This and that

I just noticed this morning I have a new follower.  Welcome, Bryan, I hope you enjoy my posts.

If anyone has ideas for blog entries please let me know.  I am currently working on one or two, one of them a suggestion from my friend Dave Zyn.

Anything else?  Um, I saw Thor last week, good movie.  Good action, great performances.  If anyone sees it, be sure to stay 'til the very end after the closing credits.  I am very much looking forward to Captain America later this year as a result. :D

Jews in Space!

And in case anyone is wondering where that title comes from, you need to acquaint yourself with Mel Brooks.

One of the problems with a lot of conventional science fiction is the mono culture, the alien race where a vast majority of the individuals look and act the same.  Almost all Klingons are warriors who wear some form of armor; Romulans are all sneaky and have the same hair cut, etc.  Babylon 5 had a similar problem with some of their races.  Even Star Wars has this problem in that the inhabitants of Bespin do not seem all that different from the humans living on Tatooine.  Sure, they dress differently but for the most part they all seem to be cut from the same cloth (it does not help the 99% of all humans in the SW universe are white.  What happened to all the Asians?).  In running a sci-fi game it might be a good idea to mix things up and introduce factions/peoples that are against the norm.

To me, Star Trek’s biggest flaw (other than the fact that Enterprise is canon) is the lack of human religion.  I am not a religious person nor do I appreciate anyone trying to shove their beliefs down my throat.  That does not mean that I do not respect the religious beliefs of others nor does it mean that I mind seeing religion portrayed in my television programming.  One of the things I loved about Babylon 5 was the inclusion of a Baptist minister as a supporting character as well as Catholic monks working on their own special project on the station.  Hey, guess what: religion does not die out with space travel!  It was nice to see that some humans could be as spiritual as Narns or Minbari.  Sure, Star Trek has paid lip service to some beliefs but the writers and producers have always refused to be pinned down by specifics.  We have seen Aboriginal cultures’ beliefs but the cultures and beliefs themselves are either fictional or so generic that it is impossible to tell who or what they represent.  I am, of course, talking about Chakotay, Generic Indian.   I just find it annoying that Klingons can be as spiritual or as religious or whatever, and we can’t see one Muslim rolling out a prayer rug, or someone slipping their crucifix necklace on before slipping into uniform.  I understand that Rodenberry was an atheist, but so is J. Michael Strazinski and he understood full well that just because he does not believe in a higher power that did not mean the billions of human beings would adopt his attitude and abandon thousands of years of religious belief.

In a Star Trek or future Earth sci-fi campaign perhaps the ship runs across a planet colonized by a religious sect, say they are Jewish or Muslim.  Christian works as well, it all depends on what the GM feels is appropriate, how knowledgeable they are about the faith in question, and how the players feel in general about religion.  The adventure does not have to embroil the characters in an in depth study of the religion nor do things have to descend into some predictable holy war storyline, but the PCs would have to deal with various religious and cultural taboos.  In a way to a people who have largely become nonreligious, a group of Hasidic Jews might seem almost alien in their strict adherence to dietary laws, or the Muslims with their need to pray five times daily towards Mecca.  How would they handle a Baptist sing along?  It would be nice to see PCs have to role play this sort of thing out (one thing to keep in mind where the Muslim faith is concerned is to carefully separate Muslim religion from Middle Eastern cultural norms.  There are many African Americans who practice the Muslim faith but have not adopted Middle Eastern cultural norms).  The adventure could be that the heroes must track down a fugitive who has fled to his homeworld for protection and the PCs must deal with the social or political aspects.  Or perhaps a valuable ore has been discovered on this world and the colony must deal with the outside universe whether they like it or not.  Heck, it could even be a simple “shore leave” storyline and the gang winds up doing something really silly or stupid to antagonize the locals.

Then there are the aliens who are considered outcasts, perhaps are even considered freakish.  This was a neat idea shown in an episode of Enterprise…

Sorry, I threw up in my throat a little bit.  Giving Enterprise credit for anything can be difficult.

Who needs compelling story telling when you have tits?

Anyway, in Enterprise the crew met a group of emotional Vulcans who were pretty much pariahs.  It was an interesting idea.  Perhaps it was not executed as well as it could have been but I give the writers and producers credit for trying something different…

Okay, maybe not as different as all that.

