Pantheon is Back as Hollywood Party—In French

Attention francophones and francophiles: my game Pantheon and Other Roleplaying Games, originally published by Hogshead as part of its New Style line, has returned in a new Gallic incarnation, from the fine folks at Les XII Singes. Retitled, revamped and glitzed up, it’s now Hollywood Party, which also happens to be the name of one of the new scenarios created for this version. In addition to the submarine horror, gangland betrayals, soap opera, kaiju battle and divine creation myth of the original, the new version adds zombies to the mix as well. Adaptation and translation is by Claude Guéant. For more, check out the product page over at the Les XII Singes site.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Possibly an Anagnorisis

In the latest episode of our 100% pure podcast, Ken and I talk Dundracon, smuggled horsemeat, structure, and the last days of Fields.

The Birds: Messaging

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: The League of Extraordinary Skeletons

In the latest edition of our humble podcast, Ken and I talk game design ideology, Richard III, elements of RPG prose style, and Black Herman.

The Birds: Hallway

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Passing the Legislation to See What’s In It

In the latest episode of our ancient and mysterious podcast, Ken and I talk kludges, Stonehenge, White Wolf edition wars, and sacking the Old Summer Palace.

The Birds: Sexual

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Finally, the Woodrow Wilson Throwdown

In this week’s episode of our humble podcast, Ken and I talk game design economics, why we game, and silver-shirted Hollywood Nazi occultist William Dudley Pelley. Long-awaitedly, we re-enter the historical cage match to once again take on the legacy of and Woodrow Wilson. Was he, as Ken asserts, America’s worst president?

The Birds: Look Out

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Conan Gets a Fish

On this week’s podcast, Ken and I talk WarpCon, the year's best movies, fun placement and truthers.

The Birds: Advantage

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Invasion

With Over the Edge’s rules engine breaking free of its captivity to become the open-licensed WaRP System, my longtime pals at Atlas Games have dropped Invasion, a digital adventure by yours truly.

Can you take over the command center of an alien race whose thirst for violence threatens the entire galaxy, or will your attempt at infiltration leave you irredeemably corrupted?

Find out at e23 or the Paizo web store.

I’m delighted to return to this rules set after so many years, pushing its flexibility into the red zone spin for this player-driven upending of a time-honored sci-fi trope.

Pre-Deadline Hillfolk Progress Report

Hillfolk backers, hackers and gawkers take heed—it’s time for me to pop up from a pile of virtual manuscripts and illustration submissions with a progress report. A shockingly high percentage of series pitch writers have gotten their pieces in ahead of this Thursday’s deadline, making my job easier and giving me a big head start on the gargantuan task of assembling the core book and its companion, Blood on the Snow. As of this writing I have over half of the submissions for Hillfolk and over a third for the sourcebook.

Since my last update I’ve edited Emily Care Boss space colonists, Josh Roby Machiavellian Florentines, Dave Gross Shakespearean festival noir, Pedro Ziviani feuding Icelanders, Jesse Bullington backcountry bootleggers, Rob Wieland multi-generational mafioso, T. S. Luikart’s regal rabbits, Gareth Hanrahan high-fantasy heroes and Ian “Lizard” Harac’s 1960s nuke survivors.

Waiting patiently on my hard drive are contributions from Jason Pitre, Will Hindmarch, Eddy Webb, Wade Rockett, Steve Darlington, Ryan Macklin, Chris Lackey, Steve Long and Angus Abranson.

Emily has also submitted her DramaSystem LARP rules, which will constitute a prime reason to grab Blood on the Snow.

I’ve written my own series pitches for Blood, adapting Mutant City Blues and my short story “The Dog” to the DramaSystem platform.

My main contributions to that book’s DramaSystem Master Class are also done.  The biggest piece provides players with 14 different approaches to scene-calling. No matter how your creative brain works, there’s a step-by-step for unstumping yourself when the GM calls your name.

If you’ve been planning to submit to this section, by all means do so. We’ve got some great pieces so far but there’s still room to squeeze in a few more.

