Yes, one quick call and a truck comes and picks up the corpse for a nominal fee. So quick and easy.

Humor aside, this is a real company but the gaming humor value was just too tempting to pass up.

Dragon Disposal-A Real Company That Needs a Gaming Equivalent

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Think about it. We (role-playing gamers as a collective body) sit around all day and think of ways to do all kinds of carnage and mischief.  I set off several WMDs, blew up a few power plants, assassinated several evil overlords, spied on the villains, kidnapped more than a few enemy agents for information and saved countless peasants from destruction in dozens of different role-playing game campaigns.

It is time to leverage that experience in the battle against our nations enemies!

Imagine a group of gamers, given a set of parameters like; “You have $50,000, four days and a party of players, plan an attack.” Wrap some rules around it, offer a fig leaf of story and run it 50 times at a major game convention. I promise there will be dozens of crazy and guaranteed-to-fail plans implemented in under 20 minutes. Then there is that one plan that is absolutely brilliant and just might work….

Yes, I am certain highly intelligent, extremely well-trained soldiers and academics sit around every day and discuss this very thing. My issue is that they are highly trained and well-educated. These professionals know the limitations of every weapon, technique and strategy available to your average terrorist. Knowing all that, they choose the “best” option given their years of experience that is most likely to succeed.  Stupid or foolish ideas do not make it past the first round of analysis.  I think this is a terrible oversight, ignoring the incredibly stupid ideas that “just might work.”

Professionals are predictable. It is the amateurs that are truly dangerous.

This is our gift as gamers. Gamers create  stupid and foolish and completely original plans better than anyone. Out of the box thinking is for the non-gamers of the world. Gamers live out of the box in every game.  Doing battle with a giant spider in a zero-g environment?  I have a plan for that.  Need to sneak into a building filled with evil aliens, steal the secret plans and get out while blaming an innocent third-party? I have a plan for that. Need me to figure out the best way a terrorist might attack a target? Give me a map and 20 minutes and I will have a plan for that. Lots of caffeine gets you an answer in 10 minutes.

I cannot claim credit for this idea. Novels (Ender’s Game), movies and other media have variations on “the gamers are playing a real event/simulation” trope. That said, it just seems like such a good fit for the tabletop role-playing game hobby that the next time I play a convention game, I will check out the plot and game parameters very carefully. You just never know….

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

“The Book” is a tale in two parallel parts. The first part is a group of under-sexed, over-hormoned misfit early teens running a fantasy role-playing game. We learn a bit about each one of them and how truly pathetic and twisted they are, each in their own way.  This part is pretty standard and takes some shots at the usual gamer stereotypes, including a very annoying little sister.

The second part follows the PCs as they move through some standard adventures and a dungeon crawl.  Due to the intervention of a powerful magic item, the PCs know they are PCs! The poor bastards realize a group of adolescent losers control their entire universe and they want out of the game world and their freedom. My favorite of the group is a supporting character, the Vulcan elf. Yes, I said Star Trek Vulcan elf.

“The Book” is an odd novel because it is as much a 13-year old’s notebook as a conventional book.  There are character sheets to track the PC’s damage (HP loss and healing are an ongoing issue), strange, vaguely disturbing scrawls done during math class and the occasion bit of art. Erotic, of course.

It is a very short book and do not expect great literature or amazing character development. The Book is strictly for laughs and is a good way to kill an afternoon. I do need to mention besides the kinky title, there is a lot of very explicit, VERY adult material in this book.  But it is a tittering, adolescent sort of adult material. While graphic, it is not meant to be taken too seriously.  Though it does stray in to the…very unusual.

So, you are now informed and warned about “The Book.”

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

My tale of sacrifice is a bit unusual, but the repercussions haunt me to this very day. At the tender age of 19 I drove 80 miles to the closest college campus for my first gaming convention. Growing up in a cultural backwater limited my gaming activities to a small group, so a gaming convention was the Holy Grail of gaming. Nothing would stop this trip. Nothing.

Of course, I developed a minor cold the morning we left. Just a sore throat and a runny nose. Ha! No mere virus will stop me. Steeling myself, I trundled off to the convention and got in an early round of “Paranoia.” By the end of the round it was clear that my virus decided to party in my vocal cords. It was still very minor laryngitis and I pressed on. I chose my next game and it all went horribly wrong.