What if the group found a colony of Romulans trying their hardest to be Vulcan, trying to adopt the principles of IDIC.  Or pacifist Klingons who shun violence and think that the ridiculous obsession with a warrior’s code and honor have crippled their race’s potential?  Ninety nine percent of all Ferengi seen on Star Trek are focused on making a profit like it is some genetic imperative; wouldn’t it be great if you saw a group that believed in doing charitable works?  Perhaps they use their ruthless business savvy to aid ailing economies?  What might at first seem like Ferengi greed is in fact Ferengi altruism?  What if the Ferengi mafia were renegade charity workers, bilking the system to help those who needed financial aid?  That would be an…immoral inversion, to twist the term coined by Mister Spock in A Piece of The Action.  Other races could follow similar themes; celibate Orions, for example.  Smart Pakleds.  What if there was a faction of the Trill species who were dedicated to destroying the symbiotes because they believed the slugs were actually controlling the minds of their hosts?  It is a not a rational belief, but no one said any fanatic’s belief’s had to make sense.

I ran a Star Trek adventure where the catalyst was a group of Klingons who panicked, whose ship fled the field of battle in the face of defeat.  Cowardly Klingons is certainly against the norm.  We have seen Klingons acting dishonorably but even when they do so there is still that warrior spirit driving them on.  What if that spirit fails them?

The Next Generation had a terrible episode called Sub Rosa, which pretty much ripped off Anne Rice (to the point where Anne Rice was given credit.  Although if I had been Anne Rice I would have taken a monetary settlement rather than have my name attached to that dog).  The part that did not rip off Anne Rice were the aliens living on the planet who were fascinated with Scottish culture.  Having an alien race embracing some human belief or cultural mores would be an interesting idea; would some Klingons find Japanese feudalism calling to their souls?  We could have Space Nazis…

 Okay, hell with Space Nazis.  We could have aliens becoming Jewish.  This idea is not as weird as you might think.  In Mike Baron and Steve Rude’s comic series Nexus there was a character named Judah Maccabee, named after the Hebrew hero.  He was most definitely alien.  Heck, if you want to go contemporary imagine a group of Klingons acting like those punks from the Jersey Shore.

These ideas do not work so well in a Star Wars or Firefly universe and the idea of creating the opposite of what you expect was already done on Stargate with the Tok'ra, a faction of the Goa'uld that formed a partnership with a host rather than dominate it.  However, if you were running a Firefly game it might be interesting to explore the Chinese side of the culture a bit more; from what little was seen in the comic books, television series and movie the series was largely influenced by Westerns, with a little Asian flavor thrown in.  Is there an aspect of the Firefly universe which is far more Asian?  As far as I know only one or two core worlds were shown.  What if there are others that are predominantly Chinese and do not welcome "foreigners"?  Jubal Early, The Operative and Preacher Book, all black men, all had mysterious pasts and possessed martial prowess.  Jubal said of Book “That man is no preacher”.  What if there was some sort of order of warriors, all African?  In this I am turning things around; instead of seeing a hodge-podge of cultures mixed up, the unusual thing to see in Firefly would be the mono culture/race.

What I am suggesting is a shake up from the norm, to see something players are not expecting.  Can it be weird?  Sure, why not?  Star Trek is about seeking out new civilizations and boldly going, and to me the biggest word in that statement is “boldly”.  Going against the grain is a bold move any GM can undertake and I encourage anyone running a game to try something a little different, a little weird once they feel they are on firm footing with their players.  The universe is a big place and if Earth itself is anything to go by it should be a diverse universe.  Do not let what you have seen from established canon hinder your imagination.

Song of the week

From the musical Cats.  This video was a promotional thing they did back in the early eighties when Cats was coming to Broadway for the first time.  Back then Mtv played music videos just about exclusively and would air whatever they could get their hands on, but HBO also showed videos to cover the space between movies.

Seeing this video made me realize I had a serious anime cat girl fetish before I knew anime and cat girls existed. :)

Getting Gritty

I have mostly run four color super hero games, and the occasional Star Trek.   The Star Trek games have also been, for the most part, straight up adventures much like the ones seen on television, with the settings being perhaps a little different (i.e. my Tyche game which involved a clone colony, Team Mugatu which was supposed to be a special forces team).  In a majority of cases the games involved did not address any gritty real world issues.  For a change of pace, though, getting grim and gritty might be the way to go.

Some comic books have done this sort of thing before.  Denny O’Neil addressed drug addiction in Green Lantern/Green Arrow when it was discovered Roy Harper, Speedy, was a heroin addict.  Marv Wolfman discussed human trafficking in Teen Titans when the Titans had to help a group of runaways.  Of course, there can be colossal failures when some writers attempt to do this, as JMS’ recent aborted run on Superman tried to address the drug trade and made Supes out to be pretty much an idiot.  Anyway, the point is four color characters have stepped out of their bright, easily defined worlds and seen a darker side where there are no easy answers.

