I want to run a one shot for Kult ant it would be my first time at it. I've never played nor seen played Kult and I don't really understand what the plot of an adventure could be. I've GMd a lot of CoC, should I run Kult in a similar way?
I mostly appreciate if you colud tell your adventures in Kult, thanks.
I've never played CoC, but Kult is great. The trick is to have your players not realize what the fuck is going on, while maintaining their sense of control over their destinies. This creates fear.
There are plenty of pre-written stories out there, try one of them, but realize that your players could just bolt themselves up in an attic out of fear (mine did). Then you have to get creative.
All the best, hope you do great.
Mood music is a must.
>>43942637
KULT is pretty much the reverse-CoC. In CoC the Universe is a vast, cold and uncaring expanse. You're insiginficant and can only hope to avoid the sight of the greater beings.
In KULT? The Universe knows your name. And it hates you. The entire Reality is a trap, designed by God himself to keep YOU down. A trap for gods - and you can escape it.
Of course, your players hopefully don't know that (seriously, it's best if they never even read the book past the parts of character creation that you censored) and your characters sure as hell have no idea. They might get a glimpse of the True Reality but it should be horrific, confusing and completely alien.
Okay, got the soft parts out of my system so let's get to the meat. I've GMd several KULT (yes, I always write the name in caps) games and here's what I gathered:
1. PLAY WITH ADULTS AND KNOW YOUR PLAYERS. KULT deals a lot with sex, violence and sexual violence - make sure your players can handle it. You might even want to talk boundaries beforehand. Seriously, I once GMd a campaign with actual safewords.
2. For my group short forms worked better than campaigns. They actually felt more suspense in one-shots. As one of my group explained - if you know that the game you're playing is heavily character-focused you subconcsiously feel safer in the early-to-middle parts of the campaign. But that might just be because we play very rules-light. Also, I'm going to feed his character his own lungs in the middle of the next campaign..
3. Make shit up and never back down. If at any time the players catch an inconsistency, keep an unblinking stare and pretend it was a part of the plan all along. Especially if it includes time paradoxes, NPCs being in multiple places at the same time, or changing age, appearance and even sex between scenes.
[cont.]
>>43943073
this
>>43943073
4. Random scares. They're there just to keep the characters on edge. A black van following a guy everywhere he goes (if they try and confront it it turns out to be empty, of course). A phone call from a dead relative screaming in pain and calling for help. Suddenly waking up and realizing that your wife and kids are not just missing but the whole world acts like they never exsted (including family pictures, birth records and the tattoo of your kid that you got).That kind of stuff.
5. >>43942842
>Then you have to get creative.
Pretty much. If they don't come to the danger, have it come to them. Or their loved ones. Satan knows where they live.
6. Don't go in too deep into the True Reality. The most interesting things happen on the borders. All those long, descriptions of Metropolis and other realms in the books? Never used any of that.
7. Paranoia is your friend. Your parents are not only in on this - they aren't even human. The policeman knows. The old lady in the park is looking at you and mutering something to a man in a black suit that only you can see.
8... That's it for now. I'll add something if I can think of it (and if anyone's interested). Maybe even a storytime?
The thread seems to be dying - but death is only the beginning so bump.
>>43943224
>That's it for now. I'll add something if I can think of it (and if anyone's interested). Maybe even a storytime?
Hell yeah I'm interested.
I'd like to try Kult some day, even though I spoiled the gist of it to myself so I won't be able to experience the surprise of discovering how things actually are. Plus my TTRPG circle is quite narrow, and they're into more mainstream things than Kult.
So storytiem is all I've got.
>>43943073
This man speaks truth. Kult was the fucking bollocks, but it got overshadowed by CoC and WoD. Shame really, it had an awful lot going for it.
>>43943787
>So storytiem is all I've got
I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
I've got little time, so I'll just give some snippets:
Characters:
>Eli
70 y.o. Jewish hippie. Lived in an old apartment owned by his sister (doctor), and lived off the money he got from her and their two lawyer brothers. Spent most of his time smoking weed and reading on transcendental meditation. Liked to commune with the Cosmos or whatever it is that junkie hippies do.
