The Gaming Outpost

I remember my first discussion with Nick Van Zandt quite clearly. I had
responded to an e-mailed invitation from a dummy account. As per his
instruction, I came alone. It was about 3am on an April night, musky and
damp. I stood if front of the bleak and closed Virgin Megastore in Times
Square and watched the blank screen of the giant Television that hung above
the Warner store. I wanted drugs. Lots of them. Anything to help me process
what this madman was saying.

“And so what youre telling me, is that this is happening?”

“Yes.”

“The girl is&is dead?”

“Yes.”

“And youre the Messiah.”

“A Messiah.”

“And you want me to take this& and make a game out of it?”

“No, Sean. Not a game. An experience.”

“Jesus.”

I leaned back and swallowed hard. This was a LOT of information to take in.

“Why me? Why not Wick, Skarka, Stafford, Pramas or Tweet? Somebody with a
rep?”

“You were available, you knew the right people, and I kinda dug yer stuff in B
lood-Dimmed Tides.”

“Youre kidding.”

“No, no& Rorqual. Giant living Caerns. Neat.”

“As I recall, reviewers didnt much like the&Chrissakes! Youre Nick Van
Zandt! You look like him and talk like him and walk like him and it says Nick
Van Zandt on your drivers licensee!”

“So?”

“SO, I CREATED YOU! YOURE NOT REAL!”

“No, you see, that was a miracle. I made you think you created me.”

“And those tugged-out Tupac lookalikes that came with you and went to the
McDonalds. Theyre in the Squad?”

“Yep.”

“So what youre saying is that&”

“Yes. The Last Exodus is now.”

I sat down on the grimy wet sidewalk and held my head in my hands.

“The stripper in Washington and the guy in the McDonalds? I sent them. The
guys who kicked your ass in Vegas? They were with the Regime. They didnt
want any of this getting out.”

“But&I& Why&”

“Because people need to know. They need to prepare. We cant go to the news
with this, nor would we want to. We need to keep this  pardon the pun-
underground. Its gotta be a movement. Listen, Ill bring you the entire
manuscript as soon as I finish it. In the meantime, weve made some
arrangements for you and your little group- what was it? Sin Sister?”

“Synister.”

“Synister. Yeah. The Order has found a group in Nutley who can fund you&”

“Digital Creek?”

“Yes, where your brother works. Go in there and talk with a man named Dave
Olmsted. Hell put you in business- literally. Ill bring you information,
and I promise Ill get the manuscript to you before Gen Con.”

“Hunh? But Im so busy&I have this new thing from Jacksonville, and I wanted
to do some freelance work for Skarkas thing. UnderWorld.”

“Dont worry about that. Its handled.”

“What?”

“Were gonna flood his apartment.”

“Why?”

“Youll see.”

“& So its all true.”

“Pretty much. I dont know where you got the idea Emerald City is New York,
though&”

“Its not ?”

“No, Em city is Washington. New York is an Atlantean ruin called Terminal
City.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes things get garbled. As I understand it, the messages will come in
a bit clearer if youre on a boat or a raft or something.”

“Youre kidding.”

I stood up again and looked at him. It was sort of like the rush a writer
gets when looking at an illustration of their work thats really dead on,
only moreso. He smiled.

“I understand how odd all this must be&”

“No, no. No you do not.”

“Well, I gotta run. Id suggest you do too. Theres a cell of Sanhedrin
coming up Broadway in about ten. The Crush. Gotta love Giulianis New York. ”

I sat on the sidewalk for a long time before dragging myself back to the
Path train. This was going to take some serious getting used to.

DATE: September 1, 1993

LOCATION: Sarajevo

The sharp stucatto crack of the rifle lasted only a second, but it echoed in Dragomirs ears for what felt like hours. Ugly, grey pieces of what was once Mirovics face splashed his own, and he shut his eyes tight.

“Idiot! I told him about the sniper! Anyone else want to be a Goddam cowboy?”

“But…Father Srdjan!”

“Dont Father Srdjan me anything. You stand up, you die. I have no say in the matter. God has no say in the matter. So dont whine to me like mewling puppies, I can not help her, okay?”

He cast an uneasy gaze over the sandbags, out into the clearing rimmed on all sides by low buildings. In the center of the clearing, a teenage girl, probably about fourteen, lay howling and bleeding from the stomach wound
that would inevitably claim her life without medical attention. The troop had been listening to her screams drone into pitiful wails for two hours now. She was bait. He knew it, the sniper knew it–hell, the girl probably knew it.

“Father Srdjan, the Muslims are moving!”

He hated being called that. He was Sargeant Srdjan Dragomir of the Serbian Nationalist army now. He scowled and snatched the binoculars from the teenage private. Sure enough, There was movement among the Muslims holed up down the street. No one knew who the girl was. The Muslims may have been just as eager to get to her as they were. The sniper could have been Muslim, Serb, Croat, Albanian, or just psychotic. He bit down hard.

Suddenly, a lone figure leaped from the Muslim side as his troops sprayed bullets up into the windows. The lone Muslim made a heroic run and grabbed the girl by the wrist , hoisted her up and…-

Crack!

Srdjan watched with no emotion as the Muslim fell to his bullet. He went to reload, and suddenly, the world dropped. He heard the boy cry out. He knew the voice.

“Dusan? Dusan!”

All rationality fled him like water draining from a sponge. He leaped over the sandbags–deaf to the roar of the machineguns–and bolted to the center of the clearing.

“My God, Dusan, No! NO, no, no! I thought the Muslims had killed you for sure, Oh, no, no…”

He fidgeted with the straps on the boys jacket, pulled back the shredded cloth to reveal the boys face.

“Hi… dad…”

The boy smiled up at him, all pain erased from his features. The sea of blood on his chest moved less and less as his breath slowed. He blinked once, and stared at heaven.

Srdjans screams shook the glass in the windows. He felt no pain, no loss, nothing but rage. A bullet tore through his knee–from above, of course–but he did not stop screaming. He cursed God. Over and over. Again and again and again. He realized he did believe after all. There was no way random fate could be so cruel. As the sun set over Sarajevo, and the helicopters buzzed in the distance, Father Srdjan Dragomir wept his rage over the body of his
fallen son.

DATE: May 16, 1994

LOCATION: Ntarama, Rwanda

Jed looked the rusty jeep up and down and kicked it sharply on the door. No gas. Of all the places and times. He felt stupid, and that made him angry. He would be late, and that was woefully unprofessional. Unprofessional equaled dead in his line of work. Trying not to think about it, he reached in, pulled out his duffel and started walking down the dust jungle road toward town. It
wasnt far, although that was hardly a comfort.

