Why Kindred of the East is better than Vampire.

There seem to be a lot of disdain for Vampire - Kindred of the East at least among swedish fans of the World of Darkness, which has always bugged me as I consider KotE more or less my favorite RPG of all times. As I've recently become reacquainted with WoD after a long hiatus, and learnt about the upcoming Vampire 5th edition, it felt like it was due time to write a defense of Kindred of the East. This post will be in two parts. First, I'll briefly discuss why I think people dislike KotE, and whether those reasons are valid. Then, I'll argue why I consider KotE to actually be a better RPG than Vampire the Masquerade (not that I don't love that game, too).

Reasons to dislike Vampire: Kindred of the East

 

It's orientalist: KotE should have been done by people with a better knowledge of Asian culture and daily life and a bigger commitment to Asian mythology, and less Japan-fetishism. As it was, it often felt clichéd and exotifying. (Having both lived in China and studied Asian history and religion, one of my dreams as an RPG writer would be to get to work on a complete remake of KotE, and fix these issues).
Verdict: Valid.

It has a very eclectic art style: True, but so does most WoD games, Vampire included.
Verdict: Invalid.

It has a bad rules system, shock full of power creep and utterly imbalanced options: So does all WoD games. However, KotE was especially bad in this regard, especially when combined with Vampire, as the powers of the Wan Kuei and the Cainites really didn't mesh well. A few things, like the KotE take on Fortitude, were simply better done than in Vampire the Masquerade, but mostly it's a disaster.
Verdict: Partly valid.

The disciplines are bad: Well designed Vampire-disciplines have a clear theme and a stringent and intuitive power progression, Obfuscate and Dominate being great examples, but even oddball ones like Dementation and Obtenebration work relatively well. Badly designed Vampire-disciplines are completely random to the point of being silly, and have no good coherent theme - Serpentis is the worst of the lot (why, dear god why doesn't the Setites all just have Setite Sorcery instead?). Almost all of the KotE disciplines are like Serpentis.
Verdict: Valid.

It's silly: Absolute not, though it's certainly more urban fantasy-themed and superlative than Vampire. But that's part of it's awesome, as I'll soon argue.
Verdict: Invalid.

It's too complicated: I have seldom seen as inaccessible a game as KotE. The philosophies and nature of the Wan Kuei are very, very complicated and occasionally convoluted, the disciplines are very eclectic and hard to remember, and the advancement of dharma is not explained well enough. The Wan Kuei are very challenging beings to portray. But that is also part of why KotE is actually good, as I'll argue later.
Verdict: Partly valid.

It's a crossover orgy: Yes. I shall argue that it makes it a stronger game, not a weaker one.
Verdict: Invalid.

Reasons that KotE is actually better than Vampire

 

It has a cooler setting:  Asia has a stronger contrast than the West between old and new, and this contrast enhances the themes about immortal beings. Asian cities are enormous and vibrant and shabby and seedy in a way few western cities can match, all the while being steeped in mind-blowing antiquity. The Vampire book Cairo by Night had this too, but it was basically the best city book for Vampire.

It builds on a cooler cosmology: The buddhist cosmology is grossly underappreciated in western fantasy. It has a conceptual stringency the abrahamic cosmology lacks, with a fascinatingly elegant feel to its clear categories of beings and existential concepts. Its lack of a supreme God, its many different realms of existence, its cyclic worldview and unyelding cosmos ruled by suffering that can only be mitigated by insight has enormous potential when mixed with contemporary fantasy themes, as proven by KotE, if not taken to its fullest potential.

It knows what it is about: Vampire has always felt schizophrenic to me. It claims to be about the personal horror of the Beast, but the Beast is rather sidelined by the rules system, and we almost never get to see a vampire who has actually fallen to the Beast. Is Vampire about intrigue? Sure, but what are they really plotting about? KotE, by contrast, has a clear sense of purpose - you portray undead beings resurrected due to a karmic debt, that they now have to repay by fighting the Yama kings and searching for dharmic insight.

It has better villains: The Yama Kings are amazing creations. The Thousand Hells book gave them complicated and nuanced personalities and colorful and terrifying hellish realms to rule, and made them feel tragic yet extremely threatening; ancient, twisted beings, both pitiful and loathsome. They have clear agendas, cool minions, and are super-easy to use as a catalyst to create a story.

Its vampires have better backstories: The fact that Wan Kuei are not Embraced, but risen from the dead due to karmic debt and a tragic fate in their stained past life makes for amazing backstories. It roots them in humanity yet gives them a feel of being both chosen and cursed, both blessed and tragic.

