Big Red Couch Podcast - Turning Bad Ideas Into Games

[Burning]

Can We At Least Get Through This Without It Being In All The Papers?

Tagline: The game of ever diminishing expectations.

And yeah, I don't actually have anything beyond that.

[Pruthian Caveman]

Can We At Least Get Through This Without It Being In All The Papers?

Tagline: The game of ever diminishing expectations.

And yeah, I don't actually have anything beyond that.

I hope we did some measure of justice to your tagline.

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode Ninety Two – “Can We At Least Get Through This Without It Being In All The Papers?”




Years ago, a group of apocalyptically powerful super-heroes & super-villains decided that all they were doing was making things worse for themselves & the world in general, so they went into hiding. When a great threat emerges, they reluctantly team up to deal with it, but are trying to do it on the down-low, so that nobody knows that they’re back.

When you’ve spent your time writing stories about fantastical terrifying things to drum up sales for your newspaper, how do you get people to believe you when there really is a threat?
Also, given that the threat in question IS the newspaper, how do you even get the word out?

Can We At Least Get Through This Without It Being In All The Papers? : The game of ever diminishing expectations.
A heist game where crime doesn’t pay.

A supervillain tries to get someone, anyone, to intervene & stop a pre-teen superhero before they get themselves killed.

Pictsies making their home in a roadside diner in the desert scurry into action when criminals on the run take hostages and settle in for a stand-off with the Law

Investigating foul play in the crushing depths of the Jovian atmosphere requires a purpose-built body to protect you. But it’ll only protect you from the physical environment; The factional backstabbing can be just as fatal.

[Triggerhappy938]

On The Addictive Ink Additive: I feel like it would be an equally compelling and far simpler villain motivation to have them underappreciate the madness side effect. They really are just trying to sell papers, and they either didn't realize the madness side effect would happen, underestimated how widespread it would be, or just view it as "acceptable losses." Works both for robber barons of the time period and echoing modern "climate science doesn't exist if it's not convenient" issues and narratives.

On Kid Gloves: This is actually the primary motivation for Slade/Deadshot in the Teen Titans comic. His son rebelled by going hero and ended up dead. He knows what fighting with proper villains entails. He doesn't like kids on the battlefield, and tries to remove them, though he's nearly so gentle as the villain in your prompt. His major introduction is him sneaking up on Impulse/Kid Flash and shooting him in the kneecap while telling him "kids don't wear capes."

[Pruthian Caveman]

On The Addictive Ink Additive: I feel like it would be an equally compelling and far simpler villain motivation to have them underappreciate the madness side effect. They really are just trying to sell papers, and they either didn't realize the madness side effect would happen, underestimated how widespread it would be, or just view it as "acceptable losses." Works both for robber barons of the time period and echoing modern "climate science doesn't exist if it's not convenient" issues and narratives.

As part of an existing game, you could have great fun if you have an established {Insert Industry Here} Baron who the party have dealt with before, and who's always insulated themselves from liability for their schemes in the past, suddenly turning up and asking for the parties help.
Just because the 'Villain Being A Dick Because They Know The Heroes Will Have To Help' trope is really overdone, I'd go with an honest and contrite "We didn't know about the side effects, we just thought it'd help sell papers, if you don't help me find a way to stop this the whole East Coast is going to tear itself apart, and I really really don't want to go to jail".

On Kid Gloves: This is actually the primary motivation for Slade/Deadshot in the Teen Titans comic. His son rebelled by going hero and ended up dead. He knows what fighting with proper villains entails. He doesn't like kids on the battlefield, and tries to remove them, though he's nearly so gentle as the villain in your prompt. His major introduction is him sneaking up on Impulse/Kid Flash and shooting him in the kneecap while telling him "kids don't wear capes."

Nice!
And vastly easier to misinterpret than our version; Suspicion based on "He must be up to something" is one thing, but "He claims to have shot the Teen Crusader through the buttcheeks in an effort to help" is much easier to interpret as standard-issue Bad Guy behavior.

Also a more scary and relentless option, now that I think on it.
There's a line from Lois McMaster Bujold's 'Paladin Of Souls' about the difference between a Jailer who's keeping you confined because it's their job, and one who's doing it out of love, to keep you safe; If it's their job, they can slip up, or get bored, or lose focus, or be bribed, or maybe even be reasoned with. Someone keeping you imprisoned out of love is immune to those things.
In this context, the Villain is doing things out of genuine concern, so they're not going to stop, or be reasoned with, or distracted by a bigger score.

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode Ninety Three – Do Not Miss A Visit To The Muse



A writer’s villain appears to have escaped into the real world, and is running for office. Is it a direct consequence of their visit to a mysterious source of inspiration?

A powerful artist’s muse has been stolen. Or have they actually been extracted and freed?

[kedamono]

Oh wow, your idea Craig reminded me of the anime Princess Tutu. It's a series about a girl who might be a duck or a magical girl or all the above. I ran a game of my Magic Police setting where they were dealing with the character, and didn't know if she was a princess, a duck, or both. (Spoilers, she was both, she as a duck princess. The look on their faces when her father the King of Ducks took her home in a carriage pulled by swans was priceless. )

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Tutu

For a flavor of the series, here is one of the better AMVs (anime music videos) I've ever seen.

And by the way, Spoilers dear:



I still have to work on Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Barista, even though it's my own.

[Pruthian Caveman]

Episode Ninety Four – Tailor Tinker Soldier Barista



A specialised but oddly thematic team operates on the edges of a semi-collapsed future.

Extraterrestrial battle fleets we can deal with.
Rogue dimension-shifting monstrosities can be contained.
We’re not sure what to do about George the coffee guy.

What are the different approaches to Secret Agenting?

“Well, yes, our scheme IS underhanded, but we never expected it to get out of hand in this manner.”

The Supervillain approach to removing young Superheroes from danger is meant well, but isn’t always that nice.

[kedamono]

And as requested, here's the background on The Magic Police. First off, my inspiration for it came from the Yogscast series of the same name. And, I have to say, this poster image:



So I created a scenario and created characters based on the members of the Yogscast. There's a thread on it that goes into more detail on the Sunday Skypers forums.

But basically, they are charged by the Emperor to maintain the peace and to keep illicit magic from being used within the kingdom. And as I said in my post:

The PCs are a group of wizards newly deputized under Imperial Law and assigned to the border of the Empire and the Kingdom of Devaare. A lot of trade passes through this border and the Magic Police are there to track down illicit and illegal magics, potions, philters, charms, and other such items, as well as magically enabled con artists and burglars.

So far, their adventures have dealt with: A magic scam, involving hedge wizards and kitchen witches, enabled by a book, Toby Spindledrift's 'You can do Magic in 20 lessons', an illegal magic smuggling ring, and a missing cow along with a duck who may be a girl, or duck, or both. I typically use the Atomic Robo game's brainstorming rules and let the players take the clues I've given them and come up with what's going on.

It's always fun, especially as the players try to figure out what the hell is going on and deal with it. Sometimes destructively.

The end of the smuggling one ended up with the other five players creating advantages for the dwarf mage, and he did an attack with a +14 to his roll... OMG

[zircher]

I checked the specs and at 100 degrees Fahrenheit molten Pepsi will eventual dissolve flesh off bone and at zero degrees Diet Mountain Dew does a phase change but still tastes funny.