Star Trek has delved into this sort of thing a time or two.  In Symbiosis you have two societies, one a drug addicted people who think they are sick and are being given medication to treat the illness, the other their pushers.  Picard’s handling of the situation was well done and as viewers we see the conflict addressed by various parties (i.e. Crusher wanting to do more because there is an entire civilization being preyed upon, Picard realizing sometimes people have to wake the hell up on their own when they are in a state of mass denial).  If it seems I am using drugs overly much it is because drug addiction is one of the most common problems facing society today and the one which has the most moral quandaries attached to it.  And I confess being half way through season four of The Wire might have something to do with it.

Here is an example of how frustrating working within the confines of the law can be, as seen on The Wire.  Drug dealers operate on corners in teams of four.  A junkie approaches one guy, he hands him the cash and makes an order.  Cash guy tells the corner captain often with hand signals, who then signals a third person who is most likely a minor as he will be handling the drugs.  The minor heads out of sight to the stash, which is guarded by another minor whose job it is to run off with said stash in the event the police show up.  Minor #1 then gets the drugs and meets the junkies around the corner out of sight of the cash man and corner captain.  At no time does corner captain interact with the junkies, at no time does cash guy interact with the people handling the drugs.  And because of all of this it is very difficult to prosecute anyone.  No wonder it must be wonderful to be Batman when he can just beat the crap out of anyone.

And yet that raises problems as well.  How many undercover cops and Federal agents has Batman beaten over the years by accident?  How many criminal informants-people working for the police in secret-has he hospitalized?  And that is a potentially interesting problem for the players.   For blood thirsty ones they could critically injure those who either working for or who are the police.

How would heroes deal with drug trafficking?  How would they handle dealing with under aged prostitution?  What would heroes do if confronted with real world problems without any clear cut answers?  Granted, players may grow frustrated if an adventure went unresolved or if it seemed as if they did little good, but that is life.  Police officers face that reality every day.  I think it may be a good idea not to run an adventure like that with a relatively new group of players but with an experienced bunch they would probably be able to handle a step into the dark side a time or two.

So, what sort of adventures could be run?  Going back to drugs-again-DC Comics’ Flash (the Wally West version) had to deal with a group of people taking a drug called Velocity 9 that gave them super speed powers (this was during Mike Baron’s run, where in a short time West faced off against Velocity 9 junkies, Speed McGee and Blue Trinity.  I get the feeling Mike Baron had no clue what to do with the character and was assigned the comic.).  In the Champions RPG one potential adventure taking place in a mirror universe people were taking drugs to attain super powers.  This could be one interesting thread where people are taking drugs to attain or sustain paranormal abilities.  Instead of everyone having the same power, what might be amusing is to have a wide variety, in many cases silly powers such as prehensile hair, or something akin to Superman vision.  Things could get seriously weird.

Another way to go might be there are drugs on the street “cut” with an additive known as Hot Shot (a hot shot is when drugs are deliberately cut so that they will harm or kill the user, often a purer dose of the drug will do), which builds up in a person’s body.  When a person takes enough Hot Shot they spontaneously explode.  The motives could be terrorism, or an attempt by one drug dealing faction to cripple another by destroying their customer base and the faith of the remaining junkies in their product.  Or perhaps it is a test being conducted by a rogue faction of the Military Industrial Complex using what they feel are expendable human beings as guinea pigs?  The heroes could have all sorts of ways to track down the drugs, from dealing with the drug dealers directly to exploring the bodies and trying to determine who has the technology to create such a deadly chemical.  To make the game more interesting it would be of more interest to have the heroes forced to go to the street to try and work their way up the drug chain to the source rather than the other way around.  It could be amusing, making them have to pose as junkies of one social strata or another in order to score drugs.  Perhaps they are arrested by police for possession?  Or someone attempts to mug them?  Or they are mistaken for cops because they look so straight laced and uptight?

This sort of adventure could take the heroes to another country where they may have to deal with more grittiness.  Some countries rely heavily upon the drug trade to survive, or at least their governments do.  Afghanistan, for example.  There warlords grow fields of opium poppies in order to generate enough funds to feed, arm and pay their troops (and there goes the moral quandary again.  Afghanistan is a nominal ally, yet they are responsible for generating a source of heroin.  Same goes for Mexico and Colombia, sources of black tar heroin, marijuana and cocaine).  Perhaps the source of the drugs is alien in origin, an extraterrestrial plant being grown in some remote part of the world?  Perhaps the synthetic drug is being produced by an enemy or ally of the United States, and as a result the team has to either battle conventional forces or a team of paranormal bad asses.  Or they are compelled to fight fellow heroes who are following the letter of the law.  So a game can go from the gritty streets of Vancouver to the secret Pandronum fields of China.