Its vampires cannot create new vampires: This is something I've grown to dislike somewhat with Vampire - the Masquerade. The fact that vampires can, at-will, create new vampires makes the whole concept feel somewhat cheap, and dilutes the tragic aspects of vampirism - in Vampire, quite a lot of vampires would basically be vampires just because they wanted to. KotE is the whole other side of the coin; here, vampirism is -always- a curse, and humans cannot be made vampires through any effort on part of the Wan Kuei. This has several important consequences:
- The relationships between Wan Kuei and mortals are more tragic, as there's no easy way out from the problem of time.
- Any Wan Kuei is valuable: Any time one turns up, others try and calm her and care for her and see what purpose she might fill.
- Any Wan Kuei is who she is for a reason. (See 'better backstories', above).

Much, more more is done with the Beast: It's a huge irony that KotE handles the Beast much better than Vampire, the game that was supposed to -be about- the Beast. In KotE, in stark contrast to Vampire, the Beast has a personality and an agenda, you can draw on its strength, but do so at your own peril, several disciplines deal with the Beast in various ways, and the writes even suggest the Wraith - the Oblivion concept of having a shadowplayer, which I cannot even fathom why they never used in Vampire.

It's a big crossover with Wraith and Werewolf: So all Wan Kuei have Lifesight and Deathsight, and they all, to some extent, deal with wraiths and spirits. They have rituals to journey into hell itself. The game's books at length elaborate on the spirit worlds and how they interconnect with the mortal realm. I think these themes strengthen the dark urban fantasy atmosphere the game is supposed to evoke, and enriches it immensely. Wan Kuei is given more to -do-, plain and simple, more roles to fill in the world. KotE becomes so colorful and full of mystery.

They have no generation, but a dynamic power level: Instead of being locked into a power level slot by birth, and only being able to increase it through soul-drinking murder, the Wan Kuei must gain insight into the workings of their nature and the world in order to increase in power. Is it less tragic and unfair than Vampire? Certainly. But it's also more dynamic, and makes the very process of leveling up a fascinating personal and spiritual journey. The game even went to some length to describe how a dharma-increasing moment of insight felt, thus merging the rules with immersion into the setting and the story.

Salvation is possible: Tightly connected to the previous point. Like with the previous one, I'll understand people who prefer the harshness of Vampire the Masquerade here, but I dislike utterly hopeless settings. I like vast, dark worlds with a tiny sliver of distant hope attained through enormous and patient effort, and that is basically the concept of buddhism - as such, it meshes perfectly with what they chose to do in KotE. Salvation waits at dharma 10. But has anyone even reached that level, ever?

The coteries are justified: Vampire did a poor job at explaining why exactly a group of very random vampires (the PCs, that is) would hang together and what they would occupy themselves with. KotE does this much better, by creating a traditional five-fold group, the Wu, where you would ideally have members of five different dharmas following five different directions. In practice, few Wu looked like this, yet their traditional structure and concepts like sharing a guardian spirit made the Wu a much more interesting structure than the coterie ever was.

The winds are super cool: In KotE, each vampire choses a wind direction, which symbolises a pathway she is then expected to follow. A vampire of the eastern direction is expected to nurture the mortal world, a vampire of the western direction is supposed to nurture the wraith world, a vampire of the south is expected to be a warrior, etc. These concept made for very interesting characters when combined with the dharmas (the clan equivalent) and the nature/demeanors, which gave great possibilites of both deconstructing stereotypes or going in atypical directions.

The dharmas make more sense than the clans: While the clans of Vampire are classic for a reason, many of them have always felt to me like they completely lack any kind of social organisation and would completely fall apart throughout the centuries. This is why I consider for example the Tremere, the Giovanni and the Setites among the better and more interesting clans - because they make sense, as they have distinct organisations, hierarchies and agendas. Guess what? In KotE, -everyone- has that. The dharmas are something you affiliate with -by choice-, and they have very, very distinct philosophies, motivations and organisations. They're not there just to give the PC a stereotype to belong to - they're there to give the PC -a role in the world- and something to, you know, actually -do- in the game.

The dharmas are more interesting than the clans: See above. While their philosophies were convoluted, and ought to have been described much better, the dharmas were by and large very interesting and innovative, providing some excellent conflicts and plot hooks, especially for PCs. How do you really go about being a Devil-tiger? Can you do so without being a complete monster, while not squandering possibilities to gain insight? Can you go against your nature if your dharma demands it? How do you balance the needs of your dharma with the needs of your wu?

