Comments on Interregnum #24

Peter Maranci

I'm not sure I understand your comment to Rich Staats about political violence and its possible connection to causes the Republican party espouses, but it sounds like an interesting premise... I'll give it a stab.

Greenpeace used to ram ships with their "Rainbow Warrior," if I remember correctly... or was that ice flows? Hard to tell in the excitement of the moment, perhaps? Radical environmentalists and what I refer to as animal rights terrorists aren't part of mostly Republican causes either, if my memory serves. I'd have to say that fanatics are fanatics... the Republican party doesn't, in my view, have a monopoly on misguided people.

I think I'd have to define 'violence' more carefully before I could argue at all convincingly on either side of this issue. Do we include pouring sugar into gas tanks and spiking trees as violence, or is only homicide classed so? How about if homicide was intended but prevented, and no one got hurt - is that still violence?

What if a bunch of lab rats are released? The rats that manage somehow to escape outside will die quickly and messily, as they're both white targets for predators and practically domesticated, in a sense. The ones that don't get outside will all be exterminated, since the experiment they were part of has been 'contaminated'... and then more rats will be bought to redo the experiment. Isn't it violence to condemn these rats to die pointlessly, just so that a 'gesture of defiance' can be made - a gesture that means nothing to the rats? More points to ponder...

Hmm... I don't think I attach the same importance to exps that some people seem to. To me, they're mostly a way of justifying acquisition of some new skill or something. In several of my favorite games we ended up not keeping track of them at all. If we wanted a new skill, we'd say to the GM, "Does it make sense that she'd go out and learn how to do this?" The GM would agree or disagree and explain why, there'd be some talk about it, and things would be settled one way or another... and the game would go on. We usually got what we asked for, since our requests were rather modest from a mechanics viewpoint. Those were all rather dice-light games... I wonder if there's a connection there?

Where exps bother me is when they're used as a tool for one-upsmanship, e.g., (assume whiny, sing-song voice) "my PC can do everything yours can do, and better! And you can't ever catch up - 'cause you started in the game later than I did!"

Bleah... not what I game for.

Do my correspondents know they're being quoted in Interregnum? You betcha! Scott Ruggels is a friend of mine. I heard his frustration and anger when someone slightly altered Scott's artwork without permission in a zine, then erased Scott's name and put in his own. I've also heard the frustration and pained anger of far too many people in the gaming industry who did work without contract for friends in a particular company which I shall not name here... then saw their ideas taken and no credit given... and I got to watch it happen to a very close friend of mine. I am VERY careful of what I do with other people's words.

Take the instance of my zines. In almost all of the quotation cases here, I was either chatting on the net with a friend and thought they said something with exceptional clarity, or read something I thought was particularly well said on a mailing list. My next step was to try to find the person in order to tell them I liked the way they'd phrased that particular issue, and I wanted to quote them in a zine I wrote. Would they allow me to do that, if I sent them a copy of the zine first, so they could check and make sure their words weren't taken out of context? Of the people I've quoted that I've been able to locate, I've not had anyone refuse me yet, although I did have one person agree on condition of anonymity, and I did 2 or 3 rewrites for another.

So yes, the people I quote all know, and have all given express permission. That's a button of mine that I'm very careful about... can you tell? ;-)

What's the J word? Jorl? *laugh* I'm suddenly reminded of the time in early college when some friends and I were tipsy in a graveyard, and giggling over some of H. P. Lovecraft's creations... we decided to test and see if Hastur was really unspeakable, and ended up dancing around singing out, "Hastur! Hastur!"

*blush* I was younger then!

I agree with you, playing a failure is pointless and no fun. I don't mind challenging PCs, or PCs with major problems besetting them... but I think I need the occasional success, or I get frustrated.

You might find it interesting to note that your views on evangelism were shared by early Christians for quite some time. It was Augustine (the pedantic) who decided that Christians shouldn't just present the truth and let people use their god-given free will to decide whether to convert or not, but rather should force the 'truth' on others. *amused sigh* Why is it that fanatics always assume their personal faults are also the faults of society in general? Augustine is a perfect (if unhappy) example of that.

Hmm, I see I've been unclear. By no means did I wish to imply that I personally would not enjoy gaming with an enthusiastic, imaginative, mature person, regardless of age. I was merely trying to point out that it would be best if such a game, in California, were in a private home, and also that the home's owner/renter (if they're smart) would be sure that the minor's parent(s) knew what was going on and approved.

Regarding obstructions to gaming, as manifested by adolescent boys and a preoccupation with war games: my sincerest sympathies. I've discovered through painful experience it's far better not to game than to game and be bored stiff!

Glad you enjoyed my impromptu time-travel through Interregnum's hallowed pages!

Yeah, I agree with you re the Wealth becoming insulting to other players. I've personally found that the type that really gets my goat is the individual that deliberately tries to be divisive within the group. One of the best examples of that I know of is written in The Wild Hunt 173 by Dana Derryberry, Roll Your Dice and Move Your Mice #6:

[T]he player ... created incredibly dangerous yet incredibly independent and aloof characters. The difficulty was that because he was so aloof (it was hard to even get him to even admit he was with the group; that wouldn't be mysterious enough) as well as belligerent, he... would usually walk off if crossed (or if his coolness was not sufficiently noted).

I hate that. How can the players create a coherent team with someone that doesn't even want to be part of the group? However, I find it much harder to be annoyed with someone that's genuinely trying to help rather than someone trying to be obstreperous within the party, due to whatever reason. I think the easiest way to handle the Wealth player would be to gently tell the player or PC that you wanted to do things your way, thank you... but you'd be sure to ask them right away if you needed help! Nothing says you actually have to ask later...! :-)

I'm so pleased my zine inspired someone! Thank you - that's a lovely compliment! Now I'll have to try to get one of my local GMs to play it - I'd like to see how it works.

My sincerest sympathies on the pretentious gaming bore! As a former manager of a comics and games store, I had more annoying people corner me conversationally than I ordinarily care to deal with. Thank heavens for the interesting ones! Also, I thought you might like a few bits of information regarding the games you were drooling over... :-)

R. Talsorian didn't acquire Hero; rather Hero called it quits with ICE, and in record-breaking time (like immediately) set up a contract with RTG. RTG will be doing the same thing for Hero that ICE used to do. As far as 'cleaner and less technical,' I cannot comment due to personal feelings. Feel free to drop me an e-mail if you wish, but I don't think I should rant in Interregnum. As far as Bushido, Gold Rush Games was going to reissue it with a cleaned-up rules set, but then the original owners changed their minds. So GRG is going to continue to make a Bushido style game, since they'd already started on the cleaned-up rules. However, they'll be using a different name - and they'll have the benefit of several years of play(testing) Bushido.

Well, that's it for now - a nice, short zine. Hope this gets out in time!

Last Updated: Sat May 17 1997