Another type of gritty crime can be that of human trafficking.  There are different versions of this, from children being exploited to immigrants being forced into slavery to pay for their passage to another country.  This sort of storyline can be potentially ugly based on the subject matter so the GM really has to be very, very careful in what he or she wishes to address.  I would strongly recommend avoiding the darker themes like child prostitution unless the players are okay with it, and even then the material has to be handled in a very delicate way.  I would strongly advise against running any game involving this issue as some players have kids.  If a human trafficking adventure of any sort is going to be run I would recommend something along the idea of Chinese immigrants being ferried to North America by “snake head” Chinese gangsters and forced into hard labor or prostitution to pay for their passage, or Mexican immigrants being smuggled into the country by coyotes, or Eastern European women shipped in to the East coast.  Many unsavory things happen to these people who are only looking for an opportunity, but at least a majority of them are adults.

How can you run something like this in your super heroic campaign?  Perhaps a normal hero’s maid is an illegal immigrant and he/she discovers she is in trouble.  Or a friend disappeared after visiting a brothel full of Eastern European women and discover something darker is going on (vampirism, naturally, is one idea.  Rich folks with no relatives being murdered for their cash is a more conventional way to go).  This could lead to the heroes uncovering a major criminal conspiracy where human trafficking is just one aspect.  Another idea might be the hero discovers their girlfriend is an illegal immigrant and is facing deportation.  Does he/she marry her in order to keep her in the country?  Perhaps her “benefactors” are now demanding payment.  Is this a legitimate threat to her well being, or is the hero being played for a sucker?

If you want to go in another direction entirely, perhaps humans are being abducted by aliens and shipped off to alien worlds as slave labor? What if the coyotes are aliens leading Mexican immigrant into the desert where the alien vessels are waiting?  Or instead of trafficking in humans, someone is trafficking in inhumans?  What if orcs and trolls are shipping unwanted conquered elves off into the hands of human criminals on Earth?  Or the other way around?  An unscrupulous mining company in central Africa is using dwarven slave labor to better find precious gems?  These last ideas are much more fantastic in tone but there are still gritty elements as it deals with the misery and exploitation of others.  These ideas are easily applicable to a sci-fi or even fantasy campaign as well, with a little tweaking.

This idea of going gritty can work the other way.  I used to love reading The Shadow pulp novels online through this web sight, before the William Gibson estate made the guy shut it down (and serious bummer, as I was only about a third the way done reading the some 300 stories, if that.  It was a true online treasure.).  The Shadow dealt with street level viillainy, criminal masterminds dealing in largely conventional crimes.  Sure, often the bad guys used superstition and trickery to mislead the authorities and normal people, but ultimately there was always a real world answer to the mystery.  However, sometimes there were instances where The Shadow dealt with super science crime and these could be refreshing changes of pace.  I had no issue whatsoever with The Shadow dealing with unusual elements.  If you are running a gritty campaign it might be fun to introduce a more unusual plot device or two in order to shake things up a bit.  Maybe the players will hate it, but as a GM you might want to try something different, experiment, or even lighten things up if things have grown too dark.

In the end, the experiment to add a little dark reality to your game, rub a little dirt on those four colors.

Song of the week

I will always have a soft spot for David Gilmour.  Not only was Pink Floyd one of the most influential rock bands ever, but Dave helped launch Kate Bush's career.  He actually paid for her studio demo that landed her her first record contract.

FYI, the first few seconds of the video have no sound on purpose, so don't think it is some sort of glitch.  Be patient. :)

Let's Get Small

One common plot device used in fantasy and science fiction is where the heroes are shrunk to tiny size.  We have seen this in children’s television (Doctor Shrinker), children’s literature (Alice In Wonderland), standard sci-fi television (Land of TheGiants), Star Trek (TAS’ The Terratin Incident and DS9’s One Little Ship),the classic sci-fi movie The Incredible Shrinking Man (the part where he has to fight the spider for the piece of cake still gives me chills) and not-so-classic The Incredible Shrinking Woman.  DC Comics produced an Atom mini series where his belt was lost or broken and he had to “go native” among a diminutive group of people living in South America.  Even Spider Man had to deal with it such a circumstance when he battled Mysterio...

...Wrong Mysterio...

While accurate, Spider Man fighting Rey Mysterio would be a much cooler battle. Anyway, the confrontation with Mysterio was all an elaborate illusion, of course.   The Fantastic Four were thrown into a similar situation when Doctor Doom and The Puppet Master teamed up (Well, Puppet Master would have called it a team up.  Doom would have called it him hiring a new lackey).  Having the PCs shrunk down can be an interesting adventure, providing them with numerous problems and perils to overcome they might not have to deal with normally.

