Spilldesigner Åsa Roos lastet ned rollespillet ingen vil snakke om, og snakket om det.

F.A.T.A.L. har en status blant rollespillere som kunne vært kalt mytisk, om det å nevne spill med mytisk status også pleide å fremkalle en blanding av innbitt stillhet og litt usikker hånfliring. Blant de som har fått fingrene i en piratkopi og faktisk forsøkt å sette seg inn i stoffet hersker en slags uuttalt pakt om å aldri snakke om Det Spillet mer, men de reaksjonene vi kjenner til kan få hvem som helst til å la seg friste. Avsky og en følelse av dypt ubehag var min reaksjon; diskurs om saken er gjerne forbundet med en overraskende intens tevling i utskjelling, ispedd forsøk på psykiatrisk diagnostisering av forfatterne.

Noe vi egentlig må gå med på er helt greit. For F.A.T.A.L. er virkelig ei utilgivelig dynge med skit, full av halvfordøyde slintrer av nedlatende misogynistisk kvasiintellektualisme, klamme, grafsende skildringer av seksualisert vold og ubrukelig spilldesign. Tanken på at noen kanskje leser spillet akkurat nå vil gjøre deg litt flau over å være rollespiller, og plante en liten spire av angst over hva folk må tenke om deg som spiller etter å ha lest faenskapen. Å skjelle ut spillet gjør at du føler deg litt bedre med en gang. Også stopper det gjerne der. Nettopp derfor bør du også lese hva Roos har å si. Det vil ikke få deg til å føle deg bedre, men kan kanskje inspirere til bedre spill og bedre samvittighet, etter litt ekstra tankearbeid.

Stangors saga: Day 71

Little Weak Glasses Man have imaginary friend in imaginary world. Him named GGG or GorGor. GorGor no like Stangor, think Stangor world fake, Little Weak Glasses World real. Him worry that Little Weak Glasses Man have Stangor as boss. Think Little Weak Glasses Man getting «too into it.» Godnor say:

«Oh perilous are the turns of fate that wrest times tourbillions away from the central gyre as if a keen blade has sliced away a most delicious possibility from the structure of probability. Mayhaps some skulking brute, base apelike avatar of one so blind and weak might not have come to be but for this feckless wight’s untimely demise. Had the wealth of his domain had been properly dispensed the the weak and blind who have not mastered the way of safe return and would never have dared to pay the price to enter..

«Yet the weak and blind might yet depart from the other side of the mirror of self involvement would that they will admit gross ERROR for gambolling in the false slack realms of the PINKS! Can they all not perceive that this foolhardy sortie can lead but to a spiral into the matrix of PINK? Playing the games of the Con, sweet Dobbs what fatal flaw is this that rent the veil of the inner temple, that the weak and halt and lame wouldst see succor within the photonic realm of evil rather than the spirit of our one true leader?

«Shout salvation for «Bob» and the Fightin’ Jesus, I put it to you the Dobbseity ain’t no nickel-dime bumshow, he is a straight shooter and a damned fine business proposition. Nobody else has the inside scoop, and he has got a bottle of fropmixture he’ll swap you for your delusional games! Are you saved or are you deluded?

«This has been an announcement from the brain of GGG in response to the endless delusional adventures of one Stangor.»

—-

Stangor ask GorGor, How much time you work for Pipe Face Boss Man last day? Little Weak Glasses Man work for Pipe Face Boss in false world twelve hours. Make silly booklet, fold silly shirts, make silly product, answer silly Pipe Face Boss email. Little Weak Glasses Man help Stangor mine Pelagicite for maybe one, one and half hour in False World Time.

Lucky for Stangor, one hour in False World equal whole day in Moga Woods, Flooded Forest, Sandy Plains.

So, GorGor go fuck self. GorGor forget ShorDurPerSav. GorGor forget Slack. Stangor is Short Duration Personal Savior of Little Weak Glasses Man.

Late tonight in False World, Little Weak Glasses Man probably stop silly video and help Stangor again. Stangor have Pelagicite Fever. Pelagicite is demon, make greed in soul of Hunters. Last sleep, Stangor find Pelagicite ore in Flooded Forest, deep under lake. Murky, hard to find in mud. Must slay nine Ludroths to justify Quest, harvest Pelagicite. Easy now. But Stangor need four more Pelagicite ores, then can upgrade Hunter’s Dagger to Assassin’s Dagger. Then ALL Stangor weapons upgraded to peak until Qurupeco captured, slain.

