Sell me on Promethean

kurasu:

Kamatej:

jeez, I'm not good at this... What I meant is that unlike other games in the WoD Promethean isn't about pretending to be someone you're not. At least for me. It's about discovering yourself. That sounds so cheesy...

Yes, it does sound cheesy, but your statement is very true. I was actually introduced into the game from a Professor of mine when I was an undergrad studying anthropology a few years back. The professor had our class, a group of 7, play the game so that we could learn how to look in on humanity and see what it is that makes us, and those we study, human. It was an amazing experience and I've been hooked on Promethean ever since.

You have a truly awesome professor.

ChaosWolf:

You have a truly awesome professor.

She is an amazing teacher. She has been teaching for so long that she always likes to try new things to see if they work better. For our class, she figured this would be best, given the people in it, especially the girl in our class writing a dissertation on the culture of D&D players.

I meant to comment on it a few days back, and I think I would have loved that teacher and had a crush on her for doing something like that.  Smart chicks do it for me.

I really love that promethan can be the game that makes you not only figure out the meaning of life, it can let you decide what you think the meaning of life is.  In a way I like that people haven't latched to deeply onto this or we'd get the twilight equivalent of promethan eventually.  They're way to ugly to get the vampire treatment I suppose.

What makes me love promethean so much is the sheer underestimated the characters you make are.The idea of being more than what you seem is cool.Plus it is not about power it is about self discovery and growing as a being.

kurasu:

The professor had our class, a group of 7, play the game so that we could learn how to look in on humanity and see what it is that makes us, and those we study, human. It was an amazing experience and I've been hooked on Promethean ever since.

I really think it is really cool that a prof would play a role playing game in class.
This thread has opened my eyes to the beauty of Promethean. I don't believe my group is ready for that type of game yet.  They still like clawing and blasting. But they are young and I am working on them.

JavalTigar:

This thread has opened my eyes to the beauty of Promethean. I don't believe my group is ready for that type of game yet.  They still like clawing and blasting. But they are young and I am working on them.

I am glad that Promethean has gained another fan. As for your group not being ready, that is not truly surprising. Promethean is a game very unlike the rest of the NWoD games, in that it inherently looks into topics that most would think of for a role playing game. The best way to test a group to see if they are able to deal with this type of game is to use other NWoD games and slowly shift things away from the physical encounters and more towards social/mental endeavors, and eventually towards more philosophical explorations. Any of the NWoD games can be used for this, though Mage, Werewolf and Geist are the easiest to focus in this direction.

easiest way is to include a promethean in the chronicle you're running. If they feel interested - procede. If they don't - it's too early. I don't think it's a very controversial thing to sat that Promethean is the most "mature" gameline, bearing in mind that the maturity of the actual play depends on the characters of the players and the storyteller.

If I may throw my two cents into the pot; I would like to recommend the Tennessee Williams play Orpheus Descending. If you take the time to read it look at the character Valentine Xavier as a Promethean who falls in love with a human. It can give you an idea of what Disquiet can look like; especially when it's a small town that is already wary of unknown people and has a very small breaking point. If you'd rather watch the movie, the movie is called The Fugitive Kind. It's kind of an old play, but it is set in a small town in the deep south, the kind of town that is perfect for a WoD setting. It's dark, mean, evil, and in every way completely hostile to outsiders.

Promethean is one of my favorite games in the whole line, even though I've never had the opportunity to play it.  Why?

Every one of the WoD games, if played in a certain way, can become an exploration of the human condition.  However, most of these games examine it through the lens of something that happens to a human, how that changes and doesn't change them, and what that says about the human condition.  Sure, an individual vampire might believe that Golconda is a return to humanity, and sure, an individual werewolf might be Ghosting it up and hanging on to as much of her normal life as she can, and sure, an individual mage might go, "Hey, this magic thing is cool, but so is the rest of my life so I'm not going to do that whole running away from it thing."  But these individual characters would be the exception, not the rule, of these games.

Promethean is the exact opposite.  The Prometheans (mostly) want to be human.  So instead of examining the human condition vicariously, you're looking at it through the eyes of someone that desperately wants to be human.  And I think, if your players all get into it, you can have some really great moments where the Promethean becomes a vehicle for observation of the truth of the human condition, without all our natural self-delusions and rationalizations.

I also love the themes.  Sure, it's easy to overdo the angst, but when done right, you can have some very Wagnerian torments.  Many people say they're lonely, but how many people can say they truly have no one they can even make small talk with?  How many people can say that they don't even know HOW to make a connection with someone, even on the tiniest of levels?

Think about a time when you were really drunk.  I mean really just sloshed.  The kind of drunk where you thought you were acting normally, but everyone is laughing at you or shying away from you or trying to throw you out of the party.  Think about those times when you can't for the life of you remember how to do something, but you know you should know.  That's only a taste of how a Promethean is going to feel pretty much all the time.  That's pretty much their default condition.  Their torments, their despair, it's going to be a heady thing, and they're going to have to put themselves through it again and again, all on the faint hope that maybe they'll achieve some mythical (and potentially impossible) Great Work.

Just as much as Promethean is a game about hopelessness, it's a game about hope.  And I like that.

Gravedigger:

Think about a time when you were really drunk.  I mean really just sloshed

best analogy I've read so far, on these forums. I disagree, but I like it :)