The Little Mermaid is the first movie in the so-called "Disney Renaissance," marking their return to making movies that were, like, good (and profitable). It stars Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Jason Marin, Buddy Hackett, Samuel E. Wright, and Kenneth Mars. It's based on the fucking horrifying story by Hans Christian Andersen.
Ariel (Benson), the titular mermaid, is the youngest daughter of King Triton (Mars). She's fascinated with surface-dwellers, whom her father fears and hates. She collects masses of stuff that sinks into the ocean (mostly misidentified by her buddy Scuttle the seagull; Hackett), and one night, in the act of watching a birthday celebration for the handsome Prince Eric (Barnes), she saves his life after his ship burns. Her father, not quite ready for his sixteen-year-old daughter to hare off after a man she's literally never spoken with, goes a little nuts and trashes her collection, so she bargains with Ursula (Carroll) the sea-witch, who apparently was once queen of the undersea-folk. She trades her voice for human legs, on the condition that she can get Eric to fall in love with her in three days. Wacky hijinks ensue.
So, watching this movie in comparison to earlier Disney fare, it's worlds better. It's faster, funnier, and I would argue a better adaptation (not "more faithful," because I don't want a faithful adaptation of Andersen's stuff, I want my children to be able to sleep at night) than, say, Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. But it's got some problems. For one thing, although the lead character is a woman, she's literally silenced for most of the movie. For another, there's Sebastian the crab (Wright), who's not the most racially sensitive of characters (the whole "Under the Sea" number has a couple of issues - "the blackfish, she sings" - what the actual hell, Disney?).
This movie came out in 1989 when I was a freshman in high school, but I didn't see it until we watched it on video at a cast party. It's cute, the music is fun, and as a teenager it's easy to identify with Ariel and how unfair she feels her father is being (and in fairness, the biggest threat to his kingdom seems to be the witch who's turning his subjects into living seaweed, like, a five-minute swim from his palace, but whatever). As I've gotten older, of course, I'm a little more down with Triton's concerns, though he expresses them in a completely piss-poor manner. So once again we find that a lot of children's movie conflicts cook down to "why don't you fuckers communicate better?"
I also really enjoy Pat Carroll's performance as Ursula, right down to her actually showing remorse for accidentally killing her two eel henchmen. Of course, she winds up getting impaled by a giant boat...by Eric, while Ariel watches helplessly, because c'mon, she's a girl.
My Grade: B (would be higher but for the sexism and racism and stuff)
Rewatch value: Medium-high
Next up: Little Shop of Horrors, unless the Amazon shipment with Deadpool gets her first
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Friday, May 13, 2016
Game Prep: Changeling, The Finale
Monday our Changeling: The Dreaming game is coming to a close. I have thoughts, which I will spill since it acts as a buffer before I start talking about my plans.
I really love Changeling. I don't love the OWoD system. We've made some tweaks to the magic and so on that I think make the game a lot more palatable to my current crop of players, but I'm also realizing that I ignored a lot of rules when running OWoD games back in the day. That style of play - have system for everything, but ignore the shit that got in the way of making the game fun - was pretty endemic to 90s games (shows up in Chill 2nd Ed, too), but it doesn't really mesh with my design sensibility now (which is more "you're not gonna use this rule? Why the hell have it, then?").
But Changeling 20th is a nostalgia product, and that's fine. It's appealing to the people who know and love this system and this setting, and I have to say that despite some of the system wonkiness (1s canceling successes is an objectively terrible idea, guys), I've really enjoyed running it again.
So. Last session. Let's do this. Stop reading now if you're a player.
I really love Changeling. I don't love the OWoD system. We've made some tweaks to the magic and so on that I think make the game a lot more palatable to my current crop of players, but I'm also realizing that I ignored a lot of rules when running OWoD games back in the day. That style of play - have system for everything, but ignore the shit that got in the way of making the game fun - was pretty endemic to 90s games (shows up in Chill 2nd Ed, too), but it doesn't really mesh with my design sensibility now (which is more "you're not gonna use this rule? Why the hell have it, then?").
