A Place Beyond Shame, Part 6: System of a Clown (part 2 of 2)

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.