Our stable of artists has also been hard at work. At right is the subtly compelling illustration for Wade Rockett’s “The Secret of Warlock Mountain” pitch, by the stellar Jonathan Wyke.

Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Within the Eliptonic Radius

In the latest episode of our eponymous podcast, Ken and I talk setting exposition, filmland shadows, replacing Stalin, and the Martian ground squirrel.

The Birds: Snake

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: Her Agile, Ventriloquistic Foot

In the latest episode of our eponymous podcast, Kenneth Hite and I talk mappers and callers, guns and America, Bond despond, and Margaret Fox.

The Birds: Concern Troll

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Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: A Thin Sludge Along the Sidewalks

Ken and I return from holiday hiatus to talk proactive play, dice fudging, Rob Ford and Jack the Ripper.

An Incomplete List of Congressional Metonyms

As profound students of Restoration comedy one and all, you surely know what a metonym is—a given name for a fictional character that telegraphs his or her personality or role in the story. This may be direct, or simply through euphony. Examples: Charles Surface, Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mr. Gradgrind, Mistress Quickly, Severus Snape.

Sometimes real people have metonymic names. This can come in handy sometimes.

For example, certain members of US Congress have names that an editor might reject as too metonymic if we tried to use them in fiction. I hereby nominate my top ten.

1. Henry Waxman

2. Louise Slaughter

3. Bob Goodlatte

4. Bobby Rush

5. Mac Thornberry

6. Sam Graves

7. Emanuel Cleaver

8. Marcia Fudge

9. Leonard Lance

10. Raul Labrador

Though perhaps not strictly a metonym, an honorable mention must surely go to Dutch Ruppersberger.

How apt these names I leave as a matter for other scholars. Just how creamy and delicious is the legislation of Marcia Fudge?

An Intriguing Experiment (That No One Will Ever Do)

Alan Ball, creator of Six Feet Under and True Blood, is about to launch a new cable show, Banshee, about an ex-con who, through the peregrinations of an opening plot twist, becomes sheriff of a small town in Amish country. This will give Ball another chance to air his issues with conservative Christianity and presumably his mother. Given the wildly contrasting tones of his previous shows I’m curious to see where he takes this one. Also, they had me at Ulrich Thomsen.

It’s on Cinemax in the US and, through the peregrinations of pay TV licensing, HBO Canada here in the land of the silver birch.

I mention this here because it inspired a thought experiment. The synopsis given on the HBO Canada site (and presumably repeated on its Cinemax counterpart) goes like this:

From Alan Ball, creator/EP of True Blood, this exciting new Cinemax action drama charts the twists and turns that follow Lucas Hood (Antony Starr), an ex-convict who improbably becomes sheriff of a rural, Amish-area town while searching for a woman he last saw 15 years ago, when he gave himself up to police to let her escape after a jewel heist. Living in Banshee under an assumed name, Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic) is now married to the local DA, has two children (one of whom may be Lucas’), and is trying desperately to keep a low profile – until Lucas arrives to shake up her world and rekindle old passions. Complicating matters is the fact that Banshee is riddled by corruption, with an Amish overlord, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen), brutally building a local empire of drugs, gambling and graft. With the help of a boxer-turned-barkeeper named Sugar Bates (Frankie Faison), Lucas is able to stay on even footing with Kai and his thugs, and even manages to bring a measure of tough justice to Banshee. But eventually, Lucas’ appetite for pulling heists pulls him and Carrie into a dangerous cauldron of duplicity, exacerbated when Mr. Rabbit (Ben Cross), the NY mobster they once ripped off, closes in with vengeance on his mind.

That’s complete enough to serve as the basis of play for a DramaSystem series. As a series pitch, it’s way truncated, but you don’t need a series pitch for everything, especially stories set in our familiar world.

The experiment would go like this: take the synopsis of this or any other upcoming serialized cable drama. Use it as the basis of a DramaSystem series...without watching the show. Or otherwise keeping up with where it’s going. When you finish you own series, rent the original on DVD, and compare and contrast.