Acts of Evil
a roleplaying game of occult ambition
by Paul Czege

Introduction
Player characters are new initiates to an occult tradition devoted to aggressive and competitive pursuit of personal godhood. It is a ruthless tradition that its members take utterly seriously.

The extra-dimensional being at the top of the tradition is Ephactha, that which flies on wings of his own infinite will.

Preparing for Play

The Making of an Occultist

In a normal human, the visceral capacities of the flesh, voice, imagination, and memory are an expression of the soul within. The event that ushers a player character into this occult tradition is the unwilling installation of a zinc ball of thorns in his stomach by an occultist who chooses him as his own spiritual progeny. This ball of thorns, called the Manaster, severs that connection to the soul, freeing the flesh, voice, imagination, and memory from all constraint. The Manaster offers the character the opportunity to be a God.

To create a new occultist, divide 12 points across your Aspects and Dispositions (Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity). You can have 0's wherever you wish. Put 1 point in Resistance, and 0's in Power, Capacity, and Used Capacity.

Give your character a name, and negotiate with the GM the year in which game events start for the character (i.e. when the Manaster was inflicted upon him). All characters are timebound until they transcend time.

Aspects

A character has four Aspects (Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory), representing his visceral faculties. You'll use them to prevail in conflicts.

Flesh

Flesh is the physical being. Rolling Flesh is pushing its limits. You roll Flesh to eat more hard boiled eggs than Paul Newman does in Cool Hand Luke. You roll Flesh to win a wrestling match, endure torture, spit a ten foot stream of blood into a woman's face, turn yourself half wolf, etc.

Voice

Voice is the force and scope of communication. You roll it to issue commands, to know and speak languages, to communicate with aliens, to command attention, to sound like Sarah Connor's parents, etc.

Imagination

Imagination is perception and your sense of reality. You roll it to see distant events play out in a scrying pool, to see the true nature of a disguised being, to penetrate the barriers of reality (by seeing the insubstantiality of the barriers) or visit other planets once you've transcended Space, to create objects from nothingness (by seeing that the object exists just within reach through an insubstantial barrier).

Memory

Memory is your awareness of past events. You roll it to know the details of events that had no witnesses, to fly a plane if you've had no training, to know someone's innermost secrets, and to move to the past or the future once you've transcended Time.

Dispositions

A character has three Dispositions (Ambition, Rage, Clarity), representing his sense of purpose.

Ambition

Rage

Clarity

Clarity is your mastery of the occult worldview and status among occultists. The more confidently immersed you are in thinking like a Lovecraftian god the more status you have and authority you command among occultists.

Resources

Characters have two Resources (Power and Capacity), which are the currency of effectiveness in occult endeavors.

Power

For these occultists, normal humans are basically fuel. The unsevered connection to the soul renders them an endless font of Power which the occultists exploit on behalf of the pursuit of personal godhood. And humans give this Power willingly. All the occultist has to do is position himself as cooler, more together, slicker or more sophisticated, or more worldly, or edgier or more dangerous, than the normal human, and the normal spiritually transfers Power subconsciously to the occultist.

So, calling a rather beaten family man into your office and informing him he won't be getting a salary increase this year is about Power. As long as he accepts his helplessness, you have Power. As long as he doesn't recognize that he's not helpless, you have Power. Hurting and killing is hardly different. It's mentally positioning yourself as an alpha relative to the human, with disdain for the human, and just not taking no for an answer, whether that "no" is coming from inside you, or from the other person.

A player can spend Power in their own scenes, and any other player's scenes, anywhere that Power is part of the formula, either to help or hinder the roll.

Capacity

Capacity is like a Power credit limit, and Used Capacity is like Power debt. Players spend their Capacity just as if they were spending Power, incurring Used Capacity when they do.

Resistance

Resistance is everything you need to mentally overcome on your occult endeavor to supplant Ephactha. It measures your fear of losing what you've already achieved, the lingering vestiges of your human decency, and also how comfortable and decadent you've let yourself become. The pure occultist is entirely non-sexual and focused on godhood. One with a high Resistance is some combination of self-indulgent, maybe with concubines, insufficiently misanthropic, and risk-averse.

Prep

The progress of play goes around the room from player to player, for a scene with each of their characters. Some of these scenes will be framed by the GM. And some will be framed by the player. So both the GM and players will need to prep in advance for the scene framing they'll do during the game. 

Preparing for scene framing in Acts of Evil involves randomly generating an environment and a transgression, using that as inspiration for the history of a location, and then framing the scene to events imagined upon that history.

Randomization is important, because it pushes the limits of the creative imagination. So each player should make a list of approximately ten transgressions and one of twice as many environments.

Transgressions might include killing, imprisonment, enslavement, cheating, lying, betrayal, injury, flesh peddling, curses, and suicide, as well as any other crimes the player finds compelling.

Environments can include arctic, jungle, tundra, desert, boreal forest, grassland/prairie/savannah, pond/lake, coral reef, hydrothermal vent, ocean, storm, swamp, dream, extrastellar, extradimensional, ruins, urban, night, and aerial, as well as almost any other type of location the player thinks might make for dramatic scenes. Extradimensional and extraplanetary locations are out of scope for beginning characters, but perhaps Karst Topography has potential?

