Hey, pieced-together protagonists. It’s Tuesday! Normally I’d be tallying the result of your votes, but I didn’t get to put up a choice on Sunday because I was, as it happens, too busy redlining Promethean 2nd Edition. But I did want to talk about a couple of things, just so we’re all on the same page going forward.
Every RPG – heck, every piece of media – has a buy-in. I used that picture from Guardians of the Galaxy both because the characters, in that scene, are agreeing to the buy-in that Quill’s suggesting (“Let’s go fight Ronan”), but also because the movie itself has a fairly steep buy-in. We’ve all made a lot of jokes about how it’s a movie about a raccoon and a talking tree, and what we’re joking about there is the buy-in for the movie. It’s space opera, and there’s some weird content.
The same is true for an RPG. You want to play Vampire: The Requiem, the buy-in includes your character being a vampire and drinking blood. You want to play Dungeons & Dragons, the buy-in includes a fantasy setting, high magic, some underground cavern-y kinds of things and large, fire-breathing reptiles. You want to play Chill (look, I had to. I’ve been really good!), the buy-in includes that you’re a person who feels that saving people from the Unknown is an acceptable risk for your life and soul.
Now, I want to be clear about something: Not being willing to agree to the buy-in of a game doesn’t mean you’re wrong about it. I don’t care for D&D, myself. That doesn’t mean I’m right to feel that way or that my many friends who enjoy it are wrong, just that I’m not into it. The buy-in isn’t something I want to make. Peter Quill the DM says “stand up,” and I’m thinking, “nah, no thanks.” I don’t have to agree to the buy-in…but I do need to acknowledge it’s there.
Promethean is, at its heart, humanist. The game views being human as a desirable state. The characters are not human, nor were they ever, but the Azothic memory inside them, the thing that wakes up and nudges them when they stray from the path or comforts them in their darkest moments, pushes them to work alchemy of the body and soul and join the human race. Yes, by doing so, they give up some nifty super-powers, but they also give up the horrible, nagging, ever-present feeling that they don’t belong in their own bodies, let alone with the people they see all around. Sure, a Promethean that achieves the New Dawn can’t lift a car anymore, but by becoming part of humanity, she doesn’t have to. She doesn’t need to wander and run from people just when she starts feeling close to them. She can have a family and friends, rather than a throng, which everyone understands is a temporary arrangement.
That’s the buy-in for the game. That’s what the players need to get behind to play Promethean as written (and, like, let’s just all dispense with the “you can feel free to do whatever you want with the game, because it’s your game the minute you buy it,” right? I don’t have to keep saying that, just take it as read). If that’s a buy-in that a group doesn’t want to make, that’s fine! The World of Darkness has a lot of other options that don’t have the same humanist slant (Vampire treats humanity as important in very different ways, Werewolf likewise, in Mage you’re more than human, and in Demon you can be multiple humans but with sci-fi technognostic spy powers! So much choice!).
Promethean is not about transcending humanity. It’s about achieving it. Much like 1st Edition, Promethean 2nd Edition is not going to cater to players who want a transhumanist setting.
With all of that in mind, here is another excerpt from the Alchemists section, because folks responded pretty positively to them and I figured you might like to see a little more. I’m not posting any mechanics because their mechanics are going to get fiddled with a bit, and I’ll want to post them when we’ve done a little more fiddling. But we did include a few sample organizations of alchemists, so here’s one of them:
The Pristine Order of the Auric Chalice
“The secrets of the Art aren’t for everyone.”
One of the most famous alchemical miracles is the transformation of lead into gold. Anyone who has made even a basic study of alchemical lore, however, knows that it is merely a metaphor. In fact, many alchemists believe that the search for material wealth is a dangerous distraction that can lead a seeker down dark paths.
The Pristine Order of the Auric Chalice agrees with this sentiment to the point of violence. These alchemists universally come from money — usually old money — and frown upon using alchemy for personal gain. In fact, they believe those alchemists who attempt to turn lead into gold, or otherwise improve their material circumstances with alchemy, are somehow a danger to everyone else.
