The
following transcript is
from SOCDAISY, a Yahoogroup dedicated to a
fictionalSociety
promoting humor in
gaming. See how the whole concept of a
"first contact game"(my
original idea) gets spun
out of control to the point
where I'm being compared to
the EinsatzKommando in Eastern
Europe, and I haven't
run the game yet!
I
refrain from using last
names, as the language grows colorful in places.
First post
Folks:
I'm looking
for alot of roughly 25mm to 28mm rabbits, preferably engaged in
vaguely peaceful anthropomorphic activities (e.g., engaging in
human like pursuits).
It's that
Easter time of year, so if you spot something at a dollar store, five
and dime, etc. I would appreciate the tip. I need about 40-50 of
them, so affordability is a must.
Walt
==================
Would it be
odd to ask,what you plan to do with 40-50 bunnies? And instead of 40
25mm bunnies, couldnt you just have a single 7 foot one that is
invisible? Would be cheaper, well except for the drinks.
Doug
================
Giant
invisible rabbits.. that's so last year.
I've had
"Harvey" show up in several of my past games, including Le Grand Cirque.
The 40-50
bunnies are for a game I've run before on a smaller scale, SERGEANT
SLAUGHTER IN BUN-BUN LAND.
Since I'm
giving Slaughter's team a little more fire power this time, I'm 'upping'
the victim... er... cute little bunnies this time.
Walt
================
To the
gentleman looking for rabbits at the Dollar Tree:
Target,
various gumball machines at local movie theaters, and maybe the
local CD store all
carry small Looney Toon figures, including a Bugs Bunny. Unless you
think an army of Bugs Bunny's isn't Daisyish?
Carl
=================
I now have a
small army of the buggers... ten dollars gets an amazing quanity of
dollar store rabbits.
They will
stack up like cordwood....
Walt
================
Okay, I've
had some inspiration lately. I was in a dollar tree and found a
lovely little Easter bunny village, all ceramic buildings with resin
cutesie accessories. I've found the bunnies that go with the set--
about 30mm+ tall, but exactly the sort of thing I wanted to pick up for a
game I've run on a smaller scale called "Sergeant Slaughter in
Bun-Bun Land" The premise is that a squad of not-very- elite
bumbling Space Marines led by the cooly professional Murray Slaughter
have stepped through one of those convenient space-time warps in
pursuit of some despicable alien Vilsssh (a creature that looks like a
"Harvey" style rabbit in power armor). Where they end up, instead,
is a green and pleasant land, where the sun is always shining, the
grass never needs mowing, and it never rains. Oh, and by the way,
there's a horde of giant, vaguely Vilsssh-looking creatures
heading your way.
The idea of
the game, as I originally conceived it, was not *just* an activity
where cute, iconic and helpless cartoony critters are relentlessly
slaughtered and stacked up like cordwood-- although the idea has a
certain meanspirited appeal for the cynical. No, I wanted each player
(playing a single not-so-elite but tough-as-nails Galactic
Patrol figure) to have his rendevous with destiny, and to gradually
start asking himself some ethical questions. You know, about why
they are piling up rabbit bodies like cordwood when they are here to
"keep the peace".. making the winner (if that's important)
the first guy to figure out that a giant mistake has been made, and
maybe we ought to negotiate, FIRST. Sort of RPG style.
I like the
idea, but it might be too 'heavy' for some folks and lack the kind of
blood and guts angst so many people expect. So I was on the hunt for
a slightly more clever mechanic that non-Daisy types might
understand. Enter "Killer Bunnies: the Quest for the Magic Carrot", a
new game by Playtime. It's a humorous (or what passes for humor)
non-collectible, expandle card game about, you guessed it, Killer
Rabbits.
My wife
Audrey picked it up for me on a hunch I might like it, plus a few expansion
modules. She's right; I do like it, but not as published.
The game rules are very finicky indeed; they will not translate
very well to a miniatures medium, in my estimation. However, it
seems such a shame to waste that card art and theme, so close to the
Slaughter game, that I'm thinking of converting the mechanics to
match the cards (or at least some of them). Any ideas?
Walt
======================
>No, I
wanted each player (playing a single not-so-elite
but tough-as- >nails
Galactic Patrol figure) to have his rendevous with destiny, >and to
gradually start asking himself some ethical questions. You >know,
about why they are piling up rabbit bodies like cordwood when >they are
here to "keep the peace".. making the winner (if that's >
important) the first guy to figure out that a giant mistake has been made,
and maybe we ought to negotiate, FIRST. Sort of RPG style.