Last sleep, Stangor upgrade Lance, Switch-Axe, Long Sword! Very high sharpness, attack power! Slay three Great Jaggis just for practice with new weapons. Switch-Axe cool, but slow. Long Sword sharpest! — but slow. Lance best combination of blocking and killing, until Dagger upgraded. Dagger & shield very versatile. Low attack power but fast. Can block and attack AND HOLD TORCH, all same time.

Stangor also mix up many potion, drug. Now have Demon Potion, Armorskin, Might Pills, Adamant Seeds, Dash Juice, Energy Drink. Many drug. Make Stangor fierce, take away Stangor pain. Stangor get high as shit when fight now.

Ha ha! Stangor remember when Great Jaggi scare Stangor and Little Weak Glasses Man! Now Stangor brush off all Jaggis like flies.

Discover funny tricks! Cha-Cha will blow Stangor if Stangor stand in right place. Little Weak Glasses Man film porno movie! Very funny!

Wei D’Or also find funny pose. Her talk to Chief. Chief old Moga man, like Indian in False World, him smoke long pipe with frop. If Wei D’Or stand just right, Chief bury face in Wei D’Or ass! And stick pipe in Wei D’Or cooter! Him fuck Wei D’Or with pipe, eat out Wei D’Or ass! Very funny!

Strange. When Stangor, Wei D’Or move close to monster or Moga villager, not bump, but MERGE. Stangor sometime vanish inside monster corpse when carving. Very strange. If stand to close to Trader, merge with Trader like ghost. And sword merge with shield, like ghost. But all solid when strike monster!

Stangor still have much to learn, much to kill. After satisfy Pelagicite Fever, must gain entry to Tundra, only source of Armor Sphere+ — many needed to upgrade Jaggi Armor!

Just like False World — job never done! Always hunt, gather, KILL!

KILL! KILL! KILL!!

***

Med dette avslutter vi Ærvedige Ivan Stangs oppbyggelige redegjørelse for sin oppdagelsesferd i dataspillenes vidunderlige verden. Vi har blitt forsikret om at Stangor inntil videre vil tillate Pingle Brillemann å produsere ukentlig «radioshow», Hour of Slack (nå på sin 1384de time,  og tilgjengelig for nedlasting her).

Stangors saga: Day 62

Stangor slay two Great Jaggi, twenty Jaggia, forty Jaggi like it nothing.

Stangor hold fingernails up to mouth and go «WHFFFT.» Stangor no care.

What was big deal before, now matter of course. Day’s work, no sweat. Great Jaggi? Two Great Jaggis? No skin off Stangor back. But Stangor gather many Jaggi hide, scale, bone. Much skin off Jaggi back.

Stangor like when gather bone. Every time, Little Weak Glasses Man in Fake World Game see on «screen»: «STANGOR GET BONE.»

HAHA! Funny. Screen say «BONE.»

Lance not so bad. At first, Stangor no like Lance. Like Sword & Shield, like Hammer. LOVE Switch-Axe. Very shiny! But Little Weak Glasses Man, him say, «All reading say, use Lance! Block, power-attack! Use Lance!»

Lance seem clumsy, stupid to Stangor at first. But Little Weak Glasses Man, him oracle. Him know future. Little Weak Glasses Man have no muscle, little, stupid, blind. But see Mystic Future. Stang hold Little Weak Glasses Man in awe. Him Holy Man.

Stangor know Little Weak Glasses Man imaginary, all dream. Just Game Man. Fake World. Him just dream of Stangor. Little Weak Glasses Man part of Stangor brain, but low in brain, behind front-think. Hiding from Stangor-think. But really just Stangor in back-brain. Good adviser inside Stangor brain. Make Stangor just as wise as Villagers who read. Little Weak Glasses Man read for Stangor, yet him only spirit, shadow, dream-man of Stangor.

But even in dream, Little Weak Glasses Man advise right. Lance very good! Stangor learn move for swing sideways, crash down, stab up. Each good for many monster. But, best, Lance also block. Stangor must learn all block ways. Great Jaggi bite: Stangor block, Dodge. Great Jaggi swing tail: Stangor block, dodge. Must learn all reflex, like soldier.

NO THINK! JUST MOVE!

