NWoD Genius - how to pitch it?

[The Glyphstone]

I'm planning to try and run a game of Genius: The Transgression for my game club next term at school; as such, plenty of questions.

1) Has anyone ever seen, read, or played a Genius chronicle? How did it go?

2) Most importantly, what would be the best packaging to wrap it in and make it sound fun, without losing the semigrimdark of the WoD in general?

3) Any general ST advice would be helpful here - I've played in various WoD games, so I understand the Storyteller system from the player's perspective at least, but never run it.

[Urpriest]

Haven't played Genius, but shouldn't a mad scientist game sort of pitch itself? Especially in a game club on a campus, everyone already thinks that they're a mad scientist. And the whole "my invention is great, but can never pass peer review" thing is deliciously poignant.

[Yuki Akuma]

I'm planning to try and run a game of Genius: The Transgression for my game club next term at school; as such, plenty of questions.

1) Has anyone ever seen, read, or played a Genius chronicle? How did it go?

I'm playing a Genius in a crossover game... but it hasn't gone anywhere yet. PbP and all.


2) Most importantly, what would be the best packaging to wrap it in and make it sound fun, without losing the semigrimdark of the WoD in general?

"You are insane. You are likely to become even more insane, very quickly. You can never connect with another human being on the same wavelength ever again. And everything you know to be true is in fact a lie, and trying to convince someone to see the world the way you do sucks all the life from them and turns them into a puppet who'll go catatonic if you ever abandon him."

Maybe?

Being a Genius sucks when you think about it too hard.

[Wings of Peace]

@2: I would say the focus would shift from the players directly facing the grimdark to "I know I can easily solve this problem if I do X, but should I?".

[The Glyphstone]

So howabout sample characters from pop culture or media to help me illustrate mechanics in ways they'd understand, once I have people interested in the game?

I've already decided Dr. Horrible makes an excellent example of a potential Genius for a number of things (a catalyst - Hoffnung, to be specific, favored Axioms, Havoc, and Obligation), while I may use Adam West's Batman and his classic Bat-Shark-Repellant-Spray to embody Kitbashing. A media-based example of beholden might be useful, for instance.

[Yuki Akuma]

Tell them to read Girl Genius?

[The Glyphstone]

That's listed in the book already as source material...and while Sparks are good examples of 'mad science' in general, they don't work very well for illustrations of specific mechanics or aspects of Genius (except maybe Beholden).

[comicshorse]

Get them to read the Atomic Robo comics ? (But thats just a good idea no matter what)

[The Glyphstone]

Atomic Robo could be a good example of an Orphan Automaton 4 or 5, yeah. Though I don't know where he gets his Mania supply...maybe an internalized Generator merit.

My problem, though, is not giving them additional reading material, it's identifying existing and easily recognizable icons that I can use as shorthand for abilities - like the abovementioned Adam West Batman and his kitbashed Shark Repellant Spray, or how Havoc causes the Death Ray to malfunction when Captain Hammer touches it.

[Fox Box Socks]

I generally sell Genius as Mage the Ascension meets MacGyver. A strong enough Genius can build a working time machine out of an eggbeater, some scotch tape, and six toothpicks, but it all goes to hell if a normal person so much as looks at it.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Watch Atop The Fourth Wall and The Spoony Experiment? I haven't played Genius, but I've always imagined it to basically be "You can play Dr. Insano."

[Yuki Akuma]

Watch Atop The Fourth Wall and The Spoony Experiment? I haven't played Genius, but I've always imagined it to basically be "You can play Dr. Insano."

No, you couldn't. When you become that insane you turn into an NPC.

[The Glyphstone]

Any ideas for a Bardo I could place in Philadelphia? All I can come up with is a bardo where the city's brief stint as the US capital city never ended, and now draws its Mania supply from politics and political activism - it'd have two 'sections', the 'Upper' section reflecting the idealized image of the political world with selfless officials working to benefit their constituents and the betterment of everyone, and the 'Lower' section riddled with corruption, graft, and literal rot to reflect the perception of politics' seedy underbelly.

[Yuki Akuma]

There's no reason why a bardo in Philedelphia has to be as recent as the past two-hundred or so years. It could be all native Americany.

Alternatively, there's also no reason why the entrance to a bardo actually has to be anywhere near the bardo.

[The Glyphstone]

There's no reason why a bardo in Philedelphia has to be as recent as the past two-hundred or so years. It could be all native Americany.

I don't know enough Native American lore to be able to create a bardo along that theme, though. And Native American legends/lore seem like they'd fit better in Mage or Werewolf than Genius, canon examples of native Geniuses notwithstanding.



Alternatively, there's also no reason why the entrance to a bardo actually has to be anywhere near the bardo.

