So I wanna start off by saying this. I am very conscious as I write this that Beast is, shall we say, a somewhat controversial game. A lot of people have very strong opinions about it. It's been several years, and at this point, I think we've all kind of come to our own conclusions about it, to the point where I don't think anyone is changing their minds. I don't wanna argue about whether Beast is good or not good or anything like that. And what I'm working on right now is not meant as an attack on anyone's love for it. A lot of people love the version of Beast that we have right now. And I don't want to attack that or try to take that love away. I certainly don't want to hurt any feelings. And suffice to say that this isn't something I could do without my fair share of criticisms of Beast, but it also isn't something I could do without my fair share of affection for it.
That having been said, a passion project I've been working on for the past few days or so has been a sort of deconstruction and reconstruction of Beast. It's currently still gestating in my brain, but I've been getting some stuff onto paper, and I'm wondering if it's something that anybody here would like to hear about, critique constructively, etc. I don't have a full-on write-up of anything yet, just a lot of disjointed notes. Please keep in mind this is not intended to be a "fix" for Beast, and it's not intended to be a "better" version of Beast. It's just something creative Beast sparked in me. Meant to be kind of its own.. uh... beast... It explores its own themes and is meant to kind of follow its own structure. This is not my version of Beast: The Primordial. This is my idea for a game about a type of character called a Beast and they're supernatural but uh they have their own thing going on and also it's still a little baby that isn't fully developed and gosh I sure do hope you like it and if you don't then like don't be mean to me I guess I mean I did my best.
The Bullet-Points:
-Dark Mother is a much more antagonistic force in this re-write. In a certain sense, she is "the antagonist" in that she is the one who initiates the story, although the game isn't necessarily meant to be about challenging or resisting her.
-Being a beast is neither a choice nor something you're born with. It's something the Dark Mother forces on certain individuals, for her own purposes.
-Dark Mother is also the one who causes certain people to become Heroes.
-While Heroes and Beasts are still diametrically opposed, both are pawns in the plots of the Dark Mother. The main difference is that Beasts can see her machinations a lot more clearly than Heroes can. Neither is really good or evil. Both have been put in really shitty positions outside of their control.
-Heroes are, overall, a much bigger threat to Beasts than in the core. To the point where one showing up is a real "shit your pants" moment for a given Beast.
-Beasts are, at their core, personifications of abstract/intangible fears and anxieties of mortals. This is already in the books, but writing it here is meant to replace Families as your racial splat. Families and Hungers are merged into a single splat that determines what fear you embody and how you feed.
-Satiety is reworked into a more traditional fuel source, a la vitae, essence, glamour, etc. That's because a lot of its other intended effects are being molded into...
-Legend. In the core, Legend refers to one of a Beast's Vice/Virtue replacements. In this re-write, Legend is a combo Integrity replacement/Power stat, similar to synergy in 2e Geist. In addition to the usual benefits of power stats (Spend more fuel/turn. Superhuman attributes), Legend gives Beasts more atavisms (more on them later, if people are interested) as it increases, as well as free merit dots (This makes more sense as we go.) At Legend levels 2, 4, and 6, those free merit dots are automatically spent on the Fame merit. Legend replaces Lair from the core, but a lot of the "Lair Traits" get reworked into more nightmares you can purchase.
-The downsides of Legend pretty much exclusively have to do with Heroes. The higher your Legend stat, the more likely it is that a Hero is going to come after you. A Hero pursuing you also gets to add your Legend trait to... almost everything to do with you. He uses your Legend to resist supernatural powers the same way you would (Even if they're not yours). He gets it as a bonus to his defense when he's fighting you, and can apply that Legend-Defense against ranged attacks. He also adds your Legend to his dice pools to attack you, whether it's a physical attack in combat or some other roll that's meant to ruin your day some way out of combat. This is in addition to several other advantages Heroes have against Beasts. The most significant of which is that a Hero can attack a Beast's legend directly. This is about the only way to reduce one's Legend, but Legend hitting 0 is, you guessed it, game over. Make a new character.
-A Beast can increase their Legend with normal XP if they really want to, but it's not really necessary. Literally any time a Beast feeds his hunger, they gain a Legend Beat. When those legend beats combine to form enough legend xp to increase the stat, they are immediately spent, and their legend increases. Even if they don't want it to (And they kind of probably don't). Not feeding is not really an option, as going too long without it, worst-case scenario, will end in your death.
