Confronting Angelic Horrors with Community and Eldritch Automata

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #183. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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Wide but shallow.

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I almost bailed on Neon Genesis Evangelion. Most of us were probably tempted, at some point or another, for a whole angelic host of reasons. For me the problem wasn’t really the anime, which I was catching up on via a local movie theater release of the then-relatively-new Evangelion: 1.0 You Are Alone after a probably common experience of seeing some on a tape from Blockbuster or something and then never really coming across the rest, and then you know, moving on.

But a small theater release, as a condensed movie? What a dream. Sign me up. Had I known that it would be an extra-amateur Rocky Horror Picture Show “interactive” experience, at least with what seemed like the entire balcony yelling at the movie (well, mostly Shinji I suppose) and generally having a good time on their alternate plane, I would have graciously demurred. The spillage of their one-sided interaction fully tainted my timeline though, and others more prone to action took it upon themselves to complain, and the balcony fun was reduced to a simmer, though the heat remained on.

My strength was summoned however, and having completed a watch of the original series, the OVA and the rest of the “remake” movies as they were released (all in the comfort of my own home) led me to the light of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Just watching this series is an act of will and perseverance through depression and anime bullshit, to be honest, but those who come through the other side are changed, burdened with knowledge, weighed down with empathy. Big robots are still cool as hell too.

All of which is to say, I don’t know that I was really looking for an Evangelion-style roleplaying game experience, given the themes of the original, but having checked out Eldritch Automata, it may actually be my turn to yell at Shinji.

I spoke with Gehenna Gaming’s Creative Director Nick Francia at PAX Unplugged, who is leading development of Eldritch Automata. I was initially drawn in by the press release about the RPG, which looked fascinating, and also partly because Gehenna Gaming has put together some great RPG sessions at PAX Unplugged and I trusted what they were up to. Plus, while the Evangelion influences were unmistakable, I was interested to learn if Eldritch Automata was more than its influences.

Nick quickly gave me the pitch – part power fantasy, part horror, Eldritch Automata puts the players in giant mechs to fight impossible odds and dwindling sanity. The Automata themselves, being piloted by the player, are siphoning their energy at the same time, so it’s a war of attrition. But neither defeat nor victory are assured, and players will pilot missions while returning to their regular human concerns as well to try and navigate these challenges. Death is constantly on call, and the best pilots know when to step away in order to manage their relationships, which are just as vital as any payload.

Nick tells me that Eldritch Automata is as much about taking care of others, and your community, as it is about saving the world. His intention here is to “gamify radical compassion,” a goal worth striving for and one that this game appears to be close to reaching. And while there’s plenty of roleplaying opportunity, Eldritch Automata also offers a low-skill-floor but high-skill-ceiling ruleset for big robot combat. And of the many stats in the game, one of the most important to manage is “ego” – once a player has depleted themselves completely, the Automata takes control, going berserk and possibly doing great harm to more than just the pilot’s enemies.

Throughout all this your table will be confronting husks, horrifying manifestations of dead humans, as well as interpersonal challenges and beings that exist beyond our comprehension. There’s a quick rules guide available now, with many backers already contributing characters and providing feedback for further refinement as the game closes in on release, and Nick is also creating a campaign book full of scenarios to explore and tools to build your own.

Ultimately, Nick wants Eldritch Automata to be a fun, thrilling experience, but one that also challenges some of our assumptions about what it means to be truly alone – a terrifying way to live. Better to bring a group to the table, craft some memorable stories, to give a shit about this post-apocalyptic world. On all planes and timelines.

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Levi Rubeck is a critic and poet currently living in the Boston area. Check his links at levirubeck.com.