Games people play:
If you go back through the material you can find a few games. Boloball is
one that comes to mind. You can abstract from the present somewhat: taking
the usual analogy of a traveller planet being equivalent to a contemporary
country ....
- - one game will be played throughout the imperium except for one planet. For
the important imperium wide contest, the planet that doesn't play it will be
picked to host it
- - the planet in question will play a number of completely different games
which it is convinced are of importance to the entire imperium. It will hold
lavish contests with titles like The Imperial Series and Superbolo. No off
planet teams will compete.
- - the population of the planet has absolutely no interest in the genuine
imperial wide game, except when a game is broken up by drug crazed Vargr.
Their interest diminishes even further when they realise that they have
absolutely no chance of winning the big contest.
- - the imperial contest (let's call it the Imperial Cup) will be won by a
representative team from Terra, made up of a single token Brazilian and 10
players from Leeds United, holders of the Imperial Premier League
Championship for the past unbroken 5000 years. I wish.
Outside the Imperium:
- - in the Vargr extents, the top game is Akhakh (in Anglic: "Fetch").
Basically, one player throws a stick. The other player fetches it. Player
with the highest charisma throws the first stick.
- - In the Aslan hierate, an ancient form of wrestling prevails. The youthful
ihatei are required to take on an avatar representing the primal foe of the
aslan. The avatar takes the form of a ball of wool. The contest continues
until the aslan loses interest.
- - The K'kree play a form of football. The main differences from conventional
football are that the pitch is 800 km square and there are over 1000 to each
team. The teams never break up, and in fact only come into contact either by
accident or to smash up the hot dog stand. No score draws are common.
- - The Hivers don't play games, they fix them.
TNE:
Well no sign in Virgin in Guildford, but I finally caught up with Survival
Margin. An excellent sourcebook with minimal gaming application. But I'd
recommend it anyway. Will we ever find out what happened to the other
adversaries - Craig, Margaret, etc - before the collapse? And was that thing
that ran over Dulinor the famous Verge Combine?
Cheers
Mark