An Endless Hunger: The Risen

Zombies.  They’re kind of a big deal right now.  Spanning from Dawn of the Dead to the Left 4 Dead franchise of video games to novels such as The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z, we really freaking love zombies.  And why not?  They’re good stuff, playing off of a lot of our emotions and a sense of weakness.  Death is scary enough, but the concept of coming back up out of the dirt and gnawing on everyone we hold dear is a troubling concept to say the least.

One thing that I think is really cool about zombies is that there is always a different twist on their origin.  In Dance of the Dead the zombies are up and shambling because of radiation before a bunch of high schoolers and the gym teacher take them out. In the Evil Dead franchise (counting deadites as zombies here, please refrain from any fan rage) they crawl out of the woodwork because of a demonic force tied to the Necronomicon and are put down by the best horror film hero ever.  The shamblers from Dawn of the Dead are caused by a pandemic before they start gnawing at their loved ones. In The Serpent and the Rainbow they’re up and moving from good ol’ fashion practical voodoo.

I could spend the rest of the blog post talking about different origins for zombies, including great movies like Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, Re-Animator, and Night of the Creeps. However, at this moment I think you get my point.

Zombies were going to be a challenge for HorrorScope, but I was all for it. Good thing I was, they were the ones that generated the most interest when I started talking up the game to my friends.  I went for a much more general approach from my initial design and started referring to them as the Risen.

Technically, Risen are an amalgam of several different Species that I was initially tossing around concepts for.  I didn’t want HorrorScope to get over-corpsed with a bunch of different takes on the walking dead, so I summed them all up into one Species and decided to allow the players to choose their origin by deciding on what sort of Patron Power they wanted.  My basic premise became “you’re a corpse, walking around…thus you are a Risen.”

The only thing I left out was Risen created by disease and rendered mindless.  I couldn’t see them being that much fun to play, but that’s just me.  I sequestered them away as the zombies that the Risen regard as “that guy”, a private little shame that’s better put back in the ground.  Zombie hordes are great for mob antagonists, but sitting at a table behind a pile of dice repeating  “Braaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnns” would have to get boring.  The Risen can think, the Risen can feel all of the sorrow and rage from a life lost.  In my mind, that makes them compelling and sympathetic. I also wanted to break away from the classic zombie horde mindset for Risen.  I wanted them to be badasses that could take one heck of a whooping before they went down.

For my initial offering of the game, I wrote up four different “breeds” of zombies.  Some are classics with a new twist, others are something completely new to really liven (no pun intended) up play.

The type of Risen I thought of first were the Altered.  On the most basic of levels you are a corpse (or several corpse pieces stitched together) that was brought back to life by science.  Either intentionally or not, you are sort of a weaponized cadaver.  Altered were inspired by movies such as Frankenstein and Re-Animator.

Next up came Rage. Usually victims themselves, Rage Risen felt all of the anger that death has to offer and it denied them their dirt nap.  Fixated on vengeance, justice, or whatever they choose to call it; Rage Risen are cursed to walk again until their work is done. Or until they’re put down for good. These bad boys were inspired by the movie Shallow Ground.

Playing directly off of Rage, I came up with Judges.  Just like those Raging corpses, they experienced all of the anger and sorrow of death, whether or not it was for a good cause.  Unlike the Ragers, Judges learned from that raw emotion found in the moment of death. Now they’re walking again, more saints than monsters, trying to spare others from the fate they suffered.

The final Risen came straight from old school myth and lore: the Bewitched.  I knew that I wanted to do a take on Witches that was at least partially inspired by  voodoo, and the Bewitched are their victims.  Bewitched Risen come back from the grave because they themselves were killed by nefarious magics, stuff so dark that it denies even the victim access to the afterlife.  Or that’s at least what the Bewitched like to think.

That’s it for the Risen right now, but we’re sure to be back on the topic as the game continues to evolve.  Make sure to drop by our Facebook fan here: http://tinyurl.com/6rpr5m8 and drop a Like if you..well… like what you’re seeing of HorrorScope.  Until next time, keep it scary kids.

Vampires, Part 1

Since approximately the 15th century, the myth of the Vampire has existed.  Leeches have been depicted in a variety of ways: from bloodthirsty slaughter-mongers to creatures of intrigue, seduction, and deception. Unfortunately, it gets a bit stale for me after a while.

True story: I freaking detest Vampires.  Always have.  I’m much more of a “stake ’em and bake ’em” kind of fella.

I think I used that to make them the way they turned out for HorrorScope.  Surprisingly at the end of their Species design and halfway through writing their Patron Powers, I leaned back and realized that I actually would want to play a Vampire.  That says a lot to me.  Did I mention that I hate Vampires?