He was absolutely sure not to show any fear at all. It was an ugly, ugly time here. The entire country was awash with blood and no one, Hutu or Tsutsi, had many qualms about adding a random white man to the body count. He knew that people in a genocidal rage were animals, and would attack if they sensed fear. Bronson had seen it in Southeast Asia, in Eastern Europe, and here in Africa.

“Mzungu!”

He put down his duffel and whirled around aiming a huge pistol into the air, every muscle in his arm tight with the possible necessity of death. Mzungu was the Kinyarwanda word for white man.

“What do you want?” He growled in French.

“Mzungu, please! ”

He had leveled the gun at a thin, dark woman wrapped heavily in tattered rags. Tutsi by the look of shock and horror in her eyes. She had been a victim–he could tell. She fell to her knees, accepting the gun.

“Stand.” He said, expressionless.

“Do you have food, Mzungu?” She quivered. He regarded her and relaxed his stance, not taking the gun off of her. That would be taking far too much for granted.

“Kingali. I need to get to Kingali. Do you have gas?” He normally wouldnt ask, but he couldnt afford to pass up any possibility.

She cast her gaze downward to answer him. He started walking.

“Mister, please!” she called quietly.

His brow furrowed. This didnt make sense. He turned around.

“The forest is full of food. You have either been living out here for a while or you just escaped the Interahmwe. Either way you should be able to…”

She reticently lifted her wrap revealing her swollen abdomen, giving him a pathetic look.

“Oh, Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

“They killed my husband, they… they cut off my daughters arms. I have nothing left. Please, Mzungu. You have things. Mzungu always have things they can spare. Please.”

He tried to keep walking. he had already heard far too much of this womans sob story. She was a member of the group he had been paid to came here and kill, for Christs sake.

“Mzungu, please! I cant follow you to Ntarama! Please! For one woman, please! One poor woman!? Consider your mother! Your Mother?”

He scowled and kept walking.

“Please sir. Your…Your daughter? A daughter?”

He stopped as though slapped. He sighed deep, reached into his duffel and withdrew a long rifle. He turned to her, and she bowed her head. He reached into the duffel, pulled out the clip, and popped it into place, striding
angrily toward her. He thrust the rifle into her hands.

“Heckler and Koch G-3 assualt rifle. German made, bought in Columbia. Seven point sixty-two millimeter twenty-round box magazine. Triggers here, safetys here. If you can get to the border, tell the Hutu guard there that Jed Bronson demanded that you be taken to Kenya. Forty miles that way if you can make it. Keep the jeep if you can find a way to gas it up. Good luck.”

The woman held the gun quietly for a few minutes. Jed gave her a half-smile, and started to walk toward Ntarama, thinking sadly about his daughter.

I keep having this recurring dream.

I’m screwing this old girlfriend of mine in my office. I mean, I am going to TOWN on this. Papers are flying all over the place and she’s bent over the desk, moaning like a porn queen. Suddenly, the door bursts in and something flies at me and knocks me back in the chair. My eye is cut, and through a red haze I look up to see someone stab her clean through the shoulder, nailing her to the table. He drops his drawers and begins nailing her just like I was, although her screams are now very different. I grab his shoulder and he turns to me, grinning as he reaches around and cuts her throat. I stop, paralyzed.

Its Evan Powell.

Evan has been one of my masterpieces. Hes got quite a history. He was first created for a short story in 1990, and has made guest appearances in several games since. I pride myself on my villains, and of the bunch Evan Rutherford Powell still stands head and shoulders above any others I have ever even tried to create. An absolute nightmare, hes caused more fear than anything else Ive ever done. In college, it was formally requested that I attend counseling after a session in which he had made an appearance was described to one of the dorm monitors.

Why? Because hes a human being. He has genuine feelings and ideals. Hes a sadist, a pedophile, and a rapist. He preys on the weak for pleasure. Evan isn’t driven by hate or greed, but desire. He likes to hurt people, and he knows that his best weapon is between his legs. He has no excuse, he does these things because he wants to. Evan Powell is a study in anarchy–not bullshit comic-book anarchy, but real, honest-to-god child-humping-old-lady-killing no-goddamn-rules anarchy. And if you think he doesn’t live next door you’ve got another thing coming.

So as I sit in the chair trying not to piss myself, he finishes up with my ex’s corpse, then turns back to me with his best genial smile.”Its okay, Sean,” He says, wiping his fingers off on my hair. “I can’t stop you either.”

And with that, he turns and leaves. I just sit, sweating and hating myself for not being able to act. I start to dial 911 but the phone just plays Christmas Carols at me. I feel very alone.

Then I wake up.

For almost a year, I made a point of keeping Evan OUT of The Last Exodus. I felt he was just too explicit to be detailed properly in a game context. I would make the Antichrists more implicit villains, and skip all of the really nasty bits of their cruelty and evil. I figured that that would be the best, safest thing to do. It wasn’t until New Year’s Day, 2000, that I came to my senses.

You see, no human being has ever died at the hands of an implicit villain. The Nazis were very much present at the deaths of the Gypsies, Jews, and other unfortunates. The Serbian Nationalists were RIGHT THERE for every second of every ethnic cleansing. The Khmer Rouge had men making a personal appearance behind every trigger. In your home town there is a child who can point out the face of the loved one who abuses him before bed at night. No victim is spared the atrocity, it’s not left to the imagination.

It’s easy to shrug and say it’s just a game and no forum for such truths. On the other hand, the relative safety of the imagination seems to me to be the absolute best place to wake people up to the horrors of what goes on behind closed doors. I won’t spare the reality of what happens here. I won’t cut short my vision–I won’t spare the pain and the blood and the hurt and what the victim sees. This is what’s real. This is what’s happening. Had this been a movie, nobody would blink. Had it been a newscast, nobody would even listen- but in a role-playing game you can react- you can do something. And maybe these actions can serve as a template for positive action out here in the real world.

Remember, every time Evan makes you shudder, every time Madison makes you wince, remember that these bastards are out there, and more often than not, they have authorization. They carry guns, badges, collars, and books. They have Harvard degrees and they live in dumpsters. They are our leaders and the men and women in the street. And they love the doors that keep them safe–that keep them implicit. The best possible thing you can do for them is keep your head down and not ask questions.An explicit villain is an implicit one dumb enough to leave the doors open.

They are all around us. They are in your hometown. They live right next door.

Knock knock.

Okay, It’s finally hit me. I get it now.

I was standing on what might be considered the prow of a commercial tourist fishing boat somewhere between Cape May, New Jersey and Lewes, Delaware. It might be considered the prow, but it might be considered the jib or the starboard or the left nostril for all I know–I’m not real good with boats. I was in front.

Josh had been on a fishing kick for some reason and organized the trip with a passion I had rarely seen him use for something other than music, certain women, and tearing through Newark traffic at speeds that can–and do–put
carjackers to shame. Of course, it fell through last minute and it was just me, him, and assistant art director Frank Fallon–AKA Frankie Bønz.