Funny! Dream-Man, Little Weak Glasses Man, him no can hunt, yet Little Weak Glasses Man give Stangor much wisdom, knowledge of future. Stangor success in hunt prove that spirits not fake but real. Villagers call Stangor superstitious Hunter. But Stangor know — somewhere, in bigger world, is Great Man pulling strings, controlling Stangor, just like Stangor pull strings, control Little Weak Glasses Man.

I ukene fremover presenterer Imagonem en serie gjesteblogger fra Ærverdige Ivan Stang, skriftlærd og radiovert for den internasjonale Church of the SubGenius. Pastoren deler her den oppbyggelige fortellingen om sin gjenoppdagelse av dataspillenes vidunderlige verden med oss.

Stangors saga: Day 61

Stangor killed TWO GREAT JAGGIS tonight, just for fun. Wei isn’t home, so instead of watching part of a movie or reading, I just let Stangor run my hands while I did all the reading of cheat-sheets and pull-down menus for him. Once I explained to him about all the bombs and drugs he could use, he has been experimenting with them. «Dash Juice,» made from rare steak and «catalyst,» seems to be something like methamphetamine — he can run like the devil for about 5 minutes before he crashes. He only wasted one Paintball marking the Great Jaggis, but the Paintballs don’t last very long. While they DO last, though, the monsters are visible on his «monster-dar» in the form of moving yellow circles on the map in his brain.

That map from Stangor’s brain is now permanently burned into our flatscreen TV, partially visible no matter what game or movie we’re playing.

Stangor tried a Might Berry which may have helped his attack strength. Killing two Great Jaggis in one «afternoon» (in his world), even with the Switch Axe, is very strenuous.

Stangor has been spending more time just walking around town and talking to the inhabitants. Today he learned from the store clerk girl that other Hunters sniff the Paintballs to get high, and that it rots their brains. Stangor’s world is a pharmacopia of drugs, most of them natural herbs, berries, mushrooms and insect juices that can be mixed with honey and imbibed for many temporary skill and power boosts, or for drugging and poisoning monsters.

Something new and strange is happening to Stangor. He woke up this morning feeling guilty that he hadn’t interacted with the villagers and his animal-man slaves. He’d been all business and was sincerely worried that he’d hurt their feelings. So he started making gestures to everybody — bowing, nodding, waving, clapping… He doesn’t speak, but it’s possible that these small social gestures get recorded in some Hunter World «Akashic Records» and will pay off later in social status. He even cuddled the pet pig, «Loin,» that he keeps on the communal farm, and he allowed his Felyne slave, Tater, to repeat his monotonous canned bragging about hoeing and bug-farming and such.

The Shakalaka child that Stangor saved from Jaggis, who is apparently named Cha-Cha, not only helped immensely in fighting and gathering with Stangor, he gained some new powers, and gave Stangor a blow job.

Seriously. Stangor had decided to be nice and look right at Cha-Cha while he talked. They happened to be in a cave, out of everyone’s view, and when Stangor walked up to Cha-Cha he walked too close. Cha-Cha compulsively moves his head up and down constantly — it’s a sort of dance, but since his head only reaches up to Stangor’s groin, and his face was buried in Stangor’s groin, he looked exactly like he was blowing Stangor! Stangor himself was turned at just such an angle that even if he’d had a dick and it was out, you wouldn’t quite be able to see it.

I was so awestruck by this accidental dwarf-molesting tableau that I grabbed my camera and videotaped it at length. Stangor never did get his rocks off that I could tell. He just walked away. I didn’t see him zip up or anything.

Yep, things were new and exciting in Stangor’s world, which he foolishly believes to be the REAL one. *I* know better, of course. And yet his pull and influence on this world, and my services, becomes more powerful every day.

Stangor was bashing on one Kelbi when another one flew through the air right over his head and landed, stunned. He had been whacked by Cha-Cha! These Shakalakas are hardy, jolly, funky, and very good fighters, for dwarves.

Stangor went through his supply box selling off mountains of extra goods like Wyvern fangs and Popfish. He had accumulated a lot of stuff and was yearning for the expensive (5000 z!) BOOK OF COMBOS 3. Each of these books improves his luck with combining simple plants and animal parts into things like potions, pickaxes, bug nets, bombs and dope.

Day by day, in every way, Stangor is getting better and better.