But Changeling 20th is a nostalgia product, and that's fine. It's appealing to the people who know and love this system and this setting, and I have to say that despite some of the system wonkiness (1s canceling successes is an objectively terrible idea, guys), I've really enjoyed running it again.
So. Last session. Let's do this. Stop reading now if you're a player.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Movie #356: Lilo & Stitch
Lilo & Stitch is an animated Disney movie starring Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders (also co-directed), Tia Carrere, Ving Rhames, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Jason Scott Lee, and Kevin Michael Richardson. It makes me cry every time.
Lilo (Chase) is a little girl living in Hawai'i with her big sister, Nani (Carrere). They're both orphans (their parents died in a car accident, and it couldn't have been too long ago, based on the photo of the whole family together) and they're having troubles. Lilo is a a somewhat strange little girl; she has a homemade doll named Scrump that she pretends is dying of brain infestation, she feeds a magic fish a sandwich every week ("Pudge controls the weather."), and she acts out and loses her temper. Nani, meanwhile, is struggling trying to take care of Lilo and keep a job, and she has a social worker named Cobra Bubbles (Rhames) considering whether Lilo would be better off in foster care.
Meanwhile, in outer-goddamn-space, an idiot scientist ("I PREFER TO BE CALLED EVIL GENIUS!") named Jumba (Stiers) creates a tiny, four-armed, engine of destruction (Sanders). The grand councilwoman (Zoe Caldwell) decides to banish the thing, but it gets loose and winds up heading for Earth. The council sends Jumba (since he created the thing) and an "expert" on Earth named Pleakly (McDonald) to retrieve the monster...
...but the monster, looking for a way to hide, has retracted its arms and been adopted, as a dog, by Lilo, who renames him "Stitch." Stitch proceeds to wreck their lives just by being himself (in fairness, Lilo helps), and finally he realizes that he's hurting Lilo by being around. He leaves to find his family, the aliens catch him, the enormous Captain Gantu (Richardson) shows up and recaptures him, and eventually everything comes to head with explosions. The council allows Stitch to stay on Earth with his newfound family, and Jumba and Pleakly get left behind as well (but join the family, too). Bubbles turns out to be ex-CIA, so he's actually a pretty good advocate for this situation. Yay!
So, I really love this movie. Not to get too personal, but the idea of being, at heart, a monster or a destructive force is one that I've grappled with for most of my life, and I have, at points, wavered between saying "fuck it" and embracing that to actively trying to change it. Stitch isn't, at heart, "bad" - he's genetically programmed to be destructive, but not malicious. He doesn't actually like hurting people, he just kind of likes chaos. He still wants love and family, though, and one of the themes of the movie, to me, is that even people who have trouble coping with society and its expectations - like Lilo, Stitch, but even Jumba and Nani - are deserving of love and empathy and family.
Plus, the characters get to be vulnerable. Nani is terrified and angry that Lilo might be taken away. Lilo is lonely and traumatized, but loves her sister and feels bad about what she does. Stitch is frightened and lonely, but believes that maybe he has a family. I've said it a bunch of times, but I'll say it again: I like it when characters in movies are generally well-intentioned, good, competent people who have to rise above their situation, rather than awful, selfish people who have to "learn a lesson." Stitch doesn't "learn a lesson," he gains a family. The lesson is ongoing.
(By the way, I never make it past him saying "lost" without crying.)
My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High, if you have a box of tissues on hand
Next up: The Little Mermaid
Lilo (Chase) is a little girl living in Hawai'i with her big sister, Nani (Carrere). They're both orphans (their parents died in a car accident, and it couldn't have been too long ago, based on the photo of the whole family together) and they're having troubles. Lilo is a a somewhat strange little girl; she has a homemade doll named Scrump that she pretends is dying of brain infestation, she feeds a magic fish a sandwich every week ("Pudge controls the weather."), and she acts out and loses her temper. Nani, meanwhile, is struggling trying to take care of Lilo and keep a job, and she has a social worker named Cobra Bubbles (Rhames) considering whether Lilo would be better off in foster care.
