Triskaidekaphilia
Sep. 6th, 2004 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robotnik2004It's Labo(u)r Day! (For a few more minutes.) And tomorrow is the first day of my new job!
Some of you with keen eyes have already figured this out, but L now has her own LiveJournal, under the user name![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersource. She chose this user name, of course, in honor of Paper Source, the supplier of high end stationery and other fancy paper goods that certain artistically-inclined females find more addictive than Nazi crank. I couldn't convince her to go with any of my noms de cute for her, like cuticle or cuddlefish. But papersource is more than appropriate. L has been known to hit the joint with some of her rowdy coworkers after a couple of after-school martinis and just turn the sucker out of glassine envelopes and decoupage. Anyway, she is of course as witty and delightful online as off, and I encourage you to visit her LJ, Friend her, and shower her with the love and comments she deserves. I do hope this new hobby will survive the onslaught of back to school, but if it doesn't, c'est la vie. No impugning of L's stick-to-it-ive-ness intended, just that it's the day before school starts, and I've seen it before: September hits these poor teachers like Paul Anka's mighty hammer. We shall see.
But! L is not the only one the cool weather has imbued with super human energy and an illusory sense that all things are possible. Here I commemorate the last day of summer and perhaps too many cups of coffee with one of those ever popular "Games I'd Like To Run" posts.
A baker's dozen of shoot-from-the-hip game ideas, of varying seriousness:
Battle Without Honor or Humanity.
This is still near the top of my list: Charnel Gods in the world of Chinese wuxia. Take up the Fell Weapons, young warriors, and scratch all those Hero / Iron Monkey / Crouching Tiger itches. The Emperor commands it. If your Humanity drops to zero, you get to destroy the world! System: Charnel Gods, natch.
Father of Night.
Another one I've mentioned before. Soviet Delta Green Godlike Hellboy game, set behind the Iron Curtain in the dark night of the Cold War. Black on black secret supers noir. Poses the question: who is scarier, Stalin or Yog-Sothoth? System: Godlike, I guess, unless Ghosts or Wild Talents ever see the light of day.
The Empire Never Ended.
A historical game set in Imperial Rome, but Rome seen through the eyes, darkly, of Philip K. Dick. Is the Emperor an ancient alien supercomputer? Is the Senate full of simulacra? Are we stacked like cordwood in the Catacombs, only dreaming of Rome's grandeur? And who are the Confederacy of the Golden Fish? System: I should check out Fulminata, maybe.
Weird Gulf War.
Gaming the War on Terruh is really not as terrible an idea as it first seemed to me when they rushed out those d20 modules like "The Lost Caverns of Osama!" and "Descent into the Depths of Saddam!" in the aftermath of 9/11. Especially if you pile on the weirdness, in the tradition of the recent Weird WW2 and Weird Vietnam genres. So I would start with source material like Three Kings and Jarhead and Fahrenheit 9/11, then start dropping black science and desert magic and maybe even some bad-ass djinn. (Grant Morrison's take on Islamic UFOs in the upcoming comic Vimanarama will no doubt offer useful fodder too.)
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
I've always wanted to do a game involving Native Americans, but of course I'm too addicted to laser-sharking to do it straight. The mental picture that I can't shake is one of Apache or Comanche braves, but on Mad Max bikes and dune buggies, chasing a thundering herd of monster trucks across the Great American Desert. (Is this from a Kim Newman story? Or Howard Waldrop? Or just extrapolation frommemento_mori's OctaNe?) So, yeah. The whole post-contact Plains Indians mystique: counting coup and the ghost dance and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, but with monster truck pulls and car-eating robot dinosaurs and Car Wars style autodueling swapped in for horse and bison.
InSpectres 1889.
(Aka Ghostbusters By Gaslight.) People never seem to get tired of Victorian gaming. Here we cross the deadpan humor of InSpectres or Ghostbusters with the original wacky ghost hunters. No, I don't mean the Ghostbusters cartoon with the ape. I mean the real life mediums and table rappers and ectoplasm horkers of late nineteenth-century spiritualism. It's a natural fit, really. Gilded Age ghost tech was every bit as wacky as anything Egon ever dreamed up, and the "struggling start-up" aspect of modern-day InSpectres would translate to Horatio Alger-era hucksterism without a hitch. System: InSpectres, but with Tarot cards or snuff boxes or something. Yeah.
kill puppies for satan.
ok so its not an idea its just the title of a game i got sheesh get off my damn back i just really want to run this sometime is that so wrong? system: god isn't it obvious you're such an idiot sometimes duh earth to you
Error in BOOT Sector.
People are singing the praises of the new edition of Paranoia. I have the playtest PDF and a longish post for the 20' By 20' Room brewing, but I haven't laid hands on the printed edition yet. Anyway, there's a Paranoia mission I want to run, probably a long oneshot (maybe it could be done on a weekend afternoon and evening?). It's semi-Straight Paranoia XP, about an aspect of Alpha Complex that the game usually takes for granted and what happens when [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] gets [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Yeah, yeah, that's the oldest Paranoia gag in the book. But if I just told you the premise it would [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] the whole thing. System: Um, Paranoia. XP. (PS: Idle thought: have any Paranoia fans registered the URL thesmokingboot.com?)
