Cybrludite's Gaming Blog

How many baboons can you take?

2011-01-22T05:28:00.001-05:00

Created by Oatmeal

Travel weather for MadCon

2010-09-19T13:36:00.002-04:00

Warm & clear down here. 30% chance of storms in Chi-town for the connecting flight, and a 40% chance in Madison. Nice & cool over the weekend, and more rain chances for everywhere on the flights back. Last time I went to a convention up there, there were serious storms over Chicago & our flight got diverted wide over the lake before coming back around to land. Major pucker-factor as this was just after 9/11, and the pilots never did tell us why we flew on past the airport & city...

News of the dull

2010-09-16T18:58:00.003-04:00

No real excuse for not having updated this in so long. Once I get my upcoming GURPS game rolling, I'm going to get back to my series on post-apoc gaming.

Survivalist characters

2009-02-14T03:17:00.003-05:00

Since I've been intermittently posting on post-apocalypse game settings, let me go on a bit about survivalist character types. I'll be speaking GURPS, but you should be able to port this to any other applicable gaming system. This post will be the "Good Guys", with the "Bad Guys" coming in a future post.

The Gummer

Broke into the wrong God damn rec room, didn't ya you bastard!

This is the default which everyone thinks of when you say "Survivalist". Named for the Patron Saint of preparedness, Bert Gummer from Tremors. They tend to have average gun skills for a player character (but a wider assortment of the skills), plus Armoury (Small Arms) for Full Auto conversions, Demolition & Chemistry along with Scrounging for using "a few household chemicals in the proper proportions." NBC Suit & Survival: NBC for dealing with the after effects of The Bomb, and usually the Survival skill suitable for the local climate. Wealth and Independent Income are useful to pay for the "Food for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, Geiger counter. Bomb shelter!" and, of course, the wall full o' guns. A Sense of Duty of his friends and a Quirk or mild Odious Personal Habit of mistrusting the government rounds things out.

The EDCer

You need a what? Sure, I've got something around here that'll do the trick...

EDC is short for "Every Day Carry". Whatever the situation, he's probably got a gadget which will serve the purpose. There's two ways of handling this guy. For the detail oriented, you can always just list everything the dude is carrying out in their possessions. The character point based version would have a few levels of Gizmo with a 40% limitation of "Can Only Be Used For Mundane Equipment" to represent, say 3 meters of duct tape wrapped around a business card, a tube of superglue in a crush-proof container, a disposable space blanket, a pre-paid phone card, a folding titanium spork, or what have you just when it's needed most, and leaving only the big items actually listed on the sheet. It doesn't have to be the exact tool needed, just so long as it's something that will serve. ("No, no tape measure, but my multi-tool has a ruler and I've got a spool of paracord. I'll just put a knot every six inches and that should be good enough for what we need...") A likely reputation amongst co-workers and friends will be that they're the one to find when something needs fixing, and a good Odious Personal Habit is that they will carry their gear everywhere they go. At his wedding, his cummerbund will have more tools than Batman's utility belt and his bowtie will probably be made out of paracord. Just in case.

The Back-To-Basics

Don't prep so you can survive the collapse. Prep so you don't even notice the collapse...

It'll be a bit hard to work them into the game as a PC, unless it actually is an End Of The World game, but they can make for an interesting helpful NPC, and even a fun red herring. These are the folks who're preparing for the collapse by learning how to make do without all the modern conveniences. Basically, give them the appropriate rural, craft, and mechanical skills for Tech Levels 5 and 6. (roughly the Colonial Era through WWII for non-GURPS speakers) As for the red herring bit, picture the confusion of a PC who has passed out in the boondocks due to wounds or weather exposure, and comes to in a building which looks like something out of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou... This also works for folks who're part of historical re-enactment and Living History goups. Just roll the Tech Level of the skills back further and possibly add melee weapon Sport forms for the SCA types.

The Woods Walker

There is no bad weather. There's only inadequate clothing.

Named for a well-respected poster on the Zombie Squad forums, this archetype would be a Ranger in a swords and sorcery game. Hiking, Navigation (Land), Knot Tying, and Survival for their home climate at high levels. In a cinematic setting, they'd have very high Tracking and Guns (Rifle), and maybe even Zen Marksmanship.

Open letter to spammers

2009-02-03T08:29:00.004-05:00

If you're going to keep sending me emails from January 18, 2038, could you include something useful, like say next week's Powerball numbers, or the biggest sports upsets of the next five years? Just a thought...

You all wake up in cell with no idea how you got there...