Meanwhile, in outer-goddamn-space, an idiot scientist ("I PREFER TO BE CALLED EVIL GENIUS!") named Jumba (Stiers) creates a tiny, four-armed, engine of destruction (Sanders). The grand councilwoman (Zoe Caldwell) decides to banish the thing, but it gets loose and winds up heading for Earth. The council sends Jumba (since he created the thing) and an "expert" on Earth named Pleakly (McDonald) to retrieve the monster...
...but the monster, looking for a way to hide, has retracted its arms and been adopted, as a dog, by Lilo, who renames him "Stitch." Stitch proceeds to wreck their lives just by being himself (in fairness, Lilo helps), and finally he realizes that he's hurting Lilo by being around. He leaves to find his family, the aliens catch him, the enormous Captain Gantu (Richardson) shows up and recaptures him, and eventually everything comes to head with explosions. The council allows Stitch to stay on Earth with his newfound family, and Jumba and Pleakly get left behind as well (but join the family, too). Bubbles turns out to be ex-CIA, so he's actually a pretty good advocate for this situation. Yay!
So, I really love this movie. Not to get too personal, but the idea of being, at heart, a monster or a destructive force is one that I've grappled with for most of my life, and I have, at points, wavered between saying "fuck it" and embracing that to actively trying to change it. Stitch isn't, at heart, "bad" - he's genetically programmed to be destructive, but not malicious. He doesn't actually like hurting people, he just kind of likes chaos. He still wants love and family, though, and one of the themes of the movie, to me, is that even people who have trouble coping with society and its expectations - like Lilo, Stitch, but even Jumba and Nani - are deserving of love and empathy and family.
Plus, the characters get to be vulnerable. Nani is terrified and angry that Lilo might be taken away. Lilo is lonely and traumatized, but loves her sister and feels bad about what she does. Stitch is frightened and lonely, but believes that maybe he has a family. I've said it a bunch of times, but I'll say it again: I like it when characters in movies are generally well-intentioned, good, competent people who have to rise above their situation, rather than awful, selfish people who have to "learn a lesson." Stitch doesn't "learn a lesson," he gains a family. The lesson is ongoing.
(By the way, I never make it past him saying "lost" without crying.)
My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High, if you have a box of tissues on hand
Next up: The Little Mermaid
Changeling: The Sweater Unravels
Busy week at work plus gearing up for MarCon equals not having time to do this write-up until now GO!
Last time, the characters captured a Thallain and decided to bring him to Duke Kelodin for interrogation. They called him up and, and Kelodin said to meet at the gym where Parliament had been held. He would get there as soon as he could, but he'd call someone to meet them.
When the motley got there, Baroness Ulsa was waiting for them. To refresh your memory, Ulsa is an Unseelie Scathach sidhe whom Zulkis knew carried out the assassination of a city councilman on behalf of Count Maldiset (the job he had refused, that lost Zulkis his title). When they brought the Thallain in, several of the characters noticed a flicker or recognition from him when he saw Ulsa (that Thallain has a shitty poker face).
Ulsa used Legerdemain to immobilize the Thallain, and talked with the characters a bit. She recommended that they check the perimeter of the building. Thaia, Zulkis, Krysa, and Ambrose split up and walked around the building, while Sander stayed with Ulsa to watch the Thallain captive. Krysa called up her rats and got a bazillion successes on the Guest List cantrip, so the rats circled the building, and then warned her of a breach.
Ambrose, meanwhile, tried using his newly-acquired Chronos Art to look back in time, but botch and stuttered in time a bit, unable to get his equilibrium. The characters converged on a window looking into the gym, and found they had a good view of Sander, Ulsa, and the captive.
Inside, Ulsa was talking with Sander and flipping her daggers around in an impressive but nonchalant fashion. Nothing seemed untoward, but the changelings outside realized someone had cast a cantrip. They found a small trinket on the ground, one of the Treasures stolen from Spruce's repair shop. It had been smashed to pieces - possibly to power a cantrip? Breaking a Treasure release Glamour, after all.
Thaia used Soothsay to get some insight into what had happened, and realized that the cantrip that had been cast here was one that they'd seen earlier that night. Krysa remembered that a doorknob at the theater had been poisoned with the Poison Apple cantrip...but what was the target?