The details of this ideology are quite foggy. Some members of the Pristine Order believe that using alchemy to base ends somehow poisons the soul, to the point that those who indulge in this sort of alchemy will inevitably descend into dangerous madness and use their alchemy to wreak indiscriminate havoc. Others hold that such “base” alchemy releases or creates dangerous spirits or monsters. Some even claim that Prometheans, Pandorans, quashmallim, and other dangerous freaks and prodigies of the Divine Fire are somehow created or released by selfish uses of alchemy.
The only thing they can do, of course, is use their money, contacts, and alchemy to prevent anyone from debasing alchemy. The best way to do that, of course, is to kill them (though a few members of this order have had some luck force-feeding their victims potions that erase their memories of alchemy, along with many of their other memories and some of their ability to reason).
Alchemists of the Pristine Order hunt Prometheans for the Pyros and Vitriol they need to carry out their war against other alchemists. Anyone who lacks a privileged background is fair game, since these alchemists assume that the temptation to use alchemy for material gain is just too great for anyone without wealth to fall back on.
The Pristine Order of the Auric Chalice is also one of the most socially backwards alchemical organizations in the world. The heart of their organization is a longing for the “good old days” of alchemy, when it was a secret art practiced only by those who could afford to pay its cost. The modern day, with its electronic communication, scanned grimoires, mass-produced glassware, and online chemical suppliers has ruined alchemy by making it accessible to anyone. Female alchemists aren’t explicitly banned in this organization, but they are rare. The same is true of non-white alchemists, or those with money, but no family history of wealth. Many of these alchemists try to cover their murderous campaign with a veneer of old-world sophistication.
Next Sunday, I shall pose another choice!
“…they also give up the horrible, nagging, ever-present feeling that they don’t belong in their own bodies…”
I hope ya’ll take this chance to follow what the other 2e books seem to be following and mention/discuss LGBQTT. It was nicely apparent in B&S and in FWC there’s hint that some Mages, in their astral realms, take on the appearance of a different gender.
The quote above makes me think Promethean has room, too ^_^
That’d be cool. Yaay, transgender representation!
There was a fair bit of that in original Promethean, if I recall. There was a discussion about how Prometheans, not being human and often stitched out of many bodies, often felt the gender binary idea didn’t really apply to them, since they may have had bits from male and female bodies. There was even an NPC who didn’t really have a gender identity, and they made the point that that affected his journey, since most people do have such an identity.
Still, interesting.
Onyx Path is pretty big on inclusivity, so I imagine we’ll see sample characters of all sorts throughout the fiction.
Since the Good Ol’ White Wolf days, inclusivity has been a thing. The fact that the rest of the world is catching up is simply amazing.
Our mage group plays an LGBQTT cabal that takes gender norms and categories as part of the Lie. They claim that that any mages furthering them are distancing themselves from the supernal, and claim the Queer population of DC as their territory in the Consilium.
That being said, Promethean seems like a great opportunity to explore some of these themes and conflicts with its focus on the quiddity of humanity.
Very cool! But shouldn’t it say “lead into gold” in the beginning of the description of the Order?
Oh, good, you caught that! Totally a little test to see who was paying attention. 🙂
(Yes, we’ll change that.)
Very nice!
Just a little correction on the excerpt “One of the most famous alchemical miracles is the transformation of gold into lead.”
It should be lead into gold.
No idea what you’re talking about. 😉
So the Aurics only use Pyros and Vitriol to kill other alchemists, not for other things? CAN alchemists actually do anything without harvested Pyros?
CAN Hunters do anything without supernatural assistance?
The answer is: Of course they can!
And if you’re an old world money kind of guy, you have resources, contacts, and all sort of things at your disposal, you can do even more things. Now add a couple of like-minded rich guys with a history, and you got a SCARY prospect.
That is certainly a different take on what beign an alchemist entails. I like it.
Nice, so basically the Pristine Order is like to prometheans as Deva Corporation is to demons?
