(This post has been rated 15 for language. And C-, must try harder, for content).

So, in a sleep deprived state, and somewhat pleased (though not totally satisfied) from the previous nights play, I went browsing through the resources and came up to kill puppies for satan.

I keep meaning to buy this, Vincent, but my damn kids want feeding again this week...

Reading through the actual play threads, one recurrent theme was "We were coming up with totally sick shit, but felt strangely okay with this..."

It will doubtless surprise no-one that I have a theory as to why.

The characters in kpfs are, expressly, the most pathetic losers available. Their lives have no purpose beyond random acts of violence, barely justified by a dysfunctional, possibly delusional value system. For fecksake, they worship satan because, although he despises them, he may actually pay them some attention, unlike any one else apart from the circle of losers that form the "party."

They are whiny, irritating individuals, never taking responsibility, emotionally scarred and bankrupt. They don't even have anti-heroic nobility of purpose or methods. In order to do sick shit, they kill puppies.

My point (thanks for hanging in there) is that you cannot sympathise with these characters, you can barely empathise with them. Most importantly, you cannot identify with them. Unless you're cat piss man, in which case you probably won't ever play kpfs, I'm guessing.

You know what this means? Character actions & consequences are no longer your moral responsibility. You don't have to worry about content "revealing your inner self". Dude, check the name of the game.

As I tried to put in my Chimera article, this is enormously liberating for creativity. Let's face it, worrying that you're the only sick puppy at the table and will get found out if you play your character that way can really make a guy freeze up.

But when you start with the game being called "kill puppies for satan..." well, you think you're being invited to ironically deconstruct this shit? Or put your balls on the line and show that you can protagonise a sick bastard with no hope of redemption, and you're sane enough to know it's not really you?

As Olivier said to Hoffman "It's called acting. You may want to try it, dear boy."

But equally, it's writing, it's improv, it's the pure creation of drama without worrying about what the content is "really saying about you."

It's why people find it liberating, because they are now no longer responsible for the contents of their minds (you know, all that crap that leaked in from bad movies, msnbc, talk radio, that guy in college who just wouldn't shut up... oh, hang on, that was me, man, put the golf club down...)

And when you realise that you don't have to be responsible for the contents of your mind, you can start raiding it like the biggest toy cupboard in the world.

You know what a few random comments put into my mind today? Flatulent Jazz Jedi. Now I gotta play a game of Star Wars with a GM with low standards, or write even more bad fanfic.

Over on B3ta.com, they call this "Mind Piss;" as in "I had this mind piss clogging my head up, so I had to get it out." You know what they do with it? They make photoshop art out of it. funny, and a more valid artform than the BritArt movement (DISCUSS).

kill puppies for satan: it's a role playing colostomy bag for your mindpiss. Relieve yourself today!

pete_darby wrote: kill puppies for satan: it's a role playing colostomy bag for your mindpiss. Relieve yourself today!

Probably explains Grand Theft Auto's popularity somewhat too. Ah, the joys of jacking a car simply because you can't be bothered walking a single block.

Sorry, slightly off topic.

Hello,

My review of kill puppies for satan addresses some of this issue. My call, and Vincent turns out to have been onto this all along (clever bastard), is that players must sit in judgment upon their characters ... and oddly enough, in the long run are often inclined to show them mercy, in full knowledge that it's true mercy toward someone who emphatically does not deserve it.

You mean it's a (gasp) sort of ... Christian game?

Uh-huh.

Best,
Ron

Hm. That opens up a whole can of worms when you consider.. No one who does not know every aspect of you is truly qualified to judge you. In the Christian belief frame (to which I am a subscriber) that means only God. In roleplaying, however.. That means the creator of the character. In this instance, each player would take on the role of a personal God for their individual character.

Ack. I better stop now before I actually start thinking about this. ::grins::

Thing is, if you start taking responsibility for the actions of your character, in order to live with yourself you have to a) forgive them their previous actions, and b) remove them from the game.

But also note that the encouragement throughout the game is for all players to co-operate on creating the actions of the game universe towards them; ultimately, the players are the universe, or god, who has created imperfect beings in a hostile universe, who is, lets face it, laughing at how pathetic they are. Now, I can get my yucks doing that as long as the next guy, I'm a real bastard to my Sims frex, but by placing it in the social context of an RPG, you get to the point of being uncomfortable with, not what the PC's are doing, but what the game universe, created and run by the players for their own amusement, is doing to the PC's.

