FREAKS! My idea for an rpg.

[griggs]

Who here likes World of Darkness? I've never played one of their games, you see, but I have read the Promethean sourcebook, and it was interesting. Anyway, the thing I'm getting at is that Promethean is about freaks, and so is my game, but in a different sort of way.

My freaks are classic DnD monsters. Mindflayers and goblins and stuff. The idea is that all monsters have a Vice, the trait that makes them monsters. All races, even the "good" ones have a Vice, but for whatever reason, some humanoids are considered inherently good and others aren't. This really isn't as heavy handed as it sounds, I'm going more in for humor and humanism. The example character I'm making up is an ilithid weather mage who dresses like Jimmy Buffet and surfs. The setting can be tuned to the rating you like though, if you want something more serious, that's cool too. The way it works is that a characters Vice gives them special powers, but makes them lose control of themselves. Their Virtues let them stave off the Vice, and also allows them to grow as people. The thing is, these people who straddle the dividing line between "people" and "monsters" aren't really accepted by either, and are thus freaks.

As far as system goes, it works like this. Each character has traits. I'm not sure how many, but I've already decided on Mind, Body, Soul, and Coordination. Probably going to need something like Charisma ish. These are pools of points, which are used to buy and upgrade the skills in each specific trait. Skills are character created, PDQ or FUDGE style. The rank in a skill gives it so many dice, which are rolled for successes. There is also the Vice trait and the Virtue trait. The points in Vice allow the character to buy powerful traits specific to it. Like an Ilithid with the Megalomaniac Vice can buy the ability to create Thralls. However, the more you use the Vice, the greater chance you lose control over your character as he gives into the  monster within him. Virtue is a pool used to a) buy off points in Vice, and b) grow as a  person (leveling up).

There's more on my rpglab account, found here.http://www.rpglaboratory.com/griggs/freaks_may_be_renamed_vices_and_virtues_the_beginnings_of_something_very_bad Any feedback is welcome in these developing stages.

[JoyWriter]

I like the balance you put there for power-gamers: The temptation to gain powers is offset by the risk of loosing your character. Is it possible for them to completely transform like in Promethean? If not you could get this strange topping out of "humanity" turning it into a bit of a cross between Hellboy and Edward scissorhands! I suppose the that if you are not really focusing on "fitting in" but "being the best you can be" that sort of smooths out that problem, although it also misses out the classic comedy you get with that kind of outsider normal/not normal thing. I imagine you don't want it very earnest, more close to "Monsters and other childish things" or random monster-cartoons kind of feel. In contrast to most approaches to the blessing/curse power theme, you will actually have people trying to reduce their powers rather than live with themselves as they currently are, which is different to a lot of monster things, where the link between their strengths and weaknesses is usually less explicit, so they can try to get the best of both worlds. Perhaps you can make that a choice for the players; human monster or good but weird monster, with them able to put points into both.

[griggs]

Well, the way I see it is that everyone will probably retain a certain amount of vice, that is, as much as they're comfortable with. Being a person also means being imperfect, you know? Also, the way vice works is in a "vicious cycle" type thing. You use points in your vice pool for extra dice that can then be used to supplement actions that serve your vice, which give you further dice. But depending how many dice you have in the pool, thats how much the vice controls you. By acting with your vice instead of against it, you can become quite powerful, but you run the chance of "losing control". There's no limit to how many dice you can have in your vice pool, but it's directly proportional to how many dice the DM rolls to see if you've become a "monster" and thus have lost all free will.

[chronoplasm]

I have a couple of suggestions.

