It's from a Lovecraft story, but I forget the exact quote and I can't be arsed to look it up.
The Game: Dark Aeons: The Atlantean Chronicles
The Publisher: Stardust Publications
Degree of Familiarity: None. I...well, I'll explain below.
Books Required: Just the core. I have a print copy and the most recent pdf version, courtesy of Drive-Thru RPG.
So, I was on RPG.Net one day, and someone is asking for folks to run
Dark Aeons
at Origins this year. I'm a free agent now, as you know. I have no work
from WW, and while I might run something WoD-related at cons this year,
it's just as likely that I'll stick to
Don't Rest Your Head and other games that don't require huge, heavy books. So I figure, what the heck, I'll ping these guys.
They're
very cool, first of all. The guy I talked to was very communicative,
and sent me coupons for pretty much everything for the game line, as
well as a code to buy the game cheap off Lulu, which I did. And then I
started reading it.
I'm not saying it's a horrible game. I'd play it, no problem. But a few things jump out:
1)
Man, the editing. I mean, people bitch about WW games, sometimes for
good reason, but someone really needs to take a weed-whacker to this
verbiage. Lots of weak constructions ("Most if not all," "There are,"
etc.), lots of roundabout phrasing, and lots of mistakes in punctuation
and grammar. Run-ons, fragments, etc. It doesn't make for smooth
reading.
2) And the book ain't short. The history chapter alone
is close to 100 pages, and it's...lengthy. Admittedly, you're talking
about a game that goes from the city of Atlantis to modern days, but
it's not elegantly written and it feels like an explanation of someone's
homebrew given in the back of a gaming store. At no point while reading
the history did I think, "Ooh, awesome, how evocative, I totally want
to be part of this universe." What I was thinking was, "Holy shit how
many more pages before I get to the
birth of Christ?"
3) Character creation. See below.
So, in short, I
had
agreed to run it. I still might. But I think what I may do first is
make this character, and maybe see if I can set up a playtest before I
commit. I only get one Origins a year, and I don't want to burn my
Saturday afternoon running a game that I don't like. That's not fair to
me, the company or the players of said game.
Anyhow, moving on to
chargen. The basic setup here is that there was a huge civilization in
Atlantis, it went to war with other civilizations, vampires became
involved, so did the Great Old Ones (yeah,
those Great Old Ones), and now there are Houses of Atlanteans and they're doing...something in the modern day. Hang on.
You know, reading this game, I'm struck by two things. First, there is almost no information about how to run
this game. There's a section on running games, getting the group together, making NPCs, which is nice, but how you would run a game of
Dark Aeons
isn't spelled out very well. Second, the structure of the book, even
the order in which advice is presented, is almost identical to any OWoD
book you care to name. Specifically, the GM section reminds me a lot of
the old
Mage: The Ascension Storytellers Guide.
Cracking
open the pdf for the Arkham sourcebook, there's a sample adventure,
which looks to be basically WoD/CoC with a lot of weird, kitchen-sink
horror/fantasy tropes thrown in. Oh, and here's a little excerpt:
It
was also during these years that the legend of the Goatman of the
Miskatonic Valley began surfacing; this creature was reputed to abduct
travelers along the roads never to be seen again.See what I mean about the editing?
Anyway,
assuming we're going modern horror with all of this massive backstory
including psychics, vampires, zombies, Cthulhu and so on, we move to
Step One: Choose Persona Template.
Now,
"Template" includes things like "Sorcerer" and "Deader" and
"Faux-Blooded" and everything else you can think of (actually, I didn't
see lycanthrope). OK, here's some really bad game design. Some of these
Templates overlap, so you can play, say, an Atlantean who died and came
back as a Deader. There's a chart, but it's not real helpful. From the
core book:
Other Persona Templates do not allow for overlaps, the
easiest way to be sure of what is allowable and what isn't allowable is
to fully read through the descriptions of the required Advantages and
Disadvantages for the Persona Template. The Persona
Templates are described in Chapter Two. Advantages and Disadvantages are
in Chapter Four. Character Creation is Chapter Three. Why'd I do this
again?
OK. Let's go to Chapter Two and look at Templates. I know I
don't want to play an Atlantean because that would involve reading the
Houses and that's more work than I need.
I shall create a
Psychic. True Atlanteans are psychic by default (it looks like), but
these are normal humans with some psychic talent. I envision a character
in the vein of the tortured artists of
Call of Cthulhu, dreaming of monsters and slowly going nuts. This game is modern day, and since I don't know a setting I'll assume Arkham.
My character's name is Ryan Pickman (yes, he's a descendant of
that Pickman). Like his great-granduncle, he's an artist, but while the original
Pickman
was a painter, Ryan is a sculptor. He found one of Richard Pickman's
sketchbooks and, haunted by the images therein, started sculpting them.
And from there, the dreams started.
OK, moving on to
Step Two: Occupational Skill Set.
By the way, my pdf disables c/p, or I'd totally be giving you little
gems from the core book. Anyway, the Entertainer Skill Set sounds the
most appropriate, so I get 1 in the following Skills: Academics, Arts,
Persuasion, Social Grace, and Style. Sounds OK.
