The Devil and Blind Joe
Jul. 23rd, 2003 04:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004We played Unknown USA again on Monday night. I thought it was a good, powerful session, thanks to my fine players, especially ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
editswlonghair, whose characterization of the hellbound blues man Blind Joe Biscuit has gotten so damn good since John & I decided to kill him off! He was good before, mind you, but now I just keep dumping bad shit on him, and John just runs with it, in a performance that is by turns funny, dark, and sad.
But the night did have a weird and not entirely healthy energy to it, as one player noted. Part of that was some sharing the spotlight issues, I think. But also things got a little heavier in tone than I expected. I actually put the Hell House in to lighten things up, if you can believe it, to make fun of all this talk of devils and final judgments and Hell. Things got a little creepy and it ended up being the second time in this game that I've squicked myself out a bit (the first being the infamous crackhouse in New Orleans—damn! it just occurred to me I should have called that crackhouse the House of the Rising Sun!).
Anyway,bryant has now put his fantastic summaries of the game online, and they're all here (in reverse order). Those playing have already seen the "Dear Brother" letters, of course. I offer the link for my non-local and even my non-gaming friends. Yeah, I know, first-person narratives of somebody else's RPG campaign, not exactly the top of everyone's must-read list. But take a peek. Bryant writes them exceedingly well and the game is, if I do say so myself, kind of cool.
...
Semi-related: I made CDs for the players in my game (cough**I'm such a geek**cough) of all the rootsy Americana music that had inspired it—James McMurtry and Drive-By Truckers and Robert Johnson and The Band and so on. If you've got a taste for that y'allternative shit I highly recommend Boot Liquor, an internet radio station from the fine folks at Soma FM. Soma also brings you Secret Agent (swank spy-fi) and Groove Salad (ambient beats and grooves), both of which are great 21st century muzak to work to. Got Groove Salad on right now.
editswlonghair, whose characterization of the hellbound blues man Blind Joe Biscuit has gotten so damn good since John & I decided to kill him off! He was good before, mind you, but now I just keep dumping bad shit on him, and John just runs with it, in a performance that is by turns funny, dark, and sad.But the night did have a weird and not entirely healthy energy to it, as one player noted. Part of that was some sharing the spotlight issues, I think. But also things got a little heavier in tone than I expected. I actually put the Hell House in to lighten things up, if you can believe it, to make fun of all this talk of devils and final judgments and Hell. Things got a little creepy and it ended up being the second time in this game that I've squicked myself out a bit (the first being the infamous crackhouse in New Orleans—damn! it just occurred to me I should have called that crackhouse the House of the Rising Sun!).
Anyway,
bryant has now put his fantastic summaries of the game online, and they're all here (in reverse order). Those playing have already seen the "Dear Brother" letters, of course. I offer the link for my non-local and even my non-gaming friends. Yeah, I know, first-person narratives of somebody else's RPG campaign, not exactly the top of everyone's must-read list. But take a peek. Bryant writes them exceedingly well and the game is, if I do say so myself, kind of cool....
Semi-related: I made CDs for the players in my game (cough**I'm such a geek**cough) of all the rootsy Americana music that had inspired it—James McMurtry and Drive-By Truckers and Robert Johnson and The Band and so on. If you've got a taste for that y'allternative shit I highly recommend Boot Liquor, an internet radio station from the fine folks at Soma FM. Soma also brings you Secret Agent (swank spy-fi) and Groove Salad (ambient beats and grooves), both of which are great 21st century muzak to work to. Got Groove Salad on right now.
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no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 01:27 pm (UTC)What spotlight issues were you feeling?
And the Hell House was supposed to lighten things up? I think you probably should have avoided the bdsm copromancers then.
CD errors
Date: 2003-07-23 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 04:47 pm (UTC)LOL. You may have a point there.
Creepazoid
Date: 2003-07-23 01:42 pm (UTC)The scene where he was trying to convince Angie to help him with Redemption Day was particularly tough to watch, on a couple of levels. The entire group had been thrown back together at high speed, without time to realign and figure out how we were going to feel about Joe (not to mention how Joe was going to feel about us). It wasn't unrealistic, by any means, and I don't object to fast-paced events, but I'm not sure we had IC time to make any decisions of such magnitude.
Which worked out very well in that we decided to take him along with us. It's going to be tense but it was the right move; any decision about helping or leaving him would have been over-sudden. Watch as we foil your plans...
Thanks for the warm fuzzies, too, and I second the praise of Blind Joe Biscuit. Although really, I'm hella impressed by everyone in the game, without exception.
Oh, and on creepy plots:
Last night, in Brent's game, we culminated with a visit to an ice-bound ship full of corpses; as it turned out, they'd run out of food and started eating each other. We found the obligatory single survivor, who was of course utterly mad. It's been a creepy RP /week/.
Re: Creepazoid
Date: 2003-07-23 01:50 pm (UTC)I'm not sure we had IC time to make any decisions of such magnitude.
---
You may not have much time, because Joe knows he's sinking fast... between not drinking and pulling a Dorian Grey on y'all, and the fact that once the Man gets wind of what Joe's trying to do his song, his time on earth is rapidly dwindling... He's got a lot to put right in a very short time... I'm gonna be playing the old man like a freight train from here on out... hurtling to the end of the track...
Re: Creepazoid
Date: 2003-07-23 01:59 pm (UTC)(Except Angie, who will become famous and die on a beach in Hawaii when she's 89.)
Re: Creepazoid
Date: 2003-07-23 05:11 pm (UTC)Sweet. That sounds like a groovy game.
And just to clarify: I wasn't complaining about the creepiness of Monday night. I love creepiness. My post was just amused that I hadn't expected things to go the way they did.
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 01:42 pm (UTC)Knowing that your character's time is running out is very liberating. I had a great time. Wish I could make it to the game more often. But then again, all this mystico-religious-screwball mumbojumbo is just plain weird and freaks me out most of the time. I think I shall sever all contact with this gaming group and take a nice hot shower now... ;)
::cough:: I'm a bigger geek ::cough:: I entered your soundtrack into the CDDB-- so Bryant, if you play that disc via iTunes you'll get all the artists and track names... ::cough:: Looser ::gak::
no subject
Date: 2003-07-23 01:54 pm (UTC)Yeah, I agree regarding time running out as a liberating factor. It's the same thing that can make one-shots so awesome.
Secret Agent on Soma FM
Date: 2003-07-23 02:56 pm (UTC)Rob, you gotta use this cat as an NPC in UUSA
Date: 2003-07-24 08:00 am (UTC)Entry.
Date: 2003-08-14 01:14 am (UTC)A.