I had a flick through my copy of Promethean: The Created this morning, and didn't hate it.
Well, I've never hated it, but I've not loved it either.
I was excited when it came out. I thought it'd be a bit ... I dunno... More.
I thought there would be more than animated corpses, specifically.
I get the Frankenstein's Monster angle, the perverse and ungodly spawn of mortal hubris, but that's where it ends.
If you're going to have a Golem inspired monster, then why not just have a Golem. Nope, instead we have an animated corpse commonly confused for a Golem.
I thought the game would have the following:
Reanimated Corpses - AKA Frankenstein's Monster
Animated Statues - AKA Golems
Robots - AKA Um, Robots, maybe Data from ST:NG
Dolls, Toys and Puppets - AKA Pinocchio
Clones / Bio-Engineered Humanoids - AKA Tyrell Corp. Replicants
Artificial Intelligences (AI) - AKA Skynet, although I'd use this one as an antagonist rather that a player option.
Promethean does have Clones as an antagonist option, and I believe that Robots feature in one of the supplements, but it's still not what I was looking for.
I firmly believe that the central theme of pursuing mortality and the threats of Disquiet etc are still relevant with the options I listed above, and this disappointment has coloured how I think about the game for years.
This morning I had a look at it with fresh eyes, though, and didn't find myself wanting to completely rewrite it. I just accepted things as they were. Much better.
I still think it'd be a hard sell to potential players - you're a monster who everyone hates, who rots and discolours the very earth and the surrounding environment if you stay too long there, and you are trying to become Human.
I only think Wraith: The Oblivion would be a harder sell.
On "selling" games... This is similar to an issue I addressed recently on my blog, and it basically comes down to deciding what kind of a game you want to play -- specifically, what kind of a role you want to portray. Promethean is a "hard sell" unless you want to portray "a monster who everyone hates, who rots and discolours the very earth and the surrounding environment if you stay too long there, and you are trying to become Human". In that case, it's exactly what you're looking for. If players want to portray an outsider yearning for the acceptance he can presumably never have, this is a pretty good match. If they're looking to be a shining paragon taking up arms against evil, this is maybe a harder fit.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, and maybe I didn't read the book enough, I always assumed that The Wretched were the only re-animated corpses, with the others being different things (ie statues, or traditional golems, etc). I guess the existence of Osirans tells the lie in that, but I admittedly didn't pay them much attention (Egyptian-themed stuff doesn't stoke my fires).