1224 lines
75 KiB
Plaintext
1224 lines
75 KiB
Plaintext
>From Aylott@world.std.com Fri Jan 28 10:16:38 EST 1994
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LEGION OF BITTER ALUMNI #6
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-- The Online Edition --
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November 26, 1993
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In this Issue . . .
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EDITORIAL RANTS
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-- "A Humble Editorial Welcome with Very Little Ranting,
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Really" by Chris Aylott
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"Red Iguana Over China"
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-- by Jon Young
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"Virtual Gibson"
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-- by Arielle Kagan and Shawn Masters
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ON BEING A MINOR FIVE-STAR GENERAL #4:
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-- "Everything I Learned, I Learned in Third Reich", by Jon
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Howard
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RANTS AND RAVES #3:
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-- "Spammin'" by Tom Janulewicz
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"Politics, Economics & Role-Playing: How to Design and Run a
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Fantasy RPG World"
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-- by Bill Ayres
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Review: GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade
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-- by Tom Tomlinson
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"Archetypes and Comic Books: The Fall of the X-Men"
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-- by Becky Teed
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"Can't Take Trek? Try This"
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-- by Toby Elliott
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Reprint: "What's REALLY Happening with Star Trek:Voyager.
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No, Really!"
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-- from an Internet post by Keith Loh
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Reprint: "My Trek is Better than Your Trek"
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-- from America On-Line's "Dateline: Starfleet #39", by
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Dayton Ward
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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EDITORAL RANTS:
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"A Humble Editoral Welcome with Very Little Ranting, Really"
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by Chris Aylott
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Welcome to the first electronic issue of Legion of Bitter Alumni!
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Our story so far: first, you see, there was this Federation
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peacefully exploring the galaxy, and one of its finest captains was the
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charismatic young James T. Kirk. But he got old and fat and his toupee was
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much more obvious than in the TV series, so they came up with a young crew
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led by a Frenchman who wasn't ashamed to be bald. But the new crew was
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boring, because everybody got along and nobody had personalities, much less
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personality problems. So they came up with a new crew, and while the
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Starfleet people in the crew are still squeaky clean, there's some
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reasonably -- interesting -- people to keep them on their toes... that's
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not it, is it?
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OK, you see, Brenda and Dylan were crazy at each other at first
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sight, but her father didn't like him, so they ran away and the father
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became controller of Dylan's trust when Dylan's mother. . . and then
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there's Kelly . . . um . . .
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Once more.
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There were these silly college students who formed a roleplaying
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organization and called it the Williams Association of RolePlayers, and
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they decided to have a newsletter called "WARPfactor". And it was good, if
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occasionally irregular, and rapidly progressed form MacWrite, scissors and
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glue to Pagemaker and even a review by Steve Jackson, who thought we were
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very silly people. But all good college students had to graduate, as did
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one of the original "WARPfactor" editors (who wasn't particularly good but
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wasn't bad enough to get thrown out, either) and he got bored sitting
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around in his meager excuse of a life. So he went out, got "Express
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Publisher" (never wanting to see glue and scissors again -- shudder), and
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harassed all his friends and made them write stuff to put in it. He's
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managed to successfully harass them on a quarterly basis ever since, and so
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there became the paper edition of "Legion of Bitter Alumni", the Melrose
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Place to "WARPfactor"'s 90210. Same plot-lines, but "Legion" writers take
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off their shirts.
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And it came to pass that your humble editor heard about the
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formation of the Metaverse, finally got himself an Internet account, and
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realized he could inflict tortured prose on a much wider potential
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audience. You've got the results in your virtual hands. Same "Legion", new
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format. Submissions welcome.
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Enjoy.
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Legion of Bitter Alumni is a product of Blue Vial Comics, which is to be
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found at the real world address of 190 Holland St. #1, Somerville, MA
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02144, the virtual reality address of 190 Henson Street in Steve Jackson
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Games' Metaverse (metaverse.io.com), or the Compuserve address of
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70641.2064@compuserve.com. Submissions, comments and/or monetary donations
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are happily accepted, and I like submissions and comments best. Excerpting
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or copying Legion is fine as long as you give credit.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"Red Iguana Over China"
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by Jon Young
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BEIJING, CHINA --Well, it's official. My life has dwindled to the
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point where I have no recourse but to write for Legion. Somehow I always
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expected that there'd be more perks after ascension to the hallowed ranks
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of Fat-Old-Alumni (TM) -- I don't even get discounts at
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fine-dining-establishments-in-my-local-area for crying out loud. I also
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almost achieved my Buddha nature right after I got here when one of my new
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friends said "Oh, you went to William and Mary!" Sometimes you just have to
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cry.
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Every once in a while, I have to stop and ask myself what I'm doing
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out here. I'm at least 6800 miles from Nick's Roast Beef (TM), the pay is
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laughable and the workload can be bruising, so why have I left the warm
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and fuzzy confines of the Purple Valley for the closest thing we have left
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to an Evil Empire? (This must be where they go between Trivias.) Well, like
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the rest of you, I was brutally cast out of paradise into the cruelty that
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we alumni-types like to call the world. Some of us just got cast a bit
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farther than others, that's all.
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Upon closer inspection, China is pretty cool (we had a foot of snow
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yesterday -- scratch that it's freezing)! The gaming scene, predictably,
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sucks Janulewiczian weasel spit (TM) as does the ability of my students to
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understand our twisty friend -- no, not Aylott -- the WARP/Williams
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dialect. I suppose it must be some kind of omen that during the first
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get-to-know-each-other meeting at the Foreign Languages Department, someone
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said "Oh, Jonathan, you have some mail" and pulled out Legion #5, which had
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cleverly been mailed several days before I left. Trying to explain Legion
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to a bunch of relatively mundane-types that I will have to work with for
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the next year, in Chinese no less, was not exactly the way I had envisioned
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starting out the new year.
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Many things here are basically the same, gravity for one, but in
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most respects China's #1 university (they keep a list) is completely
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different from Billsville. The entire student body of Williams could likely
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find useful employment here as additional omnipresently decorative gate
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guards without anyone noticing (heaven knows we have enough trouble finding
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jobs in the States). Stacked six to a room, we wouldn't even take up a full
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dormitory. The campus is, to put it mildly, bloody large. With a couple of
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bustling markets, several restaurant/karaoke bars, a post office, two banks
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(neither of which deal in foreign exchange); a personal nuclear reactor
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simulator that they seem reluctant to let me play with, a swimming pool
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that foreigners are not allowed to swim in
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and two 20+ story high rises, the campus alone is better equipped than
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Williamstown. Then again, so is your average Eagle Scout, but with with the
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wall surrounding the campus, it seems an appropriate
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James-Bond-supervillian hideout (sans Fred).
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The academic system is a bit different as well. I'm not sure how
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well we would have responded to mandatory 6 AM outdoor aerobic workouts
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(well, I am sure how one of us would have reacted . . .). Williams teacher
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and class evaluations are a bit tame by local standards; after each
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semester, students complete a questionnaire evaluating their classmates'
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(those from the same department anyway) moral character and work habits.
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Call me cynical but I don't know if our perpetually blissful contentment
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with each other would allow us to match the near universal conspiracy to
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simply give each other perfect score each time.
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Luckily, as a teacher I am exempt from almost all of that. I have
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my own room in the foreign student's dormitory with an included bathroom
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(rent-free and occasional hot water). I don't have to do the exercise,
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which is a good thing, (neither do the graduate students) and I only have
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to report someone if I feel like it.
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As some other Williams veterans no doubt have noticed, teaching
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classes differs from taking classes in several key aspects. Perhaps the one
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with the most immediate effect on me personally is that there is a somewhat
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larger stigma attached to simply sleeping in. I suppose it couldn't go on
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forever. In some ways, classes here take after the old Pasachoff model - I
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only record grades and scores so I can tell the department if one of the
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students should not get the traditional 87.
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Still, there is more than enough work to keep one busy out here.
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The other teachers, understandably, want a chance to practice English with
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native speakers and, like clockwork, one of them comes by every time I
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visit the office to try to get me to edit a textbook or record a tape for
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them. I think they have worked out some kind of schedule and are tracking
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my movements.
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Teaching basic English to graduate students can be wacky on its own
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rights of course. I just finished correcting a series of basic compositions
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where the assignment was to present the basic advantages and disadvantages
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of automobiles; pretty tame stuff really. One set of papers was full of
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wild technical descriptions of engine internals and (largely correct) terms
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I had to look up. I checked my records and sure enough, that was the class
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of students going for Ph.D.'s from the department of Automobile
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Engineering. They have some of the best departments here, anyone for a
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Precision Instruments degree? How about
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Air-Conditioning Systems? No History department, but we do have English
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majors. It's funny though, they don't seem to have as much trouble getting
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jobs. (Go GO Gadget Toby!)
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The social scene, such as it is, is better than I had expected.