2008-10-25T04:47:00.002-04:00

Only slightly less hackneyed than "You all meet in a tavern..." for a campaign start. It's used mainly to annoy the folks who go into great detail about the specific gear with which their character is equipped. ("My character carries an Springfield GI Model 1911A1 with Trijicon sights, a 20 lb recoil spring, full-length guide rod, Swinson trigger, Wilson beaver-tail grip safety, damascus steel commander-style from STI, and a Gunsite lo-ride safety." "Actually, Bob, your character is wearing the same prison rags as everyone else, and isn't packing so much as an improvised shiv. You have no idea how you got here.") While discussing this at the start of a friend's Star Wars game recently, Jason said, "Yeah, you notice it's never 'You wake up at, say, a fancy dinner party...'" This started the gears turning in my head, and got a terrified reaction from my buddy D when I said, "You know, that'd be the perfect start if I ever run a GURPS: Illuminati game." Think about it. Your characters are typical Joe or Sarah Sixpacks who suddenly wake to find themselves in tuxes or ball gowns and domino masks in very swank digs and a bunch of similarly attired folks and the casual conversation around them involves things like, "Yes, we'll be discussing the Reptoid situation with Mr. Johnson after the ritual. "His" work on the web has been nearly effective as his previous jazz guitar playing in advancing their cause, don't you think? And talk about hiding in plain sight!"

The Omnivore's One Hundred

2008-10-14T06:07:00.006-04:00

Omnivore's One Hundred

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment here at http://www.verygoodtaste.co.uk/ linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (if alligator counts)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. ~~Oysters~~
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. ~~Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl~~ (Or any other bowl, for that matter)
33. Salted lassi (Sounds good, though)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo (Dude! I'm from New Orleans! Of course I've eaten gumbo!)
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Only half that price, alas...)
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin (Via Kaopectate)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (All of the above, actually...)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. ~~Roadkill~~
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. ~~Snail~~
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (But I do make a decent Eggs Sardou)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa (No, but I'm going to have to try it)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

63%, assuming half credit on two of them, and some of the ones I've missed are on account of having not heard of them before.

Of all the gin joints in all the world...

2008-10-03T21:38:00.002-04:00

Your result for The Classic Leading Man Test...

Humphrey Bogart

You're the original man of honor, rough and tough but willing to stick your neck out when you need to, despite what you might say to the contrary. You're a complex character full of spit and vinegar, but with a soft heart and a tender streak that you try to hide. There's usually a complicated dame in the picture, someone who sees the real you behind all the tough talk and can dish it out as well as you can. You're not easy to get next to, but when you find the right partner, you're caring and loyal to a fault. A big fault. But you take it on the chin and move on, nursing your pain inside and maintaining your armor...until the next dame walks in. Or possibly the same dame, and of all the gin joints in all the world, it had to be yours. Co-stars include Ingrid Bergman and Lauren Bacall, hot chicks with problems.

Find out what kind of classic dame you'd make by taking the
Classic Dames Test.

Take The Classic Leading Man Test at HelloQuizzy

Two Reptiods Enter, One Reptoid Leaves!

2008-09-22T00:54:00.000-04:00

1 minute, 38 seconds

The Golden Horde

2008-09-08T02:24:00.006-04:00

No, we're not talking about Genghis Khan's crew. The Golden Horde is a term used on some preparedness boards for the mass of evacuees from major population centers once the SHTF. Think of all the resources that a city uses in a typical day, plus the gasoline needed to fill the tank of most every privately owned car in the place. Now imagine trying to fill that need with the contents of small town convenience stores within a hundred mile radius of that city. You no doubt heard of shortages along the evacuation routes back in '05 for Katrina & Rita, and again last week for Gustav. Ok, imagine that instead of New Orleans or Houston, it's every city in the US that's being emptied. Now add a mushroom cloud, UFOs, or a mob of zombies in their rear-view mirrors and watch the road rage turn lethal. That convenience store's last box of diapers could end up the subject of bidding, deal making, or outright violence.

It's not just upstanding suburban citizens in this mass migration. You're also going to be having all manner of thugs and junkies fleeing whatever it is that's being fled from. And even if you aren't one, you can sure that you'll be suspected of being such if you fit the profile in the locals' minds. During such an evacuation, double any negative reaction penalties that characters might have, if they're the sort that the locals might notice. (Not so much for appearance, unless it's specified as "creepy". Very definitely for things like low Social Status or being a member of a Minority Group.)

This sort of encounter works anyplace you've got population centers, hinterlands, and something to cause the former to empty into the latter. Perhaps the semi-obscure smuggling port your characters operate from could be unexpectedly filled to the brim with refugees fleeing a shift in the battle lines. Now you've got to get that questionable cargo from the storage facility to the docks without running afoul of either the enhanced security presence or the desperate refugees. In the fifties or sixties, flying saucers or giant radioactive dinosaurs could be curb-stomping the cities. A rouge nano-weapon could send streetwise cyberpunks scrambling to the sticks. The Dark Knight had the threats of a facially scarred madman emptying out Gotham. A minor "Ooops" on the part of the Mage Guild might force the thieves & merchants of a city into the countryside, as could a steampunk mad scientist's latest creation.

