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In Short
In Geist players take on the role of a person who has died and bargained with an ancient ghost for a second chance at life. With an extremely alien, powerful being along for the ride the new hybrid entity suffers from compulsions related to death that make a simple life all but impossible. Contributing to a hidden death worshipping culture lurking at the edge of human experience, these Sin-Eaters gather together to enforce their own interpretations of how the living and dead should relate.The Good: The Keys system for supernatural powers is interesting, descriptive, and fun in play, allowing for an organic merger of concepts with techniques. The game's premise, of a person who died and bargained for a second chance at life, is fun to explore.
The Bad: The super-powers presented here may cause some groups problems, due to balance or implementation. Little mechanical attention is paid to the Geist spirit. Various incongruities between chapters make the book confusing at times. More discussion of the psychological implications of seeing horrid visions of death most of the time would have been worthwhile.
The Physical Thing
For $34.99, the hardcover black, white, and blue Geist showcases average production values. High quality paper stock and attractive artwork come together to make the product quite attractive. The index is, unfortunately, only occasionally useful. For example, in play we wished to look up all the uses of Plasm. The index entries do not direct the player to page 81 at all, the location of the mechanical uses of Plasm. Large amounts of white space and inconsistent editing among the chapters detract from the overall quality of the work.Under the Cover
Let's begin by discussing what the protagonists in this game, Sin-Eaters, actually are. A person dies and at the moment of death they decide they really, truly do not want to die – even if they were a suicide. A Geist, an ancient and alien specter, offers them a second chance in life. The catch is that the Geist will merge with their soul. When they are reborn they may be a little bit different, and they also have this constant companion in the Geist. The Geist grants them unnatural power stemming from death, and in turn demands that they accomplish certain tasks from time to time. The new entity, a Sin-Eater, is very much alive though its powers are fueled by Plasm which is harvested from ghosts or the underworld.Sin-Eaters have created their own culture over time, forming themselves into Crewes of local Sin-Eaters and generally enforcing their views on how humanity and the dead should relate to one another. Obsession with death and old objects are both very common, as is trouble due to the fact that Sin-Eaters can see ghosts and the ghosts know this. An entire campaign can easily be based around ghosts constantly getting well meaning Sin-Eaters into trouble. If that's not enough, Crewes communicate with one another through the Twilight Network of secret signs and messages. This enables for a certain degree of inter-Crew politics.
As for what Sin-Eaters do with their time, this is a little less defined but not unusual for the World of Darkness. Requiem and other games, after all, don't dictate some special goal for the characters other than that they're unusual and cast into a world of mystery, politics, and danger with nothing more than a few mates to keep them safe. Geist follows this tradition by doing a good job of creating problem-riddled characters that have a lot going on but which ultimately have to find motivation from within.
There's a little bit more setting spread through the book. The underworld exists and it's not a nice place. Paths called Avernian Gates connect this world with that one, and only the nearest levels of that realm could be considered remotely safe for a Sin-Eater to tread. The mechanical build options give rise to implied setting concepts as well, such as the relationship between concepts like Keys and death. Let's dive into the mechanical options now.
The power stat in Geist is Psyche, a stat that determines maximum Attribute levels and the amount of Plasm that can be used at a time. Plasm is the stuff of ghosts and the underworld. Sin-Eaters can carry around a fair bit of it inside themselves. They use it to power their supernatural abilities, to open Avernian Gates, and to resist injury. Reflex Plasm, when spent, allows a Sin-Eater to ignore one level of any type of injury. The injury returns at the end of the scene, but it's converted to bashing damage. Combined with the fact that the Psyche stat is added to all physical resistance rolls against poison and disease it's safe to say that the Sin-Eaters are pretty tough customers.
In play Plasm can be regenerated in a few different ways. It can be stolen from ghosts, typically through their destruction. It can be harvested from haunted locations, often places with a strong connection to the underworld. It can also be gained by sleeping in such a location, though the character does not regain Willpower as the sleep is not very restful. On the whole my group found Plasm to be more difficult to regain than the currency of other World of Darkness games, such as Vampire, but we were pleased with this change. It made fueling supernatural abilities or shrugging off traumatic damage a much bigger deal for the Sin-Eaters. However, I think a campaign that made regular use of player controlled haunted locations, the Underworld, and aggressive interactions with ghosts could find Plasm to be in good supply.