By the way, how is the Fiction Anthology going along?
For some reason the Promethean anthology is the one I’m the most ansious to read.
Promethean deserves some good fiction!
Still in development, should be done and into editing this week or next.
Nice! Can’t wait to read it!
This is exactly why promethean was so disappointing. thank you for articulating why I couldn’t get into promethean, and why I’ll continue to see it as a slab of possibly useful parts, and not as a coherent whole.
Hmm…. Alchemist as PC….
Are the centimani still NPC’s as a given, or are they being made playable ala the seers of the (porcelaine) throne in awakening?
Centimani were playable options in the first edition.
I have no idea about this one.
They were playable, but not from the core.
Me and you were playing with different cores then.
Seriously. Had a full set of affinity Transmutations, and as much fluff and crunch as any of the other Refinements. In fact, they had more Transmutations than any of the other Refinements.
I diverge with McFarland’s take on Centimani; I’d argue that Flux is as important as Pyros in the scheme of the Pilgrimage, and thus Centimani as enlightening as Mercurius, though clearly it is not a path to a New Dawn. Getting lost because of a false turn is a trial on any journey; Centimani ought to offer promises, even if false, of some great Milestone.
I actually tend to view it as the transhumanist Refinement: body modification, a rejection of human frailty, and whatever dignity lies in mortality. A shot at godhood lies in the abandonment of human normalcy. The Promethean is born in a transgression of the divine order, and is gifted with the ability to overcome it, so why could he or she not someday ascend Olympus and cast Zeus from his throne?
Centimani aren’t designed to be PCs, because to be on the Refinement of Flux is to step off the Pilgrimage, which is, of course, the focus of the game.
Sorry you’re disappointed with Promethean. Like I said, it’s all about the buy-in.
I’m with you, bones. I got Promethean when it first came out, and while I can see and *totally* respect what it’s going for, I don’t know if it’s the game for me. All the bits that I don’t necessarily care would weaken the themes and narrative if they were removed or changed.
That said, I’ve had the Promethean core sitting on my bookshelf since it came out, and while haven’t looked at it in years, I’d still hop into a game if the chance presented itself. Maybe that would change my mind.
Barring that, though…I really wish for success for this game, and I’ll continue to eye the development posts, but I don’t think the buy-in works for me.
Couldn’t agree more.
Consider me sold on the buy in. I appreciate the doubling down on the core themes I’ve seen in 2e so far. 1e was good on the whole but some tried to hard to be all things to all people and lost a sense of direction. Promethean felt like the first game that didn’t play it safe in 1e and was the first to really capture my imagination.
I just wanted to say I don’t feel any of the World of Darkness games is honestly served by transhumanism. Now, don’t get me wrong; I totally dig transhumanism and its themes, but for the sort of neo-Victorian gothic approach the World of Darkness goes for I think a humanistic approach, where not being human is explicitly a Bad Thing, serves the whole of the setting well. The only game that seems to move beyond that theme is Mage, and personally I think it suffers somewhat by being in a way thematically divorced from the rest of the lines. I have high hopes for Trinity Continuum being more transhuman friendly, because I think it’s more appropriate there, and might scratch that itch certain players seem to want.
For what it’s worth, I feel like the neo-victorian gothic label isn’t entirely appropriate for the New World of Darkness anymore, particularly with the 2nd edition games. I feel like it’s represented pretty well in God-Machine and Blood & Smoke, where the positive qualities of being human aren’t necessarily possessing morality or some ephemeral sense of human-ness. It’s tied into the things we feel about the people around us and what we can and can’t do. Like Vampire 2e doesn’t feel like it takes a high-minded, philosophical approach to being human. It’s about the visceral parts that you don’t experience the same way anymore, or how the Beast and your being dead can put you in this ecstatic highs and very low lows.
I’m sure someone else can say it better, but I’ve gotten the sense that New World of Darkness 2e is fairly eager to dispense with gothic pretenses, which I feel is helping to give it an identity which feels more visceral and modern.
