Better Angels is a very interesting game with a strong roleplaying element. Well thought out, great premise, and should be a blast to play.
That is the eye candy but the game is so much more, characters are ordinary people processed by a Demon (the demon being created by the player on your left). This Demon grants you awesome, evil, superpowers - half of which you pick and half by the player on your left. Your job is to keep your Demon "happy" by going occasionally all EEEEVIL! (Comic Book Style) while not going actually evil. In return you can you get to use the Demon's powers.
Go too far into evil and your Demon will physically drag you down to Hell, which has really earned its bad rep. Be good or mostly good and you can try to exorcise your Demon, losing all your Superpowers, going back to your boring ordinary live and probably being arrested for all the crimes you committed. So your job is to walk the fine line between being to good or going all evil. To help you along the way the player on your left is whispering in your ear that EEEVIL has its advantages.
Better Angels is power by O.R.E. (One Roll Engine), a very good d10 dice pool system.
It does not end there. A full campaign, well fullish campaign of ten adventures has now been released to go with a game. Everything you could ever want to get started ;-)
Dream Arc actively support the game with a large number of online tips & tricks as well as downloads, for example
http://arcdream.com/home/2013/06/better-angels-tips-playing-better-demons/
http://arcdream.com/home/2013/05/instant-adventures-for-better-angels/
http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/tremble-before-my-awesome-wait-let-me-try-that-again-a-quickn-dirty-review-of-better-angels.5584/
This is one that I am actually interested in. Love the idea of the good guys actually acting as the voice of goodness and moderating the excesses of the demon within. I suspect running the game would be a handful, not because of the ruleset, but more due to a way of curbing the players' excesses.
ReplyDeleteI know when we played Necessary Evil, the players tended to stray more to the darker side of their natures than embrace their roles as the reluctant hero.
Quite Possible ;-)
DeleteBut Hell awaits if you go to fat to the dark side.
I would love it if players played to excess !!!