Did anyone on here play Pathologic? How would you make a campaign based on or inspired by it?

Did anyone on here play Pathologic? How would you make a campaign based on or inspired by it?

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Read the Butchering Pathologic series on Rock Paper Shotgun for a good deconstruction of what makes the game work and some of its literary themes.

I have thought of running a game that would be a hybrid of Silent Hill and Pathologic. I plan on using either Unknown Armies or Call of Cthulhu for it.

Rock Paper Shotgun is garbage for normie shitheels, but an Unknown Armies run in the Pathologic world would be p gud

You'd need to worldbuild autism like crazy just so the basic society made sense, though.

It's never elaborated upon why or what the Empire actually is, how come individual states appear to produce single commodities in bizzare ritual religious fashions or what it usually needs its Gustav Gun traincars for

And fuck along Google, ever heard of the RICO act? Trump 2020

give some background on this OP? Never heard about this

Just give me half an hour, I'm in the middle of an online session right now

Basically, the whole game is one big clash between you (a "mostly normsl" average schmuck of a Doctor) versus ultimate cosmic Evil (manifesting as "The Plague", known as "Suok" otherwise). Essentially, your whole goal in the game is to find a way to beat back The Plague/Suok before It engulfed the entire town and the military is forced to intervene to prevent it's spread. Which is easier said than fucking done in all honesty, especially since this is just a HEAVY simplification of this entire thing.

Of course as I said, this is a gross oversimplification. The Ultimate Evil goes by many names and manifestations throughout the entire game, and it depends on which character you choose to play as well. I merely use Suok as a catch-all name for all of the abstract dark forces in the game.

Also Pathologic was originally made as a TTRPG and there is a version of it available online

...

It's a Russian video game about a weird bumfuck nowhere town which is overran by an unknown deadly plague. You play as one of three different healers, each with their own goals in town and each with their own methods of fighting the plage. Everyone has a separate story to tell which intersect each other. The city's main industry is butchery and it lies on a frontier of a steppe inhabited by weird half-wild tribals with own very distinct culture. To make things even more complex, there are constant intrigues and power struggles between town's 3 ruling families as well as many old conflicts, secrets and bad blood between various citizens. The whole thing has very heavy, unreal atmosphere which is much helped by the aesthetics, music and very surreal and convoluted plot and dialogues. It always seemed kind of like Russian Twin Peaks to me.

I absolutely love Pathologic but find difficult to imagine playing a campaign of it.
As much as I'm open to new things, I don't think it's necessarily a good idea.

What would be some good character concepts to run in a game like pathologic or something inspired by it?

If you want to keep with the healer theme, except from those already present
>a medical student
>a priest
>a nun
>a herbalist
>an alchemist
>an apothecary
>a shaman
>a preacher
If you want a "man from outside coming to town"
>some kind of lawman
>a private detective
>a trader
>a traveller
>nature or culture scholar
>some government official
>anyone on family or friend business
>a bounty hunter on a hunt for one of citizens
If you want someone from inside of town it can be pretty much anyone. I think the only key in here is that it can't really be some heroic badass or generally powerful character, the PCs should be ordinary folks, someone you could actually know, but with some strong motivation driving them. Also
>tfw it's easier to start a Pathologic thread and there seems to be more people who played it here than on /v/
I guess /v/ really are brainlets

Can you add in the scary bits of stalker to create the perfect storm of "Nope!"?

What elements of Stalker do you mean? Never played those games, so I have only a very vague knowledge about them.
Pathologic runs more on the heavy, feverish atmosphere, dread and disgust that straight out horror and danger really

I ran a... thing... more like a Secret Hitler game than a campaign, inspired by Pathologic, as well as some other stuff. It was set in a remote town in the Central Asian steppes during the Russian civil war, and the players investigated a series of ritualistic murders, but also had different agendas, like one of them was the town's de facto leader in charge of moving the town around the steppes in search of a long lost ancient foundation to place the town on, another one was a red commissar, the third an ex-white officer who got lost in the steppes, found by a native tribe and became a shaman, and then the last one was a teacher girl just sent there to teach stuff,

youtube.com/watch?v=7eIjqpMJ-L8

Just something for inspiration.

You're giving me inspiration here user, thanks. Definitely do tell more if you're feeling like it.
By the way, does anyone have any suggestions how to recreate this fever dreamish surreal atmosphere Pathologic has on a session? One particularly difficult thing I can think of is the fact that many NPCs in the game act and speak in a very weird, not exactly sensible way and the PCs usually either do the same or simply ignore that and carry on, even if it weirds them. The players during a session however might not, thus ruining the whole charm

It's hard to convey what fighting a "Bloodsucker" or "Controller" is like if you haven't played it.
But what I can tell you us that Stalker always got me with putting enemies you've already fought and which you don't really think of as threatening anymore in environments that are stacked in their favour.
Add darkness, radiation, an impending blowout/claustrophobic bunker architecture, gravity anomalies and dwindling vodka reserves, and you're gonna wish you had never set foot into the zone.

