Hey Man, well this is Babylon

I made a post over on the Roleplayers LJ community about a party we’re putting together next weekend. If you have any ideas, let me know.

Have you guys ever run or played one of those Murder Mystery games? Well, what I’m thinking of trying to assemble is a cross between one of those and a LARP.

Next weekend, we’re having a party for my roommate’s birthday, and she’s both a huge RPG fan and a huge Resident Evil fan. The party’s theme is “Zombies vs Zombie Hunters,” and we both want to make something of a micro-LARP out of it. Thing is, I’ve never really assembled such a thing, so I’m looking for some ideas.

What we’re thinking is to have basically two “factions” at the party: the Hunters and the Zombies. We’re thinking of setting it up as a LARP, but we want it to be as rules-light as we possibly can. Something simple that can be easily put together in the span of a week and a half. A major consideration: we will all most likely be very, very drunk. Having hidden caches of items could be fun, and of course we’ll all be in costume.

I’ve re-typed this post four times, but I keep finding it hard to write out what I’m looking for, because the whole thing is kinda vague at the moment. So I guess what I’m looking for are suggestions and ideas for building, assembling, and running a small-party zombies vs hunters drinking game RPG night.

Awright! I’ve just now compiled and uploaded the new fourth draft of the Cannibal Contagion playtest rules. There have been a crapload of updates and revisions. This will be the last major revision for a while, so download it, read it, and let me know how your play goes!

• Threat Pool now called Adversity pool, so as to no longer cause confusion with Threat scores
• Bad Guys are now called Threats, and have been made a lot easier to distinguish and employ
• Added new Allies rules, which function as special Gear
• Added clarifications to existing Gear and Weapons rules
• Updated and improved rules on Turning characters and threats
• Updated the contagion aftermath effects to fit the new Adversity rules.
• Added a whole mess of new sample NPCs and Threats
• Implemented new “cold open” narrative structure
• Added lots and lots of example text
• Updated CiC and Player sheets to have lots more information and better use of space

As always, the downloads can be found here

Bitches

• The second to last boss in the “ClaireB” section of Resident Evil 2 is a mega-bitch, and then some. It almost breaks the enjoyment of the game for me, sadly. There should be better ways to evoke a feeling of “survival horror” than “repetitive death due to terrible controls.” The bosses in RE1 were way better, but then again, the GC version we played had a fabulous control layout. For me, the main cause of the game-breaking disconnect is that for the entire rest of the game, the difficulty has been more evenly paced and balanced, but then BAM this jackass comes and breaks Claire’s virgin ass in half with little warning. At least Pirate Baby gave a warning when the end was approaching.

Roses

• The release date for Deadspace has been pushed forward a week! Yay! And two weeks later, Fallout 3 is released too! Yay! I’ve totally reserved the next day after each release date for some all-day stay-at-home gaming.
• This morning, on the long and pleasant walk from the bus stop to my place of employment, a song from the Beyond Good & Evil soundtrack queued up in my Zen’s playlist, and listening to it brought a tear and a smile as I remembered how goddamned amazing that game is. I’m definite;y going to post something about it in the next few days.

Hopes

• I’m finally getting to try out the Cold City rules in our upcoming sci-fi “horror” game. I’m considering importing the Aspect cards from Verses to add some spice, but that’s still under debate.

Last night I met with three players for a pre-campaign Jam Session. A few weeks ago I sent out feelers for interested parties to play a campaign idea I’d been developing. Major themes involve the clash of reality, virtual reality, and dreams. Major inspirations are 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dark City, and Jacob’s Ladder.

The basic idea:

“In this campaign we tell the stories of the only people on board a research space station. A disaster has occurred back on Earth, and the effects of that disaster will play heavily into the lives of these characters. Perhaps they’re scientists, or survivors, or prisoners, or something else. This game will tell their story.” Read more

Yesterday I met with Nievita and Chris to start up some face-to-face dialog on my ideas for a new game based on the Unknown Armies rules. The basics of the game are that the characters are all connected to each other through some kind of journalistic endeavor, and are soon immersed in a world of twisted conspiracies and “alien” agendas. I’m so far quite pleased with the results.

The first thing we laid down was the nature of this “journalistic endeavor” I was insisting upon. Thanks to a suggestion from Nievita, we quickly and unexpectedly all agreed: the characters are all part of Anonymous. That idea instantly stuck with me, and spawned a plethora of ideas for plots and content.

We’re using the Unknown Armies core mechanics, but not necessarily the cosmology or magick paths. I’m heavily inspired by the old Nightbane game, so there will definitely be themes of “otherworldly alien darkness” in this game. Both of the character concepts presented so far will definitely work with this, but I’ll resist posting them until they’ve been developed a bit further.

Looks like the foundation for something awesome!

- NPC

Bitches and Roses? Huh? Read here for the low-down.

Bitches

• Bethany and I have just started part two of our Resident Evil marathon, and are now playing through the collector’s edition of Resident Evil 2 on the Playstation. This is so far lots of fun, and would actually qualify as a rose if it weren’t for the godawful controls. See, in playing through the REmake on the GameCube, I got used to my favorite survival horror control scheme, in which I use one of the shoulder buttons to move forward and the stick to turn. I’ve been using it for years in other games, and love the fact that it doesn’t disorient me. But RE2 lacks this option, and additionally it also lacks a “quick-turn” button, which has become so invaluable to my Resident Evil experiences. Grrrr. Otherwise, this is a pretty great game.

