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Invisibles RPG

 
 
Lord Morgue
11:59 / 12.04.04
Anyone tried, heard of, or interested in experimenting with a role playing game based on our Patron's creation?
Could be interesting when you consider G.M.'s use of "fiction suits". You, the player, are wearing the character as a fictionsuit, then the character assumes an Invisible identity, putting on another fiction suit, then perhaps changing it at some stage, like Big Malkie reverting to Mr. Six, or Kirk Morrison as Gideon Stargrave as King Mob, or Boy's endless "cover identities".
As far as established systems go, Dark Conspiracy seems to be custom-made for Invisibles role-play, but I'm sure there's some Cthulhupunk hybrids out there that would work (minus most of the futuristic technology, except of course in the hands of the Archons and their slaves, or time travellers like Robin.)
Setting up a Cell would be a bit like the old D+D parties, you need fighters (King Mob, Jolly Roger, Boy) to form the backbone of the group, to do all the hitting and shooting and blowing up, and at least one magic-user (Lord Fanny, Jim Crow, Jack, or Robin with her psionic implants) to make sure the cell doesn't job to the first Archon middle-management they meet. And a few friendly NPC's, like Mason and Takashi. And guns. We'll need lots of guns.
 
 
8===>Q: alyn
13:02 / 12.04.04
http://www.white-wolf.com/mage.html
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
15:32 / 12.04.04
Yes.

I call it:

"real life."

Heh. No, seriously.
 
 
uncle retrospective
17:01 / 12.04.04
Over the Edge by Atlas Games is pretty much on the money. It's vauge enough to do anything you want with it. Have a look here
 
 
houdini
17:58 / 12.04.04
From RPG.Net:

An Invisibles RPG

The Invisibles RPG - How would you do it?

The first of these threads is more substantial. Note that they're both relatively old, so keep that in mind when/if posting to them.

FYI, I'm on those threads as "Scorpio Rising".
 
 
Dr. Kenneth Noisewater
18:04 / 12.04.04
I absolutely hate role-playing. But somehow, in complete opposition to that, I want to do this. I really do. Hh.
 
 
Lord Morgue
10:19 / 13.04.04
Some kind of Call of Cthulhu/ Cyberpunk hybrid could work for another reason- the Cypunk "Cool" stat and the Cthulhu "Sanity" stat- characters are affected by how much bad crazyness they endure, so a neophyte like Dane freaks after killing one goon, while King Mob has to get his Mojo back after being tortured and shot, Tom O'Bedlam snaps and eventually Boy quits.
Or a freeform would work as well...
 
 
kid entropy
13:58 / 13.04.04
why roleplay inddors when you can roleplay outdoors?rpg's seem a bit musty vicarious and timid when one considers what the invisibles was about.i got my own characters to become.step one:read the invisibles.step 2:LIVE...
 
 
houdini
19:26 / 13.04.04
LM,

The game you're looking for is Unknown Armies, written by John Tynes and Greg Stolze and released by Atlas Games.

This game drags the Call of Cthulhu mechanics kicking and screaming into the 1990's. Combat is sped up and clarified, redundant stats are cut loose in favour of a lean, stripped system that gets the job done and then stays the hell out of your way. And the built-in world setting, while not as grim as Lovecraft, is a pretty fascinating idea for a magical world.

Best of all, characters are very well psychologically defined in this game system. Each character is driven by a primary Obsession and is able to tie one of their abilities to that obsession. For instance, you could set the following obsessions:

King Mob : Being a badass : Assassination
Dane : Disobediance : Crime
Lord Fanny : Sexual mojo : Brujah magic
Ragged Robin : Understanding : Telepathy
Boy : Vengeance : Martial Arts

(Or however you see the characters.) Additionally, rather than CoC's centralized 'Sanity track', UA uses separate "Madness Meters" to track both characters' immunity to and susceptibility to Violence, Isolation, the Supernatural and a variety of other unnerving experiences.

I've run this a bunch of times and it's really a very neat game. It would be my premium choice for 'The Invisibles', although the Tarot-based system described in the first of those RPG.Net threads I linked to is also very sweet and would make for a very story-focussed game.

As for Over The Edge (also published by Atlas), it's also an excellent game and will get the job done. The rules will provide a bit scantier of a definition in some cases though. Whether this is a bug or a feature is really up to you. I certainly recomment OTE as another great game that is well worth the reading.
 
 
ciarconn
21:53 / 13.04.04
I ran a part of an invisibles campaign, using d20 modern and Chaos magic handobook for d20 (with a bit of Mage the Ascension spliced). The players created their own characters... ir worked pretty good, even if some of them had trouble with accepting magicki as a part of real life. It is an ongoing experiment, with a meta sigil encoded in the history of the game.
 