To be honest, I had always appreciated the lack of pretense on a fishing boat. You could UTTERLY let yourself go. You’ll be dressed in your scummiest outfit, there’s no one to impress, and you and a bunch of middle-aged
American men all know that you will soon be covered in entrails and smell worse than a runny cheese-eating contest being held in a septic tank at the incontinent Special Olympics. Sometime you already do. If you do manage to
fart loud enough to be heard over the engines, someone with thank you for it. So why worry?

Armed with this incredible lack of decorum the mind can wander, and often has to be reined in either with beer, seasickness or both, just on the off chance that the inevitable snarl of every line on the boat actually managed
to get a fish in it somewhere and someone has to be held responsible. For this particular trip, poor Josh chose seasickness. I sat on a bench with Frank, holding the graphite rod and reel that might mean my dinner as Josh
slept on a wooden box in back empathizing with Kermit the Frog that it was in fact not easy at all.

It was Frank’s first time fishing and he had taken the mixture of disgust and boredom well. The back of the boat was occupied by a number of drunken local good ‘ol boys who figured the best way to attract the piscine treats we
were seeking was to scream beer commercial slogans at swimsuit-clad housewives in nearby boats. I relaxed and soaked in the sheer Americanness of it.

The BEST thing about the ocean is the fantastic lack of distraction. Water is boring, and sky is boring. The view from a boat is so fantastically boring that having your eyes closed in actually MORE distracting than keeping them
open. I’ve often wondered what one would see after doing acid on a fishing boat, but never had the sand to test the theory on myself or anyone else. Of course, after one realizes that thinking about food will only make them more
hungry and no matter how much food is in the cooler your hands will not be clean enough to eat with them until you return to shore, and fantasizing about naked mermaids and mermen is all well and good but might lead to visible changes in one’s pelvic topography that they would prefer to not have to explain to a bunch of drunken middle-Americans with only twelve to twenty feet of headway, one is left with something of a dearth of subjects to ruminate on.

By the way, I must be dosed. When the hell did I get so verbose?

Jesus, for that matter, when did I start using words like VERBOSE?

Must be the fish. It’s brain food, ‘yknow.

In any case, this is one of those bizarre perks of being a game designer. It’s harder to bore you because there’s always something to think about. For example, I fell asleep the other night watching OZ on HBO and dreamed I had
spent a month in solitary confinement. I returned half mad, naked, and gibbering, of course, but with a really clever, workable magic system for a mutigenre system. Wish I could remember it. Anyway, this took me back to my pet project–in the words of a heckler, “Dood, Kid Rock is TOTALLY cool. Let’s make the most blasphemous game ever.”

I’m down, let’s. As my line lazily tangled with the others, My brain floated away to the Last Exodus. See, in the Last Exodus, Player Characters are Messiahs and Antichrists–this much I know. They have been charged by
God–remember, there’s two of him/her/it–with the task of saving what’s left of worthwhile humanity and ferrying them across the breach to Eden–the only world of any consequence. Earth is a spiritual quarantine. Eden is where it’s at, a never-ending world of untold possibility, of nations like Avalon and Eldorado and Mu. Heaven, our afterlife, and…Yeah.

Eden had been a pretty good idea, but since the inception, it had remained that. Nothing made it real to me, not a world I could see, and feel and touch. Great settings jumped to life for me the instant they were explained, like Gareth’s UnderWorld, Gibson’s Cyberpunk future or Pondsmith’s Castle Falkenstein. In fact, each of these games is based on the “You are here” concept, and without the world, it doesn’t hold a lot of water. Other games tend to focus more on the “you are one of these” concept in a more traditional world–not necessarily our own, but what you play is what makes things interesting. The World of Darkness, most superhero games, and even
Orkworld (I venture to guess) functions more in this fashion.

In my arrogance and stupidity, I’m tacking both tacks. In the Last Exodus, you play a direct Child of God, but that’s only half of why you’re interested. It’s where this takes you that makes it worthwhile–and this had to be Eden. This placed a pretty tall order on my crummy little heaven. The Mythical lands as nations thing was cute, but it still had needed more.

First off, there was a dazzling lack of interesting things to do when you get there. It’s HEAVEN, right? No death, no disease, no conflict. Boring. A while ago I had introduced the idea of “Violated Realms”–sections of Heaven that had somehow been poisoned and became hells, in order to create a better conflict. Of course, this begs the question that if it’s at war, why would you want to go there, and is taking people to a heaven at war really saving them at all?

Very cool theological questions to explore, but not what I was going for. They’ll come up though. I still had a problem. My heaven-world was still falling flat.

I looked out at the line where the chromatic shift that indicated water and sky was, then looked up.

Blue. Not a single cloud.

Well, one. Quite suddenly, a single cloud I hadn’t noticed before and believe me, I was looking damned hard. And a single plane.

The plane was one of the famed Cape May banner planes, in this case advertising the Three Mile Crab House. My mother, also a pilot, had been quite chummy with the banner guys, who were as far as I could tell entirely mad. They would take off from a tiny airport in Cape May, then fly out to a skinny, blisteringly hot airstrip carved out of the local marshland, touch down and hook the banner, and take off again from a stretch of tarmac surrounded by dense forest while towing fifty to a hundred feet or so of
cloth, all in about sixty seconds. Crazy. This instantly reminded my of my mother’s explanation of why she loved flying:

“When you’re up in a plane, you can just look down and say: ‘All of my problems are down there.’”

Problem solved.

Eden instantly blossomed in my head. It fell brilliantly into place. I had been stewing and ruminating over what the land itself looked like, felt like, and all along, the answer had been right under–well–over my head.

There IS no land! Not much, anyway. Eden is a series of floating islands composed of an element that for whatever reason hovers in the air in it’s natural state. This element in it’s raw, unrefined form gives off a white, odorless gas, like steam, giving the entire place the look of cities and gardens built on the clouds. Naturally, this stuff could be mined, and is a valuable resource
for making all sorts of weird, floating architecture and vehicles. So there goes the basis for our economy. And perhaps, it could be controlled by harmonics and sound, which is why angels all carry harps–they’re not just
musical instruments, they’re control panels. And lastly, if an island is mined too much, it falls. Forever.

How’s that for hell?

Hundreds of arcane connections fused in my head. Eden was complete. I smiled and turned to Frankie, who was struggling with his reel. Josh was standing there too.

“You guys, I just thought of the…–”

“Reel in, we’re tangled!” Frank ejected with a surprising lack of irritation considering what I had done to his line. I reeled in, as Frankie did the same. Lo and behold, attached to the snarl at the end of our hooks was a nice, fat flounder.