They went inside and discovered that the Thallain was dead...poisoned. Had the ropes been poisoned? Had he been poisoned directly? Duke Kelodin arrived and Baroness Ulsa took responsibility for the captive; she said she shouldn't have tied him up in view of the window. Kelodin dismissed her, and then talked with the motley - he said that he didn't trust Ulsa, but wasn't sure of the angle.
The motley tried to suss it out. Ulsa was working for Maldiset, they knew that. But Maldiset wouldn't benefit from the Thallain trying to start a war between changelings. The characters decided they needed to find out more, so they split up. Krysa and Ambrose set off after Ulsa, using Krysa's rats to track her. Thaia used Soothsay again, zeroing in on whoever cast the Poisoned Apple cantrip. She followed the will-o-wisp, and Zulkis and Sander went with her.
The rats led Krysa to a club with a line out the door; Krysa tried to get in, but the bouncer wasn't interested. Ambrose crept around back and slithered in a window, and hid in the crowd; the noise and lights bothered his senses.
Meanwhile, the other three changelings had made a big circle and approached the club from the other direction. The bouncer pointed at Thaia and told her she could go in (she's a sidhe, remember), and Sander charmed his way in, too. Inside, they saw Ulsa sitting at a table with a changeling...they thought? They didn't recognize his kith. The glowy ball, however, made straight for them (Ambrose had been creeping toward them, too, but the glow-ball kind of tipped Ulsa off).
Ulsa looked up, jumped up on a railing, and fell forward into the crowd. Ambrose tried to catch her, but missed, and she vanished. The other changeling tried to run, but the others caught him. He introduced himself as Fetinus.
He said that he was Thallain, and he and his friends Rista (the now-dead Beastie) and Hyum (the now-dead skinwalker) had been hired by a woman named Hex to work with Ulsa. The aim? Start chaos? Fetinus wasn't exactly sure of the long-term goal, but he said he didn't need one. After all, he said, you folks are all Unseelie. You're just one little push away from us.
He agreed to talk with them if they could get him out of the city; he had no interest in joining his comrades. The characters figured they should take him to Kelodin, and so we ended much as we began - en route to see the duke with a captive Thallain in tow.
But who is Hex? All Fetinus said was that she wasn't Thallain...in fact, he didn't know what she was. She just wanted to "burn it all down."
Next time, the exciting conclusion!
Last time, the characters captured a Thallain and decided to bring him to Duke Kelodin for interrogation. They called him up and, and Kelodin said to meet at the gym where Parliament had been held. He would get there as soon as he could, but he'd call someone to meet them.
When the motley got there, Baroness Ulsa was waiting for them. To refresh your memory, Ulsa is an Unseelie Scathach sidhe whom Zulkis knew carried out the assassination of a city councilman on behalf of Count Maldiset (the job he had refused, that lost Zulkis his title). When they brought the Thallain in, several of the characters noticed a flicker or recognition from him when he saw Ulsa (that Thallain has a shitty poker face).
Ulsa used Legerdemain to immobilize the Thallain, and talked with the characters a bit. She recommended that they check the perimeter of the building. Thaia, Zulkis, Krysa, and Ambrose split up and walked around the building, while Sander stayed with Ulsa to watch the Thallain captive. Krysa called up her rats and got a bazillion successes on the Guest List cantrip, so the rats circled the building, and then warned her of a breach.
Ambrose, meanwhile, tried using his newly-acquired Chronos Art to look back in time, but botch and stuttered in time a bit, unable to get his equilibrium. The characters converged on a window looking into the gym, and found they had a good view of Sander, Ulsa, and the captive.
Inside, Ulsa was talking with Sander and flipping her daggers around in an impressive but nonchalant fashion. Nothing seemed untoward, but the changelings outside realized someone had cast a cantrip. They found a small trinket on the ground, one of the Treasures stolen from Spruce's repair shop. It had been smashed to pieces - possibly to power a cantrip? Breaking a Treasure release Glamour, after all.