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There aren't all that many foreigners around, but one has a son who attends
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the international school and so therefore has access to the library. We
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have worked out a deal: he brings me SF to read and I let him play
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Civilization. If I could only cure him of Xanth, I'd be in business. After
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attending a big foreigner get-together, I have achieved my highest honor to
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date -- egg-toss champion of Beijing. (It's the sport of the 90's -- look
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for it at WARPCon II, sometime that's not all that soon!) There is also an
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amusement park in central Beijing that has largely been imported from the
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States, complete with genuine products of the Tilt-A-Whirl (TM) company. It
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seems, however, that they sent the rides with instructions in Chinese only
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so that when preparing the bilingual signs a local re-translation had to be
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made. This has resulted in a huge sign in front of the rollercoaster
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touting the virtues of China's first, largest and most exciting "Loop and
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Screw Ride!"
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In short, life here is (at least for now) wacky enough on its own
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that the lack of many of the, ummm, special features of western society
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hasn't been too much of a problem so far. Even if it does become a problem,
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it is possible to find some things out here. I had great fun watching
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Robotech in Chinese (sadly I missed Macross) and even stumbled upon
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Supergirl, dubbed and cut into ten 20 minute episodes. Try explaining that
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to six of your students who had come over for spaghetti and donuts.
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Paintball, alas, is nowhere to be found but in a burst of
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capitalist fervor there is an army unit outside of Beijing that allows
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foreigners (for a reasonable fee in foreign currency) to exercise on their
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base with their weapons and live ammunition. (Automatic weapons and rocket
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launchers even -- when shall I expect you, Ed?) It's amazing what can
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happen in a system without the basic concept of a lawsuit. I have not
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checked this out personally yet, but if winter gets long . . .
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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"Virtual Gibson"
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By Arielle Kagan and Shawn Masters
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William Gibson appeared at Olsson's Books in Washington, DC this
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August, reading, signing and otherwise promoting his recent novel Virtual
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Light. He attracted several hundred people, ranging from fortyish men in
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business suits to young teenagers in grunge to Karl Galle '91.
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Gibson emerged from the back room after the crowd had wedged itself
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into every nook of the bookstore, accompanied by his manager, his manager's
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girlfried and a few store employees. He wore black, was rather hunched
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over and quickly settled behind a Powerbook 170 lent to him by his
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publisher to pull his manuscript up. "Hmmm..." he said. "It's got a clock
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thing now . . . clock's still there . . . just have to get this file up".
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Cutting-edge cyberpunk writer William Gibson can barely use a computer, let
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alone program virtual reality scenarios. The manuscript was finally loaded,
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however, and Gibson began to read.
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Virtual Light revolves around the theft of a pair of virtual
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reality glasses. While the setting is closer to contemporary than
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Neuromancer and its related stories, the excerpts read suggest the book is
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still replete with anecdotes, advanced technology and creative wordings.
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Gibson describes a cryogenically preserved brain, wrapped in tinfoil and
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looking "like a baked potato". The protaganist is told he resembles Tommy
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Lee Jones, and Gibson immediately segues into an explanation of how the
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police search for suspects. Showing a photograph of a suspect is old hat --
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the police of Virtual Light run the suspect's picture through a computer,
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analyze its similarity to pictures of celebrities, then ask people if
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they've seen a man who resembles celebrity A, B or C. This leads the
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protagonist to suggest that there is a lobe of the brain which keeps track
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of celebrities . . .
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A question and answer session followed the reading. The answers
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according to Gibson:
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How did you and Bruce Sterling collaborate on The Difference
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Engine? The entire book was written on "a stack of floppies and some old
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Apple computers". Gibson and Sterling would pass the disks back and forth
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between them -- one would write for a while and give the disks to the
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other, who would write on the same disks over the previous work. The book
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never existed as a hard-copy draft, and if a favorite section was
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overwritten, it would have to be reconstructed from scratch if at all.
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Do you get the ideas for your settings from living in places,
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visiting them, or wanting to go to them? "All of the above," says Gibson,
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adding that his writing was influenced heavily by the music he listened to
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at the time -- this explained the number of Steely Dan references in
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Neuromancer. . .
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Do you care about ripoffs of your work? Not much, apparently.
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Gibson said he felt it was something that goes along with capitalism in
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general. He wasn't at all upset by the Neuromancer comics, and seemed
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pleased by how quickly Agrippa had been decoded and placed on the Net.
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Gibson even encouraged the audience to take advantage of the current
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economic atmosphere, go along with this capitalist trend, and come up with
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more ripoffs.
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What about the rumors of a Neuromancer movie? While there has been
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considerable speculation on the Net about a possible movie (rumors of
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Swarzenegger or Rutger Hauer in lead roles abound, along with suggestions
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-- please, no -- of Winona Ryder as Molly), Gibson expressed doubt that any
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such movie would be out in the near future. It was unclear whether he felt
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such a production would be a while in the making or whether he doubted it
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would be made at all.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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ON BEING A MINOR FIVE-STAR GENERAL
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"Everything I Learned, I Learned in Third Reich"
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by Jon Howard
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Yet again, I'm going to not review a wargame. Aylott sent me a
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suggestion for a great column, which I using here. (Flattery will get you
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printed . . . -- ed.) Basically, the idea is: so playing wargames is great
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fun, yeah yeah. Is that it?
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Nope.
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What you learn in wargames is applicable to Real Life. Let me give
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you some examples.
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1: Wargame tactics are useful in other games. For instance,
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Kirsten and I were recently given Pool of Radiance, a computer AD&D game
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and a good one, at that. In it, the PCs' party frequently goes up against
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hordes of orcs, goblins, etc -- I've seen 50 on 6 and worse. In those
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encounters, wargaming tactics are necessary to keep your party from being
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squished. You need to think about flanking maneuvers, combined arms (magic
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and swords), reserves (both keeping people back and keeping an eye on your
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hit points), protection of fragile artillery (magic-users), and so on.
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So? I said Real Life up above.
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2: In wargames, you always want a reserve force to plug a hole in
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your line if something goes wrong. That's why the US Army sets up its units
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in threes, as in three battalions in a regiment -- two move forward and one
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is held in reserve. When you run out of reserves, you run out of luck.
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Same in real life. If you have an unexpected expense, it's much better to
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have a financial reserve to deal with it rather than scramble to find some
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way of putting it off. The people who live paycheck to paycheck are the
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ones in trouble (uh oh -- ed.). How many times did something interrupt
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your studying at Williams? It was a good idea to schedule more time to
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studying than it would actually require, just in case.
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3: Your plan may look perfect and feel perfect, but something will
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go wrong with it. Your crack elite Guards unit will flail on that 5-1
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attack. Your weapon will jam right when you need it. You'll mess up the
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movement of units and leave the tanks stuck behind the infantry. The armor
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will take a little too long to arrive (Arnheim on the Western Front). The
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enemy's crack elite Guards unit will be right where you don't want it to
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be. Something will go wrong. Whether or not you are prepared for that
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wrong thing to happen sometimes determines how well it will turn out.
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4: It's not as bad as it seems. Your situation may look bad to
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you, but your opponent's position looks equally as bad to him/her. Once I
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played a game where I found myself in a miserable position at the end of
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turn two. I was sure my opponent was about to pound my entire line and
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probably break it. After studying the board, my opponent announced that
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his position was so bad that he was going to concede. This is a result of
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#3 -- things may go badly for you, but they will go just as badly for the
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other person.
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There's a corollary to this. Assuming your opponent will find
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himself in dire straits, you might think that means you should "nail him
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whenever possible". Well, yes, but just enough to ensure a win. After
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all, you'll probably be playing against the same person again. If you
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pound on someone when you don't really have to, they'll remember.
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5: Sometimes an "advance in the opposite direction" is your best
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bet. Know when to you have to back off. If your carrier battle group in a
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game of Harpoon (Three-Sixty Pacific, Inc) is being destroyed in the North
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Sea, pull it back to the North Atlantic. If a bulge in your line is
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guarded by weak forces, pull it back or it'll get chewed off (the Kursk
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pocket on the Eastern Front). Know when to give in and retreat.
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6: Better yet, don't get into it in the first place. Operation
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Barbarossa has inspired Eastern Front wargame designers for years, but it
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was still a stupid move for Hitler. If you have infantry force and your
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enemy has tanks, find some good terrain and hide -- don't try to take on
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5-inch thick armor with people wearing 1/10-inch thick shirts. In real
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life, be very careful what you go after.
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7: Finally, a surprise move can be very effective. In May 1940,
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the Germans took out Belgium's strongest fort with 80 men and a lot of
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explosives. They would have been cut to pieces walking up to the fort and
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attacking, so they didn't. They landed on it with gliders, and the Belgians
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were caught flat-footed. The surprise frequently wins.
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Update on Blitzkrieg: after additional playtesting, Andrew and I
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have decided Red has a definite advantage in the game. The Red side won
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all three games we've played. Something to keep in mind when you play it .
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. .