Mage is also humanist. DaveB has talked a bit about this on the rpg.net forums, but the devs have been making deliberate design decisions to make transcending the human condition come with more downside than up.
With a few exceptions, transhumanism isn’t going to be a major feature of the Continuum games, but neither is the setting buy-in explicitly counter to it. So if you want to emphasize it, you’re certainly welcome to do so without changing the setting as written much, if at all.
I had the general impression before that being a psion was never a “Oh God, what have I become?” thing as much as just a different way of being human. Aberrant is a bit more touchy, but it always seemed like it could go either way.
Demon isn’t humanistic. Demons are non-humans, and their human Covers are by definition false identities, easily discarded. Human souls are commodities to them. In contrast to the Prometheans, they have no desire to become human and their desired state after solving their Cipher is to either find Hell and escape the God-Machine entirely or re-merge with it, leaving humanity behind in both cases. (Their powers aren’t scifi or techgnostic, but that’s getting off-topic.)
In a sense, though, it is. Demons are not human, but Falling makes them a lot more so, and more demons are portrayed as loving their newfound human emotions and passions. So it holds up humanity as a positive state.
It is, however, the most transhuman game, in that demons had to deliberately choose to be more than they were, and the whole Stigmatic business.
The stereotypes of humans and mortals tend to be negative, and the fundamental part of humanity, the soul, is treated as a liability. Demons only value its absence.
Mage explicitly makes the World of Darkness humanocentric – it’s a bit different in that its version of “humanity” includes badass magical powers, but it portrays the urge to throw off that humanity pretty negatively.
From what I’ve read on the Fallen World blog, as a Mage starts playing with their own body, mind and soul and thus drift away from a baseline human, their inherent strangeness even to other Mages is a theme that may be explored. It didn’t sound like it was being pushed as a negative necessarily but there are things that a person can do to themselves that clearly make them move sideways rather than up or down the proverbial scale of humanity.
Didn’t scroll down far enough to see DaveB’s answer…
Man, those alchemist sure look like the worst kind of entitled jackasses. Wich is nice, they are antagonist after all, but they are so easy to hate it almost looks like cheating 😉
Haha, oh wow. “We are hella rich and we coincidentally believe that other people wanting to become rich like us is morally wrong for… reasons.” Those guys are just perfect.
The funny thing is, these alchemists do sort of have a point. Prometheans make progeny to get themselves closer to their New Dawn. That’s a pretty selfish reason to create life. Pandorans are made when something (spite, sorrow, fear, anger) corrupts that generative process. Still doesn’t excuse them being entitled backwards thinkers though. I’m looking forward to this. Here’s hoping some of you are close so we can play together ????.
Well… 1st Edition had some transhumanistic elements. Athanors, for example. Or additional chances to Awake. Or even Refinement of Flux as posible way to a New Dawn. It wasn’t at the forefront, but it was an option.
I wonder if 2nd edition would have less “buy-ins” than 1st. It’s strange.
> a Promethean that achieves the New Dawn can’t lift a car anymore
Even if she had six/seven/etc. dots of Strength before?
A human by definition can’t have 6 or 7 dots of Strength, as that is explicitly in the realm of the supernatural (requiring a supernatural attribute like Blood Potency or Pyros)
It was possible for Redeemed in 1e, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, it was just an example.
So Redeemed [i]could[/i] be something more than ordinary human. It’s good. Thanks.
Some even claim that Prometheans, Pandorans, quashmallim, and other dangerous freaks and prodigies of the Divine Fire are somehow created or released by selfish uses of alchemy.
Not necessarily without cause: Frankenstein wanted to show he could do it, and fantasised about the worshipful adoration of his creation, without feeling any responsibility in return. How much thought did Pygmalian ever give to what Galatea might want from her life?
These alchemists universally come from money … they believe those alchemists who attempt to turn lead into gold, or otherwise improve their material circumstances with alchemy, are somehow a danger to everyone else.
Easy for them to say, of course. Which I assume is part of the point of them.