South-East Asian folklore is fucking metal: A minor aspect yes, and closely related to "cooler setting" a few points above, but it deserves special mention. Thai, Filipino and Indonesian mythological creatures are insanely hardcore, we have for example the vagina-invading baby eating aswang and the ghost girls who are floating heads and bloody spines, and scores of other stuff crawled out of drugged nightmares, stuff that just needs to be in an urban fantasy horror game. KotE is the perfect fit for that, and already made several allusions to it (the Flesh Shintai discipline being the strongest one).

Concluding remarks

That's all I can think of for now. I understand that KotE is not for everybody, with its exotic setting and AWESOME, unashamed urban fantasy theme. I've played it way too little myself, due to its horrible rules system. But I've always found KotE much easier and rewarding game to run than Vampire, finding it both more colorful, interesting and tragic all at the same time. Compared to Vampire - the Masquerade, Kindred of the East has more fascinating vampires, more tragic themes and much clearer conflicts and more solid roles for the PCs to play, altogether making it a stronger game.

Rollspelsmonstren som Piruett glömde

Piruett har en lista med de 10 coolaste monstren i den svenska rollspelshistorien. Och visst, många där är helt spot on, men jag tyckte också att några...saknades. Framförallt vill jag vidhålla att Eon har koolare monster än DoD6 rent generellt, så jag ser inte vad tex runstenstrollet gör på listan, när inte ett enda Eonmonster är med. Jag tänker inte göra en helt ny lista, Piruetts är så pass bra, bara påpeka några jag tycker borde ha fått vara med.

Panthera (i Monster och Varelser samt Monster i Mundana)

"I början av vintern omkring oktober månad har pantherorna vilda parningsriter då flera flockar samlas i de nordliga, snötäckta vildmarkerna. Hannarna försöker locka över honor till sin flock genom vilda uppvisningsstrider. Det är även chansen för utstötta hannar att återvända och kämpa om en plats som flockledare. Vinternatten fylls av pantherornas skärande skrik och skenet från deras blågröna eldkvastar. De som lever i de nordliga ödemarkerna vet bäst i att hålla sig undan dessa nätter".

Okej, den är kalydonen fast ett kattdjur, som vi tidigare etablerat som den mest awesome av alla djurfamiljer, den är blodtörstig, liger-stor, jagar i flock, och har extremt brutala stats (såsom relativt psy 14, vilket basically gör den till Eons smartaste djur). Pantherorna fyller därför naturligt den här obligatoriska rollen som saker att slänga in när rollisarna blivit för bra och behöver tas ned på jorden (för tro mig, det händer även i Eon). Deras eld kommer från körtlar med en särskild vätska som blir settingens mest exklusiva parfym, vilket i sig är koolt. Lägg sedan till att pantheran är den enda varelse i hela Mundana som då och då käkar drakar till frukost, så har vi epic win.

(Eons drakar är i sig, som bekant kanske, något...über).

Hyggelmonster (i Eon III, Monster och Varelser samt Monster i Mundana)

Eons signaturmonster. En absurt aggressiv hjärndöd huvudfoting som lagrar resterna av sina offer i sitt skålformade innanmäte, vars frätande magsaft stänker ut ur käften när den springer. Det har kallats "rollspelshobbyns fulaste, töntigaste och i särklass mest ansträngda fantasymonster", vilket onekligen måste innebära att det är skitkoolt.

Jag låter dess look tala för sig själv.

Dödskerub (i Monsterboxen)

"Dödskeruberna ser ut som små människobarn, tre till sex år gamla, med ruttnande kött löst hängande på skelett av elfeben. De har rostiga vingar, gnisslande av järnfjäll. I vår mänskliga värld uppträder dödskeruberna vilset och förvirrat, ständigt gråtande och klagande. De är köttätare och kan i sin förtvivlan och vilsenhet anfalla allt som rör sig med sina stora klor och huggtänder av järn".

Att de här inte var med på Piruetts lista var faen kriminellt.

Svart Enhörning (i Monsterboxen)

"Somliga menar att de svarta enhörningarna är själarna av vanliga enhörningar som gått en våldsam död till mötes. Deras ondska skulle isåfall förklaras med att de är hämndlystna, Svarta enhörningar kan endast 'charmas' av manliga magiker med svarta sinnen".

"Den svarta enhörningen är identisk till formen (med en vanlig enhörning, Olas anm.), men den framträder för det mäskliga ögat bara som en massiv kolsvart skugga, en knappt genomskinlig ande".

Visst, andra har försökt få till mer originella 'onda' hästar, typ Eons seian, och visst, de funkar de med, men ibland är det kanske bättre att bara göra det lätt för sig. Svart enhörning. Så simpelt, såå koolt.

