Not Quite-OSSR: Poison'd

[Prak]

Will, it can still be Max-maxed. Soul only matters in that it stops you from committing heinous acts, mostly due to GM compulsion, and keeps you from going to Hell when you die. But given that your character's eternal resting place doesn't matter, and the game only lasts until someone has two characters die, who cares? So you take 6+ sins, 6+ ambitions, and 6+ sufferences that aren't mutilation and two profile enhancers, and you start with the best stats possible. And you're playing pirates, so it's very hard for someone to level the "evil bad min-maxer" argument at you for not starting with fewer of these things. Especially when the game makes it so economical to start with Devil 6.

[Princess]

Yep, it can. I meant that Soul stat while being impossible to max works quite illogical, making character tougher against torture. Which is not the most relevant thing in most games (well, in my games, but V. Baker probably had other games in mind, with lots of rape and torture).

And the problem is that there even no roleplay block to counter that. I mean of course in some systems (like WoD) you can max out combat stats but you 'll have to justify it. In Poison'd you get some devil points just for being pirate and some more for being female (who is actually forced to pose as men, not doing it because of being blasphemous or perverted) ... that is unless you want to play very important and interesting roles like "guy who washes floors". And other stuff is maxed just as you want while being roleplay adequate.

And the last issue is, I see no way how this system helps to play pirate. Playing balsphemous devil worshipper who indulges himself in every sin — well may be. Pirates, at least in my worldview, are not about sodomy and worshiping false idols.

[Prak]

Remember, sodomy is just the act of anal sex, usually used to refer to homosexual anal sex, but everyone can enjoy some sodomy and it can be entirely consensual. And it is in and of itself blasphemous, because Bible-God Only Approves of Naked Missionary With The Lights Off. Hell, you can also just be a man who refused to marry his brother's widow and be a blasphemer.

[Princess]

Well, I see nothing impossible in setting wich was actually was created by one true God (christian, no islam, zoroastrism and such), and he hates homosexuals and even sex for pleasure. Do Ars Magica qualify?

But we are promised game about pirates, not about sinners in the world created by God as Bible images him. Why the hell the game focuses on whether character sinned or not instead of focusing on how good is our ship's broadside and how many cannons we have?

[Prak]

Because it's a game about theme and story, and pirates actually tended to believe in god pretty strongly.

Edit: also, the number of cannons you have is determined by the type of ship you have. You don't explicitly have a way to get a new ship, but nothing stops you from boarding a better ship and slaughtering everyone on board. And ship condition/stores/etc are tracked as events which can come up, and start in play as part of the "shit's going down wat do" start proscribed by the game.

[sandmann]

Because it's a game about being edgy and hipster.

Fixed that for you.

[Prak]

Because it's a game about being edgy and hipster.

Fixed that for you.

Isn't that what I said?

[Lago PARANOIA]

Because it's a game about theme and story, and pirates actually tended to believe in god pretty strongly.

That's a load of fucking crap and you know it.

Even if you want to play Grim and Gritty (Faux-)Historical And Totes Not Bowdlerized Pirates, you still have to respect modern sensibilities. Yes, as counter-intuitive and hypocritical as it seems, you still have to do this even if your pitch is 'play pirates as they ACTUALLY were, not this Disney crap'. Because you're selling a game, not a history class.

All that stupid Christian crap does is get in the way. If I want to play erotically-charged Edgemaster Pirate Sexventures, it does no one any favors to put a lesbian on the same level of Edginess as Rollo the Mad-Dog Rapist.

[Kaelik]

i am an idiot.

i agree.

I know right, it is like a fractal of terribleness, where the entire thing is horrific, but each individual sentence is also horrible in multiple different ways that relate back to the whole.

[Prak]

Because it's a game about theme and story, and pirates actually tended to believe in god pretty strongly.

That's a load of fucking crap and you know it.

Even if you want to play Grim and Gritty (Faux-)Historical And Totes Not Bowdlerized Pirates, you still have to respect modern sensibilities. Yes, as counter-intuitive and hypocritical as it seems, you still have to do this even if your pitch is 'play pirates as they ACTUALLY were, not this Disney crap'. Because you're selling a game, not a history class.

All that stupid Christian crap does is get in the way. If I want to play erotically-charged Edgemaster Pirate Sexventures, it does no one any favors to put a lesbian on the same level of Edginess as Rollo the Mad-Dog Rapist.

Eh, I said they believed, not that they were faithful, and the dominance of religion is accurate to the period. It's a setting detail, is all. One of the cited inspirations is Pirates of the Caribbean. It's obvious that some level of supernatural was desired, but anything more than dogmatic Christianity would require real work, which Vincent Baker doesn't want to do.

[Red_Rob]

Why the hell the game focuses on whether character sinned or not instead of focusing on how good is our ship's broadside and how many cannons we have?

Because Vincent Baker. The guy could do a MLP:FIM RPG and it would include rape and Hard Moral Choices™

[Prak]

Why the hell the game focuses on whether character sinned or not instead of focusing on how good is our ship's broadside and how many cannons we have?

Because Vincent Baker. The guy could do a MLP:FIM RPG and it would include rape and Hard Moral Choices™

That might actually be his greatest success, given what bronies are like.

[Josh_Kablack]

So the basic mechanic for unopposed rolls involves two different people rolling opposed dice pools?

That seems massively inefficient.

[Prak]

Basically, yeah. The idea seems to be that your actions and drive oppose each other. I suppose a better more efficient way to handle it is to make the stat opposed to your roll stat a difficulty or threshold. So that if you want to murder someone, you're rolling your Brutality, and your Soul is either the number each die has to come up, or the number of hits you need total.

[Aryxbez]

So if someone learned that the God of Virginity was trying to destroy the world, and the only way to depower him was to devirginize everyone on the entire planet,

Ya know, it seems really trivial to me, such a "spell" could just be reflavored/explained as instead merely removing the [virgin] condition as whatever defined by the gods metaphysics. So instead of delving into any major discussions, its solved with possibly a minor explanation, and likely be found more silly than...yeah.

[OgreBattle]

What this discussion of Poison'd really needs is the opinion of Zak S

[Prak]

Zak likes Monster Hearts, so I'm reasonably sure that he likes Poison'd. That's not a dismissive statement, just a simple assessment of preferences. Like how I liked Winter Soldier, so one could reasonably surmise I liked The First Avenger. I imagine he'd also find my review of the system "assholish."