Um. Sure, why the fuck not.
...actually, that album came out the same year as this RPG, 2007.
Poison'd: a pirate rpg
This is seriously the format of the book. It is 11" tall, and 4.125" wide. This isn't a book, it's a fucking pamphlet.
Poison'd is an rpg by Vincent D. Baker. It came out after Dogs in the Vineyard, but before Apocalypse World. I'm not sure I've ever seen a more hipsterish thing, and that's purely because of the fucking size of the thing. I just realized what it reminds me off. In the early days of 3.0, during the third party explosion, AEG and Mongoose put out little pamphlet adventures and class writeups-
They were nice in that they cost maybe a couple bucks, and I was young so I didn't spot the mechanics fuckups (though I did recognize the adventures varied wildly in quality). They're all like 16 pages long, and I'm thinking that's a manufacturing limitation since there are two companies and two forms here.
That's what Poison'd reminds me of in form. It's a bit nostalgic, I guess, but it's like a "Oh, wow, I was really dumb at 13" nostalgia. Which seems appropriate to a Vincent D. Baker game.
Anyway.
The book opens with a short In Media Res scene setter. So short that I'm pretty sure reproducing it is fair use-
I'm not sure about all the capitalization in that, but then my writing classes don't cover things like "the year of our lord."Poison'd wrote:In the Year of Our Lord 1701, did end the bloody career of the pirate Captain Jonathan Abraham Pallor, called Brimstone Jack.
He did not die on the gallows, nor by the sword, nor shot in two by cannon. He died of poison, administered to him by his cook, an assassin under the King's orders.
This is what happened next.
Poison'd
Drag forward the cook, the assassin Tom Reed, throw him to the deck. He's spitting and proclaiming us dead men all, no captain no more, ship listing and hungry, and His Majesty's Ship The Resolute even now hauls up its anchor over in Kingston Bay.
Obviously this is not something I'd consider an RPG. I mean, semantically, sure, it's a role-playing game, in that you're taking a role and playing it. But to me, a role-playing game is one in which you make a character, and play it over a campaign, through a variety of stories written by one player, or bought as a supplement. Any game which is centered on a single story with a definite endpoint, where you are meant to play that story and then you're done, isn't an RPG. It's a story game that might as well be a board game or card game or a fucking novel. RPGs, in my mind, are open ended. If a game has a definite end point, it's a story game, not an RPG. Which is fine, there isn't a problem with story games, per se, but they're not RPGs, and they should be cheap, simple, and maybe not have character creation.
Now, because this is a story game and written by Vincent Baker, it's going to be very pretentious, and have a lot of fapping to various things. I invite you to turn this into a drinking game. Everytime you see this gif:
take a drink.
Character Creation
To make a character, you choose a bunch of traits. Like Mind's Eye Theatre LARPing. Which makes me actually sort of want to LARP Poison'd because running around dressed as a pirate and making people look askance at you is fun. Especially when you're loudly talking about your tender ministrations to the slutty cabin boy and making people blush and drinking large amounts of booze. But at that point, Poison'd is really more of an excuse to dress up like a pirate, and the places that aren't going to throw you out for doing this are already their own excuses for same.
The notable thing here is the use of "fuck" in rules text. It's common. And obviously I'm not one to shy from foul language, but the use of "fuck" in rules text is like typing in all caps online: you're trying way too hard to be "cool" and everyone's just laughing at you.
The first trait you choose is your position on the crew, and it's basically just a list of ship crew positions and short parenthetical explanation of the position- Boatswain/Bosun, Boy, Carpenter, Gunnery, Quartermaster, Sailing Master (navigation), Sailor (basically the common crewman), Surgeon, X's Mate (ie, assistant. I totally want to make a character whose position is Boy's Mate. This seems to have no mechanical impact, it's just fluff.
Stats
Stats aren't rolled, bought with points, or arrayed. You choose as many, or as few, traits as you want, and then get a Stat equal to that number, from 2-6. Each stat is represented by a different sort of trait, except that Soul is the inverse of Devil.