“Jeeze, hold on to that thing!”

I figured my revelation could wait until dinner.

“Explain to me again why youre acting like such a dick?”

“Dick? Whos being a dick? I guess Im just not a party guy, thats all.”

Hala Winter and I were standing on the corner of Bleeker and Sixth, preparing
to make the long trek from the Village to the Lower East Side. She knows The
Last Exodus better then I do (by some accounts) and has been a vital part of
concept design. She pulls double duty at Synister simultaneously serving as
Creative Director and my stress management.

I looked ridiculous. Ive got my long hair in braids these days and I usually
tie them back with a black bandanna. I was wearing one of my favorite shirts,
a little Coop Devil piece featuring a pair of lesbian demons. But thats
normal ridiculous. On top of that, largely thanks to a flash storm which
caused my to pull my coat out of my car in Hoboken, I had been anticipating
rain for the rest of the night. The rain lasted as long as it took for me to
make it to the subway. So here I was in 90 degree weather in a black leather
coat. I folded it and hung it over my arm, already warm.

“Yeah, not a party guy. I seem to remember&-”

“Okay, okay! Well, Its just& I dunno. Theres one in every city. There was a
guy like this in Boston, too. What was his name? Ken? Ken. In New Orleans I
think his name was Rob.”

“What do you mean, “Like this?”

“I mean, In every city I go to, theres some guy that I keep getting compared
to by the local chicks. Some guy that looks like me and sounds like me and
walks like me and talks like me and just might be but is not quite me.”

“Will the real Sean Jaffe please stand up?”

“Yes Im Sean Jaffe yes Im the real Jaffe All you other Sean Jaffes are just
imatatin.”

“Uh-huh. “And you dont want to go to this thing because its a birthday
party for this guy like you?”

“Yeah.”

“Ummm…Youre being a jerk.”

“Am I?”

She nodded. She was very astute in her observations of such things.
“Let me tell you about this Live Game instead.” She smiled pleasantly. She
has this way of being a tad too ingratiating that indicates that Im getting
on her nerves.

“Okay.”

At least this was a topic Im good at. While the topic is not exactly burning
with romance, Hala and I can both talk shop for hours. And the project was
one that I was particularly interested in. In a strange way, Hala and I met
because of her reputation as being behind the best Live-Action game in the
tri-state area. The task I had assigned to her seemed fairly simple. Get a
full-fledged live-action Last Exodus game up and running in New York City.
This would normally require a great deal more of my supervision, and probably
at least three support staff, but this was her specialty. I wasnt worried.

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, We can do the bi-weekly thing, but youd better drop it down to
monthly if you want to do it in a club.”

“Snoogans. Definitely, definitely the club thing.”

“Well, Ive been talking to promoters. Its certainly do-able.”

“Great, great! I want bands and DJs and dancing girls and drugs and people
having sex in every available crawlspace. Nootch. I want this LARP to be like
a Thrill Kill Kult concert.”

“Trust me sweetheart, with the crowd you get at these things sometimes,
youll get that whether you want it or not.”

“Nootch.”

“We have encountered a problem though.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Well, you know how you proposed that we cordon off a room and do the whole
“Real World” Thing live and the “Eden” Stuff sit down? ”

“Yeah.”

“First, people are gonna wanna play their Deiforms live. Theyre gonna wanna
show up in costume. Second, a lot of people say that it sounds pretty lame to
have to stop playing their characters live when the really cool walking on
water /loaves and fishes stuff begins.”

“Good Point.”

“Last, if you figure that it takes one director for every four people to run
sit down, thats ten Directors who all have to constantly be aware what the
other nine are doing.”

“Ouch. So how do we do Eden?”

“I was figuring that there was some way we could change the music at the
club&”

“No, I mean generally.”

“But& Why dont we solve the problem at hand?”

“Thats exactly what I mean.”

“Lets deal with this. OUR live game.”

“But there has to be a general way to& DICKCHEESE!”I barked at the cabbie who
had decided it was worth running a red light to raise my blood pressure. I
swear they have it in for me personally.

“A general way to Dickcheese?”

“Shut up.” I glowered. “I swear these psychos have it in for me personally.”

“Where are we?”

“Were not on Houston?”

“No, I followed you.”

“But&But&You live here. Im from Jersey!”

I usually knew better than to invoke the great divide but my feet were wet.
That clouds my judgement.

“Okay, relax. Jesus, I dont know whats wrong with you. Here. Ill call and
get the address.”

She walked up to one of Manhattans ubiquitous phones, popped open her
computer and searched for the number as I played with an old door that was
lying in the sidewalk. I pretended that it opened up to another, parallel
dimension that happened to be absolutely filled with concrete. Im still not
sure it didnt.

“Okay, got it. We gotta go back the way we came.”

I grumbled.

“Where were we?” She shot.

“Um. Dealing with the problem in our LARP of how to run the Promised Lands.”

“Well, I said we could use the club&”

“No, I mean something general and all-purpose. Something never done before.”

“Uh, a LARP in which you can play the Son of God?”

“No, I mean&er&something new. Catchy. A gimmick.”

“Like?”

“Well, Live gaming is a kind of a gimmick in and of itself.”

“Kind of. I dont know, this sounds like a bad idea. Why dont we figure out
how we can do our game before we solve the problem for everyone?” she was
getting irritated.

“But, as the designers, its our responsibility to come up with something
that is equally cool and fun in a field in Idaho as in an LA nightclub.”

“Amphetamines?”

“A system. A game mechanic.”

The argument continued all the way to Houston. Try as I might, I could not
get my lady to understand the idea I wanted. Finally, we turned the corner.
“Dammit, Sean, just listen. I was planning on having the music be different
in two rooms.”

It hit me.

MUSIC!

“Thats it!”

“Whats “it?”

“Music! Youre a genius! Well have the new mechanic be music-based! Youll
know youre in the areas designated as Edenic because there will be music.
Anyone who can run a LARP has access to a system of SOME kind.”

“Thats what you meant?”

“Yeah. We need to get to work on this!”

We turned a corner and proceeded up to a doorway where two underage girls in
tight black pants had just rung the buzzer. We pressed up to the apartment,
the door throbbing to the beat of the music inside. It opened with a rush of
the smells of sweat and marijuana smoke and the host invited us in.

“Aw, Sean, see that? Hes got his bandanna on and a coop devil shirt, too!
You two could be like&twins!”

We looked at each other and sighed deeply.

Ok, Kids, fast-forward a few months. I’m driving the long slow stretch of road called 78 West that connects New Jersey with absolutely nothing of any consequence. In the car with me is my brother Josh and our special guest stars–Gareth Michael-Skarka and Laura Hanson of “UnderWorld”! The methods by which the goup of mutants and malcontents called Synister Creative Systems came to publish UnderWorld is another story entirely, but rest assured you probably will hear it. In any case, it was one boring drive. We were talking systems. Or not. Actually, Josh and I were in our usual heated debate about the Important issues.

