Why Do You Think Beast is Good/Bad?

[Paradim]

Well ... no, it isn't. You can drift Beast that way by designing PCs who view their condition as a vice to be restrained, but that isn't what's in the text. Beast isn't about people who are trying to control a deep-seated impulse to do evil. It's about people who have that impulse ... and are, if anything, encouraged to indulge it, limited only by the practical risk of being caught and punished. Moreover, the NPCs that exist as faces of that risk are, in the main, described with contempt, as broken half-mad wretches who often find and punish the wrong Beast. The revisions made between the Kickstarter draft and publication softened the picture a bit, but they didn't change the fundamentals.

If there is any game that needs a Humanity trait like Requiem's, Beast is it. This is the game that most needs rules to say that thinking of yourself as a terrifying legend (or a heroic legend) instead of a part of human society is a really bad idea. The critique of the Monomyth implicit in the Heroes - that trying to become a legend by slaying monsters is a form of madness - falls flat when the Beasts themselves are told they're legendary monsters and ought to behave as such, which (in the absence of a morality meter) is what Beast's rules and descriptive text do say. If it's right for Beasts to become legends, it can't be wrong for Heroes to become legends also.

A Humanity Trait would probably undermine Beast significantly. The game doesn't need a mechanic to say to players that doing bad things to people is probably immoral or unethical.

Having no trait like Integrity or Humanity speaks volumes about Beast due to the absence. But it doesn't forbid Beasts from having their own morals or ethics. They can still feel bad or guilty about things they've done, or refuse to do particular actions because they believe or think or feel that it's wrong to do it.

[Paradim]

Heroes don't profit in any way from the system (unlike say the pure who gain powerful spirit allies) but suffer from it as much as the beasts do.

It could be argued that Heroes profit greatly, actually... Heroes gain supernatural power from killing Beasts. And at some point in their career of killing monster after monster, they're rewarded with extended life.

A Hero can effectively continue living for centuries, stepping over the corpses of Beasts to do so.

Also, regarding Slumber, I think it says something that the Anathema of Heroes are at their utmost powerful art the time a Beast is at their utmost weakest. High Satiety empowers Anathema, and when Slumbering at 10, Beasts have no access to their powers to defend themselves either.

[Heavy Arms]

You can drift Beast that way by designing PCs who view their condition as a vice to be restrained, but that isn't what's in the text. Beast isn't about people who are trying to control a deep-seated impulse to do evil.

This isn't the main point of the metaphor I'm highlighting.

Where this comes in, and Beast is fairly direct about stating, is that Beasts have the capacity to recognize their place in the monomyth as the monster the hero is out to slay, and that they can reject it. Beasts easily come to the realization that they don't want to die just for being what they are. They want to say they don't deserve to die just for being what they are. But they have to then struggle with whether or not the being they choose to become is one that doesn't deserve to die anyway. Which is why Beasts seek things out like the Lessons narrative to create a moral niche for them to occupy to justify their continued existence as they know they bring pain to others.

Beasts are a product of a system that creates abusive people (Beasts and Heroes both), and ties them into a seemingly endless cycle of violence (as framed with the monomyth). The core moral dilemma of the game is trying to escape that system when your own way out is to engage with the system that created you.

[Michael Brazier]

Beast asks a vital question: "How does the concept of cyclical abuse hold up in the face of abusers seeking a way out of that cycle?"

Well ... no, it isn't. You can drift Beast that way by designing PCs who view their condition as a vice to be restrained, but that isn't what's in the text. Beast isn't about people who are trying to control a deep-seated impulse to do evil. It's about people who have that impulse ... and are, if anything, encouraged to indulge it, limited only by the practical risk of being caught and punished. Moreover, the NPCs that exist as faces of that risk are, in the main, described with contempt, as broken half-mad wretches who often find and punish the wrong Beast. The revisions made between the Kickstarter draft and publication softened the picture a bit, but they didn't change the fundamentals.

