Wednesday, September 26, 2007

the indie holocaust

Things are getting draconian as I clear stuff out of my game room to get ready to move. Yesterday I pitched a six inch stack of free RPGs I had printed out over the years. I ended up keeping only those games I had actually played, plus one. There was an extra copy of S. John Ross's Risus: The Anything RPG that I held on to. Somewhere there's already a copy (along with the excellent Risus Companion and his Big List of RPG Plots) in a 3 ring binder stuck in some box, but it doesn't hurt to have an extra. I also kept my print-out of Phillipe Tromeur's Wuthering Heights Roleplay. Had a fun con run of that five or so years ago. In the folder with the rules was the Ron Edwards style relationship map I had drawn after everyone generated characters. Behold:

I don't recall what Clarice saw in that bald porn addict.Everyone ended the run dead, insane and/or incarcerated. It was like a Call of Cthulhu run except sexual anxiety replaced the face-eating fish-men. Also on the to-keep list was QAGS, the Quick Ass Gaming System. You can buy a cool digest-sized rulebook for QAGS, but the freebie one page charsheet/rulebook is almost better. I have both. And then there's Uncle Bear's Bad Attitudes, a great little action movie game. Great for blowing stuff up.

The one rpg I kept but have not played is Micro-Dot. I can't find the linky for this one anymore, so in a blatant act of IP piracy I am going to reproduce the game in its entirety.

Micro-Dot-RPG
State action and Roll 1d4
1. Amazing fumble
2. Fail (Unless part of PC Occupation)
3. Success
4. Amazing Critical
Seriously, that's the whole game.
Print
Posted by Jeff Rients at 6:05 AM

5 comments:

  1. ChattyDM12:17 PM

    I don't think you can pirate rules as you can't copyright them....

    Although there might be a case with you posting the fluffy parts of the system...

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. S. John Ross2:49 PM

    Just because some people do wonder about this stuff: rules aren't protected by copyright but expressions of those rules are. In other words, if the rulebook says:

    "Fighters are at +1 to attack peasants in purple clothing,"

    it's legal to cite that as long as you change the expression:

    "Warriors get a bonus of +1 to strike commoners in violet garb."

    Where the exact line is between an expression and a literal statement of the fact of a rule is a matter for the judge (statute can't cover it, these things always come down to judicial review) and a total judgement would depend more factors than resemblance.

    Another wrinkle is that, in some cases, specific rules terms can be trademarks, and then there's trade-dress and other concerns (yawn!) :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Infamous Jum2:52 PM

    I have a similar game that I created in high school. I call it "Stupid: the Game". It uses the D2 System, by which I mean you toss a coin. Heads, you succeed. Tails, you fail and are more than likely totally screwed because of it. Sample play includes: building a hovercraft out of live timber wolfs, and having a cordless phone explode and engulf the apartment in radioactive fire as a result of a failed attempt at ordering pizza. The game usually ends when either A. everyone is tired of being stupid, or B. someone declares they win and get heads on the toss.

    ReplyDelete
  4. mythusmage7:33 PM

    World's Simplest RPG Rules

    1. Declare goal of Adventure.

    2. Flip a coin.

    Heads: Goal achieved. Bitch at GM because challenge wasn't sufficiently satisfying.

    Tails: Fail to achieve goal. Bitch at GM because adventure was too tough.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Infamous Jum7:30 AM

    I think the perfect game would be Mythusmage's game, only with a couple of hours of the most painful mapping imaginable before the coin toss.

    "How do I draw a 20 square foot septogonal room with 28 doors? Why are we even here?!"

    "I'll tell you in 40 minutes. NOW DRAW!"

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)