Let’s examine the Evil Dead films and series as a TTRPG using In Nomine as the game system. In Nomine is a role-playing game designed by Derek Pearcy and published in 1997 by @Steve Jackson Games. You can learn more about Hellraiser here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Dead and you can buy In Nomine products here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/12199/Steve-Jackson-Games/subcategory/28908_30775/In-Nomine?affiliate_id=50797
About In Nomine
Written by Derek Pearcy + Illustrated by Dan Smith
Edited by Jeff Koke, Steve Jackson, and Susan Pinsonneault
Cover art by John Zeleznik (first printing) and Christopher Shy (second printing)
In Nomine is a modern roleplaying game in which the players take the part of celestial beings – angels and demons – as they struggle for control of humanity and themselves. The celestials, powerful though they may be, are merely pawns in a much larger game being played by their Superiors, the Archangels and Demon Princes. Based on the best-selling French RPG by the wonderfully diabolical Croc!
In Nomine won the Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Roleplaying Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1997.
Transcript
Cold Open
I’ll Swallow Your Soul!
Intro
Welcome to Eviliv3, the live media commentary show that answers the question, would it be a bad thing for me to read this passage from the Necronomicon? Subscribe if you’re new to the channel, because today we are continuing our In Nomine series with this episode, Styles of Play: Evil Dead.
Discussion
Evil Dead is one of those seminal horror franchises that started relatively serious then degenerated to silliness, but never lost an audience member in the transition. With the latest two film iterations, it returned to its true horror roots, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. As a franchise it has a lot going for it. Deadites being summoned from the folly of man to possess their bodies and bring the end of humanity. I can’t say that I disagree with their goals, seeing where humanity has gone in just my lifetime, but I digress. The franchise began with a short film and spun off into five feature films with a sixth in development, a series with three complete seasons, ten video games, comic spinoffs and franchise crossovers from three different publishers, a documentary and a musical!
As you can see fans of this franchise can’t seem to get enough, and while you can wrap it all up to the lovable idiot-hero Ash Williams as portrayed by Bruce Campbell, I think it’s much more than that. It references the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, first created by H. P. Lovecraft in 1924 from his short story “The Hound”. This evil tome bound in human skin and penned with human blood is capable of summoning demons from Hell. When intellectuals and idiots get a hold of it, it is all too tempting not to read from the book that seems to always be wrapped in a message saying DO NOT READ. It’s the proverbial big red button that someone you don’t know says not to touch. You will inevitably touch it, and unleash the Deadites to possess and brutally murder you. So why hasn’t there been a true tabletop role-playing game based on the Evil Dead franchise yet? Well, there was one based on Army of Darkness released by Eden Studios, Inc. on October 31, 2005. I have a three part actual play on this channel that you can check out. And while the mass combat within it is noteworthy, the game mechanics are clunky at best.
Enter In Nomine. What are the elements of Evil Dead which make it entertaining? First, the horror. This is easily covered by the Game Master and Player Characters, but you could also use In Nomine’s built in Dissonance and Ethereal Mind Hits rules to portray the horror. The more Dissonance you generate and/or Mind Hits you take, the more horrified you become. While Dissonance is acting against your nature, doing things like summoning the dead to possess your body certainly seems to be an act against your nature, or self interest at least! Next we can consider the Necronomicon. This is easily portrayed as a Celestial Artifact, or Relic. By reciting passages from the Book of the Dead, you perform a Song, or more accurately, it could be an Ethereal Artifact or Talisman, which grants you the Sorcerous skill of Summoning in the form of a Ritual. Finally lets talk about the deadite in the room, Demons. Now this is on the nose. I know the Evil Dead films reference Deadites as spirits of the dead, and the series presented demons, but this could simply be a misunderstanding with the use of In Nomine as a game system. The Deadites can be either Kyriotates, the Choir of Angels, or Shedim, the Demonic Band, their infernal counterparts. Remember Angels are just as brutal as Demons, they murder babies and lay waste to whole cities on behalf of their God in the Bible. These two celestial entities actually possess mortals when brought to the corporeal realm, or Earth. And while the Evil Dead series presented spirits and Demons, well we have both of those in spades in the In Nomine Tabletop Role-Playing Game.
So all that’s left is to address the Time Travel aspect and Mass combat, IF you want to deal with the Army of Darkness scenario. This is not addressed in the In Nomine game, so you will have to homebrew it yourself, but there are a lot of examples you could pull from to fill this niche, including the existing Army of Darkness Tabletop Role-Playing Game. In my opinion, the best way to brand a game as Evil Dead would be to have the Players be Mortal, and become Soldiers through the course of the campaign, as Ash and the other survivors did in the films and series. Keep your story isolated. If the cabin in the woods approach is too on the nose, try bringing it to a modern city with a natural disaster or blackout. You could even take the story in a post apocalyptic or prehistory direction, which is still in the Evil Dead wheelhouse. The bottom line is survival. Pitting humans against weaker demonlings gives them a chance at fighting back, but the odds are stacked against them. Their success in getting out of the scenario alive will wholly depend on their ingenuity and good dice rolls, while leaning heavily on role-playing.
I can say after having run a three part Army of Darkness game, that In Nomine would make a perfect game system, much better than the Unisystem Eden Studios presented as it deals with the three realms that all Evil Dead stories seem to present, Corporeal, Ethereal and Celestial. Not to mention the game mechanics for mortals to fight back against ethereals and celestials. But you could also easily be the deadites, trying to fight the human survivors with In Nomine. Again, you would need to begin as weaker demonlings for a true challenge, but if you faced off against sorcerers and soldiers, a beginning demon might be just the ticket. I would highly recommend playing an Evil Dead style game with In Nomine, as I plan to do on this channel.
Outro
Thank you for watching today’s In Nomine episode. Subscribe and ring the bell if you are new to the channel. Don’t forget to click the like button and comment to let others learn about this award winning role-playing game and this channel.
And as always, remember that evil spelled backwards is live, so get out there and Be Evil!