''Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed'' is a short, 32-page role-playing game written by

Greg Costikyan Greg Costikyan (born July 22, 1959, in New York City), sometimes known under the pseudonym "Designer X", is an American game designer and science fiction writer. Costikyan's career spans nearly all extant genres of gaming, including: hex-based wa ...

under the pseudonym "Designer X" and was published by

Hogshead Publishing Hogshead Publishing was a British game company that produced role-playing games and game supplements. History In October 1994, James Wallis founded Hogshead Publishing, a company which specialised in role-playing and storytelling games. Wallis b ...

in 1999 as part of its ''New Style'' line of games.

Gameplay

''Violence'' is a satire of conventional dungeon-bashing games, set in a contemporary metropolis where the

player characters A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

dash from room to room killing the occupants and stealing their belongings. In a style reminiscent of ''Mad'', it is relentlessly user-hostile, taking time out to insult the reader wherever possible (it opens with the words, "Welcome to ''Violence'', you degraded turd") and uses a system where the user can buy experience points for cash from the designer or publisher. Despite the innovative game design and exhaustive lists of equipment and weapons (including both belt and orbital sanders), monster types and possible scenarios, it is largely and deliberately unplayable because of an exhaustive rule-set. The rule-set provides information on a range of things related to killing. Weapons, combat styles, and the like are intricately detailed, considering the short length of the volume. ''Violence'' is a rant against the traditional styles of

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...

, ''MMORPGs'', and the ''

Grand Theft Auto ''Grand Theft Auto'' (''GTA'') is a series of action-adventure games created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. Later titles were developed under the oversight of brothers Dan and Sam Houser, Leslie Benzies and Aaron Garbut. It is primarily d ...

'' series, written to simultaneously annoy, enrage and challenge the reader. As a game, it is of little value, but is useful as an insight into the mindset of its author and an indictment of an endemic style of role-playing. The cover art was by

Clint Langley Clint Langley (born July 30, 1970) is a British comic book artist best known for his work on series with Pat Mills at ''2000 AD (comics), 2000 AD'' and as the cover artist for Marvel Comics' ''Guardians of the Galaxy (2008 team), Guardians of th ...

. A Spanish language edition exists.

History

''Violence'' (1999) was designed by

(aka Designer X) as one of the ''New Style'' role-playing games published by

. According to Shannon Appelcline, ''Violence'' "was probably the least loved of the ''New Style'' games. Like ''Power Kill'' it was a largely social commentary. It used humor and satire to critique violence in role-playing games and was sufficiently biting that Wallis thought of it as a ''Modest Proposal'' for the role-playing Game industry. Set in the modern day, ''Violence'' lets players do dungeon crawls into places like the homes of illegal immigrants, kill them and take their stuff. However, satire did not necessarily produce a playable role-playing game on its own." In August 2005, Costikyan released ''Violence'' under a Creative Commons license, and made it available for download. ''Violence'' was part of a series of experimental and alternative role-playing games published by

. Other games in the series include the award-nominated '' The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen'', ''

Pantheon Pantheon may refer to: * Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building Arts and entertainment Comics *Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization * ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...

'', and '' Puppetland/Powerkill''.

References

External links

*
''Load Up On Guns, Bring Your Friends''
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060220192510/http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue10/LoadUpYourGuns1.html , date=20 February 2006 , a game scenario for ''Violence'' by Jody Macgregor (Critical Miss, issue 10).
Violence
( PDF download, costik.com) British role-playing games Creative Commons-licensed games Greg Costikyan games Horror role-playing games New Style Role-playing games introduced in 1999 Satirical games