Quote from: James J SkachMan, GrimGent.  I have a feeling you own this game - or were exposed to it far earlier in the process.  Did you buy this at GenCon?

Nah: that's nowhere near my usual haunting grounds. I just prefer to know something about the actual game before criticizing, rather than vigorously leap to conclusions based on bits and pieces about how someone has played it. Misinformation ticks me off.

By-the-way,
 It seems that Vincent Baker himself is now lurking on this forum and reading this thread.

Here:
http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=7769569&postcount=631


- Ed C.

Fantastic, Koltar. I particularly like:

Quote from: Mr. BakerBut underneath it, where you wouldn't catch it if you were just walking by, we were telling a story about an abusive family. The people I was playing with are smart, perceptive people, informed about child abuse, sexual abuse, and cognitive development. None of us are professional developmental psychologists (I don't think), but most of us work or study in fields where we have contact with pro- or clinical-level subject matter.

So here I have this opportunity to create a story about an abusive family with people who can bring some real insight to the table. Too good to pass up.

We're not developmental psychologists - but we play them in games!

Again we're back to...what was the term emotourism?

Oh, and we don't get it because we aren't smart enough, I guess.  We're just the public to be laughed at...

This is when I really feel like putting on the Pundit personna and screaming "Get the fuck out of this hobby!" at the top of my lungs.  Perhaps if they all just went and became developmental psychologists...could we start a fund?

Quote from: StuartI'll repeat it:  What other sins would you have to suffer being inflicted on you that you would need to endure and look at fortitude saving throws and what not?

It's basically Torture and Rape.

Well, since you asked, here's the list of the sins you can commit in Poison'd, which raise your Devil score and lower your Soul score.
Adultery
Blasphemy
Idolatry
Murder
Mutiny
Rape
Robbery
Sodomy

Here's the list of hardships you can suffer:
Accursing
Arrest
Attempted murder
Beating
Branding
Damnation
Disownment
Impressment
Imprisonment
Lashing
Mutilation
Rape
Torture

Also, it's not technically true that the word "rape" only appears in these two lists (and that's not what I said on the RPGnet thread): it also appears in the example character writeups, which list what sins the characters have committed and what hardships they have endured.  And I found another instance in the description of the Cruel Fortune: Hell, which basically represents the crew being driven berserk by devilish influence, and mentions that those under the influence of this Cruel Fortune often kill, torture, cannibalize, and rape.  There are a total of five instances I've found in the text.  Just in the interest of complete honesty and disclosure.

To further note:  There's no concrete mechanical bonus to raising your Devil score, per se.  Every roll in this game that is not part of a fight consists of one of your four stats (Devil, Soul, Ambition, Brutality) rolled against another.  Your Devil score gets rolled against Ambition when you want your pirate to treat personal danger casually and without fear.  A higher Devil score does not, in fact, help your character to do more repugnant things in the future, either directly or indirectly.  Your Devil score also only means anything (mechanically speaking) in comparison to your Ambition stat: if committing a new sin still leaves your Devil score lower than your Ambition, you've gained pretty much no mechanical benefit, and suffered a significant mechanical loss (I'll get to that in a minute).  It is also equally effective mechanically, in terms of getting your pirate to do a better job of treating personal danger casually and without fear, to lower your Ambition score by giving up on one or more of your ambitions - with the same caveat that if your Ambition score is still higher than your Devil afterwards, you've basically screwed yourself over for no advantage.

Now, on the flip side, while committing new sins and raising your Devil score may or may not get you any kind of significant mechanical bonus, doing so is always a significant loss.  Any time your Devil score increases, your Soul score decreases at the same rate.  Soul only ever decreases - once lost, it can never be regained under any circumstances, period.  Soul is rolled against Devil whenever you want your pirate to endure punishment, pain, or torture without breaking, or to be calm and skilled in chaos.  So, just like with Devil above, that may or may not be a significant mechanical change - the difference between the two scores is more important than either in isolation.  But keep in mind that whenever Soul is going down, Devil is, by definition, going up.  That means that you lose the capacity to endure in increments twice the size of any other loss of capability.  Additionally, your Soul vs. Devil scores are used to determine what happens to your pirate when he or she dies.  If your Devil is higher, there's a very good chance that your pirate will go to hell.  Which, you know, probably sucks pretty bad from his or her point of view.  (If your Soul is zero, then a trip to the Pit is guaranteed.)  Furthermore, and possibly more importantly, the result of this Soul vs. Devil roll determines whether your character can remain on Earth as a ghost, either benign or vengeful, which is the game's main vehicle for keeping a player involved after his pirate bites the dust - which is relatively likely, given the violence inherent in the life of a pirate.

I'm available if there's any other questions about the game's rules.

Here's the thing that has kind of irked me: this argument has gone on for thousands of posts now on several forums, and in that deluge of messages I'm yet to see more than a few measly questions about the actual workings of Poison'd rather than assertions about how it supposedly works. Even when the folks who do have the text available chime in, those arguing against the game generally fail to take the opportunity to check whether their assumptions are correct. I mean, at least when I speculate on the mechanics, I'd like to ask about how close to the truth those speculations came whenever possible.

(Oh, 'ello, fifth.)

You can put on a Pundit Persona?
Interesting.
Not sure if that will catch on as a Halloween costume or not.

Hello Vincent!! Thank you for lurking...


