The Kult RPG Page

For a small Dutch fanzine called Tavern Tales (unfortunately no longer online) I once wrote a review of the Kult RPG. The text of this review can be found below. I have made some small adjustments where updates were in order. For a Dutch translation of the text, follow this link.

KULT "Death is only the beginning"

In 1993 the US based Metropolis Ltd. published an English version of the Swedish RPG "Kult". In this review I will try to explain what the game is all about. I will do this by using the first edition , as I have never bought the second edition. However, the second edition seems to differ in important ways, not always for the best. Just to be honest, I have to say that I have only run Kult as a GM a couple of times, so my knowledge is mostly based on the books. And yet another warning: I am not really unbiased in my descriptions, nor short of words ...

The requisites

As a player, all you need is a charactersheet and a d20. To GM, add the Kult Rulebook and GM screen, with matching adventure. Meanwhile, lots of extras are available, but none of those are necessary if your imagination is some good. Unfortunately it is not really easy to find Kult in the Netherlands (or probably any other country). For a list of available products, just follow this link.

The Book

The title of the first book is just "Kult" and carries the subtitle "Death is only the beginning ..." This book contains anything you will need as a GM to be able to play. Sadly, the book also contains lots of information for your players. In my opinions this is really a pain, especially when you, as a GM, want to keep the players from reading about the background. After writing this article, a Players Guide has been published, contain new information on characters one can play. This is more of a book for the players, but I still consider it a major mistake that they didn't divide the rulebook into two seperate books.

The book starts with 75 pages of instructions to create characters, an overview of abilities, skills, dark secrets and mental balance, as well as a list of equipment, from (lots of) weapons to cars and aeroplanes. After that comes the GM part. Information about the way the gameworld works and in what cases which sort of die-rolls are called for. The aspect of combat is explained and there is (way too much) attention for martial arts. This way it is too easy for players to just create a fighting machine.

Magic is another aspect of Kult that can be used in your campaigns. I was very pleased to see that it is not the kind of magic AD&D uses (chant, chant, boom), but the system uses arcane rituals, causing a magician to spend many hours to attain but a simple effect.

At the end of the book, there are about 75 pages of information on monsters and NPC's. Inbetween there are two instances of a bit of text (about five pages) on the role of the GM and how to dress up your campaign. I think it would be better to exclude some monsters and insert more of the GM info. To accomplish this, more books have been published to help either GM or players, so you will have to bring a rather large wallet if you want all of the information.

Next to the Kult Rulebook, there's a book filled with yet more monsters and NPC's. There are also books containing adventures, called Fallen Angels (three stories), Taroticum and Judas Grail. These books are a good read, but they are difficult to GM as you will have to do a lot of work fleshing out the parts between certain encounters.

Atmosphere

Kult is a modern day horror RPG, set in a world comparable to ours. In the setting of Kult, the world as we know it is a lie. There is more to it than meets our eyes. In my opinion it is best to have players find out about the world during the game, so I will not give out too much info here. In Kult there is lots of room for those aspects of life that are less fun for people, like death, depression and addictions. Even supernatural beings can be part of the game.

The definition of "horror" is quite diverse. To some people horror is something we know from movies like "Friday the 13th" or "Hellraiser". To others, it is something more refined, without blood, but with lots of tension. Maybe something mysterious like "X-files" or "Twin Peaks", or more recently "Millennium". In Kult it is possible to create just about any kind of horror. Nevertheless, most people will refer to Hellraiser when they try to explain what Kult is all about.

Kult is not just about horror. The adventures that have been published often develop according to a classical good versus evil plot. The attention given to Good and Evil in Kult is almost religious. A lot of attention is spend on aspects of mystical, biblical characters and saintly figures from other religions. The Player Characters often will develop in a way most people would not necessarily call Good in real life, but at the same time these characters will keep revolting against a form of Evil that is worse than they are. It might also be that the characters will just loose control and becom totally Evil, anything goes ...

Consequences for the group

As Kult is a horror RPG, it will have consequences for your weekly night of play. For starters, it is important to create the right atmosphere. It is not necessary for every player to come dressed in black, or to include a bowl of raw meet on the table. It is, however, important that the players are willing to play in a serioius way. It can be deadly (pun intended) to have players in a laughing fit during a game of Kult. Those who don't mind about their character not surviving this adventure will have problems to keep the right mood.