Sins: Devil and Soul
So, first you choose which, if any, sins, your character has committed, because this game is about being nasty evil pirates
You choose one, any, all, or none of the following- Adultery, Blasphemy, Idolatry, Murder, Mutiny, Rape, Robbery, Sodomy. If your commission of a sin has been "prolonged, repeated, excessive, and unremorseful" you can count it twice. If your character is a woman posing as a man, you automatically get Blasphemy. I'm not sure where the Bible specifically condemns woman to man crossdressing, but I'm totally sure the church of the time would consider it such, so apparently the game's christianity is purely defined by its followers, which gives some later parts some very interesting implications that I'm sure aren't intended, because satire requires thought.
If your character is a woman who "has also somehow contrived to fuck women as a man" you get double blasphemy. Because... ok, I can see that one. Also I wonder what you get if you're a woman who has contrived to fuck men as a man. Quadruple blasphemy?
If I were to ever this play this game, I would totally play a woman pirate who "Act's like a man" but dresses and lives how the fuck she pleases, but totally has a strap on in her bunk and is pretty much purely a top who has every sin except rape on her sheet twice. Sins determine your Devil score. So if your pirate is a rampant, unremorseful blasphemous, sodomite idolator, you get max Devil. If your character is a woman who lives, acts, dresses and fucks men and women like a man, and an unrepentant rapist, you get max Devil. If your character is a pious soul devoid of sin who is somehow a pirate (maybe you're a cabin boy?) you still have a Devil of 2. Then you subtract your Devil rating from 8 to get your Soul rating.
Sufferances: Brutality
Then you get to choose what you've suffered and I have to look up a word. What the fuck is Accursing? ...why the fuck couldn't they just say "Destruction" or "Misery?" Or just not include it as most of the other sufferances would qualify as accursing? You've got Arrest, Attempted Murder, Beating, Branding, Damnation, Disownment, Impressment (being pressed into public service), Imprisonment, Lashing, Mutilation, Rape, Torture. Again, you can choose as many as you want, though at least 1, and you put an X next to any that the captain inflicted upon you. This determines your Brutality, without and inverse stat.
Ambitions: Ambition
I feel like this could have been less tautological. Like, you choose your Goals and that determines your Ambition. But no, you choose at least one ambition from a list with stuff like "be captain, own land, get revenge against (player character/"man beyond your station"), fuck (player character/daughter or son of player character/man beyond your station)" etc.
What the fuck does it all mean.
Unlike most normal games, the explanation of what your stats means is after you pick them, rather than before. Devil>Ambition means you don't give a shit about personal danger and have no fear. Ambition>Brutality means you're a stealth guy. Brutality>Soul means you're ruthless and violent (like a pirate). Soul>Devil means you're calm and endure punishment and torture without breaking. I don't know how the fuck "I don't care about personal danger and have no fear" means "I will crumble before torture and punishment." The game book says "the greater the difference, the better you'll be at the one thing and the worse you'll be at the other" except you can legitimately make a character with stats Devil 6, Brutality 6, Ambition 6, Soul 2, which means you are casual and fearless of danger, stealthy and violent, and a remorseless sinner, but apparently can be brought to your knees with torture. You can also make a character with 4s all across the board. Then....
"Also, I say 'choose' but sometimes you'll find that your pirate's life up to now has its undeniable logic, quite as though your pirate is choosing for himself."
Urgh.
(Even though as a writer and a gamer who has done "randomly determine your character's life" stuff I know that human gestalting totally finds patterns and shit, but, fuck, that's pretentious)
The game mentions "Souls and Bargains" describing that your character can make a bargain with another player's, and that player can then, once, withhold a number of dice equal to your Soul from a roll you're making, and then the obligation of the bargain is considered fulfilled. But it doesn't say what the bargains are for. So... why? It's in there later. Whatever. This is just a dumb time to mention this.
Brinksmanship: Escalation?
You have a Brinksmanship stat which equals your highest stat, and you roll when you fight or lead others, and it represents your willingness to go further and further to win. It tells you to roll against your enemy's Brinksmanship, but doesn't tell you what the fuck this does. Also, why is this a stat? It could just be "when fighting or leading others in a fight, roll your highest stat against the enemy's."
