I’ll be running a game with a Cult crew type on Monday. Has anybody else run a Cult? Did you use the Quick Start scenerio as is or modify some things?
I’m considering giving the Red Sashes a ritualist flavor (intertwined with their fighting styles) so there are more immediate supernatural or ideological connections for the crew, but otherwise keeping to the basic QS setup to see what happens.
Are you making up the Cult crew type? Or do you have access to documents that I don’t? (Or, of course, just making your own version.)
Cults are amazing (played in one Wed). We played straight up (no QS scenario). Did you have specific questions?
Andrew Shields the cult preview is available publicly on the Kickstarter: http://onesevendesign.com/blades/bitd_whisper_cult_samples.pdf
Stras Acimovic by straight up you mean just letting players essentially setup their own starting situation from the crew gen and faction status assignment process? Also I’m not sure what you mean by “specific As.” 😛 I believe they are aiming to design the group similar to a Victorian Ordo Templi Orientis, Aleister Crowley, a touch of Lovecraft, etc.
(Specific Qs – was typing on my phone)
So if you look at the cult sheet there’s a space to make your Deity (top left, right under your name). You may want them to do that first. Because unlike Crowley’s bunch, you have a force in your life that is definitely present and has an agenda. That will shape a bit of their ideas. (Ours was a Monstrous and Alluring snake godess referred to as the Mistress of the Crossroads with some loose references to Hecate).
Forex I played a cutter that died being chased by some bluecoats, and came back, through the touch of their deity. So he was pretty devoted. Our leech regularly had dreams sent to him by our deity. Cool stuff ya?
And the starting scenario is just a specific version of the normal start rules (you can deconstruct it). Talk about the city quarter you’re in. Who runs what? Ask some specific questions. Figure out the forces. Have them place their gang somewhere and come up with 3 jobs from the inital discussions and their contacts/connections. Go.
In our case we had a struggle going on with the dimmers so we could hit one of their shipments, we had a contact that told us about a statue a noble had that he didn’t know the true value of, and our goddess sent us a vision of an abandoned in-city train-tracks we could take from the Forgotten Gods even though we had favorable relations with them. We picked that one.
Wow Stras Acimovic you just gave me a wonderful idea for my convention game. Thanks.
For a rather quick approach you might take the second scenario option – take a mystical box which gives you headaches and place it into the enemies HQ – as a start to go. It is occult and your cult crew might drop ideas to do different stuff with the box..
I guess I’m mostly just curious how cults interact with the rest of the gangs. They seem to be quite differently minded, even though I know they pull scores and just seek followers and a deity’s agenda rather than just self-promotion. They still need to manage the political landscape of Duskwall, but the motives seem very different from all the other criminal crew types. I feel like there will be less of the classic vault-heists, but they just need different things (ritual components, spirits, powers and the things you can trade for power, a platform for communicating your message and winning hearts and minds, cash to fund your deity’s mission, etc). At the end of the day, I know that dominance is dominance however you achieve it, whether through violent enforcers, strategic hits on leadership, or force of conviction and supernatural power and otherworldly connections.
I recognize this is a vague ‘question’ but I am mostly curious how other people run a cult’s relationships and interactions with various other factions and the rationale for doing so.
It’s a very vague question.
The thing is that you need to answer two other questions to understand the answer to what you’re asking.
1. What is the deity and what does it want?
2. What do the gang members want?
The two are not necessarily synonymous.
Look at Dishonored (which is a Cult of one). The Deity (the Stranger) wants to throw a wrench into the flow of fate, by empowering one person. That person couldn’t care less about religion, but desparately needs/wants the powers to save his daughter and get some vengeance done.
Why do people join a cult?
Are they getting power? A standard gang will make deals with demons that empower them. Is this a bargain? Is it just the edge that lets their small gang go ‘elite’ on bigger and meaner groups?
Is it a source of profit? Does this give them a different power source than leviathan-blood? Does it tell them where to find their desires in dreams?
Is it a source of knowledge? Where they must find forbidden books and tomes and explore outside cities, crypts etc?
Is it actual faith? In a non-distant and very real god?
Protection against wraiths, other demons, plague and who knows what else is terrible in life?
What’s the deity want?
To balance a broken world? To get a one up on the living god that is the emperor? Victory over others? Embodyment? Sacrifices?
Once you have those answers you’ll know how they react to others. Or when in doubt – ask your group. “Hey I hear those Scions of the Forgotten Kings are a cult. What sort of terms are you guys on? Work together, or does your deity frown on that sort of thing? Or do you not care and just focus on your jazz?”
I’ve seen a few takes on all this. We’ve run it in different ways, let me know if you need something more specific.
Stras Acimovic thank you for such a valuable answer to my vague question. 🙂 I appreciate your experience playing with more than one version of a cult. That experience is primarily what I was looking for with this thread, so I’ll definitely let you know if we run into something puzzling. 🙂
In reading your ideas (or your good questions really) I realized my underlying issue is that I was sensing that starting a crew of normal/irreligious scoundrels requires less setting definition from the outset (your thieves so here are some things to steal, no matter whose they are and how they work, so long as the haul is valuable to someone). On the other hand our cult crew will have to quickly discover a bunch more answers to ‘how does this world work’ before plot devices can more naturally snowball into a story. Sure they could still just steal something vaguely esoteric or powerful and worry about whose it is, how it works later, or why its valuable, but it seems more likely cultists would only do so after understanding some of those details.
But then of course, as you started with, all those details we’ll ‘need’ should stem from exploring just those initial two questions: what does the deity want, and what do the PCs want.
I think in the back of my mind I’m also worried everyone will be very Whisper-y and Slide-y. I’m now noticing that worries me because I am assuming Whisper-y Slide-y stuff requires more nuanced creativity to provide diverse challenges than say people to fight and stuff to break for a Cutter or places to infiltrate for a Lurk. Now we’ll have to focus more carefully on being true to believable motives, powers, and inhuman minds and psyches. Describing an effect that twists your dreams into nightmares or something clearly enough to convey severity is more difficult than say “a cut on the hand” vs “a stab in the gut” vs or “a gunshot through the heart.” This is now a tangential issue, but I’m trying to define what hesitance I’m feeling.
Yeah, Adam, that’s true. If making up stuff like that feels too daunting, don’t play a cult! Start with something that’s more comfortable for you. Don’t sabotage yourself.
Heh. Good advice John. I suspect my group won’t be daunted or dissuaded, so it’s probably more a matter of me being willing to shift my GMing expectations to trust that my group’s great creativity will contribute in far more ways than I’m assuming. These things are much more in their wheelhouse than mine, but they’re a very driven group so I’m sure it’ll be great.
I want to add just one bit of food for thought.
We played a zero whisper cult game last Wed. Namely you’ll note the cult starts with Adepts. We played non-mystics who were chosen, and the cult provided our magical backup.
Wards on the enemy’s area? No problem. Our adepts are here, I clear the guards and motion Kira (adept cult leader) over who then uses the Gangs background as my effect die.
The cult is super flexible. You can totally run it like you’re the muscle arm of a religious group. Remember that in the original thief the Hammerites (Machinists in 2) and the Pagans were totally cults. Make the flavor suit your game.
I expect you’ll have a blast (please write up an AP report here) and hope the random ideas helped! ^_^