Another consequence of the genre is that it requires a certain "mature" attitude. Players should not be afraid to explore aspects of life they might find objectionable in the real world. Murder, mutilation, sex and other fun aspects of life can be major themes of the game. Should you decide to start playing Kult, try to determine if this is going to cause trouble with the other players.

The system

Kult is Point Based. Every character is made up of a number of characteristics, called Abilities that determine what capabilities a character has. Each player will get one hundred points to distribute on eight abilities (Agility, Strength, Constitution, Comeliness, Ego, Charisma, Perception and Education). So it is the player that determines the scores, no dice needed.

The Characters

Archetypes

The Kult Rulebook contains a number of "Archetypes", stereotypical describtions of characters that you might consider playing, like the Student or the Veteran. Each type has a description to give you an idea how to play this particular type. It does not take much imagination to create your own archetypes. Besides, archetypes will cause stereotypical playing of characters anyway, which causes all students to survive solely on pizza and cola. Even though there are students living in a healthy way, or so it is rumored.

Advantages and Disadvantages

In creating his character, the player determines which advantages and disadvantages fit his character. The more of these one chooses, the more to keep track of during the game, but it gives more depth to your character. Each disadvantage choosen will give your character certain points. To get advantages, one will have to pay points. These points will be important for other aspects of character creation, as we will see with the Skills and Mental Balance.

Skills

To reflect the knowledge of characters, each character gets 150 points to spend on Skills, like driving a car. The more points spend on a skill, the more chance some action will succeed. Whenever a character tries to use a skill, the result of the action will be determined by rolling dice. The difference between the die-roll and the score will determine the way one succeeds, a higher difference meaning a bigger success.

A character which has gained more points for disadvantages than it has spent on advantages, can add the difference to his 150 points for skills. This will make the characters life easier, since he is more versatile. In case the character has more advantages, this will cost skill-points, making life more difficult.

Background

The best thing to do is to have each player give a short description of the history or Background of his character. In it, one should mention all important events of the character's life. Even better is to have the player explain the (dis)advantages in the background. The Background can inspire the GM in his quest for ideas to incorporate in his campaign.

Just in case it is not obvious yet: the creation of a character in Kult takes time, especially the first time. So reserve an evening to create the characters. The Rulebook also offers the opportunity to create simplified characters, enabling the creation of average characters in a short period of time.

The Mental or Spiritual aspect of Kult

Dark and Light

In Kult, the character's attitude towards life is a central theme. A character basically has two roads to choose from, the dark and the (en)light(ened) way. "The dark road is physical and aggressive. It leads away from other people and all social ties. It seizes on your basic instincts and emotions ..." [Kult, p. 257] "The light road focuses on analysis, knowledge and control [...] Social contacts and relations to other people become important. You avoid conflicts at all cost and seek harmony." [Kult, p. 257]

During play, the character can shift on his way to Dark or Light. The mental state of characters is defined by the Mental Balance (MB). When the characters is created, the MB is determined by the difference (in points) between disadvantages and advantages. More disadvantages means a negative MB. As the MB develops in a certain way, the character will travel on the road connected to it. A MB of +100 is more on the way to Good than an MB of +10, while MB -100 is more towards Evil than MB -10).

A change in Mental Balance might happen by the character gaining or losing (dis)advantages or by other instances, as determined by the GM. This way, the game is a constant struggle to keep your character on the right track.

Dark and Light not only have differences, they also have a major thing in common. Both become extremely difficult to play when they reach the extremes. The book gives as an example for MB -50 "You could not pass a mental examination without being pronounced insane." [Kult, p. 257]. At MB +75 it says "You could not pass a mental examination without being pronounced insane" [Kult, p. 257]. No matter which side you choose, you will go crazy regardless. This is not as strange as it might seem, just consider that crazy is little else than being different than the others.

Kult uses "terrifying events". This kind of shocking experiences will call forth a reaction from PC's, which may vary from running away to going totally berserk. The reaction will in part be determined by throwing an EGO-roll, to see if the character will be influenced. A character with a (strong) negative MB will mostly loose control over his (dis)advantages, while a character with (strong) positive MB will hardly be affected by what is happening.