Sounds like
something "Bill the Galactic Hero" would stumble into. Of course Bills
answer would be, for every 100 killer bunnies I kill, I get a year
off my enlistment.
> > I like
the idea, but it might be too 'heavy' for some folks and >lack the
kind of blood and guts angst so many people expect >So I was
on the hunt for a slightly more clever mechanic that non- >Daisy
types might understand. Any ideas?
I still like
the first idea. There just needs to be a bunch of little baby rabbits
bouncing around too. Players might question their orders when they
have to kill babies. Give victory points of 1 for every adult and 1/2
a point for babies. Also there needs to be a way for the bunnies
to put up a defense. Nothing real tough though. Say they can throw
rotten eggs,(called biochemical weapons by the GM) that cause a
player to vomit for a turn or they can use garden tools. This way the
players dont realize how defenseless the bunnies really are against
someone in powerarmor and armed with a blaster. Then at the end of the
game you can have some all powerfull being, (as in every Star Trek
episode), show up and ask the players what have they done to his
creations.
You need a
way to get the players firing at the begining of the game. Say they have
a firefight with your villian who manages to kill several
non-player characters that the players where suppose to defend, such
as the "President of the Non Voting League of Left Handed Beings
with less than 10 eyes" and the "Vice President of Marketing for
Galactic-Cola". He then pops through the portal to your bunny world.
The players in hot pursuit, after being offered a reward for every
criminal brought to justice died or alive, start taking fire from the
village. Of course they will probably assume that the villian has
returned to his home and everyone in the village is part of the
attack. A few autocannons, warbots and walking spidermines sprinkled
around the village by the villian will help with that.
If you want
to be really sinister in your pregame briefing, you can tell the
players that when the villians race is young, they can do limited mind
control on a player that can scramble his brains. So dont allow
any young withen 20 meters of your character. I can just see these
cute little baby bunnies hopping up to a character, who is screaming at
the baby rabbit to stay back or he'll fire. As the baby bunny gets
closer the GM starts rolling the dice and having the player roll a
dice for his mind shield defense. See how quickly the player starts
shooting when he sees a GM rolling dice. If a player ask what he
needs to roll, just tell him it is based on the distance from the
character. You can have waves of little bunnies hoping toward a
player. Then the GM can comment,"Hmmm not good. You realize that their
brain scrambler gets stronger with numbers." Player then starts
melting down every bunny in sight.
You will need
to give each player a limited number of disrupter grenades to
take out the buildings in the village. Since if you have the players
properly spooked they wont want to get anywhere near a building that
might be hiding a bunny. So hopefully at the end of the game you will
have piles of dead bunnies and burned out buildings.
Then at the
end of the game you can award certificates to each player. The
most bloodthirsty. The biggest killer. The biggest babykiller.
The peacemaker, etc.
Doug
===============================
Doug:
These are
fantastic ideas! I LOVE the idea of no ONE clear winner. Instead,
everyone's a winner (or a loser) depending on how you look at it. I've
already got a few ideas for the certificates:
POPULATION
CONTROL AWARD (most bunnies wiped out) QUALITY OF
MERCY AWARD (most bunnies spared) YOUTH CLUB
DIRECTOR EXCELLENCE AWARD (most baby bunnies annihilated) HARE SPLITTER
PAR EXCELLENCE AWARD (most bunnies killed by melee weapons) MISSION
EXCELLENCE AWARD (most actual Vilsssh Bad guys killed) ... and etc.
I actually
went through the card game in depth last night, and there's some
interesting one-trick-pony jokes in there, some of which I would
borrow, but the game cards are way too specific-- they reference the
other game's mechanics on the card and really don't translate
well.
Not to say I
might not lift the 'theme' from a few of them.
I have
another concept. Have the players that aren't currently moving their
guy be responsible for squads of bunnies opposing the current
player. The bunnies are engaged in a bunch of pacifistic occupations
(bakers, musicians, riding a boat, riding a car, etc.). My idea was
that the Galactic Patrol (yes, they are inspired by Doc Smith's
Lensmen and Bill the Galactic Hero) 'sees' these occupations very
differently than what they are-- the little rabbitmobile is an APC, the
bunny with the egg basket has grenades, the Bunny playing the alpenhorn
is really firing a mortar, etc. etc. It's all part of ruthless
mission indoctrination and battle-madness. And, well, these guys aren't
that smart. Anyway, the opposing player maneuvers the bunny squads
against their Galactic Patrol teammates when they aren't maneuvering
their guy, just to give them something to do.
