Sell me on Promethean

I would like to know why do you guys like Promethean the Created.

Ahh, Promethean. It's not an easy sell. It's not a simple game.

You see, the thing about Promethean is it lacks pick-up-and-play value. You can run Promethean one-shots, but frankly it would be simpler or more fun to just run Vampire, or Werewolf, or Changeling. Those games can be deep, obviously, with opportunities for fantastic roleplaying. But you can also just sit down with your friends one day and knock together some PCs and while away a few hours.

But Promethean... Promethean doesn't work that way.

If you want to run Promethean, you need to think hard about the kind of game you want to run. Then you need to sit down with each of your players, individually, and talk serious talks with them about what they want their characters to be, and to do. Then you take how they want their characters to develop, and how you want the game to run, and you write up a short list of Milestones independent of the main plot for each player's character to achieve. You don't tell the players what they are. Some they should figure out naturally, others they should stumble across during play and some will be spontaneous, moments of magnitude and epiphany neither player nor ST has prepared for.

And now you've got the characters and milestones and plot all organised, you can start running your campaign. And if you've done all these steps right, Promethean will be glorious. Because some people think Promethean is bleak, or hopeless, or depressing, and they're very, very wrong.

Promethean is the most full-of-hope game in the entire WoD. Because you can win. You can become human. You can complete the transformation, if you stick to your guns and keep going and grow as a person from homunculus to human being with a human spirit and human morals. Vampire, Changeling, Werewolf... they're all about being monsters and trying to hold on to your humanity. Promethean is about being created a monster and trying to leave the monster behind.

I fucking love it.

Promethean is a game about discovery.

a discovery of life, a discovery of what it means to be human through an outsider's perceptive, and most importantly (and the absolute core of the game), a discovery of one's self.

it's a game that one can not just pick up and play and expect to gain the full experience. Promethean shines in the long term where players see their characters grow and develop.

Primalflame:

I would like to know why do you guys like Promethean the Created.

one of the things that sold me on promethean (and this is my thought process): what better way to study the human condition than by not being human and observing? 

Promethean draws me because the game itself is a study of how we as humans interact with each other and why we are so brutal to those around us.

or at least that is how i have always perceived it.   /$0.02

c34r34lk1ll3r:

Primalflame:

I would like to know why do you guys like Promethean the Created.

one of the things that sold me on promethean (and this is my thought process): what better way to study the human condition than by not being human and observing? 

Promethean draws me because the game itself is a study of how we as humans interact with each other and why we are so brutal to those around us.

or at least that is how i have always perceived it.   /$0.02

Likewise.  PtC is not a "throw some scenes together over chips and rootbeer" thing, it's probably one of the deepest chronicles WW has ever put out, especially if played the right way.  If you enjoy roleplaying over combat and like to get inside the mind of characters rather than see NPCs as bags of XP with feet, you'll love this game.

I have to concur with the 2 posters over me.  It's the commentary on the human condition that gets me every time.  The question that all good promethan games boil down to is what's so great about being human. 

The time I played it table top, in the 5 or 6 sessions it ran my PC's hadn't even decided if they wanted to be human yet, though when the tragic relationships started piling up they started coming to rethink it.

Frankenstein meets Pinocchio. I like the blending of themes. The introduction of Alchemy as a distinct realm of thought within the nWoD (instead of being a sub-category of magic). Especially the blend of both western and eastern alchemies for Promethean ideology. Also by using a kinda of "supernatural" hobo lifestyle towards establishing a social structure was really smart. Wouldn't have thought to do that myself, but it seems a very natural course and fills out the nWoD more as a whole.

Finally, I like that it challenges players to think differently about playing characters. It's harder to get people to step outside of themselves when playing "once-human" characters like Vampire & Mage. It's a double edge sword cause it can deter players from wanting to play it, but I guess it's all on how one sells it to a gaming group.

The same thing the others said- plus It has a point and end. For the longest time- I would only play V:TR. But eventually we branched out and played Werewolf ( Spirt police)- Changeling (On the run from Tim Burton and Grimm)- Mage ( the magic Matrix) -ect they all have a point except Vampire- Vampire is just a selfish game really- it is still my favorite but it just doesn't have a big point to it. Promeathean not only has a point but it has a goal that you work towards already built in. I believe the problem is that people get preconceptions about them game before giving it a chane- They are zombies or Frankenstiens or mummies ect. That really isn't nessessarily true. The game is very much about actual heavy role-playing and most people I know aren't comfortable roleplaying their - first kiss or- falling in love or- anything real emotional. They also have a tendency to be ugly or suffer alot and have general depressive lives- not exactly something everyone wants to escape to. Where Vampires are powerful and Beautiful- Promeatheans tend to be monsters that have to interact with people that hate them for no reason. To me it is just a very high level of roleplaying and lots of people don't want to get as deep as they may need to be to stay true to the game- but you could just as easily make it a smah-em up game.

I love it because it's so different. It is always so much more personal. The concept itself is touching. An odd comparison perhaps, but it gave me a similar feeling to the one I got while reading Heart of Darkness by Conrad, or some of the Sandman novels by Gaiman.

Chaka:

Ahh, Promethean. It's not an easy sell. It's not a simple game.

You see, the thing about Promethean is it lacks pick-up-and-play value. You can run Promethean one-shots, but frankly it would be simpler or more fun to just run Vampire, or Werewolf, or Changeling. Those games can be deep, obviously, with opportunities for fantastic roleplaying. But you can also just sit down with your friends one day and knock together some PCs and while away a few hours.

But Promethean... Promethean doesn't work that way.

If you want to run Promethean, you need to think hard about the kind of game you want to run. Then you need to sit down with each of your players, individually, and talk serious talks with them about what they want their characters to be, and to do. Then you take how they want their characters to develop, and how you want the game to run, and you write up a short list of Milestones independent of the main plot for each player's character to achieve. You don't tell the players what they are. Some they should figure out naturally, others they should stumble across during play and some will be spontaneous, moments of magnitude and epiphany neither player nor ST has prepared for.

And now you've got the characters and milestones and plot all organised, you can start running your campaign. And if you've done all these steps right, Promethean will be glorious. Because some people think Promethean is bleak, or hopeless, or depressing, and they're very, very wrong.

Promethean is the most full-of-hope game in the entire WoD. Because you can win. You can become human. You can complete the transformation, if you stick to your guns and keep going and grow as a person from homunculus to human being with a human spirit and human morals. Vampire, Changeling, Werewolf... they're all about being monsters and trying to hold on to your humanity. Promethean is about being created a monster and trying to leave the monster behind.

I fucking love it.

Amen brother! Thats what it's all about.

How's "Heart of Darkness?"

Kamatej:

I love it because it's so different. It is always so much more personal. The concept itself is touching. An odd comparison perhaps, but it gave me a similar feeling to the one I got while reading Heart of Darkness by Conrad, or some of the Sandman novels by Gaiman.

this, this, a thousand times this

Hivemind:

How's "Heart of Darkness?"

How can I explain it in words... It's about the feeling, the one you could perhaps get after watching Into the Wild for the first time, when you're in your twenties and then hearing the song "long nights" by Eddie Vedder on the radio while driving through the desert on a starry night? Also heart of darkness because it's about "what constitutes a man?". What makes us human.

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...

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.