Arc Philosophy & Knowledge: Part 17 - Homicidalism Part 2 (Knowledges)

With the backbone of how Homicidalism is gained, what it is aiming to do and the core beats of its booklet completed it is time to dive into the knowledges. These knowledges revolve around the elements of the so called “Dark Triad” something which in recent times has become a bit of a mess due to laypersons releasing “Psychology” videos. I'm not going to go into that rabbit hole too far, except to state that as someone with academic qualifications in the area of Psychology I firmly believe that if someone doesn't have a serious academic background in the area, you should ignore what they have to say and even if they do, you should treat it with caution. There's some seriously bad actors in that area giving out false or harmful information; that's why I don't give out psychiatric advice, I'm not a practicing expert and I never reached the level that I would consider good enough to do something like that.

So instead for the purposes of thematics I have been looking at Homicidalism's engagement with the Dark Triad more in the realms of Popular Culture; because this is a game, it's a gamified system that not only covers the Triad, but also goes deeper into exploring an actual murderer's psyche. Someone with Dark Triad traits will have a number of malevolent behaviours including Narcissism (an excessive infatuation with one's own image and desires, performing things even at the expense of other's benefit or joy, while also holding a fragile self ego). Narcissism comes from the Greek poem “Metamorphoses” which follows Narcissus, a young man who rejected the advances of the nymph Echo. He was cursed to fall in love with his own reflection, when he discovers that it cannot love him back he pines away to death.

The second element is the concept of Machiavellianism; which is the capability to manipulate others with a complete disregard for morals, ethics or the well being of the person being manipulated. It of course gains its name from Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote the book “The Prince” possibly as a warning to the masses about how the ruling classes may behave. The saying “The Ends Justify the Means” comes from this work.

The final element is Psychopathy, which is an impaired or lacking sense of empathy for others or remorse over harmful actions. Unlike the previous two elements, this one does not have a formal acknowledged title, though it has very much become common parlance and a part of popular culture.

Because we are engaging with this on a fictional level, because I am NOT touching the real life applications/circumstances/discussions in respect to this (because as I wrote above, I'm not an professional, I'm barely a qualified layperson) we'll instead look at fictional characters as our point of comparison when considering flavour of these knowledges. Do these knowledges look like the kind of thing that villainous characters like Hannibal Lecter (Various media forms), Dexter Morgan (Books and the TV Show Dexter), Vic Mackey (The Shield), Marlo Stanfield (The Wire) or similar would have?

Dark Impulse - Core Tenet

• Type: Statistical gains

• Stages: 3

• Observations Required: 1/1/-

• Advancement: Killing blow on a monster or murder a survivor/Be the only victorious returning survivor/-

• Lumi Costs: 0/4/6

• Bonuses: None/When you inflict the killing blow on a monster or murder a survivor 50% chance of +1 strength/When adjacent to a survivor spend 1 survivor to murder them. When you kill another survivor gain all their positive attributes (not just murder them).

• Parallels: Sacrifice

Dark Impulse in isolation is a fascinating knowledge, it offers a very selfish play pattern that interestingly can level up either in a malevolent or semi-”altruistic” fashion. The first stage is fairly easy to engineer, being the final survivor to land the killing blow on a monster is relatively straight forward. The murder at this stage requires either the Murder event, a triggering of the Homicidalist Neurosis or something else that specifically uses the term “murder”.

At Stage 2 the situation more has to be engineered, but it can happen organically as well. The engineered play pattern would have disposable red-shirt survivors being systematically murdered when the monster is on its last legs (leaving 2 survivors if the murderer is a Homicidalist as they will murder that last survivor on the way home) and then killing the monster. This is a fairly high cost, you're losing out on XP gains, weapon proficiency advancement and three survivors. However, this cost is worth the price because you gain some extra strength and unlock Stage 3. Stage 3 is stupidly overpowered.

With stage 3, survival and population now translate into stat boosts for a single survivor. The design of KDM has always favoured spending generic population numbers for various benefits. Plebeian (Plebs) disposal via higher risk activities is a common behaviour. When we have a resource in the game that not only is utilised to gather other resources, but is also of varying quality it is natural to protect and nurture the best of them even if that costs the weakest. It feels awful to write this, but they are just game pieces, units, not real people and in the cases of the Plebeians they're often not even characters, just numbers on a page. I guess that's what it feels like to be a high ranking Government official right? Numbers on a page. Grim.

An important thing to highlight here is that Stage 3 is broken into two different elements, the first one is the spending 1 survival to murder an adjacent survivor. The second element is linked to “kill” specifically so it is broader, if you have things that kill a survivor such as having the Dark Impulse survivor endeavor at the Sacrifice innovation, then they will work for the stat gains. That means Sacrifice has become a top tier innovation for a Homicidalist settlement. But you can also perform the trick with Choreia (Spidicules Innovation) by having the Homicidalist be the female survivor. Either the male survivor gains Harvestman (one of the best Fighting Arts due to movement being so strong) or they are devoured (killed) by the female survivor.