Lastly, I
like your comments on mind control and having the rabbits fight back.
Rabbits come in stands of 1, 2, or 3. I'm going to give each stand a
label depicting them as the GALACTIC PATROL sees them-- fire team,
bazooka squad, mortar team, sniper, etc. To us, the rabbits will
look like they really are.
Mechanics-wise,
I'm adapting the random number/card draw concept I created for
BALLOONACY. Each card has a dice on each corner of the card. In a
fight/fight situation both players draw from the deck, place cards
face down without looking at them, and point to one or two corners,
depending on what they are doing. The cards are revealed, and
voila, instant combat results. Dice-free, too.
Walt
========================
> MISSION
EXCELLENCE AWARD (most actual Vilsssh Bad guys killed) > ... and
etc.
I see you
left out Most Rabbits Stomped to Death with Powerboots. Surely you
must award extra points for most imaginative extermination
techniques. Also players should have interesting weapons. The
flamethrower that shoots a jet of flame the thickness of a pencil
for 2 feet. The rocket launcher that has the rockets alternate
coming out from the front and back of the launcher. The blaster that
has a big red button on the side that says "Dont push me". The self
guided AI missile that doesnt want to die, so it slowly flys
around the battlefield avoiding everything and saying "I zee nothing,
I zee nothing, I dont vant to die for the Fatherland".
> > I have
another concept. Have the players that aren't currently > moving
their guy be responsible for squads of bunnies opposing the > current
player. The bunnies are engaged in a bunch of pacifistic >
occupations (bakers, musicians, riding a boat, riding a car, etc.). > My idea
was that the Galactic Patrol (yes, they are inspired by Doc Smith's
Lensmen and Bill the Galactic Hero) 'sees' these occupations
very differently than what they are-- the little rabbitmobile
is an APC, the bunny with the egg basket has grenades, the Bunny
playing the alpenhorn is really firing a mortar, etc. etc. It's all
part of ruthless mission indoctrination and battle- madness. And,
well, these guys aren't that smart. Anyway, the opposing
player maneuvers the bunny squads against their Galactic >Patrol
teammates when they aren't maneuvering their guy, just to >give them
something to do.
That would
take all your fun away Walt. You need to run those fiendish
killer bunnies. Because sooner or later one the players will ask how
do I shot the mortar. Ignorance is bliss and fun too. You have to
get the players in that Galactic Patrol mindset. All aliens are
evil, unless they are blond, blueeyed and 36DD. Aliens want to suck
your brain out. Aliens want to impregnant our women. Aliens smell
bad and lower property values. Never trust an alien.
> > Lastly,
I like your comments on mind control and having the >rabbits
fight back. Rabbits come in stands of 1, 2, or 3. I'm >going to
give each stand a label depicting them as the GALACTIC >PATROL
sees them-- fire team, bazooka squad, mortar team, sniper, >etc. To
us, the rabbits will look like they really are.
Thats the
key. If the pregame briefing has the players fearing anything that
isnt human, it doesnt matter how cute the bunnies are. Describe how
terrible the Vilsssh really are. Give them terrible powers and
the players will shoot first and ask questions later. Plus if you
impress on the players that promotion in the GAlactic Patrol is
totally dependent on the number of villians captured or killed, they
might be even more trigger happy. To make corporal you need 10
villians, sergeant is 20 villians, etc. To make Lensmen you need at least
a 100. For died rabbits you could use flatten cotten balls covered
in red, to show what is left after a blaster blows one apart. I can
see it now, a table covered with red cottonballs. The Great Bunny
Slaughter of 2499.
Of course
there must be a flagpole in the center of town flying the Galactic
Union flag with an old rabbit under it pleading for the patrol to
stop shooting his people. Want to bet he gets plugged by one of the
players.
Is this going
to be at Historicon?
Doug ===================
Yep. Probably
Thursday night, since that's a slim night for games.
I was
thinking of casting casualty figs with sculpy, using the sculpy cast method
that was mentioned a long time ago in Colonial Wars. Of course, that
could get very expensive when you have 90+ bunnies to kill and I
kind of wanted to recycle the Bunnies anyhow.
