Jester said:
Wait a sec does villains gets angel in their head, and heroes opposite? Dont see how that teammates damning part would work, unless the quest they wish for player to solve would be nightmare difficult. Reward postmortem glory etc. I see some types of characters who could still work. Running campaign divided as hero/villain and pet could be easier to play, still would need some work. It could keep the hero - familiar relationship dynamic with less of hassle to GM i guess.
I guess I didn't explain it too well so while we wait I can go into more detail. Umm incoming wall of text...
The basic premise of the game revolves around super villains (you can play as super heroes but it does not work quite as well for reasons I will explain). Basically all super villains are created through demonic possession of largely
good people it then becomes a battle between the host who is attempting to minimize the damage done and the rider that is going for maximum destruction. The party is usually made up of these sorts of super villains; teachers, doctors, mechanics, just general people that are stuck in a bad situation. The rider ultimately wants to damn the soul of the host (damning a good man is worth more than collecting an evil soul) while the host ultimately wants to banish the rider in such a way as to permanently destroy it. Now in theory there is no middle ground here but in practice the two sides are forced to compromise, the human needs the demonic powers to protect both host and rider from other demons and from superheroes that are trying to kill or capture them. While the demon is only able to act with the host's consent so can't afford to directly antagonize them.
So you get a situation where the players start negotiating, the player controlling the demon tries to tempt the player controlling the host with little bits of power at first while the player controlling the host attempts to undermine the demon's long term goals by using the very powers of the demon to help people covertly. Additionally if the host does not do anything evil it weakens the demon and saps their own powers as well so they have to keep their rider strong and happy. Now there are two things that the riders really like (and will allow the player to retain their powers), one is evil (killing people, terrorist attacks and the like) the other is showmanship and this is where the super villain angle really gets good. Lavish costumes, secret bases, overly complicated plots and death weapons are all things that the riders love and if the host manages to play the game well then they can keep their rider happy with schemes and plots without actually committing irredeemable acts (after all if the hero stops their over complicated plan to destroy the world it is hardly their fault and the demon can't blame them..).
Now it is possible for the game to end with the victory of either party but I find that a certain equilibrium tends to develop (naturally as the GM I attempt to undermine this at every turn). This is where the external threats come in as some of the demons are in hosts that have no moral compunctions while angels have also entered the world to expel the demons.
Now the player can choose to just reject the demon but if they do so they lose all of their powers and the demon will just jump to a more willing body, a demon in the body of a truly evil person is an absolute terror, but is also portrayed as a more banal sort of evil. Since the two halves are working together the means the demon uses are far more subtle and are harder to uproot while also being much more powerful. These people could be world leaders or local authorities, cult leaders, respected doctors, serial killers and so on, the very worst of humanity but given great power that is easy to conceal.
The other threat are the angels, again the angels tend to pick hosts that are good people and as such there is little internal conflict and they can be very powerful, a single such ascended superhero is able to wipe out an entire party if they do not hold back. But that is the catch, the heroes have to hold back as the angels must follow very strict rules or they will "fall" and can even become powerful demons if the swing is dramatic enough... (think Superman but with his powers tied to doing good deeds). The superheroes will attempt to capture and imprison the super villains however there is no guarantee that the rider will also be captured, it is free to jump to a new body so even a self sacrificing super villain has an incentive to avoid capture. Of course if the super villain is killed the rider will also escape so that is not an option either...
There are also the antiheroes which are individuals who have been tricked by their riders, they are possessed by demons that have convinced their hosts that they are angels and these riders get their hosts to hunt other super villains to reduce the competition a little.
Of course other super villains also pose a threat to the party as well. It is often all of these threats that keep the party together, they may not be friends or even like each other but they have almost no other allies.
Now the reason I say that you need a group of friends/veteran role players to run this system is not simply because the players can easily screw each other (which they can and are encouraged to do) but also because each player essentially shares their character with the person playing their rider, the player that plays the host will roll up a character and choose his/her moral and physical strengths and will then pass the character sheet over to the player that is running the rider who will then design the demon and set of the physical/moral weaknesses that the rider will attempt to prey on. Every player then plays as one host and as one rider. So you really need a group of people that trust one another and are willing to leave any conflicts at the table and really dive into their characters. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart.
Baltika9 said:
is there any way to persuade you to flop back to continuing onwards without any reloads to face our music and come out stronger than ever in spite of every adversity that comes our way?
Unfortunately not, I did give my word that I would vote for a rollback if Absinthe could get to seven people so I have to stand by it. That being said I am perfectly fine with either option and I am looking forward to whatever treave comes up with, I have near complete faith in his abilities and I have no problem playing jailbird Jing.
(Also I am kind of curious if Absinthe will pull this off, reminds me of all of those nineteenth century "fathers of nations" going around trying to drum up support for their causes, I can see it now "Absinthe, father of a
nation rollback"...)