Thaia used Soothsay to get some insight into what had happened, and realized that the cantrip that had been cast here was one that they'd seen earlier that night. Krysa remembered that a doorknob at the theater had been poisoned with the Poison Apple cantrip...but what was the target?
They went inside and discovered that the Thallain was dead...poisoned. Had the ropes been poisoned? Had he been poisoned directly? Duke Kelodin arrived and Baroness Ulsa took responsibility for the captive; she said she shouldn't have tied him up in view of the window. Kelodin dismissed her, and then talked with the motley - he said that he didn't trust Ulsa, but wasn't sure of the angle.
The motley tried to suss it out. Ulsa was working for Maldiset, they knew that. But Maldiset wouldn't benefit from the Thallain trying to start a war between changelings. The characters decided they needed to find out more, so they split up. Krysa and Ambrose set off after Ulsa, using Krysa's rats to track her. Thaia used Soothsay again, zeroing in on whoever cast the Poisoned Apple cantrip. She followed the will-o-wisp, and Zulkis and Sander went with her.
The rats led Krysa to a club with a line out the door; Krysa tried to get in, but the bouncer wasn't interested. Ambrose crept around back and slithered in a window, and hid in the crowd; the noise and lights bothered his senses.
Meanwhile, the other three changelings had made a big circle and approached the club from the other direction. The bouncer pointed at Thaia and told her she could go in (she's a sidhe, remember), and Sander charmed his way in, too. Inside, they saw Ulsa sitting at a table with a changeling...they thought? They didn't recognize his kith. The glowy ball, however, made straight for them (Ambrose had been creeping toward them, too, but the glow-ball kind of tipped Ulsa off).
Ulsa looked up, jumped up on a railing, and fell forward into the crowd. Ambrose tried to catch her, but missed, and she vanished. The other changeling tried to run, but the others caught him. He introduced himself as Fetinus.
He said that he was Thallain, and he and his friends Rista (the now-dead Beastie) and Hyum (the now-dead skinwalker) had been hired by a woman named Hex to work with Ulsa. The aim? Start chaos? Fetinus wasn't exactly sure of the long-term goal, but he said he didn't need one. After all, he said, you folks are all Unseelie. You're just one little push away from us.
He agreed to talk with them if they could get him out of the city; he had no interest in joining his comrades. The characters figured they should take him to Kelodin, and so we ended much as we began - en route to see the duke with a captive Thallain in tow.
But who is Hex? All Fetinus said was that she wasn't Thallain...in fact, he didn't know what she was. She just wanted to "burn it all down."
Next time, the exciting conclusion!
Monday, May 2, 2016
Non-Participatory
"No way."
She was the worst kind of parent. Absolutely my least favorite. She wasn't undereducated or slow or poor or rich; those parents all came with their own challenges, but there was always an approach that tended to work.
No, this lady was well-informed, and that was a lot harder to work with. Lots of times it involved telling them the truth, but I wasn't quite ready to do that, yet.
"Mrs. Green, I can't guarantee your son's safety." I took a sip of water. "I can't guarantee anyone's. That's the whole problem." I swiveled my computer screen around. It was open to an article in the Globe. The headline read 124, 32 ABDUCTED DEAD IN LATEST ATTACK. "This is what's happening."
She didn't move. She didn't nod. She didn't respond. Damn it.
"It's actually worse that this," I said, lowering my voice. "These are the visible attacks, the ones that happen when they feel secure enough to go loud. The worst ones, there aren't any headlines about those, because the numbers are more like 'zero dead, hundreds abducted.'"
This time she nodded. Her pursed lips softened, the wall cracked a little. Good. She still didn't say anything, though.
"We've had a lot of successes with this program, but we can't publicize it. For one thing, due to the nature of the tech involved, the more people who know it exists, the more variables we have to account for in the calculations. If that gets out of control, we honestly don't know what happens." I shuddered. It wasn't an act. Dr. Al-Oakdi had run those numbers our first day, and his left eye hadn't stopped twitching since.
"And this is all supposed to make me feel better about giving you my 8-year-old son, so you can take his brain and-"
I didn't let her finish. It was rude, I know. "No, no, no. We're not doing anything with his brain, nothing his brain can't already do. We're going to train him in using his brain. And it only works because he's so young."