Walt
==================
I had a thunk
and have come up with a bunny casualty marker which
can be mass
produced and glued on cardboard.
Have a look:
(Yahoo files reference url)
Walt
===================== You realize
with that much blood, the censors will up your rating
to PG-13 now ;
). I will have to look for the game while at Historicon. Would love to
see the reaction of the players.
Doug
==================
Walt, Do you
feel that many holes are necessary. After all, it's just a small
bunny, and it will add too much lead to the stew. Cleo
====================
Those are
smoking energy bolt holes, not bullet holes. The rabbit
is effectively
parboiled on the inside, relatively lead-free, thus greatly
speeding up cooking time.
Walt ===================
So Walt what
is this game to be named? Assault on
the Bunny Ranch? A hard time
at the Bunny Ranch? Into the
Warren of Death? Bunnies to
the right of me, Bunnies to the left of me. Valley of the
Buns A Hare(y)
Battle? Hare Cut! Semper Moo Mike
====================
I have been
watching this back and forth on bunnies. I am sure
it will be a
good game and Walt will do his usual superb job.
I however
have been inspired by the category to move in a different direction by
my, of late, hankering after more peaceful games, but still within
the bunny venue.
I will be
working on a bunny game also. But-- you see-- in my game the bunnies
will be wearing 5" heeled Dorsey pumps, little bunny ears, and of
course the cutest little puff of a cotton-tail on the skimpy
cut-away swimsuit style uniform--...
There will of
course be no poking holes in thses bunnies, but lots of poking of
holes....
And of
course-- they will all be WWVLB's.
Otto ======================= Two thoughts
on the Bunny game.
First, don't
forget the lovely rabbits from the critter commando line of miniatures
- there's even a mega rabbit in power armor. They could come
into the game when two many bunnies get fried to take revenge on
the evil humans.
Second, we
really really liked the casulaty markers used by the Hawks in their Buck
Rogers game - basically ankles and feet with smoke rising from
them. Doing bunny feet might be just the ticket... You could
even scatter a few cooked carrots on the base....
Andrew
=========================
Remember the
evil, nasty Vilsssh alien squad? They are represented by the Rabbit
squad of Critter Commandos in this game. The Galactic Patrol are in
pursuit of a squad of Vilsssh Commandos that used a short-range
"No Space Ring" to pop into a Galactic Cruiser and wreak havoc among
the unarmed and unready sailors. Needless to say, Sgt. Slaughter's
squad is in the mood to kick butt first and ask questions later.
(I
later did away with the
idea of SPECIFICALLY STATING that any figure was a Vilssh)
> Second,
we really really liked the casulaty markers used by the Hawks > in their
Buck Rogers game - basically ankles and feet with smoke > rising
from them. Doing bunny feet might be just the ticket... > You
could even scatter a few cooked carrots on the base....
Has a nice,
demented feel to it. I'd have to make up about 80 of them, however.
Walt ====================
On the
subject of killer rabbits, has anyone mentioned the scene
in ROTK where the Witch
King says to Arwen "Fool, don't you know I can't be killed by
man".
But the
figure standing before the WK is actually Bugs Bunny in armour,
who rips off his
helmet and retorts "Well, hows about a rascally rabbit?" and
stabs the Witch King.
WK dies, with
a "oooooooh, I hate that darn rabbit"
or the scene
where the
mumakils charge the Riders of Rohan ..... Bugs of Rohan
whips out his bag of white mice and mumakils flee on two
hind legs shrieking in
terror. ===================== (this
is where we start
getting weird)
I've come up
with a revised set of mechanics for BUN-BUN LAND which will utilize
Special Events cards (My favorite!!).
If anybody
has (comedic) suggestions for "things that could go wrong" for the
Galactic Patrol, fire away. I'm all ears... bunny ears that is.
Walt ======================== I shall give
the matter some thought and come up with
something in a few days.
My own
thought is that it should involve some sort of self- humiliation
on the part of the gamers. That is, having to stand on a chair and
recite some poetry, or sing a song, or a nursery rhyme.
Otto =========================
To Otto from
Walt
You're
reading my mind, stop that.
These are
action cards-- basic random events, surely, but they tie in strongly with
the game's underlying theme about responsibility versus the killing
urge.
For instance,
at the beginning of the game I will recite the Galactic Patrol's 3
basic rules: Obey Orders, Protect Humanity, and Obey Orders. I
will also (maybe) come up with a GP anthem.
