Day: December 21, 2006

Giving a lot of thought to what I want to do, recreational-gaming-wise (as opposed to publishing-gaming-work-wise) this coming year.

As much as I hate to say it, I think that the SERENITY campaign is DOA. Too hard to pick up again after all this time, plus, to be completely honest, every time I think about it, it dredges up some fairly unpleasant memories. Best to leave it be, I think.

Hellboy….meh. OK for a one-shot, I guess, but I’ve lost my drive to really do anything with it.

Saw ‘s comment on this post, where he mentioned the possibility of a superhero game… This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a while, actually.

I’d use Mutants & Masterminds, which is an extremely nifty d20-based rules system. The actual play is fairly rules-light….the only complicated part is character creation (which is a points-buy thing, allowing you to design a character and their powers in the most minute detail)…although for people who don’t jazz on the number-crunching, they give the option of simply picking an Archetype and modifying it, which is WAY easy (and I’ve got several PDF releases full of Archetypes….so I guarantee if you’ve got a superhero that you’d like to model, I can get you a matching archetype).

Anyone interested?

The other gaming idea: D&D….sort of. Using the straight D&D rules, but in my own campaign world, which takes things pretty far from the usual Medieval-Fantasy model and more into a bizarre mix of Western, Wuxia, Steampunk and more, set in a fantasy world.

Anyway — I’m open to comments. I really want to get something regular started up.

The Iraq Study Group calls for a phased withdrawal. The overhwelming majority of Americans realize that this war is unwinnable and we need to get out.

Bush’s response? Send in more troops.

The generals on the ground (the ones who Bush claims to be listening to) are against this idea. Colin Powell, his own former Secretary of State, says we’re losing, we need to draw down our forces, and that the Army is “almost broken” and no surge is sustainable. Most telling, every single one of the Joint Chiefs are against this plan.

But “I listen to the generals” Bush is forging ahead.

Even conservative hosts like Joe Scarborough are asking the question — “How can he be ignoring his own generals who are actually fighting this war”…and, most amazingly — “If Clinton had done this, wouldn’t we be considering Impeachment?” Watch the video here (Quicktime movie) — including another commentator who floats the idea that Bush is “delusional.”

Here’s what drifts through my head…. two scenarios, and I’m not sure which one is worse.

One, Bush *is* delusional and completely out of control. He’s not listening to anyone except the voices in his head, or his hand-picked cabal of NeoCons. More men and women are going to be fed into the meat grinder of Iraq because after 6 years of constant outrage (and consolidation of Executive power), nobody in this country has the will (or the power) to stop him.

OR

This is another brilliant Rove maneuver — The NeoCons know that Democrats are not going to be pursuing Impeachment, because of fears of it taking all of their energy, and possibly also causing a PR image backlash, which would hurt them in in the 2008 Presidential election. So Bush is under orders to force the issue — MAKE them Impeach, so that the Democrats can be painted as partisan and interested only in “payback” and the “politics of personal destruction.” Start a feeding frenzy which can be shown in the worst possible light.

As I said, I’m not sure which scenario is worse….because gods help us, I think that the second one would actually work on the American people.