WOMEN, ANDROIDS, AND MYSTERY
Another wierd posting by Cap'n Paul
WOMEN
Doesn't EVERYONE have female players and PC's running in their
games? One of the best goups of players I can remember was the All
Girl Mount Holyoke Paranoia Campaign. Not a single PC ever made it
it out of the briefing room.
ANDROIDS
There are no androids in The Eight Worlds (as far as anyone
knows). There are, however, robots. Which robots are not terribly
intelligent. It is an ancient piece of EW lore that self-awareness
is a simple programming trick which only takes about 32K of code,
while real intelligence, capable of abstract reasoning, common sense,
passing the Turing test, and all that stuff takes Truly Massive Amounts
of computing power.
As a result, all robots, be they simple tour guides or ancient
and powerful autonomous war machines left over from imperial days,
must be handled with care. They have a tendancy to interpret commands
and data in an excessively literal fashion. They have, in fact, a
tendancy to leap to conclusions. Some models of robot have what can
only be described as personality flaws as well. Such as the
autonomous mining complex whose components had what to my mind was
a whimsical tendancy towards religious fanaticism.
MYSTERY
It is easy to create mysteries for your players. It is trivial.
It is the Very Simplest Thing In The Whole World. Simply DON'T TELL
THEM ANYTHING. DON'T TELL THEM ANYTHING AT ALL. Rather than say,
"Two Pastagorian Death Commandos (PDCs) open fire from the third green
balcony on the left with their Canon SureShot short blasters!" say
"You see the flash of a laser bolt. Morris Minor takes 32 points
of damage to his STR." After the PDCs get shmeared, don't say,
"They were obviously sent by the Evil Prince Cormac." instead say,
"You don't find any trace of identification, except for a claim check
for Carl's Dry Clean on Rastabad."
The beauty of the Don't Tell Them Anything Approach (hereafter
referred to as DTTAA) is that it allows the GM to appear subtle and
clever without any effort. In short, you can create great mysteries
by simply being lazy.
THE DTTAA AT WORK
Consider the following example:
The PC's land their corvette, the 'ANDROSCOGGIN', at Rastabad
spaceport. On board is a valuable cargo of mirpins which they have
been hired to carry to Bounders to relieve the mirpin shortage there.
The Evil Prince Cormac (EPC) wants to stop this cargo from arriving
because... well... he's Evil.
An energetic GM would now spend several hours creating the EPC's
army of minions. Right down to the last min. Which minions the PCs
would then blow away. Down to the last min. How dull.
An even more energetic GM would Try To Create A Mystery. He
would devise a complex scenario, laden with trails and clues, which
the PCs would cleverly ignore in their rush to blow away the EPCs
minions. PCs are like that. Impetuous fellows every one.
A lazy GM applies DTTAA. He does not bother to create any
minions. He does not bother to plant a single clues. He is, in fact,
completely unprepared. In desperation, he throws two hapless PDCs at
the PCs. To buy time, he furnishes one of the PDCs with a laundry
ticket. This is surely plausible. Even Pastagorian Death Commandos
need to get their shirts cleaned. ESPECIALLY Pastagorian Death
Commandos. Tomato sauce leaves such terrible stains. It is the GM's
fervent hope that the PLAYERS will generate some sort of mystery. On
their own! Players are, after all, quite good at this sort of thing.
It is what they are for. If left to their own devices, players can be
relied upon to create such a terrible tangled mess that soon even the
GM will lose track of what is happening.
The players do not hunt down the EPC. No, this is much too
obvious. They conclude that the attack is the work of the New
Chinese Fleet. The laundry ticket is a obviously a clue. Everyone
KNOWS that the New Chinese control every dry-cleaning establishment
from here to Boruski. The New Chinese must be seeking to protect
their mirpin monoploy. The PCs break into the New Chinese Embassy.
The Ambassadorian Cleaning Staff repells the attack with
contemptuous ease, after which the New Chinese attempt to determine
the identity of their attackers. The PCs have left no clues. So
the GM consults his notes to discover that New China is currently at
odds with the Sandulak Corporation. Ah ha! The plot thickens!
Three New Chinese agents attempt to infiltrate the Sandulak Regional
Headquarters.
In no time at all, the NPCs are bustling about in a furor,
spying on each other, shooting each other, and conducting local
school board elections. The PCs still have no idea what is going
on. Because:
First, nothing IS going on. There are NO grandiose plots and
conspiracies. The NPCs have been stirred into frantic life by the
PCs inept bumblings and are running around essentially at random.
Second, the GM is lazy and DOESN'T TELL THE PLAYERS ANYTHING AT
ALL! He does not say, "Well, today three Escargian Fetishists fell
seized a Sandulak cargo shuttle and crashed it into the Central
Repository." he says, "You hear a distant explosion. It is
doubtless a matter of small consequence." If prompted the GM will
admit that yes, the landing pad next to the ANDROSCOGGIN is now
empty. And the PCs will receive a small surprise should they ever
decide to take a Central Repository Tour.
At last, the players are forced to conclude that they are
lost. They have stumbled into an incredible mystery, a conspiracy
of gargantuan proportions. They are forced to conclude that their
GM is a genius. They show their admiration by fixing the GM up
with dates.
Paul What Does The R. Stand For? Gazis
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