A big part of Pathologic and it's atmsphere to me was the time management part, having enough time to do everything you need to do before everyone dies, and the deprivation of food, ammo, shoddy weaponry, constant elevated costs, shit like that
Also not being a dick, killing innocents for personal gain was always bad.

You could use atmospheric music or soundtracks.

Describe weird customs or behaviors that the town inhabitants portray, while treating them as completely normal. In general add small details of strangeness that go unmentioned by the townsfolk and unexplained by the GM.

Every now and then, have an NPC break the fourth wall. They do this a lot in Pathologic. You could also play up the unrealness by using theatrical imagery.

Oh yeah, definitely the constantly ticking clock added a lot to the atmosphere. And late in the game, when the city plunged into chaos more and more and it became harder to gather food and ammo, way more dangerous to be out on the streets and really hard to keep your immunity from declining and plague levels from rising it really became a fight for survival. Kind of like what is describing. Yeah, I feel that time and vitality management should definitely be crucial factors on a Pathologic session/campaign

Actually I think theatrical imagery fits a TTRPG even better than a video game

Ensure there are two layers, the literal and the "spiritual." Don't make the 2nd layer explicitly observable, it should dawn on players like the game has the realization of the town being a single organism.

Framing it as a creepy rural town with particular customs and having one person being a returnee would work well too. Societal restrictions on things (like butchering but not) are a good idea too. Maybe only certain bloodlines can walk around with weapons?

Also have drunks immediately start attacking everyone omnicidally once the sun goes down.

Yes, because Suok isn't the same thing as the plague, and neither if them is the same thing as the albino.

Dude the drunks help you, you can even trade with them at night. It's the guys in ugly hats and with rapist smiles you have to watch out for, and they only spawn at night.

Anyone else thinks Dogs in The Vineyard would be a good fit for Pathologic campaign? Between this and recent Mushishi thread im seriously considering finding a secondhand translated copy in my language.

Pathologic sounded really interesting, but I get the impression that the actual gameplay is brutal and unforgiving. How bad is it, Veeky Forums?

Well technically, the Albino IS in fact a direct physical embodiment of the Sand Plague, and his presence ends up directly afflicting the district's with the infection if he remains there for too long. So, Albino is indeed just the Plague wearing another mask (Even though he *supposedly* isn't "Evil", just very childish and simply unknowing that his presence causes reality to start raping itself to death).

Oh fuck, it's still alive?! OP here, can't say I'm not positively surprised

Its as brutal and unforgiving as it gets. Its a bit outdated and I'm very excited for the remake (Called pathologic 2). The game can be min-maxed if you use quest spoilers to exploit the shit out of the economy

Not that bad, you just need good time and resource management and you should be fine honestly. It's unforgiving to fuck-ups, but if you know what you''e doing and aren't lolly gagging quite manageable. Basically pillage trash cans like a hobo, learn what can you barter with whom and do so on every possible occasion, conserve your health and ammo and make absolutely sure to finish your daily quests, especially the main one, by midnight. It helps to plan your route point by point. Do those, and you should be fine.
But let's not talk about purely video game mechanics here, I honestly didn't intend it to be an offtopic thread.

Add to that Daniel face literally start melting if he talks to him. And he must.

Join the discussion oloung.

Is the board game out already? If so, how is it?
Also is the systemtalking about any good? I heard about it, but haven't checked it out. Is it even available in English or Russian only?

That series is fucking dumb and the dude who analyzed the game was clearly confused by the shit original translation

Ask me anything about Pathologic - I played all three paths at least twice each, both OG and HD Remaster versions, both in English and in Russian. I legit consider it to have the best vidya storytelling by far and DEEPEST LORE.

I also incorporated the steppe culture into my homebrew and made several of its aspects (e.g. fear of holes and sharp objects) very common across its cultures.

I would, but I'm still playing through my first route for the first time and don't want to spoil myself any more than I already did. Fully agreed though , this game's storytelling is at a good novel or very good TV series tier, which can be said about very few video games. Absolutely loving it so far and strongly considering preordering the remake

I am a kikestarter backer for it. It's the only game I ever did that. I thought the Marble Nest was alright and if they polish it at least remotely, the game will be fantastic.

Bachelor of Haruspex?

