Anyone interested in a little game of "Kult: Divinity Lost"?

I say “little” with more than a little sarcasm. “Kult” is a game of Horror, and very much “Adult” Horror at that. The rules of the site must be followed. However, if depravity and Horror aren't for you, then "Kult" won't be for you.

I have 3 scenarios in mind. Two of them would be preferred as an appetizer (EITHER one, not both), and then the longer-form scenario might be something that we try if the other ones work.

I’m looking for 1-4 players, with no requirement to know the rules prior to play. (If there are more the 4 worthy players, then we can maybe start discussions for the third option.)

If it ends up at 0 players either out of disinterest or inability to follow the rules, I am more than okay with that. There are other things for me to do.

• First option: the scenario called “Downfall” from the official published collection of scenarios known as “Screams and Whispers”. (I am renaming it “The Missing and the Lost” since “Downfall” (Der Untergang) is a meme.) This scenario involves a missing college student, forbidden passion, and the supernatural.
  
  • "When an aspiring writer goes missing, all he leaves behind are unpaid bills, a locked suitcase, and a tattered yellow notebook. His friends and relatives embark on an investigation to piece together a gruesome tale of self-discovery, enlightenment, and passion."
  • This can accommodate up to 4 players.
• The second option from “Screams and Whispers” is IMO even more disturbing: "It Started and Ended with Screams". This will require a lot of agreement and good judgment to run at all. (It's definitely not my first choice since it requires careful judgment in handling this fiction, and it's also a longer scenario.)
  
  • "The players are all teenagers sent to St. Jude’s Center for Troubled Youths. Here, in this strict institution, where the windows are barred and the doors are locked, they soon discover that this place has many secrets."
  • This one can potentially carry up to 6 troubled souls/player characters (who absolutely follow all the rules of this site).
• Lastly, an idea that might not work at all. It is kind of inspired by “Born This Way”, a biographical story about the original supermodel, Gia Carangi. (Gia is also the same Gia that the Angelina Jolie movie was based on.)
  
  • This idea is more of an older school Horror creep-show event, but not meant in a de-humanized way. I mean... the role of "model" is objectified sex, but there's a consciousness of objectification intended in this fiction - and not purely prurient in purpose, etc. (This is why I point this fiction at ideas from Gia's real life story.)
  • Everyone plays a stereotype of a celebrity supermodel (or something along those lines). Ingenue, Falling Star (that Black Swan kind of deal), Party Girl, the Media Wh*re, the Trust Fund baby, the Exotic Oddity, etc. I’ve cranked out a few Archetypes/stereotypes to riff off of. Then we sketch out the game, and play the Relationship Map sandbox (i.e. the full-on PbtA Kult experience where we discover the game through emergent play).
  • This takes the most work and buy-in (including from me), and maybe we can start planning for it while we’re playing the pre-made scenario IF the group feels sufficiently enthusiastic about it AND I am sufficiently convinced that you’re into the concept.
  • I would ideally like no more than 5 for this one, but 3-4 would be nice.

Again, all of these are “Adult” in nature. This is both a freedom and a responsibility as participants.

If you don't like the rules, please bring those concerns to the appropriate people (i.e. not myself). I'm neither here to change the rules nor complain about them.

Count me interested, I've played and ran a few KULT games myself, so I'm familiar with the rules and lore. I haven't read any of the proposed scenarios (still waiting for my copy of "Screams and Whispers"...).

In the second option, do we still get to pick the usual archetypes despite beeing troubled youths or do we start there as Sleepers?

For the second one, "It Started and Ended with Screams", the scenario allows you to build your own Awakened archetypes... it's not completely "Free Hand", however. It's a guided version of Free Hand character creation around certain stereotypes of Teens being put into mental institutions: The Bully, The Damaged, the Gaslit, the Abandoned, the Unfortunate, and the Plant.

Each Role has a description, a few questions to answer, and a couple pieces of advice for playing the role. Then, you get 1 Dark Secret (from a list of 8 that are specific to this scenario), 1 Disadvantage (choosing ANY from the core book), and 1 Advantage (choosing from 2 suggested for each Role).

It's actually quite a clever concept, which I adapted for the third one. The Archetypes can be limiting (even if they are in keeping with prior versions of Kult), and I never thought about doing Free Hand characters until I saw the example in this scenario.

I'm interested. While I'm familiar with the game I've never played it.

We'll need to agree on the scenario to play, of course, and everyone will eventually need to swear they are able to participate in Adult games (once the game thing is up)...

So, feel free to talk about the scenarios on offer.

...

Regarding the first one, "Downfall" (not the meme)... there are 4 pre-generated characters that seem to come out of the Archetypes. Like, the Girlfriend of the missing college student seems like an Avenger. The Twin Sister of the missing student might be a Seeker.

