Two [censored] at once!

[lumpley]

Ron, Maura, Julie, when I ran puppies, we didn't spend any time describing details of the killings.  It was like,
player: We blow the seeing-eye dog's ass up with firecrackers.
me: Okay.  You get evil.

I expect different groups'll find their own (dis)comfort levels.

Also, are y'all gonna play Le Mon Mouri and puppies on the same day every time?  Cause if so, dang.

-Vincent

[Maura Byrne]

Also, are y'all gonna play Le Mon Mouri and puppies on the same day every time?  Cause if so, dang.

-Vincent

Okay, it may have taken me a while to catch on, but maybe this part really is the crux of Ron's gut reaction to kpfs.  Le Mon Mouri involves violence, evil and general bad stuff, but unlike kpfs it's fairly serious and personal.  Even if we gloss over the whole "dead body at the tea party" thing, there's a whole different tone to the gruesomeness we're visiting upon our surroundings.  kpfs expects the players to have enough distance to not worry about how we're gaining our evil, but with Le Mon Mouri we're a lot more involved with the nastiness we're inflicting on our NPCs.  I know that the first time I killed anything in kpfs, when that ferret made unfortunate contact with an electrical outlet, I had a bit of a twinge.  Maybe we should have taken more of a break between the games to better clear our heads.    Given what we were doing, maybe we should have watched "Un Chien d'Andalou" or something, just to mix up our brains a little.

[Nev the Deranged]

Feh.  Wussies.  If you twinge every time someone throws a puppy in a blender, how do you ever expect to get anywhere in life?

[Louis CYPHER]

this is plain sick
u can't compare to the feebles, movie is art, rpg is gaming

this kind of thing is what make rpg a geek activity

i am offended by this thread :(

[lumpley]

Hi, Louis.  Welcome to the Forge.

If you haven't already, please check out a couple threads:
we killed puppies for satan and
kill puppies for RPGnet.

Be sure to read Yasha's comments on the second page of the former, and my comments in the latter.

Personally, I don't see any reason for any subject that's suitable for movies to be unsuitable for gaming.  I'm interested in your reaction, though.  What is it particularly that offends you?

---

Nev, easy does it.  The conversation's been about people's empathy and conscience; tossing puppies into a blender is just going to stifle it.

-Vincent

Woo!  Hate mail on the forum!  I'm responsible for making us geeks!  I do the dance of evil victorious! Please ignore this entirely inappropriate emotional response!

[Nev the Deranged]

You're playing a game called kill puppies for satan and you want to talk about empathy and conscience?

Your humanity makes you weak.  Purge yourself in the flame of damnation that you may better serve your infernal master.  Leave behind the human ideals that inhibit you.  Embrace atrocity and free yourself from the chains of morality forever, only then will you know true endarkenment.

Besides, there are always more puppies.  Nobody's going to miss them.  Trust me =>

[lumpley]

You're playing a game called kill puppies for satan and you want to talk about empathy and conscience?

Yes.

I'm serious.  Back way off on the cheesy posturing.  If you want to engage and participate, awesome, but please do.

-Vincent

[Nev the Deranged]

The cheesy posturing is to make  a point.  If you're going to play a game called kill puppies for satan where presumably killing puppies is a large part of what is expected of you, then empathy, conscience, and the rest have no place in the game.   If you are bothered by the thought of killing puppies, then you probably shouldn't play a game with the theme of killing puppies.

Of course, nobody who actually would kill puppies should play the game either.  Or any game, for that matter.  They should be locked away somewhere dark and alone, far away from anything having to do with puppies.

It may sound as if I'm contradicting myself, but I'm not.  Even though hopefully nobody here would kill puppies for satan in real life, when playing the game, you should be able to step outside of your own morals and embrace those the game requires.  If you are going to play a game about killing puppies, and killing puppies makes you cringe, you're probably playing the wrong game.

Incidentally, if you want to think I'm being a disruptive jerk, that isn't my intent.  I'm sort of playing devil's advocate (no pun intended...?)  I'm perfectly willing to offend if it gets someone thinking.  And if someone is going to think I'm an ass for that, well... I can deal with that too.

I don't want to start an argument or a flame war or anything like that.  I think I've made my point, so I'll leave it alone for now.