If there is any game that needs a Humanity trait like Requiem's, Beast is it. This is the game that most needs rules to say that thinking of yourself as a terrifying legend (or a heroic legend) instead of a part of human society is a really bad idea. The critique of the Monomyth implicit in the Heroes - that trying to become a legend by slaying monsters is a form of madness - falls flat when the Beasts themselves are told they're legendary monsters and ought to behave as such, which (in the absence of a morality meter) is what Beast's rules and descriptive text do say. If it's right for Beasts to become legends, it can't be wrong for Heroes to become legends also.

[MatthiasThalmann]

I wanted to write you what I liked about the game, but it turned out that I like exactly the things that your agrue aren't there. So I'll always point out why I disagree with you on a point, and then why I like this theme, I hope this approach is okay for you.

Betrayal of Theme

Chronicles of Darkness definitely has a theme of moral ambiguity all throughout the gamelines. It's a game that asks the question "Are you really sure you're doing the right thing?" constantly, and if players and/or characters aren't mulling over that, then frankly something's going wrong. Beast: the Primordial goes "Fuck all that, Beasts=good, Heroes=bad". The game goes on and on about how Beasts are right, good, and necessary, despite the fact that they literally make people suffer in order to live. How? Because they teach lessons, apparently. Yeah, humanity has forgotten to fear the dark, so Beasts are here to remind people why they should (which is really backwards, but I'll get to that), how nice of them.

That is really weird idea, because the "Are you really sure you're doing the right thing?" is the central theme of Beast. Even more so than in the other games, where you have to deal with man different antagonists (Pure, Seers of the throne, loyalists ...). In Beast there is no external enemy to fight, no adversary trying to ruin your life, its just you and your hunger and how you try to deal with it. Take for example the campaign at the end of the book: The main question of it is "What shall we do with Ms. Childress?" Is she right to pursue her legend or should we stop her? When we played (translated to the great plains and her becoming an avatar of tornadoes) it, these questions and how to stop her were the main part of game.

Which is the main reason why I like beast and think it is a great game. You can explore what it means to be a monster, the struggle between your human side and your horror and how you try to live you life with monstrous desires. In short far from betraying the theme Beast makes it the core of the game.

And the Heroes? Well they're obviously wrong and bad. Why? Because they just wanna make the story all about them. It couldn't be the simple fact that Beasts are killing people, or at the very least making their lives a living hell. No, they just want the Beast's head on a pike. I mean, it's one thing to have a game that's about subverting the narrative, but it's completely another to say "All the Heroes are bad guys, end of story!"

INB4 "But the game mentions good Heroes". Yeah, it does, in a single sidebar, and that's about it. And what does said sidebar say about them? That good Heroes never interact with Beasts, so you should just have bad Heroes in your chronicle. That is one of the most contrived and laziest hand-waves I've ever seen. The game pretty much up and says "Screw having any nuance or thinking about your actions, you're a wonderful, special snowflake. Heroes gonna hate!"

That is simply wrong. There is for example Desmon Oakes who is very much a nuanced character. Likewise the the two heroes in the example campaign do not just hate beasts. One was deliberately targeted by Esmee, while the other one is a police officer who suffers dice penalties on any attempts to track the players if she is convinced of their innocence.

Unfortunate Implications

As if it's portrayal of Beasts ain't bad enough, we also have the game's subtext: Beasts=oppressed minorities, and Heroes=oppressors.

While Beast share similarities with oppressed minorities, heroes are not oppressors, at least not how I understand the term. To me an oppressor benefits strongly from the inequalities of the system and therefore tries to sustain it. And they are almost never the people who enact violence against the excluded. Heroes don't profit in any way from the system (unlike say the pure who gain powerful spirit allies) but suffer from it as much as the beasts do. The problem with heroes is that they deny that Beasts are persons, and in this they are a warning of what beasts can become if they no longer care about other humans but treat them as just food.

Which is another thing I greatly like about Beast. Your antagonists constantly remind you whatever reasons you use to justify your life other people can come up with justifications for your death. This is something that I never felt in the other games. To me the Seers of the Throne were simply and obviously wrong in using their magic to oppress others but they and their egoism never were a moral challenge to my characters.