She dropped her eyes. I don't pray, but I found myself thinking please don't make me tell her the truth. Not because I didn't think it would work, but because the more people who knew the truth, the more likely it was that someone who screw that truth up.
"Well," she said. "What if he's an analyst? Like, what if he learns something he can do here? You need people with those skills, right?" Damn. Very smart.
"Sure," I said. "And we can ask that of him. But you have to remember - it's his head. Ultimately, there is literally no way we can force him to learn communications tech, or the invaders' language, or computer sims, or targeting systems, or any number of things he could do from here rather than out in the field." I took another drink. It gets dry in here; biohazard protocols and all. "But if he wants to learn sniping, or lockpicking, or driving, or stealth, or anything else than an 8-year-old boy might find cool...then that's what he'll learned." What he will have learned, as Dr. Ramirez would say, but I'm not as much of a stickler for the grammar. "We had one kid - Mei - who went forward and learned to make candy. Like, she's amazing at it." I nodded at the dish of hard candies on my desk. "Those have lavender and lemon in them, they're fantastic. But it's not much of a help against the invaders."
Mrs. Green is quiet for a minute. "What if I give Marius the choice?"
"You mean, explain it to him and ask if he wants to do it? Sure, that's fine. I'd just suggest we let one of our recruits explain it."
"Why?"
Because the kids make it sound awesome, I thought. "Kids relate to other kids better, and the kids who have actually gone through it can explain it in experiential terms. I can't do that, all I can do is explain it in theory, and then it seems too abstract."
She nods. "OK. I'll bring him in tomorrow, if that's all right."
"That's fine. I'll make sure someone's free to talk to him. There's a playroom we use for this kind of thing. No video games, just space to run around, some toys, basketball hoop, that kind of thing."
"He likes superheroes," she whispers. She's tearing up. I don't blame her, but I need her son. His scores on the NPAT were 87th percentile, highest I've seen in weeks.
"OK. I'll get Tim up here, he's Marius' age and I've never seen him without a Batman t-shirt." Except when he's in uniform.
Mrs. Green leaves. She doesn't know the truth, which is just as well. I breathe, and pop one of Mei's candies in my mouth.
They really are fantastic.
She was the worst kind of parent. Absolutely my least favorite. She wasn't undereducated or slow or poor or rich; those parents all came with their own challenges, but there was always an approach that tended to work.
No, this lady was well-informed, and that was a lot harder to work with. Lots of times it involved telling them the truth, but I wasn't quite ready to do that, yet.
"Mrs. Green, I can't guarantee your son's safety." I took a sip of water. "I can't guarantee anyone's. That's the whole problem." I swiveled my computer screen around. It was open to an article in the Globe. The headline read 124, 32 ABDUCTED DEAD IN LATEST ATTACK. "This is what's happening."
She didn't move. She didn't nod. She didn't respond. Damn it.
"It's actually worse that this," I said, lowering my voice. "These are the visible attacks, the ones that happen when they feel secure enough to go loud. The worst ones, there aren't any headlines about those, because the numbers are more like 'zero dead, hundreds abducted.'"
This time she nodded. Her pursed lips softened, the wall cracked a little. Good. She still didn't say anything, though.
"We've had a lot of successes with this program, but we can't publicize it. For one thing, due to the nature of the tech involved, the more people who know it exists, the more variables we have to account for in the calculations. If that gets out of control, we honestly don't know what happens." I shuddered. It wasn't an act. Dr. Al-Oakdi had run those numbers our first day, and his left eye hadn't stopped twitching since.
"And this is all supposed to make me feel better about giving you my 8-year-old son, so you can take his brain and-"
I didn't let her finish. It was rude, I know. "No, no, no. We're not doing anything with his brain, nothing his brain can't already do. We're going to train him in using his brain. And it only works because he's so young."
She dropped her eyes. I don't pray, but I found myself thinking please don't make me tell her the truth. Not because I didn't think it would work, but because the more people who knew the truth, the more likely it was that someone who screw that truth up.
"Well," she said. "What if he's an analyst? Like, what if he learns something he can do here? You need people with those skills, right?" Damn. Very smart.