Profile: Bad Ass Motherfuckers
You then outline your profile by choosing two or fewer weapons you have in addition to the standard "knife, sword, pistol." This is stuff like "another sword," "a pair of pistols," "grenades," and so on, but also includes "not a weapon, but you're a scary motherfucker" stuff like being big and hulking, having tattoos and "a savage demeanor" or "slight, wiry, and vicious." If your pirate has suffered Mutilation, you get a disability from "lost limb, lost eye, split tongue, terrible scars." Then, when you're fully armed, your profile is 2+additional weapons-disabilities. If you're disarmed, your profile is 1. When you fight, the person with the higher profile gets "the advantage." I know I'm "playing this wrong" but clearly my murderous blasphemous genderqueer sodomite would have two weapons and not have been mutilated.
Bargains: Everyone gets one
Finally, everyone introduces their characters, then they go back around the circle and chooses, out loud, a player and an outstanding bargain from "X swore to back me for captain," "X swore to help me fulfill (an ambition)," "X owes me '3 leisure'" (again, no explanation of what the hell Leisure is), "X swore to protect me from ('a violence')," "X owes me his life," and "X swore to fight by my side when all others desert me." My trangressive woman pirate would totally have "X swore to help me fuck his daughter."
Look. I don't hate this. But there's.... nothing preventing a character from being a swaggering, omnicompetent badass, but typically story games don't want characters to be those, and without anything preventing one, there's nothing preventing the entire group from being that. This would benefit from some slightly tighter rules, like "pick an array" with things like "Devil 4, Ambition 6, Brutality 2, Soul 4" and then you select the traits those numbers represent (in that array, 4 sin, 6 ambitions, 2 sufferances) and your profile should be 1 additional weapon/stature, with the allowance to pick two if you took Mutilation as a sufferance and then choose a disability. It leans too heavily on that old "Real Roleplayer vs Munchkin" bullshit.
Ships and Crew
After characters are created and introduced, you create the ship. Because this is a story game, you already have The Dagger, Captain Brimstone's Bermuda sloop with defined characteristics, but the group then chooses two things which are most true about it, like "fast," or "grim reputation" or "has more guns than the default states (gain 4 8-pounder cannons), and then the ship has a profile of 10 (8+2 for the traits), and the group then chooses what tactic the ship is best in- pursuit, cannons, broadsides, or boarding, and this trait gives your ship +1 profile when the scenario comes up, regardless of what side you're on.
You do the same for the company, but you just get two positives and one negative, and it's stuff like "large crew (110)," and "members are, by and large, unreprobate (sic) murderers" or "served together for many years" for positives and "skeleton crew (50)," "no common language," and "badly mistreated by Brimstone Jack" as negatives. I'd totally agitate for "badly mistreated by Brimstone Jack" for the negative, since it means we are more united in the story about the cook assassinating the captain, and PVP games are shit. Your crew profile is 6 (5+positives-negative). It's not outright stated, but the fact that the rules give you a formula for your ship/crew Profile implies that these things can be gained in play.
Sample Characters: The Carpenter's Mate is Fucked.
This is followed by some example characters, which actually has some interest. The first is a low Devil/high Soul carpenter's mate who's a murderer and mutineer, and whose Bargain is that another sample character swore to protect him from rape. The only thing notable here is that the Bargain uses a specific sample character, but the ambitions are "to be revenged upon ---," and "to fuck ---'s daughter." But what makes this guy, Young Zeb Harris, is the next two characters, "Pigfuck Dan" a blasphemous rapist, thief, murderer and sodomite, and "Hugh McMinn," a blasphemous thief and unrepentant murderer who is the one that swore to protect Young Zeb from rape. But, most notable is that both these chararacters have the bargain of "Young Zeb swore to back me for captain." So I'm pretty sure Young Zeb is fucked. Literally. But the idea of two characters claiming the same bargain from one other is one that hadn't occurred to me and would actually create a really interesting story.
I'm going to break this into a few posts. Next one is GM characters.