If that's not enough evidence for you, then consider the truckloads of the corebook fiction portraying Beasts as actual minorities (or at the very least, in such a position). So yes, the game portrays Beasts as oppressed and downtrodden because they just can't help being what they are, and Heroes wanna cave their heads in because they're meanies who just don't understand. But that's not my main issue here. Yeah, it's incredibly petty, but it also has the unfortunate implication that minorities actually do hurt people and that those bigots who say so are 100% right. The simple fact is: Beasts make people suffer. Sure, they do this in order to live, but people aren't wrong for trying to defend themselves. I mean, is it wrong to kill a lion that's about to kill and eat you? Sure, it's gotta eat, but that doesn't make it wrong for you to avoid being eaten.

That is again wrong. Beasts do not have to make people suffer. Its an easy way to feed, yes, but not the only one. A beast can take its monstrous hunger and use it for good ends. The book as several example of beasts who feed themselves by helping others. One is a lawyer defending the poor, another a through health inspector and so on. A Tyrant can feed by becoming a star athlete. One character we had was an ugallu ravager who feed by destroying privacy. She used this to become an investigative reporter and exposing corruption and abuse of authority in the city.

Which is another thing I like about beast. Its about coming to terms with what you are and putting your talents to good use. You cannot deny your hunger but you can sate it in healthy way that is helping those around you.

The Slumbering Condition. It might seem rather odd to point to a single game mechanic like this, but lemme explain. The Slumbering Condition makes a Beast effectively into a normal human being. They don't need to feed, as they don't lose Satiety, and all they lose is their supernatural powers. That's it! Even if Beasts are born, all they have to do is feed a few times and just have their Horror slumber.

Becoming slumbering leaves you defenceless against the insatiable (who become stronger the higher your satiety is). So it is effectively just a complicated way of committing suicide.

So Beasts can actually help being what they are, but you know who can't?

Heroes.

Yeah, once a Hero, always a Hero. They're always stuck being sensitive to the Primordial Dream (and before it used to be that Beasts created Heroes)

That is again wrong. A hero can gain enough integrity and stop killing Beasts. Which is another point I like about Beast, it allows for a realistic chance of resolving problems with your enemies without killing them. If the hosts are infesting your packs territory you won't be able to negotiate with them, there is no option but to exterminate them. In contrast you can try to negotiate with a hero which is noted several times in the book.

[The young man in the cafe]

3) Beast is far more about using the monomyth as metaphor for human abuse than what so many people seem to complain about when the book and discussions lean towards larger population examples. Beast asks a vital question: "How does the concept of cyclical abuse hold up in the face of abusers seeking a way out of that cycle?" Like all metaphors, it's also imprecise in execute. Vampires are (at least post-Gothic reimaginings) rape metaphors, but that doesn't mean Requiem has unfortunate implications just because it doesn't really deal much with how that metaphor would logically relate to the victims of vampire feeding. Beast isn't about oppression, but othering, and in the exploration of the other oppressed minorities stop being a black & white issue. Members of any given oppressed minority can easily given in to the desire to counter-other those that oppress them. It's easy to stop thinking of cops as humans and just think of them as the enemy when they're constantly harassing you (or worse) because of your skin tone. Trying to escape that mentality is difficult, and entirely what Beast is about.

THIS. As someone who was born into the cycle of abuse thanks to his asshole father, the abuser trying to escape the cycle bit has a lot of meaning to me. I inheirited the same mental issues that made my father abusive, but I try to control them, with medicine sure, but also by venting those impulses in ways that are as harmless as possible (and honestly, the venting is never 100% harmless for me or others, no matter how much I try). And even then, some people in my life judge me by what my father did and I can never stop that, so yeah, Beast has a lot of meaning for me.

[Cinder]

To add to a point Cinder made a while back. I don't know if there are more minorities in Beast than other CoD books, but if there are then I know 100% that it would be because Matt is trying to be more and more inclusive in his games, completely regardless of the themes of the game.

