BIG NEWS! Steve Devaney, who also was a winner in the Chaosium design contest, just put his game Prince of Masks out on RPG.Now. If vampiric fey overlords and adult only content is your bag, please consider purchasing and supporting an indie creator. Like me Steve is a single dad working and gaming on the side, so let's show him some love!
Game is available HERE.
Hello,
Currently crushed under the task of marking, especially comments.
If you're a teacher, you know.
Quietly working on games and career.
This song is pulling me through. I hadn't heard it and suddenly realizing Gord Downey was singing the middle part was like suddenly meeting a ghost at a bar.
Enjoy.
Hello friends!
It has been a minute since I posted. I was trapped under the day job and killing off the few final academic writing obligations.
(My book chapter on AI and social discourse is HERE and article on Japan's MeToo movement coming any day)
On top of that had a nasty cold and so have taken some time for myself.
Now, I feel revitalized by the pause and am slowly ramping back up to work on a few things.
1. NUNA is at the playtesters and I am giving them the time they need. Participating in the Swords of the Serpentine playtest years back taught me you need to give it time and have people give good feedback on the game warts and all.
2. Japan Studies Book proposal. Probably the last academic thing I'll do unless a uni hires me, but some heavy hitters in the field are cheering me on and the idea is solid. Also, a rare paid academic work so going to give it a shot.
3. Giri-Ninjo, my rules light Japanese RPG. Yes there will be swordfights and seductions, but the game is based around the internal conflicts of characters' humanity and duties. Hope to get a MVP done and start playtesting with some former students from a Japanese uni where I taught Media Studies who also live here in Raincouver.
4. In talks to run some games at Rain City again, the list includes Coyote & Crow, Coyboy Bebop, and Stormbringer. If you are in Vancouver and want to play with me, this is your chance.
But now it is time to clean my space then take sonny out for a walk on this lovely day.
Someone asked me how I churn out so much content.
My editing trick helps.
Sections that have been checked over I colour in green so I don’t waste time going back over them again and again. It saves time and allows me to have a manuscript that’s polished evenly throughout.
Hullo all,
Andy at Breakfast in the Ruins podcast is starting a Moorcock themed gaming con this June.
Details are on his website HERE.
I have been asked and would LOVE to go, but alas this year we just got stability so will be taking it easy on our bank account in BC.
If it becomes a yearly thing, I would love to go, play with great folks like Andy, Dirk the Dice, and the Swiss Crew.
I'd also like to run the two Stormbringer scenarios I've been working on, The Laughing Tower and Angels & Spiders.
Good luck and good gaming to Andy and all the participants!
Among other things, I am a fan of old The Prisoner show.
Why?
During my youth in Canada, American TV was still a rare thing except for blockbuster shows like The Six Million Dollar Man or Buck Rogers. Mostly, my earliest memories were of watching UK shows like Space: 1999, The Tomorrow People, or Blake's Seven, or the few Japanese anime that were trickling in.
Then The Prisoner came to our TV. My first memory was of the episode where Number 6 goes to a bar and orders a drink. He takes a sip and sees a word at the bottom of his glass.
YOU
Another sip, another word.
HAVE
Yet another.
BEEN
A last gulp.
POISONED
Cooly, he orders a half dozen whiskies, downs them one after the other, then goes to the bathroom to throw his guts up.
Brilliant!
Unfortunately, the program was shown out of order, so after that was a jumble of disjointed episodes. But the images - The Village, Rover, ball chairs, the theme song - all stuck with me. Later, I read the comic series, and it was fairly meh, more IP nostalgia tourism than a new work in the same universe. I have discovered there are novels, but honestly I am afraid to read derivative works and ruin my interest.
When I moved to Japan, I had a vivid flashback to The Prisoner at Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki. HTB is a HUGE Dutch-themed park, with Dutch people in traditional dress, millions of tulip bulbs, and delivery trucks with FISH or BREAD written on them. There are no store or brand names. No one speaks English.
It is the Village made flesh in Asia.
So far as I know, the only RPG adaptation was the 1990 GURPS The Prisoner sourcebook. Like most GURPS books, it is an excellent read and IP sourcebook. Yet as a game, re-creating McGoohan's trippy psychedelic re-examination of spies after his successful Danger Man series in an old school simulationist ruleset like GURPs means lots of heavy lifting from the GM.
Couldn't we do better?
To make a fun and faithful adaptation of The Prisoner, you first have to reflect on the difference in genres, and how a TV show and RPG Game are good at different things.
The TV program showcased the individual fighting a faceless organization, while a traditional RPG has to incorporate the group and its dynamics united against a palpable threat. Last, the TV Show had a serious, menacing tone that was deliberately punctured by absurdist actions. Sitting around a table for hours with friends (and presumably some drinks and snacks in hand) playing a game, the tone cannot stay serious all the time, but peaks and dives in reflection of the high and lows of the story being told, as well as the freshness of players & the GM.
Note that I am sure there is a solo play or journalling game out that there could do a passable or even fun version of The Prisoner, but that is outside my wheelhouse. Please leave a comment if you know of a good candidate. The I'm Begging You To Play Another RPG Facebook page people suggest FATE, Fudge, Dread, and Wilderness of Mirrors as candidates.