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Anybody up for a game of Third Reich?
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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RANTS AND RAVES #3:
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-- "Spammin'" By Tom Janulewicz
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Spammin': To speak aimlessly on a mishmash of topics. To stuff someone's
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brain with information of questionable content. -- Wired 1.6
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Road to Nowhere
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Hanging on the wall in the guest bathroom of my father's house is a
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plaque upon which is written the introduction to Steinbeck's Travels with
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Charley. It reads: "When I was young and the urge to be somewhere else was
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upon me . . . I fear the disease is incurable." I used to read this passage
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every day during my morning ablutions. Of course, as anyone who has seen me
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first thing in the morning will attest, any distraction would be better
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than having to meet my reflection before its decently shaved, showered and
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dosed with coffee. The words came back to me, however as I was preparing
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for my own travels.
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I recently realized that for the time being Boston is not the place
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for me. The last three months of job hunting have brought very few nibbles
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and I can't get most Temp agencies to give me the time of day. This leaves
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me feeling incredibly passive, so I decided to take action. Decisive
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action. Man of the Nineties action. I'm going on vacation (Technically, I
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suppose it's a business trip. I've sent out a number of resumes and I'm
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bringing some suits just in case any of the nice bureaucratic drones to
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whom I've written want an interview.)
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Whatever inscrutable Eastern sage opined that "The journey of a
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thousand miles begins with a single step" never had to deal with Amtrak, by
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the way. The journey of a thousand miles begins with numerous telephone
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calls, the making of reservations, packing, a few more phone calls, and the
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outlay of a considerable amount of capital. So much for sages.
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All well and good, but what does all this have to do with the winds
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of relevance which swept through the comics world some twenty years ago?
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Good question. Not bloody much, really. It has almost but not quite nothing
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to do with quests and finding oneself on the road, which is what I want to
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discuss . . .
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In 1970, Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams brought Social Relevance to
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the world of superheroes with Green Lantern #76. Until then, the threats of
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the four-color world were fairly safe -- caricatured criminal scum, rogues'
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galleries and losers with really silly powers, with Supernatural and Alien
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Menaces for spice. O'Neil and Adams changed it all. They realized that
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simple menaces in costumes were insufficient to a generation that had just
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weathered the social erosion of the 1960's. The creators and many of the
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older comics readers of the day were disillusioned with the gentleman (and
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rare gentlewoman) criminals that the costumed heroes of the day routinely
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fought. On those rare occasions when the metahuman gods came down to earth
|
|
to break up a mugging, this was generally presented as a clear-cut case of
|
|
CRIME, with no thought given to the social factors leading to such
|
|
desperate acts. The early seventies readers who had been exposed to doses
|
|
of liberal social theory were beginning to find this problematic.
|
|
O'Neil and Adams' solution was to take two characters and explore
|
|
the American social landscape through their experiences. Comics publication
|
|
is a business like any other -- the characters they chose were, shall we
|
|
say, low risk (Green Lantern's title was suffering from low sales, and
|
|
Green Arrow had spent years as filler material in the back of established
|
|
characters' titles). GL was the ultimate space cop and voice of the
|
|
establishment; Green Arrow was a hot-headed anarchist, and Green-Lantern
|
|
#76 put them in a battered pick-up truck, and sent them off to look for
|
|
America. To put this in context, imagine Pat Buchanan and Jerry Brown
|
|
taking a road-trip and stopping along the way to fight crimes and
|
|
experience angst.
|
|
As they traveled, the Emerald Warriors encountered menaces more
|
|
insidious than any they had ever faced. The message was quite simple,
|
|
really. They looked into the face of true evil and found that it did not
|
|
often wear bright spandex or devise cunning yet ultimately flawed death
|
|
traps. True evil is subtle. It has lots of money. It has guns and armies of
|
|
hired thugs. It evicts little old ladies and forces children to steal to
|
|
keep their families off the streets. It makes chemical abuse glamorous and
|
|
drives rifts between fathers and sons. It exists in the greed of large
|
|
corporations and can poison the heart of even the most stalwart hero. And
|
|
rings of power and trick arrows are often insufficient to the task of
|
|
overcoming it.
|
|
Despite my best efforts, I do not have a power ring of my own, and
|
|
revealing the true face of evil is less important to me than getting my own
|
|
ARBA team. I am on a quest of sorts, though. It is conceivable that my
|
|
efforts will be successful and I will have to move to one of the cities I
|
|
visit. I wouldn't want to end up somewhere that doesn't respond to my needs
|
|
as a Bitter Alumni, so I'm going to scout out comic shops and gaming
|
|
stores. The high point (preemptive pun fully intended) of this mission will
|
|
be a pilgrimage to Mile High Comics in Denver, a Mecca of the four-color
|
|
faithful.
|
|
Tune in next issue for an account of my travels, but for now on to
|
|
other matters.
|
|
|
|
I've Got a Really Bad Feeling about This
|
|
In recent press releases and prepublication hype ("Worlds will
|
|
live. Worlds will die. Things will never be the same. No, really.") for
|
|
their latest epic, Zero Hour, DC has used a couple of phrases which make
|
|
this long-time and usually patient fan incredibly nervous.
|
|
Phrase #1: "fix some of the continuity flaws of the DC Universe".
|
|
Now wait just a minute here! As I recall, Crisis on Infinite Earths, was
|
|
supposed to address all these niggling little continuity problems and get
|
|
all of the superheroes back on track. All right, so the Crisis was an
|
|
unmitigated disaster, the comics equivalent of letting the Three Stooges
|
|
(or perhaps the Inferior Five) wallpaper your living room. For every
|
|
inconsistency, the Crisis solved, others bubbled up. So just how is the
|
|
second root canal going to help, doctor?
|
|
Phrase #2: "the one, true Superman." Unless you've spent the past
|
|
18 months in a sensory deprivation tank, you probably realize that Superman
|
|
"died" recently. After months of stories involving various pretenders to
|
|
the big S, Clark Kent came back from the dead. Or so it seemed. The press
|
|
releases for Zero Hour suggest that the current Superman is not the genuine
|
|
article (which seems unlikely since there is strong evidence suggesting
|
|
that Lois slept with the guy both before and after his "death") or there is
|
|
another, truer Superman out there.
|
|
It all seems to come back to the Crisis. Without getting too
|
|
snarled in the various realities and timelines, suffice it to say that at
|
|
the end of the Crisis the "original" Superman (the first one, who debuted
|
|
in 1936) was basically assumed into paradise. He passed through a gateway
|
|
into a bright light, earned his reward, and the current
|
|
young-enough-to-be-a-believable-eighties-and-nineties version of Superman
|
|
took his place in continuity. Readers were meant to assume that the Golden
|
|
Age Superman would never be seen again. As always in comics, though, nobody
|
|
is ever dead till you've seen the body and even then it doesn't hurt to
|
|
maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. It seems that the tenuous threads of
|
|
the post-Crisis universe are about to be unraveled, big time. Look for the
|
|
new DC corporate slogan, coming soon . . . "DC Comics -- If you thought it
|
|
was confusing before, just wait!"
|
|
|
|
Gratuitous Product Plug
|
|
The kind folks at DC recently republished the Green Lantern-Green
|
|
Arrow adventures in two Bookshelf editions entitled Hard Traveling Heroes
|
|
and More Hard Traveling Heroes. They retail at $12.95 and are well worth
|
|
the money.
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
"Politics, Economics & Role-Playing: How to Design and Run a Fantasy RPG
|
|
World"
|
|
by Bill Ayres
|
|
|
|
Can anyone tell I'm a budding academic? OK, OK, so I have been
|
|
brainwashed into thinking that all titles should be long, wordy, have at
|
|
least one trilogy of like words, and be separated in the middle by a
|
|
colon. At least I know I've been brainwashed. To further demonstrate to
|
|
you the extent of professional subjugation to which my brain has been
|
|
exposed, I offer the following article in which my professional persona
|
|
(political scientist) mind-dominates my fantasy RPG persona (player and
|
|
GM). [I should note that I'm not the first one; anyone who has seen
|
|
biologist Becky Teed's homemade orcs will recognize this trend right away .
|
|
. .] Those who believe that RPGs and the real world should have absolutely
|
|
nothing to do with each other should not read beyond this first paragraph.
|
|
For those looking to add a little "realism" into their campaigns, however,
|
|
read on . . .
|
|
[Disclaimer: This article is not intended to be the final word on
|
|
any subject it addresses, and any comments/criticisms that ignore this
|
|
disclaimer will be summarily filed in the circular file.]