Oh absolutely. I'm a straight white guy and yet that's something I appreciate from Matt's book. I think to remember reading him saying as much and I'm totally ok with. The fiction anthologies go for the same approach, so I just am not going to agree with the statement it's a Beast thing because it's factually wrong.

I won't go as far as saying it's a mountain out of a molehill, people feel what they feel when they process a work of any kind. but I gotta admit that sometimes I can't help but to feel that's a silly exaggeration.

[Yossarian]

To add to a point Cinder made a while back. I don't know if there are more minorities in Beast than other CoD books, but if there are then I know 100% that it would be because Matt is trying to be more and more inclusive in his games, completely regardless of the themes of the game.

So yeah, this.

I'm much too close to the material to get in on this kind of discussion; Beast contains my first published work, so it's difficult for me to untangle the negativity about it from my own feelings, regardless of whether or not I think it has flaws, or if I would write things differently if I could now. But I can say this: I include minority characters in my writing because I'm bone tired of writing about white dudes; I'm a white dude and even I'm sick of reading about me. I included a particular non-binary character because it was a shout out to a friend of mine, not for any particular agenda about Beast. I won't argue intent vs. impact, but that's where I came at it from; you're not likely to convince me that Beasts = the oppressed, if only because I was there.

[ElvesofZion]

To add to a point Cinder made a while back. I don't know if there are more minorities in Beast than other CoD books, but if there are then I know 100% that it would be because Matt is trying to be more and more inclusive in his games, completely regardless of the themes of the game.

[Cinder]

"If you have the desire to spill blood, say the Rabbis, become a butcher, and if you have the desire to steal (in other words to take hold of and possess) other people's money, become a collector of charity. In other words, take the desire you have, and use it for a good purpose.

"This is a crucial idea within Judaism. There are two aspects to who I am as a person: the gifts and desires I am given, and what I choose to do with them. Everything we are given in this world, however challenging this may sometimes be, is ours for a reason. We all go through life with our own little package, our own suitcase, full of our talents and skills, desires and foibles; all the things that bring us up, and all the things that bring us down.

"There isn't much we can do about that. Each of us has a suitcase, and whatever we think of it, it is ours to keep. Some are born tall, maybe they will become basketball stars, and some have musical talent, and others, the gift of knowing when and how to smile. Many of these talents we do not really earn, they are ours to develop. The question, however, is what we choose to do with them. And if everything comes to me from G-d, then even my weaknesses can be a gift, if I will only find a way to channel them for the good.

"If I have a desire to steal, it must come from somewhere, and therefore there must be a way to make good of it. Our challenge in this world is how to do just that.

"This, perhaps, is the offering to Samael, the "Sar Ha'Moshel Be'mekomot HaChurban", "The Prince who rules in the places of darkness and destruction", described by the Ramban. There is a place of darkness inside each one of us, that threatens to destroy us, to bring us down from the places of light we so long to reach. There are those who suggest that the only way to fully combat these desires is to retreat from the physical world so as not to grant them any place. If you have physical desires, live in a monastery, and desist from all contact with that physical world so you can put it out of your head.

"Judaism, however, has a different approach entirely: Don't deny these desires, embrace them! But do so in a healthy manner, channeling their energy to a good purpose, in a healthy fashion."

This is exactly what I'm talking about. In better, wiser and more eloquent words than mine. Villains are cool and interesting, as they can always be, and you can write excellent ones using Beast as your framework but, to me, to core of the game is this one. Or at least it all gravitates around these principles: success, failure or refusal to follow them is what gives soul to the characters.

[Satchel]

You're a monster because when the moment came, whether by "normal" or spontaneous Devouring, you accepted it. There's no other core conflict, no out-of.context menace and no excuse that "distracts" the game for this theme. You don't have the option to cast that aside: you have to deal with that right now because that's what you are.

"If you have the desire to spill blood, say the Rabbis, become a butcher, and if you have the desire to steal (in other words to take hold of and possess) other people's money, become a collector of charity. In other words, take the desire you have, and use it for a good purpose.