"Sure," I said. "And we can ask that of him. But you have to remember - it's his head. Ultimately, there is literally no way we can force him to learn communications tech, or the invaders' language, or computer sims, or targeting systems, or any number of things he could do from here rather than out in the field." I took another drink. It gets dry in here; biohazard protocols and all. "But if he wants to learn sniping, or lockpicking, or driving, or stealth, or anything else than an 8-year-old boy might find cool...then that's what he'll learned." What he will have learned, as Dr. Ramirez would say, but I'm not as much of a stickler for the grammar. "We had one kid - Mei - who went forward and learned to make candy. Like, she's amazing at it." I nodded at the dish of hard candies on my desk. "Those have lavender and lemon in them, they're fantastic. But it's not much of a help against the invaders."
Mrs. Green is quiet for a minute. "What if I give Marius the choice?"
"You mean, explain it to him and ask if he wants to do it? Sure, that's fine. I'd just suggest we let one of our recruits explain it."
"Why?"
Because the kids make it sound awesome, I thought. "Kids relate to other kids better, and the kids who have actually gone through it can explain it in experiential terms. I can't do that, all I can do is explain it in theory, and then it seems too abstract."
She nods. "OK. I'll bring him in tomorrow, if that's all right."
"That's fine. I'll make sure someone's free to talk to him. There's a playroom we use for this kind of thing. No video games, just space to run around, some toys, basketball hoop, that kind of thing."
"He likes superheroes," she whispers. She's tearing up. I don't blame her, but I need her son. His scores on the NPAT were 87th percentile, highest I've seen in weeks.
"OK. I'll get Tim up here, he's Marius' age and I've never seen him without a Batman t-shirt." Except when he's in uniform.
Mrs. Green leaves. She doesn't know the truth, which is just as well. I breathe, and pop one of Mei's candies in my mouth.
They really are fantastic.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Sunday Post #2: Character Creation: Beyond
So, I was planning on doing a character that required a bit more work today, and then I got wrapped up in updating my list and printing some errant character sheets and stuff, so I need to do a low-work character today. I did think about Feng Shui 2nd Ed, but eh, I'll do that sometime this week when I have a few minutes (my resolution this week is to spend less time playing X-Com).
But I have another game I can do.
The Game: Beyond
The Publisher: Zero Point Information
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, but the game is 2 pages long and it's not terribly complicated.
Books Required: Just the PDF.
I think I got this game in a bundle, either that or I bought it when Stew posted about it originally. In any case, it's Pay What You Want, so give it a look.
In Beyond, you're playing a ghost, but the experience is pretty distilled (as opposed to some other games). One player in a given scene controls Entropy, the force that pulls all the ghosts down into nothingness. Ghosts work to resolve the questions they're face with (which double as character creation, as we'll seen in a minute).
The system uses color-coded d6s; you get successes on low rolls but Pathos on high ones. Entropy can use Pathos to damage ghosts, crossing out questions.
All in all it looks pretty simple; as usual I think an example of play would not go amiss. But let's make a dead guy.
What Was Your Name? Let's call him Jeff Tylinski.
What Did You Do? Jeff was a FedEx driver. He had a degree in psychology and just hadn't figured out what to do with it.
How Did You Die? Jeff was making a delivery to a kiosk at a mall (some materials that the owners sent out to the franchisees; Jeff doesn't know what was in the box) when some 20-something, pissed off at the world, pulled an AR-15 out of his coat and started firing. Jeff was dead before he heard the first shots. 12 other people died that day, but Jeff hasn't seen any of them around.
Who Remembers You? Jeff's roommate was his best friend from college. Lynch was in basically the same position as Jeff; educated but underemployed. They were close. Jeff was actually kind of happy when Lynch got turned down for a well-paying job that would have taken him out of state.
Why Did You Not Pass On? What Emotion Held You Back? Jeff supposes his should be pissed at how he died, but he didn't really have time to get angry about it. I think Jeff didn't pass on because he felt frustrated - like he was dumped into adulthood with no clear picture of what he was supposed to be doing and afraid of what that meant for the future. That's not exactly traditional ghost story stuff, but I think I'm OK with that. I think if we confronted this question in a scene it would be Jeff dealing with a kid very much like the one who shot him; frustrated at the world and unable to express it or cope.