|
|
|
|
Governmental Types and Fantasy Countries
|
|
Almost every fantasy world we run into -- homemade or
|
|
company-generated -- has countries that are more or less modelled on feudal
|
|
Europe. This is not by any means a necessity; Tech Level 3 and Feudalism
|
|
are not necessarily inevitably bound together. Many other possibilities
|
|
exist: centralized empires (the Roman model comes to mind); localized
|
|
city-state democracies (Ancient Greece); or decentralized clan systems
|
|
(most of Africa for most of history). In addition, many GMs tend to run
|
|
feudal monarchies as much more efficient than they really were. In
|
|
practice, local feudal lords had a great deal of autonomy from the central
|
|
monarchies they theoretically owed allegiance to, aside from paying the
|
|
requisite taxes/tributes. In a world where magic (and therefore
|
|
long-range, high-speed communication) exists, this could be changed, but
|
|
such a development would tend to make the center much stronger, suggesting
|
|
an imperial rather than a feudal model. Keep in mind, too, that rapid
|
|
communications are one thing; rapid movement of troops is quite another,
|
|
and any central autocracy attempting to exert control over a wide area will
|
|
need not only the one, but the other as well. Peasants DO revolt, even in
|
|
feudal systems (it happened several times in Europe), and a centralized
|
|
government will either need to deal with them or have them slip away from
|
|
central control.
|
|
|
|
Fantasy World Economics
|
|
When our PCs go gallivanting out into the fantasy realm, our usual
|
|
first stop is into town to buy a bunch of stuff: armor, weapons, food,
|
|
magic items (if we have a really nice GM . . .), etc. As 20th-century
|
|
Americans, we have lived too long in a monetized society to remember that
|
|
the world can be very different. In most feudal societies (indeed, in most
|
|
societies prior to the Renaissance), money existed, but was not the primary
|
|
means of exchange, nor did the vast majority of people possess much of it.
|
|
Local economies in Middle Ages Europe were largely barter economies, with
|
|
food being traded for other goods rather than for money. Furthermore, the
|
|
accumulation of wealth other than by emperors, kings, and the like was
|
|
extremely rare, because long-distance overland trade was not profitable
|
|
except for very low-mass, high-value items (silks, spices), which tended to
|
|
be luxuries bought only by the very rich. Almost all necessities of life
|
|
were produced and exchanged locally, making money less necessary. This
|
|
sort of system also meant that "prices" in money or barter goods could
|
|
fluctuate wildly from place to place, since there was no market mechanism
|
|
to bring them in line with each other. GMs should therefore not feel at
|
|
all constrained by equipment lists that give "standard" prices, and neither
|
|
should they put up with players who insist on getting the "standard" price
|
|
for any given good.
|
|
Most adventurers, regardless of their other motives, love to
|
|
collect loot. There is nothing most of us like better than to enter a
|
|
dragon's lair, slay the dragon (preferably without getting killed), and
|
|
then sit around for several hours game time counting loot and revelling in
|
|
how much we can buy for all this money. Aside from the relative rarity of
|
|
such large accumulations of monetized wealth in pre-capitalist societies,
|
|
the sudden acquisition of so much money and its almost inevitable
|
|
introduction into a local economy is likely to have extremely significant
|
|
effects, to whit: inflation. Even in the largest of cities, most basic
|
|
goods are still being produced locally rather than being traded in from
|
|
afar, and the amount of gold, silver, etc. in circulation is likely to be
|
|
relatively small and confined most to the luxuries sector. PCs who wander
|
|
into town with tens of thousands of gold pieces/silver farthings/platinum
|
|
platidoos are likely to see prices skyrocket practically overnight. If the
|
|
PCs enter a smaller town or village, the effect is likely to be even more
|
|
pronounced. Finally, local rulers may very well become aware of these
|
|
effects and their source, and may not take kindly to PCs disrupting the
|
|
fabric of the local economy (a useful plot device if you HAVE to get your
|
|
PCs out of town).
|
|
Finally, all economic systems (and political ones, for that matter)
|
|
evolve over time -- something you almost never see happen in most fantasy
|
|
campaign worlds. Most FRPG world histories assume that the world has been
|
|
the way it has been for a very long time, and is likely to remain that way
|
|
forever. This is not, strictly speaking, historically accurate, in that
|
|
feudal barter economies eventually gave way to centralized mercantilist
|
|
societies which gave way (in some places) to capitalist democracy. This
|
|
process is
|
|
usually fueled, at least in part, by the development of technology which
|
|
enables long-distance trade to become profitable, fostering both the
|
|
development of a merchant middle class and the production of goods for
|
|
export, not just local consumption. Which brings me to my next point . . .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Technology, the Military and Development
|
|
Most FRPG worlds pay very little attention to the development of
|
|
technology over time. We all like to play in a world that is halfway
|
|
between tech levels 3 and 4 (I'm using the GURPS TL system, because it's
|
|
broadly descriptive and easy. Look it up if you have to . . .); we like
|
|
swords, bows and axes to co-exist with full plate and crossbows (both
|
|
inventions of the early renaissance). Military and transport technology
|
|
don't stand still, however -- unless there's a very good reason why they
|
|
should. In particular, most FRPG worlds (TSR's Forgotten Realms is, IMO,
|
|
in egregious error in this realm) lightly toss off the development of
|
|
gunpowder and gunpowder weapons, usually with the assertion that in a world
|
|
of magic, who needs guns? Obviously, the people who can't use magic need
|
|
them - which is the vast majority of the population in most fantasy
|
|
worlds. It doesn't matter that magic is more efficient than early powder
|
|
weapons (which were woefully inaccurate and more dangerous to user than
|
|
target); crossbows were also more efficient, but were eventually replaced.
|
|
My point is that if you're going to run a campaign world over a significant
|
|
length of time (or even if you're going to write a history which
|
|
encompasses a significant period of TL3/4), you have three ways of dealing
|
|
with this question:
|
|
1) gunpowder DOES get invented, which will change the face of the
|
|
campaign;
|
|
2) gunpowder never gets invented, more or less by accident (this is
|
|
very unsatisfying); or
|
|
3) gunpowder, for whatever reason, doesn't work on your world (a la
|
|
Roger Zelazny's Amber series).
|
|
I am an ardent fan of the third option, but I wouldn't push it on anyone; I
|
|
simply think that GMs should consider the question for ongoing campaigns.
|
|
A related question is the effect of magic, particularly large-scale
|
|
magic, on the conduct of warfare. Kenneth Hodges has written an excellent
|
|
piece on this subject, so I will not attempt to improve on his thoughts.
|
|
It was originally published on the Usenet group misc.games.rpg (I think),
|
|
and could also probably be obtained by contacting Kenneth himself (I think
|
|
he ought to publish it here . . .) Alternatively, I still have a copy,
|
|
which I will happily distribute if I can get Ken's permission.
|
|
|
|
International Affairs
|
|
Most fantasy worlds have very few types of interactions between
|
|
governmental units: war, war, and the occasional peace talks. Usually,
|
|
wars are between good, righteous, diety-fearing countries (Veluna in the
|
|
Greyhawk world, for instance) and those nasty, evil empires that everyone
|
|
knows are bad (Thay in the Forgotten Realms is a good example). This makes
|
|
for good moral fiction, and certainly fits well into D&D's "everyone
|
|
must be good or evil" scheme, but more complex interactions are possible,
|
|
even in a world with limited communications and transport. The most basic
|
|
-- but entertaining -- of these is the "security spiral" problem. Two
|
|
countries -- neither of which is evil or out to dominate the world --
|
|
exist side by side. One, for whatever reason (perhaps internal stability
|
|
and order) decides to build up its military capabilities. The second
|
|
country is very unlikely to view this in detached, objective terms,
|
|
particularly if the buildup is taking place anywhere near its borders. The
|
|
second country may respond in kind, which would trigger a counter-response
|
|
in the first, and pretty soon -- hey presto! -- you've got an arms race
|
|
and two countries looking very suspiciously at each other. Such situations
|
|
can easily lead to war (or at least, border battles), which can create all
|
|
sorts of interesting plots and decisions for your PCs (particularly if the
|
|
PCs are astute enough to figure out that the two countries are going to war
|
|
over nothing at all). This brings me to my final (yay!) point . . .
|
|
|
|
The Importance of Perception in Politics
|
|
Politics and economics are really nothing more than perception.
|
|
Despite numerous commentaries to the contrary, very few things are truly
|
|
objective in politics; it's all a matter of how you see them. Economics
|
|
works essentially the same way, since money (even gold) is only worth
|
|
something if people perceive it to hold value. Many fantasy realms not
|
|
only lay out the "objective" situation of which worlds are good, which
|
|
evil, etc.; they also assume that everyone knows all of this. But orcs
|
|
don't HAVE to all be bad (see Becky Teed's orcs again) - although they may
|
|
be PERCEIVED that way. Have fun with perceptions. What you tell your PCs
|
|
doesn't have to be the truth; neither does what you tell your NPCs. Run
|
|
this way, FRPG worlds can be much more complex, confusing, and (I believe)
|
|
fun for all involved.