“Kid Rock is total ass.”

“Kid Rock rules, man.”

“No way. Kid Rock is ass.”

“No, man. Kid Rock has so many chicks he kicks them to his pet midget. ‘Sorry Ma’am, no more room in the bed here, just too many naked strippers with the flaming panty sweats for yours truly. Perhaps I can interest you in kicking some game to the midget?’ ‘Why certainly, Mr. Rock.’ ‘Well, he’s right over there under that stack of fine-assed bitches. Bet there’s still some room because he’s small.’”

I thought about it a sec.

“Dude, that’s my hero, man.”

“Then why the hell are you a game designer?” Gareth struck me from my reverie.

“Umm. Game designers get chicks. And they stack phat papers. I’ll be the Puff Daddy of Gaming.”

He considered it. Gareth had been my mentor for quite some time. We had initially met at Gen Con through a mutual friend at Aetherco–Dave Fooden of Continuum. Back then I was tagging along with the time-travel kids to get a taste for Gen Con, and I had liked it a lot. When we got back, Gareth was on the same flight to Kennedy. We hung out a couple more times since then (and got involved in YET ANOTHER fiasco to complex to explain) and he sort of evolved into the role of mentor to me and my fledgling project. It wasn’t long before he was on board.

“You might wanna look at your system before you go counting bills, there, Mase.”

“Hunh? What’s wrong with it?”

I examined the character sheet. It did seem a little clunky.

“Well, to start. The skills. You don’t need ‘em.”

“Hunh?”

“Well, Characters have two forms, right? One for Eden and one for Earth. So Earth skills can pretty much all fall under one stat and Eden skills can all be another. ”

“Powers. The Eden skills can be Powers.”

“As a matter of fact, you can eliminate all of these attributes. Your card deck has four suits, and your characters have four Stats- Physical, Cultural, Mental, Spiritual.”

Josh looked over his shoulder. “Sure, yeah. And instead of skill, the characters can just get proficiencies–like, I dunno. Driving. Or shooting. Or nuclear physics”

“Or humping strippers.”

“Or making corny-assed lame bites off Hip-hop.”

“Focus. You’ve just essentially cut the Character sheet in half,” Gareth muttered.

“Yeah, this is true. And I’d like to throw an advantage-and-disadvantage system in there.”

“I dunno,” Gareth sighed. “I think that that puts too big a focus on game balance.”

“Wait a minute!” I grinned. “I got it! We’ll have it so that you have to select as many points in disadvantages for your Soul-form as advantages for your human form. And vice versa.”

“Great! So some poor, puny snot-elemental soul might have an incredibly bad ass human form, whereas Somebody who is ‘Kayus, the eternal blood-god of the Heavenly Host’ in Eden might be a one-legged bum on earth! I love it!”

“It’s also a cool way to explain the discrepancy between the Sanhedrin being more powerful on Earth and the Apostate being more powerful in Eden. Very cool.”

“We’re here.”

We dropped off Gareth and Laura at their stop and pulled the car around. For a long time there was contented silence.

“Kid Rock TOTALLY sucks.”

Well, not that long.

Kings Highway, Brooklyn. 1999.

“Dude.”

In this case, it wasnt an exclamation, or an expletive, or anything else. It was just a statement. The look in my brother Joshs eyes was dire- not really sorrow, at this point, it was just confusion.

“Yeah…dude.”

“That makes…what…two?”

“Two this past year.”

I thought about it. “Christ. You know the old numbers rule…”

“DONT say it.”

We sat on a stoop wearing a mixture of what was formal and what was convenient. Mere hours ago, we had been going about our lives, and now here we were on a cool spring day in Brooklyn at the apartment building where our Uncle George had just recently suffered his last heart attack. George had been a grizzled old guy with no neck and a thick face. Apparently some biological zoning ordinance had relocated every scrap of hair on his head to his ears and eyebrows. It often struck me how much he resembled Darth Vader, in appearance, sound, and coloration, at the end of Return of the Jedi. My earliest memory of him was watching him and my grandfather argue about baseball.

Upstairs our folks were working out the details with the landlord, and Josh and I had just got off the phone with the hospital. We had come out to get some air. Old Jews in Brooklyn dont believe in the concept of Hell; instead they leave their thermostats at 110 in the middle of summer. Oddly, it doesnt seem to bother them. Must be all that wandering in the desert. Over the course of the last five years, the eldest generation of Josh and my family- the Jaffes- had dwindled to nothing more than our immediate family.

“Dude.”

“Dude.” I acknowledged.

I took out a deck of old playing cards from some long-defunct casino and shuffled it- a nervous habit of mine, and a holdover from my dear Las Vegas.

“Can you not do that now?” Josh asked.

“Sorry.” I tried to stick them back in my jacket and they scattered to the ground. As I bent to pick them up, another deck fell from my jacket. Josh put another stack of yellowed cards down to help me.

“So why did Aunt Rose give us all these cards?”

“I dunno. Knew we were into games I guess.”

“Why did Uncle George HAVE this many cards anyway? “Dunes Casino” Wasnt that, like…Vegas in the sixties?”

I tried to picture my Uncle George running through Circus Circus with a thin cigarette holder, a psychotic Samoan lawyer, and a near-fatal dose of crystal meth. It didnt work. I dunno.

I fanned out the cards and looked at them. Seven of Diamonds, Deuce of Clubs, Jack of Hearts, and Nine of Spades.

“Wait…Im getting an idea.” Josh looked at me, bright-eyed. Clearly, this was one of those bright, shiny ideas that gleamed like a new toy. I listened.

“There’s the Vegas rules for Poker, Blackjack, and even Solitaire, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Theres the D20 system, the Storyteller system, the Palladium system, right?”

“Josh, youre a genius! The Vegas Rules System–copyright Synister Creative Systems!”

“Well, dont look at me. I think this was Uncle Georges idea.”

“So, yeah. Lets see. We do it all with cards. All cards–that way, you can go from live to sit down no sweat, just like the game requires, and you can play wherever–I mean, who doesnt have a deck of cards?”

“Yeah, I hated looking under bookcases for 20 siders whenever we didnt have any.”

“Actually, my idea for using the dog as a random number generator would have worked if she didnt keep chewing the numbers off.”

“She was covered in post-it notes. She looked like a fridge with ears.”

“It was still a good idea.”

“No it wasnt. Dogs are TOO random.”

“Well, well try it again with something else. Maybe a lizard. Or an orphan.”

“Or an Amish.”

“We dont know any Amish, you homo.”

“Andre.”

“Dres Puerto Rican.”