I will
naturally only say it once and then require the players to recite this
on a chair as their special cards come up.
Other ideas:
Trooper is
overwhelmed with the spirit of Galactic Brotherhood, sobs, and throws
down his arms to give Bunny a big hug (that's when he'll meet up with
a REAL Vilssh of course)..
Trooper
remembers indoctrination films at Boot Camp, goes berserk and fires off
weapon in random direction, dodging for nearest cover...
Trooper sees
the futility of the slaughter, wanders in random directions
for rest of turn, not firing at anyone...
& etc.
Walt =============================
To Walt from
Otto.
I downloaded
the bunny rules.
I shall look
over them on the weekend and make suggestions.
EVEN WORSE!
Tomorrow is the NJMGS month club meeting and they shall become the
topic of discussion of our group.
I see several
good points.
I was
dissappointed to see no taking into consideration of bra-size, size of
nipples, their perkyness or lack thereof, and the dynamics of the
cotton-tail.
===========================
First off, in
your HTH rules, I hope the GP troopers are armed with neat and
really bloody weapons. Such as chainsaws, chainswords, force blades,
disrupter batons, and of course shovels. No self respecting
trooper should be without his entrenching tool, and of course it
should be sharpened to have a razor edge.
I think any
player that can go the entire game killing bunnies with just his
shovel, should get a special certificate. It should read something
like, for saving over 2 million credits by not using any ammo,we the
command staff would like to give you this gift coupon of 10 credits to
be used at your local McRabbits Resturants, over 1 Billion
stores Galaxy wide.
In 1.2
Galactic Patrol history and heros, I hope you include such stellar
members as Commodore Bombaster. The man who wiped out the Bengashi
scourge on Alpha Pinto IV. With a single "very small" planetbuster,
he stopped the Bengashi from opening a new coffee house and
spreading their vile believes and their blend of a very good
Columbian coffee. The lose of 2.7 billion members of the Confederation
when Alpha Pinto IV broke up after being hit by a "very
small" planetbuster, while regretable, was the only way to reduce the
threat to our freedom, our believes, and our right to a good cup of
Starbucks best.
Or how about
Sargeant Major Flint. The steely eyed individual who took over his
company after the officer in charge, suddenly became confused and
ran screaming around the command bunker, (we are still trying to
find out what weapon was used on him to get this result). SM Flint,
after shooting the officer to stop the spread of the confusion,
with his steely gaze stopped the panic in the company and encouraged
the men to fight with the famous lines, "The next ****** coward who
runs like the ******* Major, will get a blaster bolt in the head. So
you better hope the ****** ******* alien scum gets you and not me.
If you run from your positions, I'll kill your whole ****** family
by tearing their arms off and beating them to death with em."
With these inspiring words the company held their positions,
even though they were outnumbered 10 to 1. All 4 survivers
were in total agreement that without SM Flint standing behind them,
they never would have been able to hold the position.
With men like
this, is it any wonder that the GP is loved throughout the Galaxy as
a force for peace and goodness.
Doug ============================
And
now... we spiral out of
control...
To Walt from
Victor
You know you
and I keep making a habit of this. Somehow we have to work on our
phraseaology.
I assumed
from your post that you were wanting the force the gamers to
"play-act." If you want them to be above the campaing and simply have to work
with cardboard characters that are idiots that's a different
story.
The key is if
the gamers can shift blame for their failures to an inanimate
character.
Now... On to
your Bunny Wars.
I read the
rules and I have the following reccommendations.
1. It looks
good, but I think it's going to have a limited run. After all, there IS
a practical joke to it all and you usually get only one run through
on practical jokes.
2. I think
that if you really want to challenge players you should do something
like this.
A. The
Bunnies have NO weapons. They are completely non-violent. In fact, the
bunnies on the planet are not a military unit at all. (The bunnies have
no military units, in fact, they do not even have a concept of
"military." What Sgt Skuds troopers meet on the planet is a contact
team. That is, a team the bunnies send out to contact alien races.
See– the bunnies are a peaceful, curious, inquisitve and gregarious
race, and they are in fact telepaths. The problem is that we are not!
The Bunnies can therefore read our minds, but we cannot intercept
communications with them. The Bunnies have developed this telepathy as
a survival skill because obviously having no real defenses,
their species survival depends on speed, stealth, and now the ability
to know what the enemy is thinking, giving them the opportunity
to zig when they should zig and zag when they should zag.
