Eliel wrote:It fits in with the game's theme of it's easier to destroy than to build (my least favorite part of the game).

Only He may create. Everything else just changes. What else is change but a constant state of destruction from what is...
*emo hair flick*

*emo hair flick*

Yeah. That's my second unfavoritest part of this game.

Oh, come ON. There's not NEARLY as much emo hair flickerage in KC as there is in Vampire. Like, at least almost half a third as much.

Maybe not as mcuh hair flippage, but KC is way more Emo than vampire.

Although this is a perfect topic, maybe Jill can create a new thread for this line. I have to agree with Dave on this one. *gasp!* Surprising, I know.

I, using my own personal lexicon, would say that Vampire was more goth-than-emo-noting-that-goth-tends-to-include-emo-to-one-degree-or-another. KC on the other hand forces people to be emo with the trauma and symptoms rules. I've never seen as many breakdowns and emotional outbursts of sadness and despair in seven years of vampire than I have in three years of KC. The setting for KC tends to be hopeless as enforced by the Last Crusade and the absolute knowledge of a fall from grace. Vampire just enforced a rather relative dispassionate sense of ennui with the slow march of time.

Both systems and settings deal very differently with the question of what it is to be human. KC goes out of its way to make Fallen MORE susceptible to the vagaries of life than its human counterparts where Vampire seems to approach the question from trying to regain a sense of what it means to be human. A Fallen has a constant painful reminder through their ability to sense the Symphony that they are (mostly) "only human". Vampires have the knawing of the Beast that occassionally forces them to be "less than human". At least with Vampire the players can relate with what it means to aspire to be human, the challenge in KC is to imagine what it must be like to feel more than human and strive for a feeling their character has lost which they themselves (arguably) haven't experienced.

Although both move in a "forward" direction (Fallen to Grace, Vampire to Humanity), and there are opportunities to do each sort of plot line in both settings (as flipped would read: Vampire to Enlightenment, Fallen recapturing their morality) each focuses very heavily in scope.

Some might term KC as more manic than emo, which would be also apt. But, rarely did I see a vampire spend one (or at times, half a dozen consecutive) game(s) weeping in a corner so lost in life and the tragedy of it all.

Short story long. KC (>Emo) Vampire. To me.

Well.
I think Vampire SHOULD be played more Emo than KC.
And I think many of the folks who went through an Emo phase (including my own self, most likely - did I have an "Emo" phase? I dunno. I wasn't ever particularly good at mopey, but am *very* good at Angry) would be more drawn to Vampire, because the WoD is far more gloomy and mopey and a "dark pit of darkness" than the KC world.

Yeah, I think that although Jonathan has some great points, emo isn't quite the right word. Vampire is, as Jill says, "gloomy and mopey" but Kingdom Come does force you to be... well, traumatized. Pretty much constantly, in many cases. I hadn't thought about it that way, but it's definitely more *something* - something similar to, if not precisely, emo - than Vampire.

Emo = mopey and gloomy and pessimisty and "WOE IS ME! LIFE IS SO UNFAIR!"
Trauma, IMO, does not make one Emo. Trauma makes one fucked up.

cenobyte wrote:I think Vampire SHOULD be played more Emo than KC.

I think you have it right there.

Vampire, played "properly", is a tragedy. (Either version of vampire here, btw) Even though the current Vampire developer is reportedly banned from using the word angst by his bosses(no, seriously, I played in his game at GenCon, and he was like "I'm not allowed to say the word angst. Like, seriously, it came down from management. So, like, pretend I never said it."). That being said, Vampire never got played that way when it was being LARPed, and over time and editions much of the LARP style got backported into tabletop too. It got played as a game about immortals and politics, when really it is at its strongest as a game about blood and loss. The ancients and elders are boring, but I think there is some real fodder for dramatic roleplay being a young one just ripped away from your old life and knowing you have lost something you can never have back.

Kingdom Come...well, it is similiar. But generally seems more shiney and cinematic - a little bit closer to Buffy and Angel, for instance. It still has its strong Emo moments though - again, just like Buffy and Angel. But it is far more action focused, too. KC is generally more outwards focused - note the difference in mechanics, in that KC you're worried about Trauma, which is generally from seeing horrible things or having such done to you(generally - there is also moral/immoral trauma, of course), where in Vampire you are chiefly concerned with Humanity, which is generally from the horrible things you do.

That being said, I think KC generally gets played more Emo, in part simply because it is the newer game, and being played by groups more open to The Emo. I have a feeling if KC had been around for decades and Vampire was the new game, KC would be the game with the reputation for power-mongering politics, and Vampire the one filled with emo (blood) tears.