“Oh yeah.”

Approximately a half-hour later we had come up with a basic system that granted characters four Qualities to coincide with the suits in the deck.

Josh hunkered over his laptop on the stoop as Brooklyn happened around us and listened patiently to my suggestions.

“Speed, Strength, Brains, Personality”

“Too Palladium.”

“Physical, Mental, Social, Mystical”

“Too White Wolf.”

“Mentality, Health, Heart, Soul”

“Too Snapple.”

“Mind, Body, Body, Body, Boobs, Butt…”

“Stop looking at her and pay attention!”

“Mental, Spiritual, Physical, Cultural.”

We high fived.

“Ah! OOH! Whatcha gonna do? When you make a game with the two-half-Jews?”

“I know my systems, kid.”

“Okay, so basically, they get an attribute, and a skill or a power or something, and draw, and they add the number on the card to the number on the sheet to beat a target number. ”

Josh continued to stare at his screen. “Needs work.”

“Yeah, okay…well…Jokers, For example. Jokers could screw you over somehow. Like cut your total down. Like a failure or a botch.”

“And Aces could be real good.”

“Aces should be ones.”

“Why?”

“Because, otherwise, something else would have to be ones, and that would get confusing.”

“Why cant the numbers start at two?”

“That would make the deuces ones- serious pain in the pooper.”

“Good point.”

“So, how about Kings? They could be good. And if you get a king of the appropriate suit, it would be totally bangin. ”

“Nootchies. Im all über it. ”

“Hey, wait a minute. Is it right for us to be sitting here discussing our new game system when our Uncle just kicked mere hours ago in this very building ?”

We both suddenly got very cold.

“Were evil.”

“We are scum.”

“Were total bastards.”

“Were total dorks.”

We ascended the staircase somberly and buzzed up to the unnaturally warm apartment.

Sandwiches, as it turned out, were waiting for us.

“I really think you should know, that no matter how this goes, my friend, I want you to understand that I will always view this little incident as being your fault.” Adam Cahill placed his hand on Inazumis shoulder. The bat-winged, reptilian alien turned to look at him incredulously.

“My fault?”

“Sure. If we hadnt had to rescue you, none of this would have happened. We wouldnt have been in a pit full of military-grade genetic waste and six foot Caco-demons, we wouldnt have fought a jumbo-jet sized severed demon head, we wouldnt have contracted these…bleeding sores…and we certainly wouldnt be marching across an Operation: Antichrist military installation with guns in our backs!”

“Quiet.” Intoned the Defense Echelon Trooper who walked the two prisoners across the field toward the installation. DETs as they are known, are nearly mindless, completely soulless Automaton homogenized into complete servitude by the GODHEAD. They do not eat, breathe, or think, and whats worse, there are literally millions of them. Inazumi considered an answer, then decided against it.

“Wheres Dane?” Inzumi snarled. “That Dominion should have been here by now.”

“Oh, you know Angels.” Mumbled Cahill. “Never there when you need em.”

Dane perched on a ridge of the complex, stammering quietly. He unfurled his wings and turned, still mumbling to himself, and flew back in the direction of his friends. He dropped down behind the DET and blasted it with holy light. The trooper shuddered and fell as Dane grabbed its gun and continued to stammer to Adam and Inazumi.

“Buh…Buh…big. Buh…Big. Big. Big!”

“Whats he talkin?” Asked Adam.

“Something big.” Said Inazumi. “What did you see? What did you see, Dane?”

“Th…the…The body.I found the body. Not good”

“The what?” Adam and Inazumi looked each other in confusion.

With that, the ground trembled, then shook again. The sound of jackboots marching in perfect cadence joined the louder, more ominous thundering footfalls. Dane pointed excitedly at a shape that rose up from behind the complex to fill the grey-red Xibalban Sky. “That!”

The demon beast had to be the size of small town. Half a mile from shoulder to tail, with hooves the size of buildings, its neck terminated not in a head, but rather in a series of tubes and wires that connected to a control center mounted on its back . Great chafing sores surrounded the various cybernetically-implanted heavy gun turrets installed in the creatures bulk, and a roaring bonfire burned in the creatures belly. This Behemoth ran on souls–lots of them.

“Oh, guys…what I wanna know is…when did this happen to Jesus, hunh? When did Jesus Christ have to fight a giant battleship with feet, hunh? Or Bhudda? How come WE get the brown end of the Messiah stick, hunh?” Cahill punctuated his words with a spit.

Inazumi watched the beast carefully. “You know how those scientists were making those cockroaches into robots by cutting off their heads and putting electrodes on em?” mumbled the alien, not taking his eyes off the creature.

“Here comes trouble. Follow my lead.” Said Dane, shapeshifting into a DET. He jammed his gun into Cahills ribs. Cahill and Inazumi marched forward.

The beast lumbered slowly around the complex, as a battalion of DETs carrying the war standard of The Regime marched alongside. Dane, still in disguise, approached the commander, a skeletal demon in what appeared to be original Third Reich regalia.

“Prisoner transfer from cell block 1138.”

“Oh, good one, champion. You see that in a movie somewhere?”

Dane whacked Inazumi in the ribs with the gun.

The commander examined Adam and Inazumi carefully. “Take them to Processing. Section 34-D”

The three turned and started to march away. Suddenly, the commander stopped them.

“Wait! Is that one an Enlightened?” He pointed at Adam, who shrugged. Dane nodded. “Throw him in the pitfires, instead.” The commander grinned. “Lets see how much this thing gets to the gallon.”

Soon, Adam and Inazumi stood at the edge of the bonfire on the War Pigs back. Dane stayed near the commander on the ground.

“Wait! I should warn you we actually found these two in the waste basin. The impurities in the waste might have an effect on the pitfires. Youll want purer souls to test this thing.”

“Hmm.” The demon thought. “Perhaps youre right. Bring in the chemical scrub.”

Inazumi looked down at the troopers, then over at Adam. “Okay. Thats it. ” He cupped his hand to his mouth. “Can you all hear me down there?” he shouted to the bewildered Defense Echelon Troopers. “You all hear me? Good. Listen up! Screw you guys, Im going home!” With that, the scaly alien flipped the bird to several dozen troopers and faded out of reality.

“Theyre Messiahs! Execute them!” Screamed the commander before a beam of holy light took off most of his shoulder.

Up on the back of the beast, Adams twin pistols leaped into his hands, seemingly from out of nowhere. He jumped backward as a hail of bullets from the ground below narrowly missed him, popping a shot into the head and neck of the troopers closest to him. They tumbled to the ground screaming.

“Theres no place like home, Theres no place like home, theres no place like home…Dammit!” Adam fired off a few more shots, but the Troopers were closing in fast. Cursing, he tossed his coat up over a guidewire, grabbed it with one hand, and kicked off, bellowing a tarzan-like war cry. He slid past the Troopers, shooting back at them as they fired.

