Category: Gaming

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.

I’m not posting this scenario because I intend to run it. I’m posting it because I like to think. Truth? I’m better at coming up with concepts than running them anyhow. This one’s a freebie; steal as you like.

It’s 1972. World of Darkness. Miami. Cuba smells like revolution and the Democratic National Convention smells like a boxing ring. McGovern has a legion of young, angry, active delegates behind him. They’d rather fight than think. Humphrey has the Machine, a political creature made of motor oil and money. To the Machine, the present moment is the last hope of traditional politics.

Everyone’s wrong; it’s always the largest hurricane in the world when you’re inside the eye of the storm.

You were turned into a vampire not more than a couple of months ago by a couple of guys pretending to be union organizers. You are weapons. You may, perhaps, be deluding yourself about this — but you are weapons: you were created in order to serve a need. Your master wants Humphrey to win. McGovern has the distinct edge.

It’s the second night of the convention, and Gary Hart — McGovern’s campaign manager — is executing brilliant procedural moves to get the right delegates seated; his floor organization is building strength. He needs to — not die, but vanish for a couple of days. He could be found in a drunken haze after the convention. That would suit; that would build the image of the McGovern campaign as a group of men unable to handle the demands of politics.

It’s the second night of the convention, and there are vampires on the floor. It is unlikely that you are alone; it is more than likely that you will meet those of your kind who wish to protect McGovern and Hart. Then again, as a vampire, alone is the default state of affairs.

For the easily amused: Huey Long’s Men of Action.