Misery Tourism Games

Fetus Commander · April 01, 2012, 01:53:26 AM

Hey guys. Long time lurker, but never posted before. Just thought I'd drop a link to a website my friend and I are working on to host our games. Since you guys partially inspired our name, I figured we owe it to you to at least let you take a peak.

At Misery Tourism Games, we design role-playing games about vice, inhumanity and suffering. On this site you'll find terrible games about terrible people in terrible situations.

We don't design games to make a moral point or push an agenda. We don't design games to offend you or your sociology professor or your congressman. We do it because we believe there is fun to be had in exploring tragedy and depravity with your friends in the safety of your kitchen, den or mother's basement. Yes, fun. These are fun games. Or they should be.

Have fun.

//www.miserytourism.com

VectorSigma · April 01, 2012, 04:11:38 AM

Would you guys have any interest in my Capricorn: Forbidden Desires game? I mean, right now it's just a game about people that fuck goats, but I could tweak the setting so that the goats are an oppressed minority or something if you think that's better. I really need an editor who can compensate for my white male cis-priv style.

B.T. · April 01, 2012, 04:48:45 AM

Quote1915. The darkest moment for American race relations since the Civil War. Jim Crow rules the American South. All of the progress towards racial equality made during Reconstruction has been undone by poll taxes, segregation, sharecropping and intimidation.

Sundown towns spread across the country. Their name comes from one unbreakable rule: only whites are allowed in town after the sun sets. The punishment for blacks who linger within the town limits at night is rarely stated, but universally understood.

In one of these sundown towns, a group of local leaders meets on Saturday nights to talk civics, play cards and wax nostalgic about slavery. They are the town aristocracy. They plan business deals and church picnics. They investigate newcomers and see that the law is enforced.

Normally, they would be talking about the price of tobacco and the lost honor of the Confederacy, but not recently, not since they found the first dead man. Now they are talking about bloodless corpses and the superstitious rumors spreading among the sharecroppers. Now they’re talking about vampires.

What these gentlemen do not know is that one of them is the vampire. What they also do not know is one of them was born black, and has been carefully keeping his secret to protect his position and his life. As suspicion grows, it becomes harder and harder for both of these men to preserve their reputations—and their lives.

Passing is a simple, rules light RPG about paranoia, racism and identity. It weaves together vampire folklore and the ugly realities of American history to let players build a story about closed communities and closed minds. The game requires little preparation, and uses competitive social mechanics to keep the players on edge, full of questions and suspicious of each other. It is designed for four or more players and takes between one and two hours to complete.

Read the rules for this, the game ends with the white folks killing a vampire or mistaking a half-black man as the vampire and then murdering him. Why anyone would want to play this repulsive crap is beyond me.

I hate Swine.

Ladybird · April 01, 2012, 05:13:10 AM

Quote from: B.T.;525239Read the rules for this, the game ends with the white folks killing a vampire or mistaking a half-black man as the vampire and then murdering him. Why anyone would want to play this repulsive crap is beyond me.

I hate Swine.

But this is a game about the sexist, racist, nasty, closed-minded America of your dreams, B.T.!

I do hope your post was joking, because I've just had a full-colour, deluxe leather-bound hardback edition mailed to you. April surprise!

* Disclaimer: I haven't actually mailed anything to anyone.

One Horse Town · April 01, 2012, 08:29:45 AM

Oh dear, you lot have been fooled.

:duh:

danbuter · April 01, 2012, 08:58:57 AM

April Fools! is my guess.

VectorSigma · April 01, 2012, 11:37:06 AM

Quote from: danbuter;525261April Fools! is my guess.

Was mine as well. Almost too over the top - plus grinning smileys.

J Arcane · April 01, 2012, 11:45:38 AM

Quote from: One Horse Town;525257Oh dear, you lot have been fooled.

:duh:

Well, just BT really.

But we expect that kind of thickness from him.

Rincewind1 · April 01, 2012, 03:41:41 PM

That's really elaborate prank though.

B.T. · April 01, 2012, 07:32:24 PM

That was an elaborate prank, then.

whduryea · April 02, 2012, 01:56:47 AM

I can't comment about whether or not this is a prank, but I can say that the site is real, the games are real and every one of them has been playtested, multiple times.

Quote from: VectorSigma;525227Would you guys have any interest in my Capricorn: Forbidden Desires game?

We aren't taking submissions, yet, but I can say, personally, that I would absolutely be willing to playtest that game--even though it doesn't exist--and give you a detailed critique based on my experiences.

James Gillen · April 02, 2012, 02:09:50 AM

Quote from: Fetus Commander;525207Hey guys. Long time lurker, but never posted before. Just thought I'd drop a link to a website my friend and I are working on to host our games. Since you guys partially inspired our name, I figured we owe it to you to at least let you take a peak.

At Misery Tourism Games, we design role-playing games about vice, inhumanity and suffering.

I kinda got that impression from the alias "Fetus Commander."

JG

James Gillen · April 02, 2012, 02:12:33 AM

Would you guys be willing to edit my concept for an RPG where players are struggling working-class Americans seeing their prosperity and freedoms eroding more steadily by the day and forced to choose between an increasingly cretinous and shameless group of career politicians to vote for, with the ultimate horror being the knowledge that one of them has to WIN?

JG

whduryea · April 02, 2012, 02:22:30 AM

Quote from: James Gillen;525477Would you guys be willing to edit my concept for an RPG where players are struggling working-class Americans seeing their prosperity and freedoms eroding more steadily by the day and forced to choose between an increasingly cretinous and shameless group of career politicians to vote for, with the ultimate horror being the knowledge that one of them has to WIN?

No, this game is too disturbing for us. Maybe if Barrack Obama was a lycanthrope and Mitt Romney was a Martian pedophile.

Seriously though, if that's a real game, how do the mechanics work? Would the politicians be strictly NPCs? Would their be a SuperPAC attack ad mechanic? Could you abstain from voting or write in the name of one of the Muppets from Sesame Street? I think there are a billion different interesting directions that game could go in.

James Gillen · April 02, 2012, 03:32:56 AM

Quote from: whduryea;525480No, this game is too disturbing for us.

I Win!!!!