Poison'd Hype?

[Shenron]

This game looked awesome, pirates are always fun to play but there is never enough RPG's for them.

Anyway, I googled this game and I found a lot of harsh negativity towards it.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[lumpley]

I have plenty of thoughts and opinions! Many unprintable.

I absolutely love to answer questions about Poison'd. Where would you like me to start?

-Vincent

[agony]

Negativity?  Perhaps at RPG.NET but not around The Forge/Story-games.

Poison'd is a fabulous game and I wish my group wanted to play it more often.

[Shenron]

Is it a board game?

A Rpg?

What system does it use?

[jefgodesky]

I haven't played it yet, but I really look forward to doing so as part of my "Talk Like a Pirate Day" festivities. How often does Sep. 19 fall on a Saturday? I've only heard good things about it, though.

[lumpley]

Cool, Shenron.

Poison'd is a roleplaying game. It uses its own system.

It's really violent. I always used to say to my friend Emily, "Emily, they should never let me make a movie about pirates, because it'll be Reservoir Dogs meets High Plains Drifter on a boat." So I made a game about pirates and that's exactly what it is.

It's a love letter to Tim Kleinart's game The Mountain Witch, which means that (as in Reservoir Dogs) gameplay hinges upon people betraying the people who trust them, or people staying loyal to each other even when they should betray.

The game brings out the (I think, hilarious) prudery of a certain segment of gamers. It's true, in Poison'd you can rape, murder and brutalize your way to victory. I think that what brings out the prudery is that the game treats rape, murder and brutality as valid subject matter for a roleplaying game - like, there are rules for what happens when your character rapes, or murders, or brutalizes someone. Worse (from the prudes' point of view), what happens isn't a straightforward punishment. In fact, when your character rapes, murders or brutalizes someone, it often makes it easier for your character to rape, murder or brutalize the next person. It also makes it harder for your character to do other essential things, but the prudes don't care about that.

What else? Oh yes, the game supposes a particular, funny, dark version of Christianity, and casts its mechanics in that mold. So when your character commits a sin (like rape, murder or brutality) his Devil goes up and his Soul goes down. The devil is an NPC, and so is God, and there are rules for going to hell when you die and things like that.

I quite like the game. Like a good horror flick, it leavens its horror with humor and poisons its humor with horror. In play, half the time you're laughing and you know you shouldn't laugh at that, and the other half of the time you aren't laughing at all.

More questions please!

-Vincent