Then just number them and roll a large enough die against each list.

So, an example. I roll suicide in a swamp. And I envision a swamp girl, raped by her brother, who kills herself out in the swamp. I write myself some quick notes: "Do something interesting with the dead fetus or the fetal bones."

Some others, for the sake of example:

A mermaid has been cursed by the other mermaids so she can't return to the ocean. The took something, money, an object from a wrecked vessel in the deeps and gave it to a man she loved. She broke mermaid law by violating the sunken vessel. And the man had used her.

One of two aliens from a triune mated unit pressures the other to descend to Earth with him for fun. They kill a couple of neanderthals and abduct their mates for no consequences sex. The aliens can't digest human proteins. The one who initiated the escapade somehow steals the sperm of the other, probably by having enlisted the neanderthal woman, and leaves him behind to die of starvation. (He fertilizes his own eggs with the sperm, and the third alien from their mated unit will host them.) The alien left behind dies of starvation, tended by the neanderthal woman who betrayed him.

A child with one blue eye has been born in Uganda. Locals believe he is the incarnation of an evil god, and are trying to kill him. Foreign aid workers are trying to protect him.

An island beach house is being rented by a couple on their honeymoon. The husband is really a con man.

In 1689, a lesbian couple is drowned as witches by an outraged community in Massachusetts.

A man tries to use a tsunami as an opportunity to kill someone and not be implicated.

And also you'll want to prep names for NPCs. Probably some that are specific to characters referenced in your scene prep, but also a list that you can draw upon if you need to invent a spontaneous character or otherwise stray from what you prepped in advance.

How to Play

The Progress of Play

The progress of play is the GM going around the room, giving each player a choice, and then together playing out a scene. Turn rotation is formalized such that the player with the highest Capacity goes first. If two characters have equal Capacity, the one with the lower Clarity goes first. The choice is between a) the player deciding what type of NPC they want a scene with (Teacher, Rival, Underling, Nobody, Victim), and the GM framing the scene, or b) the GM determining what type of NPC will be in the scene, and the player framing it. If the player chooses the latter, to frame a scene with an type of NPC chosen by the GM, his occultist's Used Capacity is re-set to zero.

In framing a scene for a character who's with other occultists, look to your notes, and describe dramatic and exotic circumstances appropriate to the occult lifestyle. Gameplay should be characterized by worldliness and eclecticism. The occultists consider themselves creatures of the universe, as at home in the slums of Rio de Janeiro as they are in the boardrooms of Wall Street or the battlefield of Agincourt. So, scenes in bizarre temples in the arctic, frozen from when Lovecraftian aliens ruled the earth, at cursed sugar cane plantations in Guyana, and ultimately in floaty and indescribable extradimensional realms. Occultists should be pursuing some arcane goal. As players, we know the occultists draw Power exclusively from Nobodies and Victims, but they don't share this knowledge. So they're always chasing after objects of purported power and significance. And when they're not, it's all about status and revenge within the occult community.

And a scene with a Teacher should be framed differently than one with a Rival, or an Underling.

For a Rival scene based on the swamp suicide item I prepped, probably I'd frame something with a Rival trying to get the brother to lead him to where the girl is buried. He believes the bones offer power or something. Maybe for a scene with a Teacher, I'd frame to a group of occultists who already have the brother, and they're headed out into the swamp to find the body.

In framing a scene for a character who's with a non-occultist, particularly if the character has yet to advance to Scourge, you want to play up the character's human entanglements. So create Nobodies who are family and close friends, and circumstances quite a bit less earnestly exotic. For a Nobody scene using the swamp suicide example, I might have it be with a waitress at a diner, after the character's punk Rival has gone to the restroom. Discontinuity is fine for the stories of the player characters, but we need more continuity for the Nobodies and Victims. So use scene framing to weave Nobodies and Victims again and again into the somewhat less surreal periphery of the brutal endeavors of the occultists.

You can invent Teachers and Nobodies at will in framing scenes. Underlings, Rivals, and Victims must be made from Teachers and Nobodies via the Status Change mechanics.

Dice Mechanics

To resolve a conflict, the player will roll a pool of dice, subtract the low die from the high die, and compare the result against an opposing value. Both the pool of dice, and the opposing value, are determined by simple formulae that correspond to the various types of NPCs with whom the characters will conflict. A result of equal to or greater than the value is a success.

To resolve a conflict, the player will roll a pool of dice, count how many of them show a prime (1, 2, 3, 5, 7), and compare that count against a similar roll by the GM. The sizes of these opposed pools of dice are determined by simple formulae that correspond to the various types of NPCs with whom the characters will conflict. Rolling more primes than the GM is a success. Rolling an equivalent count, or fewer, is failure.

Scenes consist of one or more of these die rolls, and end with either the first failed roll, with a Status Change roll whether it is successful or not, or after any roll if the occultist player is satisfied with the scene.

