I've finally finished off my new Paranoia scenario, "Room Service". It's likely that I'll do some tweaking after watching a couple of Marx Brothers movies I haven't seen yet, but I could run it right now if I had to.
Next, I'd like to have a new In Nomine scenario ready in time for DexCon and to get my home GURPS Cabal campaign started. I have a terrific idea for a new series of In Nomine convention scenarios, but it's going to take some time to organize what I want to do for that, and I don't have much time right now. So I'm going to use the "Mission from God" cast of characters, put them in a tricky situation in a relatively small location with a truckload of colorful NPCs and a couple of plot twists, and that should be enough to get something workable together quickly. It'll be familiar territory for me, but hopefully I can make the twists dramatic enough to not repeat myself too much.
After that, I'll probably start the Lovecraftian installment of my GURPS Cabal series illuminating the secret history of a long running major NPC so I'll have plenty of time to get it right for DexCon 2011.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Plant the Seed
I was speaking with a friend at work today about a person who was trying to exaggerate a claim well beyond the point of fraud and didn't see anything wrong with it. We'd caught her, obviously, so she wasn't going to get away with it. I'd become very frustrated with the claimant and lost patience. My friend said that she was planning on having a conversation with her in which she didn't expect the claimant to fully understand that what she was doing was wrong; she hoped only to "plant the seed" for her to eventually realize it in her own time.
This struck me as a remarkably intelligent idea. Even if you can't convince someone that they are making a mistake or behaving badly at a point in time, you can make sure that you say something that might stay with them long enough for them to learn from the mistake later, after they've repeated it a few times (which most of us tend to do before we learn).
I've often gotten frustrated with people who clearly didn't want to listen to what I was saying and just gave up after a while. Thinking this through, maybe I'm not wasting my time if I can figure out how to at least plant that seed and benefit that person later, if not now.
This struck me as a remarkably intelligent idea. Even if you can't convince someone that they are making a mistake or behaving badly at a point in time, you can make sure that you say something that might stay with them long enough for them to learn from the mistake later, after they've repeated it a few times (which most of us tend to do before we learn).
I've often gotten frustrated with people who clearly didn't want to listen to what I was saying and just gave up after a while. Thinking this through, maybe I'm not wasting my time if I can figure out how to at least plant that seed and benefit that person later, if not now.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Death Note
I just finished watching the two Death Note live action movies, which are really one story spread over two films. This story originated as manga, then as an anime series, and eventually as movies. An American remake is supposed to be in the works.
The fundamental premise is an interesting one. It immediately reminded me of the roleplaying game Sorcerer in several respects, though the parallel is imperfect, and I'm likely to borrow some elements for roleplaying material in the future. A young man named Light finds a notebook with instructions explaining that if he writes a person's name in it while thinking of their face, that person will die. Thinking of the person's face prevents potential mistaken identity or duplicate name situations. If he does not specify how the person dies, the target dies of a heart attack. If he does specify, the death occurs at the time and place exactly as described. Light's father is a police officer, and because Light is frustrated by the way criminals frequently evade punishment for their crimes, he begins using the notebook to deal out justice as he perceives it. Of course, power proverbially corrupts, and Light soon finds himself on very slippery moral ground.
His own father is part of a task force trying to track him down, and the task force is led by a strange genius known as "L". Most of the story involves the cat-and-mouse game between L and Light, so I'd be spoiling it by saying anything more. The actor playing L gives a memorably weird performance that is enough reason by itself to rent these two films. I felt that Light's moral descent plays out a little too quickly in the first movie, and my wife assures me that it works much better with the slower pace of the anime series. I don't have a whole lot of hope for the American remake, since it's likely that they'll downplay the suspense and build up the action and special effects, but they could always surprise me.
In the meantime, I'd highly recommend the Japanese live action movies if you can appreciate a suspense film with a strong supernatural element and don't mind the CGI "gods of death" who get a fair amount of screen time.
The fundamental premise is an interesting one. It immediately reminded me of the roleplaying game Sorcerer in several respects, though the parallel is imperfect, and I'm likely to borrow some elements for roleplaying material in the future. A young man named Light finds a notebook with instructions explaining that if he writes a person's name in it while thinking of their face, that person will die. Thinking of the person's face prevents potential mistaken identity or duplicate name situations. If he does not specify how the person dies, the target dies of a heart attack. If he does specify, the death occurs at the time and place exactly as described. Light's father is a police officer, and because Light is frustrated by the way criminals frequently evade punishment for their crimes, he begins using the notebook to deal out justice as he perceives it. Of course, power proverbially corrupts, and Light soon finds himself on very slippery moral ground.
His own father is part of a task force trying to track him down, and the task force is led by a strange genius known as "L". Most of the story involves the cat-and-mouse game between L and Light, so I'd be spoiling it by saying anything more. The actor playing L gives a memorably weird performance that is enough reason by itself to rent these two films. I felt that Light's moral descent plays out a little too quickly in the first movie, and my wife assures me that it works much better with the slower pace of the anime series. I don't have a whole lot of hope for the American remake, since it's likely that they'll downplay the suspense and build up the action and special effects, but they could always surprise me.
In the meantime, I'd highly recommend the Japanese live action movies if you can appreciate a suspense film with a strong supernatural element and don't mind the CGI "gods of death" who get a fair amount of screen time.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Room Service and the Marx Brothers
I've had a little free time lately and continue to make progress on the "Room Service" scenario for Paranoia. I've got most of the character goal interactions sorted out (the most important part of a Paranoia scenario as far as I'm concerned) and a good outline of likely events.
The player characters are based on the Marx Brothers, and of course, there aren't quite enough brothers for a six player game. I've used that to advantage in a couple of respects. The sixth character is based on Margaret Dumont, an actress who appeared in many of their movies. And of course Gummo never appeared in any of the movies, but that gave me a lot of leeway to play with. Anyone who knows me knows that Zeppo is going to have more going on than might be apparent from his movie appearances. I'm shooting for that chaotic feel of the better Marx brothers movies while still keeping it Paranoia, and I think it's going to work.
I've got to stay focused on finishing this whenever I can, as I'm running out of time to write another scenario in time for DexCon, and I'd really like to have one more, preferably something for In Nomine.
The player characters are based on the Marx Brothers, and of course, there aren't quite enough brothers for a six player game. I've used that to advantage in a couple of respects. The sixth character is based on Margaret Dumont, an actress who appeared in many of their movies. And of course Gummo never appeared in any of the movies, but that gave me a lot of leeway to play with. Anyone who knows me knows that Zeppo is going to have more going on than might be apparent from his movie appearances. I'm shooting for that chaotic feel of the better Marx brothers movies while still keeping it Paranoia, and I think it's going to work.
I've got to stay focused on finishing this whenever I can, as I'm running out of time to write another scenario in time for DexCon, and I'd really like to have one more, preferably something for In Nomine.
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