kill puppies for satan
get some
excerpts
the funhouse

a bit about kill puppies for satan

kill puppies for satan is a roleplaying game. you pretend to be people who do just exactly what the title recommends. it's 32 pages of blasphemy, obscenity, profanity, not honoring thy father nor mother, and coveting thy neighbor's ass. or other pet.

in the game, when you kill a puppy (or other animal), you get points of evil. you spend your evil to do supernatural evil things, like start fires. there must be fifteen different ways to start fires with evil.

the system is minimal in the way that particularly irritates people who would rather be playing rolemaster or millenium's end. you have only six stats, for instance, and that's counting generously. one stat is how many people hate you. it takes about two minutes to make a character, longer if you need a calculator to add low single digit numbers.

the system isn't just small, it's also clever and flexible. in addition to the puppykillers, the main book includes rules for normal people, heroes, vigilantes, religious fanatics, space aliens (pretty much the pcs' only competition in the cattle mutilation department), sorcerers, ghouls, scientists, vampires, and demons, including a nice section on how to play lucifer himself as an npc. cockroach souffle includes rules for zombies, ghosts and werewolves too.

the game is gorgeous - well, i mean gorgeous in that perfect cruddy underground manuscript kill puppies for satan kind of way. i found a font for the titles that looks like somebody's typewriter and chainsmoking at four in the morning. between puppies and cockroach souffle it's 55 pages and, like my buddy travis says, satan can't afford capital letters. there's no art. all told a masterpiece of for shit design. they're ten bucks for both.

you can click here to get some or read on.

excerpts

satan's guidelines

so satan's actually a pretty nice guy. set aside for a minute the fact that he's cold, fucked up, mean and relentless all at 10, he has starting evil in the triple digits, and three point six billion people worldwide hate him. underneath he's just this regularish guy who watches pro wrestling and cspan. (and sure, rules hell and so on.) but i mean he's not like the other guy, he's approachable. he's not full of himself, he doesn't bogart the joint just because he's the fucking fallen morningstar, the first person ever with the balls to spit in god's coffee. (which you gotta fucking admit.)

but even so, if you want to hang with him, you gotta follow a couple rules. they aren't commandments exactly, because he's willing to overlook a few infractions, you know, out of neighborliness. not like that other prick. just keep 'em in mind is all he asks.

satan's guidelines

• don't kill people if you can help it. if they're bad people, satan would rather have them out doing evil in the world. if they're good people, they go to heaven and nobody wants that.
• if you must fuck with people, better to make them say "why god why?" than "god help me." real torture leads people to find their inner strength and shit, petty meanness makes people lose faith in each other. better to hit their dog with your car and drive away laughing.
• don't try to make the world a better place. i know this is a no-brainer but you'd be surprised the kind of goody two shoes want to be satan's buds. don't give money to amnesty international or the nra or even the fucking kiwanis club. keep your cash for yourself, spend it on cigs and porn, put it in stocks bonds and iras, who gives a shit. anyway the world is pretty much just how satan likes it, and if he wants it different he'll tell you.
• don't try to tempt people to sin. it's a union thing, and believe me you don't want to scab on demons. just kill puppies and leave the rest to the professionals.
• oh, and don't get caught, asshole. you definitely won't do satan any favors from a padded cell in willard.

the evil fucked up side of ... guns

there are no good gun mechanics in roleplaying. probably there can't be because it's just too complicated. set up the shot, pull the trigger, and who the fuck knows? even supposing you hit, bullets spin and tumble and bounce, they roll around your ribs and out the other side, they mushroom or shatter into bits, the physics of bullets is fucking crazy. one guy lives through ten rounds in the torso, the next guy kills himself with an air pistol. so i'm not going to bother. i'll give you some advice, but don't even expect any mechanics out of me. if you need gun mechanics, go play squad leader or millenium's end or whatever the fuck.

so here's my advice.

