What's a ridiculous thing you've done for an RPG?
For me: putting together a crew rotation for a Correllian Corvette. I designed it such that the Captain and the XO -- my character's wife -- were never on crew rotation. I showed this to friends who think about military space ships, and they were aghast.
That's the first ship we see in Star Wars; Leia's consular ship. I know way too much about Star Wars, including things like the crew counts.
What's a ridiculous thing you've done for an RPG?
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This included assignment of profits based on rank. On a family ship. Of course it did!
ReplyDeleteI once set up a guard rotation for a prison with seperate shifts that covered a 24 hour period. Then did stats for all the guards, and outlined their patrol paths throughout the prison complex that was sharpied up on a mat. I think it was like 2 weeks of work for 1 night of play. it was a good night though.
ReplyDeleteVery ridiculous, Aaron Berger . I'm pleased.
ReplyDeleteFor a Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtle game in the 80s I tried to create an accurate layered map of Manhattan. The New York Public Library reference librarian explained gently over the phone that maps of the sewer systems were not public domain, because most people who asked for them wanted them for more directly practical reasons than the authenticity of their fiction.
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Likely terrorism is, indeed, a common outcome of RPG obsessing. Just look at me, publicly talking about a "caliphate"!
ReplyDeleteI don't know what their spectrum of concerns was back then. Obviously now I'd expect to get watch-listed immediately, but then they might well have just been worried that someone would, I dunno, rob a bank or try to set up an underground commune or something. It was a more innocent age.
ReplyDeleteNone of my prep holds a candle to my friend Jeremiah, whose source material for an Ars Magica game centered at the Trebizond end of the Silk Road was a bookshelf full of reference books and folders, some filled with rubbings of various period engravings from the area, or photographs of tapestries depicting the costume of the era. He was a mad-man.
For an MMO, I designed a national holiday for a fascist dictatorship. It was a week long celebration with parades and block parties (and our guild hosted one in-game as a roleplaying event. We had a DJ from an online radio station and everything).
ReplyDeleteAngela Craft You are ridiculous! Along those lines, my normal has been "of course the months all have 28 days! These people aren't savages!"
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch Indeed, the 80s were much less obsessed with terrorism, though I am uncertain if terrorism was actually a smaller threat. That's a whole other query.
ReplyDeleteJeremiah sounds amazing.
And, also terrifying.
ReplyDeleteDoes reading a 13th-century legal treatise on election systems in Medieval Northern Italian city-states count? For a Dark Ages: Vampire game that lasted all of two sessions?
ReplyDeleteYes, Gustavo Iglesias ! And it sounds fascinating. Can you give the 100-word version?
ReplyDeleteI'll give you about ten words: elaborate, contrived, multi-layered, full of ritual, ridiculously subject to open tampering.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone's curious, it's called De Tyrannis by one Bartolo da Sassoferrato.
I actually prepared a filibuster for the Galactic Senate one time, and was prepared to deliver it in character if I had to.
ReplyDeleteGustavo Iglesias This reminds me. I am becoming more and more convinced that the westminster style of democracy is the best around. Watcha think?
ReplyDeleteJason Corley What was it about? Was this star wars? How says there is a filibuster in star wars? I am confused!
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols meaning the split between head of State and head of government, the bicameral legislature and the highly ritualized parliamentary proceedings? I'm no expert in political science but they've had political stability since 1688, and they seem to have a healthier and more diverse political debate than either the US or my own country (where faith in republican institutions is at an all-time low).
ReplyDeleteRe: Galactic Filibuster ...
ReplyDeleteThe rules of order permit me to continue speaking.
President of the Senate: The rules of order permit him to continue speaking!
William Nichols It was about granting Palpatine more powers and starting a pointless war.
ReplyDeleteI write them. Ain't that ridiculous enough? :D
ReplyDeleteGustavo Iglesias Yes, that. With or without the monarchy; Canada and Australia only barely have the monarchy, and it seems to work!
ReplyDeleteTony Lower-Basch , Jason Corley That is exactly what I was thinking. I'd adore hearing this filibuster you've prepared, Jason. And Tony, I know you could filibuster.
clash bowley Maybe!
If you've read Charles Sumner's Kansas speech you pretty much got it. The centerpiece is when he accuses an evil rival: "Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight; naturally I mean the harlot Slavery."
ReplyDeletehttp://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/CrimeAgainstKSSpeech.pdf
I wrote the opening chapters of a book of a landmark book of social theory that was the cornerstone of mutant separatist philosophy in a superhero game written in the style of Donna Haraway's essays.
ReplyDeleteIt was probably better then the actual thesis I turned in.
I ... have designed the layout of planned cities for an RPG setting that'll probably never see play.
ReplyDeleteWe all do love our ridiculous obsessions!
Once I spent 5 minutes making a list of Japanese names.
ReplyDeleteNice, Remi Treuer !
ReplyDeleteI once ran a workshop to create characters for 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars as a new recruits' bootcamp. It involved a lot of yelling at people!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vIBwZeTSgc
I did the same at a convention Ghostbusters game where I was a shouting TV preacher inviting congregants (players) to talk about all the bad things each of the "Ghost bust tar ZAH" did to them and their homes and pets.
ReplyDeleteWrote a Champions character sheet and universe guide DB in Hypercard. (It did things like cross reference between who showed up on an adventure and their SAT file entries.) Campaigns were collated like plot summaries for comic books, with individual adventures being issues.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, and I forgot about the LARP where I learned to sew leather, make tools with rawhide bindings, knap obsidian axes, and make drums first. That was a smashing weekend. ;)
ReplyDeleteThose're both great and ridiculous, Gretchen S. !
ReplyDeleteI adore that we spend more time preparing and thinking about an event than the event actually takes. That is, if a game would be 4 hours, we'll often think about it for 8. Because we are ridiculous!
Oh man, William Nichols, I've run weekend combat LARPs. If I realized you would be impressed by a mere 2:1 ratio of prep time to play time, I would have talked about those first. Those routinely run more like "thirty working day to prep, vs. two days of play" proportions. They are in many ways like a huge unscripted play that you only run once. All the costuming, props, sets, character rehearsals, choreography, etc., but no reprise after opening night.
ReplyDelete