"This is a crucial idea within Judaism. There are two aspects to who I am as a person: the gifts and desires I am given, and what I choose to do with them. Everything we are given in this world, however challenging this may sometimes be, is ours for a reason. We all go through life with our own little package, our own suitcase, full of our talents and skills, desires and foibles; all the things that bring us up, and all the things that bring us down.

"There isn't much we can do about that. Each of us has a suitcase, and whatever we think of it, it is ours to keep. Some are born tall, maybe they will become basketball stars, and some have musical talent, and others, the gift of knowing when and how to smile. Many of these talents we do not really earn, they are ours to develop. The question, however, is what we choose to do with them. And if everything comes to me from G-d, then even my weaknesses can be a gift, if I will only find a way to channel them for the good.

"If I have a desire to steal, it must come from somewhere, and therefore there must be a way to make good of it. Our challenge in this world is how to do just that.

"This, perhaps, is the offering to Samael, the "Sar Ha'Moshel Be'mekomot HaChurban", "The Prince who rules in the places of darkness and destruction", described by the Ramban. There is a place of darkness inside each one of us, that threatens to destroy us, to bring us down from the places of light we so long to reach. There are those who suggest that the only way to fully combat these desires is to retreat from the physical world so as not to grant them any place. If you have physical desires, live in a monastery, and desist from all contact with that physical world so you can put it out of your head.

"Judaism, however, has a different approach entirely: Don't deny these desires, embrace them! But do so in a healthy manner, channeling their energy to a good purpose, in a healthy fashion."

[Paradim]

All those things feed the same Hunger for Power. Some we punish, some we tolerate, some we applaud, but to the Dream they're part and parcel of the same impulse. Which makes Beast a very good vehicle for exploring the currents of power, evil, and abuse that run through mundane human interaction - and how much of it we accept - and how much of that we should or shouldn't.

Isn't there an example of the Hunger for Prey being able to feed from hunting deer if low enough? Yes, it involves killing a living creature, but hunting deer is a long time practice of people and in some areas, practically required for road safety.

And yet, there are Heroes who would kill that Beast regardless.

[SunlessNick]

And the Heroes? Well they're obviously wrong and bad. Why? Because they just wanna make the story all about them. It couldn't be the simple fact that Beasts are killing people, or at the very least making their lives a living hell. No, they just want the Beast's head on a pike.

That's the definition of this kind of Hero, essentially. The way I've put it in the past is: A Beast may or not deserve to die (it's hard to argue that someone who feeds their Horror by being a zealous health inspector deserves to die for that - equally, it's hard to argue that someone who does so by murdering people doesn't). A discerning hunter may decide a Beast deserves to die. A more extreme hunter may decide all Beasts deserve to die. A Hero doesn't care if the Beast deserves to die, only that they deserve to kill it - that's why they're bad, not because they want to kill Beasts. It's the flip-side of "If Beasts are honest, they admit they use the concept of “lessons” to make what they do more palatable." (Which is a quote from the game).

Same kinda deal with any other minority.

On RPGNet, there was a poster who said that this deal resonated very strongly with her, because she was mentally ill, and there were ways that no there were certain ways she actually couldn't help hurting people round her because of an aspect of her being. (When I think of how my own mental health issues, I can relate to this view of the game). Another poster said it "wounded [him] in the soul" that she identified with Beasts in this way - I'm not certain whether he ever saw the irony of that, though.

For myself, I made the argument that "oppression" might be better represented by "othering." Othering doesn't require a power differential, or can have it go any way - both the 1% and poor can be othered, but only the latter can be oppressed. Othering can also take many forms besides violence, like fetishisation or appropriation, which could be fruitfully explored.

But all in all, I'm glad it was played down some in the final version.


The biggest reason I like the game, though, is that despite its outre protagonists, Beast is one of the CoD games where I can most imagine said protagonists engaging with the world much as mortals do, and living much the life they did before. This is reinforced by how many effective feeding behaviours are things we find - and moreover accept - taking place between humans all the time.