• the whole point is to kill. a gun that won't kill somebody in one shot isn't worth selling to children, right? so absolutely every single time somebody pulls a trigger, somebody might die. you, me, random strangers, the downstairs neighbor, there's always a chance. make sure your pcs know it.
• on the other hand, there's no such thing as a sure kill. i know it's a special case, but jfk's brains were on the fucking trunk of the lincoln and they didn't declare him until four hours later. people get shot in the head and fall down and stop breathing and go on anyway to live normal happy lives. not most of the time, not much of the time, very rarely in fact, but it does happen. if your pcs want to be 100%, make them use a fuckload of bullets.
• nobody knows what's going on in a firefight, and accuracy in the real world is for shit. take this poor diallo guy. those cops shot 41 bullets at him, he was standing in a for fuck sake doorway, and a. they only hit him with 19 or something and b. they thought he was shooting back. nothing like flying bullets to make you stupid. you don't know where you hit that guy, you just know he fell down. you don't know where the shots are coming from. don't give your pcs tactical information, tell them what they see and hear and make them fucking sort it out.
• every bullet goes somewhere. roll the shot, miss, shit happens, but do you know where that bullet is now? in a stone wall? through a window and in old mrs merrihew's toaster oven? lodged against the rib of a passing dogwalker? make your pcs remember to ask what's going on on the far side of their targets.
• bullets don't kill you by magic, they kill you by tearing big pieces out of you. they splatter blood, they blow off fingers, they unhinge jaws and elbows, they make you puke your shredded guts out your mouth and nose. there's no such thing as a clean kill. make your pcs gag.
• dying sucks. sometimes you pass out and never wake up, sometimes you scream for an hour, sometimes you piss yourself with pain until fucking tomorrow. you shit yourself. sometimes a lateral headshot will make your brain swell up and cut off its own circulation and leave your brainstem alive, heart beating, breathing in and out, perfect for organ donation but dead fucking dead. your best bet whatever happens is to get to the hospital, but who knows. make your pcs scared to fucking death of death. (let alone that they're going straight to hell, and demons are going to piss lye into their eyesockets for the rest of time.)
• different guns are good for shooting people under different conditions. a glock 19 is good for shooting people under normal, reasonable shooting people conditions like when the fucking jocks have been pushing you around for four nightmarish years and you can't fucking take it anymore, plus they're wicked reliable. a pump shotgun is good for making that noise before you shoot people in fucking half. a colt 9mm submachinegun is good for when you want to kill everybody in the room but you don't really want to kill the people in the next apartment, while an m16 is good for when you don't care who the fuck you kill. make your pcs use approximately the right gun for the job (but definitely don't expect them all to be gun geeks).
• oh, and if your pcs don't want guns or want them only to use on animals not people, they're super cool (remember satan's guidelines). tell them right on from me.

the evil fucked up side of ... that first session

you gotta break the ice and get the stupid pcs to work together. it's the plague of roleplaying and fuck if most of the time we don't just have them meet in a bar instead. you can go ahead and just do it that way if you want, i mean hell it's your game, but maybe try this.

have everybody make their characters. you know how in some games it says you must draw your character, to connect with the right parts of your brain or whatever? in this game, you absolutely must write i kill puppies for satan at the top of your character sheet. if you don't do it, you're clearly not in the spirit of the game and you might as well fuck off. tell your players that. tell 'em i said so.

turn to your first player. have her introduce her character. hi, my name's morton and i kill puppies for satan. hi morton. please say something about yourself.

if you're gonna run the kick in the head starting adventure that's coming up, say how do you know gerald stebbins? why did he invite you to his birthday party? no, come on, it's gotta be better than that, he only invited like eight people and one of them's you. are you like his friend or what? (everybody and their fucking dog compares roleplaying to improv theater. make your players work for it!)

