Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Hedley Lamarr, High Priest of Evil Chaos

I've been thinking about Raggi's advice (in both the LotFP rpg and the Random Esoteric Creature Generator) that we should use real people more and humanoids less for our cannon fodder.  It's a concept that has real possibilities.  It adds a little dramatic oomph to encounters with 1 hit die goobers that might otherwise degenerate into "oh, more orcs" and increase interest in actual monsters by reducing the volume of encounters with such weirdies.

But if you knock kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, gnolls and bugbears off your standard encounter lists, then who the heck will man the Caves of Chaos?  This might seem a minor point to you, but when pondering big changes to the game I often think about The Keep on the Borderlands as something approaching as Platonic ideal in the realm of D&D.  If a proposal renders module B2 unplayable, then I'm not sure I want it.

But then I thought about Blazing Saddles.


I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

The Borderlands are basically the Old West redacted to Mythic Caucasia anyway, so why not draw on a source like this?

13 comments:

  1. That's pretty funny stuff. The Caves area becomes Dead Man's Gulch - over here we've got the Rat Catcher Gang, those guys yonder are Prarie Rustlers, down the gulch are the Sod-Killers with the bad attitudes, and I hear there's a preacher that's set up some kind of wicked church at the end of the valley.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And don't forget to throw in the guys who showed up in response to Hedley's ad - Nazis, Hells Angels, KKK members... Oh yeah, this has potential.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12:26 PM

    But we don't want the Irish.

    ReplyDelete
  4. yes. You've read GURPS Goblins, right? Just unsplice the goblins bit from all the Georgian London background and you've got the Decemberists version.

    ...and, incidentally, Ankh-Morpork.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I look forward to you statting up the buggerers.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have to agree Jeff. My wife did this with her Dune Sea setting; replace the humanoids with people not use all the criminals and ne'er-do-wells from Blazing Saddles.

    No she based her baddies off of the fascistic villains of a popular science-fantasy film trilogy; the white robed Tithemen, black robed Priests and red robed Paladins.

    Of course her Elves and Half-elves were Norsemen, Halflings as Jungle Pygmies, Dwarves as Sherpas and you couldn't really tell what gender anyone was, let alone species, under all those loose Bedouin style robes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

    Awesome stuff, as usual.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Now that is a rape-face grin. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Now go do... that voodoo... that you do... so well!"

    ReplyDelete
  10. You forgot "rapists." You also forgot "rapists."

    ReplyDelete
  11. Shame on you for not referring to him as "Hedy" so someone could correct you.

    ReplyDelete
  12. They need distinctive regalia.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL0E5Q0Y5TU

    Verify: floggi

    ReplyDelete
  13. Feel free to base a baddy on this here Methodist. I'll be amused if you do.

    ReplyDelete