First of all, there are a couple different ways to go with this.  The first is where the gang winds up in a sub atomic universe (i.e. The Hulk’s adventures in Kai, Marvel’s Microverses).  In these cases the adventure can be more or less a fish out of water adventure where the gang has to cope with a strange environment.  In these cases the characters might not even be the same size as the inhabitants; they could be giants in comparison (as was seen in a Justice League story where The Atom was giant size and the rest of the JLA were normal sized in comparison to the natives).  The GM has numerous ways to go with a game like this, from creating a world quite different from the one the heroes are used to (i.e. magic if the heroes are from a hi-tech world, hi-tech if their origins are magical) or they could be seeing a world very much like their own (which gives question to the nature of existence itself; what if their own world is simply a sub atomic reflection of a larger one?).  In these cases the adventures can be more or less straight up quest or action stories with the ultimate goal being a way to discover how to return to normal size without obliterating the world they are visiting.

The other type of “getting small” adventure is where the heroes are shrunk down to a fraction of their size and must cope with a variety of threats.  Now, you might think if these characters are well armed or have extraordinary powers that being small is not big deal.  Well, let them take a gander at some of the creatures they would have to deal with.  Take the common house cat, for instance:

 ... Okay, wrong sort of cat.

You kill it, I'm busy.

Sure, Babooshka and Rantan look like pushovers, but you have not seen them hunting bugs (Save ants.  And apparently freak Ran Tan the hell out).  They are armed with claws and teeth and possess a house cat’s inborn need to use them.   Cats like to play with their food before killing them.  Imagine having to deal with cats the size of elephants or even rats the size of horses and you get an idea of how bad things could get.

At six inches imagine how big cockroaches are. Even ants can be more than just a nuisance.  And do not forget the spiders.

No matter how creative you are, Nature is scarier.

Try envisioning an eight legged rottweiller with a poisonous bite that can melt your insides.  A hornet’s nest is now a well armed squadron of death dealing  dive bombers.  Mosquitoes?  Imagine a female mosquito shoving her proboscis (Okay, I cannot believe I spelled that word right on the first try.) into a hero’s chest to suck the heart from out between his ribs.  Even maggots become Lovecraftian horrors. Shrink them down any more and those alien looking predators become true horrors.  While nasty at the same size, if the heroes are at two inches the preying mantis is a six inch long flying murder machine with its twin scythe-like arms.

I'm so badass they named a kung fu style after me.

 And I have not even addressed environmental concerns like drops of rain the size of basketballs!

Being shrunk also presents the heroes with other problems such as transportation and movement.  A trip across a lawn or room could be a journey of hours or even days so as a GM it is important to work out where the adventure might take place and whether or not the goals the heroes must set out to achieve are do-able in the time and space you have allotted them.

Finally, there is a third option between the two extremes and that is being reduced to microscopic size.  In these instances I can only think of one scenario and that is traveling through the body of a living being (i.e. Fantastic Voyage, the enjoyable Martin Short/Dennis Quaid/Meg Ryan movie Innerspace, Invader Zim).  There could be different plots for this scenario.  The first is the classic 'Voyage where the being they have been inserted into is ill and the only way to cure him is to go inside to repair the damage from within.  Another might be the person has an implanted explosive and it is impossible to operate on him via conventional means.  A third could be microscopic assassins have slipped into the subject and it is up to the heroes to stop the hit before it goes down.  For another plot, imagine a criminal mastermind has discovered the perfect hiding place within one of his minions!  If you really want to get a little out there, there was a Justice League story where the JLA had to deal with a boy's tumor, which turned out to house an alien civilization.  Perhaps a person has been invaded by subatomic aliens and a person's very brain has become the battleground?  In these instances the heroes are going to need some hi-tech gear in which to fulfill their mission, or perhaps magical devices that simulate submersible craft and underwater gear. Some pre planning and possible NPC aid will be in order and the GM should not hinder the heroes in their quest but aid them to at least get to the mission proper.  This includes supporting possible, workable plans and ideas.

So when planning an adventure you can dream big even as your getting’ small…

More delays, song of the week

Work was a bear this week, with one person let go last week and us trying to cover, another calling in sick, and a third taking a couple vacation days.  So it is a matter of finishing the new article or addressing my game, and I think the game comes first.

Anyway, song of the week is from Train.  Not a huge Train fan, but I like a couple of their songs and I think this song from the Spider Man soundtrack is awesome.