Two players at a table over the letters GOTHEGAMING OUTPOSTThe archive

Multiverser · Read-only archive

Constellaton: Multiverser

Started by tadeusz · May 5, 2010

40 surviving posts. Original order and wording are retained; deleted and spam-marked entries are excluded.

When creating something I often have a second point, or a theme, or just a weird notion I'm playing with as a guiding influence. If I don't, I often find myself lost in the sea of choices. Why A instead of B-Z? My minds spins a bit doing nothing, and I either find a way to get traction or come back later, I guess. One example of this is the Thieves' Dungeon which is influenced by my desire to point out an obvious to me aspect of going underground.

I had this problem a bit with this time of Multiverser. Now, I should try to pick out a set of worlds that showcases the variety possible in Multiverser (a little magic, a little tech....), and I should try to pick worlds that are instinctively interesting, that grab you from the get-go, and in addition are fairly violent so the PC won't survive too long in them. But you can't make them too hard for people to wrap their minds around or I'll hurt people's brains unless you give them a strong stake in understanding it (I had that happen in one very simple world that was too barren).

To the worlds....

Grendel Rex: I've playtested this one successfully, and I think it would be appreciated by a lot of players. Its got an instinctive appeal and an obvious place for the verser.

Grendel is eating the Vikings. Verser save them, and help this nice kid who's kind of clumsy become the hero he's meant to be. The twist is that Grendel is an immature male T-Rex, and the wyrms are plesiosaurs and the wyrdfloga?? are pternodons (or was it the dactyl?).

Problem everyone is going to say this was founded on "How To Train Your Dragon". It wasn't but the movie does show the fascination of Viking and large scaly beasts.

Next world==>

The Rise of the Gods: I've never playtested this one. Its set early in Earth's history with a long-lived Patriarch and Nation Founder deciding to tell his children he's the Creator. Its a world of incredible cruelty. The verser stands out like a sore thumb because he looks different (shorter, modern clothes, wrong accent), and the Evil Patriarch thinks he is an angel sent from the Creator to negotiate with the Patriarch.

This is a world with 15@10 magic unlike the Viking world which has pretty low magic, so we examine magic here as more of the focus compared to tech and brute force with the Vikings. One distinct possibility is the Verser can receive help from the Creator.

Both these worlds are for fairly tough mentally and/or physically beginning characters. No wimps need apply. Obviously, I need to go away from Earth history, and from magic and swords to balance, and probably also some more gentle on the surface worlds.

Next World==>

I'm not sure at the moment. I know I need a minimum of two more worlds, and better yet another six. I'll probably use Volcano Island as my intro world.

You'll obviously want a tech world. I've actually got a vague idea for a high-tech, flatlined magic and psionics world revolving around a human-built gate network that can accomodate starships, but it'll be a while to get that into a usable form, though I'm probably going to start a brainstorming thread soon.

I'd suggest the warehouse dimension Scott dropped me into. I don't think he has the specifics around currently, but I know the general idea. Basically, the world, at least as far as I explored, consisted of a giant warehouse full of cardboard boxes containing things that had apparently gone into stasis when placed in the boxes. What was in each box was determined by a GE roll and Scott's whim. Tech bias was high, magic unknown but apparently not flatlined, and psionics not interacted with.

Good for getting equipment, possibly combat with something in one of the boxes, and a swift exit if a GE roll turns up 27+.

I always think that a space world is in order, so I usually include Destiny. Sometimes I use Mary Piper Beta, but I prefer using Alpha and with only a few players I don't like having them both run opposite each other. (I do like it in a longer game or with more players, but that's a different issue.)

I'm reminded of the world Graeme ran for Kelly a while back, in which she was on some sort of space ship or station that was largely dead. Unfortunately, she stepped out an airlock before we learned much about that world, but it's an interesting concept that I'm sure you could use for your own.

I also usually think a horror world is good to include, but if you've got two fantasy worlds you've got to go with a horror that is modern--maybe one of the modern zombie ideas like Resident Evil, or something like Evil Dead. I use Vorgo, of course, but that's another medieval/ancient with high mag. Sometimes I use Haunted House, which while having a high mag bias for the antagonist at least has a modern setting.

Just some thoughts. Ninjas are cool, too, and you could run Dark Honor Empire Beta as an alternate modern.