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Review: GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade
|
|
by Tom Tomlinson
|
|
|
|
Imagine your life as it exists now. The people that you know --
|
|
whether you love, hate or are totally indifferent toward them -- the issues
|
|
that are important to you, the daily routine of work or school. Now imagine
|
|
that all of that is suddenly, brutally stripped away from you. You have
|
|
experienced The Becoming, and you have joined the legion of the undead.
|
|
Your previous life is rendered superfluous without allowing you time to
|
|
make the psychological break. You are forced to adapt and leave everything
|
|
that you have ever known behind -- if you can even survive the
|
|
transformation with your mind intact.
|
|
The stark brutality of this transformation and its impact of the
|
|
psyche of the transformed is central to GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade
|
|
(VTM), the Steve Jackson Games translation of the White Wolf system. Unlike
|
|
horror or superhero systems where the vampire is either inherently evil or
|
|
simply all-powerful, Jeff Koke's supplement is centered around human beings
|
|
who have been transformed, but have not left their morality behind with
|
|
their mortality. In VTM, the curse of Caine is a curse indeed.
|
|
While Vampires do have powers and abilities beyond those of mortal
|
|
men in VTM, they are not the demi-gods found in movies and most vampiric
|
|
role-playing. We are confronted with an essentially human vampire -- a
|
|
person who awakens and finds that she needs to consume human blood to
|
|
survive.
|
|
The world of the vampire is governed by two statistics: willpower
|
|
and humanity. A character's humanity score ranges from 3 to 20, with all
|
|
characters beginning with a twelve. Characters with humanities of 20 are
|
|
essentially saints on earth awaiting their transformation back into actual
|
|
humanity or perhaps something beyond. Those with a humanity of 3 have been
|
|
reduced to such an animalistic state that they are no longer fit to be
|
|
player characters. Reflecting the trials of the vampire life and the
|
|
strength of an undead's bestial side, it is extremely easy to lose humanity
|
|
points (for example, by killing someone when feeding, which is usually
|
|
unnecessary) while very difficult to earn them.
|
|
With the spectre of humanity loss hovering over him, will rolls are
|
|
a constant companion for the VTM player. The character must regularly
|
|
battle her inner demons and near-irresistible impulses, reflected in a
|
|
variation of the Berserk disadvantage. Will is so important to the VTM
|
|
system that Koke has divided it into four distinct sub-categories. These
|
|
are: self-control (to prevent one's animalistic side from taking control),
|
|
conscience (to retain one's all-important humanity), courage (to confront a
|
|
vampire's fear of deadly fire and sunlight) and "normal" willpower (for
|
|
everything else). The strong-will advantage must be purchased separately
|
|
(at a reduced point cost) for each of these categories.
|
|
The introspective nature of the vampire character tends to make the
|
|
style of the campaign and the surroundings even more important than usual,
|
|
and Koke devotes considerable effort to describing the "gothic-punk"
|
|
atmosphere of the VTM world. The setting is contemporary, but in a world
|
|
that has always been under the influence of the undead. The primary effect
|
|
of the vampires' existence and tampering with world history is a
|
|
cyberpunk-like atmosphere of despair. The presence of the Church has also
|
|
been strengthened in this time of crisis, leading to a more Gothic
|
|
influence.
|
|
Several vampiric societies have sprung up through the ages, the
|
|
strongest being the Camarilla. This is the de facto ruling body of vampiric
|
|
society and is responsible for enforcing its laws. The most important and
|
|
often all-consuming law is the Masquerade. Any vampire who exposes her true
|
|
nature to a non-undead endangers the survival of all -- and forfeits her
|
|
claims to continued existence. Remembering the brutal persecutions of the
|
|
Inquisition, Elder vampires insist upon absolute secrecy and will hunt down
|
|
and slay any who dare flaunt their nature to the world.
|
|
Cities are a natural habitat for vampires, and they have developed
|
|
a distinct social structure to handle territorial concerns. Each major city
|
|
is governed by a Prince who functions as the vampiric mayor of the city.
|
|
She is responsible for enforcement of the Masquerade and other vampiric
|
|
laws within in the city, and all vampires who enter are required to present
|
|
themselves to her. The Prince controls whether or not new vampires are
|
|
created and whether a vampire should be allowed to move into the city --
|
|
vampiric overcrowding is beginning to become a problem.
|
|
Political battles are commonplace within vampiric society,
|
|
especially because the more powerful Elder vampires will eschew the
|
|
oft-targeted position of Prince. While diablerie (vampire killing vampire)
|
|
is a violation of ancient tradition, the prohibition only means vampires
|
|
will tend to assassinate in secret rather than hold outright wars. The
|
|
Elders also attempt to control recently-formed vampires for their own ends,
|
|
chiefly protecting themselves. Although the undead are essentially
|
|
immortal, they may be slain by sunlight, fire, or the claws and teeth of
|
|
other undead creatures. Older vampires often live in fear of these things,
|
|
having grown accustomed to their immortality.
|
|
The power of a vampire is influenced by its "generation" -- the
|
|
number of vampiric parents leading back to Caine, original bearer of the
|
|
curse. Most player characters will be thirteenth generation. The difference
|
|
between each generation is small, but vampires several generations older
|
|
begin to seem like gods with their advanced powers. The basic vampire
|
|
package itself is not overpowering, providing little besides the basics. A
|
|
vampire is unaging, does not need to breathe or eat, and may use blood to
|
|
heal herself. The most powerful advantage that all vampires share is
|
|
Vampiric Invulnerability. Vampires almost ignore damage up to -HT, and
|
|
survive indefinitely unless slain by one of the causes enumerated above.
|
|
The other traditional powers of vampires are broken down into ten
|
|
Disciplines, such as Animalism, Domination and Fortitude. Each Discipline
|
|
allows a range of powers determined by the amount of points the vampire has
|
|
placed into the Discipline. As with other GURPS magics, using the powers
|
|
costs Fatigue. The range of Disciplines covers all the powers --
|
|
controlling animals and minds, supernatural strength, etc. -- normally
|
|
associated with vampires by one mythos or another, but no one vampire will
|
|
have all or even most of the powers available.
|
|
Every vampire belongs to a clan inherited from the vampire who
|
|
created them. While some are abandoned at formation and never even discover
|
|
their clan, most new vampires are "raised" by their creator and taught the
|
|
ways of vampiric society and their own clan. Membership in a clan defines a
|
|
personality -- rather rigidly, at that (Koke ineffectively explains this as
|
|
the selecting by clan members of similar personalities to transform), and
|
|
each clan gives a predisposition toward command of three Disciplines.
|
|
Players can purchase other disciplines outside their clan's aptitudes, but
|
|
must do so at twice the normal cost. This rigidity is a drawback to the
|
|
system, but it can easily be ignored, leaving clan descriptions as valid
|
|
generalizations rather than rules.
|
|
A further inconsistency with the clan system is that most of the
|
|
clans of the governing Camarilla are anarchists, loners and lunatics. This
|
|
does not directly affect playability, and can be easily ignored or
|
|
explained by crafty GM's. The only real conceptual problem I have with the
|
|
world is the danger of jeopardizing the Masquerade involved in leaving
|
|
one's food alive. Either characters lose Humanity quickly, or a suspicious
|
|
number of human victims are running around complaining of bites to the
|
|
neck. Either way, it's a little hard for the GM to explain this and keep
|
|
the campaign running smoothly.
|
|
The system is designed for a thoughtful campaign. While the
|
|
vampires are nearly invulnerable, they have few combat advantages besides
|
|
the costly Disciplines. Confrontations and occasional battles will almost
|
|
certainly arise, but the VTM world is not designed for action-based
|
|
campaigns. Sorry, Tim. While vampires are more powerful individual humans,
|
|
a gang of humans can overcome even a party of young adventurers (thus the
|
|
emphasis upon the Masquerade). A VTM campaign will be focused on the
|
|
characters and their grappling with their natures. Vampire fans used to
|
|
Dracula and similarly powerful undead may be disappointed, but the focus on
|
|
character should make VTM an intense and captivating experience for
|
|
committed roleplayers.