The given examples of MB's will have made clear that it is very difficult to play your character at extreme Mental Balances. When one realises the maximum MB is plus or minus 500, it seems to be impossible to roleplay those characters. But it is not necessary to play those characters. The extremes in MB are the ultimate goals for every character in Kult. Should anyone reach such an MB, he is called an Awakened, someone who sees the world as it really is, someone comparable to real world spiritual examples like Jesus Christ. One might compare it to becoming a god in AD&D: there simply is nothing left in terms of challenge.

Dark Secret

Any character starting with a negative Mental Balance is obligated to choose a Dark Secret. A Dark Secret is something the character has experienced at some point in his history. Oftentimes (part of) his (dis)advantages can be explained from the Dark Secret. One example of a Dark Secret could be that the character has been abused in a medical experiment. This could then be used to explain why the character has a fear of needles, just to name something. The system gives a number of examples of Dark Secrets, giving general descriptions, so the players and GM have plenty of opportunity to flesh them out. To the GM this might be another opportunity to incorporate in his game.

Combat and death of characters

In my opinion, Kult is not meant to involve too much fighting, even if it is just because it is a major hassle to keep track of all aspects of combat. It is way more important to try to prevent combats from happening or to solve problems in a different way. This is not to say that there will never be any combat, emptying ones AK47 into the face of opponents still seems like a good way to get rid of them.

Fights are "realistic", which means it is not hard for characters to die. This might seem a disadvantage, since most palyers will want their character to survive. Still, it has its advantages, as it will motivate players to shy away from combat and to search for solutions the roleplaying way. I am all in favor of this, even if it was just because a lot of opponents in Kult can not be killed just by a revolver ...

Hit points are not a part of the combat system of Kult. Instead, it uses three different categories of wounds (or actually four, but the last one is fatal, so it is hardly a wound): scratch, light wounds, serious wounds and fatal wounds. Each weapon lists which result on a d20 is necessary to create certain wounds. Firearms have the nasty habbit of causing fatal wounds on a roll of 16 or higher, so there is plenty of risk for characters. The only chance to heal wounds is by using medication and plenty of rest. And ofcourse it will take more time to recover from a serious wound than it does to recover from a scratch. Sure, the subtitle of the game is "death is only the beginning", but this is not to say it goes for every PC ...

Character development

There is no talk of levels in Kult. The development of ones character is expressed by changes in (dis)advantages and the development of skills. At the end of each adventure, the GM will hand out between one and seven experience points. Those points can be used to adjust skills, abilities or even Mental Balance.

Besides experience points, there are also so-called Hero Points. Each character gets ten Hero Points to start the game. Your character is able to acquire new Hero Points, up to a maximum of fifty, by acting in a truly heroic way. Whenever a player suspects his character might need some extra help, he can use Hero Points. In this way one can adjust an ability throw or make sure an enemy doesn't hit you in a fatal, but only serious way.

Information

In case you want to know more about Kult, you could mail me, but I do not know everything about the game. Magazines will (rarely) publish something, but your best bet is to check out the electronic information. In particular the Kult mailinglist is really interesting. To subscribe to it, send a mail to listserv@oracle.wizards.com with the contents "subscribe kult-l". Or follow the links below.

Literature:

[Kult] Kult : Death is only the beginning ... / Gunilla Jonsson ; Michael Petersen. - cop. 1993 Metropolis Ltd. - ISBN 1-883716-00-4
* Kult is a registered trademark of Target Games AB and Metropolis Ltd. *
This article copyright 1996 by Richard Broekman (chaoscities@xs4all.nl)

I once created a charactersheet in WordPerfect. Now a Word version of this sheet is available to download.
To have an idea of the support fellow Kultists are creating for their favorite game, have a look at Jason Thompson's Gaia Sourcebook.

To find other players living near you, visit my Kult Geography page.

The Abyss is an initiative which started at the Kult mailinglist. It's aim is to gather Kult stuff written by fans of the game. It's nothing official (as in published by those who own the rights to the game), but Target has given the project permission. Check it out!

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