In the research he assigned me, I learned that the monsters he fights are not dinosaurs but «WYVERNS.» There are regular Wyverns like the Jaggis and bird wyverns, most of them huge, which Stangor will soon have to face in new quests. The giant insects are called «Neuroptera» although there are many species within that order, flying and crawling, all venomous.

Eventually, Stangor will have to go to the big cities online and find 3 team-mates to join up with in «online quests.» I’ve seen videos of these.

This rabbit hole appears to be bottomless, as far as I can tell so far. There are probably 12-year-olds out there who have been through all five versions of the game plus all the online quests five times each. I am scared of having to deal with them. It’s not just that I’m old… Stangor is no spring chicken himself. His goatee and ponytail are white, not just gray. And he definitely looks like he’s got some hard bark on him. He’s been through a lot. But he doesn’t remember any of it. It’s as if he suddenly woke up in Moga Village in his underwear, with a sword and shield on his back, with no memory. Yet he had some kind of reputation, for the villagers are all very respectful, as if they know of his past exploits. So far he’s been bluffing his way along, which isn’t too hard since he never speaks except to comment on his meals. And even then, the words are typed on a screen. The only sounds he emits are grunts and yells that go with monster fighting.

But at least he is finally getting some sex, albeit with an underage male «dwarf» of a completely nonhuman species. Cha-Cha has never removed his mask, which is a giant acorn with a mouth-hole and eye-holes. No telling what his face looks like. He is one tireless little cock sucker, though. I brewed a whole pot of coffee while he stood there blowing Stangor and he didn’t break his rhythm once the whole time. Might as well be a blowjob robot.

Anyway, if I ever have anyone over to the house again, I can now show off to them how Stangor can get what looks just like «dwarf head» if I position him just right. It was sheer accident the first time. But I am sure they are gonna do it again.

***

I ukene fremover presenterer Imagonem en serie gjesteblogger fra Ærverdige Ivan Stang, skriftlærd og radiovert for den internasjonale Church of the SubGenius. Pastoren deler her den oppbyggelige fortellingen om sin gjenoppdagelse av dataspillenes vidunderlige verden med oss.

Boss and Holter’s Play With Intent now available

Norwegian spillskaper Matthijs Holter and American RPG designer Emily Care Boss made a text. It seems to be a kind of living thing, that may change as it goes, much like the games it’s all about. It’s called Play With Intent, and a lot of people are never going to get past the introduction:

Dear friends,
It’s time to grow up.
We’ve been playing in this hobby for more than 25 years now. We’ve seen it change, specialize, mutate. The tiny battles in our tiny ponds.
Roleplaying. When we describe what we do, we say: “It’s like let´s pretend, only with rules!”
Kill those rules.
Do you remember play? You were, what, eight or nine, probably. You and friends.
Maybe strangers.
Do you remember when it clicked? When it became magic, and you were that character, that new person you didn’t know you had in you? The Other. The shadow.
The alien.
There were no fucking “rules” for that. For that danger, that exploration. And there still aren’t. The lack of rules is what makes us human. Accept it and become real.
We’re here to show you how to get rid of the structures that are keeping you in place. Away from the safety you wrap yourself in. It’s very simple, very simple.
You already know exactly what to do.
We’re about to remind you.

Y’know, Matthijs is a very earnest person. Not just earnest. Ardent. I don’t think he’s a master troll, though he should be. He should be sitting in a lair somewhere now, drinking your rage, growing fat and bloated on your impotent warbling until your hoarse screams of ire fade and you keel over, wheezing, dripping and utterly spent, your now husk-like form fluttering in the bright ruby-red glow from the Thing that throbs inside the towering, growing mass of troll-flesh. One does not simply tell a Gamer to grow up!

Since I’ve never quite managed to grow up, I retain a few childish habits. One of these is that I find nerdrage infinitely amusing, and am looking forward to going out prospecting for the rich seams of it that are doubtless accumulating in them thar intertubes even as I type this.

Anyway, as my wife (WIFE! Dear gods above and below, I really have done some growing up in the past decade or so) recently reminded me, you need playtime and you need grownup time. She was talking about being inundated with adorable children who wants to hear her fairy tales every. Damned. Minute. Of the day. But the principle can be extended. Games can be designed to belong both in playtime, or in grownup time, or in both, or any.

