Treasure Type E

[robotnik2004]

"OK: any historic figure."
"I'd fight Gandhi."
"Good answer."
"How about you?"
"Lincoln."
"Lincoln?"
"Big guy, big reach. Skinny guys fight 'til they're burger."

So Clinton Nixon and Vincent Baker have been "interviewing" each other in a thread at Fair Game—I put scare quotes around "interviewing" because it looks suspiciously like two friends just having a fun, free-ranging conversation—and one of them asked the other who their dream gaming group from history would be. They both had great answers:

Clincent: I'd like to play a game of Dogs in the Vineyard with Thomas Jefferson, Mae West, Wyatt Earp, Mark Twain, and Ambrose Bierce. Twain's the GM, of course. Jefferson's all "the-what-the-what" when he finds out what happened in the western US. "A theocratic governorship? Nonsensical fantasy!" And we all laugh, and Mae's character shoots someone in the face and then she winks at me across the table.

Vinton: We're playing My Life with Master. It's me, Jesus, Salvador Dali, and Christopher Robin Milne (as an adult), with Michael S. Miller GMing. Jesus gets really into it, he's all like "yessss masssster" and rolling his eyes wildly, but Michael makes Salvador Dali cry. Christopher Robin Milne OWNS the horror revealed.

I especially like that "of course" Twain's the GM. Like, duh.

I'll have to think about who my dream gaming group would be. Some of you have already heard my reverie about Elvis Presley's Jungle Room at Graceland, and how it is the Platonic Ideal of the 1970s rec room, and how certain I am that if Elvis had lived only a few more years he would have played D&D there with the Memphis Mafia, because that is so clearly what the room is built for. But it wouldn't have been a dream game, it would have been lame as hell, because Elvis wouldn't DM, he'd get Sonny West or somebody to do it, and Sonny would just totally kiss up to Elvis and give his character 18/00 Strength and 18/00 Charisma and tons of magic items and every other dungeon room would just be elf girls in white cotton panties.

I'm posting a lot, huh? You might think that means I have no work to do... but really it means I have lots of work that I don't want to do. I want somebody to "interview" me!

Comments

[head58.livejournal.com]

Okay, Dr. MacD, let's start off light:

When you die and get to heaven (assuming x,y,z, blah blah blah), what's the first thing you want to say to God?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Serious answer? (As serious as I can be, not really believing in God.) "Thanks. For everything." Literally. Because if there is a God, what other posture makes any sense other than humility and gratitude?

But if I got to ask questions, they would be:
1. OMG you exist WTF?
2. Why evil/suffering, that whole deal.
3. How does Samurai Jack eventually defeat Aku?

My deep theological question for you: How come I get two emails from each of your LJ comments, but nobody elses? Or failing that, the question you just asked me.

[head58.livejournal.com]

The response to your first question is "because there was a typo in the first comment I posted, so I deletd and reposted". Such are my mysterious ways.

As to your second, I'd be interested in why he's pursuing the hands-off management style when things are clearly not going very well. Also, I want to know how it all ends. My geek answer is that I'd want to say "roll for initative", but I stole that from tfbretz. Plus, I bet He cheats and only likes d20.

Okay, next question: what's your earliest geek-related memory?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

There's more going on than just that - I got doubles of Mike's post and my reply to him just doubled too. Damn your inscrutability.

I bet He cheats and only likes d20.
Just like Elvis.

What's your earliest geek-related memory?
Depends, obviously, on def'n of "geek-related" - what memories do I have that aren't geek related?

I remember seeing Star Wars in '77 (I'd have been 6) and then seeing it again a week later with a different friend and having to explain what was going on. That there's the incipient geekiness.

Oh no, earlier than that: I wrote a letter to Spiderman! Not to Marvel Comics, but to Spiderman himself (c/o the Hamilton Spectator, the local paper that carried the wretched newspaper strip). Damn, I wish I could remember what I asked him. I think I enclosed a picture of him (basically a stick figure scribbled over to simulate the webbing on the costume). And I got a form letter back, but it wasn't from Spiderman, I think it was from Stan Lee. Crushing disappointment.

And I think I remember the first time I saw the live-action Batman TV series. The end of the episode came and Batman and Robin were totally caught in a deathtrap and then WHAT? TO BE CONTINUED? SAME BAT-TIME SAME BAT-CHANNEL? I probably peed my footed jammies in excitement and dismay.

I was far too Canadian to answer Jess' meme the other day about earliest sexual memories, but that probably involved the old Batman TV series too.