Also one would supplement this murder schedule by having Graves, because getting a refund on each death (double that if it is done in the showdown) is very good because you can apply that endeavor towards more killing or making new life.

A negative Dark Impulse has is when it turns up for players that haven't yet groked with how to keep population numbers healthy. While learning about population management is honestly one of the core settlement skills that players should develop, it isn't exciting, so it is often neglected. Murder itself causes players like this to start struggling and Homicidalism/Dark Impulse can tilt that further. This simply means that once again, the Gambler's Chest is not for newer players; if you're here and reading this you're probably not in that category, but I would like to restate that if you encounter someone new asking if they should jump into the Gambler's Chest without a good amount of reps in the original content then kindly discourage them from doing so!

Overall Dark Impulse in concert with the Neurosis: Murderer I find to be fine because Homicidalists have to navigate that treacherous philosophy book and that means there is a good risk vs. reward balance. However, Dark Impulse 3 on a non-Homicidalist survivor is another one of those whoopsies in game design. I kind of think that Dark Impulse 3 should have the text 'when you gain this philosophy you adopt the Homicidalism philosophy, replacing your current one... etc etc' because I've used Dark Impulse on other philosophy types and it's almost all upside, with very little downside for a player who can manage population numbers.

Psychopathy 1 & 2

• Type: Brain Damage reduction

• Stages: 2

• Observations Required: 8/6

• Advancement: When you suffer brain damage +1 observation/ When you suffer brain damage +1 observation

• Lumi Costs: 2/4

• Bonuses: Reduce Brain Damage at showdown by 1/ Reduce Brain Damage at showdown by 2 (both to minimum of 1)

• Parallels: Feather Shield

Psychopathy is a type of personality construct that is typified by a lack or reduction in remorse/empathy along with superficial charm and character traits that are lacking inhibition, exceptionally brash/brave/bold and self-centred. Its name has roots in the greek words of psyche and soul, used in this way the name roughly means a disease of the soul.

In fictional works often psychopathic individuals express in a way that has only a vague link to the academic concepts; it is one of the more notorious issues surrounding the pop culture portrayal of the psychopath along with the incredibly jarring and varied depictions given the label. A psychopath can be a con artist, a corporate executive, a serial killer, a career criminal, even a police forensic blood splatter analyst.

If you want a very good depiction of one, look no further than the chilling depiction of No Country for Old Men's Anton Chirgurh. Someone who very much could have at least the knowledges of Psychopathy and Void. An example of a REALLY poor pop culture character would be Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's Sherlock (the modern BBC production); but that show is trash of the highest order in almost any aspect and if you have not watched it I would highly recommend HBomber Guy's expert dismantling of the series (here), it's a great listen/watch like all of his work.

In game Psychopathy's best friend is of course the Immortal disorder; something that has become “tutorable” (guaranteed to get) via the showdown fight with the Crimson Crocodile. In fact, as an aside it is possible to cripple the AI deck for the Crocodile so badly that the monster becomes no threat, and then one can drink from the blood pool repeatedly until you decide to stop. The knowledge functions like the Phoenix's Feather Shield – which is a piece of gear I have come to appreciate more over time, but only when used alongside Immortal.

Psychopathy also combines with the Feather Shield, however for non-Immortals combining that shield with the level 2 Psychopathy is probably overkill against most monsters due to the floor on the reduction being 1. It is rare that monsters inflict four brain damage, Immortals on the other hand can and do take higher numbers because of the monster (physical) damage ceiling being much higher.

This is a useful utility/defensive tool and with insanity based gear like Phoenix Armor or during fights against the Crimson Crocodile the value increases even further. As such I have found Psychopathy to be an impressive quiet little workhorse with only one drawback, which is that stage 2 has an Epiphany rather than a traditional evolution. Epiphanies force themselves onto your knowledge selection rather than just evolving meaning that you have to replace one of your existing knowledges. If you build with a somewhat disposable knowledge in your set (easier when you have Romantic's Potentia Est II) that moment can have a lessened impact; so it is not horrendous, instead it is something to be aware of.

Void (Epiphany from Psychopathy 2)

• Type: Intimidation protection

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: N/A

• Advancement: N/A

• Lumi Costs: 6

• Bonuses: +2 torment, spend activation and knight to become unaffected by intimidate

• Parallels: None

Void is an interesting knowledge that is trying something unique; you can in essence take an entire act (or partial act plus survival action) at some point during the showdown and then gain protection from Intimidate actions for the rest of the showdown. There is a downside to this; you also lose the ability to gain knowledges, observations, disorders, survival or points of insanity. That means you do not simply click the button at the start of the showdown, instead you are rewarded for skillfully choosing when to activate Void. If you are in the situation where you do not need the positives (knowledge, observations, survival) or you will not be gaining any more, then you can trigger this and enjoy some really solid protection.

One of the neatest parts of Void is how you can use it to shut off the observations on a dangerous observation during the showdown; that means you've got all the positives that knowledge may bring, but no concern about the negatives.