When roleplaying in a scene reaches the dice roll stage, the player's and GM's pools of dice are publicly assembled. Then, if Power spending is allowed by the formula, players spend Power and/or Capacity to increase or decrease the size of the GM's pool, and narrate details into the situation/setting as they add or remove dice from the pool. There is no correspondence of dice to facts. A player can spend one Power or many, and introduce a small detail or a large one. Players can spend again and again, until everyone decides they're done. And then the dice are rolled. And there is no necessary  connection between the character of the player spending Power and the scene; this use of Power is less a "spending" than it is an projection of the force of the character's subjectivity and will out into the wider occult reality.

If you have no dice, the result is automatic failure. Players are advised not to request or frame scenes where they have no dice.

The GM and the occultist player should look to the result of a scene's final die roll for guidance in roleplaying a closure for the scene.


Resolutions

After a scene is framed, the player determines what's at stake for the occultist. In a scene with a Teacher, something like "Do I learn the secret of the Quivering Palm?" is a Resolution. But a Resolution scene with a Teacher won't always be about learning what he knows. It might be about taking knowledge from him without him knowing it. It might be about learning he's completely full of shit. It might be about forcing him to send you to a specific time and place. It might be about gaining some of his favor by helping him with some grotesque task.

And the same is true of Rivals and Underlings (although they can't send you through time and space). Resolutions can be about everything from publicly one-upping a Rival, to beating one in an exotic duel with the rugose bracts of an alien plant, to getting one to make a slip of the tongue and reveal his most prized word of power. Resolutions can be about everything from making an Underling do something unsavory, to teaching him something, lying to him convincingly about something, etc.

Resolution Against Teachers

For Resolution Against Teachers, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to the lower of Clarity or Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance plus Clarity, increased by one die for each prior Resolution Against Teachers roll by the player in the current scene, and reduced by one die for each point of Power the player elects to spend (and also possibly increased or reduced by other players spending Power).
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, increase his occultist character's Clarity by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, the occultist character must Humanize a human NPC, and must pay a point of Power to reduce his Used Capacity by one point, if he has both Power and any accrued Used Capacity.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, the occultist character must pay a point of Power to reduce his Used Capacity by one point; if the character doesn't have any Power, then the player must instead Humanize a human NPC.

Roll the lower of Clarity or Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory
Against a target of Resistance minus Power.
Success output is increase in Clarity
Failure output is you must pay down your Used Capacity. (Can't pay, then humanize a human.)

Resolution Against Rivals

For Resolution Against Rivals, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to the lower of Clarity or Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance, increased by one die for each prior Resolution Against Rivals roll by the player in the current scene, and reduced by one die for each point of Power the player elects to spend (and also possibly increased or reduced by other players spending Power).
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, he increases one of his occultist character's Aspects (Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory) by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his occultist character's Resistance by one point.

Roll the lower of Clarity or Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory
Against a target of Resistance minus Power.
Success output is increase in Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory.
Failure output is increase in Resistance.

Resolution Against Underlings

For Resolution Against Underlings, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance, increased by one die for each prior Resolution Against Underlings roll by the player in the current scene, and reduced by one die for each point of Power the player elects to spend (and also possibly increased or reduced by other players spending Power).
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, reduce his occultist character's Resistance by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, reduce his occultist character's Clarity by one point, and he must pay one Power or the Underling becomes a Rival.

Roll Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory
Against a target of Resistance minus Power.
Success output is reduction in Resistance.
Failure output is reduction in Clarity, and pay one Power or the Underling becomes a Rival

Resolution Against Nobodies

For Resolution Against Nobodies, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to Ambition plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory, and discards a number of rolled primes equal to how many other occultist player characters he's killed.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance plus Used Capacity, increased by one die for each prior Resolution Against Nobodies roll by the player in the current scene.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, his occultist's Power is increased by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his character's Resistance to the value of the Victim's Trait Count, or by one point if the character's Resistance already exceeds the Trait Count. And he must narrate the Dissolution of his occultist's identity.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, his occultist character's Power is increased by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his character's Resistance by one point, and he must narrate the Dissolution of his occultist's identity.

Roll Ambition plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory
Against a target of Resistance plus Used Capacity
Success output is increase in Power
Failure output is increase in Resistance plus narrate dissolution of your identity

Resolution Against Victims

For Resolution Against Victims, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to Rage plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance plus Used Capacity, increased by one die for each prior Resolution Against Victims roll by the player in the current scene.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, his occultist's Power is increased by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his character's Rage to the value of the Victim's Trait Count, or by one point if the character's Rage already exceeds the Trait Count.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM in an effort to cause the death of an NPC who was originally Status Changed to a Victim by some other player, the Victim is killed and his occultist's power is increased by three points. If the player rolls more primes than the GM, and the life of the NPC is not at stake, or the NPC being killed is one his occultist character made into a Victim, his occultist's Power is increased by one point.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, increase his character's Rage by one point.