>Jane
Eli's neighbour, 23 y.o. Worked two jobs at a tattoo place and a biker pub, had tattoos, a bike, and a tattooed biker boyfriend that, by the end of the 1st session, commited suicide by going downstairs to investigate a noise. At least he left her character with a baby on the way. Fun fact: I had to redo the entire campaign idea because, a couple sessions into the game, it turned out that her player actually is pregnant and all the deformed demon monster baby arc had to go. But as it turns out, you can do horror when the expected child is the Messiah rather than Antichrist...
>Andrew
A cop who once saw Something (he was a sole survivor of an earlier one-shot game) and now had an invisible brain parasite stuck into his skull to surpress his memories and keep tabs on his doings. He was investigating a gruesome murders-suicide that took place in a run-down apartment house in a bad part of the town. His only witnesses - an ancient, drug-addled Crazy Old Man and a hot biker chick - probably also a junkie because she said something about a strangedemon woman walking through walls being the actual murderer.
The plot was, in short: Pregnant girl gets a bonus baby from Out There. Baby is actually the Messiah (a broken off part of him at least). Also she's being followed by a weird murder cult made of runaway kids led by what seems to be the Devil in the form of a skinny, five-foot-tall woman.
There was much joy, if by joy you mean bleeding from the eyes, surgeons practising black magic without anasthesia, [cont]
>>43944092
...people dying before they are killed, and kids doing Bad Things to other kids for their own good.
High point included Andrew finally getting to see the outworldly demon spider thing lodged into his skull and thinking his thoughts for him, and realizing he cannot remove it without pulling out half of his brain in the process.
...aaand now it turns out I've got to go. Back in an hour or so if anyone wants me to expand on anything above or get a piece of another story
>>43944145
>Back in an hour or so if anyone wants me to expand on anything above or get a piece of another story
Both, if you please. This shit is rad.
anyone have a download to the books? would anyone want to run a game on d2o or something?
>>43944351
Check the PDF thread. Someone posted it there.
>>43942637
You're all trapped in the matrix but instead of the creator of the matrix you have the Demiurge, and instead of Mr Smith you have the Hellrazer gang and they want to fuck your eyes with barbed wire.
CoC is about stumbling over clues about how horrible the universe is and how little it cares about you, Kult is about realizing your reality is a fake meant to keep you in your place and things being out to specifically get you because you're getting hip to the illusion.
I'm really not a fan of the Kult system but my god do I ever love the setting.
It's really the only setting where I get to kill off PCs with impunity and no one complains
>>43946373
>It's really the only setting where I get to kill off PCs with impunity and no one complains
You can go beyond that - kill them in the first ten minutes of the game and start from there.
And the system is best left ignored. I just use whatever rules and keep just the mental balance mechanics from the book.
I'll say I kind of like the wound mechanics though (or at least the idea behind them). Scratches add up to light wounds, get enough light wounds and they count as heavy, too many heavies make a fatal. I once had players attacked by various small animals on the course of a game - rats, birds, nothing bigger than a house cat. But the scratches do add up, and boy did they keep on adding... Death by a thousand cuts always made for good horror...
Read the Preacher comics.
Use a Don't Rest Your Head mod for crunch.
Get to know Unknown Armies.
>>43946975
I just nWoD. Yeah, I know.
>>43947369
>Unknown Armies
I always forget to really read the books and get into it. All I know is that it's like Kult made by Monty Python
>>43942637
Use the NWoD system and the kult setting. The system is shit since it was basically just tacked on at the very end as an afterthought.
>>43943073
Dis. Ask about ''Triggers'' beforehand. You don't want to explore themes of suicide or sexual violence if one of the players feel really uncomfortable with it.
>>43948632
Kult uses Abrahamic symbols. UA has no older powers, there is only man. But man gets up to twisted shit. All supernatural forces stem from deceit, abuse, self abuse, obsession, and depravity. It's very 90s and badly needs a remake if you want to play in a present day setting.
>>43949293
http://kultdivinitylost.com/
>>43949293
You completely ignore the Archetypes.
>>43949293
>UA has no older powers
Neither does Kult. Humans used to be gods of the True Reality before they were turned into, well, us.
Demiurge may or may not have been older than Humanity but everything you meet is either our prison guard, a former servant who wants to get even or just a part of the ecosystem.
What I meant by the similarity was the 'The crazier you get, the more you understand the world' part.