It could also factor into a character's backhistory, either as a victimized local, or an ordinary citizen who had to do unthinkable things to escape from Doomedville after the traffic ground to a halt.

UPDATE: A post from Bayou Renaissance Man on real world examples of the Golden Horde during Katrina & Rita.

Back

2008-09-05T00:57:00.002-04:00

Looks like me & mine all made out ok with the storm. If you want to help out those who weren't as lucky as I was, contact these fine people.

Oh, no. Not again.

2008-08-27T00:53:00.000-04:00

1,000th visitor

2008-08-25T12:22:00.002-04:00

I was going to congratulate my 1,000th visitor, but checking the IP addy, it was me hitting it from my cell phone. Ooops. Congrats, then, to my 1,001st visitor, who came here via google.uk looking for inspirational gaming music. (I appear to be the number two hit for that search)

Maybe I can hide from the zombies on the moon...

2008-08-23T06:03:00.001-04:00

72%

Created by OnePlusYou - Online Dating Site

Clearly, I need to work on that...

2008-08-23T05:35:00.003-04:00

69%

Created by OnePlusYou - Online Dating Service

What I did on my summer vacation...

2008-08-23T05:14:00.002-04:00

At least the last week or so, I've had an actual excuse for not posting. I've been attending CERT classes in the evening before work. On the plus side, I'll be able to add NIMS-100 & CPR certification to my resume once we're done. Add in being best man at a buddy's wedding, construction work around the apartment complex while I'm trying to sleep, and a few dates here & there (Including a few second dates, no less. How'd that happen?), you can see why the bloggage has slipped so much. Doesn't help that, other than the Revoke The Games link over in the sidebar, I've been keeping this blog politics free. Got plenty I could say on that subject... Maybe I'll write up the CERT training in GURPS 4th Ed. once we're done.

Robert Asprin (1946-2008)

2008-05-24T01:48:00.004-04:00

Bob passed away Thursday. The folks coming to pick him up to go to a con found him dead on his couch with a sci-fi novel in his hand. (As a fan, can you imagine a better way to go?) Details at SFWA. I met Bob at Midsouthcon last year. Hell of a nice guy. He's gonna be missed.

*UPDATE* An unofficial wake will be held tomorrow night, Sunday the 25th, at Fahy's in the French Quarter, 540 Burgundy. 9pm 'til.

Meme-ishness

2008-05-08T02:24:00.002-04:00

Picket up a meme from Chris regarding a few random things about myself. I'm skipping the health stuff & answering the rest of it broken down into categories.

Collections: Boomsticks, costuming props (some overlap there due to being a Browncoat...), slowly rebuilding my roleplaying game & movie collections.

Hats: A couple of ball caps, still haven't gotten around to replacing my western hat or getting a cavalier hat for the ren-faire costume I plan on doing.

Jewelry: Except for my Mjolnir, I don't wear jewelry. And even that is worn inside my shirt unless I'm in Viking garb. I don't even wear a watch.

First real book: The first non-kiddie book I clearly remember reading was John Gardner's "Grendel". When I was eight. Kind of a WTF moment for me back in the day. I'm sure there were others. I may have gotten my hands on Blish's Trek novelizations earlier, but that's the first one that really stuck with me.

Favorites

Food: Bacon. Baconbaconbaconbaconbacon...

Colors: Dark green & earth tones.

Song: Depending on my mood, either "March of Cambreadth" by Heather Alexander (The bagpiped version off of the album "Midsummer") or "Paint It Black" by The Rolling Stones. If I'm in a rare mushy sort of mood, then "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel or "Time Stand Still" by Rush will get the nod.

Poem: Gotta be something from Kipling. "Recessional", "Grave Of The Hundred Head", "The 'eathen", "Helen All Alone"... too many to choose from. It's horribly cliche' to say so, but Shakespeare's Sonnet XVIII ranks up there as well. I mean, really, how can you top that final couplet?

Movie: Gotta agree with Chris that "The Princess Bride" is my favorite.

Book: Mu

Soft drink: Dr. Pepper, which I make a point of NOT keeping on hand, lest I end up even rounder than I am already. Even worse, I discovered the Dublin, Tx version of Dr. Pepper on a recent trip to Austin. Twitch, twitch...

Coffee: CDM. Brewed strong. Black.

Coffee mug: Right now it would either be the big blue one labeled "Evil Overlord" I picked up at Gulf War XV, or the "Warning: Contains Polonium-210 in liquid suspension" mug I got from United Nuclear.

Favorite beer: Shifts around a bit, but currently Eel River's Triple Exultation. 9.7% by volume is a Good Thing.

Hard liquor: Laphroaig Quarter Cask. (Heh. The spell checker's first suggestion for "Laphroaig" is "Aphrodisiac"...)As far as booze I can afford on a regular basis, Tito's Vodka from Austin, of all places. Try it and you'll be amazed that this stuff goes for about $15 a fifth.