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Archetypes and Comic Books: The Fall of the X-Men
|
|
by Becky Teed
|
|
|
|
Chris Claremont introduced a new kind of character to Marvel when
|
|
he took over
|
|
"The Uncanny X-Men". By taking the symbol-laden archetypes created by Wein
|
|
and Cockrum and combining them with the traditional everyman favored by
|
|
Marvel, he created characters that were credibly "more than human".
|
|
Claremont eventually found the characters more than he could handle,
|
|
though, editors and other writers have now stripped them of their
|
|
archetypal aspects and focused on other aspects of the characters that
|
|
they hoped the readers found appealing.
|
|
The X-Men started out as a team of five characters written by Stan
|
|
Lee. Like the other superheroes Lee wrote (and almost all of those at
|
|
Marvel at the time), they had extraordinary powers but ordinary
|
|
personalities. The reader could sympathize with the character's desires
|
|
and feelings and imagine what it would be like to have the character's
|
|
ability to solve the world's problems. The X-Men were differed from other
|
|
Marvel heroes in that they were born with their powers and were feared and
|
|
hated by the non-superpowered public for being more than human. Otherwise,
|
|
the team and its book were unremarkably average.
|
|
Claremont changed everything when he took over, establishing a
|
|
brand-new team of X-Men (created by Len Wein and David Cockrum), who were
|
|
very obviously more than human. Moreover, several of these characters
|
|
resembled archetypical figures from myth and legend. Archetypes are hardly
|
|
new to comics (Batman and Superman are classic examples) and have a
|
|
powerful appeal, possibly because they remind people of the "superheroes"
|
|
in the fairy stories of their childhood. Myths and fairy tales also leave
|
|
a deep impression on the listener because they are loaded with symbols
|
|
integral to our culture, which have been passed down for millenia.
|
|
Using a mythic character allows and obliges, the writer to use and
|
|
retell the elements of the myth the character is based on. This can also
|
|
be something of a problem, because many of those original stories and
|
|
symbols are very confining. The characters can degenerate into sterotypes
|
|
and the stories may become repetitive. Claremont made the X-Men into the
|
|
most successful long-running series in comics by combining powerful
|
|
archetypes with sympathetic everyman personalities. He overcame some of
|
|
the limits of the legends his characters were based on by adding
|
|
contradictions to the characters, which both made the character more unique
|
|
and created an internal conflict. This conflict, when handled well,
|
|
allowed considerable character development. Claremont emphasized the
|
|
characters' individual approaches to their personal and interpersonal
|
|
problems, and even used the X-men's team book format to explore the
|
|
interactions between various archetypes.
|
|
Claremont's obvious favorite among the X-Men is Storm, a
|
|
weather-controlling earth goddess. She reveres life, but has tremendous
|
|
destructive power. Despite, or because of this conflict, she eventually
|
|
became the team leader. Claremont experimented with ways to rebel against
|
|
this simple feminine archetype, first having her go punk and get a mohawk
|
|
and a dog collar. Later, she lost her powers but continued to lead the
|
|
team as a strategist, her position assured by her her "inner strength".
|
|
Finally, Claremont turned her into a child. None of these changes really
|
|
went very deep or led to further possibilities. In the end, he seems to
|
|
have given up and reverted her to her initial powers and appearance.
|
|
The conflict embodied in the character Wolverine progressed further
|
|
before being derailed. Wolverine began as a savage beast in human form,
|
|
dominated by rages he couldn't control. When he joined the X-Men, he met
|
|
Nightcrawler, essentially his opposite. Nightcrawler was an enlightened man
|
|
in bestial shape, who encouraged him to develop his "higher self".
|
|
Throughout their friendship, Wolverine did just that, although his path
|
|
differed in detail from Nightcrawler's. Nightcrawler based his self on a
|
|
swashbuckling persona, while Wolverine used his martial arts background as
|
|
a source of ethical philosophy. By Annual #11, Wolverine was the wisest
|
|
of X-Men.
|
|
Unfortunately, this story failed to interest many readers, who
|
|
apparently sympathized with the savagery that originally dominated
|
|
Wolverine's life. Wolverine could brutally kill scores of villains without
|
|
much danger to himself, a condition that many people envy at some time or
|
|
another. Every villain in the Marvel universe was afraid of Wolverine, and
|
|
catharsis sold better than enlightenment. The editors of Marvel put
|
|
pressure on Claremont to scuttle Wolverine's spritual themes and to revert
|
|
him to the simple, violent being he started as. Claremont didn't quite
|
|
give in, but since Wolverine had his own series, another writer was found
|
|
for the job (Larry Hama). There is no longer much internal conflict; the
|
|
animal side has won. Claremont's Wolverine interacted with the similarly
|
|
complex storm; his best foils now are the rather shallow characters of
|
|
Jubilee and Gambit, a child and a thief, and his philosophical center
|
|
consists of occasional backwoods wisdom.
|
|
Another of Claremont's most beloved characters, Magneto, was the
|
|
team's main antagonist. This character was originally created by Stan Lee
|
|
as a simple an adversary for the brand-new team, an evil mutant. He was a
|
|
generic Lee villain -- petty, cowardly, worldly, and not very bright. Lee
|
|
gave him power over magnetism because as a lone villain pitted against a
|
|
team, he had to have a considerable and versatile power. Jack Kirby gave
|
|
him a costume that would allow everyone to recognize him as the bad guy; it
|
|
was mostly red and featured a helmet with horns. His look created his
|
|
archetype -- the traditional conception of the Devil is based on an older,
|
|
but far-from extinct archetype: the Horned God of the Celts and Pan of the
|
|
Greeks. This older reference was reinforced by his powers and his tendency
|
|
to build devices pertaining to earth. Magneto immediately echoed European
|
|
gods of fertility and by extension forces of nature made human.
|
|
Other writers and artists have gradually brought the comic book
|
|
character closer to the myth. Magneto became tougher, more courageous and
|
|
visionary, a perverse hero in his own right. Roy Thomas added biological
|
|
engineering to his list of technologies and had him making new (villainous)
|
|
life forms who referred to him as "Creator". He became the Satan of the
|
|
mutant stores, rebellious and charismatic.
|
|
Claremont convincingly humanized this avatar of a most inhuman
|
|
archetype. He wrote Magneto an extensive history as a victim, put him at
|
|
odds with his power and gave him a drinking problem. His reactions to the
|
|
usual super-powered conflicts became more normal than most heroes in "The
|
|
Uncanny X-Men" #150, when he decided that taking over/saving the world
|
|
wasn't worth killing children. Claremont reinforced Magneto's Antaen
|
|
aspects at the same time -- he was from a grave when he was a child, built
|
|
an earthquake machine and had a base within a volcano. He was neither
|
|
clearly good or evil, and he had an old-fashioned, vengeful, patriarchal
|
|
mindset. His most villainous deeds were the causing of mass disasters
|
|
rather than personal murders. He was also horribly powerful, almost
|
|
unbeatable.
|
|
Claremont eventually reformed him, probably so he could use Magneto
|
|
as a regular character. The editors were rather upset with this, since it
|
|
clashed with Stan Lee's original conception of the character. They put
|
|
pressure on Claremont to "revillainize" Magneto, which Claremont broke down
|
|
and did. Claremont bitterly resented the editors' conception of Magneto.
|
|
When he finally left Marvel, the last thing he did was to kill Magneto off
|
|
so that no more harm would come to the character. The current X-Men
|
|
writers brought him back to life recently, had him commit a few senseless
|
|
atrocities to make him obviously a villain, and then had the X-Men kill him
|
|
off again in an exceptionally cruel and brutal manner.
|
|
Claremont also experimented with the story of Faustus, whose theme
|
|
was that power and knowledge purchased at the price of damnation. Magik
|
|
of the New Mutants (the junior-league X-Men) was a mutant who grew up in
|
|
Hell (it wasn't called that, comics code you know), escaped to become a
|
|
hero and then returned to overthrow the demonic ruler. Both her magical
|
|
skills and the use of her teleportation power (involving a shortcut
|
|
through Hell) corrupted her, and her demonic side threatened to take her
|
|
over both physically and morally, but she needed her powers in order to be
|
|
an effective superhero.
|
|
The Medieval "Faust" has several endings -- Faust is either
|
|
redeemed by giving up his power or he is finally damned. Magik was lost to
|
|
another writer who was not particularly interested in her personal
|
|
conflict, and the character eventually sacrificed herself to save the world
|
|
from the denizens of her hell (the story had implications that her neglect
|
|
led to the world's vulnerability). While friends tried to make it up to
|
|
her by rescuing a younger version and effectively bringing her back as an
|
|
innocent baby, she was also recently killed off. Retuning to innocence
|
|
didn't work for Magneto either.
|
|
Well before Claremont left, the X-men had degenerated to a team of
|
|
killing machines and embittered, would-be everymen. The characters were
|
|
largely static and there were few references to the legends and the symbols
|
|
they represented. The new writers are trying to keep them popular as just
|
|
another superteam. I think they are doomed to failure for several reasons.
|
|
Firstly, the X-Men are not "just another superteam". Mutants
|
|
usually acquire their powers as children at twelve to fourteen years of
|
|
age, so it's hard to believe they are going to grow up to be ordinary
|
|
people in spirit if they are not in body. The other Marvel superheroes
|
|
(Spiderman, for instance) have all received their powers late in life, and
|
|
are still ordinary Americans molded by their culture. That "molding"
|
|
process has been interrupted in a mutant, who has unusual capabilities and
|
|
possibly perception as well. The potentially corrupting nature of mutant
|
|
powers, especially telepathy, needs to be taken more seriously.
|
|
Why do the public hate and fear mutants if psychologically, mutants
|
|
really are human? I'm afraid that Marvel, like much of the media, treats
|
|
Joe Q. Public as simply envious, cowardly and stupid. They don't need a
|
|
reason. But it might be interesting, from a story point of view, to have
|
|
mutants as a special case of the human condition. If corruption, even mild
|
|
corruption, is a problem for all mutants, that makes this conflict
|
|
interesting and the mutants a little less smug and self-righteous.
|
|
Finally, the archetypal elements made the stories a little less
|
|
predictable than they have become. Lately, a good fight is the way to
|
|
resolve a problem in a story, The legends offered alternatives. Also,
|
|
resolution of internal conflicts offered the option of completing stories,
|
|
usually anathema in comic books as an important source of change.
|
|
Wolverine could have overcome his violent aspects and taken Xavier's place
|
|
as the teacher of the mutant community. Storm's development had hardly
|
|
begun, and Magneto's and Magik's offered a number of interesting
|
|
possibilities.
|
|
Archetypes are still doing pretty well at DC, though. Superman and
|
|
Batman have become big sellers again, and there is a lot of attention on a
|
|
comic book which brings back many elements of old stories without the
|
|
superhero trappings: Sandman. Perhaps some of the new companies will take
|
|
a hint. There is hope for the comicdom yet.