- Ed C.

Quote from: James J SkachFantastic, Koltar. I particularly like:

We're not developmental psychologists - but we play them in games!

Again we're back to...what was the term emotourism?

Oh, and we don't get it because we aren't smart enough, I guess.  We're just the public to be laughed at...

This is when I really feel like putting on the Pundit personna and screaming "Get the fuck out of this hobby!" at the top of my lungs.  Perhaps if they all just went and became developmental psychologists...could we start a fund?

It's all rather bizarre:

On one hand it's a bunch of people, I assume (maybe I'm wrong), trying to examine what it was like living as a pirate with all the moral quandries involved.

On the other it's a bunch of people, in the 21st century, with 21st century morals, sat in a room in an environment as removed from the high seas as humanly possible.

You're willing to explore the life of a pirate, but from the comfort of a semi-detached psychodrama.

How can this have any meaning or value as a tool of learning and understanding?

And what are you hoping to understand? That pirates were pretty brutal? Shit I could have told you that!

Quote from: RobNJCan't we simply disagree and stop shitting on each other?

Well, it's not unlikely that shitting on each other will be featured in Baker's next game. So we'll have to wait and see.

Quote from: HaffrungWell, it's not unlikely that shitting on each other will be featured in Baker's next game. So we'll have to wait and see.

:haw: :haw: :haw:

So, to answer the question:

Quote from: StuartWhat other sins would you have to suffer being inflicted on you that you would need to endure and look at fortitude saving throws and what not?

Adultery  --  I doubt it
Blasphemy  --  No
Idolatry -- No
Murder  --  Hardly
Mutiny  --  I guess, but very specific
Rape  -- Yes
Robbery -- I doubt it
Sodomy -- Yes

So I was mistaken,  most characters can have Rape and Sodomy to suffer through. The mechanic isn't Rape specific.

...

Quote from: StuartSo, to answer the question:



Adultery  --  I doubt it
Blasphemy  --  No
Idolatry -- No
Murder  --  Hardly
Mutiny  --  I guess, but very specific
Rape  -- Yes
Robbery -- I doubt it
Sodomy -- Yes

So I was mistaken,  most characters can have Rape and Sodomy to suffer through. The mechanic isn't Rape specific.

...

You're looking at the list of sins you can commit, not the list of hardships you can suffer through.

Quote from: James J SkachTCM - aimed at the teenager wallowing in gore for the gross out factor.

So? It's still dismemberment and cannibalism that was created by PEOPLE and has been seen by MILLIONS and is a cultural staple. Normal, everyday people know TCM. It's not some dirty in-the-closet video nasty.

Quote from: James J SkachAs for CSI, can you detail "featured?"  Because I'm pretty sure I've seen every episode, I don't recall one where they "feature" a 16 year old getting raped.  They may reference it, but I don't recall them showing it. And there's a huge difference.

They did show it. Not nudity and penetration of course, but they had a shot of the the girl's face and upper body as she's being held down as the act occurs. One of the more brutal episodes of the show.

This is the episode: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0534702/

Quote from: James J SkachDexter?  Never heard of it.  Do they show him killing and dismembering the people?

I think it's a Showtime program in the States. They didn't show any killing in the first episode, but they showed him tying up and jabbing his victim with sharp objects before they skipped to the next day. (and they showed plenty of dismembered bodies at crime scenes and the main character's admiration and love for blood spatter is but one of the "I AM A SOCIOPATH SEE HOW QUIRKY AND WEIRD I AM" things they show to establish the title character) I am under the impression it gets more graphic as time goes on because the hanging plot thread was him being fascinated by the work of another at-large serial killer.

Quote from: James J SkachLots?  Like 10% of the population?

10% of the population of the US would mean 30 million people. Even if it's just 1%, it's still a larger group of people than role-players.

But I'll say it's in the many tens of millions. TCM has been seen by many millions. That episode of CSI has been seen by god knows how many millions of people. All sorts of music, movies, and books dealing with the subject are available at real mainstream stores, many of them best-sellers or chart toppers or Oscar winners. Some have "artistic merit," some are just there to shock, and some are the result of people goofing around.

Quote from: signoftheserpentIt's all rather bizarre:

On one hand it's a bunch of people, I assume (maybe I'm wrong), trying to examine what it was like living as a pirate with all the moral quandries involved.

On the other it's a bunch of people, in the 21st century, with 21st century morals, sat in a room in an environment as removed from the high seas as humanly possible.

You're willing to explore the life of a pirate, but from the comfort of a semi-detached psychodrama.

Isn't that a definition of roleplaying right there?

I doubt any game with a guy called cuntface and whatnot is going to be much more of a serious analysis than:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1TcuijzN7Y

(Monkey dust)

It's almost unwatchably funny, but its also got almost fuck all to do with the really, really sordid and nasty actuality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_oucSWlGQw

I will say that if you think you are doing anything worthy or noble with this then I really do think you are kidding yourself. But hey, monkey dust is funny yo.

BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY A TELEVOTE ON SKY NEWS I PRONOUNCE YOU GUILTY OF PEDOFILIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To my mind, shows like CSI are actually worse than media that is openly pornographic or excessively violent.  It makes the sex-violence connection often, does it in a titillating way with very high production values but masks itself in a good cops finding out bad people storyline.  They have some pretty nasty stuff on that show.