Minireview: Houses of the Blooded

Ok, now I’ve finally read it. Houses of the Blooded is huge, complex, intimidating, weird and quite fascinating. John Wick wrote a game that he would like to play himself, and the end result features betrayal, social status games in an alien society, bloody duels and romance (which always ends badly). And opera. Which also always ends badly.

It’s a weird game. Quite clearly a labor of love, it’s written in a very strong authorial tone. Unlike Luke Crane’s Burning Wheel, though, the tone here does not annoy me a bit, it just lends flavor.

So, what’s it about? Well, the players are all “Ven”, and “Blooded”. Members of an ancient race of beings originally created as slaves/servants to a now-dead race of sorcerer-kings, they do everything by extremes. All players are nobles, and all control land and are lords over a large population of lesser Ven – land serfs, essentially. Non-Blooded Ven are essentially property, and non-Ven are even less: they are collectively called “orks” and treated as unintelligent animals. The Ven are xenophobes and elitists in the extreme, and laugh at our weak “modern” ideas of equality and moral relativity. Players belong to (or claim association with) various animal-themed factions… one might be Blooded of the Elk, another Blooded of the Bear. This matters, in various ways.

There is sorcery, but it’s illegal. Everyone does it. There are rules, which are strict. Everyone breaks them. The words for “love” and “revenge” are almost identical, and this is extended into the mindset of the Ven – love is seen as a dangerous obsession, a weakness which often leads to bloodshed. Still, almost everyone chases after it. The color of your clothes matters. Nobody wears black, by choice. Some are forced to.

Mechanically, it uses an “Aspects” -based system (modelled after Spirit of the Century) with tons of clever bits tacked on. The winner of a (mechanical) test does not necessarily win the current challenge; he/she gets to decide what happens, and how. This is an important difference. There are no levels and no hit points, none of that crap. Combat is lethal, so you want to avoid it – until you can’t, when someone challenges you to a duel or insults you. Which happens, more often or not.

The Ven don’t die of old age, they retreat into cocoons, and whisper in the dreams of their children.

This is one of the more impressive “indie-style” games I’ve encountered in a while. It has so many neat things that I don’t really know where to start. It’s also a bit intimidating, I do have a small “well, what do I do with it?” problem. There is a very good Narrator section on the book, though, which helps out a lot in this regard. The characters actually age, and must make land-rule decisions in a small resource-management minigame of its own. John has said it’s a sort of an “anti-D&D” game: dungeon crawling is for peasants, this game is about all the bits D&D is not about. Including opera.

The game is very strongly player-loaded, and players are expected to develop a large part of the game world as the game progresses. This will not work for more passive game groups which are used to the GM providing the entertainment, here the players absolutely must chip in. It’s also (optionally) a slightly player-vs-player game – the PCs are expected to plot against each other, at times. This may not be suitable for some play groups, so it can also be left out.

If you’re at all interested in unusual fantasy games, get this game/book and read it. It will give you ideas about gaming, even if you never run it. I’m still not sure if I’m brave enough to give it a try.

I have a few small niggles. The layout is a bit chaotic, with rules scattered all over the (big) book. A more clear “rules section” and “fluff section” might have been better. Also, while the conceit in the book that the Ven were a real, historical race and that the book is based on actual archeological research is fun in a way, it gets a bit old. I would have kept that stuff in the player section, and left them out of the GM-only parts. […]