Och så har vi Kaoskardinal (i Monsterboxen)

Well, monstret i sig är kanske inte jätteawesome, posen till trots, men alltså, namnet...Kaoskardinal. Kaoskardinal. Mothafuckin' KAOSKARDINAL! Frukta.

Domherre (i Zonernas Zoologi)

Ni vet den här känslan av att ett trivialt jävla smådjur (den sorten som annars liksom bara intresserar avdankade tjocka tanter med fågelbad i trädgården) har ett oförtjänt häftigt namn? Monstret som uppstod ur denna känsla är det lyckliga resultatet av att man bejakat en naturlig nörddrift att få djuret att göra skäl för namnet, och voíla. Awesomeness ensues.

Drömfurstarna i Kult var också små mästerverk. Dunno om de kvalar in, dock.

Important people in world history

I played Through the Ages with a few friends yesterday. It's a very good boardgame, although it's a little bit too abstract and mathematical for my taste, I much prefer more visual and straightforward, but still strategic, games like A Game of Thrones and the godawesome Twilight Imperium.

Still, Through the Ages is fun, but there's something that irks me severely. And I know I'm likely the only person in the world or so that gets disturbed by stuff like this, but this is my blogg, and thus I'll complain as much as I could ever want.

Through the Ages is so damn eurocentric. It's about building a lasting civilisation, from antiquity to modern times, and surpassing all other civilisations in terms of cultural dominance. To achieve this, you can use a lot of different cards like buildings, strategies, and so forth, and there's leader cards that feature historically important persons that aids your civilisation.

And almost everyone is european, and the selection of persons is generally dull and predictable. we have, for example, Aristoteles, Platon, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Isaac Newton, Barbarossa, Jeanne D'Arc, Winston Churchill (man what?), William Shakespeare...the few non-european choices that I remember are Hammurabi, Ghandi and Chinggis Khan.

So, I'm gonna, just for fun, put together a better list of suitable leaders for a game like this. A good leader should be both a colorful person, and one of considerable historical importance. In the latter aspect, I would say that both Churchill and Jeanne D'Arc fail, for example - they were important all right, but not spectacularly so. The choices should also be varied; both Jesus, Buddha and Confucius was extremely influental people of the ancient world, but having all three in a game with only about four-five leaders in each era would be kinda...boring. Actually, variety is what I'll pay the most attention to, both in regards to the skills and ethnicites of the candidates:

I would suggest:

Antiquity:
Cyrus the Great - the first ruler of a big, multicultural empire, and the one who invented the structure upon which many later empires were built.
Aristoteles is already in the game, and was a good choice, his ideas were fundamental for later thinking both in Europe and the Islamic world.
Augustus was much more important than the more famous Julius Caesar. Augustus laid the foundation for much of the Roman empire's achievements, which would have a lasting and utterly enormous influence on western history and culture.
Imhotep was a polymath (poet, chancellor, engineer, architect, physicist) during Egypt's third dynasty. So awesome was he, that he was elevated to godhood and worshipped as god of medicine and healing for thousands of years.
Buddha or Confucius could represent eastern civilisations and their ideas and thoughts. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, was also extremely important; he founded an imperial structure that lasted for two thousand years. His indian counterpart would be Ashoka the Great. Another asian that is generally considered to have been among the most influental people ever to have lived is Cai Lun, although he's not that spectacular as a person, it's more about a little thing: he invented paper. Still, he ranks a fuckin' seven on Hart's famous list of History's Most Influental People.

Medieval times:
Muhammed is number #1 on Harts list, I choice I would agree with. He founded both a major world religion and a major world empire, no one else has ever done that.
Avicenna or Averroes should represent islamic philosophy and science. While Averroes has been called 'the father of secular thought in Europe', Avicenna discovered the contagious nature of diseases, the concept of momentum in physices, and an almost improbable range of other important stuff.
Chinggis Khan and his successors conquered almost the entire world, which should speak for itself, really. I personally would attribute a lot of the mongol's successes to Chinggis' chief strategist Subotaï though, who outlived him for many years. Contrary to popular belief, Chinggis was long since dead when the mongol empire reached its greatest extent; his successor's achieved that partly due to the genius of Subotaï.
As for Europe, it is true that the middle ages have an undeservedly bad reputation, but it's likewise true that asian civilisations were much more awesome than european ones during this time. Still, if one feel the absolute need to include any european (for which, really, Averroes should otherwise suffice as he was from muslim Andalusia), I'd spontaneously vote for Charlemagne, who founded the Holy Roman Empire and unified Europe. I'm open for other suggestions though, just put a comment in.