What all of this is meant to add up to and just what the hell is going on in this game (OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Elevator Pitch:
The Primordial Fear (Name-change to make more concrete what it is) is a sort of collective unconscious where all of humanity's fears, anxieties, and all such synonyms coalesce. But the thing about fear is that it typically only lasts until the thing causing it is confronted or it kills you. Either way, it's not meant to last forever. But humanity has this tendency to worry and fret about things that we can't see, or touch, or really put our fingers on. These kind of intangible, lasting fears. And when enough of us do that, it creates this lasting, large, looming anxiety in the Primordial Fear. The Dark Mother does not like when this happens. Why? Who knows. It's something she keeps to herself. Whatever the reason, she's found a solution to this problem. Maybe not a great one, but it works for her. When this happens, she pulls a mortal deep into the Primordial Fear. She channels this fear and anxiety into them and causes them to become a walking embodiment of it. This is what a Beast is.
This is really only step one of this solution however. Because people still feel these fears and anxieties and, left to their own devices, they'll just manifest another one of these big, unending nightmares in the Primordial Fear. This is why she instills in these Beasts a hunger to feed the fear they embody. As they do so, inevitably, their "legend" grows among the people they feed from. They become known, even if only as a whisper or an urban myth. More importantly, they become associated with that fear. Whether people realize it or not, they start to view the Beast as the source of their fears. The feelings of powerlessness they feel are because of the manager at their job, who rules their store with draconian tyranny. Or their fear of the dark is because of the nameless terror stalking people in the woods. The Beast, essentially, becomes a scapegoat for the fears that already existed when they were just a normal human.
It is, at this point, that a Hero rises. As a Beast's legend grows, inevitably there is someone who thinks, I have to stop this. Many people, of course, want it to stop, but a Hero takes that responsibility onto themselves. The person who does this finds the Dark Mother's blessings empowering them against the source of all of this strife, though they may never even realize that something supernatural is going on.
And why does the Dark Mother do this? Catharsis. When people see the Beast, the source of all their worries and fears slain, be it literal or metaphorical, it relieves the tension that has been plaguing the Primordial Fear. The people feel, at least for the moment, that the source of their fears and worries are gone. And the Primordial Fear is able to relieve itself, at least for a time, of the gordian knot of persistent worries that have been persisting through it.
As a Beast, you have been reborn as a monster. You were born to die. A story has been written, and you have been cast as the villain, whether you like it or not. Sooner or later, a hero is coming to put you down.
The only question is: Are you just going to lie there and let him?
If this is something people are interested in hearing more about let me know. I'm gonna keep working on it regardless because my brain has been ticked, and now I have to do it.
That having been said, a passion project I've been working on for the past few days or so has been a sort of deconstruction and reconstruction of Beast. It's currently still gestating in my brain, but I've been getting some stuff onto paper, and I'm wondering if it's something that anybody here would like to hear about, critique constructively, etc. I don't have a full-on write-up of anything yet, just a lot of disjointed notes. Please keep in mind this is not intended to be a "fix" for Beast, and it's not intended to be a "better" version of Beast. It's just something creative Beast sparked in me. Meant to be kind of its own.. uh... beast... It explores its own themes and is meant to kind of follow its own structure. This is not my version of Beast: The Primordial. This is my idea for a game about a type of character called a Beast and they're supernatural but uh they have their own thing going on and also it's still a little baby that isn't fully developed and gosh I sure do hope you like it and if you don't then like don't be mean to me I guess I mean I did my best.
The Bullet-Points:
-Dark Mother is a much more antagonistic force in this re-write. In a certain sense, she is "the antagonist" in that she is the one who initiates the story, although the game isn't necessarily meant to be about challenging or resisting her.
-Being a beast is neither a choice nor something you're born with. It's something the Dark Mother forces on certain individuals, for her own purposes.
-Dark Mother is also the one who causes certain people to become Heroes.
-While Heroes and Beasts are still diametrically opposed, both are pawns in the plots of the Dark Mother. The main difference is that Beasts can see her machinations a lot more clearly than Heroes can. Neither is really good or evil. Both have been put in really shitty positions outside of their control.
-Heroes are, overall, a much bigger threat to Beasts than in the core. To the point where one showing up is a real "shit your pants" moment for a given Beast.
-Beasts are, at their core, personifications of abstract/intangible fears and anxieties of mortals. This is already in the books, but writing it here is meant to replace Families as your racial splat. Families and Hungers are merged into a single splat that determines what fear you embody and how you feed.
