thread: 2011-03-10 : Hungry Desperate and Alone
On 2011-03-20, Josh W wrote:
So in the first game, the fact that intimacy is supposed to be a thing rather than just a stat label, forms the core of the first game's interesting conflict? The more emotionally painful it is to drink their blood, the better for materially for you?
I take it you'd rather a build up of parasitic angst + a get out clause, and the whole "growing understanding vs containing awareness to firefighting pain" dynamic is just one that doesn't interest you much any more? Or at least, it's not worth the price/risk of prematurely ending relationships you'd rather were ended by players' comfort zones.
To put it in other terms, the unusual thing about that game is that instead of the classical "drive people away with abuse to protect them from your nastiness" vampire relationship thing, you're focusing on a "distract people from your own nastiness with more pressing concerns, i.e. abuse and subtle sabotage, so they never notice it, and you can keep on doing it".
I'm not that interested in playing out vampires except as power and status games among a parasitic secretive elite, so not much of this sings for me, and I'm not totally confident about what this is supposed to be, but if it is all damaged relationships, then cutting off those relationships is like death in other games; it's a threat to be mostly avoided, and too much effort being used up in avoiding it saps the game's energy.
Also, the "angry means they stay away" bit isn't really covered by rules in the same way other reactions are. In fact the anger system might actually act as an attractor, because they may find it difficult to act against you without coming into contact with you.
