Retro RPG: Violence, the Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed

        Violence: The Role-Playing Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed is a short, 32-page role-playing game written by Greg Costikyan under the pseudonym "Designer X" and published by Hogshead Publishing in 1999 as part of its New Style line of games.
        Violence is a satire of conventional dungeon-bashing games, set in a contemporary metropolis where player characters dash from room to room killing the occupants and stealing their belongings. In a style reminiscent of Mad, it is relentlessly user-hostile and uses a system where the user can buy experience points for cash from the designer or publisher. Despite innovative game design and exhaustive lists of equipment and weapons (including both belt and orbital sanders), monster types and possible scenarios, it is largely and deliberately unplayable because of an exhaustive rule-set. The rule-set provides information on a range of things related to killing. Weapons, combat styles, and the like are intricately detailed, considering the short length of the volume. Violence is a rant against the traditional styles of Dungeons & Dragons, MMORPGs, and the Grand Theft Auto series, written to simultaneously annoy, enrage and challenge the reader. As a game, it is of little value, but is useful as an insight into the mindset of its author and an indictment of an endemic style of role-playing.