Roll Rage plus Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory
Against a target of Resistance plus Used Capacity
Success output for hurting or injuring the Victim is a 1 point increase in Power
Success output for killing the Victim is a 3 point increase in Power
Failure output is increase in Rage

Status Changes

By default, an NPC occultist is a Teacher to a player character, a player character is a Rival to another player character, and an non-occultist NPC is a Nobody to a player character. At the start of play, there are no Victims or Underlings, and there are no NPC Rivals. Once made into a Victim, an NPC is a Victim to all player characters. An occultist's Underlings are Rivals to all other player characters.

A player can roll for a number of Resolutions in a scene, but only one Status Change. When what's at stake is something like "Do I make him my bitch?", that's a Status Change.

Change a Teacher to a Rival

To Change a Teacher to a Rival, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to his occultist's Clarity.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance plus Clarity minus the total number of Underlings he has, and reduced by one die for each point of Power the player elects to spend (and also possibly increased or reduced by other players spending Power).
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, his occultist character's Capacity is increased by one point, and the Teacher is changed to a Rival.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, his character undergoes a forced location shift (i.e. the Teacher casts him away to some other time or extradimensional location), as specified by whomever has Direction. And if the character has no Underlings, the player can increase one of his character's Aspects by one point. If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, and the character has Underlings, he undergoes the forced location shift, and increase the character's Clarity by one point.

Roll Clarity
Against a target of Resistance minus total # of Underlings minus Power
Success output is increase in Capacity and the status change
Failure output, if the character has no Underlings, is an increase of Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory; failure output if the character does have Underlings, is an increase in Clarity.

Change a Rival to an Underling

To Change a Rival to an Underling, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to his occultist's Clarity.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance minus the total number of Underlings he has dedicated to this specific rivalry in prior scenes, and reduced by one die for each point of Power the player elects to spend (and also possibly increased or reduced by other players spending Power).
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, the Rival is now an  Underling.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, he must Humanize a human NPC, and must pay a point of Power to reduce his Used Capacity by one point, if he has both Power and any accrued Used Capacity.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, he must pay one Power to reduce his Used Capacity by one point; if he does not have the Power to spend, then he must Humanize a human NPC.

Roll Clarity
Against a target of Resistance minus # of Underlings dedicated to the task, minus Power
Success output is the status change
Failure output is you must pay down your Used Capacity. (Can't pay, then humanize a human.)

Change a Nobody to a Victim

To Change a Nobody to a Victim, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to his occultist's Clarity and discards a number of rolled primes equal to how many other occultist player characters he's killed.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance, plus one for each of the human's traits.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, the Nobody is now a Victim, and the player must Derogate a human (usually, but not necessarily, the Nobody who just became a Victim).
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, resolve the scene as a failure, increase the character's Resistance by one point, and the player must narrate Dissolution of the character's identity.

Roll Clarity
Against a target of Resistance plus the human's # of traits
Success output is derogation of the human
Failure output is increase in Resistance plus narrate dissolution of your identity

Change a Nobody to an Underling

To Change a Nobody to an Underling, the player rolls a pool of dice equal to his occultist's Clarity and discards a number of rolled primes equal to how many other occultist player characters he's killed.
The GM rolls an opposing pool of d6's equal to the occultist character's Resistance, plus one for each of the human's traits.
If the player rolls more primes than the GM, the Nobody is now one of his character's Underlings.
If the player rolls fewer primes than the GM, or the same number of primes, resolve the scene as a failure and increase the character's Rage by one point.

Roll Clarity
Against a target of Resistance plus the human's # of traits
Success output is the status change
Failure output is increase in Rage

Aspects in the Formulae

When "Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory" appears in one of the formulae, it means the value of whichever one of the four Aspects the player has decided to use for resolving the conflict, and not an average or highest value or something.

The player establishes this, either by stating intent at some point between scene framing and dice rolling ("I'm going to pull back the placemat to reveal the knife she used to kill her husband, the one she destroyed in the furnace.") or at some point after the dice have been rolled ("Just as she almost breaks from my grasp, my tongue reaches out, nearly four feet long, to wrap around her throat, pull her back into the hot tub, and force her under the bubbling surface of the water.")

Wherever "Flesh/Voice/Imagination/Memory" appears in one of the outputs from a roll, it means the player chooses one of the four Aspects to increase by a point, not an increase to all four of them. And roleplaying subsequent to the dice roll establishes which one the player has chosen to increase.

Fetishizing

A player can claim an additional die for his pool by fetishizing his character during the events leading up to the roll. Fetishizing is revealing something the character has consciously and willfully done to exoticize himself. So, shockingly unusual make-up, offensive or transgressive apparel, extreme piercings, elaborate tattoos, the barely concealed scars of suicide attempts, artificially over-whitened teeth, and excessive or unsettling cosmetic surgeries, but also unusual physical or verbal mannerisms, and ritualized behaviors that help the character control his doubts or push the limits of his humanity, his conscience, or his sensations. It can, but need not be, something apparent or noticed by any other character in the game. What's important is the character is sending a message to self that he is something other than weak, something other than human.

The only restriction on claiming a die for fetishizing is that each fetish revelation must be more transgressive or monstrous than that which has been described in the character's previous scenes. So players are advised to start gradually. Don't have your character's very first scene be him starting his day by drinking from his bedridden mother's colostomy bag. You're going to struggle to top that.