I didn't play it but I talked about it with my LGS' owner, who playetested it. He didn't like it because, verbatim, its mechanics are counter-intuitive and discourage winning. Basically if every player just focuses on winning themselves, the plague gets them all and everyone sucks cocks. To actually defeat the plague some players need to shove their ego down their butt and not focus on winning, instead helping others defeat the plague.

Which is kinda what the whole original game is about, so I consider it to be a flavour win, if it is indeed as he described.

>Yes, because Suok isn't the same thing as the plague, and neither if them is the same thing as the albino.

Yes they are, argueably even the Kains could be interpreted as a manifestation of Suoks will

Its not really that hard, you are just likely to get fucked on your first try when you dont know how to properly play the game

Bachelor obviously, chose the more noob friendly route and from what I've heard about Haruspex gameplay so far it was a good decision. Currently at the beginning of day 7, about to meet with the Inquisitor for the first time
Meeting the Albino for the very first time yesterday really fucked me up, shit was unsettling as hell with his weird figure, the eerie steppe all around and the constant health drain, especially considering that it's the first time in the game when you actually witness something unquestionably paranormal in nature. It really shows how good the atmosphere building when in other games you would just shrug your first monster off since "it happens" in video games, but here it really hits you

That actually sounds great and really in mood with the original game's concept

Does the Changeling route explain anything about the whole fetus god Simon incubating in the Polyhedron thing?

From my memory, not really. It focuses a lot on the steppe lore, the underlying Law of the setting which was broken by the Kains and arguably by the existence of the town itself and some nifty pieces of backstory on few characters, like Grief, Anna Angel and a a certain twist about Aspity.

Re your point, it is mostly covered in Bachelor's route. You understood it right in that the Polyhedron was initially made to be a way to contain Simon and other Kains after their death. Its function as used by the town's kids is secondary

the Polyhedron is generally unexplained, albeit some retards say that kids inside supposed to be creators or Powers that Be - both debunked by studio.

You did talk to it, of course?

The retards aren't totally wrong
The kids you meet in the "false" endings are indeed the Powers that Be. Does not however discard the fact that they are as much puppets than the characters and if you visited the theatre after it you'd know that even that is not true.

The Polyhedron is explained to an extent, except of course the nature of its powers

Obviously, and afterwards I did what every good doctor and a man of science should and put a few well deserved revolver rounds into this otherworldly abomination.
I didn't fuck up. did I?

Well, it certainly didnt help that the Bachelor talks as if he was fully convinced that they are

I personally figured out that the whole sandbox thing was more coincidentally symbolic than the children being literal puppet masters, remember that the Polyhedron twists perspective, they could simply be recreating what is happening in the town and believing they are indeed the creators of its reality

Not really. After playing the Changeling route, you will probably find out that the thing deserved it.

Also, if you kill it, you can return to its location later when you are looking for Clara's blood sample. She (or someone who looks like her) will be there, with some extra new dialogue. To clarify, both going to the Albino's location and finding Clara at Eve's house will give you the requisite blood sample. Funny, isn't it?

That's an interesting take on it, but I think the theatre dialogue with the Mine and the Executor debunks it. Especially if you talk to them at the very end of Changeling's route - they will give her much more insight than to Haruspex or Bachelor. In this way, the Changeling's route and choice at the end are probably the closest thing the game has to "true" ending.

On topic. I do not think a pathologic game can work very well as a classic P&P RPG. I did try it once, it did not take off, maybe due to my failings as a GM. Certain things I used in it:

>Strict and defined ground rules e.g no matter how creative players get - there is no escaping the game locale
>Make some of the above rules weird like reputation in the pc game - people WILL know if you're being a scumbag even if you think you left no traces of the wrongdoing.
>Plan out the game in advance, don't improvise. The world must move along rapidly, the PCs have to either scurry after it or be left behind. This kind of game is the only situation where I'd walk away from "quantum ogres"
>Always offer more than one explanation for a given event. Try your hardest not to ever give a definite answer to any of them.
>Have some pointless events to establish the atmosphere and the setting as a red herring of sort - think of the ghost cat or Bos Turokh event from the late game.

Fun fact:

PATHOLOGIC IS ACTUALLY BASED ON A FUCKING PEN AND PAPER RPG SESSION THAT DYBOWSKI AND HIS FRIENDS PLAYED SOMEWHERE AROUND THE YEAR 2000!

