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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:09:17 GMT -5
So, I mentioned my intention to do a rules/fluff hack of Promethean designed to remove the humanity railroading and make the game truer to the philosophy of ChroD as a whole and especially to the themes of Frankenstein. I hadn't been doing much on it because I was waiting for 2e to actually be out, because then I'd know what had to be done. So now I do, and I have a great starting point: the morality stat.
So, the goal of The Lightning Chronicle is to remove the dominance of the Pilgrimage and becoming human. The New Dawn is similar to Golconda or Hell in DtD: it's deeply personal, it's only rumored to exist, and it could take any number of forms. It's covered in a section that describes it as something that doesn't play a role in every Promethean chronicle and might not even exist. If it does, it's best handled more through roleplaying and narrative than rolling. Each Refinement has a view on it, as listed in their section, as well as possible New Dawns that they might reach.
The Theme is Identity, and the Mood is Horror and Wonder. As in, horror and wonder combined as a single theme, and not two separate ones. Prometheans are wondrous and horrifying, profane but miraculous. In their travels, they're likely to encounter extremes. They will see the worst abuses of science as well as its greatest wonders. They will bring out the best and the worst in humanity. And so on.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:10:09 GMT -5
If Identity is the theme, then loss of identity is going to one of the major risks Prometheans confront and one of the major sources of personal horror. They have to construct their identities, their selves, from scraps, and they always risk losing them. That doesn't necessarily mean being mind-controlled or falling to Torment: it can also mean being subsumed by a role or by the perceptions of others, to the point where you start to cease to be a full, complete person and start becoming an archetype, a symbol. This can happen through demonization and fear forcing you into the role of the monster (which is, of course, what happens to the Creature), but it can also happen through idealization and being forced onto a pedestal. To quote The Protomen: "They don't want a hero, they don't want to change this, they just want a martyr, a statue to raise."
When people get past the initial unease or revulsion induced by Disquiet, and start feeling sympathy for the Promethean, there's the risk of them failing to perceive them as a person, but as a lesson, a symbol, their inspiration porn. People have brought up the disability metaphor, and TLC doesn't push that very heavily, but this part is partially inspired by that: the way the abled have a tendency to divide the disabled into "bad lazy disableds" and "the good disableds who overcome their disablilities and aren't nuisances and inspire me." There's a major emphasis on human flaws in TLC, as a sort of reaction to the cloying sentimentality of the old version, but also in an attempt to be truer to the source material. Humans Behaving Badly is a core theme in a lot of "artificial life" fiction.
And of course, loss of identity and control can be a very literal threat with the possibility of literally losing control of yourself and being brainwashing by Dr. Sinister, if you're playing a more pulp-influenced chronicle.
In a way, I think this is an attempt to take on some of the things Beast tried and get them right. The idea of becoming comfortable with being a monster, with not being human is going to be a major part of it, but not in the smug, puny-humans-and-everyone-else way Beast did it. You don't wake up as a Promethean and think "oh, yeah, this is awesome, I'm fine", reaching that state of self-acceptance is a major part of the journey.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:10:42 GMT -5
I think that, starting at the top, "letting yourself be talked into doing something you don't really want to do" is an Identity 10 offense. Morality Stat 10 offenses should be small things like that. And we have to keep in mind that Identity =\= Goodness or Morality, so even though there are situations in which letting yourself be persuaded to do something you don't really want to do, it's still enough of a concession that it ever so slightly rattles the patchwork identity you've carefully tried to construct.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:11:12 GMT -5
Here's another thing: Identity doesn't necessarily start at the bottom and work its way up. A Promethean could actually be created with a very high Identity: they could have a purpose they're utterly dedicated to, or they might cling strongly to the identity of one of their components. A Promethean like that might start with a clearly defined Identity: but they're starting with it. Their character arc might be to defend it, or to reinforce it, or to change it. They might come to question or dislike that identity and deliberately seek a new one.
I'm also toying with the idea that a Promethean could really be a person back from the dead. I'm thinking that this could be handled as a merit: something like "Soul Shard", meaning that you have a bit of the soul and a bit of the consciousness of a dead person. Whether that means you are that person is the kind of knotty question the game is about exploring: imagine you got hit by a car, drifted through timeless agony and nothingness, and woke up missing massive chunks of your memory and personality, with memories and traits in your head that you didn't even have before, and you have no way of knowing which is which. You have scattered memories of five different parents, you don't know who the president is, and you simultaneously hate and love country music at the same time. But that's just if you take the merit.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:11:51 GMT -5
I'm not sure how repeatedly badgering me over using a shorthand term helps you understand my premise, especially since I've explainer how that mechanic works. Also, your whole martyrdom act with the snide little "report me" and the theatrical, performative "I'll see myself out" would further indicate that you were trying to pick a fight.
So, I'm thinking of altering but not jettisoning Disquiet and Wastelands. I want to firm up Wastelands as something that only happens from careless Pyros emissions, and get rid of the idea that Prometheans can't stay in a certain place forever. Hovels help with that, but it doesn't really help with the theme of coming to terms with your condition. There's still going to be a strong nomadic element, since I love nomadic chronicles, but it's because of factors other than pure need.
