11/22/2008 09:03:00 PM

An Adventure Idea

So I've been thinking for a number of years of running a game in which the players themselves are at first taking place in a normal game. Then after a bit things start to contradict themselves, causing them to question reality in general.

I got the idea while running a game of VtM a number of years ago with my good friend Terry. The game was one of those one-on-one sessions initiated because everyone else folded on us. About 2 hours in I realized that it was fucking boring, I mean bad, and I had to do something to save the game or we were both going to quit.

So I started contradicting some of the actions that his character was doing from the prior night. The more and more contacts he revisited from the night before the more and more certain he was that something really screwy was going on. His character later realizes that another vampire has Dominated him by creating some false memories to replace the Dominated acts that he actually performed the prior night.

Terry's character now has to deal with the fallout of his illegal actions and try and patch up the relationships that he ruined earlier. Not to mention that he needed to find out what he really did on that lost night.

Now that game is remembered by both Terry and I as being the best damn game we had ever played.

More Ideas

Not only had I rethought how to do a typical Dominate into something far more sinister for the characters. We also played around with some different styles of problem resolution. The problem really began because we were chain-smoking and hated having to get up every five minutes to go outside and smoke leaving the dice and sheets inside.

So I said screw it this is supposed to be fun and we were really into the characters, so why not try paper-rock-scissors. Now this was by no means revolutionary, but it made the game fun! And that's why we play after all right?

The New Game

OK, so now you know where I am coming from with this idea. Now I want to do this on a grander scale with more players. The only particular game system I have access to, since I lost them all in the hurricane, is Call of Cthulhu and Dark Heresy. Both of them would lend themselves well to a mass hallucination/mind control affect.

Call of Cthulhu Options

This wouldn't be that bad at all to do now that I think about it. There are a number of ways I could pull it off:

  1. group mind control spell
  2. vast conspiracy
  3. characters transported to an alternate reality
  4. characters transported to the Dreamlands

I think that the first option would be the most likely and simplest to pull off.

Dark Heresy Options

OK only one thing really comes to mind here, psykers. I am really digging this system and scenario, so this is likely to be the option I would choose regardless.

eyes hurting ...

TBC...

11/20/2008 09:49:00 PM

Got in my humidor today also!

Sweeet little baby it is! A 100 count Toscani humidor with Spanish cedar inside and a tray, brass hinges and inset handles...  HUM-TOSCANA-2

yeah it's nice...  :)

11/20/2008 09:39:00 PM

Google releases GMail Themes

Google released a set of custom themes for GMail today. In typical Google fashion the are being rolled out in stages, so if you can't see them yet, well just wait.

Personally, I happy about the themes and they couldn't have come at a better time for me, I was getting tired of the default GMail crap theme.

You can make the change by going to the Themes tab under Settings. I'm using Shiny for now, but I might go old school with the ASCII theme soon, I don't know.

11/20/2008 05:17:00 PM

Burned Out!

I am so fucking burned out with work right now that it is borderline treason. I'm the lone tech writer for a mid-level software company and I am just fighting it everyday. Unfortunately going independent doesn't guarantee the amount of pay I need to provide for my family, and I learned the craft in-house. Also, my NDA pretty much excludes me from anything without a battle.

I'm sick of people giving me the specs for a doc and then changing it 90% through but not extending the damn deadline. Or having a doc due to a client to validate the format and style of the document, but then the day it is due tell you that is must be a final draft, they'll be checking for content.

This is on top of the other duties that I already manage, two separate bug tracking databases, a number of delivered apps, and being the only person, at least at times it seems, that can translate programmer speech patterns into discernable text for a client to understand.

I was wiped out in Hurricane Ike, lost fucking everything (Hell I only owned one pair of pants until yesterday!), having to move to another region of the state, my wife losing her job, losing two of my cars, the lit goes on and on...

Meanwhile, the people in the office who were also affected, some slightly some as bad as me, seem to think I am not working or some such bullshit. Fuck me! Did I mention that I had insurance on everything, but not flood insurance! So nothing was covered, I lost upwards or $150,000 in stuff and got $7000 from FEMA. Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against FEMA! Without them I would have been homeless and no chance of survival afterwards. My beef was with the god damn insurance companies. Technically the damage should have been covered under my current policy. But the insurance company decided after the fact that a storm surge is a flood! I am in the same boat as a renter as a guy who lost his entire home and is not able to rebuild for whatever reason! I had 6 fucking feet of water in my house for two fucking days! If you have ever survived a flood you know what it's like if not shut the fuck up and be happy it wasn't you.

Long story short is that I am back to working paycheck to paycheck, slaving for the man with no real end in sight.

I decided to bitch now, just because I can't fucking take it any longer. I am one of the forgotten, one of those poor bastards that couldn't afford to stay in the strike zone after Ike and can barely afford to live elsewhere. No one has helped us out except for FEMA and some exceptionally nice people at the KofP in East Texas, and what little furniture that we have now is due to their kind donations.

So why write this now? I'm fairly certain no one reads this shit anyway so why not! Besides if I don't at least throw it down somewhere I'm certain I'm going to go fucking insane.

I'm mindlessly ranting now, this shit isn't even making sense anymore....