What is it about 5E that makes these apocalyptic and evil settings so popular? I suppose the more family-friendly and mainstream Wizards make the game, the more players despise being treated like children and look for alternative settings with a little - or a whole lot - of darkness in them.
I have stayed away from a lot of 5E settings either because they were entirely too pedestrian, also-wannabe Realms settings, or not really unique or fun enough to stand on their own. In some settings, I have the books for previous games, and I don't need 5E books for them.
The Askis setting is interesting, a post "endgame quest" sort of world where evil has been defeated, and high-level heroes of good control everything and created a utopian society. The players are meant to be either good or evil here, and it sets up a fight to destroy utopia or preserve it.
The setting is based on 1920s technology and culture and is a sort of Metropolis version of deco/angel-punk that I find interesting. There are a lot of things in here I would probably leave out in my version of the setting, there are not-really-smurfs and good-aligned STDs that seem like behavioral control for guiding the players' evil actions, and gives me the feel of the Paranoia game to me. While I may use the setting and the characters, a lot of the specific history and subplots I may or may not use.
The notion of making the good guys who built the utopia "just as bad" as the evil side fighting against them in a unique one, but instead of using evil's methods I would make the good guys here a little more evil-free in how they maintain order - but maintain it just as brutally.
The book says "mature content" but there is no nudity or sex involved, most of it is just gore or mentions mature-themed concepts (mutation, gore, mutilation, drugs, and the like). The layout is chaotic and a bit confusing, and I find sections just run into each other without much reason.
But compared to a lot of the "perfect society" products coming out of Wizards and Paizo these days, giving a sandbox where you could play evil characters feels like a breath of fresh air. It takes a lot of guts to create a setting like this, and I appreciate the work that went into creating a sandbox where you could play evil characters and let off that steam.
It reminds me of a way in a Grand Theft Auto sandbox setting for 5E where the world of good is filled with hypocrites, vanity, self-absorbed, pious, consumerist, biased, wealthy, lazy, and ultimately hollow good people living fake lives and telling themselves they are better than the rest of the universe.
That concept is cool.
Some of the implementation details I feel need a little more polish, and some cleaning up to fit my idea of this sort of GTA meets D&D world of madness and violent self-parody.
Nice, a good start, but I feel it needs a little more focus and classic Rockstar style touch of parody and satire.
No comments:
Post a Comment