Monday Mashup #37: Full Metal Jacket (April 26, 2004)
This week’s mashup is another xiombarg suggestion, Full Metal Jacket. Seems timely.
Before I get to my setting, I think I’ll talk about setup. Full Metal Jacket is about, in part, the lengths men go to to avoid that which they cannot face. In some cases, that’s death. In some cases, it’s something else. I think I’d want the definition of the things the characters fear the most to be an integral part of character creation, in some way, because my mashup of the movie would be oriented towards catching the harrowing mood that Kubrick produced.
And there’s no suspense: the characters are going to wind up smack dab against the things they want so badly to avoid. The question, in this game, is what they’ll do exactly once they realize where they’re going.
So, setting: street gang in the World of Darkness. I’m going to make a leap of faith and use the 2.0 World of Darkness, only because I like what I’ve read about the rules better. They’re humans. Maybe that will change by the end of the campaign, maybe not. They start at the bottom of the totem pole, though, not only in the mystical sense but in the pure hard calculus of the street.
The game has to start with initiation, as Full Metal Jacket starts with boot camp. It is possible that some characters will meet their limits during that period, but not necessary. Following initiation, the direction of the game really depends on what the fears of the characters are. The GM’s job is to get those fears front and center.
I’ll, uh, do something less grim next week. Promise.
Comments
So the mash-up must have characters going to great lengths to avoid deepest fears, character fear integral to character creation, and harrowing (painful) mood. Oooh, angsty!
I can do all this and still make it light-hearted.
What role-playing game to use? TOON, with a few tweaks, of course. PCs all belong to the fraternity of predatory and incompetent cartoon characters. They each belong to the same set as Wile E. Coyote, Pete Puma, Tom the cat, Scratchy the cat, etc.
TOON requires each character to choose “Beliefs & Goals” . Each PC has a B&G of “Get X ”, which the Animator marks down as a “Secret Fear: X ". Animators should also track the number of times each PC gets Boggled. When this number exceeds the PCs Chutzpah, the PC no longer Falls Down at zero hit points—the PC dies! (Whether the players should know this before hand remains the Animator's option. I suggest not.)
PCs generally do not recover hit points in TOON. They get up from Falling Down with full hit points. This won't happen for Mortal PCs. Reality bites.
Any PC that can die can also kill, whether or not the target would normally Fall Down.
Mortal PCs also feel pain. Treat any damage as an attempt to Boggle the PC. Use the Anguish table from White Wolf's HOL (Human-Occupied-Landfill) as a reference for how much something hurts in this setting. Recall pain and injury often don't correlate. A paper-cut hurts much worse than hardening of the arteries, but paper cuts heal faster.
All PCs came to Herr Doktor Unobtanium's School for the Misguided Chaser (USMC) for various reasons. The militaristic and regimented atmosphere of the school “provides ze necezzarie struktur fur die komplete kure von den Chaser-Complexin,” or so says the Strangelovian Herr Doktor Unobtainium. The training sessions combine desensitization and aggression therapy. You could make fun of almost any psychotherapy technique here (Primal Scream, past-life regression, dream analysis, orgone shooting, neurosurgery, etc.), but I'd probably lift things like A Clockwork Orange's aversion therapy and 1984's Room 101 and play them for laughs. Keep PCs involved with one another. Have one PC dress up as another PC's secret fear for some of the exercises. This works better if both PCs have the same secret fear. Remember to involve weapons and group strategy at some point—this should parallel boot camp.
PCs get cured of their Chaser-Complex when therapy Boggles them as many times as they have Chutzpah points. Yes, this means they become mortal. They can also finally catch their target.
Build this part of the game to a climax involving a suicide. Wile E. Coyote hanging or fatally mutilating himself in some hideously complicated Acme Warehouse gadget makes a good image.
After graduation from USMC, all the PCs return to a slightly more real version of the cartoon world. Think of the book “Who Killed Roger Rabbit?” sans real people. Play out each PC's victory over their nemesis. Tom finally catches Jerry. Scratchy pounces on Itchy and devours him. Fudd turns Bugs inside-out with a well-aimed shotgun blast. Bluto beats Popeye to death. Squidward incinerates Spongebob. Charlie Brown viciously kicks Lucy instead of the football. Play out each PCs glorious final fight one at a time. When you have a player mark the end of an era with a comment or speech, something to the effect of “this was the finest toon I have ever had the privilege to know”, move on to the next part.
Assemble all the PCs together, perhaps for a USMC reunion. Just as Herr Doktor Unobtanium gives a speech, someone shoots him dead! The PCs look about, but can't find the shooter. Who shot H.D.U.? Did a PC do it? This might well lead to a Reservoir Dogs-style bloodbath, or to a savage barrage that leaves a single Toon begging for death.
Each PC gets to do one more thing before the game ends. The game closes with the surviving USMC alumni singing “Who's the leader of the school curing folks like you and me? / U-N-O! B-T-A-I!/ N-I-U-and-M! / Un-ob-tain-i-um! /Un-ob-tain-i-um!” as the screen fades to black.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/xiombarg/515263.html
I, also, went in a World of Darkness direction with this, tho in a more traditional fashion.
http://random.bears-cave.com -- My Life with Drill Sergeant.
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Full Metal Jacket? Meet a mix of old school D&D and Redhurst, Academy of Magic.
Doug.