Category: Gaming

This is a short-short piece meant to illustrate some things about my character in Jeff’s excellent Queen Abby’s Mob game.

Lifted from The 20’ by 20’ Room:

1. What is the first RPG you ever played?

Tunnels and Trolls, solo. I loved it. I still love it, actually.

2. What RPG do you currently play most often?

If you count D20 as one RPG, it’s D20. Otherwise it’s a split between D&D 3.5 and Adventure D20, both of which I play once every couple of weeks.

3. What is the best system you’ve played?

Hard to answer. Most fun? I think this remains Feng Shui. Best system? I am hard-pressed to choose anything other than Hero. Certainly Hero is the most impressive accomplishment in system design.

4. What is the best system you’ve run?

Feng Shui, insofar as it’s the best system for me to run. I’ve run other systems I consider better (see above) but haven’t run them as well.

5. Would you consider yourself an: Elitist/Min-Maxer/Rules Lawyer?

How are these defined? I’m an elitist, definitely, in that I like roleplaying with smart people. Min-maxer? Yeah, I can milk a ruleset for all it’s worth. Rules lawyer? I care about the rules of the game, but I don’t argue with the GM as a matter of course.

6. If you could recommend a new RPG which would you recommend? Why?

Depends on who I’m recommending it for. West End’s Star Wars is actually a really good choice — everyone knows the world and the system is pretty easy for a newcomer to pick up.

7. How often do you play?

Alll the time. Couple of nights a week, generally.

8. What sort of characters do you play? Leader? Follower? Comic Relief? Roll-Player/ Role-Player?

Interesting ones. Leaders as necessary. Usually I play characters who are capable of being impulsive because I don’t like too much fluttering around when it’s not in service of anything.

9. What is your favorite genre for RPGs?

Action! Heh. I wouldn’t say I have a favorite. If pushed, I’d say pulp.

10. What Genres have you played in?

SF, horror, fantasy (modern, historical, futuristic, and otherwise), pulp, superheroes (teen, dark, etc.), multi-planar. Ones I’m forgetting, too, I expect.

11. Do you prefer to play or GM? Do you do both?

I’d rather play than GM. I do both, however.

12. Do you like religion in your games?

It’s part of human nature, no? I played a character once who fell in love with an angel.

13. Do you have taboo subjects in your games or is everything “fair game”?

I’m OK with whatever.

14. Have you developed your own RPG before?

Yes.

15. Have you ever been published in the gaming industry? If so…what?

Yep. I’ve done work for White Wolf (mostly on Trinity), Atlas Games, Eden… I think that’s it. I’m not a frequent freelancer by any means.

MUSIC: “3 AM, I’m awakened by a sweet summer rain
Distant howling of a passing southbound coal train…”

OPEN on ROGER PARKER FOR NEW JERSEY STATE SENATE HEADQUARTERS. MUSIC continues.

It is very late at night. It is raining, mildly, not enough to make a statement. The headquarters is in a strip mall plaza, with a big plate glass window opening onto the nearly empty parking lot. Inside, lights are going out one by one.

MUSIC: “Was I dreaming or was there someone just lying here beside me in this bed?
Am I hearing things? Or in the next room, did a long forgotten music box just start playing?”

The camera starts high and swoops down gracefully, focusing in on a television set through the front window. A perky newscaster is giving us the election results for the benefit of those who can’t read them as they scroll up the right side of the screen. Roger Parker lost.

Alvin Wassermann (William Macy) turns away from the screen. One of his co-workers mouths inaudible words of sympathy, gestures that next time it’ll be different. Alvin shrugs and leaves by the front door, gets into his Honda Civic, sits for a moment before driving off.

MUSIC: “And I know it’s a sin putting words in the mouths of the dead.
And I know it’s a crime to weave your wishes into what they said.”

Flashback to a montage of political advertisements for candidates we’ve never heard of. Voiceovers from the advertisements: “In the tradition of John F. Kennedy…” “As the great Franklin Delano Roosevelt said…” “If we do not recall the course charted by Jimmy Carter…”

MUSIC: “And I know only fools venture where them spirits tread.
‘Cause I know every word, every sound bouncing ‘round my head.
Is just static on the radio.
Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.”

Alvin arrives at his apartment: small, cramped, suburban. The walls are papered with political signs and flyers. He settles down at his kitchen table and opens his briefcase: pulls out his folders and starts trying to figure out where it all went wrong this time. There’s no answer there.

MUSIC: “Everything I think I know is just static on the radio.”

At the bottom of the briefcase is a dice bag. He hefts it in his hand once, then sighs, and picks up the phone.

ALVIN: “Hey… no. No, it’s Alvin. No, I know, it’s late… you were up watching? That’s really kind of you. Well, thank you… no, no. Just — well, if I’d paid more attention to the game. It’s all in there.”

MUSIC: “Just static on the radio…”

ALVIN: “So we’re playing this week, right?”

MUSIC: “Static on the radio.”

BLACK. Dungeon Majesty logo fades in.

The ugliest dwarf in Sigil is practicing his tai chi in the center of the room. He moves without any real grace; his precision is the certainty of stone, rocks sliding against rocks, limbs held in place by muscle alone. His hands are enormous: strangler’s hands, with knuckles like pebbles thrusting up out of his weathered grey skin.

He turns, and turns again, balanced on the balls of his feet. His brows jut out over his eyes. He stares, angry, at the world.

In one hand he has a piece of dark heartwood, carved to fit a dwarven hand. He clenches it tight. There are grooves in the wood where his fingers rest, as if they have rested there for years. The wood has no give to it, not anymore. He brings his arm around in a great slow punch, fingers still wrapped around the piece of wood, giving his fist enough heft to strike a blow at the heart of the world.

A long time later, he completes his practice. It is at this moment that he is at the peak of his spiritual development. Tomorrow he will go out and hurt people who owe his superiors money, and this will inevitably result in backsliding. He knows this. But he enjoys both portions of the cycle.

And the following day, he will practice again.

So here’s the campaign. This is Mike’s fault.

It’s a little known fact, but once you’ve been President of the United States, you don’t get to die. You live on in eternal unlife after your death; sure, you leave a corpse, because everyone likes funerals, but your Ka goes on.

Yes, Ka. Just like in Egypt. Look at the dollar bill; you think the pyramid isn’t there for a reason?

You are bound to the country. You can speak to the current President, but each sentence you speak takes a year of his life. That’s the real reason why Presidents age in office. Once a President leaves office you lose your connection to them, but you’ll be there to welcome them to the afterlife, oh yes. It’s the only excuse you have for a party.

You are as you were when you died. Everyone takes turns caring for Reagan. It’s nervewracking; if he wanders off and finds his way to the White House, he could age any sitting President to death in one night of conversation.

Hoover and Nixon could hear the Dead Presidents, but did not join them in the afterlife. Ford never could hear them. Nobody tried talking to David Rice Atchison; everyone was very surprised when he arrived to join the rest of his comrades.

The ghosts of every Treasurer of the United States who ever lived serve the Dead Presidents in the afterlife.

There’s a backstory, but it’s too late in the evening for me to write it up. This is for Jeff.

The Men of Action game, invented by Rob MacDougall:

Pick a historical figure; let’s say Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman’s Men of Action! Describe the ensuing campaign.

Go.