Hence the forgiveness... "I forgive you, my creation, for being what I made you." Gee, that's big of you...

Ron... isn't the rebelling of the creation at this kind of treatment at the heart of the Thed story you reported on in Chimera?

Also... no, it's not like GTA. The pleasures of GTA are in wallowing in cathartic simulation of amoral behaviour, not in freeing your creative side from the responsibility for it's content. It says on this cornflakes packet.

Ron wrote: You mean it's a (gasp) sort of ... Christian game?

Uh-huh.

Hello,

That's why I think 'puppies is necessarily best played across multiple sessions. It has nothing to do with ease or depth (ha!) of prep, or of the effort and time it takes to resolve scenes. It has everything to do with permitting some reflection about play,

It also has to do with people actually investing a substantial portion of their time into the play-experience. In other words, an hour is only an hour, but two sessions in two weeks is two weeks.

Best,
Ron

lumpley wrote: One of the demos I ran, though, we reached The Line. I was running for these two guys who were friends. We were all going oog and laughing and somebody did the next atrocious thing, and it got ... really interesting.

My call, and Vincent turns out to have been onto this all along (clever bastard), is that players must sit in judgment upon their characters.

Hi Matt,

I touch my nose to you.

In dogs, the message would depend on what body part of yours my nose is touching.

In humans, fortunately, it means I touch my own nose and thereby indicate that you are completely and fully correct, as I see it.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: My call, and Vincent turns out to have been onto this all along (clever bastard), is that players must sit in judgment upon their characters ... and oddly enough, in the long run are often inclined to show them mercy, in full knowledge that it's true mercy toward someone who emphatically does not deserve it.

You mean it's a (gasp) sort of ... Christian game?

pete_darby wrote: *snip*
Also... no, it's not like GTA. The pleasures of GTA are in wallowing in cathartic simulation of amoral behaviour, not in freeing your creative side from the responsibility for it's content. It says on this cornflakes packet.

But if it only rewards "immoral" choices, where's the incentive to act nice? Virtue as it's own reward?

kpfs creates a system & colour where the players are actively involved in creating "damaged people", rewarding the group for having them behave immorally, then further reward them for punishing the characters. That it pushes players to the point of self awareness where they fell compelled to break the abusive cycle the game creates is a testament to the strength of the design.

But this is off topic: GTA isn't an RPG, it's a (very well designed, revolutionary in it's own way) video game, with few of the qualities that make RPG's especially interesting to me for purposese of freeing creativity, and, I still think, it's more about catharsis than premise.

Ron Edwards wrote: You mean it's a (gasp) sort of ... Christian game?

Uh-huh.

Best,
Ron

Hi there,

I think it's important to recognize that Evil in kill puppies for satan is not a reward system - it's a hamster running-wheel. It doesn't take people long to figure out that gaining more Evil really just lands the characters into worse and worse situations, and that spending the Evil to get out of those situations results in a net loss.

The only reward system available in the game comes from considering the character's ultimate fate, and what would be most satisfying to see happen.

Typical progression: (1) "Boy, I'd like to see this little schnook get repeatedly beaten, just for starters;" to (2) "Jeez, he can't win for losing, can he?" to (3) "Aw for criminy's sake, let him have his [birthday party, black-light poster, mother's underwear, etc]."

Best,
Ron

P.S. Pete, I can't tell at all what point you're making with the references to GTA. If it's off-topic, can we drop it for this thread and take it elsewhere, with a full explanation?

This thread just sold (at least one) copy of this game. A paypal payment is on its way. I desperately need this experience.

I plan to show it to my therapist as well. (Now, you might wonder about that comment out of context, but my therapist was Gary Gygax's co-DM for Vault of the Drow at its initial GenCon run.)

You should show him this thread too.

I consider the GTA subject to be off topic: If Noon wants to get it running, I'd be happy to take that up elsewhere.

As goes my original observation, I consider that Ron's first and second stages are most "creatively freeing," given that you've got the "out" of the system, setting, etc to evade responsibility for your imagination, a responsibility that, paradoxically, returns with stage 3.

I just boggled myself with a realisation that this aspect of kpfs ("characters as puppets of a cruel demi-urge") has interesting parallels with GK Chesterton's Man Who was Thursday: a nightmare.... but that's definitely off topic, though no less interesting.