Sorcerer Incorporated.
I floated this on the Forge ages ago: a Sorcerer game of cutthroat 21st century hypercapitalism where "Sorcerers" are high-powered corporate raiders and business gurus, "Demons" are (sentient?) corporations; and "Humanity" is whatever part of your life you have not yet sold to the market. If I'd gotten the job at Harvard Biz School I would have written this up as a Sorcerer mini-supplement to ease my conscience. Maybe I still should.
Shiva 3000.
This is a Canadian sci-fi novel I read this summer: a lush re-imagining (sort of—"cannibalization" might be a more appropriate word) of Hindu mythology in science fiction terms. The book could conceivably be irritating to actual Hindus (Apu: "There are 700 million of us." Rev. Lovejoy: "Aw, that's super.") but it is respectful and ultimately deeper than it may at first appear. And it's fast-moving and filled with gorgeous wacked-out visuals, and it contained more "wow, wouldn't this make a cool RPG?" moments per page than any sci-fi or fantasy novel I've read in the last ten years.
MetaDungeonCrawler
It's an old joke, but even though I've seen it in gamer cartoons and magazines since the early 1980s, I don't think I've ever seen this particular gag made into a game: a D&D world where all the inhabitants are entirely aware of the rules and tropes and clichés of D&D. Characters know and chat about their levels and their hit points; "what's your alignment?" is a pick-up line in the ubiquitous taverns; sages pore over the Monster Manuals and heroes quest after new sourcebooks. System: D&D, of course, or, just to be perverse, Tunnels and Trolls.
Return of the Red Madness: The Lemurian Candidate.
I've been teasingeditswlonghair with this for three years now, but the convergence of Sky Captain and the Manchurian Candidate remake this summer put it back in my mind. The Red Madness was, you may recall, my post-War of the Worlds sci-fi Adventure! game, set in the Astoundingly Far-Off Year of 1963. In the sequel, retro rocket pulp collides with Cold War paranoia and worse: the Rat Pack. Oh, and Nancy Reagan. System: Adventure!
Daisy the Vampire Slayer.
Yes, as in Daisy Duke. The Hellmouth comes to Hazzard County, friends and neighbors. With Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer. System: Buffy, obviously, or Prime Time Adventures.
Some of you with keen eyes have already figured this out, but L now has her own LiveJournal, under the user name
papersource. She chose this user name, of course, in honor of Paper Source, the supplier of high end stationery and other fancy paper goods that certain artistically-inclined females find more addictive than Nazi crank. I couldn't convince her to go with any of my noms de cute for her, like cuticle or cuddlefish. But papersource is more than appropriate. L has been known to hit the joint with some of her rowdy coworkers after a couple of after-school martinis and just turn the sucker out of glassine envelopes and decoupage. Anyway, she is of course as witty and delightful online as off, and I encourage you to visit her LJ, Friend her, and shower her with the love and comments she deserves. I do hope this new hobby will survive the onslaught of back to school, but if it doesn't, c'est la vie. No impugning of L's stick-to-it-ive-ness intended, just that it's the day before school starts, and I've seen it before: September hits these poor teachers like Paul Anka's mighty hammer. We shall see.But! L is not the only one the cool weather has imbued with super human energy and an illusory sense that all things are possible. Here I commemorate the last day of summer and perhaps too many cups of coffee with one of those ever popular "Games I'd Like To Run" posts.
A baker's dozen of shoot-from-the-hip game ideas, of varying seriousness:
Battle Without Honor or Humanity.
This is still near the top of my list: Charnel Gods in the world of Chinese wuxia. Take up the Fell Weapons, young warriors, and scratch all those Hero / Iron Monkey / Crouching Tiger itches. The Emperor commands it. If your Humanity drops to zero, you get to destroy the world! System: Charnel Gods, natch.
Father of Night.
Another one I've mentioned before. Soviet Delta Green Godlike Hellboy game, set behind the Iron Curtain in the dark night of the Cold War. Black on black secret supers noir. Poses the question: who is scarier, Stalin or Yog-Sothoth? System: Godlike, I guess, unless Ghosts or Wild Talents ever see the light of day.
The Empire Never Ended.
A historical game set in Imperial Rome, but Rome seen through the eyes, darkly, of Philip K. Dick. Is the Emperor an ancient alien supercomputer? Is the Senate full of simulacra? Are we stacked like cordwood in the Catacombs, only dreaming of Rome's grandeur? And who are the Confederacy of the Golden Fish? System: I should check out Fulminata, maybe.
Weird Gulf War.