Holy hell, I hate the Pristine Order. Good job! I see powerful people making up stupid excuses to keep the little guy down all the time, and having an antagonist group that buys into that party line fills me with glee.
*vigorously scratches Promethean the Created 2nd Edition of list*
Pfft! If I wanted to be human I’d go play “Human: The Disappointing Reality”.
What, prometheans are not humans! You don’t play a human when you are playing Promethean! Being human is the endgame, the end of the chronicle, like Ascension is for Mage! (Tough not stops you promethean character becoming human and then awake for instance) You can have years and years of playing a supernatural creature before the chronicle and the Pilgrimage reach it end!
Sorry that reality is disappointing. I find it pretty awesome, m’self. 🙂
But anyway, as Felipe points out, you don’t actually play humans in Promethean. You play Prometheans, trying to become human.
Nobody would be playing roleplaying games if reality was wonderful. A fact that OnyxPath exploits to make money.
The problem with the premise of “Promethean” is that the Prometheans are seeking to exchange their power for something ephemeral and difficult to define. Humanity can be a dubious prize.
Having seen the hell being a Promethean is?
I would be suspicious of “ephemeral,” “dubious,” and “difficult to define.”
Promethean: I want to be able to live in an actual house, start a family, a mood that doesn’t swing into psychosis followed by crippling depression ever so often, a lack of Pandorans, and oh yeah, not be greeted with often literal torches and pitchforks as a function of my existence! That’s what humanity is to me!
Me: Powers tend to stink when they start to look like pitiful compensation for everything else. Perhaps there’s at least some Centimani who are simply those who have come to value and accept the state of their existence and are otherwise quite friendly, but most Created get really sick of the unending suffering of their life and would happily leave their entire blasted Transmutation set behind them if it meant potential for a better one.
That’s my view, anyway.
I disagree with your thesis.
But, again, the premise of the game is that, for whatever “power” Prometheans might possess, feeling disconnected, alone, and unsafe *all the time* isn’t worth it, and that becoming human, even with the vulnerability that entails, is better.
Isn’t that something that needs to be sold by the game, though, not declared preemptively as “buy-in”?
Like with D&D – I’ve seen games completely fall apart because they were, essentially, murdering people for being the wrong colour. If the *game* doesn’t sell you on “fighting the orcs is good”, the buy-in doesn’t matter.
I think Promethean is a genius game, perhaps the deepest of the World of Darkness. It makes us questions a lot of assumptions and things we take for granted about our human condition, and makes us realise how wonderful, terryifing, good, bad, parodixical we are and how little value we sometimes give to us. By way of playing our characters it makes us question ourselves, it is about self-discovery of our characters(and indirectly us), I think it is one of the most emotional fulfilling I ever played, a really wonderful game.
Humanist…
That’s such a loaded, vague, ambiguous, polarising, and completely subjective term, and when it’s applied to something like a roleplaying game, it’s no wonder that we get dissenting views. Of course, that is EXACTLY why I love Promethean: the Created and its humanist core.
If you’re able to see through the eyes of a being who remains ever the outsider, at worst a monster, at BEST an observer, maybe then you can realise how much of our shared human experience we take for granted. That experience is not for everyone, needless to say, but it’s not ALL that is in this game. My troupe has used Promethean to explore notions of identity, of whether one’s physical shape makes any difference to who one truly is. We’ve explored the nature of acceptance, of oneself and of others, regardless of – or BECAUSE of – inherent differences. We’ve asked (but not quite answered) questions concerning the definition of ‘human’ and ‘monster,’ of where those terms overlap, where they diverge, and how they change someone who identifies with them.
Thing is, all of the above grow out of that basic assumption that a Promethean is not YET a human being. The seeking elements aren’t always front-and-centre in every session, but that pilgrimage is what keeps the stories going. The New Dawn IS a transformation to humanity, but what that REALLY means is, ultimately, unknowable for one of the Created. The game – from how *I* see it – focused far more on the journey than the destination, but I know it ain’t for everyone. I’m glad that I’ve bought-in, though!