You couldn’t make thisup.
“The judge was on the verge of sending the Dark Lord to prison for the maximum possible term but abruptly changed his mind when Vader lifted his hand and waved it from side to side, while at the same time telling the judge that he “found his lack of faith disturbing”.
The world needs more ‘characters’.
Let it be known that I hate BRP.
(because I fumbled a dodge twice tonight and put myself out of action both times.)
Really made me feel like a great and powerful warrior when natural rolls of 00 and 99 completely devastated me. Twice.
Balls to it.
Half a decade ago, when Crucible was still about, we tasked ourselves with a job to create games settings in one week and bring them back to the fold. The catch was, the group decided what sort of game you were to write. The one that was given to me was subtitled “Roman Empire, No Magic”. I presented it to the group and have been resurrecting material from my old notes for the last few weeks. There’s a lot more written about this but I doubt that it’s mainstream publishable materials. I’ll post a bit more later but if people are interested, comments would be welcome.
Brainstorming: Resurrecting a game idea I had a while back about Earth having developed slightly differently - Saurians evolved into more humanoid shapes and humans and neanderthals had some arrested development. The humans were short, squat, dark haired mutes whereas the neanderthals were literate at the very least and used as slaves and pets.
Introduction
Five days to the Millennium and the Emperor is planning his ascension. Standing upon the balcony and peering down at the plebeian hordes that crowd the streets below. They were preparing his feast no doubt, building the grand throne upon which he would begin his eternal rule. Already he could hear the chanting of the priests as they prepared the way, calling the spirits to attend and the gods to listen. His attendants fussed with his robe, distracting him from his reverie. He narrowed his eye and growled.
Chosen zzLena ilya zzRenu so zzCatha watched her mate, Emperor zzRathu, from her chambers. At the ascension she would be freed from her current duty as his brood female and would be assigned to another. She had provided an egg for zzRathu but she knew it would never hatch. Even now it lay smashed rather than buried in sand and the ashes of former Emperors. zzRathu has offended the Bruot too many times with his words and deeds and though they could not deny him one of the Chosen for a mate, they would all ensure that he would never bear an heir. The ascension was a great honour among the Champions but zzLena knew, as did all the Bruot, that it was a privilege for the Sages and Fools - Emperors who had been so great that they were made eternal or so foolhardy that their removal was deemed necessary.
She barked at her Mur manservant who looked at her with his dark knowing eyes. He fetched her a cup of Celeta - the liquid still warm from the veins of the Celeta (a small rodent) and she drank deep. He walked out of the room, presumably to get more Celeta, and she relaxed letting the warm liquid drip down her throat.
zzRathu watched the Mur enter and smiled his toothy smile. He padded across to his pallet and picked up his ceremonial sash. “It is done” the Mur said. zzRathu strode into the next room and gave a throaty chuckle. zzLena sat, tongue lolling and looked at him with her dead eyes. He ran his hand over her magnificent crest and across her dry raspy tongue. “My egg is safe from your Bruot witches. And my ascension will be on my terms. No flames shall sear this flesh”…
The Mur said nothing. His motives in this were unfathomable to the mighty lizard king who stood before him. Unfathomable to all of the lizards.
The Project in Whitechapel was formed in September 1941 as a subsection of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). The SOE was directed to encourage espionage behind enemy lines and build the core of a resistance cell in the event of a land invasion. As a result, they were entirely dependent upon the security of radio transmissions and a lot of resource was allocated to eliminating the circumstances which would lead to a break in communications. Better radio sets, more secure operating procedures and the development of proper ciphers all aided their mission.
The ISRB (Inter Service Research Bureau) operated as a cover for the SOE and was responsible for developing modern clandestine technology as well as recruiting agents for the SOE. The Frythe Estate near Welwyn Garden City was the initial test ground for the use of psychics in espionage under the guise of a wireless research unit code-named “Special Signals”. Later, it became Station IX, a weapons development centre and the Special Signals group was moved to a small building on Fieldgate Street in Whitechapel. The SOE was dissolved in 1946 and most of their operational functions absorbed by MI6. The Special Signals group, however, survived. Their staff roster was filled out with German scientists, recruited from the post-war skirmish between the Allies for their knowledge.
Dr Saul Benedict had been head of Special Signals since it’s inception and guided the group through the post-war political turmoil by forming a significant attachment to the then-prime minister, Clement Attlee. While Attlee could not be convinced of the need for the SOE, the Special Signals group were able to secure their own future and Attlee consulted with precogs and telepaths regularly. He became known as an extremely effective politician and possible the most effective Prime Minister to date. Their consultations helped him decide the correct course of action and also how to build a cabinet of people he could trust. In return he pledged support for Benedict’s special interests and permitted the Project in Whitechapel far-reaching authority.
The establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 paved the way for regular screening of the population for psychic potential and the Whitechapel Project enjoyed a regular stream of enthusiastic recruits, young, cheerful and ready to do their bit for king and country. A centre for psychic research was opened in Huntingdon, funded by the NHS rather than the Special Signals group. When Churchill succeeded Attlee he was astounded his own words were so prophetic when he had accused Labour of introducing “some form of Gestapo, no doubt humanely administered in the first instance”. One of his first actions was to restrict NHS funding to Huntingdon and from that moment on Benedict and his advisors realised their remit had a wider reach than the ephemeral governments
I loathe it when the RPGnet whiner crew crawl out of the woodwork and accuse people of being passive aggressive with the threat of bringing down the mods.
You can’t even express an opinion without being asked to tone your language and the P-A finger is then pointed. That’s the absolute definition of the Ad hominem attack. I’ve ranted about this before.
Don’t like what someone says? For God’s sake don’t attempt to refute them, just dismiss their argument by calling them passive-aggressive.