The use of Power and Capacity

Wherever "Power" appears in a formula, the player having the scene can spend from his character's Power and/or his available Capacity to affect the target number as written in the formula (i.e. to benefit the character's likelihood of success). And any other player can spend Power to increase or decrease that target number. Power spent is lost, whether the roll is successful or not. This presumably drives the characters to perpetrate further horrors upon Nobodies and Victims. Capacity spent reduces available Capacity by being accrued as Used Capacity.

Managing Capacity

At any time, a player can spend from Power to reduce Used Capacity. And sometimes the output of a die roll will require this.

Dissolution

Not being able to pay down your Used Capacity when your failure calls upon you to do so results in a horrific and enduring adulteration of your identity. The player describes a dramatic or frightening betrayal of his own Flesh, Voice, Imagination, or Memory. Perhaps he remembers things that never happened to him, or his consciousness becomes inhabited by a lineage of dead rulers who clamor and compromise his identity.

Dissolution is the great horror of the stories of the player characters. The audience of players will watch the characters stake their identities and their essential humanity on a gamble for godhood.

Direction

Direction is the power to coach a player's roleplayed contribution to the outcome of a conflict. The player with Direction over a conflict outcome basically suggests what he'd like to see. The other players can negotiate, but the Director has authority to insist. And the rule is that the player who contributed the most Power to the roll has Direction over the outcome. If that's inconclusive, then the player who rolled the dice Directs if the character was successful, and the GM Directs if the character failed.

The Murder of Nobodies and Victims

A successful Resolution Against Nobodies or Resolution Against Victims can result in the death of the Nobody or Victim in question as long as the player makes it clear that that's what's at stake prior to the dice roll, and the Trait Count of the NPC is a prime number (1,2,3,5,7,11,13, etc.).

The Killing of Teachers, Rivals, and Underlings

Any success outcome against NPC Teachers, Rivals, and Underlings across the Resolution and Status Change formulas can be played as physical death, if that seems dramatically appropriate. But this death is only a state change. Barring creative block on the part of the players, the occultist NPC is never actually eliminated from potential use. So, possibly we see them again as undead or something.

The Destruction of True Oppugnants Death

Any time failure is determined by a die roll, and the Director is not the GM, he is empowered to say that the character gets his Lovecraftian comeuppance. The player whose character is lost will narrate the details, with the restriction that he absolutely cannot have a protagonizing ending for his character. The character can't be forgiven by one of his victims. These occultist characters have Lovecraftian endings. They're lost in extradimensional vortices, crushed by restless alien behemoths, turned to a pillar of salt by poorly controlled magic. And the character of the Director who makes this call gets a one point increase in Clarity.

The Director must keep track of how many true oppugnants (i.e. other player characters) he has destroyed in this manner.

The player whose character is lost will make up a new character, or assume control of one of the destroyed character's Underlings, and continue the game.

Readying the new character for play is a matter of the player dividing points equal to the amount of Power the destroyed character spent on the throw down with Ephactha on the final roll that produced the character's demise, or twelve points if fewer than twelve Power was spent, across the new character's Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity. The new character can have 0's wherever the player wishes, and should start with 1 point in Resistance, and 0's in Power, Capacity, and Used Capacity.

Washing Out

A character whose Clarity hits zero washes out of the tradition. The player makes up a new character by dividing twelve Power across the new character's Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, Clarity. The new character can have 0's wherever the player wishes, and should start with 1 point in Resistance, and 0's in Power, Capacity, and Used Capacity.

How Nobodies and Victims get Traits

Nobodies can be created at will by any player as part of framing a scene. Upon framing a new Nobody into a scene, the player specifies one or more Traits for the character. There is no upper limit on the number of Traits that can be assigned to a new Nobody by an occultist player, but the GM can only assign one Trait.

And the same holds true for previously created Nobodies. Occultist players have the option of adding multiple new Traits when framing them into scenes. The GM has the option of adding one new Trait.

Humanizing

When the resolution mechanics require a player to "humanize" a human (non-occultist) NPC, the player can choose any non-deceased Nobody or Victim and either a) resolve the scene with the player's character somehow mentally sympathizing with the human, or b) resolve the scene and then narrate a flashback or cut scene or something where the NPC does something truly human. Record the player's humanizing of the NPC as a single appropriate Trait.

"Humanizing" is one way that a non-occultist NPC acquires a Trait. And in the case of Humanizing, the first Trait assigned to the NPC is a name.

Derogation

When the resolution mechanics of successfully status changing a Nobody to a Victim require a player to "derogate" a human (non-occultist) NPC, this means the scene resolution must incorporate the player's character reviling a NPC (and not necessarily the one just made Victim) for some good quality or honest human failing. Record the player's humanizing of the NPC as a single appropriate Trait.

Derogation is another way an NPC acquires Traits. You must give at least one Trait when you Humanize or Derogate.

Advancement

Misanthrope

A player character begins the game as a Misanthrope, with the player rolling d6's d8's for everything but Ambition. For Ambition the player rolls d8's d6's.

