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RE: Spotlight on In Dark Alleys

in #tabletop-rpg6 years ago

There's a reason I didn't go into the world lore. It's a weird collection of supernatural strangeness informed by the aesthetics of abandoned buildings, urban decay, and a survey course in philosophy. But it in no way serves the stated premise of being about the status quo power structure.

A good example is one of the sample adventures. The premise is that friend of the PCs has fallen into a coma with no known medical cause. The PCs then receive a phone call from him. Turns out he's trapped in some other worldly plane that manifests as an abandoned city. After researching it's discovered that he was practicing lucid dreaming. While dreaming he kept coming across a black marble that seemed to want to suck him in. It eventually did. Now he's being stalked by some weird monsters and the PCs have to save him.

And that's it. It very much feels like it's "tacked on to give the players some action and an over arching goal." I find myself asking, "What does this have to do with maintaining the status quo for power?" Like it would be way more interesting to discover that beings at the hospital were mining his soul or something as metaphor for our broken medical system. Instead it's just "ooo a secret world and a monster."

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It says a lot of your breakdown of the game that I could infer something like that. I don't see what's wrong with just making a system to get people thinking. You can help guide what kind of story is made with things like the skills and attributes you fill in when making a character. Obviously don't be ham fisted with it by putting in literal oppression points but something like the psyche can encourage players to think along the lines of less action more roleplay.

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