“Diplomacy”

“Diplomacy” is a diceless game of negotiation. You have to talk to the other players and the games tend to run long. Very long.

12 hours pass…

Hour after hour I negotiated with my erstwhile allies for the great glory of the Russian Empire. With each hour, my voice faded a bit more until hour 11 when I re-invented sign-language to convey my plans of empire. If you stab your finger on the “Gulf of Bothnia” hard enough, people get the idea you want to invade. I got through the game. I lost, but I got through it.

The game ended around midnight and I crashed on some floor space. The next day I awoke feeling pretty good. Save for being unable to say a single syllable. Absolutely nothing came out but breathy gasps and searing pain in my throat. Apparently my vocal cords decided to strike due to managerial abuse. Duly chastised, I gave them a break for a few days and my voice returned.

My vocal cords came home from the war, but they were forever changed. Literally. I now had a deeper, rasping voice that implied years of cigars and whiskey. That was 20 years ago and my voice never recovered.

A deeper voice does not impeded my life in the slightest, but occasionally I remember why I sound the way I do. I have my voice today because I chose to ignore the pain and keep playing the game. Foolish? Probably. Fun? Definitely.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

“Alpha Omega” is a high-action post-apocalyptic game, so modern weapons are available. Relatively cheap, large kill-radius and massive damage potential make the grenade a favorite among my players.

Enter Haaldaar, playing an artificial intelligence with shotguns mounted on each arm and grenades on  bandoliers. He is the epitome of kicking-ass.

The scene begins with the party barreling down a street in an old flatbed truck, headed for a ship and escape from a very unfriendly Vancouver. Haaldaar jumps in the back with weapons at the ready “just in case.” Not moments later a sports car starts paralleling the PC’s truck and the gang members inside start preparing for violence. A rear window rolls down revealing a spell-caster warming up some pain for the party.

Haaldaar gets initiative and immediately throws a grenade into the gang’s open window. I cringe because the grenade will easily kill most of my NPC cannon fodder before they can act. Even the gang leader is probably dead. Oh well, thought I.

Now Alpha Omega has a “critical failure” option when rolling. If you fail a task and roll a one on a d20, then some setback befalls the party. There is a chart to roll on, but many times I just make something up on the fly that fits the situation.

I remember saying something like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you dropped the grenade in the truck?” Ha ha, everyone laughs. Haaldaar rolls his attack.

One on the d20. GM cackled with glee.

PCs panic.

The NPCs quickly roll up their car window.

Happily for the PCs, AO grenades have fuses and you have a couple of actions before they detonate. Everyone jumped into the back of the truck batting the grenade about like a toxic hockey puck, eventually throwing it off of the truck to detonate harmlessly in the street.

Whew!

Fast forward a couple sessions and we once again have Haaldaar and company adventuring in AO. Washed up on a small island, the PCs and a group of 50 islanders march toward their capitol city. The island has some bandits, so the PCS take up front/middle/rear positions among the peasants to protect them. Everyone is on alert.

Exploding from the jungle, an ambush party of bandits appears on the trail. They quickly interlock large shields and form a small phalanx and begin advancing. The shields provided cover and made it hard to hit the bandits with small arms. Haaldaar again gets initiative.

He quickly explains that his mistake in the truck was throwing a grenade. Now he has a grenade launcher! No chance to drop the grenade this time. Taking aim he rolls his dice and seemingly hits. I am annoyed at the carnage among my NPCs. Quickly noting that Haaldaar forgot the d20 failure/success dice, I ask him to roll with a comment like, “I hope you roll a one.”

Haaldaar casually throws his die.

One on the d20. GM cackled with glee…again.

This time, I decide to let chance decide the grenade’s fate. I use the AO failure chart. This is a quote of what I rolled on the chart.

Ricochet: Random PC hit.

I roll randomly and the lucky PC takes his damage. Remember that “large kill-zone” I mentioned earlier? Sadly, he was also standing in the middle of the innocent villagers and the entire party. Total carnage and 95% die instantly. A few survive, including the only “named” NPC in the crowd, minus a hand.

Most PCs are critically injured, with Haaldaar actually on the verge of death. A short battle commences and the bandits die in a hail of PC firepower.

