What Makes Katanas & Trenchcoats Different?
about 8 years ago
– Fri, Apr 01, 2016 at 09:50:18 PM
I've received this question a couple times today and a few times in the past year, and given that Katanas & Trenchcoats is a riff game at its core, it's a super pertinent question. And since it's a Friday, here's the first of the game info posts! Let's dive into how K&T is different from games that are the meta-genre's cultural touchstones.
Oh, and to be clear up-front, I love all the games I'm gonna mention. If I didn't, they wouldn't be influences with me and my host of writers. And I certainly don't want to just make something that's a carbon copy with the serial numbers filed off, because that would bore me to tears to make.
How is K&T different from World/Chronicles of Darkness?
The various games that White Wolf has put out—which I have a deep love for—put forward a serious and genuinely dark (to the point of bleakness at times) tone to the real world. There's something to rage against, which isn't what I'm going for necessarily. The K&T take on playing in The Darkest Cosmos is to embrace the tropes we play to in that meta-genre as integral parts of the game. I'll speak more to all this in detail, but the way the rules work out evokes a feel of playing a drama show rather than playing out a more simulative world.
To be less game designer-y about that: You heal by engaging in your idiom, not patching yourself up and waiting for game-time to happen. You can stop time with a soliloquy, if you as a player have the power to pay for it. You can do various forms of dramatic effect and editing as powers themselves. None of these are meta rules, because the setting of the Darkest Cosmos actually works like that in the story, and the characters understand that as the internal logic of the world.
Also, I have immortals. And car wizards. Hanging out.
How is K&T different from Shadowrun?
Shadowrun is really great for the low-status characters fighting The Man, and there's a K&T play mode all about that—especially if you play as Exceptional Mortals who want to put the screws to immortals and vampires. But the abilities that sorcerers, technomages, hunters, and car wizards have aren't known to the wider world. There's a concept in the world called Discretion, and violating that is a tactical considering when you've decided to take a job to break into Amazoft's Vancouver headquarters to steal some Apeiron-infused DNA.
How is K&T different from Call of Cthulhu?
There are Totally Dark, Unknowable Forces in the Darkest Cosmos, which cohabitate with the force that grants all supernatural beings and exceptional mortals their own powers. But they aren't the focus of the entire setting, and even if a give campaign touches on those Big, Nasty God-Beings, the game is aware that sword-wielding immortals and craft demons are the protagonists, not arcane bookworms or elite soldiers.
How is K&T different from In Nomine?
The idea of playing focused supernatural beings with idiomatic powers is shared between IN and K&T, but the idea of a greater war where the characters are all pawns isn't. There aren't two big forces playing out a cold war on Earth; there are hundreds of small ones. Some of them are political. Some are scary cults. Some are groups formed to deal out vengeance for transgressions from centuries ago.
How is K&T different from Monster of the Week?
Monster of the Week isn't a touchstone per se, but lives in the same space as K&T. I adore the Powered by the Apocalypse stuff, especially MotW, and took what I got out of running that game as a direction to intentionally veer away from. You can play a hunter group going up against Big Bads, totally, but the Big Bads are still people (of sorts) with understandable goals, not just devourers or conquerors.
All of those games got mentioned because of the meta-genre remixing we're doing. Katanas & Trenchcoats is no one thing, but we've make sure it's also not just "oh, and you can play whatever." You're always playing a character infused with a strange, secretive power. Whether you embrace that to be sinister, heroic, or bouncing in between is entirely up to you—the Darkest Cosmos itself doesn't care, so long as you actually use the power.
The Darkest Cosmos itself has an agenda, you see…
Did I cover a game you're thinking of? Do you have a follow-up question? Post a comment!
#YOLF
—Ryan