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Author: Bryant

Five-pak

December 10, 2004
3 Comments

Yeah, every now and then we like to dump out campaign ideas we won’t run.

1. Aztlan Chrome — near-future cyberpunk set in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez metroplex. Assume a de facto independent state in that region, extending all the way to San Diego/Tijuana, with very little federal control on the part of either Mexico or the United States. The tech is sufficient for wired reflexes; i.e., money can provide you with a definite advantage in a fight (which is really the core ethos of cyberpunk gaming, right?). The Ciudad Juarez serial killer is on my mind as I think about this setting. So is the five solid hours of Los Lobos I listened to last night. So is The Shield, but I’m not sure if that’s for antagonists or protagonists. Could be either, really.

2. Bathsheba Smiles — an A/State game that kicks off with the death of a Nakamura-Yebisu noblewoman. Her will has an immediate and world-shaking effect on the lives of four people living in Mire End, one of the worst slums in the City. A/State is one of those keen grim Scottish SF horror games; everyone lives in one big City which is drenched in politics and bitterness and mystery and run-down Dickensian slums. The macrocorporates have nanotech, but you have maybe some fried dog for dinner if you’re lucky. Think China Mieville’s New Crobuzon, but no magic and more technology.

3. Big Fangs, Skinny Ties — this was a mashup I did some time ago. Still one of my favorites. It’s a fairly standard Sabbat Vampire game centering around a Sabbat pack that’s basically the Banzai Irregulars with fangs. I’d play up the whole “Sabbat save the world from Antedeluvians” aspect of the Sabbat, since it’s my favorite aspect of the sect. Remember: the Sabbat are completely and utterly good guys, once you accept the concept that humans are cattle.

4. Rats in the Cellar — Angel meets Whitey Bulger. You know this one. The big problem I have here is that everyone who’s expressed interest doesn’t want to play a hard-nosed Irish guy from Southie. One or two outsiders is OK but it loses the feel if it’s all errant Harvard professors and the like. Since I’ll never get around to running it, that’s probably OK. Under the Eaves is the sister game to this. I can never decide if it’s lighter or darker.

5. Squared Circle — the indie wrestling federation Unknown Armies game that I’ve wanted to run forever. Indie wrestling is a perfect environment for quite a few UA character types; wrestlers cut themselves all the time and they take stupid risks and it ought to be obvious how great the ring is for many Avatars. The ring itself has been soaking up magickal energy all this time until it’s a super-potent artifact. The owner of the fed is one of the last Cryptomancers, because what’s pro wrestling but an extended lie? To get into the mindset for this, remember that a wrestling federation is pretty much just an old-time touring carnival and watch that HBO series again. Yeah, like that.

Three axis

December 9, 2004
2 Comments

Note to self: the Miike RPG has six stats, arranged in three pairs. Love/Obsession, Violence/Brutality, and Sex/Possession. I suspect that when I write the game and stick it behind a content warning, that last pair will become something more explicit and raw; “Possession” is a muted form of what I have in mind. I think the rating in each pair remains constant — so you could have 3 dots in Love/Obsession. The question is how you manifest it.

I have this unformed mechanic in which character creation involves each player telling stories about their character until someone says “OK, that squicks me.”

I am not sure that I would actually want to play this game, but I kind of want to write it.

Beyond and above

December 8, 2004
1 Comment

So I had to send my laptop into Apple for repairs a month or so ago. My own fault: I dropped it. The next time I used the DVD drive, I noticed it wasn’t working. OK; I called Apple up and said “Hey, this happened, I need to get it fixed.” I kind of expected that they’d charge me for it, since chances are it broke when I dropped the laptop.

Nope. Since they didn’t catch it the first time round, they decided it was their fault and fixed it for free. I dropped my laptop in a box on Monday of this week, it arrived at Apple on Tuesday, they fixed it and sent it out on the same day, and it’s in my hands again on Wednesday. That’s what I call rapid turnaround.