With all due credit to the PCs, they quickly spun a story about how the bandits fired a grenade at the party. With some good rolls on their bluff skills, they come out looking like heroes of the hour and get invited to meet the local leader.  The one-handed NPC spent the rest of the session thanking the PCs for their “heroism.”

The party is now discussing never letting Haaldaar use grenades again…ever.

It is moments like these that make RPGs worth playing. We are still laughing about it.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

After a week of blogging about massacres and finding non-mutant replacement gamers, I thought some humor appropriate. There are moments in a life that cannot be forgotten. Weddings, deaths, births and other life-changing moments loom in our memories like unchanging mountains. They shall never pass from our minds and even recalling them brings the same joy or pain as the original event.

For me, Jacques is such a moment. Never before or since has a gamer left such a powerful impression. I told my game group so many times that even they now laugh at the story of Jacques.

Let me set the scene. It was a “Living Arcanis” game, so I have the exact date: July 26th, 2003 at a local convention called “Gilacon.” We mustered a table of six for the module “Assault on the Gate of Tears.” This particular module had major plot implications, so we were anxious to run through it. Other than my comrade Werlen, the other players were strangers.

The other players were the usual assortment, but “Jack” stood out from the rest. Black t-shirt, scuzzy jeans and an aversion to personal hygiene marked him as a “mutant” gamer. I started breathing through my mouth and sat on the other side of the table. Such is convention gaming.

In the first encounter we battled a powerful construct. It was here I saw Jack’s reason for living: dealing massive damage. His barbarian had every broken, cheese-monkey item and feat to do nuclear damage each round.

For non-Living Arcanis players, the early years of the campaign were notable for some incredibly broken items/feats/class abilities that created unbalanced characters. These are now fixed, but it was an issue five years ago.

The battle completed, we received the full glory of Jack’s personality. Arrogant, confident and very pleased with his deadly barbarian build. I loathed Jack. It was a difficult module and I valued my PCs life, so I kept silent.

Advancing into the fortress, we came to an intersection of three tunnels. Lacking any particular destination, we chose the center tunnel. A kilometer or two up the tunnel, we entered a massive cavern. There was only one exit on the opposite side. Between us and the exit flowed a powerful, raging river 20 meters wide.

We were too low-level to fly or teleport, so we started to consider our options. About 30 seconds into the plotting, Jack jumped in with, “I have a plan.” A statement delivered with the certainty of success. Without hesitation, Jack ties a rope about his waist, hands the loose end to the nearby cleric and jumps into the river.

At this point, Werlen and I looked at each other, expecting a feat of magic. Water walking, an amazing jump check or even some dimension door action. Something other than what actually happened. The next line is as close to verbatim as my memory can provide.

“I have an 18 constitution, so I can hold my breath for 18 rounds. I will sink to the bottom of the river and walk across to the other side. Once I am over, you can use the rope to climb across.”

Silence.

More silence.

We failed our will save vs epic stupidity. It took a moment to overcome the stunning effect. The DM recovered first and spoke.

“Make a swim check or be swept away.”

A slight glimmer of intelligence beamed from behind Jack’s surprised eyes. Apparently the rudimentary physics of thousands of tons of water at 30 kilometers per hour against his 100 kilos finally bubbled up to Jack’s frontal lobe.

A d20 clattered across the table. The check would fail on anything other than a 20. Not 20.

The grovelling begins.

“But, but, I gave the cleric the rope. He can pull me in.”

Well done Jack, you gave the cleric with the 12 strength a rope with 100 kilos of dead weight at the end. Dead weight propelled by several thousand metric tons of water. Good plan.

The rest of party is not even in “grab the rope” distance. We had nothing that could help.

The DM, being a kind soul, gave the cleric a strength check to hang on, DC 20. It was a gift, given the circumstances.

The feeble cleric needed a 19-20 to succeed. A yellow die flies across the table. Not 19-20. Jack dies.

Mighty Jack, now a grovelling for a “do over” debases himself before the DM. I will never forget the plea.

“I would not have dived in unless the rope was tied off!”

I helpfully chimed in that Jack clearly stated he “handed the rope to the cleric and dove in the river.” I always try to aid my DMs. Would not want any detail of this brilliant plan to be overlooked. It was so well thought out. Jack glared at me, then went back to grovelling to the DM.

Jack is now desperate and reaches to the bottom of the plea barrel.

“Don’t I at least get a swim check to try to get out.”