Your question: Geekdom: a choice you made at some point, or thrust upon you? And if the latter, was it nature or nurture? Could you have decided at some point not to be a geek?

[head58.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure at all that it was a choice. It's nothing I consciously recall making, just something that was always there. I think my father may have been a closet geek and thus was buying me comic books and watching Star Trek (and he took me to see SW) at a young age. And as a socially insecure and not terribly physically fit lad, comics and action figures and tv were my usual companions. I didn't really start hanging out with other geek kids until middle school or so, and that really cemented it. I got my first D&D boxed set for Christmas when I was in 5th grade, and then there was no turning back.

It's also interesting in this context to look at my brother. He and I are very very similar in our geekitude. I think from growing up in a house where all MY geek-trappings were around he really had little choice (or he could have gone against it hard and become a jock, I suppose). He was a more physically active (actually playing sports!) and "popular" child but he still ended up geek.

And my next question for you, staying in the same vein: In what ways, if any, has being a geek helped out out in non-geek areas in life? Or have the lures of spaceships and polyhedrons and men with Peter Pan complexes actually held you back from accomplishing what you might have without these interests?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Speaking of geek culture memories: The first 60 or so Choose Your Own Adventure books.

[judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com]

Elvis would be a nightmare player. Holy shit. If his character got killed he'd storm off and kick everyone out of his house so he could sulk for a week and then not talk to the DM for a year while giving everyone else Caddies.

Nuts.

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

That's what I'm saying. Except his character wouldn't get killed, it would just be a big Monty Haul charade.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'd play in a game with Elvis just to watch the drama and the crying. it would be hilarious! Just don't expect actual role playing. All of his characters would look like him when he was young, too.

[judd-sonofbert.livejournal.com]

Absolutely.

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

elf girls in white cotton panties

I'll be in my bunk.

I got a good answer for my usual robotnik standby interview question, "Why the telephone?," the last time I asked it, so I'll go a little further afield...

If you could only visit FIVE cities for the rest of your life -- that is, all other cities in the world would be forbidden to you to visit personally -- which five cities would those be?

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Also interesting to speculate as to what possible chain of events could make that more than a hypothetical question.

First, I'll say Toronto and Boston, both fine cities, but mostly because so many of my favorite people are there. NYC, a dull choice probably, but L & I have had many great times there, and there's almost nothing you can't do or get there so putting it on the list takes a lot of pressure off my other choices. San Francisco, which admittedly I haven't been to since the days of the Dot Com Gold Rush, but I lived there in the summer of 1998, a perfect thrilling time to be there, and completely fell in love. Finally, Tokyo, which I've never been to, but it's at the top of my list of cities I need to see someday, because, man, Tokyo!

4/5 of those are in North America, so maybe I'm kind of provincial, but here's the thing: I've got nothing against world travel, but America is bottomless. You could spend several lifetime heres and not come close to being done with the place. (I'm assuming that I'm free to visit any non-urban areas between cities. Because I have to be able to go to Wolf Lake, that's non-negotiable, and if the 5 cities needed to fulfil my non-urban access to nature needs I'd have to totally rethink them.)

Your question: you can change your birth date to any year in the 20th century other than the one in which you were born ('75?). Assume roughly similar socio-economic status and all that. What era would you like to have grown up in?

[mgrasso.livejournal.com]

Your question: you can change your birth date to any year in the 20th century other than the one in which you were born ('75?). Assume roughly similar socio-economic status and all that. What era would you like to have grown up in?

God, that is such a tough question! I like everything modern too much to give it up... maybe I'd be born ten years earlier? But I doubt it.

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

You should be born later, like me, so you get even more modern stuff!

[robotnik.livejournal.com]

You wouldn't want to be a baby boomer? Leave it To Beaver childhood, free love adolescence, easy employment, cash out before social security collapses? Or you could go later. Be born in 1999 and have no memory of the grotty old 20th century at all.

[bryant]

Boston, San Francisco, London, Tokyo, and... crap. New York, yeah, as the utilityman.

[ruddyruddy.livejournal.com]

Never fight Lincoln! Sure, he went down easily in that old Star Trek episode "The Savage Curtain", but that wasn't the real deal. In addition to his great reach, Abe was hot-tempered, incredibly strong, and renowned for his skill with an axe, earning himself the nickname "The Rail Splitter" for his prowess. Plus, he was a renowned catch-as-catch-can wrestling champion. In fact, there's a spurious tradition tracing the NWA championship title (and therefore the current WWE title, which descends from it) all the way back to Lincoln.