The goal was to let the players do whatever they want.  I you want to go all 30 Days of Night on your Director, go for it.  If you’re more interested in an Interview with a Vampire sort of theme, more power to you.  You don’t sparkle, though.  There is no room for sparkle Vampires in HorrorScope.  That’s an actual rule, you’ll eventually be able to check that in the Blasphemous Biology section. I’m serious.

I have to give some credit to The Deadliest Warrior for the direction I took with Vampires.  As I was typing away one night I saw that they were basically doing a Halloween themed episode that would pit Vampires against zombies.  Don’t worry, people interested in the Risen and saw that episode, they’re not nearly as toolish as the zombies presented in the show.

Back on track.

One of the “facts” presented in the show is that it would be very difficult for a creature such as a Vampire to feed on the blood of the living if they only had one pair of fangs to try and tap a vein.  Granted, the jugular is a pretty big thing, but imagine trying to catch it just right with your incisors and then drain from it.  I like the creepy aspect of a more shark toothed killer look, but thought that might be a bit much, especially since my Vampires have retractable fangs unless they take a very specific Bane.  I opted to meet the two designs in the middle, also considering that  both existing designs are all over the place in popular fiction.  So, my Vamps have six fangs: two pair up top and one on the  bottom. In my mind it presents a higher likelihood that they’ll catch a vein without looking like a human personification of the villain from Finding Nemo.

With the rest of what myth had to offer, I had to pick and choose what I wanted to be “token Vampire traits” and what was more appropriate for optional ones.  It really wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.  The two biggest ones were the sun and the stake, which I felt best summed up Vampire weaknesses.  The sun burns you, Fangsly, and it burns you bad.  Now stakes, on the other hand, I figured that just about anything piercing the heart will do the trick.  No need to bust up the good kitchen chairs. Other popular myths I kept optional: some Vampires are allergic to garlic while others can’t see their own reflections.  Some can’t cross intersections or running water, can you imagine how much that would actually suck?  Seriously, city planning is greatest weakness?

We’ll be back to talk about Vampires in an upcoming post: possibly focusing more on their society, powers, and place in the supernatural community.  Until then, keep it scary kids.

Just for Fun…

I thought it would be fun to look away from what’s happening in HorrorScope and to look at what has happened with HorrorScope.  It’s still weird for me, frankly, when I pull up my work and see triple-digit pages for this monster I started only a few months ago.  I’ve even knocked out a play test and showed it off at Metatopia.

 

What?

 

This whole thing just happened.  Maybe it was the mix of a few drinks and a bad horror movie that fateful night, but it just freaking happened and kept happening. 

 

Since it’s still in progress and my “real person” job is preventing me from making much headway on HorrorScope right now; I’m giving you a little snippet of the actual game information in its present state, starting with the very first section on the first text page.

 

**I would like to stress that this is a raw version of the text from the Real Ultimate Hard Alpha Edition of HorrorScope.  The text as it is presented may change as we move through edits, etc**

 

“For centuries, we’ve all danced around the truth.   The one simple fact that either condemns or saves our quaint little ball of dirt that floats through the infinity of space.

“Monsters” are goddamn real and we’re only one step away from a horror movie every day we breath (or not.)

The vamps were the first to out themselves, but not long after all of the other things that humanity thought they made up started crawling out of the woodwork.  Cause and effect were simple to determine after that. Monsters are real, monsters get taxed and beat up just like any other controversial minority. Monsters get segregated, monsters get sympathizers. Both sides find themselves in a worse spot than they were before.

The Far Right pushes harder than ever to cultivate the fear of the people to further its own agenda. The Far Left falls before the newest constituents in need of help and gets played for a fool by the more savvy of predators.  The bleeding hearts and the iron fists put us all in this hole, there was no room for shades of gray anymore.  The world is in fear, and forAmericathat’s where president Benedict Harper comes in.

His policies are hard,Americais now stuck between 1984 and 1950.  Other countries are quick to follow suit. Good job leeches, you’ve made it harder to be different than ever before.

Horror Scope is a d6 driven game that can take any face you like. If you want to run a game of vastly different creatures just trying to survive, it’s here. If you want a game of heavy role play and political intrigue, it’s here. If you want to create a bloodfest that rivals your favorite grindhouse or B movie, we’ve got that too. You only have one goal in Horror Scope: survive what the Director has in store for you.”

 

My goal is simple as I’m crafting and writing this game.  I want to give you the rules and setting to make the greatest horror movie of your dreams come to (un)life with pencils and dice.  What you and the Director do with it after that is limited only by how twisted your head is.  In the last few months, I have learned a lot more about independent gaming.  The big rule that sticks out to me since I’ve been exposed to the community is this: make it fun and make it interesting.  Granted, that fits my agenda from day one; but it was great to see that I wasn’t just my stance on it. 