There's not many, if any, artists that have been influental on history as a whole. Still, one or two should be included in a game like this, as it really is about cultural dominance. For the Middle Ages, I'd suggest Dante or Guillaume de Machaut, as I like them so much, but it's probably best to save the artist for the next era:

Early modern times:
I can almost only think of europeans here :/
Leonardo da Vinci was a colorful figure, as was Michelangelo. Neither of them was that influental, really, but we need some artist. The original game has Shakespeare, which is probably a better choice really, I'm just so fucking tired of him.
Isaac Newton is also in the original game, and deservedly so.
Vasco da Gama or Magellan would be better and more colorful representants for the age of discovery than Columbus, who's in the original game. Henry the Navigator or Zheng He would be more unusual but interesting choices, but the latter was medieval, really.
Lorenzo the Magnificent ruled Florence for a great part of the early renaissance, and was a very important patron of the arts and sciences.
As for the compulsory military leader, well...maybe Peter the Great? Shaka Zulu was certainly not very important in the larger perspective, but an interesting and capable person nonetheless.

Modern times:
The original game has Tesla (well, its a czech game), Churchill, Ghandi, Einstein I think, and a nameless 'Game designer'. I'd go with:
Simon Bolivar, the founding father of several latin american countries.
Cecil Rhodes, to represent capitalism and imperialistic thought.
Karl Marx was certainly very influental, but Lenin makes a better leader. I'd go for Mao though, as we want more non-europeans in the game. On the other hand, maybe Bolivar covers the 'charismatic leader/visionary'-part already, let's try something else:
As scientists/philosophers go, maybe Darwin or Freud? Louis Pasteur ranks very, very high on Hart's list, he could also be a good choice, but we already have a doctor, Avicenna, in the list.
Anyhow, last but not least, the game designer slot: Gary Gygax, the father of D&D, is the obvious choice here, as he've had a tremendous impact on gaming of all kinds, and thus nerd culture as a whole.

What about women?
Well, there's really a severe lack of women that have been influental on history as a whole. Still, the game should try to squeeze in at least one or two, I think, as I've already made many choices more based on ethnicity/variety/coolness than actual historical importance. A few suggestions:

Enheduanna, first writer known by name, priestess in Ur.
Nefertiti, queen of Egypt; a bust of her is thought to have influenced western standards of beauty, and she seems to have been co-regent with her husband Akhenaten, who might have been an alien too boot ;-D
Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant of China.
Fatimah, daughter of Muhammed.
Anna Komnena, byzantine princess of Byzantium :-), and one of the first female historians.
Aliénor of Aquitaine, one of the most powerful women in medieval Europe.
Töregene, de-facto ruler of the Mongol Empire for a few years.
Two influental nuns were Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Ávila, the former a multi-talented scholar and composer, the latter a mystic and writer.
Isabella I of Castille is on Hart's list.
La Malinche, an amerindian mistress of Hernán Cortéz who aided in the downfall of Mesoamerican civilisation.
Maria Theresia, Holy Roman empress, a 'key figure in the politics of 18th century Europe'.
In the 18th and 19th century, there's lots of female writers and/or thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft.
In the 20th century, there's Golda Meir, the 'iron lady of Israel', Indira Ghandi, and others. As female scientists go, we've got Marie Curie, Marija Gimbutas (sorry, I couldn't help myself)...

Well. That's it. I'm open for other suggestions.

/Ola, bored now

'的' är det nya 'the'

的 är ett kinesiskt relationsord som uttalas typ 'döh', skrivs med pinyin 'de'. Det används...uhm...typ för att markera tillhörighet, säg 我的妹妹, 'wǒ de mèimei'; 'min lillasyster'. (Som i det här fallet då återfinns här). Ordagrant blir det typ 'jag (tillhörighet) lillasyster'. Om 'Ola' och 'blogg' kunde uttalas eller skrivas på kinesiska hade 'Ola 的 blogg' helt enkelt betytt 'Olas blogg'. Nu går inte det, egentligen, men det hindrade inte sångerskan Dadawa från att göra så på sin blogg, en idé jag och syrran entusiastiskt omfamnade. 的 låter ju också nästan som engelskans 'the', och därmed kan titeln också tolkas som 'Ola - the blogg'. På grund av denna fantastiska bilingual bonus, förklarar jag härmed att '的' är det nya 'the'. Nu, och för alltid.

Ayep.

Och därmed förklarar jag min blogg öppnad.