MI:666
It just won't go away. Every time I have a lull in my thoughts about Duty & Honour, MI:666 raises its ugly head and tries desperately to persuade me to pay it some attention. I think I may have to put it to bed in some way just to stop these interruptions!
The premise, for those not familiar with it, is that Christian Hell exists and the only people that know about it are the British Government. They have to keep the existance secret to stop the world falling down around them and the people that protect the Worlds Biggest Secret are MI:666, a covert branch of the security service.
Why would the world fall down around them? Well, the problem is two fold. The problem is simply that the existence of Hell implies the existence of Heaven, Biblical Heaven. If this fact was ever to get out the explosion of religious fundamentalism and warfare would destroy the world! Therefore the secret has to be maintained, even though the effects of Hell are now being realised around the globe.
Last night, in a fit of creativity, I thought I would try to sketch a set of rules of the game. I decided that rather than look for something mechanical, I would go for something a little more esoteric. I thought about the seven deadly sins (Lust, Envy, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony and Pride). The idea being that the characters are fighting a battle against the forces of Hell who are trying to corrupt them through these sins. So, if you lost your temper and beat up a suspect, you would be weaker in Wrath. If you shagged a colleague, you are nearer to being tempted over in Lust. If you insist that you should lead the investigation, its Pride etc.
I'd want the mechanic to work so that the GM could tempt you with something, like a whispering voice in your head. This could work something like the Fate Points and Compels in SotC. There would have to be consequences, but thats for later.
The vibe I want to recreate is a sort of pseudo-religious version of TV shows like Silent Witness (the new one), CSI, Fringe etc. Investigations but powerful character pieces as well.
More later, maybe.
5 comments:
Sounds good.
You might also want to watch Ultraviolet if you haven't seen it.
Vampires in the modern world, it touches on some of this stuff in that what the vampires tend to be very good at is prey on human weaknesses.
It also has the whole modern, slick interpretation thing going on as well as an investigative framework.
At the risk of ramping things to an unwieldy number there are also 7 virtues. The ones we're most familiar with are faith, hope and charity but the cardinal ones may give some mileage -
Prudence
Restraint
Justice
Courage/Fortitude
Ben
Ian - yes, I am very aware of Ultraviolent and I've had the boxed set for years. I haven't watched it for a while though.
Ben - yup, all over that one as well.
Neil
Greg Stolze's "A Dirty World" would also be a good thing to look at for mechanics ideas as it has sets of balanced stats (eg purity / corruption) which overlap in the middle. Pendragon also did this interestingly.
Hi Dom, welcome to the madhouse
I've never seen 'A Dirty World' but I'm very familiar with Pendragon and its use of matched traits.
I've been playing around with some ideas about temptation and using the chance to deteriorate your sins as a way to make tests more winnable, but that also moving Hell towards victory. I need to get my walking game theory machines to work the idea over when I get it down on paper.
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