Self-Serving Eunuchs Go Hiking

[RobMuadib]

Oh, just to chime on the Eunuch/Not-Eunuch element. If you don't require them to be Eunuch's, then the lich can still have them castrated if they screw up or otherwise displease him. And I guess the party might all end up as Eunuchs if played for a few sessions. Also, since you said you are doing D20, are Eunuch's going to be immune to be stunned by Groin Shots? :)

Hmm, I am suddenly seeing the reverse of your game premise, all of the players are servants of the lich. However, if they incur his disfavor, then they end up one of his Eunuch Sorcerers hehe. Hmm, maybe the Lich even uses the balls to maintain his immortality, or just keeps them in a jar or something:) (A whole different take on Magic Jar hehe:) )

And it still leaves for the History Of the World style Eunuch testing scenes or something.:)

I imagine it as some kind of extreme take on Rune's competitiveness, see who can hold onto their balls the longest:) It could be like a fight-club thing, the winners feel all macho, while the loser stand around hugging each other and crying, repeating the mantra "We're Still Men"

Anyway, just some spurious idea tangents.

Definitely Would make an amusing one-shot game.

Rob

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

I like the eunuch part. It has a definite "not in Kansas any more" quality to me, it emphasizes that these guys have nothing better to do than please the lich, and it opens the door to some rather offensive, but nonetheless attractive role-playing opportunities.

Best,
Ron

[Balbinus]

I think the Eunuch idea adds tremendous colour, with very little loss.  Ok, romantic subplots are kind of out, but they're pretty tangential to what this game is about anyway.

Also, if characters start with balls and lose them in play I'd bet few players would be happy to continue playing that character.  If they start without them, most won't worry about it.

Great idea BTW.  

Finally, I like the competing team idea.  It means as GM if the game bogs down for any reason I have a rival group I can use to spice things up again.  "Ok, you've all been bickering for an hour or so, then you notice in the distance 6 horses bearing riders heading for the castle.  They look some way ahead of you by now..."

[contracycle]

Yeah, keep the eunuchs.  I think it is one of the most striking conceptual elements.

Edit: that said, I do like the balls-inna-jar, too.  Do both.

[Mike Holmes]

You don't need more than one group to have pressure to succeed. That already exists. Just say that the lich only gives out rewards for success, and will discorporate any group that really fails him. So the PCs will have to balance working together to accomplish the goal with infighting to ge credit.

OTOH, if you do have more than one team with players, who is to say that a team can't be composed of just one or two guys? Or that the lich will even start the groups out evenly? He might send one group of three to go and accomplish the mission, and send another PC behind to spy and report on their success. The lich isn't concerned with balance, is he?

And, remember, it's not who actually kills the monster who gets the points, but the person that the lich believes actually killed the monster from what he learns at the "mission debriefing", right? Except the lich isn't all that paranoid, and not a computer. He can probably detect lies better than most. So you can try to lie, but you may not be successful which would loose you points. Perhaps better to appeal to his ego. Debriefings become huge toadying sessions.

One of the nifty things about Paranioa that drives the conflicts is that the character gets a a political afilliation, a secret society, and mutation, which case conflicts. Do you plan to have some parallel for the eunuchs? Perhaps there are factions that squabble pettily over various palace rights and positions.

Positions sound like fun. Allow the character who's in charge of the kitchens to call in other characters for KP. Or the librarian, who can control what spells are available to learn. The most coveted positions are the Palace Seneschal who orders all daily activity from the top, and the Major Domo who translates all of the liches demands to the other palace staff. Stuff like that.

As an alternative to Paranioa, such politicking could lead to shifting alliances between players. Which is even better than every man for himself, which is what you get in Paranioa. Betrayal is so much better after a willing commitment has been made. The lich would probably always be playing the characters off against each other intentionally so that they never ganged up on him. Not that it'd do any good for them to do so, likely, but it's probably a hassle for him to have to recreate and train an entire staff.

Great idea, Mike.

Mike

[Mike Holmes]

Ok, romantic subplots are kind of out, but they're pretty tangential to what this game is about anyway.

Actually, that's not even true. Seem weird? Eunuchs often were involved with people romantically and even sexually. A lot of this may have been due to them being placed in positions of temptation, which the procedure was meant to make less tempting. But in any case, such plots are not eliminated. Simply made weirder, and less common.

Mike

[Balbinus]

Ok, romantic subplots are kind of out, but they're pretty tangential to what this game is about anyway.

Actually, that's not even true. Seem weird? Eunuchs often were involved with people romantically and even sexually. A lot of this may have been due to them being placed in positions of temptation, which the procedure was meant to make less tempting. But in any case, such plots are not eliminated. Simply made weirder, and less common.

Mike

I sit corrected.  Still, that makes Eunuchs even cooler, no?

[Mike Holmes]

I sit corrected.  Still, that makes Eunuchs even cooler, no?

