Well, why not toot my own horn today?
The genesis of Violence was a conversation I had over lunch with James Wallis some years ago when he was in New York for a visit. He asked if I had any desire to go back to designing tabletop RPGs, and I said "not much"--but mentioned an idea I had for a wholly satirical and very likely unplayable game intended mainly as an attack on both the business practices and unspoken assumptions of RPGs. I believe my original title was "Bloodshed." We chortled a bit, Wallis went away, and a few years later wrote saying he was launching a line of short, brief, experimental RPGs by the likes of John Tynes and Robin Laws, and would I be interested in doing that repulsive game idea I had. Well, good company to be in, anyway, and I had some time between projects.
Violence is intended to be a good read, but not really intended to be played, though I'm told people have. It's a lot like D&D--you roll up a character, then wander corridors, kick in doors, and kill what you find on the other side. Only instead of taking place in a fantasy "dungeon" it takes place in a modern apartment building, and instead of killing "monsters" you kill other humans beings with hopes and dreams and aspirations. And instead of being a "hero," you're an evil sadistic murderer. Which of course raises the question of what those D&D characters are really doing, and why.
Violence was originally published at GenCon, but GenCon has a policy against selling anything that might offend parents, in essence; consequently, Wallis sold brown paper bags over the counter, refusing to state exactly what was in such bags; apparently, attendees understood the ruse, and this was enough to pacify the GenCon police. Indeed, I'm told that Peter Adkison was spotted wandering around the convention reading choice bits aloud to people and laughing.
Anyway, Wallis went on to greener pastures, the New Style line went out of print, and a few years ago, we decided to release the game under Creative Commons. So the link above is a free download.
New Style
Great! I've already got De Profundis and Puppetland/Powerkill, but I'd never even heard about the other New Style games. This should be fun to curl up with one night, so to speak.
Also, that GenCon story is awesome.
The idea reminds me a lot of
The idea reminds me a lot of "kill puppies for satan" from Lumpley Games.
Hmmm... kill puppies has a
Hmmm... kill puppies has a slightly different target, coming as it did from Vincent Baker's disenchantment with the White Wolf range of games (he's said it was planned to be his final F you to the RPG hobby), while violence is a solid 100% satire of dungeon crawls.
Designer X
What's with the "Designer X" stickers replacing Greg Costikyan's name? Are you afraid of the reprisals?
Designer X
To quote from the "about the author":
“Violence: The Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed is designed by ‘Designer X,’ the creator of more than two dozen commercially-published paper and computer games, many of them winners of prestigious awards. He is bitterly ashamed to be associated in any way with this vile product. He lives nowhere. With no one. Do not try to find him, or it will go ill with you.”
In other word, it's another gag. The "paper label" is specifically designed that you can sort-of read my name through it anyway.
thanks for mentioning this
thanks for mentioning this game, Greg. Oddly, this is the only game of yours I've ever read, and it somehow ended up being the sole book in my bathroom the entire time I lived in UNM's student ghetto.
The sections on rape and "how cops group people who aren't cops" still stick with me.
Bloodshed
Actually, Greg, the title you originally suggested was 'Bloodlust'. It's a brilliant title for an RPG, but I had literally just come back from France where I had signed a licence to publish a translation of an RPG called 'Bloodlust', so I had to ask you to come up with something else.