Here’s a big fuck-you to anyone who uses that term in a debate when they can’t think of anything intelligent to say.
I can think of a half-dozen things that would make a great game. It’s not going to be any of those things though. It’ll be something dull like a new source of some type of radiation.
Canon is the past in the play. It establishes facts which have gone before. It doesn’t mean it can’t be retconned afterwards but for the most part it is immutable (or at least it should have immutable facts and mutable descriptors, the latter of which may be changed due to Context.
Context is the present in the play. It represents experiences more than facts and, due to the way we lay down memories, is probably more immediately mutable than Canon though if left, it can be harder to change because it forms part of our experience memory and not just written Canon (which is essentially the basis of ’show, don’t tell’ - if someone visualises the experience they will have deeper connection to it rather than just having the story related to them).
Accepting is where you acknowledge and agree with the contributions from others to the Context settling it as Canon. This is most easily visualised when you try to reconcile the order of events taking place in a system which does not have a strict action-point (or similar) mechanic. In systems with Action Points or Strike Ranks, everything happens according to the time. To move the story along, it can be necessary to fudge the timings, e.g.
Zakary and Carey are two of the contestants in the Garhound contest and Zakary has caught up with Carey who is descending from the Storm Apple tree with a ripe Storm Apple. Though they are perhaps 4-5 SRs apart, the GM permits Zakary to assault Carey and steal the Storm Apple. Why? Because it will make for further flavour and discussion in the game. Who loses out? An NPC who wasn’t doing well in the race anyway.
In a more narrative game, it can mean just the end of discussing a scene. Not everyone needs to be entirely happy with the outcome, but there has to be a sense of mutual consent so that the game can continue.
Returning - negates the contribution to Context but also provides options which can be considered. This is reserved for when there is disagreement within the group as to the interpretation and outcome of a scene. This is most common when there has been a GM fiat about a character and the player disagrees with it. It behooves the player in this circumstance to not only make his grievance known but also to provide a suitable alternative. This may, dependiing on the detail, be returned to the player again or returned to the group as a whole for a better resolution, e.g.
It would have been entirely appropriate for other players to dispute the conflict between Zakary and Carey because there was an immediate gain for Zakary. Though he had no chance of winning the race, Storm Apples are a potent magical item. What convinced them ultimately was that it would have little effect on their characters and in no small part would give Carey, an annoying NPC, a harder time of it. They had agreement and the option was not returned.
It’s much harder to retcon against a dice roll because the randomising element is a central tenet of roleplaying. We use them to make the decisions for us and if we stop ‘trusting’ their decisions, we may as well switch to a fully narrative process (no bad thing in of itself).
Is it right to design another system for a game?
At the moment we’re still writing War of the Worlds, though we’ve started development on Status: Refugee and a Supers game. In all three, the working system is to be a derivative of ERIS from “The 23rd Letter”.
Part of me wants to use ORE because I like Wild Talents and Reign so much. But the licensing terms for it have been very vague.
MetalFloss has a link about death:
“From Stanley Burns’ book Sleeping Beauty: Memorial Photography in America:These photographs were a common aspect of American culture, a part of the mourning and memorialization process. Surviving families were proud of these images and hung them in their homes, sent copies to friends and relatives, wore them as lockets or carried them as pocket mirrors. Nineteenth-century Americans knew how to respond to these images. Today there is no culturally normative response to postmortem photographs.”
I’ve been asked more than once to “re-create” the impossible. Adding the dead to portraits of the living.
The idea of ransoming game material is definitely new and innovative. It’s being done rather successfully by Greg Stolze for his Reign supplements and there’s a Delta Green book ‘Targets of Opportunity’ which is being funded this way as well.
Shane Ivey wrote:
“If we collect enough “pledges” through Fundable.com to cover the various and high costs of manufacturing “Targets of Opportunity,” we’ll do it now. For each pledge, we’ll ship you a copy of the book by priority mail. (Or by airmail for fans outside the U.S., but the pledge needs to be higher to make up for the high cost of shipping.)
If this doesn’t work, we’ll hold off on it until we save up enough cash the old-fashioned way to release it. That would be … later.”
The 1000 copies of Targets of Opportunity will generate probably $35 000 of revenue. Take away fees for (6) writers and (1) artist and the cost of printing and it’s a small profit for the company.
Would I pledge? Yeah, except it’s DG material which puts it safely in the hands of kinnygraham. I’d only be tempted to read it if I got it.
Some naysayers describe it as a begging bowl. I disagree. Palladium did a begging bowl previously where they asked their fans to just send them money, old socks or whatever because you love them so much. For that you got very little. This is simply pre-pledging for a book, making a tiny profit and making sure that if 1000 copies are printed, then there are enough people out there to buy them.
I think it’s a good plan, though obviously with the names they have involved and the following they have with Delta Green (now the de-facto modern Cthulhu setting), it’s about a million times easier. Greg Stolze does his Reign supplements for $1000 a pop which he tends to meet quite quickly.
This idea really meets up with the ‘1000 fans‘ which I wrote a couple of months ago. 1000 fans buying $100 worth of books from you every year is a living, no? And what is $100? A main hardback book and 5 or so small booklets? As I said elsewhere - this isn’t about scamming $100 out of every fan you have but of working hard, getting good quality books out there and reaping some rewards. Obviously the RPG market is a tiny fraction of the music market but for some, it just might work (especially when you consider I’ve spent probably £200 (nearly $400) on RPG books* in the last six months.
*Maxx supplement, Saipan supplement, Sufficiently Advanced, Deathwatch 2000 Supplement, Reign, Thousand Suns, Psi World, Grimm, Dark Heresy, GURPS WW2, another GURPS WW2 booklet, Will To Power, Godlike GM screen and about $100 of PDFs just for starters…