Back on the ground, The commander screeched back at his troops. “No! Dont hit the beast–we need it for the Assault on the City Of Chango! Lord SihqHuskar will have my head!”

Dane beheaded the Commander and grabbed the nearest Trooper. “Let me Tell you what it was like in Rykers…first of all, there was no fighting like this…” He slammed the trooper in the ribs, shooting it with his gun. The dead soldier slid from his grasp. “…or theyd cut your throat in the exercise yard.”

With that he felt the burning lights and the sensation of being dragged underwater. When his head cleared, he was again in his mortal Coil, Tyler Capuzo. His soul, Dane, was safe. He sat up and surveyed his surroundings, somewhere in the Nevada desert. He looked over at Inazumi, now Gregory Ventin. “You okay?”

“Im fine. You?”

“Yeah…wheres Adam?”

The sound of Adams scream came long before he did, landing face-first in the dust. He spit sand from his mouth. “Well, that sucked.”

Peter looked up at me over Greg/Inazumis sheet. “The City of Chango. Isnt that…New Orleans?”

“Yup.” I smiled. I looked over as Nicole and Frankies smug expressions dropped.

Pete stood up and pointed. “Ha-hah! Its coming for you next! No longer our problem!”

Dre placed Adams sheet flat on the table, and Mike put Dane down on top of it. “Yep. No WAY Im dealing with that thing again.”

Nicole gave me her best cute expression. “You wouldnt do that to me…and Frankie…Were your best artists, Remember?”

“Bite me.” Pete sneered.

I gathered the sheets and grinned. “Well see. Maybe you guys with think of something more clever next week than getting shot at all the time.”

“Yeah, right.” Frank growled.

“Well, look at the bright side. At least I got a pretty good article out of it.”

Its hard to dodge anything over three people throwing stuff at you at once.

Or, What not to do at a Trade Show

I’m sitting in the Golden Nugget Casino on Freemont street, drinking in the
contrast. If the strip is Disneyworld, this is…Newark. Shady, utiliarian, and
fairly grungy, this little corner of Vegas was designed to part a fool and
his money, and leave the task of distracting said fool for to the glitz and
flash of the strip. You want lights, we got lights. You want booze we got
booze. You want tits we got tits. Now lose some @#$%! money.

“So what do you do?”

I love that question, I think it’s in the manual somewhere for being a dealer
at a Blackjack table. They don’t really care, and would prefer a simple
answer like “Banker” “car salesman” or “rich inheirtor with a gambling
problem who leaves Blackjack dealers massive tips.” But it’s his fault for
making small talk so I decide to let him have it both barrels.

“I’m president of Synister Creative Systems- we’re a small gaming company out
of North Jersey.”

The guy shoots me a look as he tosses down my cards. He clearly believes that
if I was in the gaming business I should be playing better Blackjack than
this. I clarify.

“No, we do roleplaying games.”

“Oh, I loved Final Fantasy.”

I swear, next person who tells me that after I tell them what I do is going
to get beaned in the dome with a hardcover copy of Deadlands or something. I
hate the next bit.

“No, print games. Like…D&D or Vampire.”

“Oh, I got a cousin who does that.”

Who doesn’t?

He smiles as he collects my chips. “You’re in town with that GAMA thing then?”

“Yeah, over at The Orleans.Not a bad joint. Buffet is okay. Waitresses’re
top-notch.”

“So I hear.” He smiles. “I thought that convention was over already.”

“It ended today. I decided to come out here because I had never seen Freemont
Street. Just heard about it in the Tom Waits song- with the line “I sold my
ass on Freemont Street.” and all that. Sounded like easy cash. Last minute
decision.”

“Hm?”

“I was supposed to be out with this chick from some card game company
tonight. She got sick and couldn’t make it so I decided to head out by
myself. What was her name? Terry? Tori?…Ah…Hit me.”
He did. I busted. I mechanically placed another pair of chips on the green
velvet.

“Was she hot?”

“Wasn’t like that… My girl’s back in Queens by now. We were just gonna go out
to have a good time.”

I’d had a good week, so this was money I was still technically “up.” It had
been pretty weird mixing to of my faves- the gaming industry and Vegas. They
didn’t exactly go. I enjoy spending quality time with my dog and pornography,
too, but I don’t necessarily want to enjoy them together. Still, Vegas is my
home away from Jersey, and I’ve never enjoyed any city as much as this giant
cartoon. I was oddly comfortable here. There’s a certain freedom that comes
when absoltely nothing is real. Freedom leads to irresponsibility, and that
leads to rediculous betting. I pile the rest of the chips on the table.

“This should do it.” I smirk. Paying whatever hundred-odd bucks for four
seconds of suspense seems like a good deal in a place like Freemont
Street.Seconds later I am staring in rapt fascination at the ace and jack in
front of me. A huge pile of chips joins the stack. I smile, tip him a red
one, (I hope those were worth a lot) cash out, and leave.

As I walk out, I notice a bearded guy in a red baseball cap following me in a
mirror. I decide to take an awkward turn back toward the hotel area. He
follows. I dart down a side door and pop out behind the casino, walking
briskly. Looking over my shoulder, I watch the door to see if he follows.

Nothing. I look around and my heart sinks. I’m dressed in my finest with over
three hundred in cash in my pocket somewhere in the ghettos of Las Vegas.
Smooth. I scan the horizon, hoping to find some sort of an idea. The phallic
monument to cash, chance and ambition called the Stratosphere Tower stands
proudly before me like a great big boner for the whole city. I figure my best
bet is head towards that. At least there I know I’ll be able to find a taxi.

I’ve been walking for about half an hour and the scenery hasn’t much changed.

I’m back on the Strip, but it’s just a seedy section of Las Vegas Boulevard
punctuated by the occaisional porn shop or wedding chapel, which was actually
a good sign. Residential areas are the ones to look out for. As I consider
this fact, I look at the houses around me, then pause to listen to the sound
of the car coming up the street. Sounds wrong…it’s going too slow. As I turn
to run, the yellow camaro bursts up past me, onto the curb and halfway onto
the sidewalk. Startled, I fall back on my butt and scrabble backward as the
guy in the red cap lunges from the passenger side door. He gets my ankle and
yanks me back toward him- this was one strong cracker. I tried to roll with
it as he grabbed me by the hair (which I decide right there I have altogether
too much of) and bounces my face off the hood of the Camaro. I fail and
tumble to the dirt in front of the car. Then his buddy emerges from the
driver’s seat, and all I see of him was a silhouette.

A silhouette with a bat.