And that doesn’t mean that they have to fit into one of the grownup boxes – school, therapy, gettin’ it on and so on. They can be games for games’ sake, and still be for grownups. Not necessarily non-fun, but fun in a grownup kinda way. (It’s a weird and disturbing quirk of the English language that «adult» has come to be a synonym for «porn». It makes it harder for me to think clearly about these kinds of things while writing in it. Oh well.) And there’s room for everything – being able to do grownup games does not mean that you can never again gear up your Half-Orc barbarian and go mutilate some lizard man. Fun and Quality may be correlated, and may, if you so choose, be hitched to each other, but either of them may also be crazy-glued to some Glee or even a splotch of *shudder* Wish Fulfillment  – and, get this, all these things can coexist, and your game will not be taken away from you.

It’s all about design choices and organizer choices, and allowing yourself an actual choice. I can do you a seven-course sad, sad story about characters you like dying in terrible ways, AND I can do your standard Bucket of Orc Gore Porn. Sometimes at the same time. If you’re going to design or organize games, it may be interesting and instructive to expand your repertoire, by Growing the Fuck Up. If you don’t like comedy or tragedy and stuff, it may at least help you put on an evening of orc butchery in a new and interesting way.

In other words, Boss and Holter will never get my level 12 hobbit necromancer, damn their dice, but I’ll try some of what they’re offering, occasionally, when I’m in the mood and think I need some.

It’s a weird twist on the whole issue at hand that you need to do a lot of grownup thinking and faffing about in order to remember how to do the playtime thing. Children, when presented with rules, just incorporate them; they become another form of play, a mold into which their regular mode of existence are poured, and so they use rules a way to constantly renegotiate, to pull the plot of the eternal playtime they live in this way or that, to aquire usage rights to a favourite toy, or be friends with someone who’s better at playing than them. And whenever rules interfere with play, they spoil part of the fun, even when the game is «see what happens if we flush Adam’s head in the toilet».

Adults don’t use rules that way… Nah. Can’t type that with a straight face. But, the point stands – we’re not supposed to use rules to push each other around with petty third-hand authority, though a lot of us never learn to step outside the framework of the rules and take part in shaping them. We’re all, at times, or perhaps in a part of our mind always back in school forever chasing the popular boy or the popular girl, jostling for position, quoting the rule book at each other.

We forget what it was all about to begin with.

To function well and be happy as a grownup, understanding and working with this fact about ourselves is a very useful skill. To pull out a cliché I think someone used recently: It’s part of growing up.

But, well, to be perfectly honest I remember having this debate in Norwegian back when Usenet was the finest in online communication technology and leetspeak was barely invented. I’m not going to do it all over again, if for nothing else so as not risk violent flashbacs to the Time of AOLs and the Spring of the WebTV. I did get past the introduction, and found that the contents are kinda familiar, and thus not as interesting to ramble on about.

The document is a bag of tricks we use in role playing games – things you may be familiar with, and things people you know have been doing for years but which you have been too much of a damned dullard to pay attention to. It’s the stuff that happens around a gaming table, which tend to emerge out of the group consensus in well-oiled gaming groups – the stuff that the rule books and larp compendia rarely thinks to write down, preferring to appont some random loveable egomaniac as ringmaster to the game’s circus as a reward for bying their product. It’s good stuff, well presented, with an attempt at  participant priming, frameworking and structuring and other stuff that ends with «ing» running troughout it. If you’re good at GM’ing, you should have no trouble grabbing bits and pieces here and there, as needed. It’s not complete, if you think of it as a game book, and it can’t stand on it’s own if you think of it as a playset, or a manifesto or a larp or a design document, but it’s well written, insistent and earnest and thus unignorable.

Go read it, and then come back and rub that rage all over me.

Oh, yeeeeeahsss. The anger. The futile, scrumptious anger.

Stemmen fra ådalen

En blog om rollespil af Morten Greis. Fra Tryggevælde ådal en dyb klang. Elverpigernes dans. Røre i det hvide slør. Disen hyller landskabet. De gamle stammer krogede trolde.

christines rant

This is my speaker’s corner where I can rant about popular culture, geeky and general stuff that amaze or irritate me. Many things do. Irritate me, that is.

Realm of Melpomene

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

anyway.

"I reject your reality and substitute my own!"

Nordic Larper

Thoughts on scandinavian style live action roleplaying

Nørwegian Style

Norwegian roleplaying games in English