DM turns a page and shows Jack the river description in the module. I will paraphrase.

“Any PC that goes in gets one chance to swim, if they fail the river takes them underground for 10 kilometers, beating the victim to death against the rocks. This assumes they do not drown in the two hours before you see daylight again. Your body is not recoverable. They cannot have ‘raise dead’ cast without a body.”

At this point, Jack starts pleading to nearby DMs for another ruling. All for naught. Our DM gets fed up and just ejects him from the table. He left the convention in a huff, never to be seen again.

Seeing the river is impassible, we backtracked to the intersection, took the right-hand tunnel and crossed the river, on a bridge. I wonder still if anyone every told Jack he died for wont of a 15 minute detour.

So, whenever we come to a river, Werlen and I look at each other and smile at the memory of Jack, excuse me “Jacques Cousteau.” The greatest underwater adventurer we had ever seen.

Rest in Peace, Jacques

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Except when it isn’t.

Now, I am very forgiving of low-budget monsters or those that just are not well designed. No, this particular monster was just so poorly conceived for the screen that it deserves some serious laughter.

My candidate comes from the venerable BBC. No, it is not a Doctor Who episode. I am a big Neil Gaiman fan, so I decided to track down a somewhat obscure mini-series he created in 1996 called “Neverwhere.” The premise is there is a secret fantasy world under modern London, complete with warriors, magic, angels and monsters. Above all these threats hovers the great “Beast of London.” One of the main characters sole purpose is the destruction of the beast and everyone speaks in hushed whispers of its terrifying powers. It is a critical part of the plot

Finally, we get a look at the beast in all of its might. Quake before the beast that has only one name;

cow.

Yes, the great “Beast of London” is a cow, actually, a Highland cattle bull. Check out the terrifying  image below:

The Beast of London

I know bulls are dangerous, but this one looks like a chubby Ewok with horns!

The BBC did use some 6 o’clock weatherman-quality special effects in a vain attempt to make the bull “scary.” Sorry, but those other British horrors, the Teletubbies scared me more. I actually liked the series as a whole, but whomever decided to use the bull as the scary monster needs a brain transplant. Even bad CGI is more acceptable.

Thus ends my rant about the worst monster reveal ever, unless you have something even worse. Sadly, I am certain there is something worse.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Brain Wash  Soda Pop.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer

Our first selection  combines a modern film with ancient horror. I present…..

Brokeback Mountains of Madness

Time slot: Sat Aug 15 8:00 pm – 11:00 pm

It’s the vacation of a lifetime, girlfriend. You and a bunch of your pals taking off on a dude ranch adventure into the remote Brokeback Mountains. What could be more fabulous? You just had no idea the horrors that were waiting for you there. So the question now is who’s going to miss their sanity check first — you or the monsters? It’s Cthulhu meets Rupaul in this “Tell me you did not just go there” game.

Truly terrifying.

The next candidate reached the final selection on the strength of a single sentence. See if you can guess which line of prose disturbed me the most.

Hentai Dubbing

If you’re interested in seeing what it takes to be a hentai (adult anime) voice actor, stop by Dick and Buster’s Hentai Dubbing Extravaganza. This event is hosted by the King and Queen of adult anime Dick Tripwire and Buster Highman. Audience participation is STRONGLY encouraged–ladies and gentlemen most welcome. Hilarity and fun galore! Come on down and rock out with your…ahem…out, or just hang out with your wang out. Not for the shy or easily embarrassed; check your shame at the door and get ready for some serious adult fun! And who knows, this could be you big break in the adult anime industry.

Though Brokeback provided some stiff competition (yes, I said it), I selected “Hentai Dubbing” as the most disturbing Gen Con event award winner. “Hang out with your wang out” should never be spoken at a game convention…ever! Gamers….nude…argh! The horror! The horror!

I planned on giving a joint award this year, but an accident of printing pushed the dubbing event over the top. On page 115 of the Gen Con 2009 program book is the entry for “hentai dubbing,” directly beneath an advertisement for “Grave of the Fireflies.” A film noted for its seriousness and an ending so depressing that viewers want to commit seppuku. It is like putting an ad for a XXX movie next to the “Old Yeller” poster. That is just wrong.

I am open to other submissions as well, just post them in the comments.

Trask, The Last Tyromancer