Step Three: Personality Traits.
I pick three from a list. Hmm. I take Absent-Minded; Ryan, like many
artists, doesn't remember the outside world once he gets going. But I
take Extraspective, too (that's not a word, but whatever, it's in here):
He remembers and notices everything around him. It's just that if it's
not
right near him (like, say, a birthday or an appointment or something
abstract like that) he forgets it. And finally, I'll take Curious,
because if he weren't he'd never have opened that sketchbook.
I skip
Step Four because I'm not an Atlantean.
Step Five: Spending Your Study Points.
I'm assuming I'm an average Persona, which is 100 points. I have to
spend 10 for every Psychic Talent I want, which means I need to look
into what those are. And then I buy other shit like Attributes and
Skills. Hmm. Well, let's do the Psychic stuff first.
Oh, wait,
actually the book recommends I do Attributes first. OK, whatever. Let's
do that. Attributes cost "new rank x2" to raise with Study Points, and
the Attributes are:
Agility
Appearance
Brawn
Intellect
Psyche
Vitality
Well, as an artist, I think Agility, Appearance and Intellect, maybe? Wait, what's Psyche? OK, just like in
Marvel,
it's mental strength. That doesn't necessarily need to be high; I can
be a fragile Psychic. It's in-theme, even. OK, bumping an Attribute to 4
would cost 18 of my points, which is almost 1/5. Screw that. I'll put
Agility at 3 (10 points), Appearance at 3 (10 points) and Intellect at 4
(18 points) and leave the rest at one, for now.
OK, more bad
design: Step Five is listed as "Spend Study Points," but then Steps Six,
Seven and Eight are "Buy Attributes, Advantages and Skills,"
respectively. WTF?
Since I did Attributes, let's do Advantages. I
need Psychic Talent, obviously. I get a new talent for every time I buy
it, so let's see. I think I want Astral Projection; I like the idea of
him being a dream-traveler. Let's see if anything else jumps out at me.
Oh,
look, aura projection includes a list of colors and what they mean.
Where have I seen that before? Anyway, I think Astral Projection and
Phantasm sound good. Phantasm lets me project illusions into people's
minds, which combined with Uncle Richard's sketchbook could get nasty.
That's 20 points on Advantages so far, or 58 total.
I'll buy
Artistic Ability for 2 points. And there are a lot more, most of which
have a familiar ring to them (especially if you've read, say, any WW
book with Merits and Flaws). But then we get into Combat
Merits Advantages with names like "Die Muthafucka Die!" Sigh, muthafucka, sigh.
Anyway.
None of the other Advantages look appealing. I'd like to take something
to represent my sketchbook from Pickman, but maybe I can buy a Skill to
justify that.
Disadvantages: Oh, wait, look, you
can be a
werewolf! Tempting, but no. You know, screw it. I'll take Deaf. Ryan
suffered a meningeal infection when he was a baby that robbed him of his
hearing. He's learned to sign and he can speak a little, but his world
is silent. When he dreams, though (like,
dreams) he can hear...he just wishes he couldn't.
OK, one little grouse: There's a disadvantage called "skeptic". I'll type it:
The Persona believes in the laws of science, they believe [sic] is so much that they deny that the supernatural exists at all. That isn't what fucking "skeptic" means, people.
Arrgh. And, look, we also have Madness Disadvantages, including
Dissociative Identify Disorder and Gender Identity Disorder. No, thanks.
I think I'm done with Disadvantages. I'm at 60, minus 6 for Deaf puts
me at 54 spent.
Now Skills. I already have 1 point in the
occupational skills I picked up earlier. I suppose I need to buy up my
Psychic Skills, too. Jesus, this is more annoying than Palladium. OK, I
automatically gain one rank in the Skills needed for the Psychic stuff I
took, which means I get one in Broadcasting and one in Control. I'll
boost those to three each, which sets me back 10 (64 spent).
For
my other skills, I know I want Arts at 4, so that costs me 9 (73
spent). Wait, hang on. Actually, I want Arts at a level that makes me a
skilled artist, but 4 is like, grade-school. OK, that's bad design,
guys, but whatever. If I want my Arts at 7, that costs me 27, not 9,
which means I've spent 91. Wow. I'll buy Social Grace up to 2, that
leaves me with 7 points left. I'll spend four of those to buy Psyche up
to 2, and the remaining 3 to buy the first two levels of the
Craftsmanship Skill.
100 points isn't nearly enough to simulate
what characters should be able to do. Or maybe "Average Persona" means
"grade-schooler," I don't know. All I know is that I'm fucking tired and
I want to be done with this.
Right, moving on to Derived
Traits: Charm is 3, Life Force starts at 9, Mental Stability at 90.
Psionics starts at 3, which is important because I use that to do my
psychic stuff. Toughness is...weird. It's Brawn + Vitality divided by 3,
which is less than one, and since we round down I assume it starts at
zero. I ain't real tough. I fill in my movement rates and the other
derived shit and I'm done. No questions about the character or concept
or anything.
You know, I think Ryan is an interesting character, but I'd have to make him up in a better system. Con X might work.
