From: tomault+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Galen Ault)
Subject: Re: Vampire/Werewolf... What next?
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 19:10:54 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.191811.4610@organpipe.uug.arizona.edu> corleyj@helium.gas.uug.arizona.edu (Jason D Corley ) writes:
>In article <Bxy528.7sr.1@cs.cmu.edu> tomault+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Galen Ault) writes:
>>In article <BxJE8q.13A@news.cso.uiuc.edu> tgt33358@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Thanatos) writes:

>>[  One important thing to remember about the mad scientist genre is that things
>>   NEVER work out the way the scientist plans.  Every advance the scientist
>>   makes has horrific repercussions far beyond the current situation.  After
>>   all, the scientist is playing with Things Humanity Was Not Meant To
>>   Understand, and this is supposed to be Gothic Horror, not satisfy-the-
>>   player's-every-power-fantasy.  (For that, play Champions.)
>>]
>
>[I deleted some very good ideas for Mad Scientists in a horror campaign.]
>
>Another idea that MUST be included, is the tone of the Mad Scientist,
>especially if it is a "modern" Gothic Horror campaign.  Is the rest
>of the world dirty and violent where nothing works?  Fine.  The
>lab of the scientist should be sqeaky clean, maybe even one of those
>special "clean rooms".  Everything should be in its place.  The
>instruments are shiny, the wires are connected in an organized,
>civilized way, the computers should be very powerful and reliable,
>(if its an AI, it must be very polite and kind), the lights should
>be bright, there should be no shadows anywhere, and right in the
>middle of all of this, talking about hideous monstrosities like they
>were ordinary practice should be the Mad him/herself.  When the
>excrement starts hitting the ventilating device and the Mad starts
>drooling and looking very carefully at the sharp instruments over by
>the (what's that? An operating table?), the surroundings will begin
>to look less comforting and a LOT more menacing.  There aren't
>any shadows to hide in and there aren't any places to run.  A Mad
>Scientist's Lab should be similar to a Vampire's Haven.  You go in,
>you are on his/her terms.

Another idea is to have the Mad Scientist working right under the nose of
society, like in a hospital.  Maybe those patients who checked out never made
it home.  Maybe those corpses in the morgue weren't lost by a "bookeeping
error."  In a fashion similar to the above, the familiar and comforting are
transformed into the strange and horrifying.  Or perhaps the scientist works
in a government lab, and all those misapprorpiated government funds weren't
used for department parties.

>
>Maybe we should have "clans" of Mad Scientists (what would be a
>good word?),

"Research Group"  It's the same word used to describe the groups by which
"normal" scientists work together.  Of course, I've always imagined MS as
being basically loners, with some misshapen (or shapely) assistants perhaps.

>because I just thought of the original Mad in today's
>world.  Entering his lab would be like descending into Dante's
>Inferno, where everything is not only dark and dirty, but _alien_
>and _incomprehensible_.

I think you've hit the nail right on the head.  The Mad Scientist's theories
are often the product of her own twisted mind, and thus incomprehensible to
those not likewise insane.  Furthermore, they transform the familiar into the
terrifying.  By destroying our own certainty in the way the world works, the
Mad Scientist leaves us bereft of anything to hold on to.  Science is no longer
man's servant, but his master.  The Mad Scientist's plot leaves us thinking
"He really can't _do_ that, can he?" and the true terror comes when we find out
that, yes, indeed, he really can.

>
>I would like to see us get together some Mad Scientist rules, skills
>and groups.  Maybe we can get White Wolf to do it _our_ way!

You'd definitely have to redefine the way science is handled in the Storyteller
series.  Right now, it's just one skill.  Furthermore, it's important to
remember that Science is not Magic.  Everything done by a Mad Scientist has
to have some kind of "rational" explanation behind it.  Of course, this means
that the MS is not daunted by the powers of Reason, making her even more
dangerous.

I sure hope somebody from WW is reading this, as it's too good of an idea to
pass up.  Mad Scientists make some of the best villans, IMHO.

>
>Jason
>The Mad Mathematician of Miskatonic U.

Tom Ault
Mad Roboticist in Training.


Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.misc