Adrenaline is great stuff. Red hat makes another lunge for my ankle, but my
random flailing catches him in the jaw. I see the driver raise his bat as I
sprint toward the nearest house, into the backyard, and up over the fence,
listening to them cursing and threatening as I run like I hadn’t run since I
was a teenager in Newark. I bolt all the way back to the Stratosphere, and
that must be over a mile- like I said, Adrenaline is great stuff.

I grab a taxi at the stand and wheeze out directions to the Orleans before I
realize that I’m technically in the Midwest and the cabbise here speak
English, and, better yet, know where they’re going. I’m shaking and pale and
my face feels clammy. I’m exausted and thoroughly freaked, and the prospect
of going back to an empty hotel room is an ugly one. I just want to tell
someone what happened. I want to talk.

The doorbell buzzes once, twice … and a tall, darkhaired girl gets up from
her bed and peers through the peephole to her room in disgust. Standing in
front of the door, wheezing, and rubbing his head is a scruffy, wild-haired
idiot in a rumple jacket and torn shirt, covered in grass stains.

“Sean…I’m not coming out. Go away.”

I’m shocked. The sudden realization of what I look like hits me. Mike Tyson
booty call anyone?

“But…I…Uh… I’m not…Something happened!”

“You’re drunk. Go away.”

“But I..”

“It’s two AM! I’m going back to sleep!”

“But…I’m not drunk…I just …got my ass kicked…”
I turn and walk down the hallway, thinking about getting good and drunk at
the hotel bar instead. Gaming and Vegas just don’t mix. Don’t let anyone tell
you different.

—-

Sean Jaffe is the designer of The Last Exodus.

(The creation of a modern religious myth as told by some kids on the
subway.)

Part 1: Impetus

I don’t remember it perfectly, but I remember the basic gist.

The lights
were
a bit too bright, the floor a little too sticky, and the breasts on the
dancer in front of me a bit too …pneumatic. She smiled at me in an almost
maternal way and I paid a dollar for the bizarre version of attention. I
sipped my coffee.

It was 1998 and I wasn’t feeling too well. I had tagged
along on a trip to Washington D.C. in order to get my head on straight. I
was broke, unemployed, and had just been dumped by two women on account of my
sleeping with two women, which I suppose makes sense. I had seventy-two
dollars in my pocket, the last of my money on Earth. I was supposed to be
sleeping, but the room I was sharing with my dad had only one bed and I had
drawn the “floor” straw. The worst part was that none of this was actually
what was bothering me.

So I wandered. I wasn’t sure how long I had walked before I found the place.

Bad neighborhood but my head wasn’t on straight anyway and I was probably
looking for trouble at that point. You gotta wonder about a strip club with
a
less than ten dollar cover.

A reassuring hand on my shoulder startled me.

“Hey, Blondie, wanna buy me a drink?”

I looked up. She was certainly cute- Haitian, I was guessing. Naturally
voluptuous – a stripper’s body- and crammed into a positively pornographic
pink dress designed for ease of removal in spike heels. I smiled despite the
fact that I knew this girl’s interest in me was somewhere between apathy and
loathing. This was her job, and I was willing to pay what I could for the
conversation. She’d try and get me to buy a lap dance, and I’d try to
pretend
that she actually wanted ME to pay for it as opposed to anyone else.

“You don’t look like a regular.”

“I’m not. I’m from Jersey.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I looked up and realized that I was one of maybe five white guys in here,
and
the only one not dressed in Tommy Hilfiger with a white baseball cap on my
head.

“Oh.” I mumbled. “I guess I didn’t notice.”

“That’s okay. I like something different, every once in a while. I’m
actually
an actress.”

“I figured.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I been in strip clubs before. Most girls aren’t so believable when
fishing for a lap dance.”

She smirked and eased into the seat more.

“And what do you do?”

“I’m…uh… a freelance game designer, I guess.”

“Oh, I just love Mario.”

“No, no… I do published book games, you know… like…um… Vampire or D&D.”

I mumbled the last bit, failing to conceal my embarrassment.

“I had a brother that did that. You write those?”

“For what it’s worth.” I swigged more coffee.

“What’s that pay?”

“Ah, there’s the problem. You see, I’d love to accompany you to the back
room, but it pays nothing, apparently. Hence the coffee and the crappy tips
to your friends despite their obvious physical assets. They deserve a lot
more than I can pay, but I don’t see the point of not sitting up front in a
place like this.”

“Huh?”

“This has been something I’ve wanted to do since I was ten, but I naively
studied the form and style of Design rather than the business, and the
simple
fact is that there is none. I’m broke. There’s more money in soiled
underwear.”

“Don’t remind me.” She muttered.

“So I’m trained for a field that can’t support anyone. I’m sorry to have…uh…
deluded you, I can’t go in the back room.”

“That’s okay. You’re harmless and I need a break. This way I can finish my
drink in peace before the manager catches me.”

“What’s your name?”

“Crystal.”

“Your real name.”

She brightened. “Veronica. You’ve done this before.”

“Veronica, I’m Sean. Pleased to meet you. ”

She shook my hand in a businesslike manner.

“Well, Sean, it looks to me like you’re feeling sorry for yourself. We get a
lot of that in here.”

“Yeah, probably.”

“Well, what is your game about?”

“Um…” The question had shocked me. “I don’t have my own game… I write for
other companies. They have the games and I expand on what they’ve done.”

“Well, hell. There you go.”

I straightened, as though slapped. She made perfect sense.

“’Course you don’t make any money, you’re a “game designer” that ain’t got
no
game.”

I stared, dumbfounded. Of course. Of course!

She stood up.

“Well, My drink is finished. I appreciate that. Listen, you should go down
to the Smithsonian tomorrow, there’s an exhibit on George Lucas. Worth a
look.”

“How did you know I…-”

“Because IG-88 is sticking out of your coat pocket. I gotta go- that’s my
cue.”

I watched her dance the rest of her set, and left silently.

The exhibit was amazing, nearly a religious experience for such a die-hard
Jedi wannabe as myself. I stared at everything, drinking it in, trying to
glean as much inspiration as I could. While my ideas appealed to me, nothing
revolutionary occurred. I took as many different free pamphlets as I could
and left, hoping to blow some of the last of my cash on my rumbling stomach.

I rapidly found a church of the holy arches and planted myself in with a
quarter-pounder and coke. I needed something new, something edgy, something
sacred. Something no one had ever had the stones to consider before. Hours
ticked by. I stared out the window.

Nothing. I started to feel worse. Uninspired and alone. Lost. I got up to
throw away the tray full of empty paper and slammed, chest-first, into a
busy
suit-and tie type. He looked over my scraggly form and checked himself for
ketchup stains.

“Jesus Christ, watch where you’re going!”

I smiled at him.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.”

—-

Sean Jaffe is the designer of The Last Exodus.