 
Lord Morgue
08:16 / 14.04.04
Or perhaps a fusion of Bikini Girls With Machine Guns and Ninja Burger.
All this talk of putting real Magick into RPG's made me think of this... the tragic story of a young Invisibles recruit who is lured back to the Outer Church of the Archons by some preppy in a bomber jacket, much to the dismay of her cell leader, the gothalicious Miss Frost.
NOOOOO! NOT BLACK LEAF!
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp
(at the risk of rotting my own thread, and your brains)
 
 
houdini
13:18 / 14.04.04
Jack Chick's pretty funny, I'll grant you.

Have you ever heard about File 18? They're the secret organization of (ultra-right-wing-nutjob) Christian Cops who are aware of, and working to combat, the Satanist conspiracy that has America in its grasp. These are the people who really believe that there are tens of thousands of unknown murders across America every year that are concealed by Satanist groups, that 8% of the population of Richmond, VA, worships The Beast, that cattle mutilation, UFO sightings and bigfoot are caused by satanic practices and that roleplaying games, heavy metal and potsmoking are all gateways into the netherworld.

I always thought that a cool premise for a campaign would be to assume that they were right.

(FYI, I learned about File 18 while reading Michael Stackpole's 'The Pulling Report' - an analysis of Pat Pulling, the woman responsible for BADD ("Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons"), the anti-gaming hate club that encouraged all that hysteria in the 1980's.

You can check out The Pulling Report online here.
 
 
ThomasMunkholt
19:09 / 14.04.04
Skip the system, and just play. Tell the stories you want without conforming to a commercial framwork. This should be particularly obvious with Invisibles. You don't need dice to make storytelling compelling.
 
 
Lord Morgue
07:59 / 15.04.04
Blank dice.
 
 
XXII:X:II = XXX
17:48 / 15.04.04
All this talk of putting real Magick into RPG's made me think of this... the tragic story of a young Invisibles recruit who is lured back to the Outer Church of the Archons by some preppy in a bomber jacket, much to the dismay of her cell leader, the gothalicious Miss Frost.

And how cheery, it ends with a good old fashioned book burning, just like at Oktoberfest. Because, y'know, Nazis weren't occultists at all, nuh-uh.

"Duff will reign for a thousand beers! sigh... I do this, and I'm Jewish."

I'd consider any kid who hung themselves over the loss of a RPG character a good sign that Darwinism works just fine on its own, thank you very much.

VJB2
 
 
Gideon
12:24 / 16.04.04
I've a bit of experience with this.

A few years ago I bred KULT with Cyberpunk to get this effect. I've got those hybrid rules.

Preceding that I moderated a game that experimented with crossing the boundary between GM and Player that integrated White Wolf with alternate rules that allowed Players control over setting, plot, etc. Came off well.

Ultimately, the INVISIBLES idea can work in any system, its a matter of STORY more than MECHANICS. MAGE from WW is particularly susceptible, but one could easily adapt e'en basic D&D with some innovative work.
 
 
adamswish
10:51 / 17.04.04
taking a bit of a worldwide/more techno approach (and also aware I could be lynched for this) anyone heard of the Matrix: Online game that coming out this year.

Now if any environment needed an injection of fun loving anarchy it's this place (although I loved the third movie, again I digress).

Just a thought...
 
 
Lord Morgue
11:07 / 17.04.04
Ooh, Matrix online? They soooo need an Invisibles clan, operating from the good hovership "Barbelith"...
 
 
wicker woman
02:13 / 19.04.04
I watched the ad for it on the 'Revolutions' dvd, and I hope to god it was an early beta version, because it looks horrible. Far too ambitious for its' own good as well.
 
 
houdini
13:54 / 19.04.04
A few years ago I bred KULT with Cyberpunk to get this effect. I've got those hybrid rules.

Nice. I can see that working really well, actually.

Kult's got some really nifty ideas in it but I always found the core skill/die mechanic to be quite crappy.

For a while now, I've been thinking of running a Kult game using the Unisystem rules from eg. All Flesh Must Be Eaten/Witchcraft/Buffy the Vampire Slayer et al. Those are very similar to the Cyberpunk rules.

I'd be quite interested in seeing your notes on this, if'n ya didn't mind.

PM me, or somen't.
 
  
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