Wine: Not much of a wine drinker. Only one I've found that I can stand the taste of is Tokej Azou. At $40 per half-liter, it's not a regular indulgence of mine.

Ice Cream: Either coffee or dulce de leche.

Dessert: Again, Chris has good taste. Creme Brulee. Either I'm not as picky about it as he is, or we've just got better access to folks who know how to make it right here in New Orleans.

Cake: White cake with my family's recipe for chocolate frosting .

Favorite place: Chincoteague, Va. Heck, you could say the entirety of the Va. Eastern Shore.

A man's gotta know his limits...

2008-04-04T06:00:00.001-04:00

And then there was none...

2008-03-20T03:52:00.002-04:00

The last of the giants of Sci-Fi passed away yesterday. Arthur C. Clarke passed away in Sri Lanka at the age of 90.

1d4+1 minutes of silence...

2008-03-05T08:25:00.001-05:00

Gary Gygax, pretty much the inventer of the whole roleplaying hobby passed away yesterday.

Clearly I need to cuss more...

2008-02-20T06:35:00.002-05:00

New links

2008-01-05T05:45:00.000-05:00

Color me rather (pleasantly, I might add) suprised to find I'm linked to by Jay Manifold over at Voyage To Arcturus. From the link title on his end, it would appear that he had been linked to atleast one previous incarnation of this blog.

I've also updated the link to Karen's blog. Unfortunately, blogger doesn't like the strike tag in the formating areas of the blog, so I couldn't properly show the name change.

Busy

2007-11-14T18:31:00.000-05:00

Up to my ass in alligators at the moment due to a promotion at work and then having my replacement quit and having to do double-duty. (triple, if you count training my new replacement) Free ice cream to resume once I have a chance to catch my breath.

Societal Collapse

2007-09-24T13:30:00.000-04:00

One of the primary motivators of the “Back To Nature” types in the early Seventies was the belief that Western Civilization was going to collapse under its own weight. Society was hitting near-Roman levels of decadence and fans of Edward Gibbons were certain that Welfare & Prime Time were the new Bread & Circuses. A subset of this crowd was mindful of the original Rome’s Visigoth problem, added some modern-day pilums to their preparations, and became the first “survivalists”. Doesn’t seem like much of a game setting, though. How can the machine grinding slowly to a stop make for thrilling adventures? Sounds pretty boring, right?

“On the roads, it was a White Line Nightmare…”

Mel Gibson’s bank accounts would politely beg to disagree. The movie “Mad Max” was set near the tail end of just such a collapse. The courts were useless, the citizens were apathetic, and the cops were becoming little more than leather-clad vigilantes. With no law enforcement, the economy began to grind to a halt as interstate shipping was choked off by the gangs. This can be transplanted to any comparatively desolate location that has access to some nearby city to base the PCs out of. The Texas Panhandle. The Jersey Barrens. Tony Hillerman fans could run such a game with the PCs operating out of Shiprock having the Navajo Tribal Police in the role of The Bronze, with Joe Leaphorn as FiFi and Jim Chee as Max.

Another way of working this would be to have the PCs to be down on their luck in a dying city. As Jerry Pournelle will tell you, no country is more than three meals from a revolution. A modern city has little in the way of food reserves. If the grain trains don’t roll, then people get hungry. Unlike the Economic Collapse scenario where the PC might not have the money to buy food, in this case there’s no food to buy with that money. (A much nastier situation…) At full population, a typical American city has about a 2-3 day supply of food on store shelves and in warehouses. Perhaps a bit less nowadays, given the use of “just in time” shipping. This sort of consideration is the basis of the open road scenarios in Car Wars. “You have to get these trailers full of canned goods to Cincinnati, or folks are going to starve!” Or the PCs could be in Cinci the day when only half the trucks make it, causing food riots to break out.

This is another setting that you can use to torture gun-bunnies. With supply-chain disruptions like this, ammo that has to be special ordered is going to evaporate pretty quickly. In generic terms, special ammo types (match grade, hot loads, frangible bullets, AP, uncommon calibers) just aren’t going to be available very often and either hollowpoints (for handguns & military calibers) or FMJ (for hunting rifle calibers) are going to be scarce. They won’t be irreplaceable, as things haven’t gotten that bad yet, but they’ll have to think hard before just opening up on folks with their preferred wonder-weapon.