>>43948758
This is exactly what I do. And ask you need is second sight if you want to add magic.
I was considering bagging together demon the descent and kult.
The god machine would still be around, it's literally the demiurges tower. So angels are lictors or whatever and the god machine sends out work orders.
>>43951330
Damn
Thats an interesting setting
Its like you want to torture your player with a spoon
>>43951330
The God machine is either an homage to KULT or the creators are in a hivemind. But it hink using the God Machine as an entity in Kult wouldn't quite work with the original setting. The God Machine is unbeatable and all powerful, something which no entity in KULT is (except perhaps awakened humans or Forgotten gods).
>>43951667
you think that's bad? i run it in nWoD shell and they spontaneously develop whatever power i feel is appropriate, whenever.
Upside: No XP cost.
Downside: I might give you anything from Unseen Sense to Forces 5 if it fits.
I will also kill you if it's fun all around
>>43951748
You misunderstand. The God Machine is the Demiurge's home security system/computer still running the show since he's checked out.
*******
NEW TOPIC
*******
why the fuck does Astroth exist. What is the point of having a classical Satan figure and the Gnostic Demiurge.
>>43951748
>ither an homage to KULT or the creators are in a hivemind
Strange minds do think alike but I'd wager the former.
A bigger issuethan the Machine being indestructible (which can be reworked into it being say malfunctioning, the Demiurge or even the Metropolis itself) is the focus.
In Demon you're a broken piece of equipment trying to avoid getting reset back to factory settings. In Demon you also have a pretty good idea of how the reality works, while in Kult you start out from the very bottom of the food chain.
Kult works on several levels: First it has the characters either getting confronted with things that don't exist and losing the rip on their sanity. Then you realize that all those mindbreaking horrors you see are actually more real than your parents and the hellish realms that haunt your dreams are supposed to be your natural habitat. And then you die and go to hell. Or somehow get through enough trauma to Awaken (you can transcend by taking the high road, but let's not kid ourselves) and become one of those horrors.
>>43952384
I liked the part of the fluff where astroth went into the pit where the demiurge used to be. Came out some time later badly wounded and refused to talk about what happened.
I think he's there to show how even the jailers don't really understand what they're part of and doing. They're just as clueless as the rest of us, they're just more powerful.
>>43952384
>The God Machine is the Demiurge's home security system/computer
But then there would be no power struggle and the death angels would have no reason to leave inferno. The main theme around many conflicts in Kult is that the world is slowly breaking apart and that the archons and DAs are fighting for the last scraps of elysium; it seems redundant to add another player to the struggle, especially since one of the main elements of the story is that God is gone. There are plenty of archons who want to keep the status quo, no need for an ''Demiurge security system''
>why the fuck does Astroth exist. What is the point of having a classical Satan figure and the Gnostic Demiurge.
Basically so that everything has an mirror image and Astaroth is not evil per say (he is actually the only one missing the Demiurge). Astaroth is just the shadow of the Demiurge but since the demiurge is not good astaroth is not bad either; they simply rule over different domains and exist because the other one exists.
>>43952537
>I liked the part of the fluff where astroth went into the pit where the demiurge used to be
Same. God is missing, persumed dead, and Satan is the only one that wants him back.
>>43952526
It's definitely the former.
The first line of 1st Ed. Kult's intro is something like "in a world in darkness", but i my copy is buried under a mountain of boxes
really, white wolf tried to take the empowerment of D&D and the horror of Kult and merge them.
They never truly succeeded because a big part of Kult was helplessness.
Which is why way back in 1998 my first vampire was a gangrel with celerity and a sword.
>>43952526
I've used the system from GMC in my latest Kult campaign and it's a very nice mix of NWoD and FATE/BW but the setting is basically to negative for kult. The entire point of Kult is the humans CAN fight back; they can learn magic, go behind their masters back, outwit them (since their masters are so single minded).
>>43952616
fuck me.
*DISLIKED.
whats the point of a classic satan and a gnostic YHWH.
they have the same fucking job.
>>43952621
''We live in a world were the sun has set.''
Bretty close!
>>43952541
i like you, you clearly know more than me about the setting.
first off: the servants of the demiurge are still doing their thing, right? so the God-Machine as the organizing central server just makes them a bit more cohesive? I don't see how it doesn't fit.
as for astaroth, to rephrase, he's the evil satan, and the demiurge is evil god.