Scourge

But when the lowest of your character's Aspects equals 4, he experiences a crisis of purpose. Your Underlings scatter. You extract your Manaster and install it in someone you choose as your spiritual progeny (an NPC who will be the only Underling you have until you convert more NPCs in the scenes to come). You choose either the Cosmic Path, or the Temporal Path, and going forward you're back to d6's d8's for Ambition, but now rolling d8's d6's for Rage.

The Temporal Path

A starting character is constrained by the same time and space limitations that normal people are. But upon advancing to Scourge, a character transcends those limitations in some capacity. If the player chooses the Temporal Path, then the character is no longer bound to a lifespan progressing forward in time from the start of game events. When scenes are framed for the character they can now be whenever and wherever, throughout history and unknowable prehistory, upon the planet Earth.

The Cosmic Path

If the player chooses the Cosmic Path, then the character is no longer bound to Earthly realms. So the infinity of extradimensional, extraplanetary, and dream realms are now available for the character's scenes. But until the character advances to Anathema, he still lives forward in time.

Anathema

And then again, when the lowest of your Aspects equals 7, you experience a second crisis of purpose. Your Underlings scatter. The whole range of time and space, extradimensional, extraplanetary, and dream realms are available for your scenes. And going forward you're back to d6's d8's for Rage, but now rolling d8's d6's for Clarity.

Player against player, and the availability of Victims

One facet of Acts of Evil is competition between the player character occultists. But with Misanthrope characters generally positioned in different times and places, rivalry between starting characters is generally limited. That is, unless two players choose the same time and realistic geographic proximity when they create their Misanthrope characters, their rivalries are limited to causing Teachers to take or send their characters to specific locations in time and space via successful Resolution Against Teachers rolls, and to spending Power into each other's scenes. But once one of the characters advances to Scourge, expect the competition to get particularly more brutal. Player characters will begin more aggressively killing each other's Victims, and having scenes to impose status changes on each other.

One facet of Acts of Evil is competition between the player character occultists. But with Misanthrope characters generally positioned in different times and places, rivalry between starting characters is generally limited to spending Power into each other's scenes. That is unless two players choose the same time and realistic geographic proximity when they create their Misanthrope characters, or until someone takes the Temporal Path.

Until then, the Victims an occultist has created are pretty well protected from the potentially murderous intentions of the other player characters. But once one of the characters advances to Scourge, expect the competition to get particularly more brutal. Player characters will begin killing each other's Victims, and taking the opportunity to have scenes with each other, and impose status changes on each other.

Player vs. player scenes are all one-sided dice rolling. The PC whose status is being changed can only defend by spending Power on his defense. And if your character is my Rival, and mine manages to make your an Underling, then your character is an Underling when I or the GM frames scenes for my character, and my character is a Teacher when you or the GM frames scenes for your character.

Godhood

Once you've advanced to Scourge Anathema, and it's your turn for a scene, the option to call for a throwdown with Ephactha is available. You'll roll Clarity against a target of Resistance minus Power. You cannot borrow Power from Capacity to affect the target number of this roll. It's banked Power only.

If you fail, you have a choice of two outcomes:

1. You are destroyed, and your identity is dissolved. You leave no lasting mark upon the universe or legacy, other than the pain you've created for those you've victimized. You continue to play the game via a dwindling resource pool of the Power you spent on your roll against the top fiend. When it's your turn, you can spend a point of this Power to either narrate a humanizing scene for a non-occultist Nobody or Victim, giving that NPC as many Traits as you wish, or to elevate the status of a Victim to Nobody. Your destruction unlocks the door to healing for those who'd been living in your shadow.

2. You are destroyed, and your identity is dissolved. Take the Power you spent on your roll against the top fiend and divide it across Flesh, Voice, Imagination, Memory, Ambition, Rage, and Clarity to create either a new character, or as stats for one of your former Underlings, who you'll play going forward.

If you succeed, congratulations. You have a choice of two outcomes:

3. You destroy the top fiend, and supplant him. You continue to play the game via a dwindling resource pool of the Power you spent on your roll against the top fiend. You can spend this pool into the scenes of the other players, when the conflicts allow for Power, introducing imagery specific to your character's identity. You can spend to either positively or negatively influence the outcomes. And the player's ultimate narration must incorporate the imagery you introduced. You've become a God who takes an active hand in the affairs of like-made zealots. But the Power you spend is not factored into determining who has Direction. (i.e. You cannot Direct.)

4. You destroy the top fiend, and physically supplant him, but your identity is also dissolved. Essentially, you become exactly what he was. You continue to play the game via a dwindling resource pool of the Power you spent on your roll against the top fiend. You can spend this pool into the scenes of the other players, when the conflicts allow for Power, but only to negatively influence the outcomes for the player characters, and with no payload of imagery. You've become a truly primal destructive force. But the Power you spend is factored in to who has Direction (which means you *can* call for characters to receive their final Lovecraftian comeuppance, and potentially end the game, from a position where retaliation is no longer a concern).