Firstly, I'm not too keen on the idea of the DM taking control of my character. I get that enough as it is with my play group. If it wasn't so one sided, that is if players could take control of the DM, then I would have no problem with it. Otherwise, I think I'd prefer a more interactive simulationist approach to this.
That is, when a character has a vice, that character will suffer occasional to frequent complusions or cravings. When a character has a craving, that character must perform a certain action or suffer some kind of withdrawal symptom. A character with the Man-Eater vice for example must eat every human it comes across or suffer hunger damage. The DM does not make the decision for the player, nor do dice make the decision for the player. The player is the one who gets to decide whether their character eats a human or takes damage. By choosing to resist the temptation however the player may gradually condition their character to develop a virtue.

Second, maybe this has more to do with my own concept of morality than anything else, but I'd like to see a bit more dimension beyond vice vs. virtue.

1) OK, lets say you have a character who is both lazy and greedy. On the one hand, your character doesn't want to work, but on the other hand your character wants money. Your character realizes that they have to get off their butt to make some money because it's awfully hard to lounge around on your couch eating snacks if you can't afford either a couch or snacks and because your character, being greedy, has very expensive tastes in couches and snacks.
Lets consider the vices of gluttony and vanity next. If you eat too much you become an obese slime-ball. If you place too much importance on your beauty you may sacrifice your health and end up wasting away from anorexia. When you put those two together however they offset one another so that you end up maintaining yourself at a comfortable weight.

2) If vices can come into conflict and counteract each other, then it stands to reason that virtues should be able to do that too.
Honor vs. Humility
Justice vs. Forgiveness
Conviction vs. Open-Mindedness

3) Some of what society would consider 'vices' aren't really bad at all. Some things get labeled as vices because society is prejudiced.
For example, society tends to look down on so called "whores". Consider however that historically prostitutes have had more freedom than married women.
Admittedly, women are often forced into prostitution where they are often beaten and degraded, women are often forced into marriage as well where they are also often beaten and degraded. Married women aren't necessarily better off than prostitutes, it's just that married women are considered socially acceptable second-class citizens.
Back in the Renaissance however, prostitutes actually had access to books and education and a far greater amount of freedom than married women were. In addition to being generally more liberated, whores historically are more sexually liberated than their male counterparts. Married women in history, being dedicated to one man, weren't really able to get much sex while their husbands were out fighting wars and having sex with women in foreign lands. If they did they would usually get killed or something. Marriage simply wasn't an option for women who really enjoyed sex.
Nevertheless, society looks down on 'whores' and considers female sexuality to be a vice while applauding male sexuality.


My solution to all of the above issues there is to blur the lines a bit between vices and virtues. Perhaps some vices can also act as conditional virtues in some situations while some virtues can become vices when you take them to an extreme. Perhaps some virtues when paired together come into conflict and cause cognitive dissonance while some vices when paired together can offset each other.

Just some things to consider.

[Ken]

Hi-

I'll second the previous poster in that I'm not in a hurry to play a game where the GM gets to take my character away from me. I think there may be some interesting alternatives here to explore that would support losing control ideas without making a player sit out part of the game. .

First of all, how much do you want to disrupt the team dynamic in your game? Without a reward system for doing so, there really is no incentive for the characters to keep characters from freaking out aside from handing their character sheet over to the DM. On the surface it looks like the idea is that these monsters want to break their classic stereotypes and be decent beings; a noble idea, but I'm wondering how attainable this is in the game. How often does a character have to confront their demons and is the game stacked against their success? Personally, I won't play a game that is heading towards disaster, and I'm wondering what your goals are here.

Maybe the focus should be on Virtue; these characters wouldn't even be characters if they hadn't made the choice to break from their classic stereotypes. As far as vice-related abilities go, they should be given up along with the vice and not be accessible without risk. Vice should hide under the surface and only rise at moments of weakness. In the real world vices usually take control under a few circumstances: a) depression or times of failure, and b) when surrounded by the source of the vice. This may be the moment where the character rolls to keep from sliding into their forbidden behavior.

Instead of the DM taking control, maybe their should be bonuses for tasks related to your vice, and penalties for trying to do things that go counter to your vice-related behavior. This may provide sufficient disincentive for players to be anything less than selfish and disruptive without making the players sit out.