Stagflation

2007-09-18T08:35:00.002-04:00

Unlike a great many of the SHTF scenarios I’m listing as potential game settings, this one has hit in living memory as the Great Depression. Currently, we’re used to unemployment rates of < 5%, minimal inflation, and obesity being the primary dietary health problem amongst the poorest Americans. Real hunger, as in “Haven’t eaten in days, and not sure when I’ll eat again” as opposed to “I skipped lunch & the vending machine didn’t have my favorite brand of chips”, is almost unknown. Folks would be screaming bloody murder if the economy went back to what it was in the 1970s with > 10% unemployment and double-digit inflation. In the US during the Great Depression, those were more along the lines of 25% or more unemployment. As bad as that was, in Weimar Germany the unemployment rate was 20% combined with inflation that was such that it made the late 1980s Mexican Peso or the post-Soviet Ruble look good by comparison. This can be considered the wimpiest of the Whimper scenarios as it’s unlikely to cause ETOTWAWKI. It’s a SHTF scenario which leaves the forces of law & order more or less intact. Corrupt and extraordinarily brutal, but intact. Loyalty to the powers which be is what keeps their children fed, after all, and shifty vagrants and other ne’er do wells (aka the PCs) threaten that. Take the “Haven’t eaten in days” example of hunger & apply it to your kids, then consider what you’d be willing to do under color of authority to prevent that from happening…

Gonna take my .32-20, boy, an’ cut her half in two. – Robert Johnson, “.32-20 Blues”

Gamers tend to be gun nerds. They have a habit of equipping their characters with flashy (.50 Desert Eagle) or rare (Medusa multi-caliber revolver) guns, or ones that provide special bonuses (FN Five-seveN with armor piercing ammo). Here’s the chance to watch your gun-bunny players squirm as they try to scrape up enough cash to arm their characters with a High Point 9mm and a milsurp SKS. (About $350 for the combo at current prices) The .32-20 round mentioned in the song quote is marginal at best for deer hunting, but was widely used for that purpose in the Depression-era South because it was cheap, available, and could also be used in pistols. The PCs can be forced into using sub-optimal or even inadequate guns because that’s all they can find. Think of “Neuromancer” where the main character arms himself with a Vietnamese made knock-off of a Walther PPK clone in .22 Long Rifle because he’s being tailed.

Since society hasn’t utterly collapsed in this setting, the suggested skill-set for the PCs is a bit different. Stuff is still being made in factories, after all, it’s just that you can’t afford it. Maintenance and Scrounging become more important than being able to make the tools to make the tools. Less re-inventing the wheel than patching the existing wheel up to get a few more hundred miles out of it to reach California.

One nifty thing about this scenario is that you can transplant it to any setting with a stock market. The original 1930s. Modern day. Pre-terraforming Martian colonies. The Third Imperium. Any of these can be turned into “interesting times” by having prices shooting up like a Saturn V at the same time as your characters are thrown out of work. It also works as recent back-history, say in a lower-tech version of a Cyberpunk 2020 Nomads type game.

It's the end of the world as we know it (and I rolled a crit)

2007-09-18T03:25:00.000-04:00

A whimper or a bang?

(This somewhat rehashes one of my “World Creation Made Easy” columns in the now defunct e-zine “The RPG Times”)

Post Apocalypse settings have long been popular with gamers. At the time that RPGs were beginning, Survivalism was quite the hot topic. Originally, the bugbear was societal, economic, and/or environmental collapse. (Decline & Fall, Stagflation, & Silent Spring) Then in the 1980s & ‘90s, thoughts turned to nuclear war and pandemics. (WWIII & Achoo!) By the late ‘90s, technological collapse came into fashion, along with concern over a few celestial near misses. (Y2K & ELE) Now we seem to have come full circle, with post 2000 election shenanigans, new environmental concerns, and terrorism combined with nuclear proliferation. (2nd US Civil War, Global Warming, & Binny-Boy’s Got The Bomb) Natural disasters have long been a “rational” explanation for preparations (Katrina), but very few of those qualify for ETOTWAWKI. (A Yellowstone Eruption or New Madrid Quake could do it, though) Some possible disaster scenarios are too outré or too controversial for polite discussion. If you’re planning to survive Zombies, the return of the Great Old Ones, or invaders from Mars, folks will think you’re even more of a nut. If you’ve based your planning around what to do the day the Welfare checks bounce, you’re probably a racist nut. (Braiiins!, Fhtagn!, Ulla!, & Helter Skelter!)

