Promethean Thoughts
On my recent vacation, I picked up a copy of the newest nWoD game, namely Promethean: the Created. All and all, it gets my approval, but journey below the cut for details.
My favorite thing about this game is the core story: you play a Created entity, whose nature forbids ever truly integrating with humanity or even nature. However, by seeking to understand humanity, one can distill a soul from your animating energies and transcend your pitiful state. The details are very solid and reinforce play: people react badly to your character, even if they don't know you're a freak of nature/magic/science/sausage, so there's a very good reason to want out. And since everyone hates you, it makes a lot of sense to team up with others of your kind.
Splats are based on "real world" created entities, the fiction being that [i]someone[/i] created the originals which then reproduced throughout human history, creating a Lineage of such monsters; Frankensteins, Galateans, Golems, Osirans, and reanimated siberan shamans round out the "birth splats." "Outlook splats" are philosophical studies that the Created can engage in to learn kewl powers. Switching between them is relatively common and XP-free.
Antagonists are sensible and intriguing: bizarre Pandorans, which animate in the presence of Prometheans and seek to consume their energized flesh; sinister Centimani, Prometheans who embrace their transhuman natures and require others of their kind for their brutal and twisted experiments; enigmatic Quallishim (I probably misspelled that but I don't care to look now), spirits who propel the Promethean on their journey.
Promethean stories lend themselves to picturesque and Romanticism. One is forced from human company, but compelled to return. So far, the book seems to model its main influence really well. Other influences listed include Swamp Thing, The Crow, and Sling Blade, all of which do rather well as Promethean stories and resemble stories one might want to tell using the game.
Things I'm not so hot on:
The occasional posturing one finds in WoD games where the game infers that its influences are reversed, as in, in the fictional WoD, the myths come from the monsters, rather than the other way around.
The kewl powerz aren't that kewl: I've been totally spoiled by Exalted, I'll cop to that. But the Promethean power set isn't that interesting. Your standard hypnotism/suggestion path, a stealth path, a perception path, *yawn*. The Shapechanging path has a Homunculus power, which lames it up significantly (never seen anyone with a cool homunculus), but the rest seem okay; the Electrification powers are nifty in concept, but the offense stuff seems weak (as in, doesn't do a lot of damage) and the machine control stuff is narrow-use. The matter-alteration path is unique, but not too engaging. The super-strength path is somewhat unique among supernatuals (at least to the extent that Promethean takes it), and I likes me some powerful Frankenstein types.
The big winners here are Disquietism, which channels the mistrust Prometheans generate, amplifying or redirecting it, and Vulcanis, the "power-stat" power, which has a couple genius effects, like being able to leave invisible (to mortals) "pilgrim marks" behind for other Prometheans, and the ability to animate objects through your own Divine Fire. Also of note: the power that gives you an imaginary friend. Yes, the imaginary friend is useful and whatnot, but that's not the point. The point is that some Promethean was so freakin' lonely he invented a "real" imaginary friend for himself. Now that's sad.
Also, you don't get enough powers at chargen, straight up. By the rules, you can get a single mid-range power or up to three low-low-end powers, which is simply not enough variety to start a character with. And with the (comparatively) glacial pace of XP gain in nWoD, advancing is simply torture. But again, I've probably been spoiled. There may also be some more compensation inherent in the Promethean nature, but I haven't gotten there yet.
But these are pretty simple things, and nothing to get hung up on. One plays angry Frankensteins looking for purpose; that's good enough for me!
Now, ever getting to play/run the thing...that's a different story.
My favorite thing about this game is the core story: you play a Created entity, whose nature forbids ever truly integrating with humanity or even nature. However, by seeking to understand humanity, one can distill a soul from your animating energies and transcend your pitiful state. The details are very solid and reinforce play: people react badly to your character, even if they don't know you're a freak of nature/magic/science/sausage, so there's a very good reason to want out. And since everyone hates you, it makes a lot of sense to team up with others of your kind.
Splats are based on "real world" created entities, the fiction being that [i]someone[/i] created the originals which then reproduced throughout human history, creating a Lineage of such monsters; Frankensteins, Galateans, Golems, Osirans, and reanimated siberan shamans round out the "birth splats." "Outlook splats" are philosophical studies that the Created can engage in to learn kewl powers. Switching between them is relatively common and XP-free.
Antagonists are sensible and intriguing: bizarre Pandorans, which animate in the presence of Prometheans and seek to consume their energized flesh; sinister Centimani, Prometheans who embrace their transhuman natures and require others of their kind for their brutal and twisted experiments; enigmatic Quallishim (I probably misspelled that but I don't care to look now), spirits who propel the Promethean on their journey.
Promethean stories lend themselves to picturesque and Romanticism. One is forced from human company, but compelled to return. So far, the book seems to model its main influence really well. Other influences listed include Swamp Thing, The Crow, and Sling Blade, all of which do rather well as Promethean stories and resemble stories one might want to tell using the game.
Things I'm not so hot on:
The occasional posturing one finds in WoD games where the game infers that its influences are reversed, as in, in the fictional WoD, the myths come from the monsters, rather than the other way around.
The kewl powerz aren't that kewl: I've been totally spoiled by Exalted, I'll cop to that. But the Promethean power set isn't that interesting. Your standard hypnotism/suggestion path, a stealth path, a perception path, *yawn*. The Shapechanging path has a Homunculus power, which lames it up significantly (never seen anyone with a cool homunculus), but the rest seem okay; the Electrification powers are nifty in concept, but the offense stuff seems weak (as in, doesn't do a lot of damage) and the machine control stuff is narrow-use. The matter-alteration path is unique, but not too engaging. The super-strength path is somewhat unique among supernatuals (at least to the extent that Promethean takes it), and I likes me some powerful Frankenstein types.
The big winners here are Disquietism, which channels the mistrust Prometheans generate, amplifying or redirecting it, and Vulcanis, the "power-stat" power, which has a couple genius effects, like being able to leave invisible (to mortals) "pilgrim marks" behind for other Prometheans, and the ability to animate objects through your own Divine Fire. Also of note: the power that gives you an imaginary friend. Yes, the imaginary friend is useful and whatnot, but that's not the point. The point is that some Promethean was so freakin' lonely he invented a "real" imaginary friend for himself. Now that's sad.
Also, you don't get enough powers at chargen, straight up. By the rules, you can get a single mid-range power or up to three low-low-end powers, which is simply not enough variety to start a character with. And with the (comparatively) glacial pace of XP gain in nWoD, advancing is simply torture. But again, I've probably been spoiled. There may also be some more compensation inherent in the Promethean nature, but I haven't gotten there yet.
But these are pretty simple things, and nothing to get hung up on. One plays angry Frankensteins looking for purpose; that's good enough for me!
Now, ever getting to play/run the thing...that's a different story.