As with other World of Darkness games, the protagonists here are split up into different groups in two main ways. First, each Sin-Eater has a Threshold. This reflects the way the Sin-Eater originally died and colors how they see ghosts. These include the Torn (violence), Silent (deprivation), Prey (nature), Stricken (disease), and Forgotten (chance). A player's choice of Threshold says a lot about the character that is going to be played, and it also influences the character's starting Keys. Geist features ten Keys – Cold Wind, Grave-Dirt, Industrial, Passion, Phantasmal, Primeval, Pyre-Flame, Stigmata, Stillness, Tear-Stained – which are the foundation of supernatural abilities in the game. Players choose one Key from their Threshold and another as they wish, the other being part of a Keystone – a physical object connected to the Geist that inhabits the Sin-Eater which is necessary for the working of related powers.
Speaking of powers, Keys are combined with Manifestations to produce specific powers. Manifestations are rated from one to five and include Boneyard (control local environment), Caul (body modification), Curse (physical and mental influence over others), Marionette (control things), Oracle (sensory powers), Rage (direct application of force), and Shroud (largely defensive, enveloping powers). For example, combining the Oracle Power with Grave-Dirt results in Grave-Dirt Oracle which allows a Sin-Eater to astrally project after being buried in the ground.
When a character acquires a new Key they acquire all of the related powers attached to that Key. For example, a character with Rage 2 and Boneyard 3 who acquires Pyre-Flame has effectively acquired five new powers. Similarly, a character with multiple Keys who improves a Manifestation also gains multiple powers. It's an interesting system, combining technique with element for a variety of effects.
In play we found two problems with this implementation. First, these many powers are associated with a specific Skill. Some characters in play were built on a theme without paying heed to the Skill. This resulted in characters that could not use their abilities with any consistency whatsoever. This was frustrating for my group, as it was often unclear why some Skills were necessary. It's moderately annoying for me, the Storyteller, because future Geist games are likely to feature a cast of characters all sporting Occult at a very high rating, as it drives many powers.
The second downside we encountered was a moderate to large disparity in effectiveness between some of these powers combined with how over the top they can be. Not only do some builds seem stronger than others in terms of effectiveness, but we found our sense of disbelief being pushed a little bit harder with characters glowing like the sun, teleporting, and engaging in some pretty serious displays of supernatural mojo. While the World of Darkness has always had plenty of flex room in the amount of action a group wants to include in it, the Sin-Eaters have a lot of power to sling around even compared to other supernatural groups. They also have little in the way of drawbacks, only the availability of Plasm prevents characters from easily solving most problems with their super powers. While I do note that this will be a downside for some groups, I should also stress that this is a manageable matter for the Storyteller and the group. Simply keep Plasm resources under control, or tweak power options as needed, and this gripe quickly goes away.
Despite those two potential drawbacks, I like the creativity that has been invested in the powers. Each entry has and otherworldly feel to it, and just reading through the list I was filled with lots of ideas for interesting scenes among the characters and the underworld. My friends had an easy time finding powers they found interesting or would love to use again in the future, and it's painless to build a character based around a theme. In fact, I felt like it was easier to realize a theme among my supernatural powers here than in many other World of Darkness games precisely because of how Keys and Manifestations combine.
My Take
Geist has a lot of great ideas, but it also has missed potential. The Key system is excellent, the underworld ideas are imaginative, and I quite like the idea of a normal person sharing their body with an ancient specter. However, all of this tends to make me want to dust off Wraith more than it encourages me to play Geist. Geist is striving to set out possibilities for the reader to play with, but it can be hard to find that energy to push forward or to know what to do with the game. The setting is just barely existent, and misses out on the sort of creativity I hope for in any RPG.More attention to the Geist as an actual entity, rather than window dressing, would have been helpful in communicating a stronger feel for the game. Greater development of the underworld, the problems Sin-Eaters face, and the mythos surrounding the union between human and undead would have added to what could be an enchanting setting. As it stands the bulk of the book is devoted to supernatural powers, and while I love the creativity behind many of these abilities I can't say that a long list of powers makes up for a lack of concept development.
Nevertheless, we had a good time with this game. The World of Darkness system continues to be fun, and where Geist let us down it wasn't difficult to tweak content or develop new ideas to push the evenings forward. I don't think I'm likely to run Geist again, however, as I find too many other competing games that just offer me more – in terms of tools, setting, or ideas – than I can take away here.
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