Decant Circles

Just opened up the Reliquary sourcebook for nWoD, and happened to hit the Little Black Book. Two reactions:

(1) Okay, this is *neat*. It's cold and vicious and uncaring and spiteful, and generally quite suited for a horror game. It's got great potential for half a dozen stories all by its lonesome. (Probably not more than two at most for any particular group, but they are there.) I'd want to be really careful about who (if anyone) I ran a story for involving this thing, but the idea... the idea, speaking from a strictly horror-story-telling point of view, is lovely.

(2) I understand that the book only affects women, forcing them to engage in sex with the book's owner. I'm not sure how to get from that to the explicit indication that only men use the book, although there is no requirement as to the sex of the owner. Weirdly, the writeup *does* acknowledge the existence of homosexuality in men...

Once, long ago, in the dim dark days,[1] I wrote a 12-step guide to playing ADOM.[2] It was done partly tongue-in-cheek, and it didn't address the main goals and quests of the game.

It *did*, however, provide you with pretty workable advice on how to survive in the game while you were trying to accomplish those goals. (At least until level 10. But the guy I wrote it for was complaining he couldn't hit level 2.)

I need something similar for Vampire, specifically LARP (which means that "feeding" and "haven security" are less of a game focus). What political possibilities you should usually consider. When behaviour crosses the line into being a breach of the Masquerade. The ways in which the world reacts to you. The ways in which other vampires are likely to see you. Things you should keep in mind when playing, basically.

Help?
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[1] 1 May, 2003, 1:54 GMT
[2] Really a lovely game. Am beginning to regret there is no practical way to bring the laptop to Toronto with me.

A good friend of mine--commodorified--coined the term "helpy" to describe what happens when you explain you're doing something, and why, and get a bunch of responses explaining how to do something different. They're well-meaning, but they are not actually helpful. At all. And have nothing to do with your plans or efforts or anything like that, besides casually dismissing them.

I didn't quite have to deal with helpy this morning, but it seems to be in the same general ballpark. I've been dealing with someone who's running a game--we've not met in person, just e-mailed and chatted online--and I submitted a character sheet off to him. Player name, character name, stats, abilities, yadda yadda yadda.

They sent it back with a couple of small changes, which is fine.

They also changed my last name to John's last name.

Despite my last name being what I typed. And what's displayed on my e-mails. And my e-mail address. And, you know, what they've seen as my last name during every communication we've had.

I am less than thrilled.

EDIT: Apology offered and accepted, record corrected, mellowness resumed.

Well, you can't turn him into a company man,
you can't turn him into a whore.
And the boys upstairs just don't understand anymore.

So, I was putting a dent in the dishes, and I am suddenly overcome by a desire to hear Tom Petty's "The Last DJ". I've always liked it (although I honestly never remember it's Petty). It's a pretty standard lone-wolf/artist/truthspeaker thing, I guess. And I've had the CCA and Dr. Frederick Wertham[1] kind of in the back of my mind since mid-late afternoon, which was probably part of it.

Well, some folks said they're gonna hang him so high
cos you just can't do what he did.
There's some things you just
can't put in the minds of those kids.

And now, mind you, I'm reminded of that radio DJ in The Stand--Ray Flowers, I think?--who wasn't getting sick, and who showed up to the (empty) station, and just ran a no-time-delay no-ads call-in show for people to discuss Captain Trips. (And the Army showed up and they shot him and he died sprawled over his control panel.)

But that's a *real* tangent. Anyway, I was listening to the chorus.

There goes your freedom of choice,
there goes the last human voice.
There goes the last DJ.

And I start, in defiance of all things reasonably associated with the decades-old vibe of this song, thinking cyberpunk.

Not the hard-edged metal-laced chipped-brain gunfight side of it. The information. The truth. Max Headroom. Johnny Silverhand. Hiro Protagonist. Spider Jerusalem. Hell, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer. Even the grand revelation of the NES cure at the end of that god-awful movie adaptation of Johnny Mnemonic[2], although good god the execution on that mostly made me groan.

The angry, giddy, honest voice howling out in the middle of the prepackaged indifferent monoculture that would really much rather you didn't think. And, by extension, the setting where you could fight *with* information, where it wasn't just a prize to squabble over and steal. The neon and glass and carded doors, not just the steel and bullets and (rainy) streets.

I need songs for this. Suggestions?

(And yes, I've already thought of Warren Zevon's Transverse City. :) )
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[1] *turns head, spits*
[2] I may be being a little harsh on it. I can't tell. I'm too busy being frustrated with how they portrayed Molly.

Playing Fallout again (the original).

In three hours, at level 5, snuck past supermutants, retrieved water chip, repaired Necropolis water pump, and returned home.

I hadn't even hit the Hub yet. Hell, I hadn't even seen a combat knife yet.

Level 7 and free to roam the wastelands indefinitely, with the trusty Dogmeat by my side. Yay.

(Oddly enough, this post avoids spoilers beyond "manitou are sneaky".[1] I'd appreciate it if any responses could do the same.)

Regarding the Great Old Ones scenario that I was thinking of adapting; I don't think it'd require much tweaking, but it will require some, since the words "beneficent" and "Great Old One" appear in the same sentance. It's relative, but it's still not really manitou behaviour. At all.

And I was turning this over in my head, and wondering vaguely if any of the manitou had ever been written as passing themselves off as a good and helpful thing, a father figure or spiritual helper or something of the sort.

...yeah.

On my schedule for when I get home: checking to see if Stephen King tosses cross-references into his fiction, and reading the Something Positive archives to see if I can spot any sarcasm directed at gamers.
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[1] Like monkeys. Do not be fooled.

The character sheet for Deadlands: Reloaded, like the rest of the book (although not quite as much as the rest of the book, IMHO) is very pretty.

However, because of the dusty weathered background it has going, it is a pain to read on a photocopy or when printed on a black and white printer.

Given that I am actually the sort of person who will scan a printed colour copy and then kick it until the background disappears before turning it into a greyscale and exporting it to PDF, this is not a huge problem.

(841 KB. White background. Logo and bullets and dice-shaped outlines and exclamation points're all still there. Enjoy.)

Goddamn I need a Deadlands icon.

...well, you expect doggerel from a mad minstrel.

( Back in the day... )

The Eternal Guardian just became *much* cooler. I hope I survive to meet him this time.

Also:

Any game system that takes combat and provides simple, straightforward rules for the players to introduce the principle "If you can't dazzle them with dexterity, baffle them with bullshit" deserves an honourable mention.

*tips hat to Savage Worlds*

Thank you. That is all.

So. I play in a LARP. Another character was coming into the city, and it was decided that having him carry a letter of introduction would be a nifty thing.

A seal would also be nice--you know, a proper seal, in sealing wax.

So I went and found this stuff called Sculpy, which is modelling clay that turns hard when you bake it, and spent an evening poking at it with dentist's tools until I got a workable approximation of the coat of arms of the town of Brasov, which features a crown with oak roots coming out. Also picked up some sealing wax. For the letter, I ended up using cream-white cardstock, which has the benefit of being thick enough that you can't hold it up to the light and read the letter through it, but the downside that two thicknesses of it are, well, thick, which left a couple of pale streaks in the seal.

( Cut in case you do not care or should not be reading what the vampires had to say to each other. )



Overall, I'm very happy with it.