What the fuck is the purpose beyond good cop bad cop
>>43952644
Mechanized division of labour, the metropolis is an industrialized place. Same reason there are angels and jailers and stuff, so the demiurge could do other things.
Although I like the idea of it making a prison to contain us, but ending up just as trapped as we are because it has to watch over everything.
>>43942637
Kult is CoC as rewritten by bored theology majors.
>>43952747
> the servants of the demiurge are still doing their thing, right?
Not really. Geburah wants to keep the status quo, Malkuth wants to tear the illusion down (freeing humanity) and all the other archons have plans of their own. The lictor are plotting to get rid of all humans (they envy them for their power) and claiming power for themselves and most other former servants have lost their way. Im not saying that you couldn't have the god machine in a Kult game I just see it as unnecessary; if you want some one trying to uphold the illusion just use Tipareth or Geburah. Since the god machine has no system or stats the setting would feel more like Kult if you simply use another entity in it's place.
>What the fuck is the purpose beyond good cop bad cop
I don't know what the creators thought but i feel its a way of portraying the world as utterly fucked. Satan and God are basically the same guy and they both dislike you. I think Astaroths purpose in the setting is to be a tragic figure wanting to become the new demiurge constantly searching the world for the keys to the seals. The cosmology of kult is cool but shouldn't play a large part of any Kult campaign, it should be more personal.
>>43952622
well God-Machine+Mage is Kult, right?
>>43953343
There is no setting like kult :)
>>43953074
i meant servants more along the lines of GM Angels/Kult Lictors, not Archnos or whatever.
>Satan and God are basically the same guy and they both dislike you.
Ok, this i dig, feels Preacher as all Fuck.
Random Question: Is there any room for Sophia in your Kultverse?
>>43953373
unknown armies, mage and the gnostic gospels called.
they want your tongue back.
>>43953074
shit, i forgot to add, i like the GMC as opposed to Malkuth or whatever other archangels because it's so damn impersonal.
they have goals, the god computer just maintains the status of the apparatus at all costs
>>43953407
Just joking but as a Swede Kult will always have a special place in my heart... It's also the only RPG banned by the pope!
>Is there any room for Sophia in your Kultverse?
Difficult question. Perhaps she is best represented by Malkuth; an archon wanting humans to gain knowledge so they can escape? Perhaps ''a Sophia'' could be some sort of muse or catalyst to propel humans towards awakening or she could be a forgotten god wanting humans to gain knowledge.knowledge. I've never played a campaign with that theme but it could be fun; some sort of gnoisis seeking cult. In my kult knowledge mostly comes in the form of anamnesis (like in PKDs interpenetration of Gnosticism in his Exegesis.)
>because it's so damn impersonal.
That depends on how you play it. Usually i think of the DA and Archons as Ideas and Concepts with no personality other than their purpose. The anchors seldom think or plan, they just act in accordance with their concept. Their servants certainly try to please them and plan ahead but to the archons (who don't even perceive time as we do) it doesn't make sense.
>>43953618
neat! I'm a new-sweden guy (swedish ancestry, from MN)
I feel like you misunderstand when i say Sophia, in Gnosticism she was the Creator God above the blind and stupid Demiurge. Basically what I'm asking is do you see room for an Ascension (mage or whatever style) Endgame as a possibility.
As to
>because it's so damn impersonal.
Archetypes, Ideas and Concepts will almost ALWAYS feel more personal than a universal calculator to most people.
>>43953074
>The cosmology of kult is cool but shouldn't play a large part of any Kult campaign, it should be more personal.
Kind of want to play a game of Kingdom with the players as archons.
>>43953860
naaahhhhh.. Sophia is the light of god or simply ''knowledge'' This of course depends on which Gnostic school you look at. The creator god was someone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_(Gnosticism)
But to your question: No. If a character ever ascend that is where his/her story ends. The Kult universe is cool but it's not made for that kind of campaign (in my opinion). The Charater becomes an NPC even earlier in my campaigns; to role play/GM a -100 murderhobo might be fun for a session but then it just gets old and confusing.