now your next player. hi, my name's joanie and i kill puppies for satan. hi joanie. my mother abandoned me in the dumpster behind a post office, i was raised by a postal worker who muttered and mowed his lawn every damn day, christmas, easter, rain, snow, the fuckin' ice storm of '97, he didn't miss a single day, out there with his mower grinding away at twenty two inches of solid frozen ice, i mean fuck, man. thanks for sharing that, joanie. (what about you and gerald stebbins? what gift do you get him?)

here it is: and how do you and morton know each other?

then sit there and don't say anything until they work it out. (if it's clear that they're not gonna work it out, lazy fuckers, do something mean to them. okay, well, you were internet pen pals, you were both posing as fifteen year old virgin girls, you decided to meet at the mall, and there you were. now you're friends, with occasional benefits. suck it up.)

now your third player, hi my name's scooter and i kill puppies for satan. yes i was named after the character on the muppet show. hi scooter. gerald stebbins blah blah blah. and how do you know joanie and morton?

so by the end of this you'll have inter-character stuff going on, just what you wanted, characters talking, getting to know each other, spilling beer on each others' sofas and dropping butts in each others' potted plants. never fails. i guarantee it or your money back. tell the guy at the counter i said so.

how many fish would a blowfish blow?
or, the evil fucked up side of ... zombies

let's start with a sorcerous spell:
- the obedient servant, 3 potency - cast on a corpse. the corpse becomes animate and supernaturally strong. it will follow your instructions but is stupid as shit. the spell lasts for as long as you want, but the corpse continues to decompose the whole while. blowfish poison is a traditional component of the spell (as we know from the serpent and the rainbow).

so that's where zombies come from.

now, the type of zombie you get when you cast the spell depends on just how decomposed the body is. and yes, if you keep zombies around they gradually change from one type to the next.
- instead of cold, zombies are minimally sentient, instead of fucked up, they're a pain in the ass, instead of mean, they want to eat your brains, and instead of relentless, they're single-minded.
- if you cast the spell on a body that hasn't begun to decompose, you get a zombie who can pass as living. zombies of this sort usually have high numbers in minimally sentient and pain in the ass, and low to middling numbers in want to eat your brains and single-minded. they can even occasionally talk or otherwise communicate ("want... to... eat... brains..."). of the three, they make the best bodyguards, not least because you can take them out in public.
- here's a character sheet for a recently dead zombie.

- if you cast the spell on a body that is definitely decomposing, you get a classic evil dead sort of zombie, vicious and aggressive, with a fucking fearsome hunger for brains. this sort has high numbers in want to eat your brains and single-minded, and lowish numbers in minimally sentient and pain in the ass. of the three, they make the best killers and shock troops, if you can keep them quiet between jobs.
- here's a character sheet for a classic zombie.

- if you cast the spell on a skeleton (or mostly one), you get an animated skeleton, of course. skeletons, being more brittle, pay more attention to their surroundings, but god damn they still crave the brains. their high numbers are in pain in the ass and want to eat your brains. of the three, they make the best protectors for your stuff, since they fold small and you can put them as an ambush into like your closet or foot locker.
- here's a character sheet for a skeleton zombie.

good grief and gravy

being the gm is the shit, and also bullshit. the shit because you get to toy with peoples' little lives, bullshit because it's like the goddamn sims, their little bladder meter goes all the way to the red and they can't figure out for them stupid selves to get off the stupid couch and go to the stupid bathroom. no, you gotta click on the little thing, and click on the other little thing, and they spend so long in there that they miss their carpool and get fired, and then they come crying to you, wah wah wah. feebs.

right, but i mean your players. they think that if a. you didn't say so or b. it's not on their character sheet, then it's not true. which is a problem, because a. you can only say so many things, and you hope to god they're more interesting than "scooter, you really have to pee, do you go to the bathroom? do you make it back out in time for your carpool?" and b. there are only eight things on their character sheet, and one of them is that they kill puppies for satan for fuck sake.

so what you want to do as gm is make them responsible for their own pee. keep the good stuff for yourself, naturally, but give the bullshit away.