Seriously, and it's painfully obvious too, given how the game handles it's three main fucking characters.
The story goes, that Dybowski, inspired by a dream, set up a home-brew pen-and paper session for three of his friends about surviving in a city struck by plague. The dynamics of that sessions fascinated all of the people involved, and Dybowski started searching for a way to capture it: first trying to write it down as a story, then jotting it into a screenplay (which he apparently did finish), but either of the options felt like it does not work as the root of the experience was in the interaction and freedom of choice, which is what ultimately drove him to the idea of turning it into a videogame.

So yes, Pathologic can indeed work as traditional pen and paper RPG. You just need Dybowski-tier mad-man as a GM.

Polyhedron is pretty clearly explained, and so is the relationship between the puppeteers, powers that be and the general metanarrativity of it all.

I could see this both as a very narrative experience (something AW-like, with consequences spiraling out of control and a "clock" for the plague), or a very gamey one with a Pandemic board, or somewhere between the two.

>Yes they are
They are, and they are not. Remember especially in this game, something isn't necessarily true just because some guy says it is.
There is only one undeniable truth in the entire game. Let's not spoil that one.

Because the individual agents/players would all pretty often need to be in different places and have conflicting goals, how would you translate it onto the tabletop? I'd love to know your lot's opinion.

>One group at the same time, take turns describing actions
>One group both at the table and in game, all personal stuff is done as it is usually done in a PnP game - splitting the party, notes to the GM etc
>Quiet Year-like tabletop setup, with more rigid rules and roleplaying only occasionally coming into it?
>As separate sessions with each individual player?
>Other?

You didn't fuck up, user. The damn thing, had it been allowed to live, would have just spread the Plague wherever it went and would have just killed more people in the long run. You actually helped in the long-term by killing it.

Thoughts on using DitV for Pathologic? Anyone?

>But let's not talk about purely video game mechanics here, I honestly didn't intend it to be an offtopic thread.
Fair enough. I would love to contribute, but I haven't played the game. I only know about it because I ran across the Rock Paper Shotgun article randomly. It sounded fascinating, but he author's assertion that a focus on fun was limiting video games put me off playing it, because I'd rather do something fun.

Holy cats, I had no idea the game's soundtrack was this good.

What you should have learned here is that RPS is fucking garbage designed to tell you that your tastes are crap to make theirs appear better.

I never played it, but from what I've heard about it I think yeah, it could work. It's heavily designed for various social interactions, isn't it?

I'd like to recommend The Plague by Albert Camus' for anyone who enjoyed the setting and the general plague theme of Pathologic. It's about an algerian-french doctor and the actions of him and his acquaintances during a plague outbreak in the french colony of Oran in the 1940s.

It's an absolutely excellent book and contributed to me pursuing medicine in university.

Isn't it an obligatory school lecture in some countries? It was in mine. Or maybe it was one of those "any novel from X period" points on the lecture list and our teacher picked Camus. Dunno

I think The Stranger's a more common "obligatory" read if we're talking Camus since it's more an existentialist (or rather absurdist) classic. That said, I much prefer The Plague.

Great book either way, if you read it in high school I'd probably recommend a second reading. I read a few classics back then that I really didn't appreciate as much as I do today after having read them again.

>Complaining about gamer snobbery
>In a thread about Pathologic

But user, I'm only turning 20 in February, high school really wasn't that far ago for me. That being said, for some reason Plague seems to be picked as a school lecture much more often here for some reason, although I agree that The Stranger is probably more "popular" Camus book in general

>given how the game handles it's three main fucking characters. I wouldn't say so. I mean, with their distinct but somewhat common goals they would make great PCs, but in the game they're actually pretty much an opposite of an RPG party. They're almost never together and in fact probably cause each other more trouble than help

Shit, sorry for too long greentext, it was supposed to end after the first sentence

Then won't you agree that Bernard Rieux is a paragon and that losing a friend like Jean Tarrou would be maddening.

Despite a couple of obvious and rather shallow nods to Plague, it's hardly one of the books that really inspired Pathologic.
The key inspiration to Pathologic is a couple of authors, namely:
>Jorge Luis Borges
>Franz Kafka
>Milorad Pavić
>Mikhail Bulhakov
>Andrey Platonov

We also speculate that the team was also inspired by San Carneiro and Cortazar, though the team never confirmed that.
Game-wise, the two most major inspirations the team mentioned were Thief 1 and Silent Hill 2.

Nah, I figure that out. Not every RPG has to be party based though. It's not unreasonable to assume that the original session was pretty different from the final game, and that the characters - while having different ultimate goals, cooperated more. In fact, I think Dybowsky once lamented that was the sole sacrifice he had to make when translating the whole thing into a game: mechanical restrictions prevented the characters to actively meet as much as they were supposed to.