Our dangerous observation knowledges that we can impact upon currently are Razor's Edge (more on that in the next entry here); Braggart and Better than this (Optimism) and the Champion Knowledges (which I'll touch on in the posts about that knowledge in the future). Dreamless Sleep from the Gambler cannot be disabled due to it triggering on departure. This means the value of Void will vary depending on what your other settlement philosophies are; a settlement with Optimism and Champion is going to benefit far more from Void than one with only Homicidalism.

Razor's Edge

• Type: Compensation for Nudity

• Stages: 1

• Observations Required: 2

• Advancement: Wound the monster +1

• Lumi Costs: 4

• Bonuses: While you have no armor points, attacks with melee weapons gain Devastating 1

• Parallels: None, though there are weapons with Devastating X in various types

So, I have not been particularly impressed with this one; it is a thematic win, but unless I've completely misunderstood this one, Devastating 1 is not worth the price paid here. While we get some synergy with Marrowism survivors and other “nude” builds like Leyline Walkers it is very hard to get excited about something that comes on weapons as standard.

Using this it always felt like the Devastating number was too low for the price you pay in gaining that Systemic Pressure. Now sure, Systemic Pressure is something we can get around with good play and gear grid design; but you have in essence someone who deals double wounds on their attacks in exchange for eventually becoming an automatic cloud of pink mist.

There are places where this trait is not so much of an issue, such as against Final Nemesis monsters, especially ones with the Audience trait where new survivors can march onto the showdown board after the death of a current battling survivor. These are kind of edge cases, and I must admit, I've worked quite hard to try and find an application for this knowledge beyond self-destructive builds and failed. The combination of weak effect, fast accumulation of Systemic Pressure (it's not even systemic pressure tokens) and high Lumi cost have made this one feel like it exists as a counter balance to how good Dark Impulse is.

There is a place where this starts to work and that is in concert with Void (above). Void prevents observation gains; so you can activate Void while having no armor points in order to utilise Razor's Edge without the risk of gaining the systemic pressure. This seems to be the intended design use and it looks like Homicidalism was very much designed with the idea that the survivor knowledge build will always be Homicidalism + Dark Impulse + Void + Razor's Edge.

We know that's not the case however; knowledges are often peeled apart and used across different philosophies because that's the exciting and interesting part of the system. Discovery of new interactions is a really sweet thing that can be a lot of fun. I simply cannot see a player wanting to use Void + Razor's Edge and filling up two knowledge slots outside of thematic or personal engagement reasons.

If you have any experiences that can shed light on profitable or powerful ways to utilise this beyond comboing with Void, please let me know in the comments!

Summary

I'd like to quickly note that if you love Homicidalism hunting the Dragon King increases the odds of getting Murder if you've not already drawn the settlement event card thanks to the Doppler Den hunt event.

I cannot give Homicidalism the title of the best philosophy in the game because of two main reasons, first of all, it is an inherently imbalanced philosophy due to allowing non-Homicidalist survivors gain Dark Impulse and secondly it is almost a one trick pony; while Psychopathy and Void do have broader applications applications and offer some value to the survivors that have them, they are left behind in power by an immense amount when compared to Dark Impulse which is so pushed and crazy that unless you make a determined effort to not break the knowledge it will simply distort the game's play patterns to bend around it.

So Homicidalism when compared to a more well rounded powerhouse like Romanticism falls down due to having that combination of situational and brokenly strong. However, do not think I am underrating Homicidalism; it is without a doubt the most busted philosophy in the game because of that Dark Impulse interaction, instead I find it to be pushed in design to the point of creating somewhat unhealthy and repetitive play patterns when it turns up in a campaign. In contrast, Potentia Est II (my actual pick for the best knowledge in the game) is so appealing to me because it is an enabler that lets other knowledges shine. While I will push the game systems to see how things break, if they break in a way that trivialises parts of the game I won't repeat that pattern in the future. Fortunately; Kingdom Death: Monster is a cooperative game, played in a casual environment, it is not a competitive, so you don't have to to the busted things if you don't want to. The sticky point here is given how one dimensional Homicidalism is; that can be tricky to avoid without rapidly disposing of Homicidalists when they turn up in the first place (and even then Dark Impulse is already lurking in the Knowledge deck like an apple on the Tree of Knowledge).

My honest opinion is that this philosophy is the first lead candidate for a rework in the “Mythical Card Pack” that will probably arrive sometime in the future and update the game to 1.7. The Knowledge is a solid thematic expression of a troubling aspect of humanity, but when you get to the mechanical side of things I find it unsatisfying and one dimensional. The play pattern often turns into dumping all your stats onto one survivor, especially when you have Survival of the Fittest is really easy to execute and results in a face roll end game (except when the King eats the Homicidalist on its introductory story event, that's freaking perfect karma) and the downsides that are intended to balance Dark Impulse can be smoothly sidestepped.

With a bit of adjustments to make Razor's Edge worth bothering about (Devastating 2 is a good start) and something, anything, to stop the stat-boost conga line that Dark Impulse inevitable pushes you towards. I think Homicidalism could be interesting and engaging the way that the Void knowledge is when combined with Champion Knowledges.

So yeah, not the best philosophy, but certainly the most powerful individual knowledge level with Dark Impulse III. Maybe too powerful.