Well, I think so. This is a really great concept, overall.

I was thinking, with the lich's necromancy, he could probably reattach such lost appendages... Talk about incentives. Instead of the threat of loss during play there is the possibility of gain!

Mike

[Evan Waters]

Okay, I see why you're sticking with the eunuch idea.

An interesting reference for this might be the common wuxia stereotype of the "evil eunuch"- the idea that in historical China eunuchs were given positions of power because the elimination of their sexuality made them more moral or something. Instead they simply sublimated their sexual drive into lust for power, aggression, etc., making them more corrupt. So perhaps the fact that the PCs are eunuchs could give you a system where each one is profoundly mentally screwed up in some way as a result of the process, thus giving them that inherent "treason factor" that secret societies and mutant powers provide in PARANOIA.

[Knight]

To me, nothing says henchman-style bickering and sycophancy like eunuchs.  Like Eric says, it's the entire sublimated sexuality thing.

What I am concerned about is the idea that the lich is definitely out to get them - it strikes me as funnier if it's merely massively self-absorbed and petty. Sort of like the character of Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder II or Mr. Burns.

[Evan Waters]

Mr. Burns kinda veers between actively hurting his workers and using them to further his own ends. Elizabeth in BLACKADDER is more along the lines of being completely ignorant and self-centered (I love her response to the ransom demand for Blackadder's life- "I have decided to throw a big party")- I'm not sure that works so much for a lich, but it could be an interesting twist.

[Mytholder]

Mr. Burns kinda veers between actively hurting his workers and using them to further his own ends. Elizabeth in BLACKADDER is more along the lines of being completely ignorant and self-centered (I love her response to the ransom demand for Blackadder's life- "I have decided to throw a big party")- I'm not sure that works so much for a lich, but it could be an interesting twist.

How about just making the Lich's motivations entirely random? Literally - have a big old "What Does A Bored Lich Do For Kicks Anyway" table, which the GM rolls on.

1 - Decorating! Go find something new and cute for the Lich to put on the wall of the crypt.
2 - Certain Death. The Lich tires of these henchmen, and sends them off to do the impossible.
3 - Pay-per-view: The Lich is scrying the party the whole time. Bonus points for showy deaths and creative maimings.
4 - Brain rot: the Lich forgot to finish the command he gave to the party. When he said "climb the Mountain of Fleshsucking Killer Goats and return", he forgot to add "with the magical flower that grows from the peak".

Thinking about it, this would probably best be split into three or four tables. A quest table, a difficulties table, a Lich feeling table...

I think I'm also legally required to mention FRUP at this point.

[Walt Freitag]

Sort of like the character of Queen Elizabeth in Blackadder II or Mr. Burns.

This doesn't sound like a very difficult balance to strike in actual play. Obviously there's no way to tell at the start of a mission whether its intended purpose is serious or trivial, harmless or malign, doomed to failure or not. Therefore there's no need to decide so in advance either. I'd leave it as a degree of freedom to be exploited in either Intuitive Continuity gamemastering, or director stance play.

Man, how come I never noticed this before... Mr. Burns is a Lich, isn't he? The weekly treatments he undergoes to "cheat death" (as seen in the X-Files episode) certainly make more sense in that light.

- Walt

[mearls]

Howdy all,

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone for being so enthusiastic about this idea. It really helped get the ball rolling for me. As an aside, much of the game's basic idea was inspired by my days as a sysadmin and computer programmer.

Mytholder: You already have much of how I envision the lich down pat. He's somewhat like Mr. Burns in that he's as dangerous as he is erratic and difficult to deal with. The entire "Oh, I forgot to mention the part about returning with the Dragon Flower? Well, looks like you need to go back" bit is right up his alley.

FWIW, it looks like I have a publisher set up, and I'll be in a position where I own the copyright to the game. I expect to start working on it in earnest in 6 months or so.

Thanks for all the feedback and support.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mike,

I reviewed this thread today, and I wanted to toss in a vote of support for Clinton's idea of having levels go down as well as up. I think that feats and so forth can be a function of that process (yes, that means possibly losing feats, spells, etc), and not have any secondary stuff-list that also goes up and down (which is how I'm reading the Banes/Boons thing, rightly or wrongly).

I think that levels exist specifically as quanta for character power (all together now: "Duh!"), and as such they are uniquely suited for an up-down seesawing based on performance and the aggravating whims of the lich. Using levels as unidirectional (up only) and having some other grab-bag of stuff to seesaw seems inelegant to me, and introduces all manner of Currency hassles.

I realize that D20 play, based on its D&D roots, is predicated on the idea that as long as the character lives, he or she is improving, but I also think that such assumptions are made to be broken. Your idea looks to me like a fantastic and wonderful justification for showing that D20 is customizable, not by adding wads of "new stuff on top" (the usual way), but rather by using the mechanics that already exist in new ways.

Best,
Ron