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Dec. 10th, 2004 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bryantYeah, every now and then we like to dump out campaign ideas we won't run.
1. Aztlan Chrome -- near-future cyberpunk set in the El Paso/Ciudad Juarez metroplex. Assume a de facto independent state in that region, extending all the way to San Diego/Tijuana, with very little federal control on the part of either Mexico or the United States. The tech is sufficient for wired reflexes; i.e., money can provide you with a definite advantage in a fight (which is really the core ethos of cyberpunk gaming, right?). The Ciudad Juarez serial killer is on my mind as I think about this setting. So is the five solid hours of Los Lobos I listened to last night. So is The Shield, but I'm not sure if that's for antagonists or protagonists. Could be either, really.
2. Bathsheba Smiles -- an A/State game that kicks off with the death of a Nakamura-Yebisu noblewoman. Her will has an immediate and world-shaking effect on the lives of four people living in Mire End, one of the worst slums in the City. A/State is one of those keen grim Scottish SF horror games; everyone lives in one big City which is drenched in politics and bitterness and mystery and run-down Dickensian slums. The macrocorporates have nanotech, but you have maybe some fried dog for dinner if you're lucky. Think China Mieville's New Crobuzon, but no magic and more technology.
3. Big Fangs, Skinny Ties -- this was a mashup I did some time ago. Still one of my favorites. It's a fairly standard Sabbat Vampire game centering around a Sabbat pack that's basically the Banzai Irregulars with fangs. I'd play up the whole "Sabbat save the world from Antedeluvians" aspect of the Sabbat, since it's my favorite aspect of the sect. Remember: the Sabbat are completely and utterly good guys, once you accept the concept that humans are cattle.
4. Rats in the Cellar -- Angel meets Whitey Bulger. You know this one. The big problem I have here is that everyone who's expressed interest doesn't want to play a hard-nosed Irish guy from Southie. One or two outsiders is OK but it loses the feel if it's all errant Harvard professors and the like. Since I'll never get around to running it, that's probably OK. Under the Eaves is the sister game to this. I can never decide if it's lighter or darker.
5. Squared Circle -- the indie wrestling federation Unknown Armies game that I've wanted to run forever. Indie wrestling is a perfect environment for quite a few UA character types; wrestlers cut themselves all the time and they take stupid risks and it ought to be obvious how great the ring is for many Avatars. The ring itself has been soaking up magickal energy all this time until it's a super-potent artifact. The owner of the fed is one of the last Cryptomancers, because what's pro wrestling but an extended lie? To get into the mindset for this, remember that a wrestling federation is pretty much just an old-time touring carnival and watch that HBO series again. Yeah, like that.
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Date: 2004-12-10 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 04:36 pm (UTC)And also also? Your ideas fucking rock. I particularly love the A/State one — I've been intrigued by A/State since it came out, but never bought the book.
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Date: 2004-12-10 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2004-12-10 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 05:33 pm (UTC)I've been thinking of turning the standard "five games I'm not going to run" post on its head and posting a bunch of requests, that is, an original game idea that I want each of my gaming buddies to run. The one I have for you has always been a rasslin' game.
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Date: 2004-12-10 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:44 pm (UTC)Let's see: say there are 6 or 7 of us who run games from time to time; if we each request one from each other GM, that's a glut of 36-49 game ideas waiting to be played, which is pretty much business as usual. :)
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Date: 2004-12-10 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 08:21 pm (UTC)(You're daunting, is the problem.)
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Date: 2004-12-10 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:46 pm (UTC)How can I refuse.
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Date: 2004-12-10 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:07 pm (UTC)Hey, you know I'm down for playing the tough from Revere. I have some stories from my dad in the 70s about fights and such at dive bars down on Revere Beach that might come in handy... :)
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Date: 2004-12-10 06:25 pm (UTC)Or, fuck it, I'll just go watch Fight Club again tonight, and swap Brad/Ed for Matty/Ben mentally as I go. When do we play?