An example Beast in the game feeds her Hunger for Power by winning debates - but she definitely likes those times when the guy she defeats gets violent in response, and she can beat him down and really show him who's the winner. We might not like such a person in real life - but she only hurts guys who respond to a woman out-arguing them by attacking her, and can we really fault that? - and can we really say she'd deserve to die for enjoying those times it happens? - and can we we really say it makes her deserve to die if those times feed something in her? - and can we really say it makes her deserve to die if that something is a nightmare monster? - because she's still only hurting guys who respond to her beating them in an argument by physically attacking her.
Another example Beast feeds his Hunger for Power by being a zealous health inspector. Another by prosecuting domestic abusers and showing them that there's a system bigger and stronger than them. Both of these are laudable when humans do them.
Another does it by being a judge - we don't know what kind of judge he is - he might be a hanging judge, he might be perfectly scrupulous, he might aim his rulings to keep a trial going for longer so he can exercise his power for longer, he might revel in figuratively beating down lawyers - because his power is the same either way.
Another does it by robbing people. Reprehensible, but it's rare to find people who think it should have the death penalty (at least after the fact - more people would accept that the target has the right to defent themselves lethally in the moment).
Another does it by winning promotions, and then rubbing his competitors' faces in it. Asshole, but most of us wouldn't side with the competitors killing him.

All those things feed the same Hunger for Power. Some we punish, some we tolerate, some we applaud, but to the Dream they're part and parcel of the same impulse. Which makes Beast a very good vehicle for exploring the currents of power, evil, and abuse that run through mundane human interaction - and how much of it we accept - and how much of that we should or shouldn't.

[Maitrecorbo]

As for me, i feel that the reason i didnt like Beast is incredibly petty and stupid.

I see dreams (and nightmares) and storytelling elements like the monomyth to be more a Changeling thing and i dislike that another splat is ... muscling in on it.
Now that being said, i really like a lot of the elements in the book and so what i've done is that i've ... cannibalized pretty much everything in Beast to use in changeling instead. (the only thing i'm not using from the book is beasts as a playable splat).

[ElvesofZion]

Unfortunate Implications

As if it's portrayal of Beasts ain't bad enough, we also have the game's subtext: Beasts=oppressed minorities, and Heroes=oppressors.

INB4 "But the game's not really about that!" Bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Let's take a look at the Introduction, particularly one of the game's major themes:

snip

If that's not enough evidence for you, then consider the truckloads of the corebook fiction portraying Beasts as actual minorities (or at the very least, in such a position). So yes, the game portrays Beasts as oppressed and downtrodden because they just can't help being what they are, and Heroes wanna cave their heads in because they're meanies who just don't understand. But that's not my main issue here. Yeah, it's incredibly petty, but it also has the unfortunate implication that minorities actually do hurt people and that those bigots who say so are 100% right. The simple fact is: Beasts make people suffer. Sure, they do this in order to live, but people aren't wrong for trying to defend themselves. I mean, is it wrong to kill a lion that's about to kill and eat you? Sure, it's gotta eat, but that doesn't make it wrong for you to avoid being eaten.

Minorities however, don't. Being homosexual, in and of itself, does not make a bigoted Christian suffer. Said Christian's intolerance of homosexuality is what makes them suffer. Same kinda deal with any other minority. Even if they were making other suffer, they shouldn't revel in that and tell everyone who gets upset at them to go fuck off. And to top it all off, it somehow manages to be even worse. How?

snip

But hey, Beasts are totally oppressed minorities, right?

(Emphasis added)

This is a fallacy. You are using one part of the text to make the assertion that Beasts represent oppressed minorities, and then using that as an argument that another part doesn't make sense because it doesn't follow that model that you are asserting. If you take the book as a a whole then your own references defeat the argument you are making.

I will also echo Heavy Arms about one of the things I like about Beast. Beast is the second game in CoD that really speaks to me (the first being Mage), I have darker impulses within me, and if they were to come out as a supernatural force I would be a Beast. And I struggle everyday to keep those impulses at bay, just like Beasts do. But I also understand they are part of me and that I need to work with and understand them to be safe and whole. That is the personal horror of Beast for me.