. I'm considering deemphasizing the "non-evil" abilities even more or dropping them entirely. This'll give the game more focus, I think. You want to do anything else you're stuck with a crappy default. Tough being you.

Current list of demonic abilities:
Lie, Tempt, Steal, Scare, Hurt, Destroy, Flee.

Seven seems like a nice number. Kind of a shame that they don't correspond exactly to the deadly sins, but oh well.

For non-demonic abilities I'm considering just these:

-Empathy, covering all social interactions not falling under lying or tempting.
-Modern Life, covering mundane skills modern-day humans possess like driving a car, filling out a form, using a computer (or a toaster for that matter). Also covers professions and hobbies (available as specialties).

Oh, and you start out with a negative value in these.

The good news is that demonic abilities take precedence. So if you want to hot-wire a car (Steal) or sabotage it (Destroy) you have a decent chance. You just won't be able to drive very well. All part of the demon condition.