Oh, I wouldn't have argued that it was an inspiration, I just think there's a clear link in both theme and setting and I'll use any excuse I can to shill my favourite books.

Honestly the description of Tarrou's death hit me like a brick, he didn't fucking deserved it. But the Plague takes who it pleases.

Come to think of it I would probably run it Paranoia style, but on a campaign long scale, to stimulate characters' different goals and motivations

That's very interesting. Do you by any chance have any link to the interviews or something when told about that, or an idea where to find them?

I was just thinking about dogs on the vineyard actually, because getting mixed up in the buried shit of small towns is their job. I dunno how it would work as a system but thematically this is it's alley

Like 90% of everything I know about the studio comes from articles my russian friend use to bring and translate for me from Russian mags or websites, and that I sadly did not bookmark given that they would be little use to me on account of me not being able to read a word of them myself.

That said, there is this thing:
forum.ice-pick.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=14863
Though it's a list of their favorite books, not necessarily the ones that inspired Pathologic the most.
There is also this list:
reddit.com/r/pathologic/comments/6mites/pathologic_bookshelf/
But it has been put together by speculating fans, not the authors themselves.
Curiously enough, neither of these contains any mention of Kafka or Borges, despite their being arguably most obvious sources of inspiration. They do frequently mention Chesterton and Bradbury though, guys who were Borges'es favorite authors.

Well, considering I'm a Pole myself, as long as google translate would transcribe it from shitty Cyrillic to Latin alphabet I would probably be able to at least more or less understand what is it saying.. A perk of Slavic languages. Thanks for those links anyway, I'll look for more.

> shitty Cyrillic
Tsk, tsk

I'm sorry Ivan, but your alphabet is utter shit. It's clunky, boxy, ugly as hell and has zero stylistic coherency, being basically a random mixup of Greek, Latin and God knows what else. And nobody in the civilised world can fucking read it

It literally does not matter what you do with the albino, at least as the bachelor.

Why is this thread so full of lies?

Just like the game really

1. dude use spoilers, there is at least one guy ITT who havent finished the game
2. it foreshadows changeling path and gives you an opportunity to learn something more about her even as bachelor

>NG+
>Adds literally nothing of value and it would be much more fun to just start a new playthrough with a different build

Fucking hell, wrong board, ignore this
How does deleting posts even work? I've been here for years and I still haven't figured it out

Click the little check box next to your post. Then go down to the delete button in the bottom right.

Ah, all right, it's the box checking part I was always missing. Thanks user

ok ok ok what are these voices in the tunnels below the theatre and near stones in the steppe

Except it does, see It's pretty minor but still there. Many things in Pathologic are like this.

I always thought it's just the feverish hallucination from all the Twyre in the air. The voice probably belongs to Isidor Burakh.

Everyone lies in The Town, even when they tell the truth.

Also the people in robes just want to hug you!

I've only played as bachelor up to when The military commander comes into town and it's been like 5 months since I touched the game, so my memory is kinda rusty and some of these may be answered in other playthroughs but I have 2 question

1: Who are the Tragedians? Are they actors? Are they supernatural beings? How do they always know all of your acts? I know that the executioner is meant to resemble a plague doctor, but is there something that the other guy is meant to represent?

2: What the fuck is up with the worms, why do they look like that, some degenerative disease?

Want to make a realistic depiction of a outsider coming in trying to stop the sand plague while dealing with different family interests?

Play GURPS

Want a narrative based game focused more on steppe culture and political intrigue?

Try FATE

>2: What the fuck is up with the worms, why do they look like that, some degenerative disease?
Don't know what's up with the Tragedians, but it's implied that the Worms are little more than direct manifestations of Suok's will, created specifically to provide with Blood and sacrifice.

>Who are the Tragedians? Are they actors? Are they supernatural beings? How do they always know all of your acts? I know that the executioner is meant to resemble a plague doctor, but is there something that the other guy is meant to represent?

Yes.

I'd suggest you try it out yourself, it's only as unforgiving as any town falling into chaos by a mostly uncurable disease and unreliable trading with the outside world would actually be, shoot first ask questions never
The second, fourth and fifth rules seem good to me, pretty good adaptation from what the game is like, but perhaps a Pathologic tabletop game shouldn't be so planned out unless you have some kinda oracle who guides you along, i feel like that may be why your game didn't go so well, and about the game locale, do you mean the town? Maybe a ttrpg would actually benefit from more cities or towns or different stuff, as to not only talk about the weird stuff from the game, but actually introduce stranger cultures in the bizarre way the game does for the first time, that's what hooks you in, new weird shit, not just parrotinh what's already been done
Good posts lads

>medical student

dude the bachelor

Bump