 

Speaking of community, check out http://revelationsrpg.wordpress.com for a very different take on the supernatural.  I met these guys at Metatopia, they’re good guys with a great game concept.

 

As for me, I’ll see you guys when my next blog post crosses over to the other side.  Keep it scary kids.

 

-Vex

Metatopia 2011

I survived. Not only that, I walked away from Metatopia feeling like I nailed it.

Scratch that, I staked it.

I went to this convention expecting to tirelessly run HorrorScope and attend lecture after lecture. When I reached what is referred to as the “Big Board”, a staple at Vincent’s conventions, I have to admit that I was bummed out. I signed up for six total play slots, partially because of the importance of the number in HorrorScope but mostly due to the fact that I was one of the new guys on the block and wanted to get my name out. My first slot was completely empty, giving me unexpected free time to roam the convention and see what it was about. My second slot was immediately after and had a decent amount of players. As I reviewed the rest of the Big Board, I found that I would be running 1 game per day rather than the expected 2. Thankfully, those slots were all full.

That’s a trade that I’ll take.

I went from being very nervous to completely comfortable quickly. I ran into friends that I had not seen in years, rapidly made new contacts, and went from feeling awkward to right at home. At the end of the convention, I felt like a rock star and an old member of the convention’s core attenders. The sense of community was amazing, I was able to strike up conversations with the other attendees and by the end of it felt like I was talking to old friends.

If you are a gamer or game designer on the East Coast, check out http://www.dexposure.com/events.html for a listing of other events run by Vincent. He runs the tightest convention I have ever encountered and is incredibly professional while personal. He recognized my name immediately, that’s a big deal for a new designer who was completely unknown walking into the hotel. No one was left to the side or ignored, it was simply incredible.

The Features I ran went brilliantly, and that was because of the players. There was energy, interest, and so much fun at each table that I never once felt like I was actually “working.” The survey that I distributed for each Feature got no negative feedback. That is HUGE, I was Directing for a spread of players that come from all angles of the gaming community, from designer to complete new guys. They provided me with very useful information that I can only use to make HorrorScope better. More importantly, they had fun.

I attended several very interesting lectures that enhanced my understanding of the actual business behind independent gaming. Maybe we’ll come back to them in another blog post.

The coolest thing? Well, beyond feeling like a golden god of roleplaying ROCK and the sense of community. The coolest thing was that I got to play in some up and coming games myself, which I had not budgeted my time out for previously. My empty slots were a blessing, affording me the time to experience new games and give the designers the same quality of feedback that I was looking for. Out of respect for the creators, I’ll tell you the games that I was privileged to attend, but I’m not spoiling the actual contents of the game. Here they are, in no particular order:

“House of Cards”: My first game as a player. It was fantastic! It was like taking a wander through the greatest minds behind modern fantasy films and novels.

“Revelations”: Holy crap, this game really impressed me! It was everything I love in fiction and comics wrapped up into one game that requires only percentile dice to play. The game was an amazing fusion of B.P.R.D. and Hellboy crossed with End of Days, but even that description falls short of the experience.

“Satellite of Love”: I can’t say enough about this game, which is bad because I signed a “Disclosure Agreement” that stated that I had to talk about it as much as possible if I liked it. Playing it seemed strange at first, because I was not used to the level of freedom provided by the way it is run. It was great, fantastic, a very self aware blockbuster with the loopiest of action. It was like playing the most bizarre comic I had ever read.

“Lexicons of Dueling”: A card game presented by a very good friend of mine, I walked into this unsure of how I would feel about it. I can’t tell you anything about the game except it’s awesome and a great fusion of chance and strategy.

Metatopia was a brilliant convention, filled with opportunities to outsource and delve into the gaming market. I cannot wait to go to the next DOUBLE EXPOSURE event.

Playtest 1 is a wrap!

Well folks, I survived my very first playtest! I must admit, I was pretty intimidated by my first group; because there were EIGHT players. I don’t even run established games for that many, so I was sweating bullets when the time came to start up. The test consisted of friends who are very well established players and storytellers themselves, some of the best of the best among my peer group.

My tension was off the charts. This was the first time that dice were to be dropped in a system that I created. If it sucked, it was all on me. No pressure or anything. This was the first time that I was facing real feedback on the quality of my potential product.