What system would then work to recreate The Prisoner as a trad RPG?
Since one of the themes of The Prisoner is paranoia and mistrust, how about we use the game Paranoia? Some of you might say that a game about super-powered clones trapped in an underground dystopia by a mad computer and killing one another over spurious secret society connections and accusations of 'Traitor!' wouldn't represent the source material well.
AND
YOU'D
BE
WRONG
Both the Village and the Alpha Complex are isolated dystopias, so settings are similar in feel.
The Computer and Number 1 are both near mythic overseers, close enough.
All clones have psychic powers, and in The Prisoner we see Number 12 (Alison) use hers at the end of The Schizoid Man. This implies that subtle and rare uses of psychic could work very well in the game. It also implies that player characters could all be double agents jostling to move up the hierarchy and become the new Number 1 by judicious use of their powers. The danger would be in having their powers nullified if discovered.
Delicious!
As for the secret societies, one staple of The Prisoner is the jostling and scheming background characters. In an RPG, the player characters are thus part of this system, and so connecting to like-minded NPCs would seem a natural part of the game.
Here would be a good small starter list:
1 Anti-Psychic League - Will try to unmask and nullify all psyhic powers while shamefully hiding their own.
2 Village Historical Society - Must find out how the Village came to be. Always trying to get at records or stories from older residents.
3 Houdinis - Will try to escape at all costs. Under constant surveillance, but somehow always manages to have a plan in the works.
4 Assassins - Dedicated to destroying Number 1. Keep this undercover and are always looking for an opening.
5 The Faithful - Devoted to Number 1 and protecting the Village. They make good traitors who sell out or sabotage other PCs.
6 Hedonists - Spend their time indulging in vices in pastimes, from playing chess to mind-altering substances.
7 Superiors - Pro-psychic group who see themselves as advanced beings. Can improve their abilities but normally keep them hidden.
8 Outsiders - Spies from the outside trying to smuggle tech and secrets from the Village back to their homeland.
Of course, all these societies could provide help and story hooks to characters, as well as the danger of being caught.
"How about security clearances?" you might say. I don't think Paranoia's system is portable as is, or particularly apt. Instead, we can use the system of numbers that already exists in the Village. Taking a quick glance at the Prisoner wiki, a rough outline would be as follows:
Number 1 - All access, never seen. Leader of the Village.
Numbers 2 Highest access, work directly under Number 1, mission is to break Numbers 6-11.
Numbers 3-5 High access, work under Number 2 to as technical, administrative, and consulting support.
Numbers 6-11 No access, high value targets kept under close surveillance.
Number 12-49 Partial access. Work in 'speaking parts' in the Village and cleared to interact with Numbers 6-11.
Numbers 50-100 Limited access. Work in non-speaking, menial parts in the Village.
Numbers 50-199 Low access. Village residents
Numbers 200+ Special access. Specially talented, unique individuals called in by the top 5 to assist in breaking 6-11 or other crises.
"What of clones then?"
In episode one "Arrival," Number 6's old associate Cobb supposedly dies, but comes back at the end of the episode. If we add medical revivals that scramble a character's psychic abilities and secret society alignment (or keep it the same if you wish), then we are good to go.
"How about the rules?" you might add.
Listen...
I played and ran in tons of Paranoia games back in the day.
I don't remember a thing about the rules.
They were innocuous and blended into the gameplay. We had a blast with the scenarios, and the rules backed that up.
Just what The Prisoner needs.
"Well, how about the Lore?"
See below.
There are many fan theories as to the true nature of The Village. I would recommend the GM rolling a different one each episode and keeping that in mind as the canon du jour. This means that you will conserve the delicious ambiguity and contradictions of the series in your games.
1 Computer Simulation - On the surface, this seems like a boring, no-brainer. However, if we take the trope of assigning numbers instead of names, we can transform it into A trying to convince humans to join them and subsume their personality.
2 Alien Simulacra - This is the Ray Bradbury option, turning the setting into a mirage put up by aliens. This explains all the weirdness - the aliens are trying to communicate but cannot understand, only imitate humans.
3 Drug Induced Fantasy - This is a tad dark, but fitting for one off games of trippy weirdness. The drugs could be used to try and get secrets out of PCs, or else just a one off strange trip.
4 Alternate Dimension - Could be a reality warping machine or just a parallel dimension, feel free to have something slightly off and the events here happening in a pocket universe. Canon and consistency are suspended for a session.
5 Foreign Spybreaker - The whole Village is a facade created by a foreign nation to get the info from the player characters. Their might be subtle hints in the higher numbers.
6 Robot World - Villagers are 'sleeper' agents, totally normally until a threat, then turn into powerful automatons. Means there is probably a whole support system somewhere...
7 Mental Hospital - Another simly depressing option. However, if we turn it into a Shutter Island style narrative, where the protagonists each have to confront their own trauma or insanity, then it gets interesting.
8 Characters in a Story - The PCs are just characters in a spy novel, and may overhear the Narrator. They could try to break the fourth wall and contact their creator, or else Rick & Morty up the mate game.
And remember....
I will not make any deals with you. I've resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