It also seems here that there may need to be two types of vices; minor ones that cover skills or minor abilities and major vices that counter powerful abilities. My example would be a creature that could creep without making a sound might have a vice that makes it difficult for them to interact with a party for a bit (I don't know; like hording treasure or something) while a vampire who can shapeshift and such would have a pretty major vice (drinking blood) that would be difficult to satisfy without provoking a nasty reaction from the locals.

Last point: this is a really cool idea, and reminds me of Clive Barker's Cabal (the movie adaptation was called Nightbreed) and dealt with the last surviving monsters (the Tribes of the Moon) that holed up together in a city called Midian, and tried to get along for their mutual survival willed controlling their inner demons. Check it out; I think you may find some inspiration there.

Hope my thoughts weren't too scattered. What do you think?

Ken

[griggs]

Man, I knew I loved this place for a reason, this is some awesome feed back. Geez, and you guys are asking questions I don't even have answers to. Okay, I'm going to try my best to answer them. First, I'll try to define how the vice and virtue mechanics work. I'm still going to  have to play with the numbers, but this is roughly how it works.

Virtue: You gain virtue for doing things that complement your virtue. The more effor that must be put in for whatever reason, the more points you get. Virtue is used specifically for two things:

Growing your character: As your character tries to act against its vice and control himself more, he grows as a person. You can trade in virtue to add a bonus to a specific skill.

Resisting rolls against your vice and buying it off. Any time you make an action that utilizes vice, you must make a roll after your turn to see if the vice takes control.Now what you must know about virtue is it takes a while to get a lot, and it takes a lot to level up your character, but that is something the character has earned and it stays with them.

As an example in game, say that Girthinix, a mind flayer weather mage whose virtue is Laid Back (he's peaceful and just wants to do his research), wants to defend the small coastal village he's set up shop in, currently attacked by mercenaries. Then the hoarde about to attack it strike a deal where he can be advisor, and maybe even take control of the town. Girthinix is a mindflayer, and thus a megalomaniac, he has a deep desire for power. But let's say he turns down the offer. Now he has made an enemy, lost the opprotuninty for power, and has a difficult battle ahead of him. But he has acted virtuously instead, and decided he would protect the peace of the village. He will gain virtue for that, virtue he can use to grow as a being or stave off his personal demons.

Next is vice. Anytime you do an action that complements your vice, you automatically add at least one bonus die from your vice pool to the dice being rolled for the action. If the action succeeds, you get, oh for the purpose of example, you get double the dice back. See the differences between vice and virtue? With vice, you always have a bonus, and you always get an instant payback. The more you act using your vice, the more powerful your vice becomes. Of course, this comes at a price. Depending on the number of dice in your pool, the DM gets a bonus to his rolls to see if the Vice has taken hold. I'm trying to make a "vicious cycle" type thing. Use vice, get a bonus, use it again, get even more. And you can't use it up because you're always getting more back. I want the players to say "I want to use it, but can I afford to?"

For instance, let's say that Girthinix is getting impatient with the village's mayor, a decent guy, but Girthinix knows he's smarter, and he's made a few silly mistakes. His megalmania has finally won him over, and he decides to make the mayor a thrall. It's a difficult roll, so he adds two vice dice and succeeds. He gets four back. Now the DM rolls to see if the Vice has taken hold, and Girthinix's player adds some of his virtue to stave off the DM. He succeeds, but now not only has he lost virtue, but now he's more at risk for his vice to take control again next time. He spends even more virtue to buy off a few vice dice, and is going to have to postpone leveling up his weather control magic.

Now that you say it, I really don't want the players to be out of the game for long periods of time either. Hmm, I'll have to brainstorm on that. Maybe have it as a penalty later on like once the Vice reaches a certain level? I can puts some penalties in for the intermediate vice levels. Thanks for the input, guys. I'll try to put something up for the system soon.