Gaming the War on Terruh is really not as terrible an idea as it first seemed to me when they rushed out those d20 modules like "The Lost Caverns of Osama!" and "Descent into the Depths of Saddam!" in the aftermath of 9/11. Especially if you pile on the weirdness, in the tradition of the recent Weird WW2 and Weird Vietnam genres. So I would start with source material like Three Kings and Jarhead and Fahrenheit 9/11, then start dropping black science and desert magic and maybe even some bad-ass djinn. (Grant Morrison's take on Islamic UFOs in the upcoming comic Vimanarama will no doubt offer useful fodder too.)
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
I've always wanted to do a game involving Native Americans, but of course I'm too addicted to laser-sharking to do it straight. The mental picture that I can't shake is one of Apache or Comanche braves, but on Mad Max bikes and dune buggies, chasing a thundering herd of monster trucks across the Great American Desert. (Is this from a Kim Newman story? Or Howard Waldrop? Or just extrapolation from
memento_mori's OctaNe?) So, yeah. The whole post-contact Plains Indians mystique: counting coup and the ghost dance and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, but with monster truck pulls and car-eating robot dinosaurs and Car Wars style autodueling swapped in for horse and bison.InSpectres 1889.
(Aka Ghostbusters By Gaslight.) People never seem to get tired of Victorian gaming. Here we cross the deadpan humor of InSpectres or Ghostbusters with the original wacky ghost hunters. No, I don't mean the Ghostbusters cartoon with the ape. I mean the real life mediums and table rappers and ectoplasm horkers of late nineteenth-century spiritualism. It's a natural fit, really. Gilded Age ghost tech was every bit as wacky as anything Egon ever dreamed up, and the "struggling start-up" aspect of modern-day InSpectres would translate to Horatio Alger-era hucksterism without a hitch. System: InSpectres, but with Tarot cards or snuff boxes or something. Yeah.
kill puppies for satan.
ok so its not an idea its just the title of a game i got sheesh get off my damn back i just really want to run this sometime is that so wrong? system: god isn't it obvious you're such an idiot sometimes duh earth to you
Error in BOOT Sector.
People are singing the praises of the new edition of Paranoia. I have the playtest PDF and a longish post for the 20' By 20' Room brewing, but I haven't laid hands on the printed edition yet. Anyway, there's a Paranoia mission I want to run, probably a long oneshot (maybe it could be done on a weekend afternoon and evening?). It's semi-Straight Paranoia XP, about an aspect of Alpha Complex that the game usually takes for granted and what happens when [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] gets [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS]. Yeah, yeah, that's the oldest Paranoia gag in the book. But if I just told you the premise it would [DELETED FOR SECURITY REASONS] the whole thing. System: Um, Paranoia. XP. (PS: Idle thought: have any Paranoia fans registered the URL thesmokingboot.com?)
Sorcerer Incorporated.
I floated this on the Forge ages ago: a Sorcerer game of cutthroat 21st century hypercapitalism where "Sorcerers" are high-powered corporate raiders and business gurus, "Demons" are (sentient?) corporations; and "Humanity" is whatever part of your life you have not yet sold to the market. If I'd gotten the job at Harvard Biz School I would have written this up as a Sorcerer mini-supplement to ease my conscience. Maybe I still should.
Shiva 3000.
This is a Canadian sci-fi novel I read this summer: a lush re-imagining (sort of—"cannibalization" might be a more appropriate word) of Hindu mythology in science fiction terms. The book could conceivably be irritating to actual Hindus (Apu: "There are 700 million of us." Rev. Lovejoy: "Aw, that's super.") but it is respectful and ultimately deeper than it may at first appear. And it's fast-moving and filled with gorgeous wacked-out visuals, and it contained more "wow, wouldn't this make a cool RPG?" moments per page than any sci-fi or fantasy novel I've read in the last ten years.
MetaDungeonCrawler
It's an old joke, but even though I've seen it in gamer cartoons and magazines since the early 1980s, I don't think I've ever seen this particular gag made into a game: a D&D world where all the inhabitants are entirely aware of the rules and tropes and clichés of D&D. Characters know and chat about their levels and their hit points; "what's your alignment?" is a pick-up line in the ubiquitous taverns; sages pore over the Monster Manuals and heroes quest after new sourcebooks. System: D&D, of course, or, just to be perverse, Tunnels and Trolls.
Return of the Red Madness: The Lemurian Candidate.
I've been teasing
editswlonghair with this for three years now, but the convergence of Sky Captain and the Manchurian Candidate remake this summer put it back in my mind. The Red Madness was, you may recall, my post-War of the Worlds sci-fi Adventure! game, set in the Astoundingly Far-Off Year of 1963. In the sequel, retro rocket pulp collides with Cold War paranoia and worse: the Rat Pack. Oh, and Nancy Reagan. System: Adventure!Daisy the Vampire Slayer.
Yes, as in Daisy Duke. The Hellmouth comes to Hazzard County, friends and neighbors. With Waylon Jennings as the Balladeer. System: Buffy, obviously, or Prime Time Adventures.