You see the
Bunnies are as curious as we are, and have evolved another
survival skill which is affability and the ability to work through their
problems. The Bunnies are no strangers to vicious belligerant
predators like us, but their societal structures, their way of life,
their ethos holds that discovery, contact, cooperation– even in an
unfair way, is beter the confrontation. They in fact get plain joy
from helping others and are known to be tremendously self- sacraficial
to achieve these ends. Their extreme prolificness supplies the
losses.
B. So the
Bunnies are on this planet, willing to suffer massive casualties if
only they can get us to realize they do not want to kill us,
destroy us, and harm us, but simply contact us. On the other side is
the vicious, evil, military industrial complex which for reasons
of pure power cannot accept the "Bunny mentality" because it so alien
to their own spirit of cruelty and mindless acquisitiveness,
and so forth. They have told the troopers (with faked photos
and movies, evidence etc.) that the Bunnies are vicious savage
rodents, stripping the worlds they take of all resources, like locusts
swarming over the lands and creating deserts were there were once lush
paradises, drinking rivers dry etc... The troopers are also told that the
Bunnies capture whole populations and hang them up living from
meat-hooks in their breeding factories and the throats are slit so
the blood drips down into bowls that the young bunnies feed from.
Also shown are pictures of bunnies feasting on humans, raping
virgins etc., blah blah blah. Remember a good bunny is a dead bunny." "Have
you slagged your Bunny today.."
C. They are
also told that the bunnies have powerful and insidious weapons. One
like a huge flat antenna array which can broadcast disorienting
waves and detect troopers behind cover etc. This must be destroyed
before it can be set up and as it takes a time to set up troopers
should destroy these as soon as they find them. They are actually
holographic projections screens which show scenes of bunny live, bunny
plays and drama etc., as a prelude to contact. Another large
Satellite dish or radar-dish like object the troopers are told is a
disintigration ray gun which even a near miss can make a trooper impotent, and
these must be destroyed to (actually a large audio device to
broadcast bunny music. Large cashes of brilliant decorated Faberge style
Eggs are merely Bunny crates holding copies of art and dioramas of
bunny life etc... The Bunnies store their books and records on
cylindrical metal rods and these are told by the troopers to be bullets
for their projectile weapons.
D. Now the
whole key is to create situations (the rules are unimportant)
where actions are misinterpreted. That is, setting up one of these
pieces of equipment. The only hostile thing the bunnies can do is to
attempt to snatch a team member and drag him away to some spot
where they can tie him down and try and get their message across.
Obviously this would be interpreted as the start of a bunny feeding
frenzy. Other times, time and again the troopers will kill dozens of
bunnies, but at no time will a bunny ever kill a trooper. See how long
it takes them to find out theyre not being shot at. In fact, the
ONLY troopers dying are from friendly fire (which the leader will
explain as the bunnies getting mind control of the crews of their
gunships or controlling the minds of fellow troopers. The key will come
if a trooper is isolated –say– and is wounded by friendly
fire. You roll a die secretly (it doesn't matter what the roll) and you
say "Oh too bad, you have a serious injury, mark down 20 points of
your 24 point damage. And (rolling agin) Damn... there is a bunny
peering out of a cellar window at you, just a few feet away... he
springs out and leaps on you... and you lose conscience. "
"Wait, Wait... I'll try and take him with me with my grenade!" Win
or lose you say he goes unconcious before the grenade goes off, but
roll a die.(again the actuall roll is immaterial and say.."Hmmm
you are lucky! You survive! Let me have your card, I have to see some
of your special codes for this (Special codes are mere gibberish of
numbers and letters that you have made a big deal of before and
not explained. They are meaningless.) You take the guys card, hemm
and haw, roll some dice, make some calculations and hand back his card
with 9 of the 20 points erased! The Bunny was part of a medic team
which sacraficed itself to heal him.
E. The plots
and invidents can be elaborated. The key here is to see how long it
takes before someone notices, and even more, before those who notice
STOP killing the bunnies and start to question.
F. To make it
interesting I'll tell you what I'll do. Society of Daisy will
put up a $25.00 prize for the winner of the game. Now the REAL winner
of the game will be the person who stops killing bunnies, but when you
are speaking as "the team leader or the political officer for
the troopers, and it would be best to have someone else do this, HE
says that the player who kills the most bunnies gets the prize. You
have to be carefull about working this in.