No, but it's traditional at least , for all the existing ones - the Martian Empire is 'on' Mars, and the Seattle of Tomorrow is reached via Seattle. The Holllow Earth can only be reached by travelling down on select paths, the Grid is through Ccmputers, etc. The only bardo I can think of that isn't physically linked to its thematic embodiment is the Grey Plateau of Tsoka, which is out in the middle of Mongolia for who knows what reason.

[Fox Box Socks]

I don't know enough Native American lore to be able to create a bardo along that theme, though. And Native American legends/lore seem like they'd fit better in Mage or Werewolf than Genius, canon examples of native Geniuses notwithstanding.
As a Philiadelphia native, I know that the Lenape used to live here before the Europeans chased them out with muskets, broken treaties and smallpox.

Taking at least a cursory glance at a few of their legends couldn't hurt.

[Talyn]

Er, not to rain on your parade, but Genius might not be a good fit for you in your present circumstances.

For one thing, Storytelling Genius games are HARD for the same reason that Mage games are hard. It's tough to get a coherent plot going when your character can rewrite the rulebooks every session, not to mention that Genius has about a million fiddly little rules which don't really play well with each other.

Storytelling already requires about three times the work of DMing because of the comparative freedom of action of the PCs - if you haven't done it before, you should probably run a Werewolf or Hunter game for your friends, first, to try to get the hang of it.

Secondly, if your players have not played NWoD before, Genius is not a good intro. The rulebook is enormous, edited by amateurs, and expects you to know the World of Darkness and its systems pretty cold. Also, making characters in Genius takes even longer than in Changeling, and is a five (five!) step process - you could very easily spend two or three four-hour sessions just making characters and introducing them to each other. Again, I'd recommend a Werewolf or Hunter game first, to teach people the world and the game systems.


Recap for the TL:DR crowd: Genius is as hard to play as Changeling, and as hard to run as Mage. Maybe you should try something easier first.

[Yuki Akuma]

On the other hand, this is an established gaming group and not a bunch of n00bs, and he wants to ST Genius.

And he's GMed before. Just not nWoD.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

No, you couldn't. When you become that insane you turn into an NPC.

Really? Weird. I thought the whole point of Genius was to be a mad scientist.

There's some sort of meter that tracks this then? *has only ever played Scion*

[The Glyphstone]

Really? Weird. I thought the whole point of Genius was to be a mad scientist.

There's some sort of meter that tracks this then? *has only ever played Scion*

Every NWoD game has a Morality meter, showing how decent you are. For mortals it's Morality flat - Werewolves have Harmony, vampires have Humanity, mages have Wisdom. For Geniuses, they have Obligation - a measure of how well they remember that humans are people too, not just lab rats/test subjects/spare parts. Being totally insane isn't necessarily low Obligation, but the lower your Obligation, the more likely you are to do things like randomly transform your lab assistant into a hamster for fun, or kidnap random people off the street and harvest their organs to build your doom golems. Part of the pathos of Genius is balancing your insanity with your obligation, a bit of fighting against your own inner nature.

Reaching Obligation 0 turns you into an NPC - called "Illuminated" where your Mad Science has taken over your brain entirely, and you're utterly psychopathic; if your lab is burning to the ground and you have to pick between letting the test subjects out of their cages to run and saving your favorite set of screwdrivers from a locked desk drawer, an Illuminated will be equally likely to go either way - or more likely to go for the screwdrivers, since he can get new test subjects later.

[Fox Box Socks]

Even though Genius is a game of mad science and forbidden knowledge, Obligation measures how much your Genius is trying to channel his insanity towards positive ends.

High Obligation means things like building a doomsday device to help combat global warming. Low Obligation means things like building a doomsday device because you can.

[Yuki Akuma]

Really? Weird. I thought the whole point of Genius was to be a mad scientist.

There's some sort of meter that tracks this then? *has only ever played Scion*

Note that you don't have to lose all your Obligation to turn into an Illuminated - it can also simply happen because you relied on your supernatural powers too much and let the light of Inspiration burn you out from the inside.

Roughly 20% of all Geniuses eventually become Illuminated. Many of those become Illuminated as soon as they catalyse.

All Illuminated are psychopaths, though, no matter how high their Obligation was when they snapped. And unlike being Unmada (which is another type of madness you can also fall into), you can't recovered from Illumination.

Also, of the remaining 80%, roughly half of those are Unmada. Possibly more.

Unmada is when you become so convinced that your twisted worldview is correct that your Mania starts altering reality around you to prove your theories true. All Geniuses have mad worldviews, but Unmada are the ones who aren't genre savvy enough to realise that they're actually insane.