The Tentacled Monkey

Sorry for not posting anything of substance here lately I have had some worries with work, some family things, and a little game called Fable 2 that has been eating at me for the last week or so.

Fable 2 is not like the first Fable game. Fable 2 blows that first game into smithereens with a concentrated force of Will, then shoots at its dead carcass with a 5 star crossbow with a few augments on it. If that made any sense, I’m not talking to you because you already know what I am telling everyone else out there. FABLE 2 kicks major ass! This is the RPG I had been wanting for the XBOX 360 from day one. A game you can get utterly lost in, where your moral compass can do cart wheels. I’m not going to go into details here  suffice to say that I have finished the game, and wish I didn’t. There were numerable side quests still to be taken up, and I plan on starting over, this time as a girl and good, instead of the scourge deamon bastard child from hell I just was, everyone nees a bit of levity don’t you think?

MurfMan Personal, RPGs Fable2, Personal, RPGs

So I’ve been thinking for a number of years of running a game in which the players themselves are at first taking place in a normal game. Then after a bit things start to contradict themselves, causing them to question reality in general.

I got the idea while running a game of VtM a number of years ago with my good friend Terry. The game was one of those one-on-one sessions initiated because everyone else folded on us. About 2 hours in I realized that it was fucking boring, I mean bad, and I had to do something to save the game or we were both going to quit.

So I started contradicting some of the actions that his character was doing from the prior night. The more and more contacts he revisited from the night before the more and more certain he was that something really screwy was going on. His character later realizes that another vampire has Dominated him by creating some false memories to replace the Dominated acts that he actually performed the prior night.

Terry’s character now has to deal with the fallout of his illegal actions and try and patch up the relationships that he ruined earlier. Not to mention that he needed to find out what he really did on that lost night.

Now that game is remembered by both Terry and I as being the best damn game we had ever played.

More Ideas

Not only had I rethought how to do a typical Dominate into something far more sinister for the characters. We also played around with some different styles of problem resolution. The problem really began because we were chain-smoking and hated having to get up every five minutes to go outside and smoke leaving the dice and sheets inside.

So I said screw it this is supposed to be fun and we were really into the characters, so why not try paper-rock-scissors. Now this was by no means revolutionary, but it made the game fun! And that’s why we play after all right?

The New Game

OK, so now you know where I am coming from with this idea. Now I want to do this on a grander scale with more players. The only particular game system I have access to, since I lost them all in the hurricane, is Call of Cthulhu and Dark Heresy. Both of them would lend themselves well to a mass hallucination/mind control affect.

Call of Cthulhu Options

This wouldn’t be that bad at all to do now that I think about it. There are a number of ways I could pull it off:

1. group mind control spell
2. vast conspiracy
3. characters transported to an alternate reality
4. characters transported to the Dreamlands

I think that the first option would be the most likely and simplest to pull off.

Dark Heresy Options

OK only one thing really comes to mind here, psykers. I am really digging this system and scenario, so this is likely to be the option I would choose regardless.

eyes hurting …

TBC…

MurfMan RPGs CoC, Dark Heresy, RPGs, vampire

So I started playing Bethseda Software’s latest title, Fallout 3, yesterday. This game is absolutely awesome. Imagine if you played the original Fallout combined with the latest Half Life. It is amazing, simply stated and bold, but no less true.

The game play is ideally suited to PCs, thankfully! In my opinion Bethseda screwed themselves with Oblivion IV by having an almost retarded key mapping, making it almost impossible to play. They definitely learned from their mistakes with this release. Playing Fallout 3 is a treat the majority of the controls center around the gamers faithful ‘WASD’ without making any actions feel awkward.

The graphics are amazing, you get pulled into this world of destruction and hopeless endurance easily. You can run anywhere, there are no load times or zone changes except when you enter a building. I played yesterday for about 12 or more hours and now sit at level 5.

Two words of warning thoguh, if you don’t have the power to push this game things in the distance will not appear until you get within a set distance of them, unfortunately this refers to bad guys as well. The other item worth noting is that you can get really lost really fast, especially early on.

Other than that, possibly the best game I have ever played, definitely the best this year. Hands down.

MurfMan RPGs Games, RPGs

Vampire
So I started playing the old Vampire the Masquerade with some friends of mine here in the last several months. Its been nice, but I made one greivous error in judgement when creating my character. I assumed the others in the group would have created a fighter type ass-kicking vamp and they did, so I created a heavily socialized Follower of Set. Granted I was allowed to be at 7th generation but let’s face it Serpentis is not exactly known for its combat effectiveness.

So far we have had run-ins with a few prot-zombies and some mortals, nothing too dangerous, no the main problem with my character is the heroin addicted Brujah that is in the group with us. So far he has frenzied three times, one time almost killing me and another character in the fray. So I have made it a point to act like a Set and have been trying to use ghouls as “flesh shields” to try and alleviate any damage that I might take. But, alas, I also am almost worthless in a fire-fight. So I need a ghoul that is also well versed in combat. Without the “flesh shields” I am not going to last very long in a combat scenario.

Dark Heresy
A few weeks ago I acquired the Warhammer 40k RPG Dark Heresy. This book is awesome and is truley one of the best RPG books I have ever seen. It is gorgeous. Aside from that The system is fast-paced and deadly. The setting fleshes out alot of the information attained not only from the table-top game but from the novels as well. In the game you play an Acolyte of one of the Calixis sector’s powerful Inquisitors. You start as a new recruit and work your way up through the ranks, if you live that long, to become an Interrogator or and Inquisitor, neither of which are covered in this book.

I am so excited about this game that it is retarded. I have a group lined up and a place to play but as of yet we have still not decided on when to play. I need to read up on the rules some more and one of the packaged adventures to detrmine what will happen. But allof that aside I am really excited about this game, and I think it shows.

MurfMan RPGs Dark Heresy, RPGs, vampire