killing puppies is a perfect example. the first couple of times it's kind of novel, if you're into it. but since

rule number one: there must be enough evil

you're going to end up going through puppies like toilet paper. it can get a little dull. you could just hand puppies out, okay you kill the puppy and you get two evil what do you do now, but then you might as well be playing observe celestial events for potency or some other lame shit. and besides

rule number two: there must be more grief

so slacking off on it will never do. no, you've got to find a way to make the damn puppies carry their own weight.

here's a way. whenever one of your pcs wants to kill a puppy and you don't want to deal with it in depth, hand it back to them:

- scooter: man, i'm down to my last couple evil. i gotta find a puppy to kill. hey, can i find a puppy to kill?
- you: sure. what kind of puppy do you find?
- who cares what scooter says. i find a baby harp seal living under a bench in the park, i find a rare beautiful tropical fish that somebody left in a fishbowl on top of their car, i find a nice parrot. give it to them, don't even sweat it.
- you: that's fine. you can kill it however you want. go ahead and collect the evil. what grief does it give you?

now what you want, of course, is for your players to come up with devious, perverse, and funny things to do to themselves, without any more effort on your part. you might have to keep at it a while, but sooner or later they'll catch on.

the first thing is to get them to stop thinking about their damn character sheets:

- scooter: uh, i get -1 to my cold for the next six hours.
- you: yeah, right. that doesn't even make sense. try again.
- scooter: well how about if i get a penalty to my people hate me roll?
- you: yawn. keep trying.

eventually they'll start coming up with good in character things, genuine inconveniences, not just dumb dice penalties. making enemies, leaving evidence, hurting themselves, costing themselves money or time, stumbling into weird shit that they'd otherwise miss, on and on, they're probably much more twisted than you gave them credit for. sometimes dice penalties or new people who hate them will come out of their descriptions, and that's cool, just not vice versa.

anyway once they get away from the dull mechanics-based grief, the next thing is to make sure they're serious about it. whenever they try to get away with weak grief you might just slap them down:

- scooter: okay, well as i'm bashing the fish with a brick i nick my other hand with the corner and i get a wicked bad blood blister right -- here.
- you: nice try. actually, when you bash the fish with the brick, the brick splits and there's this rush of foul air from the crack. you're possessed by an obnoxious little demon, it's been trapped in there for a long time. what's your favorite restaurant?
- scooter: uh. pinocchio's, downtown.
- you: great. the demon takes you downtown to pinocchio's and you spend the next six hours gorging yourself on veal and scampi. you eat, what, five dishes an hour, fifteen bucks a plate, call it five hundred dollars worth of food. you skip out without paying, of course, and then the demon curls up in a corner of your mind and goes to sleep.
- scooter: you mean it's still there?
- you: naturally. and i gotta tell you, it needs five hundred dollars worth of veal and prawns every day or it gets really nasty.
- scooter: but -- but how do i get rid of it?
- you: you wait. until christmas. oh, and plus, when you see morton, the first thing you do is puke on him.
- morton: huh? you what?

show them that when they try to get away with lame grief, instead they get fucked to spare. get them looking for that magic level -- bad enough that you'll give it to them, but not so bad that they can't live with it. and definitely definitely not as bad as you do to them when they try to weasel out.

another fun thing is to turn it over to one of the other players:

- scooter: so i kill this puppy, and --
- you: hold on. morton, what grief does it give her?
- morton: huh? oh, i get it. well, let's see, what was it again that she puked on me? veal and prawns?
- scooter: oh, come on now!
- you: no, go ahead, morton. run with that. what's the grief?

that'll learn 'em.

once you get it rolling, all you gotta do is decide occasionally to play a puppy killing out in detail, so nobody gets too comfortable. you're golden.

oh, and of course if they fucking cheated during character creation, it's your civic duty to give them grief till the blood comes out their ears. just in case you forgot.

get some kill puppies for satan