What Does Your Darkness Want? What Emotion Drives It? Ooh. Well, I think his Darkness is the guy who shot him, or someone very much like him. It's driven by entitlement, the notion that because Jeff played by the rules and got a degree and so forth, he deserves something, that the promise of a comfortable life was in some way a promise. His Darkness is the ugly, sticky rage of the guy who started shooting. Jeff wasn't like that...but then, the voice says otherwise.
What Was the First Gift that Death Brought? The Second? These are ghosty powers. I'll take Wisp (making a little glowy ball that can flummox electronics) and Haunter (making walls bleed and form messages).
And that's it, actually. Interesting little game, this.
Sunday Post #1: Unwritten
So, last night we did character creation for Unwritten, and we were going to play it, but time got away from us and we decided we'd rather have a second date to play it rather than either play until 2AM or rush through a scene or two.
Unwritten, if you don't know, is an RPG based on the old Myst video games (you can get the PDF here, pay what you want). Now, I played the first one waaaaaay back in the day, liked it, and never really got into the others, but there's like a whole huge fandom around the games and the novels and the MMO. I really like Unwritten (I'm gonna be writing a review for RPG.net, I just haven't decided if I'm going to write it before or after we play the session).
Anyway, we used one of the preexisting frameworks, but then went on to do much of the rest of the game creation-work. Everyone created an Age, which might or might not get visited when we play. Folks all added a detail about the setting, which wound up focusing on the underground city of D'ni.
Specifically, there's an unexplored section of the city where the weather is backwards. Rain pools on the ground and then falls up, and occasionally it gets cold enough to snow (also in reverse). Electrical devices don't work there, either. Also, D'ni has an organized crime ring, and they're very interested in the unexplored section...
Characters, then:
Unwritten, if you don't know, is an RPG based on the old Myst video games (you can get the PDF here, pay what you want). Now, I played the first one waaaaaay back in the day, liked it, and never really got into the others, but there's like a whole huge fandom around the games and the novels and the MMO. I really like Unwritten (I'm gonna be writing a review for RPG.net, I just haven't decided if I'm going to write it before or after we play the session).
Anyway, we used one of the preexisting frameworks, but then went on to do much of the rest of the game creation-work. Everyone created an Age, which might or might not get visited when we play. Folks all added a detail about the setting, which wound up focusing on the underground city of D'ni.
Specifically, there's an unexplored section of the city where the weather is backwards. Rain pools on the ground and then falls up, and occasionally it gets cold enough to snow (also in reverse). Electrical devices don't work there, either. Also, D'ni has an organized crime ring, and they're very interested in the unexplored section...
Characters, then:
- Sarah plays Eleni, daughter of a minor magistrate in the Guild of Maintainers. The mafia has him under their thumb, and she'd like to get him out. She's curious and has a knack for finding Books in weird places.
- Mike plays Nick Boydelatour, a veteran explorer. He was going to be an astronaut, but a minor heart murmur kept him out. He found his way to D'ni, and he's been exploring new worlds ever since.
- John plays Terra, who Linked into D'ni as a child, carrying a grapple gun, and having no idea what kind of Age she's from. She's been searching for her home Age ever since. She was adopted by the head of the local "mafia," which puts her at odds with her friend, Eleni; Terra refuses to believe what Eleni tells her about her dad.
- Travis plays Principessa, a young orphan who acts as a gopher for the mafia. She's overconfident, daring, and skilled at reading art and making judgements about the people who made it.
- Michelle plays Saron, a junior member of the Guild of Archivists. She's heavily book-smart, but has very little real-world experience. She's also the secret daughter of the mafia head (Terra's adopted father); she's been told her father died in an accident.
So, next time, we'll actually get into this. Unwritten doesn't really do much with combat (there are, in fact, no combat skills), so all of this mafia stuff is going to be more an omnipresent threat/family issue than a source of physical conflict. I'm looking forward to it.
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