FYI, you're able to gender swap all of the pre-generated characters in "Downfall", and none of them have names... so you get to name them (although the Twin Sister probably ought to have the same family name as her missing twin brother.)

Lastly, each of the pre-gens also comes with an option of 2 different Agendas - a "lighter" version and a "darker" version. Each one will point you in the right direction, but the darker one is more disturbing. You're only required to choose & I'm not forcing the dark agendas on anyone.

(Since each character's dark agenda is shocking, it's better not to share before play.)
This message was last edited by the user at 08:28, Tue 02 Aug 2022.

Do you think that connecting the second one with the third one would be doable? Unless you were thinking about wrapping up the second one and starting the third with different characters? I'm asking, because I tend to get attached to my characters... (I guess the same question applies to first and the third)

I think it's quite possible to continue the story for a character this way - assuming they survive the events of their story.

It's probably technically easier to base it off of characters out of the second one because they don't start as complete characters relative to a fully formed Archetype with 3 Advantages and 2 Disadvantages. The Teens in the facility have 1 Advantage and 1 Disadvantage, and then they'd probably need to reset the Dark Secret... but it's do-able.

I think I'd want some kind of reset between the character in the first and a character from the third, but you could still carry the name and the backstory. There's a certain requirement to sell a look in order to be a model, and none of the characters is particularly good at that skill set as they are defined in the book.

Sounds good. I'll go with the second option as my preference, mostly because, as you wrote, it's easier to connect with the third.

Do you have an opinion on the scenario at hand?

To sum up... choosing between the first one (missing college student, a journey of passion and discovery) and the second one (teenage trauma in a prison-like environment), with the option to branch into the third (contemporary supermodels, the price of fame and beauty).

---

...

Assuming we do get an actual 2-3 players who are capable of playing within the Adult environment (which is not simply chronological age, in my opinion), and we have some level of consensus on the scenario, then I'm happy to open up the games in question and continue the conversations there as we allow for others to join.

... And again, for anyone interested, no knowledge of KULT: Divinity Lost is required.

The current rules for KULT (4e) are based on the Apocalypse World engine (PbtA), so the rules should feel familiar to anyone who knows other PbtA games like "Monsterhearts" or "City of Mist".

The largest stumbling block will be the concept of "Horror", and specifically the horror we have at hand.

(i.e. If one has a number of personal traumas that would be triggered by the game universe, then that would likely be a poor fit with the fiction and this genre of play. If there's judgment in that statement, it's about me (the person who wants to play in these dark spaces) rather than you (the person who reads the statement).)

I have never heard of this game, but y'all are making it sound super intriguing, so I'm in. I've played plenty of PbtA games, so I hope to be not-a-total-noob.

Do you have an opinion on which scenario to play? The first (missing person investigation) or the second (high school horror show), which then unlocks the possibility of the third (the beautiful people).

The general warning about KULT is that it isn't a "safe" game. Look at the scenario descriptions and you can probably figure out that's the case, especially with 2 of those scenarios being "official" published scenarios for KULT 4e. It's not safe gaming.

(The rules of the site must be followed, however, and I'll probably remind everyone of the policy more than once.)

If you know PbtA, then you'll know the general rhythm of the game engine. The story is player-facing, in general. You fail a dice roll or act too passive at the table, and then I get to mess up your characters' lives as the Game Master. Everything depends on player engagement with the world.

We just use d10s for KULT instead of d6s. 15 up is the top result, with 10-14 being the middle, and 9- being the disaster... whereas normal PbtA is 10+, 7-9, and 6-.

(A side-effect of the d10s is that, with a typical attribute range of -2 to +3, you'll probably fail more in KULT due to the wider range of dice results.)

I think I'd have a slight preference for the second one? But I'm cool with both, at least in the absence of more details.


Gotcha, hence the Adult rating. Mind you, you're hyping the horror factor a lot, if it ends up being tamer than you're making it sound I'll be disappointed xD


Thanks for the explainer, that's very considerate of you. FWIW I think (but this is an idle observation) that 1d10 instead of 2d6 is a bad design choice: 2d6 gives an approximately Normal distribution, center-heavy and tending towards the "sucess, but at a cost" situation which makes PbtA games memorable... whereas 1d10 is boringly random and you'll get many more cases of unqualified success and total disaster, which are way less interesting (in my opinion).

I'm happy to do either but if the second flows more easily into the third then the second would be my preference.

It is actually 2d10 instead of 2d6, not 1d10.

EDIT: Looks like we're all full up now.
Thanks for the interest! :D
This message was last edited by the user at 01:51, Fri 05 Aug 2022.