The main question for the GM is did things end with a whimper or a bang. Take a look around your PA setting. Is the scenery mainly plies of scorched rubble and heaps of skulls? Then things ended with a bang. If things are more-or-less intact, then it ended with a whimper. Bang is the default for this sort of thing. It has the advantage (from the GM’s point of view) of scarcity. If the local Wal-Mart is a pile of twisted rubble, then the players can’t just stroll around picking up batteries, common types of ammo, and cheap hiking boots. Of course the slower “Whimper” settings will result in the stores having been picked clean before The End, but that just relocates the goods to hundreds of smaller caches instead of it being concentrated. With a Bang, those goods are far scarcer and a brick of .22 Long Rifle ammo is wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. Some supplies, such as ammo, pharmaceuticals, & canned goods, are going to be used up very quickly. They are consumables, useful, and are mostly out of production after The End. Several of them have pretty finite shelf lives even under good conditions. In the case of ammo, there might be some low-level production from folks with reloading gear, but you can only get so many uses out of the brass casings, and the supply of primers will also be a limiting factor. Some calibers which are very common now will become rather scarce as they aren’t made in a format that’s reloadable. The .22 & .17 rimfires cannot be reloaded due to the rimfire priming system, nor can the Russian-made 7.62x39mm ammo which has been flooding the market the last decade due to their beridan primed steel cases. Ironically, the AR-15 may outlast the much more rugged AK-47 clones because we use boxer primed brass cases for our 5.56x45mm ammo. The AK may be in better working order, but that doesn’t mean much without any ammo for it… The stereotype of crossbow wielding maniacs might not be too far fetched, though the mohawks & ass-less chaps are strictly optional.

As the mood strikes, I’ll be expanding on the particular settings named in the parentheticals above. As a general guideline, though, here’s how they break down as to Whimper vs. Bang.

Whimper
Decline & Fall
Stagflation
Silent Spring
Achoo!
Global Warming
Braiiins!

Bang
WWIII
ELE
2nd US Civil War
Ulla!
Yellowstone Eruption

Either
New Madrid Quake
Fhtagn!
Helter-Skelter!

Bow 2 Me!

2007-09-11T02:43:00.001-04:00

Movie meme from Grim

2007-09-07T02:42:00.000-04:00

Found this over at Grim's & decided not to take up a huge chunk of space in his comments.

1. Name a movie you've seen more than 10 times.
Red Dawn. Conan the Barbarian. Starwars. Casablanca. RHPS. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

2. Name a movie you've seen multiple times in the theater.
Fellowship Of The Ring

3. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Rutger Hauer, John Wayne, Bogie, Vin Diesel.

4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to see a movie.
Sean Penn, Alec Baldwinn, John Travolta, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Leo DiCaprio

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
RHPS. Conan the Barbarian. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The Princess Bride.

6. Name a movie musical, to which you know all the lyrics to all of the songs.
RHPS (♪Science fiction... double feature/Dr. X... will build a creature♪)

7. Name a movie with which you've been known to sing along.
Does calling responses in RHPS count?

8. Name a movie you would recommend everyone see.
Casablanca

9. Name a movie you own.
Firefly

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Ol' Blue Eyes impressed the heck out of me in "The Manchurian Candidate"

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in? If so, what?
Honey, I Shrunk The Kids

12. Ever made out in a movie?
Nope. Hell, I've never even been in a movie, much less got a love scene in one. Or do you mean at the theater?

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it..
Stardust

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
No, but had I been one of the ones driving when we went to see "Dead Ringers" back in college...

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
My eyes might have gotten a bit damp during "We Were Soldiers" as they cut back & forth between the fighting & the notification teams. (Not that I'll admit it...)

16. Popcorn?
With tons of that artery-clogging fake butter, please!

17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Pretty rarely, actually.

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
Been awile. Some sci-fi or action flick, no doubt.

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
Sci-Fi, Action, Spook work or caper flicks are a plus assuming they aren't insulting my intelligence. (Oceans 1X series, I'm looking at you!)

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
Something to do with folks looking for Bigfoot.

21. What movie do you wish you had never seen?
Seven Dwarfs To The Rescue. Roller Boogie. (Those two were at least seen via NOWFF) Dead Ringers

22. What is the weirdest movie you enjoyed?
Brazil

23. What is the scariest movie you've seen?
The Haunting (The bits with the cherubs was both subtle and freaky!)

24. What is the funniest movie you've seen?
Plan 9 From Outer Space

Cassandra's questions:

What was the last movie you saw at home?
Either Firefly or Blackhawk Down

If you had to name your top ten favorite movies of all time, what would they be? And why are they your favorites?
10 "xXx", a great pastiche of the Bond films, and a big tough guy who uses his brain more than his pecs.

9 "Pitch Black", again, a tough guy who uses his brains.

8 "Blackhawk Down", 'nuff said.

7 "13th Warrior", c'mon, you know the main characters were PCs... ("Right, we're playing GURPS Vikings and do a non-supernatural retelling of Beowulf." "My character is going to wear roman gladiator armor!" "So? Mine's going to have a Maximillian curaiss!" "I'm going to play an Arab poet!")

6 "Roman Polanski's Pirates" Very dry humor.

5 "Hitchhiker's Guide", true to the radio shows & the books in that it was different from both.

4 "Sky Captain & The World Of Tomorrow", wonderful visuals of 1930's alternatech.

3 "The Manchurian Candidate", wonderful Cold-War paranoia and Dr. Lo was a hoot.

2 "The Princess Bride", fun AND a good date flick.

1 "Casablanca", because it's just that good. Citizen Kane is overrated.