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
"Can't Take Trek? Try This"
|
|
By Toby Elliott
|
|
|
|
Season Seven and Supposedly Last for "Star Trek: the Next
|
|
Generation" has left many fans in a bind. Its consistently poor quality has
|
|
left them casting about for new shows to replace what was a once a great
|
|
series. While the emergence of Deep Space Nine as a superior series has
|
|
helped compensate, rabid Trek fans need more.
|
|
Trek fans want a similar show that does better than Trek's weak and
|
|
tired plotting, scripting, directing, characterization, dialogue and
|
|
acting, preferably in the hour-long episodic format. What many of them are
|
|
not aware of is that such a show exists on their TV right now. This article
|
|
will attempt to show them what they have been missing, no only in terms of
|
|
similarity to Trek, but also why it is superior.
|
|
The show is, of course, that bastion of drama, "Beverly Hills
|
|
90210".
|
|
On the surface, they would seem to have little in common. Further
|
|
viewing, however, shows many similar threads: the hour length, long run,
|
|
dramatic presentation, general overarching storylines, "modern themes"
|
|
issues presented as fiction, the alternate reality setting, and
|
|
independently casted spinoffs. Higher-ups in both shows wrestle with the
|
|
Peter Principle. Both shows killed off a character in the early going. Even
|
|
the ensemble casts are similar: the good-guy captain (Picard/Brandon), the
|
|
moody, ruffled first officer with Dad problems (Riker/Dylan), the
|
|
level-headed voice of reason counselor with mom problems (Troi/Donna), the
|
|
Mr. Fixit with a snappy answer to every situation (Geordi/Steve), the
|
|
logical character trying to cope with what it means to be human
|
|
(Data/Andrea), the gruff, sometimes unliked character with the heart of
|
|
gold (Worf/Brenda) and even the young genius geek who turns into real
|
|
character by season four (Wesley/David). Although both casts have their
|
|
disagreements, they really like each other and most of the conflict can be
|
|
resolved by the end of an episode. The TNG casts boldly grapple with the
|
|
mysteries of the universe -- the 90210 cast with the mysteries of college.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Many of you may be surprised by the similarities, but that's just
|
|
not enough. With the weak Season Seven, any show that is to become the
|
|
heir to Trek must prove itself superior.
|
|
Well, I'd give the acting and characterization edge to 90210. Of
|
|
the seven comparisons above, four are won by the 90210 representative, and
|
|
let's face it, Kelly is preferable to Dr. Crusher (anyone who needs proof
|
|
hasn't seen "Suspicions"). Even at the heyday of the series Trek was
|
|
carried by Stewart, Spiner and Dorn. All three of them appear to be going
|
|
through the motions now, and Trek has deflated as a result. The cast of
|
|
90210 has meshed ever more soundly and is even solid enough to pull off the
|
|
occasional bit of ensemble farce.
|
|
In terms of characterization, the last two seasons of Trek have
|
|
done a lot to undo good work previously set up. In particular, Worf has
|
|
been much diminished through weak outings ("Birthright", "Rightful Heir")
|
|
that tried to establish his heritage and turn him into a "sensitive new-age
|
|
guy with a pony-tail"(TM) . Crusher has had flop after flop ("Suspicions",
|
|
"Attached") as they try to find something interesting to do with her.
|
|
Geordi has never had strong characterization, Riker keeps being kidnapped
|
|
by aliens who attach things to his head, and even Picard has had to drag
|
|
himself through episodes like "Liasons".
|
|
90210 simply keeps building on what has been set before. There has
|
|
been steady evolution -- you can tell what season an episode is in by the
|
|
way the characters act. At this stage, what motivates them is clear. Past
|
|
actions come back to haunt them (more on this later). When a character does
|
|
something, even something as wild as going to Vegas to get married, its
|
|
easy to see where they are coming from. We do not suddenly discover that we
|
|
have a long-dead sister, or mother, or father, or relative of the week
|
|
who's never been metioned before (Trek's overarching theme this season).
|
|
While 90210 has surprises, they remain in character.
|
|
Let's look at the plotting of last week's Trek and 90210 episodes
|
|
("Force of Nature" and the date rape episode). Both had heavy-handed
|
|
messages, but Trek tried to hide theirs behind technobabble. Trek's plot
|
|
(warp is destroying subspace) came out of absolutely nowhere, and to some
|
|
extent defies reason. 90210's plot evolved over the season and drew on
|
|
something from almost every recent episode. Most significantly, the
|
|
resolution of "Force of Nature" required yet more technobabble, stuff that
|
|
had never been tried before and a stupid, preachy ending that no doubt will
|
|
be ignored. 90210's episode wa
|
|
s resolved by recalling an incidental event that happened, entirely
|
|
independently, OVER A YEAR AGO. If nothing else, this is why 90210 is the
|
|
superior show. Trek has an amazing ability to forget the past, equalled
|
|
only by its amazing ability to dredge something "out of the past" which
|
|
we've never seen before.
|
|
Further evidence: when 90210 does an explicit two-parter, one can
|
|
usually count on the second part being as good as, if not better than, the
|
|
first. 90210 has steadily improved in all aspects of the series since the
|
|
first season. There is no consistency is Trek's supporting cast (so where
|
|
is Barclay when they need him in all those other episodes?). Trek peaked
|
|
early and has been in slow decline. Last but not least, 90210 previews
|
|
never give away the solution to next week's episode (something Trek does
|
|
with alarming frequency).
|
|
So Trek fans, take heart. There are shows out there to be enjoyed
|
|
-- just nudge that dial. And if all these arguments are still not enough to
|
|
persuade you, remember that not only doesn't the 90210 away team consist of
|
|
the captain, the first officer, chief science officer, chief engineer and
|
|
Ensign Redshirt, but they never leave the doctor in charge to fight the
|
|
Borg.
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Reprint: "What's REALLY Happening with ST: Voyager! No,
|
|
Really!"
|
|
from an Internet posting by Keith Loh (loh@fraser.sfu.ca)
|
|
|
|
The Toronto Globe and Mail entertainment section reported today
|
|
that the new Star Trek television series will have a distinctive Canadian
|
|
flavour when it debuts later this year on CBC.
|
|
Sources close to William Shatner have confirmed that the fourth
|
|
series set in the popular universe created by the late Gene Roddenberry has
|
|
already begun pre-production and a cast from the Canadian TV and film
|
|
industry has been chosen.
|
|
The new series, called Star Trek: Voyageur, will centre around a
|
|
small crew of traders exploring on the outer fringes of the galaxy, seeking
|
|
contact with cultures and establishing frontier routes in the Delta
|
|
quadrant.
|
|
Veteran Canadian actor Christopher Plummer, who has appeared as a
|
|
Klingon commander in the motion picture Star Trek: the Undiscovered
|
|
Country, will be captain of the "Hudson's Bay", and, unlike the captain of
|
|
the Enterprise, Jean Luc Picard [played by Patrick Stewart], will have a
|
|
true French accent.
|
|
Plummer told the Globe and Mail last week that he had prepared a
|
|
personal catch-phrase for his character, Captain MacDonald, along the lines
|
|
of Picard's "make it so". "I've always admired Patrick [Stewart]'s acting
|
|
style and especially the input he's had into his character's development,"
|
|
said Plummer, "I'd like to say 'fuddle duddle' myself."
|
|
Backing Plummer up as his second in command will be Martin Short as
|
|
Pierre Lamarche, part of a vocal and embittered minority from Captain
|
|
MacDonald's home planet Fraxious. Two psychically linked twins both played
|
|
by Michael J. Fox (utilizing a patented special effects system from James
|
|
Cameron's "Lightstorm Entertainment" house) will take the helm while John
|
|
Candy will make special appearances as the ship's masseuse.
|
|
Fans in the Vancouver, British Columbia region reacted with joy to
|
|
the news of the series by not going to the local football game. "I've got
|
|
better things to do on a weekend, eh," said Michelle Braxton, a Trekker
|
|
since the announcement came this week. "And I'm pretty glad too that
|
|
William Shatner won't be on."