>>43953975
I like to run Kult as Kult meets Exalted/Mage the Ascension
am I retarded?
>>43953975
Sophia clearly stands above the demiurge in all gnostic schools of thought, what are you on about?
>>43954228
Thats not my cup of tea. Sure it could work but then you would have to scrap pretty much everything that kult is about (humanity, loss of hope, death of innocence, the world falling apart, etc.) For me it is kinda like playing a Vampire: TR campaign where everyone can be in sunlight and doesn't have to drink blood.
>>43954279
My mistake, i was unclear and drunk. Sophia is above the Demiurge but subservient to the Original God. She creates the discord (''cast the shadow'') that creates the universe and the demiurge. But in most Gnostic systems Sophia is simply a powerful angel and sometimes the consort of Christ. She is the tree in the garden of eden and the voice of reason in all prophets.
>>43954882
i feel like when i run ascended beings in kult it makes the loss of hope/innocence all the more powerful.
for one, you must get there. it's probably a 3 year campaign.
secondly, for all the power you've accumulated it still just DOESN'T STOP THE INEVITABLE
>>43955450
But how do you role play a character that can only feel hate? or a character that can't feel anything?
>>43955498
isn't that some -400 shit?
once you're at enlightenment stage you can feel whatever you want, right?
it's just a matter of feeling when you think it's appropriate to feel. so, analytical, but still feels.
>>43957069
When you have ascended completely you can feel and act however you want but you're still scared by your former path for a looong time. You start getting weird pretty quickly and since the only playable way to reach ascension is the dark path (at least if you dont want to go ''then i spend 50 years meditating in the wilderness'') it will just turn into a boring episode of violence jacks.
>Pic realted
>>43958499
>i spend 50 years meditating in the wilderness
+1 MB
But yeah, characters with +/- 100 MB, or god forbid (heh) Awakened ones are just too alien to play. That's the point of KULT - what you're supposed to be is completely different from what you are now and your frame of reference.
I mean, how the fuck am I to roleplay a being that can travel sideways through time?
That said, I did have an idea for a 'road to Awakening' campaign once but nothing ever came of it.
>>43946373
New KULT coming out next year. Might be good.
>>43951330
>The god machine would still be around, it's literally the demiurges tower. So angels are lictors or whatever and the god machine sends out work orders.
ARE YOU ME? AM I IN METROPOLIS RIGHT NOW?
i have literally wanted to do this for over a year
>>43960682
Hope is the fist step on the road to disappointment.
And since I'm alreadt quoting 40K, I actually saw an attempt to somehow mix it with Kult. I can't find it now but I think it tincluded the Emperor as the Demiurge and Chaos Gords as Astaroth and the Death Angels (hell of a name for a band, by the way)
>>43961021
You mean Mutant Chronicles?
>>43962659
No, I meant an honest to Demiurge retelling of 40k into Kult. Hive worlds, marines, rogue traders and all that.
Mutant Chronicles is pretty much a mini-40k. It doesn't have much to do with Kult, save for a couple of names.
This game really doesn't get much traffic, does it?
>>43964497
It's a great setting.
I hate this game
FATAL is obviously superior, r-tards
Paranoid schizophrenic the setting.
It's pretty cool.
>>43966256
Show us where it touched you on the miniature.
>>43966256
Here is your (You), Anon.
>>43966215
It is. I'm just saying it's criminally underappreciated
>>43966608
Pitch black grimdark is a hard sale.
>>43966628
It's not that grimdark. I mean IT is but on the other side it's one of the very few rpgs you can actually win. At least in theory.
>>43966704
The only way you can roleplay the endgame in a good way is if everyone is doing drugs.
>>43967037
True, but still
>>43943073
>>43943224
This is some fantastic stuff. Cap'd for anyone that wants it, it's useful for basically anything horror, I plan on using it for CoC or Delta Green.
>>43968333
Yeah, that's good stuff. Horror works the best when you don't spoonfeed lore/informarion to your players and make them use their own imagination.
Why does everyone insist that you can't RP an alien mindset like someone who's enlightened?
Other games exist where you play archetypal embodiments of songs ffs
>>43969455
It's more that logic doesn't work with Kult reality because logic as we know it is false in Kult. So you need to roleplay being incoherent with purpose.