Politeness is happiness

December 8, 2004
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“Under the plans, troops would funnel Fallujans to so-called citizen processing centers on the outskirts of the city to compile a database of their identities through DNA testing and retina scans. Residents would receive badges displaying their home addresses that they must wear at all times. Buses would ferry them into the city, where cars, the deadliest tool of suicide bombers, would be banned.”

Mark of the Beast! Mark of the Beast!

This wouldn’t be quite as disturbing if they weren’t referring to Falljuah as a potential “model city.” If that’s the model for all of Iraq, I can’t say I’m too optimistic. As always, I have no doubt that these tactics will increase security in at least the short term. As always, I am deeply concerned that we have failed to ask ourselves whether or not increased security is worth the cost.

Of course, once we attacked Fallujah, something like this was inevitable. And once we attacked Iraq, it was inevitable that we would have a rebel city like Fallujah on our hands. (Given the competence level of the people running our country.) It was even predictable.

The invasion of Iraq, however, was not inevitable. It’s no good going back that far and saying “well, we had to invade Iraq.” Alas, the wild horses are now coming home to roost.

Management 101

December 8, 2004
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Possibly it’s time to come to the conclusion that our government is not very good at preventing prisoner abuses. Yes, it happens occasionally, and a single incident doesn’t mean it’s endemic. But when DIA agents are being threatened in order to keep it quiet, and when the FBI is concerned about generally used coercive techniques, there is a clear problem.

I manage people for a living. After a certain point, if a given problematic behavior pattern repeats, I figure out what the root cause is and I fix it. I do not say “well, that’s just one incident; it’s bound to happen now and again.” If you don’t think that torture is acceptable, you’ve got to ask why Donald Rumsfeld continues to allow this pattern to persist. And, of course, why George Bush doesn’t correct Rumsfeld’s failure to act.

Not complicated.

Like a sling blade

December 6, 2004
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There was some concern that Harry Reid wouldn’t be a combative Senate Minority Leader. Comes from a red state, so vulnerable to election challenges; moderate; all that stuff.

Harry Reid on Clarence Thomas: “I think that he has been an embarrassment to the Supreme Court. I think that his opinions are poorly written. I just don’t think that he’s done a good job as a Supreme Court justice.” He then praised Scalia’s intelligence but said Scalia has some ethics problems. So, yeah, the guy has some cojones. I’m betting he’ll make Frist use the nuclear option if it comes down to it.

One, two… one, two…

December 5, 2004
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If you’re still wondering about the vote in Ohio and the exit polls and so on, you ought to be reading Keith Olberman. He’s been covering the story non-stop since the election; it’s probably not too overwrought to say he’s staking his credibility on it. He is also being very careful not to wear a tin-foil hat.

What’s clear at this point is that the Kerry campaign is very quietly working towards a recount in Ohio. The Libertarian/Green effort is acting, consciously or not, as a stalking horse. Jesse Jackson has come on board to do the heavy rhetorical lifting. A guy named Cliff Arnebeck is about to file a contest of election lawsuit, and he looks like he knows what he’s doing.

I don’t expect the recount to change anything, and I don’t think there was voter fraud by a strict definition of the word. I do think there were vote suppression efforts; I think there always are. But I do expect a recount to happen. And yeah, Kerry had it planned all along.

And then there were four

December 4, 2004
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In the where are they now department: Lance Mungia, director of the excellent Six-String Samurai, just wrapped up The Crow: Wicked Prayer. It’s got a surprisingly good cast for something that looks like it’ll go straight to video: Edward Furlong isn’t bad, Dennis Hopper is good (and will appear in anything, granted), Danny Trejo is good… and there’s David Boreanaz and Tara Reid for eye candy. And Macy Grey! Hm, and Tito Ortiz (no holds barred martial arts fighter) is in it. But at that point we’re well past “surprisingly good cast,” I think. Still, that’s a lot of fairly real people.

Did you know Kirsten Dunst was in the third Crow movie? Me either. Rental time!

Anyhow, Lance Mungia plus a half-decent cast means I’ll keep an eye out for this one.