Roses

• #1: I’ve signed on a pair of artists to illustrate the interior of the Cannibal Contagion book. Their work is amazing, and I look forward to posting some sneak previews in the coming days.
• #2: I’ve also signed on another amazing designer to illustrate the book’s cover and draft a game logo. Again, I’ll post more as I hear it, but goddamn, this excites me.
• #3: Getting to play Castle Crashers with Chris, Sam, and Kevin, and then collectively nerd-rage afterwards over a wide variety of geeky conversation topics.

Hopes

• I’m meeting with three players tomorrow to get a new Unknown Armies campaign started, and I do hope it goes well.

I just now posted the two-page PDF of the Quad “Quick and Dirty” RPG on the Quad Page. It’s designed as a game you can print on the front and back of a sheet of paper, fold into your wallet, and play just about anywhere and at any time. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Back around the turn of the century I lived as a renter at the Psi Upsilon fraternity house on Georgia Tech campus. They had weekly house meetings, and a common feature of each of these meetings was a little round-robin venture they called “Bitches and Roses,” wherein each attendee got a moment to say something they were happy about and something they were upset about, be it relevant to their life or whatever. Each person would give a “bitch” which would be something like “studying for the goddamn finals sucks!” and then follow it with a “rose” such as “i wuvvs my hot nerd girlfriend!”

I’m going to continue that tradition here, and hopefully keep doing it every Monday. Additionally, I’m adding “Hopes” to the list, to catalog the things I’ve got in the works, or the desires I’ve hopefully got coming to me just around the corner. So without further ado, I’ll kick this off.

Bitches

• My roommate heinously sprained her ankle and had to go to the emergency room Friday night, right before our much-anticipated night of zombie-murdering. She’s in a lot of pain, and it makes me sad.

Roses

• Thankfully, she wasn’t too incapacitated that we weren’t able to pick up our plans Sunday. We finished Resident Evil (Gamecube Remake) yesterday as Jill, and it felt good. Sure, we used a walkthrough, but that’s only because we’re on something of a tight schedule. We need to be able to finish the series in completion before the new one rolls out next year, and we’re both quite aware that the October releases of Fallout 3 and Deadspace will heavily impact our playing of the other titles in the franchise. Go Team Hotness!
• A second one! Saturday we had a fucking fantastic six-player game of Twilight Imperium (3rd Edition). That’s the most epic game I’ve been in yet, and I’ll be uploading pictures soon. Special kudos to Sam, who despite never having played before kept tied with the highest score right to the end.

Hopes

• I want a weekly game again. I’m really inspired for a street-level Unknown Armies game focusing on members of a small zine (maybe grass-roots, maybe political, maybe even poetic). The game would take place, as they say, “20 Minutes into the Future” and be very inspired by Transmetropolitan, Global Frequency, Strange Days, Max Headroom, and Dark Angel. Of course, I have to find players first, so likely this concept will change drastically once I get them. But regardless, I really want to run a street-level UA campaign with some element of journalism uniting the people.

Finally, all the updates are live. There’s quite a few, which is why this has taken so long to get out:

• Added option rule in the Gear section for “inventory slot” mechanics, allowing a simulation of the Survival-Horror game inventory management.
• The “Threat Pool” and NPC sections of the GM side of the book have been almost entirely re-written, and completely reorganized. NPCs are now purchased with fewer Threat Pool tokens, and enter the game with frequently-higher Threat scores. They’re supposed to be dangerous, and now they are.
• Expanded section on game themes, and how to effectively incorporate them.
• More info in both the Player Tips and CiC Tips sections.
• A bit more detail in the introductory scenario. Still working on that one.
• A large handful of errata updates, typo fixes, and corrections to outdated information.
• Added spacers for several future additions, such as Index, character sheets, and a few planned art pieces.
• A few more sections of example text have been added.
• Added advice for using player-framed scenes.

The updated rules and sheets can be found here, as usual. Next on the immediate design list is to create some additional helper cards, to assist with management of the optional limited inventory system.

In Cannibal Contagion, the CiC uses the Threat Pool to create NPCs, directly purchasing their Threat scores with points from the pool. As it currently stands, the mechanics for creating NPCs and generating Threat are.. well… a tad sloppy.

Today I had a new idea that I’m considering using instead. This would make the Threat Pool system a lot more modular, less haphazard, and give the CiC a lot more control over the NPCs and Dangers without overburdening him with oodles of tokens. Here’s the idea:

The CiC would use tokens from the Threat Pool to purchase an NPC, with the token cost being based upon the NPC’s Role. Fodder NPCs would cost 1 token, Hindrances 2, Minions 4, Big Bads 6, and Bigger-Badder-Big-Bads 10. Once brought into the game, the CiC then draws cards to determine their actual Threat scores. If you’re using the little NPC cards, it’s really easy to then just set the drawn cards beside or underneath the associated NPC card for quick reference in play. For Fodder, draw two and keep the lowest. For Hindrances, draw 1. For Minions, draw 2 and keep the highest, for Big Bads draw three and add together the highest two, and for BBBBs draw four and add together the highest three.

In this system, the actual composition of the NPC is still irrelevant: a Threat 5 Hindrance could just as easily be a group of five zombies as it could be one really tough zombie.

Threat Pool could still also be used as Awesome tokens as per normal rules. The amount of Threat pool available would decrease significantly, though. I’m thinking, at the beginning of each scene the CiC gains 1 for each scene that has passed and one for each player at the table.

Whaddaya think?