This thread made me a bit interested in Kult; I'd never heard of it before.
Can someone explain to me how the system basically works?
>>43969932
Well, they are doing a kickstarter for it in February, so some things in the systems might change.
>>43969932
Reality is a ile, once men were gods but the Demiurge trapped us in a cycle of life,death and rebirth. When we die we go to hell to be tortuted for several eternities until we forget ourselves and are sent back into the world. But now God is dead Satan is the only one who wants hmm back (because only he gave hmm meaning) and the false reality is falling apart.
>>43969455
So how would you roleplay something that is not grounded in what we percieves as reality?
>>43969455
Well songs exist in reality and we know how they work in a rudimentary sense (what system is this btw? never heard of it). The ascended are immortal beings living outside reality. To play one would not only be hard but also boring. Nothing can threaten you. Also: I've met many good role players but no human can ever portray what exist beyond our concepts of reality. If you want to play a superhero munchkin campaign feel free to do so but then your kinda missing all the themes of Kult.
Isn't this game popular in Scandinavia?
>>43972344
Very; its a swedish rpg after all. Its also famous for starting a large movement against RPGs in the 90s.
>>43942637
Just bumping and bragging.
How complete is your collection? BTW does any swede have an ex of Fallna änglar they want to get rid of?
>>43969455
>Other games exist where you play archetypal embodiments of songs ffs
That's personification, which is easy.
Enlightenment is de-personification, which is not.
>>43974049
At all ;_;
Will rectify this as soon as the new edition gets made
>>43969455
The awakening in KULT requires you to go remove yourself from the human frame of reference completely. Either through lowering or increasing your mental balance far FAR away from that of normal mortals.
The 'low road' requires you to give in to your whims and needs to the point where you become first a psychopath, than a mutant animal and finally - a force of pure chaos and instinct, with no thought and intentions.
'High road' needs you to become more stoic, static and completely devoid of needs and feelings to an equally extreme point.
See >>43958499 for reference. You become pretty much 'insane' before you're really started on your road to Awakening (form the mechanical standpoint - XP costs to change your MB by 1 are quintupled at some point. At +/-100 you're so far removed from regular humanity that the universe itself recoils and creates your Shadow as a counterweight to your weirdness. It's not just that it would be hard (if not impossible) to roleplay properly - it's also impractical from a gamplay perspective. Low MB characters are wild animals and high MB ones are static and uncaring. There's just too little to do with them gamewise at that point.
>>43960682
>>43949309
>>43977352
>>43970254
It is very important that this new version doesn't get made. It will be made by Marco Behrmann and Petter Nallo, who make shit games. They tried their hand at making a noir game (called Noir), and they fucked up completely. The most important thing to realize about them is that they cannot into writing.
Marco Behrmann is German, and I suspect this has something to do with it. If the texts were in German, they would sound reasonable, but in Swedish, they sound like shit. Yes, I know the reboot will come out in English, but I don't think the duo will fare any better there.
All of Eon and all of Noir, while having interesting ideas, was a huge fuckup simply because it hurt my eyes to read them. These talentless fucks shouldn't be let anywhere near Kult. They've already tried and failed.
>>43979092
That bad? Welp, there goes my smile for the day.
>>43972365
It's a false reputation that Kult killed the RPG momentum in Scandinavia, though.
>>43979092
I disagree partly. The ideas for Noir and EON (the latest edition) are great but perhaps not the best executed. I spoke to Nallo and Behrmann during GOthcon and they seem to have some pretty interesting and nice ideas for the game. I remain carefully optimistic.
>>43979779
True; it rather made it more interesting.
>>43979092
>It is very important that this new version doesn't get made.
well i'm definitely throwing at least $1000 in the pot now
Don't know shit about Noir but I'll agree that Eon, and related products, were a heap of shit-flavored blandness. If the people responsible for that are the ones to take up the job for a restart I'll just pass and keep the old stuff. Tbqh the latter english products for Kult felt quite amateurish and weren't much of a read anyhow.
>>43981475
The newer Eon product are much better. Besides if the setting sucks you can simply use the old one with the new system. Because there is no WAY the new system can be worse then the first.
>>43981709
wrong pic...
>>43971643
By transcending this reality.
>>43984346
What is beyond this reality?
>>43984989
Waifus.
