The Ravens Nest

In Order To Defeat The Monsters, Sometimes, You Have To Be The Monsters

Okay, so I hope this image stirs something in your mind because I’m about to blow that mind clean out the back of your dome here.

You know, for all our dungeon crawling where we wanna kill the monsters, take the treasure and make off back to town with it, one thing has probably never occurred to you…playing as the monsters themselves. What if you could do that? Ever thought about that? It’s a interesting take on the old fantasy trope, right?

You build out a small underground fortress like this. You establish your pecking order. You create secret chambers, tunnels and all manner of shit and all by torchlight. Best of all, it’s homefield advantage time, baby. You hold all the cards down here. Ambushes, sneak attacks, the elements of dread and surprise, why the hell wouldn’t you?

You go out, raid a town, ambush some highwaymen that robbed a small caravan. Hey, they already killed most everyone in the caravan and made off with their horde. Not like it belonged to those idiots anyway and what were they gonna spend it on? Prostitutes and ale? C’mon!

Then you carry it all back to that wonderful, dark little bit of Hell on Krymordia. Do this several times, getting more terrifying each time and hey? You don’t leave a trace…unless you count the bodies in your wake, right?

Okay so now the town is getting nervous. Local Reeve is telling them not to travel along that stretch of road. That guy is threatening your continued gravy train! The nerve of that guy! Then a band of low-level dickweeds armed with swords and a wizard armed with spells he’s gonna forget as soon as he casts it are gonna come marching in to put it all right.

Are they fucked?!

Well, yeah, they are…if you’re evil enough. Begs the question…how evil are you?

After you’re done putting heads on pikes outside of your entrance or doing that to set up your perimeter, maybe you leave one alive to torment to find out who sent them. The Local Reeve?! That Asshole?!

Oh that village is definitely fucked.

You send some of the boys along at night to start terrorizing the village…and a couple of the previous adventuring party’s heads on pikes get erected right there in the town square as a “Don’t Fuck With Us!” kind of a message.

Maybe you kill some of the men, take some of the women and children (I mean that thing ain’t carving itself out is it?) and then maybe you rape some of the horses…yanno…just to make sure they don’t come a-ridin’ in…did you get that backwards somehow? Weren’t you supposed to…and…oh who cares? You’re a monster! You’re evil! It’s hard-coded into your DNA like a third-world warlord and that’s the job you’re dressed for because that’s been your dream since you first developed that row of razor sharp adult fangs that came through, right?

Sounds fun, right? Well then this game might be for you but this isn’t a review, it’s here to show you something and maybe, just maybe, you can make your own decisions.

This game, Wicked Ones, by Bandit Camp Games actually offers you that experience. It’s built on the same engine and mechanics that Blades In The Dark is built on, so, if you’re familiar with that game, then you’ll love this. If not and that doesn’t sound familiar to you, Candela Obscura is another game that uses the same world but built on a different system. Anyway, that’s the experience you’ll get with this game and it even has opening passages like these little excerpts here that caught my eye, check it out.

Note that this is what you’re playing…fundamentally, irredeemably evil by nature characters…okay? Not Misunderstood emo kids with Daddy Issues. Look at that last line. Being the villain is what this is all about? With me so far? I was. Totally. Sounds like fun.

There you go…dark impulses. Fucking love that.

That’s what I’m talking about! Evil! Let’s Go!

Boom, there we are again with dark impulses. Lean int it. All of this screams “DO IT!” from the deepest bowels of Krymordia’s deepest abysmal pits of ice and spiky ice things coming out of walls

Krymordia is a name I made up, BTW. I’m just making some shit up as I go. Gotta love Zero Prep Sessions like this.

Then…

No…oh what the fuck? Are you fucked?!

*sighs* Jesus Horatio Murphy on rubber fuckin’ crutches…

Oh no… noooooo no no no no no.

You spent how many pages building up my expectations to kick me in the balls with this shit? No.

First thing’s first, as I’ve pointed out before, this shit builds up expectations I now have to manage and do not want to.

Kids, it’s simple. If you encounter a game like this, do yourself a favor. Manage those expectations, hard and fast.