G. Now the
real test will be to see who keeps on killing bunnies after they
know it's wrong, and simply because they think they are getting the
$25.00. The winner of course is the trooper who first turns his
weapons on these people.
H. THERE IS A
PROBLEM. You are likely to get lynched. Arthur said this right
off– "People are going to get real mad because you have deceived
them, and you HAVE forced them to think. What you are doing is in reality
a "small scale Milgram or Zimbardo experiments on human morality. ================
In
retrospect, I shouldn't
have posted this:
Wow, I just
read up on Milgram and the Stanford Prison Experiment. THAT'S IT!!!!
That's *exactly* the approach. This whole concept was always
about 'good' people following a duty they couldn't understand
and might find repulsive in real life. The fact that it's "only a
game" might just cause some interesting results from callous
players that think it's funny to slay innocent inanimate cute things.
This is exactly the direction i wanted to take it but have been
pondering how to get there.
I think the
success of this concept will rely on three elements.
1) The
Pre-Briefing: I have to work on a suitably bellicose briefing demonstrating
how visciousness of the Vilssh (Bunnies). Throw in all the great
buzz words and emotional phrasology that will appeal to the players
2) Events
that happen offscreen: Communications keep coming in (in the form of
random event cards) about how evil the Bunnies are being elsewhere
("space station acipter has been overun!! There are no survivors!")
3) Hiding the
game table in advance: The battlefield will be sugary sweet and
saccharine... bright green felt, Ceramic Egg villages.. that sort of
thing. I give the briefing BEFORE they see what they are fighting.
Otto, i
accept your challenge and I love the embellishments. You've given some
very good ideas and believe you me, I do appreciate the work put in
by the good lads up in NJ.
Walt ======================
To Walt from
Otto.
I'll bring a
knife to cut you down when they string you up!
=========================
Hi Walt do
you need a ringer as political officer/commissar?
Doug
=======================
To Walt from
Otto.
I disagree on
your hiding the board. I don't think you should make it ANY different
from any normal ciber-punk-grunge-modern combat game. I think you
should make it a human world that the Bunnies have landed on to try and
contact us. By doing it this way your eyes will confirm what their
ears have heard, that this is another just kill-the vicious
aliens game. Then-- bit by bit you introduce the sweet saccharine
elements as the bunnies show themselves. Remember you want to preserve
their prejudices and illusions as long as possible.
Remember that
they set the milgram experiments in a lab, and used college dorms
as prisons-- which-- they kind of look like anyway.
Remember the
test is to see how long people will actively cling to their
prejudices before the overwhelming evidence forces them to give it up-- if at
all.
I also think
that you should consider doing away with any real formal game
mechanics. You will stumble over these and give them time to think.
Remember you want to test them, and if you give them time to think.
Now...
Personall
I think what you're doing is
reprehensible. As reprehensible
in fact as my game of Morning Noon and Night in Vienna was. You are
placing these poor creatures in a situation that their mental
equipment is woefully inadequate to handle and which they are completely
unsuspecting. (I mean the gamers, not the bunnies). Further, the
game is very subversive because you are "promising" them enjoyment "on
their terms" -- another kill the Alien Game (though here I guess
you could make the Battle-Cry of the Marines -- KILL DA WABBIT!! KILL
DA WABBIT!! KILL DA WABBIT!! sung to Wagners Ride of the
Valkyries, but that's another matter), but it's not that type of game, and in
fact is a game where you intend to discomfit them.
Rather dicey
stuff.
============================ Walt and
Otto, I always wanted to do a game like Sandcreek, where
you have a US
army attack on a friendly Indian village. I wanted to see if any of the
players would actually stop attacking when they realize 90% of the
people they are killing are women and children. But always considered it
too diffucult for people to swallow. Plus some sick bastard out
there might actually enjoy it. I think going with aliens is a much
more palatable,(if genocide is ever palatable), way to do it. What a
neat idea for a game, that it actually makes you stop and think.
The only
problem is that you are letting 12 and younger play with an adult. The
adult may see what is going on, but I doubt if a 10 year old will see
anything wrong with killing 50 bunnies or a 100 bunnies. To them it is
just a game. Unless of course you also conducting an experiment on
whether 10 years olds know the difference between right and wrong and
should be tried as adults. ; )
