Blog

The best compliment I’ve had while gaming is a silent insult.

One of my players in college, Matt Harrop, had taken to exclaiming “COCK!” whenever I’d throw something difficult at the group — an unexpected twist, a complication, etc.

Then, so as not to interrupt play, instead of shouting it, he started miming the action of putting a rubber stamp down on an ink pad, and then stamping on my forehead (or, rather, in the air, across the room, but at the level of my forehead). He referred to this as “the cock stamp.”

When I’d come up with situations that the players got so emotionally invested in that I’d earned “the cock stamp?” That was when I knew things were going well. This was the best compliment I’ve ever gotten.

 

Today’s question: Describe your plans for your next game?

I currently do not have one, sadly. Too busy with projects that are far too late, plus it’s difficult to get a group together and find a regular time to play. (I’m currently running a STAR TREK ADVENTURES game that only meets once every 5-6 weeks or so.)

I have TONS of ideas for games I want to run. Too many, really.

• A Far West game (which I want to do once it’s done, to “wash my mind out”, replacing the stress I associate with it’s seemingly-cursed production with the joy I have of the setting).

• A Doctor Who game (for that combination of nostalgia and a setting I love).

• A 5th Edition D&D game, in an original setting, different from the usual “D&D epic fantasy standard.”

• A 1930s pulp game, as a playtest for a new edition of THRILLING TALES (you heard it here first, folks!).

• Something Hammer-Horror-esque, maybe for Halloween.

• …and too many more to list.

Someday.

 
 

I’ll be honest, I’m not 100% sure what “tricky” means, in this context.

I’ll go with “challenging” — At GenCon 1992, there was a homebrew “Twin Peaks” event on the schedule. This was right after the second season ended (not to return for nearly 30 years), on a cliffhanger which featured Agent Cooper apparently possessed by “Bob.”

So it turns out that the event was, essentially, a systemless LARP — run as a direct continuation, and was a helluva lot of fun. The GM had me play Possessed Cooper. Another guy played the True Cooper, trying to escape the Black Lodge. About halfway through the event, that guy and I had an idea. We pulled the GM aside, and got clearance from him, and he loved it.

We figured that if this was on TV, both of us would be played by Kyle MacLachlan — but in the LARP, people knew that I was Possessed Cooper, and the other guy was True Cooper.

So we switched roles, without telling anyone. Just clues in how we played.

And we pulled it off. It was a lot of fun, and one of the most rewarding game experiences I’ve ever had as a player.