My opener on this one is “Buuuhfo we begin, lemme start by sayin’ that we are playing a fuckin’ game. We’re playin’ the bad guys, monsters, irredeemably an’ undeniably evil an this shit right here on pages fourteen and fifteen. Yes you see those two pages. They will be ignored. If you can’t handle imagination with dice, pencils, paper, a battle mat and some miniatures with the biggest threat to you being the junkfood you’re eatin, then get your ass back to a 5th Edition table or go play that D&D Beyond shit because it ain’t gonna fly here.”

As stated before, it’s a game. It’s a world of make-believe with rules to kinda give it structure and dice rolls to add that bit of randomness to the entire thing.

That’s it. It doesn’t have to go farther than that.

Also, I’m a Game Master, not a licensed therapist. Your traumas are not my business, nor are any of your conditions. Your therapist and a doctor should work through those with you well before you join my table and if my table’s not for you, nothing wrong with that. Go get your own copy of the book and go run a table of your own. I won’t be mad, promise. I won’t be a fit for your table either, that’s something I’m willing to accept because I’m an adult with a hobby. You?

Here’s the thing that irks me about sections like these. It tells me as a Game Master that I’m not to be trusted and it tells the players that I’m not to be trusted.

Okay, first, let’s get this out of the way. Why the blue, chicken-fried fuck would you sit at a table to play a game with someone you don’t trust with your imagination? Stop doing that! It’s idiotic. The hell is wrong with you?

Secondly, Bandit Camp Games, why in the fresh turkey hell makes you think that I’m not to be trusted to run a game? Here’s the thing you haven’t taken into consideration. You bring up a part of that movie The Devil’s Advocate to mind. I look at this book and all I can hear in my head is Al Pacino from 1997 going off in my head with this fiery little quote:

Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do? I swear, for His own amusement, His own private cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It’s the goof of all time. Look, but don’t touch. Touch, but don’t taste. Taste, don’t swallow. Aha ha ha. And while you’re jumpin’ from one foot to the next, what is He doin’? He’s laughin’ His sick, fuckin’ ass off. He’s a tight-ass. He’s a sadist. He’s an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never!

Yeah, on this one, I’m calling you out. Check it out, contrary to those bullshit two pages which you could have dedicated to anything else, if I’m running this for children, then I’m going to let them do what they do. Kids can be little shits sometimes, I’m telling ya but the game I run for adults is going to be a completely different ball of wax altogether. Adults are going to get to do far more monstrous things in that game than the kids get to do. It’s just how it is. I can and will modify for the two groups due to maturity level. I’ll be the ones setting the boundaries. For the kids, the violence will be like cartoon violence but for the adults, it will be akin to the Alien movie told from the point of view of the Xenomorph, complete with graphic violence. Those two pages will never come into play.

Yes, Bandit Camp Games. I know what it is I’m doing, even if you don’t think I do.

This one made it into my pinned thread on Twitter. While I love the concept, those two pages, I do not.

Readers, it’s up to you how you wanna approach this one. Not saying don’t buy it because I bought it on concept through Humble Bundle and got the printed books at cost, myself. I never got the rest of the at cost print stuff because, well I think the code on that one expired but it’s not like I can’t get them at some point. After reading through it, the concept is solid but here’s the thing, if you’re going to buy it and play it, my advice is take the initial advice of the book and discard pages 14 and 15. Seriously.

If you’re going to play an irredeemably evil monster, then play the fuckin’ monster and quit pussyfooting around. If you have to soften it, then go play Vampire The Masquerade 5th Edition. As I understand it, that’s a game written about monsters where some of the players ended up becoming monsters in real life.

Your Mileage May Vary, of course.

As for me and my table, speaking of another Al Pacino character, say hello to the fucking bad guys.

Recommended Alternatives: Actual Fucking Monsters by Grim Jim and Lamentations of The Flame Princess by James Raggi IV. Those won’t come with a bunch of these kinds of things that only enable people who can’t tell fantasy from reality, though these games are recommended for a more mature audience with mature being the operative term.