Disquiet works differently as well. It sort of happens in reverse: it has its strongest effect on first impressions and slowly wears away the more a person gets to know the Promethean. This is drawn from Frankenstein, in an effort to be truer to it than OP was. The interactions between the Creature and people involve them having an instinctive, instant fearful reaction to his appearance, while the possibility is raised that if they had been able to resist this initial revulsion, they might be able to understand his compassion and intelligence. This helps change the relationship between alchemists and Prometheans, as well- it's now as likely to be cooperative as antagonistic.
I'm also considering having one of the antagonist factions focused on forcing Prometheans to labor in search of a way to induce either mass New Dawns or mass extinction of Prometheans. They're similar to Banishers or Clockstoppers, and are driven by a sort of radical luddism.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Aug 13, 2016 20:12:40 GMT -5
So, I've been struggling with how to handle the Centimani for a while, and I was contemplating jettisoning them entirely. But I had an idea from another project I was working on. Dark Eras 2 made me think of the idea of future or alternate history Dark Eras, and I came up with a retro-futuristic one for Promethean based on classic scifi, The Protomen, and Janelle Monae. In it, the Centimani were an underground resistance movement of Prometheans and alchemists who helped those Prometheans who didn't want to submit to government-mandated Pilgrimages.
So I'm considering turning the Centimani from a Refinement to the closest thing that the Created have to a society. The Centimani are a scattered network of Created and alchemists. Their numbers are very low, given the low numbers of the Created. They have no settlements- instead, one or a few Created and often several alchemists operate various way stations and laboratories connected to the loose Centimani network. The Centimani are more of an ideal than an organization, and still a sort of resistance movement. The Created are a disparate bunch, but the Centimani ideal is what allows them to come together. Of the Prometheans who identify as Centimani, a few are ambitious enough to dream or greater power or influence. Some want to increase their numbers through mass creation- this is the greatest source of conflict within the Promethean "community", though it's more than this conflict inevitably manifests in any gathering of Prometheans.
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Post by Disparagingtheboot on Nov 17, 2016 15:32:24 GMT -5
I've been thinking about why I'm continuing with this, and I feel like, on some level, I need to. I've tried to like Promethean as is, I've looked over my objections, and I realize it isn't like me whining and shitting about Mage not fitting my preferences or thematic purity. The stuff in Promethean that I don't like is stuff that's genuinely hurt me, and stuff that can be genuinely harmful.
I've decided to push more of the "fuck society, fuck humanity" angle as a possibility, because Demon made me realize that it is possible to tell deeply resonant, wonderful stories about being marginalized or disabled or trans using the format of a game about monsters. Nothing else has spoken to me as a disabled trans person as much as Demon has. Promethean made me want to kills myself, demon made me want to live. Demon is a beautiful, wonderful affirmation of everything I aspire to be. So that's why I'm easing up a bit on avoiding parallels between monsters and marginalized groups. As I've said, as a trans person with multiple mental conditions whose been personally hurt by the kind of rhetoric Promethean and its defenders use, I think I'm in a unique place to work on it. I want to reiterate that I'm not calling Matt or any of the devs or fans bigots, I'm saying that their product and their rhetoric makes me uncomfortable. I understand that other people with similar situations to mine like Promethean as it is, so I accept that my complaints aren't universal. So I'm not demanding change or pointing fingers.
I'm really hoping to cover concepts of monstrosity and alienation and otherness in a way TFC couldn't- you can't really have a meaningful discussion about outsiders when the ultimate message of the story is "outsiders are inherently flawed and will never be happy until they become like the perfect wonderful insiders, and by the way it isn't the insiders' fault that they hate the outsiders". Being trans and transitioning is really the only thing TFC kind of works for, and even then it isn't perfect. If you try to apply the framework of the pilgrimage to disability or race or sexuality, then things get ugly. By making it optional and customizable, I'm bringing it closer to a healthy perspective: wanting to change parts of yourself is fine, but so is not wanting to change.
I'm someone who wants to transition and desperately wants to change my body, but that doesn't make me feel like a Promethean. It makes me feel like an alchemist. Like someone hiding in the shadows of society and seeking forbidden technology and scientific progress, all while being told I'm selfish and corrupt and defying nature.
Here's a mechanical thing I decided: Redeemers, Centimani, and Titans all use the same Refinements, they just have different perspectives on them. Redeemers tend to be closest to how TFC presents refinements: rigidly locked into seeing them only as ways to get close to humanity, with anything else being seen as heretical. Centimani have much more diverse and personal views of them. This plays into the divide between the three "factions", in that they get increasingly disorganized. The Redeemers are a rigidly hierarchical cult, the Centimani are a loose network of mostly alchemists, and the Titans are usually lone Prometheans or occasional Titan Throngs.
Remember the rather silly note in 1e about how a centimanus could theoretically be good if they were using the refinement to understand monsters in humanity? That's sort of what an Aurum Titan would be like.
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