Ending the Game

So it's certainly possible for a character's godhood to be temporary and fleeting. The game doesn't end until the last of the initial player characters is destroyed. If that's before any player has confronted the top fiend, well, that's what happens. But to win the game, you have to successfully defeat Ephactha and then end the game by killing off whoever remains of the original group of player characters.

player strategy tips

In creating your character, recognize that a die pool of two dice, from an Aspect of 2, isn't better than rolling one die. When you roll one die there's no lower die to subtract. So two dice is actually worse. (This represents beginner occultists not initially being hampered by an awareness of limitations.)

Your Victims are an important resource. They're pretty well protected from the other player characters until someone advances to Scourge. But after that, they're vulnerable. When another character advances to Scourge, you want to have enough Power and available Capacity that you can deter the Scourge from killing your Victims with the threat of spending into one of his subsequent scenes so he fails, and then calling for his death.

If you're motivated to win, an important strategy is to strategically kill off most of the other player characters before you challenge Ephactha, leaving yourself maybe just one that you can focus on killing with your post-Ephactha Power battery (and thereby cement your triumph by ending the game at the pinnacle of horrific achievement).

Example of Play

Two players, David and Scott, and a GM. Their characters are Chase, and Noah, respectively. They are each newly initiated to an occult tradition devoted to aggressive and competitive personal pursuit of individual godhood.

The GM begins the session with David. Chase doesn't yet have any Underlings, Victims, or non-player Rivals, so David asks for a scene with a Teacher. The GM looks to his prepared notes and frames it. Several occult guys are having dinner, along with their underlings and wives and such, at a remote location. It's an ancient temple of some mesopotamian god that one of them has assumed as his residence and base of operations. The main chamber has been set up with a banquet table. These gatherings are all about status. (A big part of the game is the work of changing how you relate to others, and profiting mechanically from that change). Chase is at the gathering.

The majordomo of the occultist who owns the temple is a man named Antonio. He's a beefy and heavily tattooed Italian with teeth that that have been filed sharp. As an occultist himself, he is a Teacher to Chase. David decides that Chase wants to establish a different relationship. He wants to bring Antonio down to Rival status.

As Antonio gorges himself on a nauseating plate of raw pork and boiled grubs, demonstrating the extent to which he has transcended his own Flesh, Chase takes note of the prominently situated saltwater aquarium, and the live octopus within. The tank is a gratuitous material asset out here in the desert, and caring for it is one of Antonio's responsibilities. David decides that Chase will pull the 3lb. octopus from the tank and consume it alive.

In this case, Chase's goal is to change a Teacher to a Rival. He'll roll dice equal to his Clarity, plus any Power he chooses to spend. The opposing value is his Resistance, minus the total number of Underlings he has (whether they're in the scene or not). If he's successful, Antonio will be a Rival going forward, and Chase's Capacity will be increased by a point. Chase has no Underlings, so if he fails, one of his Aspects will be increased by a point. If he failed, but had Underlings, his Clarity would be increased.

The Aspect at stake is Flesh. David rolls Chase's Clarity, with his Resistance as the opposing value, and succeeds.

Having been successful, David increases Chase's Capacity by a point. [If he had failed, it would not have been for nought. He would have increased his Flesh.] He and the GM roleplay out the scene. The occultist hosting the gathering smiles weakly from the head of the table at seeing his majordomo brought down.

And the GM moves on to Scott. Like Chase, Noah doesn't yet have any Underlings, Victims, or non-player Rivals. But Scott decides to frame his own scene. And the GM tells him to frame it with a Nobody.

Scott describes an open air market in Calcutta. A woman tourist is trying to comfort a lost boy. She does not speak his language.

Noah is VP of International Sales for a European pharmaceutical company. Scott describes Noah's approach from out of the crowd and towards the woman. His otherwise crisp white cotton shirt is stained across the back with half dried blood and clinging underneath to fresh scars, but the woman can't see this. "Noah will calm the boy by speaking to him in fluent Hindi," says Scott, "and then he will speak to the woman in fluent French, convincing her that the boy is the son of his host."

That will be two rolls. And they're both Voice. The boy is a Nobody, so to calm him, Scott will roll a pool of dice equal to Noah's Ambition plus Voice, plus an additional die for describing the scars of Noah's masochism. The opposing Value is Noah's Resistance plus Used Capacity.

Scott rolls, is successful, and so he increases Noah's Power by one. He and the GM roleplay the scene. Noah crouches to the boy's eye level, tells him a goofy joke in Hindi, and tousles his hair when he smiles. Then he looks up at the woman and speaks in her father's voice. He tells her the boy is the son of his host here in Calcutta, and that everyone had become separated. He thanks her for looking after him.

Again, the roll is Noah's Ambition plus Voice, against his Resistance plus Used Capacity. Except this time he doesn't get the die for fetishizing.

And he fails the roll.

The consequence of failure here is an increase in Resistance, plus Scott has to narrate the dissolution of Noah's identity. That is, he has to narrate Noah's dramatic or frightening lack of control of his own Flesh, Voice, Imagination, or Memory.

