''Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed'' is a short, 32-page

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

written by

Greg Costikyan Greg Costikyan (born July 22, 1959), 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 wargames, role-playing ...

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 ba ...

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. 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. The rule-set provides information on a range of things related to killing. Weapons, combat styles, and the like are intricately detailed.

Publication history

''Violence'' (1999) was designed by

(aka Designer X) and was published with cover art 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 ...

in 1999 as one of the ''New Style'' role-playing games published by

, a series of experimental and alternative role-playing games that included '' The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen'', '' Pantheon'', and '' Puppetland/Powerkill''. In August 2005, Costikyan released ''Violence'' under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

license, and made it available for download. A Spanish language edition exists.

Reception

In his 2011 book ''Designers & Dragons'', game historian

Shannon Appelcline use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , death_cause = , body_discovered = , resting_place = , resting_place_coordinates = ...

noted that ''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

James James may refer to: People * James (given name) * James (surname) * James (musician), aka Faruq Mahfuz Anam James, (born 1964), Bollywood musician * James, brother of Jesus * King James (disambiguation), various kings named James * Prince Ja ...

] Wallis thought of it as a ''A Modest Proposal, 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 his 2023 book ''Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground'', RPG historian Stu Horvath noted, "The book is grotesque, sneering, and snide, explicitly calling itself disgusting and questioning the moral fiber of anyone willing to read it. It's often quite funny but also gets at a deep frustration regarding the centering of violence in all sorts of play — tabletop games, videogames, make believe.

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 Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

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