"I am Jack's wicked complete lack of fuckin' surprise."
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Date: 2004-12-10 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 06:29 pm (UTC)(checks imdb)
Oh, hell yes. TiVo, take me away!!!
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Date: 2004-12-10 08:34 pm (UTC)To Live Outside the Law, You Must Be Honest, Volume I
Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive: peaks of ultraviolence and aberrant behavior achievable by no other director. Not his best yakuza movie, but his most infamous. The first seven minutes are perhaps the best hyperkinetic sequence ever captured on film.
Boondock Saints: what if Quentin Tarantino was from Southie? No, strike that: what if a Quentin Tarantino wannabe was from Southie? Except that Willem Dafoe plays the cross-dressing FBI agent.
To Live Outside the Law, You Must Be Honest, Volume II
Masked and Anonymous: Bob Dylan IS Jack Fate, post-modern revolutionary in the US as banana republic.
The Limey: Soderbergh's gangster masterpiece, with Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, and of course Luis Guzman. This is the movie where Soderbergh's artistic side and his commercial side co-exist perfectly. It is a jewel beyond price.
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Date: 2004-12-10 08:45 pm (UTC)Secret Service of the Imperial Court: classic Shaw Brothers swordsman flick. "Wiyi is forced to order the death of his own son and Bufu must confront the entire Brocade Guard as he makes his escape with his wife and child. Wang Zhen's influence is far-reaching and leads to calamity for Bufu's family and clan. Stripped of nearly everything he holds dear, Bufu vows to kill Wang Zhen or die trying."
Azumi: Japanese instead of Hong Kong. Spot the differences in technique and style! Hot new director Kitamura tells a tragedy about a little assassin girl who learns compassion and emotion in the middle of all the swordplay.
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Date: 2004-12-10 10:34 pm (UTC)Days Of Being Wild: I feel like I should see another Wong Kar Wai movie someday, but I'd feel so shattered if it wasn't as good as this one. It is a tone poem about Hong Kong in the 60s. People can ruin their lives in any decade, you know.
CQ: A tone poem about Paris in the 60s, directed by Sofia Coppola's brother Roman. Jason Schwartzman and Dean Stockwell are in it. Just saying. Underrated movie with a superb soundtrack.
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Date: 2004-12-15 06:36 pm (UTC)The neat thing is that in every case I've seen one but not both of the double features. Oh no, that's not true, I haven't seen either of "This Is A Sword" night.
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Date: 2004-12-15 06:45 pm (UTC)It's been the case for a while that, if I had enough money to do whatever I wanted, I would buy a smallish theater and locate a coffeeshop/bunch joint in the building. Free movies for Saturday and Sunday brunch, with talking explicitly allowed, cause it seems right.
I'd lose a lot of money on that but it'd be so much fun.
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Date: 2004-12-10 08:56 pm (UTC)and the last several minutes left everyone in the balcony of the theater saying "what the FUCK was that all about??"
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Date: 2004-12-10 08:55 pm (UTC)what your writeup omits is that this is back when the patriarca mafia folks were running things, to a great extent. the main reason bulger was able to get things done is that the fbi had a major hate-on for LCN and was getting lots of pressure from high up to crush them, and if a local mick thug could help them with that, well, why not.
of course, if the demons were working with the local LCN family...
i would totally play in that game if you ran it. i love this idea.
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Date: 2004-12-10 09:26 pm (UTC)I'll hold a spot open for you. It's been waiting a long time, as a concept, but some day...
Dennis Lehane's mysteries are mandatory reading for this.
The Yakuza papers
Date: 2004-12-11 06:42 am (UTC)I like the idea of a Rats in the Cellar crossover with Under the Eaves, as the hard-nosed southies have to Do Something in L.A. Maybe Elmore Leonard could write that part.
Bonus points for working in backstory from Huey Long's Men of Action somehow. Perhaps.
Re: The Yakuza papers
Date: 2004-12-15 06:45 pm (UTC)