Modern dwelling maps

2007-09-05T02:54:00.001-04:00

This evening your player's SWAT team are going to kick in the door of a crack house, or their cyberpunks are hitting a CEO in his house, or their counter-terrorist team is about to storm the apartment that Committee for the Use of Natural Terrain for Spiritualism is using as a safehouse to hide their hostage, and you realize that you haven't drawn up a map. Oh, bugger. And they'll be here in 15 minutes or so. Now, if you're lucky enough to have a copy of the Millennium's End GM's Companion, you've got an assortment of maps, but there's only so many in one book, and not all cities look like Miami. If only there were some webpage online that had an assortment of floorplans available, preferably one that takes regional building preferences into account... Oh, look! Here's one.

Pick Three Random Books...

2007-09-04T01:56:00.000-04:00

A quick idea for a one-shot. Reach into your book-bag or gaming library and pick three titles at random, then base an adventure on it. Works best if your collection is varied without being too eclectic. My gaming group tried this once, and then abandoned the concept entirely the same night we came up with it after I pulled Cthulhupunk, Bio-Tech, and Bunnies & Burrows from the depths of my bookbag. (In my defense, I'd just picked up B&B earlier that day from a shop which didn't know what they had on their discount table...)

The Paranoia Effect

2007-08-29T02:07:00.000-04:00

Most gamers fondly remember West End Games' classic silly roleplaying game Paranoia. Long story short, you work for the all controlling Computer as a troubleshooter, eliminating mutants & traitors. The catch, of course, is that your character is a mutant traitor. Hilarity (and laser fire) ensues. Great silly fun when it's expected. Here's a thought for running a one-shot with pre-gen characters: Bring this concept into some other genre & play it straight. I think it'd work particularlly well in a horror setting like Call of Cthulhu or Chill. After all, no one in their right mind is going to read anything in a CoC game, but if you're related to the Whatley's or the Marsh's through your maternal grandmother then you really aren't all that sane, now are you? (cue creepy, gurgling laughter)

Meme from Tam's

2007-08-23T01:30:00.000-04:00

Tam at View From The Porch posted this meme. You type in the letters of the alphabet into your address bar & fess-up to the first thing that shows up.

First things that come up on mine, not counting pop-up ad urls,

A:http://abacuscomics.com/Online_comics/abacus_online_comics.htm

B:http://babelfish.altavista.com

C:http://www.cafepress.com/minipro (Once I scrolled past a crapload of stuff from my C: drive.)

D:http://www.dagradivisual.com/media/design/pinkerposter-draft.jpg

E:http://www.ebay.com

F:http://farts.alexkujawa.com/archive.php?date=20070106.jpg (ROFL!)

G:http://www.gastateparks.org/content/georgia/parks/maps/FortMountain-sitemap.pdf

H:http://hackedgadgets.com/2007/07/25/watch-it-shred-car-eater

I:http://i.somethingawful.com/inserts/articlepics/photoshop/07-23-04-albums/keepsleeping.jpg

J:http://www.jamespiatt.com/handbags.html (For the record, I followed a link to this site. Link was from Tam, I think. Looks like something she'd link to, anyhow...)

K:http://kalashnikov.guns.ru/models.html (Like anyone's suprised at that one...)

L:http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2007/08/06/liberal-bloggers-conference-sea-of-middle-aged-white-males

M:http://maddox.xmission.com

N:http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/carib/gfs/00/ten_s_loop.shtml (Either weather charts or a trip toy. Not sure which.)

O:The intranet home page of my employer. (No link because you can't get there from outside anyhow)

P:http://pages.ebay.com/help/account/closing-account.html (Buh-by, you GFWs!)

Q:http://www.quizilla.com/users/craezame/quizzes/Which%20Firefly%20character%20are%20you (It thinks I'm Mal. Usually I get Jayne or the Operative.)

R:http://radar.weather.gov/radar_lite.php?rid=mpx&product=N0R&overlay=11101111&loop=yes

S:http://www.sat-gps-locate.com/english/index.html

T:http://tancos.net/wp/2007/08/02/anomarokarisu

U:http://unitednuclear.com (Bwah-hahahahaha!)

W:http://www.wafb.com/Global/story.asp?s=6943340

X:http://xavierthoughts.blogspot.com

Y:http://www.yahoo.com

Z:http://z.about.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/u/U/saddam_hang.gif

Inspirational Music part 2, "Lyin' Eyes"

2007-08-18T06:44:00.000-04:00

This one doesn't so much inspire a setting as it does a character.

City girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile
A rich old man and she won't have to worry
She'll dress up all in lace and go in style

Ok, so she's a gold-digger. Big honkin' deal, you say. Yes. But take the next few couplets out of your World of Brightness...

