Gaming stuff

Couple things. First off, recently someone posted that they didn't like gaming because they played Shadowrun and found Elves in Cyberpunk didn't click for them. Well, you and Some CP Author both, pal.

Anyway, that got me to thinkin' about CP rpgs. There is, of course, the granddaddy of the genre, Cyberpunk 2020. A neat little game in its day, it was as relevant and interesting as William Gibson's Neuromancer, but as time has passed it's become as daring and cutting edge as Billy Idol's Cyberpunk.

For stuff released in the 21st century, there's the beloved behemoth of CP RPGs Ex Machina
from Guardians of Order. Sweet game, uses their lean and mean Tri-Stat system, which does a great job of bridging the gap between systems so vague they seem to be happy to say "Yeah, I guess you can do that" and systems of more precision and less fun.

Which is what is used to run GURPS Transhuman Space.Personally, I don't know what's wrong with me, since I can't take GURPS but adore Hero. But, hey. THS has gotten raves from a number of folks, and it's written by a guy (same guy who did the rules, IIRC, for Ex Machina) who I strongly suspect is an android containing a crazy AI.

You hear me, Pulver? Your gig is up!

Shadowrun, BTW, is a neat setting, but I like it best when it divorces itself from Cyberpunk with Elves and is more about occult conspiracy type stuff in a CP setting. With elves.

Stay tuned for Gaming Stuff Pt 2, where I talk about the Vampire game.

Before I talk about Vampire

This song has a strange history to me. First introduced to it (IIRC) as a jingle for a Listerine commercial (where a computer generated bottle of mouthwash swings through a computer generated jungle on a computer generated vine), I first heard the song in full in TMNT III: Turtles in Time, in a scene where Atom Egoyan loveslave Elias Koteas takes a group of time displaced samurai out dancing.

Really, I have no excuse. I was 20. I should have known better.

I blame the Ottawa crew. Or the Kingston crew. Someone is to blame.

But, seriously. One of Canada's finest Thespians, dancing to Baltimora with a group of time displaced samurai? How am I supposed to feel about that?

The Vampire Game

Okay, here's a thought: imagine you're in a World of Darkness game. You're playing a group of kids. These kids, led by the precocious young genius, discover a small facet of the world, that being the presence of Vampires.

Doing the only rational thing, they study them, and dispose of the nearest one. This would be quite an exciting game, eh? Very engaging? A sort of Harry Potter-esque adventure, only with no magic, just pure ingenuity and skill. A team of friends seeking to keep their families and the world safe from the monsters that surround them.

Now imagine you're the monster who's been sent to kill them.

The game is setup as a Vampiric police procedural, with the PCs members of the Dark Squad. The core concept is it's Vampire Law & Order. What's happened, though, is it's turned into Vampire The Shield, and I'm feeling like my character is the rookie in the pilot of The Shield, about to get his head blown off.

It's probably the worst situation I've ever found a character in. The worst part is that the GM played the grade school hunter NPCs so well. We got a sense of these kids. In a five minute interrogation, the kid laid out her entire life for my character.

And now, he's gotta end it.

I wonder how long constables last? How long do they survive before what little of their humanity dwindles away and the sherrif has to bring them in? If this is the kind of thing that happens frequently, I can see a darn steep curve on the downward spiral to inhumanity.

Feh. Never thought Peace, Order & Good Government could sound so dirty.