No hard feelings =>

[C. Edwards]

I have to disagree, Nev.  I think that exploring the things that make us cringe is vital to our personal growth.  Holding up that deep, dark mirror and staring into it is good for the soul :).

If someone is playing a game about killing puppies, and killing puppies makes them cringe, I say more power to them.  The secondary effect of sharing the experience, and how it made you feel, with other people just comes naturally.


-Chris

[James V. West]

I'm with Chris.

I do not believe that playing a game entails nothing more than behaving in a manner implied by the game text (read: color, setting, characters, whatever). What a vapid waste of time it would be to sit around pretending to smash small animals (or hack up trolls and goblins and steal their money for that matter) if you're not going to let the experience move around in your guts a little bit. Would you watch an intense film like Slingblade and not let yourself explore how it makes you feel?

It would take some serious personal armor to do that. I haven't played kpfs (yet), but I hazard to wager that I'd take a little more from the experience than a few giggles, just as I would any game worth playing.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Nev,

You're playing a game called kill puppies for satan and you want to talk about empathy and conscience?

You clearly haven't played the game. Killing puppies for "evil" in the game isn't actually evil. It's not atrocity. It's pathetic. The puppies are defenseless. Characters in the game are losers, and their friends are even worse losers. The game is about being pathetic, and very desperate not to acknowledge that fact to yourself. The "empathy and conscience" aspect of playing the game that people are talking about is from relating to the player characters, who are in denial about how pathetic they are, and desperate to feel like they have a little power, that they're a little significant, and mostly not to feel alone.

Paul

[Nev the Deranged]

You know, it sounded like more fun when it was about killing puppies for satan.  I have enough of being pathetic in real life.  Why would I play a game about it?

To sum up,

Killing puppies = Good.

Being Pathetic = Bad.

Any questions?

[lumpley]

Nev, no one needs kill puppies for satan to be fun for you.  Some people dig it, I can't have expected everyone to.  But do you have a better understanding now how empathy and conscience are relevant?  How, in fact, the players' empathy and conscience are key to gameplay?

Maura,

I know that the first time I killed anything in kpfs, when that ferret made unfortunate contact with an electrical outlet, I had a bit of a twinge.

I think that'd be true even if you hadn't played Le Mon Mouri.  At least, when we played, we all had twingey moments.  I have a hard time imagining play without them -- there was this funny, awful oneupsmanship in our game, where everything was more appalling than the thing before.

But I'll bet Le Mon Mouri made it worse.

Chris and James, naturally I agree with you.

Paul, about the PCs being desperate to not feel alone: I think you nailed it, more succinctly than I've been able to.  Certainly that's what it was about when I played.  My prediction is (picture me holding an envelope to my forehead like Johnny Carson) most puppies play winds up with happy endings, funnily enough, in those terms.  I mean, hell, "Viper" and bicycle messenger James O. Ford hated one another with a fearsome hate, but they ended up friends in hell, with all us players grinning at each other and satisfied.  And in Maurice's game, even lame ghoul-ass Gerald Stebbins had a happy birthday, surrounded by his friends!

-Vincent

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This may confuse everyone, but I agree with ... Chris, Paul, Vincent, Maura, and Nev. It all works together when you step back a bit.

Best,
Ron

[sdemory]

Ron,
   Glad to know that you and your crew had an... interesting time with Le Mon Mouri. Sounds like you hooked into it relatively well. Made my day to see that it's getting some action. Quick questions:
1) Did anyone attempt to play the "This is wrong! I am offended at the inhumanity of this decadent, depraved scene and doubly offended by the seductive attraction of evil! Shame on you, shame on me, horror, horror... Ti-bon-ange, please."
2) Feeding off of that question, was there any effort for your players to "do things" to/on themselves? I'm personally very big on systematic emotional, physical and mental self-torture as a way to keep going in the game. If one thinks of the three Aspe as individual "characters" at odds with each other, it makes sense that they'd predate on each other. Further, it helps create the aura of crazy, crazy decay that makes the game work for me.
  Alternately, one can take a tip from the playtester who warped herself to continually "bear a child" and "miscarry." As far as she was concerned, it was a relatively straightforward act... her comment to me was "When it comes down to it, your San-Souf's the only victim that can never get away from you."
3) What sorts of rules stuff clunked for you? I'm still working on the rules side of things.
4) Did anything in particular really, really sing?