Scott and the GM play out the scene. Noah's voice is that of the woman's father. And it speaks with all the man's knowledge. "Thank you for looking after the boy. My fear was that an older boy would corner him behind the garage. He is so innocent. He would carry scars from something like that for the rest of his life."

And the woman looks at Noah with horror. And screams.

And the GM moves on to another scene with David. The player requests a scene with a Teacher. And the GM frames right to a disagreement:

"The reason I haven't taught you how to quicken the bacteria is that you simply aren't ready! If your concentration were to slip, even for a moment, you would liquefy your brain!"

David decides this will be a Resolution, rather than a Status Change.

"Magister, I am afraid you have no choice. I have injected your beloved Gutata with virulent Salmonella enterica. She is peaceful now. But the snake will soon suffer and die. You will perform the quickening and I will watch. I have been patient. But I have no time for patience any longer!"

David will roll Chase's Clarity, vs. his Resistance. And he decides to borrow against his Capacity to spend a Power and reduce the Resistance by one. This gives him one point of Used Capacity. He rolls, and fails.

Besides playing out the failure, the mechanical consequence here is that David must spend a point of Power to pay down a point of Chase's Used Capacity. And he doesn't have the Power to spend. So he must instead "humanize" a human (non-occultist) NPC. This means either a) the scene resolution must incorporate Chase mentally sympathizing with a human, or b) the player must narrate a flashback or cut scene or something where despite consequences to self, a human (non-occultist) NPC does something good.

"My dear Chase, I have already neutralized the bacteria. That you never noticed proves you aren't ready to understand the quickening."

And David describes a memory that flashes upon Chase. As a younger man, he worked as an intern in the microbiology lab of an Egyptian hospital. And one afternoon the life-form he was trying to grow in a glass recepticle (from among other things, sea algae, corn starch, and his own semen) exploded. The head of the lab, one Dr. Chibale, despite knowing it was Chase's unsanctioned concoction that had exploded, and being quite injured himself, came and treated the aspiring occultist before tending to himself.

The first trait an NPC acquires when "humanized" is a name. Dr. Chibale is now a little harder to harm.

understanding Acts of Evil

As a game object, it's intended as a bait and switch. It baits the player with the promise of character intensity. "You are an occult badass. The world is your stepstool." And then it switches up on you, forcing you to acknowledge your victims, to understand their humanity (and by comparison, to recognize your own inhumanity).

To understand it, consider that allegorically the player characters are corporations (or corporate executives). They exploit the energy, dedication, and work of people, in service to their own corporate (and personal) wealth and status ambitions. And the people they interact with are merely objects to them, numbers on a spreadsheet, obstacles who frustratingly refuse to buy their crappy, overpriced widgets, or who pay off their credit cards every month, nobodies who don't work hard enough, and other drivers who don't get out of the goddamn way!

That was the design goal, anyway. I've said before that I consider My Life with Master to be a therapeutic game. It teaches that if you feel bad about yourself, you can free yourself from that by demonstrating how much you care about other people. My objective for Acts of Evil is just as therapeutic. I want it to teach people to see the humanity around them, despite cultural and media pressures that keep them from doing just that.

Whether I've achieved it, I don't know. But recognize that Capacity is allegorically like a credit limit, and Used Capacity is like debt. And take note that you can only get Power from normal humans, and that you can never use Power to harm humans, or to get them to give you more Power. The game says to the normal person that executives, politicians, celebrities, and predators wield no intangible power over you.

My hope for the game is that the irredeemable evil of the player characters is offset dramatically by the unforgettable stories of the Nobodies and Victims. Various aspects of the mechanics are intended to incentivize re-use of created NPCs, so stuff, and locations, might appear once or twice, but it's the player characters, and their Victims, Rivals, Teachers, etc., that deliver continuity. So in one scene, the player might be running through the rainforest with a Teacher to catch some bizarre creature, and in a later scene the Teacher might be a menacing and mummified business executive at a Beverly Hills social gathering. How that transition took place isn't necessarily described. It isn't important.

the nature of Ephactha

He exists during the silurian period of Earth's pre-history. He's actually a microorganism. In your dreams, he's enormous and Lovecraftian. In reality, he's the ultimate predator, a being who utterly dominates his environment through the expression of his undiluted will. He exists in a primordial soup under perpetual assault by billions of lesser microorganisms. He snuffs them with impunity. He does not sleep. The music you hear when you dream of him is actually the din produced by this infinite activity of slaughter.

Acknowledgements

Acts of Evil would not exist if Darrick Dishaw's Empire of Satanis hadn't got me thinking of gaming the pursuit of Lovecraftian godhood.
 
Victor Gijsbers' released Vampires: a postmodern roleplaying game during the early stages of Acts of Evil's development and knocked me back in my shoes. It too is a game in which the player characters are horrific fiends who fuel the pursuit of power and status by preying on innocents.

Vincent Baker, Matt Wilson, and Greg Stolze for playing in Acts of Evil's very first playtest at GenCon 2005. What a great group for a first playtest. Their disparate gaming sensibilities really pulled the game apart for me in the post game conversation.