Sharpen your pitchforks and march in an orderly mob to the castle:
we're ALIIIIVE again! Turns out I'm better at generally
de-crappifying my life than I anticipated. Either that, or I'm prone
to melodramatic fits of depression. Maybe both!
Regardless, now that the SUE files story is largely finished, I
need something new to type about; the remaining bits of Marty's sage
GMing advice and what of his backstory survives are all rather tepid.
He's only really vile in practice. In theory, sane people parse some
of his ideas as reasonable, even enjoyable, but I think we can go
back one more step. The ideas he thought he had are even cooler.
If we remove his obsession with stealing the canon of better
authors, the basis of his meta-narrative becomes a lot more
intriguing; in demanding that everything his avatar did be "real",
he discarded a lot of opportunities to play around with the concept
of a variably real world or collection of worlds. I'd like to exploit
those, so let's make a setting, shall we? Marty's already provided us
with a superb B-list villain for it.
That's the plan, for however many posts it takes: rather than
building an excuse to steal canons, I'm going to semi-seriously try
to construct a setting around Marty's original idea of worlds being
dreams, or something. Less canon-Borging, more Psychonauts with
(effective) deicide. Along the way, I'll mention his advice on
writing, especially RPG writing, whenever (discarding) it would be
relevant, and in the end we'll have something free and funny and
maybe even playable.
As far as system is concerned: For the moment, I'm thinking it's
going to be easiest to integrate everything via HERO 6. I know M&M
6th has fanfolks: at some point I'll convert it over, assuming we
last that long, but I'm more used to HERO's math.
Unfortunately, I'm stuck flying around the country on graduate
interviews for the next few weeks, so posting will be slow, but once
it gets going, I would really appreciate criticism. Of the setting,
at least.
Woo! This is the best news I've heard all day! (Granted the day started 8 minutes ago, but nevertheless)
ReplyDeleteSo glad that this blog is back, I can't wait for the next update <3
Hey, considering this blog is back, are you going to go back to occasionally posting comments about funny things that happen in campaigns? If so, I could probably provide one that'd get some giggles about a pair of players in the campaign I'm currently playing.
ReplyDeleteAnd, after all, it'll help fill the gaps between these more serious posts
Yeah, sure. If you want to submit it, go ahead; I have a few of my own, but they're a ways away from being done.
ReplyDeleteHow would you like me to submit? I can have it to you basically as soon as I know that.
ReplyDelete(It involves sharks and stabbing, so you know it has to be good!)
Sorry for the wait; somehow I never got a notification of the comment. I didn't forget you!
ReplyDeleteThe easiest way to submit is probably to email me at el.sporkulon@gmail.com. Be sure to include how you want to be credited as the author.
On one of your entries, the one where Rick fought GM!Marty to the extremely predictable yet legitimately enraging finale everyone knew was going to happen, I posted:
ReplyDelete"I knew this ending was what was going to happen. I could see it happening in my head. And then when it happened, it still made me legitimately angry all the same.
I applaud you, and everyone else who participated in this campaign, for your restraint. Had I been a player in this asinine and absurd exercise in futility and ego-stroking anti-logic, this would have ended with a funeral and prison time.
And yet, at the same time, I find it hard to pity you, because you actually stayed there and put up with it, instead of kicking every one of his teeth out of his smug grin and walking away, never to return, after the first few sessions. You sat there and took it, voluntarily.
Its a question of who is worse, the smug idiot commanding the monkeys to dance as he whips them, or the monkeys, who sit there and dance even though they are free to scurry away at any time?
Frankly everything this guy did was beyond simple bad GMing, it was downright insulting to his players. He routinely abused you all, and I, for the life of me, cannot understand why on earth you put up with it. A lot of people say "There was no one else to play with". I guess my only answer to that is, "don't play at all then," because frankly, playing nothing sounds better than playing this offensive mess."
I legitimately want an answer as to what form of madness overtook you that caused you to continue pulling yourself through this forest of thistles for seemingly no reason other than insane masochism. As a reader, I have morbid curiosity propelling me. But there has to have been some profound loss of mental faculty at play for you to subject yourself to this torturous and unnecessary array of mental abuse, and yet some godlike force of will keeping your hands clamped firmly at your sides instead of crushing every breath out of his weasel throat as you watch the spark of life flicker and fade from his dying eyes for putting you through such an excruciating trainwreck of complete and utter bullshit.
Judging by their replies to the other eight hundred times they've been asked this question and statements in the blog's posts, it's because Chief Circle didn't seem so bad in the light of the college's academic environment. Once the depths of his failures as a human being became apparent, they stayed to see just how far down the rabbit hole he'd gone.
DeleteThere was some discussion on the Giant in the Playground forums about the subject.
Thoughtful blog you have here.
ReplyDelete