Late at night a big old house gets lonely
I guess ev'ry form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice

D'oh! Looks like Ms. Golddigger has become Mrs. Ventrue. Lucky for her that the old sap has fallen for her so hard.

So she tells him she must go out for the evening
To comfort an old friend who's feelin' down
But he knows where she's goin' as she's leavin'
She is headed for the cheatin' side of town

Looks like she's going to have time to rethink her decisions, though. A loooooooong time...

She gets up and pours herself a strong one
And stares out at the stars up in the sky
Another night, it's gonna be a long one
She draws the shade and hangs her head to cry

Now, did he bring her over, or was it a rival who did so to cause him to loose gravitas? Perhaps the crying is in response to him having fed the lover to her as a way to help break her away from her humanity.

My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things
You set it up so well, so carefully
Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things
You're still the same old girl you used to be

Looks like she manages to keep the beast in check in the end. Just remember that even if you're playing Vampire, you don't have to take your musical cues from Robert Smith...

All Hail The Mouthless One!

2007-08-14T02:00:00.000-04:00

Hello Kitty Tarot?!? Ieeeeeeeeee!

A very long Friday...

2007-08-01T05:44:00.000-04:00

Karen's Friday sounds as busy as mine. Got up at midnight. Did laundry. Finished packing. Got to the airport for 4am to get checked in. Went back to my car to drop off books to make room for clothes in my carry-on because my suitcase was 5lbs too heavy, and there was no room in my gun case for them. Fly to Huntsville by way of Memphis. Get the rental car & drive to Chattanooga. (This being cheaper than flying to Chattanooga itself... and faster as well!) Get to the con hotel an hour &amp; a half late due to traffic & a time zone change. Get checked in. Get my badge. Pay Mad Mike for the knife he's making for me. Catch up with a friend or two. Go back to the room and crash for a few hours. Then get up, get into Viking garb, and wander the halls drinking mead from a cow horn until the wee hours & I had to get some sleep before the Saturday range trip.

Crossover setting idea: Survivors of the Caribbean

2007-04-22T17:27:00.000-04:00

So, what happens when you read back through your old copy of Aftermath! while listening to Jimmy Buffet's "I've Made This Same Album 28 Times"? If you're me, your mind starts moving in odd directions. Well, even odder directions given that it's me we're talking about... Except for Cuba, there's not all that much in the Caribbean likely to have caught a nuke had WWIII happened. Plenty of sailboats. Plenty of oil if you can find a rig that hasn't been destroyed & can figure out how to refine the stuff. Full of colorful characters even without the whole "end of civilization" thing.
Swap out those ass-less chaps and leather jacket for Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and imagine a version of "Waterworld" that halfway makes sense. This can be played realistically or over the top.

Realistic means that life is likely to be nasty, brutish, and short. No antibiotics, no more spares for your engines, and a slow slide back to 1600's era technology as what little trade is left gets strangled due to the lack of anything resembling the policing of the sea lanes. Pirates in a realistic setting are likely to be very bad men indeed.

Over the top is more fun, and thus much more likely to be played & enjoyed. In an over the top game, it'll be perfectly acceptable to say something like, "Avast ye lubbers, I be here only for the gazzoline. Arrr!" as mohawked lunatics on Skidoos menace the residents of an isolated oil rig. Mad Max on "Talk Like A Pirate Day" and Captain Jack Sparrow with an AK-47 should be the order of the day.

Inspirational Gaming Music Part 1

2007-04-02T10:39:00.001-04:00

That's inspirational as in, "Hey, that'd make a great plot/setting/NPC", not necessarily tunes that "&%*#ING RAWK!". For the first installation of this subject, I'm going with the great grandsire of the type: King Crimson's The Court Of The Crimson King. Pretty much everyone who's ever run a swords & sorcery game has mined this one for ideas. Given access to a time machine, I wouldn't be surprised to find a copy of the album on Gygax & Arneson's turntables back in the day.

This "prog rock" classic is younger than myself by a few months, and has admittedly aged better than I have. The album of the same name was recorded in August through September of 1969, and was released in early October of that year. It's got a fuzzy, dream-like quality that sets the mind going in odd directions. It's almost a legal way to trip. I can only imagine what it's like while actually on mind-altering chemicals.

All that said, most older players will flee at the first mention of chanting black queens, fire witches, & yellow jesters in a D&D-like setting. They've seen it too many times. Therefore, use it in pretty much any other setting. Base the background court politics of something ostensibly mundane on the song. Perhaps in your technothriller, that wisecracking Naval Attache from the Chinese Embassy is the one pulling the strings to bring about a coup back home and part of his plot involves getting Dr. Rice to convince Janet Reno to visit Bejing. For that matter, I shudder to think what a good CoC GM could do with it...

Take three...

2007-03-26T13:59:00.000-04:00

Yeah, the blogging bug hit again. This time 'round, I'm sticking to my hobbies. Less worry of having my cow-orkers find it this way.