|
|
The unnamed sources from Paramount said that an all-Canadian
|
|
production and writing team would ensure that an 'eh' would be added onto
|
|
most dialogue while the directors will strictly enforce the Canadian
|
|
pronunciation of 'roof' (as in 'rufus' not as in 'rough').
|
|
A motion picture version of the new series is already in the works,
|
|
though two competing scripts are currently being developed. One script,
|
|
tentatively titled Star Trek VIII: Election 93 is rumoured to centre around
|
|
a political crisis in the planet Ottawa. "The universal translator breaks
|
|
down, eh, and people can't speak to each other using the two official
|
|
languages," said one source over a Molson's Canadian beer. The other
|
|
script, which has the endorsement of the National Hockey League, will
|
|
feature a meeting between the ST:TOS crew and the new ST:V crew although
|
|
there is some question over how this might happen. "It's not a time travel
|
|
thing, eh, just we have to convince the old Canadians to leave Florida and
|
|
California for once," said the unnamed source, who was cloaked.
|
|
The Constitution class "Hudson's Bay" will be warming up its
|
|
engines this December on CBC and will appear in a slot after the popular
|
|
Hockey Night in Canada.
|
|
|
|
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
Reprint: "My Trek Is Better than Your Trek"
|
|
by Dayton Ward (aka NetRunr)
|
|
originally printed in America On-Line's "Dateline:Starfleet #39"
|
|
available on AOL, write Bill Mason at data1701d@aol.com for info.
|
|
|
|
It is an issue that has been debated since my first day on AOL. It
|
|
has fanned flames, tested friendships, induced hysteria and generally
|
|
caused discontent among a vast populous of otherwise congenial people.
|
|
My Trek is Better than Your Trek.
|
|
What does this statement mean? For anyone who reads it or has said
|
|
it, the phrase has a multitude of possible explanations, many of which have
|
|
been expressed on the message boards, in the conference rooms, and even in
|
|
professional publications. (Remember the TV Guide Poll asking which
|
|
captain was better suited to defend the Earth?) Let's try to examine some
|
|
of the world-shattering debates used to defend either Trek:
|
|
ISSUE 1: My Trek is Better than Your Trek.
|
|
Response: No, MY Trek is Better than YOURS. No....
|
|
This is where I confess that although I enjoy most of Trek's
|
|
various incarnations, the original is still my favorite. Not for one of
|
|
those ridiculous reasons like: "It was here first. Without it, there
|
|
wouldn't be anything else.", but because I grew up with it. It's all there
|
|
was when I was a kid. When the movies began showing up, I was ecstatic.
|
|
When TNG first started, I was skeptical, but soon discovered that it was
|
|
fun to watch in its own right. I was REALLY skeptical about DS9, but it's
|
|
starting to grow on me. The point: despite the differences in the shows,
|
|
there's something out there for everyone, regardless of your particular
|
|
taste. Enjoy what you will, and allow others to do the same.
|
|
ISSUE 2: Wesley is the most annoying character ever created for
|
|
Trek.
|
|
Response: I don't know...that one lady that kept yelling for
|
|
Spock's brain really got on MY nerves. Otherwise, I'll give ya' that
|
|
one....
|
|
ISSUE 3: The special effects on TNG are far superior to those on
|
|
the original series.
|
|
Response: Well, duh.
|
|
This is not even a rational argument. OF COURSE they're superior.
|
|
No one in 1966 even had a dream about computerized digital effects or any
|
|
of the nifty high-tech gadgetry that either makes or breaks so much of
|
|
today's science fiction movies and TV.
|
|
I'm even willing to go so far as to say that some of Classic Trek's
|
|
effects are still better than some of the drivel Hollywood has fed us in
|
|
recent years, including recent Trek offerings (okay, the El Capitan falling
|
|
scene was believable after that sixth margarita).
|
|
ISSUE 4: Bashir must die.
|
|
Response: Okay. Who's gonna tell his mommy?
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This one has raged across the AOL boards since the first episode of
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DS9. I'm not as much taken with the thought itself as I am with the
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multitude of methods that folks have devised to bring about the good
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doctor's demise. I'll say this: there's no lack of imagination in this
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department . . . ==8-D
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ISSUE 5: The acting on TNG is superior to the original series.
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Response: Both shows have their "moments."
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One could recite countless examples of Shatner's scenery eating
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("We've got to take that one in ten thousand chance!"), or Marina Sirtis'
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mastery of the phrase, "He's hiding something." Comparing the original
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Trek's acting to that of other shows that aired during those years, I have
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come to the decidedly "Net-ian" conclusion that it was a requirement to
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overact back then. Of course, there were those aspiring individuals who
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tended to take it to an extreme on occasion....
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ISSUE 6: At least on TNG, the captain doesn't beam himself into
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danger every week . . .
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Response: No one on TNG beams anywhere ANY week.
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Just kidding. It is agreed that the concept of ALL senior officers
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beaming into the unknown week after week was ridiculous. In today's
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military, that simply is not the case. TNG's approach is much more
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plausible. The simple fact is that when the original show aired, the lead
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character had to be in charge, and therefore had to confront the danger
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himself (note the use of the word "himself," since the networks couldn't
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even fathom a lady in a lead role back then). If the focus of the show had
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been on a group aboard the ship that was assigned the planetary exploration
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details, the "hero-in-trouble" plot device would have worked much better.
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But we must remember that the show was played solely for entertainment back
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then, without worrying about how legions of fans would react if a
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character did something off the wall or out of synch. It points back to
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the fact that the shows are entirely different, products of their times and
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should not be compared. They each have merits and flaws.
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ISSUE 7: Riker is fat.
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Response: At least he shamelessly flaunts it. Shatner tried to
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hide his with a girdle. There, enough on that one.
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ISSUE 8: There's not enough action/war/death on TNG.
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Response: Is it necessary?
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To a point, yes. Trek was first and foremost an action/adventure
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show. Gene may not have wanted it that way, but that's what he gave the
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network. That's what kids saw in it until they were old enough to realize
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|
all the many things that a Trek episode conveyed. Many of the original
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|
episodes are layered in messages that served to open our eyes to
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|
contemporary issues of the time (war, racism, etc etc).
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Some of the messages that came across are as valid today as they
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|
were then. The original series was an allegory of a violent, tumultuous
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|
period in our history. TNG/DS9 attempts to show us a world that has taken
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steps to grow up, as we move past the Cold War and into a new era of
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|
relations. Issues such as drug abuse, racism (still? will we never
|
|
learn?), AIDS, gay rights and countless others are addressed in a manner
|
|
that is uniquely Trek.
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|
There has been talk of wanting to see more war and death on Trek.
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|
Even though I am as big a fan of action as the next guy, I don't need to
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|
see bodies dismembered and flying about to know about death. That's not
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|
Trek, not even in the "old days." However,
|
|
dealing with the effects of war, either as victims or as bystanders, would
|
|
be worth exploring. There must be many stories out there that could work
|
|
with these themes.
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|
ISSUE 9: Picard is a wimp. Kirk would annihilate him.
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|
Response: Hmmmmm....
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|
Taken at first glance, the statement is valid. If the Kirk of the
|
|
original series were pitted against Picard, I would have to place my money
|
|
on old Jimmie-boy. But, what else about the two characters can be
|
|
compared, if they should be compared at all? Kirk has been described in
|
|
the various mediums as a man of action, of impulse. He even stated it
|
|
himself that he had a tendency to "rush in where angels fear to tread."
|
|
Picard is more thoughtful, more restrained in his actions. This could be
|
|
the product of experience that the young Kirk of the original series did
|
|
not have. We have seen in TNG that in his youth, Picard learned "the hard
|
|
way" that being rash and impulsive is not always a good thing. This
|
|
accounts for changes in his character that we are now familiar with. The
|
|
Kirk of the movies has mellowed, become more seasoned. Again, it comes
|
|
down to the fact
|
|
that both characters are products of the times in which they were created.
|
|
But Kirk would still annihilate him.... ==8-D
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ISSUE 10: Incredibly stupid dialogue.
|
|
Response: I could spend all day on this one. But here are a few
|
|
tidbits that spring to mind:
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|
From "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield":
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|
Lokai (paraphrasing) - I come from a planet called Cheron.
|
|
Kirk (thinking hard) - That's in the southernmost part of the
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galaxy.
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|
|
|
From "Shades of Gray":
|
|
Any non-flashback sequence. You could hit one with a dart while
|
|
blindfolded.
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|
If you've stayed along for this much, then you hopefully realize
|
|
that this was meant to entertain and hopefully provide some food for
|
|
thought. It was never conceived with the intention to fan flames on either
|
|
side of this Trek fence. The discussions and comparisons will continue for
|
|
as long as there are different facets of Trek.
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|
Here's to spirited debate.
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