-Satiety is reworked into a more traditional fuel source, a la vitae, essence, glamour, etc. That's because a lot of its other intended effects are being molded into...
-Legend. In the core, Legend refers to one of a Beast's Vice/Virtue replacements. In this re-write, Legend is a combo Integrity replacement/Power stat, similar to synergy in 2e Geist. In addition to the usual benefits of power stats (Spend more fuel/turn. Superhuman attributes), Legend gives Beasts more atavisms (more on them later, if people are interested) as it increases, as well as free merit dots (This makes more sense as we go.) At Legend levels 2, 4, and 6, those free merit dots are automatically spent on the Fame merit. Legend replaces Lair from the core, but a lot of the "Lair Traits" get reworked into more nightmares you can purchase.
-The downsides of Legend pretty much exclusively have to do with Heroes. The higher your Legend stat, the more likely it is that a Hero is going to come after you. A Hero pursuing you also gets to add your Legend trait to... almost everything to do with you. He uses your Legend to resist supernatural powers the same way you would (Even if they're not yours). He gets it as a bonus to his defense when he's fighting you, and can apply that Legend-Defense against ranged attacks. He also adds your Legend to his dice pools to attack you, whether it's a physical attack in combat or some other roll that's meant to ruin your day some way out of combat. This is in addition to several other advantages Heroes have against Beasts. The most significant of which is that a Hero can attack a Beast's legend directly. This is about the only way to reduce one's Legend, but Legend hitting 0 is, you guessed it, game over. Make a new character.
-A Beast can increase their Legend with normal XP if they really want to, but it's not really necessary. Literally any time a Beast feeds his hunger, they gain a Legend Beat. When those legend beats combine to form enough legend xp to increase the stat, they are immediately spent, and their legend increases. Even if they don't want it to (And they kind of probably don't). Not feeding is not really an option, as going too long without it, worst-case scenario, will end in your death.
What all of this is meant to add up to and just what the hell is going on in this game (OR How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Elevator Pitch:
The Primordial Fear (Name-change to make more concrete what it is) is a sort of collective unconscious where all of humanity's fears, anxieties, and all such synonyms coalesce. But the thing about fear is that it typically only lasts until the thing causing it is confronted or it kills you. Either way, it's not meant to last forever. But humanity has this tendency to worry and fret about things that we can't see, or touch, or really put our fingers on. These kind of intangible, lasting fears. And when enough of us do that, it creates this lasting, large, looming anxiety in the Primordial Fear. The Dark Mother does not like when this happens. Why? Who knows. It's something she keeps to herself. Whatever the reason, she's found a solution to this problem. Maybe not a great one, but it works for her. When this happens, she pulls a mortal deep into the Primordial Fear. She channels this fear and anxiety into them and causes them to become a walking embodiment of it. This is what a Beast is.
This is really only step one of this solution however. Because people still feel these fears and anxieties and, left to their own devices, they'll just manifest another one of these big, unending nightmares in the Primordial Fear. This is why she instills in these Beasts a hunger to feed the fear they embody. As they do so, inevitably, their "legend" grows among the people they feed from. They become known, even if only as a whisper or an urban myth. More importantly, they become associated with that fear. Whether people realize it or not, they start to view the Beast as the source of their fears. The feelings of powerlessness they feel are because of the manager at their job, who rules their store with draconian tyranny. Or their fear of the dark is because of the nameless terror stalking people in the woods. The Beast, essentially, becomes a scapegoat for the fears that already existed when they were just a normal human.
It is, at this point, that a Hero rises. As a Beast's legend grows, inevitably there is someone who thinks, I have to stop this. Many people, of course, want it to stop, but a Hero takes that responsibility onto themselves. The person who does this finds the Dark Mother's blessings empowering them against the source of all of this strife, though they may never even realize that something supernatural is going on.
And why does the Dark Mother do this? Catharsis. When people see the Beast, the source of all their worries and fears slain, be it literal or metaphorical, it relieves the tension that has been plaguing the Primordial Fear. The people feel, at least for the moment, that the source of their fears and worries are gone. And the Primordial Fear is able to relieve itself, at least for a time, of the gordian knot of persistent worries that have been persisting through it.
As a Beast, you have been reborn as a monster. You were born to die. A story has been written, and you have been cast as the villain, whether you like it or not. Sooner or later, a hero is coming to put you down.
The only question is: Are you just going to lie there and let him?
If this is something people are interested in hearing more about let me know. I'm gonna keep working on it regardless because my brain has been ticked, and now I have to do it.
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