I wanted this to be a complete playtest, so I took my players through character creation first. Despite the amount of players, I have to say that it went pretty quickly. Insert first sigh of relief. This Feature was called Real Ultimate Hard Alpha 1, the only requirement was that their characters were monsters. They produced a pretty varied cast, nobody had Powers that overlapped another. They gave me:

Three Risen
Two Vampires
Two Shifters
One Witch

A fantastic spread of the Species available. The Risen seem to be the most popular of the present Species.

I ran them through my monster only Feature that I’ll be running at Metatopia and included the new(ish) Madness mechanic. It was combat heavy, the players were all victims of profiling and shoved into a prison. There was no allusion of fair treatment and it was clear pretty quickly that something was afoot with the local authorities. They did what any reasonable crew of monsters would; break out and fight like Hell.

Their escape was a multiple stage affair and they figured out quickly that there was more to their enemies than initially thought. In short, the foes weren’t human and had Powers that none of them could identify from among the other Species. The fight turned bloody quick, combat came out exactly like I wanted it to. It was fast, easy, and deadly as sin. Insert second sigh of relief.

The polling portion of the playtest immediately followed the Feature and they were able to provide me with some astounding feedback. I got to know what they liked and disliked about the game in it’s present state. We even discussed the excesses and shortcomings of it to be worked on.

All in all, it was a very rewarding experience. I cannot say “thank you” enough to the testers that took a good chunk of hours out of their Saturday to try out my game in its roughest form.

Building a Better Monster?

HorrorScope gets more exciting every time I work on it. What’s even more exciting is seeing something that I’ve written moving through the Alpha phase and steadily approaching Beta. I never thought I would be in the place I am right now. This Saturday, October 15th, I’m hosting my first play test among my gamer friends. While I am excited, there’s a latent worry that HorrorScope won’t roll as well as I want it to.

A big worry, actually, since I’m signed on to demo it on November 4th at Metatopia.

If you haven’t heard of Metatopia, it’s a pretty new convention that turns the tables. The players pay a pretty low rate to attend and try out any game they want. How cool is that? It’s in Morristown, New Jersey, which is pretty dang close to good ol’ Vex. So, fingers crossed and crosses up! I’ll be there. If you attend, drop by my table and toss down some dice!

Away from that, HorrorScope has evolved from my initial vision of it. Originally the system was based around rolling a fist full of six sided dice and praying. Now there are specialized dice rolls and legitimate combat maneuvers. More importantly, I’ve started the rules that really let you make it your own game.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff that has me the most excited is meta-plot related. Can’t have that coming out before the game. A cool feature that Rayne and I are pretty proud of is the Build a Better Monster! section.

I want this game to be open ended, limited only by the creativity of the players and Director. Rules for it were deliberately built in to powers and the like. I have five definite Species that are in the core rules for right now, with a sixth in the works. Of course, if the game gets off the ground we have multiple others in the think tank. If this game is about options and creativity, I feel that I would be cheating the players and Directors if it wasn’t there.

Thus, Build a Better Monster! which gives players and Director’s the freedom to create their latest and creatures to mix up their Features.

We’ll see how it rolls out this weekend and at Metatopia. Stay tuned for more updates!

Reinventing the Stake

“Write what you know.” It’s an old saying that pretty much any neonate writer is told before they pick up the pen or start plugging away at a keyboard. Recently I thought, “Vex what do you know? What do you love so much that you could possibly produce something notable?”

Obviously, comics is a big one. Insurgents is going to happen, just not right now. So set that to the side.

“What does that leave?”

Horror movies, tabletop gaming, and punk rock are the big three. In that I found my answer for the next project. It came in a flash and kept on burning. HorrorScope.

At least that’s the working title of the game. A massive monsterfest that is inspired by the political minded punk I love and every scene from all of the horror media I take in.
I know games exist that allow you to play vampires, zombies, and the like; but none of them have that really gritty b-movie/grindhouse feel. I want that. I want to play that and let others do the same.

“But how do I make something like this stand out in the supernatural saturation of the media these day?”

I’ve got to reinvent the stake. Dig up the classic roots that all of the monsters we love originate from. Hopefully in the process resurrect some old favorites that don’t get as much screen time these days. Bring them back and force them to fear.

Because let’s face it, in the scenario where you’re playing a monster with crazy powers nothing is really scary.

Unless you humanize that creature dug up from myth.

Put them in that most human scenario, one that the X-Men comics I adored as a teenager showcased. The same scenario of segregation and oppression that history classes taught in high school. The fight for the right to be treated equally.

Most of us will fight change rather than accept it. Imagine how bad the lash back would be if monsters “came out” to humanity. Now multiply that reaction a dozen times over and you have an understanding of the setting I’m trying to give life to.

Just like any other subculture struggling for acceptance, it becomes a scary time where people will naturally polarize to sides more in tune with their beliefs. It’s going to be a fight for rights.