--M. J. Young

Heh. That is pretty cool.

I had a world which consisted of a planet-covering rickety wooden house. Renovation World, I called it. It was created by improperly controlled nanotech.

Warehouse World tho' sounds simpler, and easier to grasp which would be more appropriate for a convention.

In fact, WW might be good as an intro world. Instead of Michael Di Vars, I'd have another verser, less combat capable, give their viewpoint. Di Vars would just kill the Mutant Starbear which jumped out of the box on GE roll 27.

One advantage of Di Vars was that he seemed loony enough that you got an idea of what was going on, but you didn't accept his idea as the official canon.

So I need someone with some experience and power, but considerably weaker than Di Vars or Tadeusz the Sledgehammer, with a strange point of view to be the Intro Guide NPC so that everyone verses out when the Mutant Starbear shows up.

As to being a while, Constellation is not until September so I'm getting set real early. You have time to get your gate world set up.

MJ,
Modern horror for me is ...
1. The Ladyfaire's adaptation of Haunted House which has that world being a world of the dead, and ghosts as citizens...which makes the ghost trying to kill you an angry homeowner protecting himself from a burglar (verser.)
2. Red Shirt Horror World....the world where everyone thinks sending the blonde down into the basement alone is an excellent and well-thought out plan, and where the only smart people on the planet are the abundant serial killers.

I'd like to come up with something new.

My first two worlds are 'alternate' historical, not so much fantasy. I've read the arguement that the Grendel was a T-rex, and the arguement that the first pagan gods were the ancestors...Jupiter is Japheth, Hephaestus is Cain. So these are more hidden history worlds.

Intro: Warehouse World with NPC Verser?????
First Set of Four:
A. Grendel Rex
B. Rise of the Gods
C.

If I was going to go with Modern Zombie, I'd say go with A1's Amish World. It had that nice feature of being a completely logical, but totally unexpected world. Pulling that trick off makes your players think that you the GM is really smart and clever.

I had forgotten the Amish Zombie idea, but that's probably good. I had a passing thought that you could combine that dead spaceship with zombies to do a sort of space horror thing, but you can get away from the zombies (they force you to choose between having some sort of tech explanation or a high mag bias, usually) and go with some other monster, Alien on a somewhat lighter scale. Of course, you can go with something parasite-like, a controlling symbiont that takes over humans (and other carbon-based life) and hunts them for food or hosts. That can be pretty scary. That's probably better, though, if you bring two PC versers in together--but sometimes you get people who want to do that, so it's a possibility.

--M. J. Young

I like 4900 A.D..

Looking through the 'Worlds' link, I came across a kind of request from you to make a Zeppelin with city-states Mary Piper. I'm probably not going to do that for Constellation...but then it would be different. That guy would have a more normal life, and years would pass for him while the other players would be trying to survive one day.

With the dying spaceship, I think I'll go for a two-layered approach. There are humans and aliens on board, but they are running out of supplies. So the leaders of the group have a lottery to determine who goes out the airlock to the cold part of the space station and spare the rest of the group. Meanwhile the leaders are having a message missile with a wormhole drive built to call for help.

What's actually going on is that the leaders are being controlled by symbionts to block any good ideas, and to kill all the people which provides hosts for the hatching eggs. At which time the exiled human or alien (Blikten I think) goes into a coma as the symbiont egg feeds. The goal of the symbionts is to kill all the stationers, and have the escape device ready for them to board it and go elsewhere.

Its kind of a Cold Equations situation, or so it seems. And the PC is going to be real low on status, and if he suggests good ideas to save everyone he's going to find himself even more likely to 'lose' the lottery.

So...
Intro: Warehouse World
1. Grendel Rex
2. Rise of the Gods
3. 4900 A.D.
4. Cold Station
====
5. Amish Zombie
6. Mary Piper Zeppelin
7. JTM's world??
8.

I missed 4900 AD in the lists. Which one is that?

--M. J. Young

I wrote it up a few months ago. Its the one where everyone has multiple forms of disability. Humanity has decayed genetically. Its a twilight sort of world in which a verser with ordinary human capabilities would be one of the most healthy and capable and non-mental of the people on the planet.

Well, the world brainstorming thread is up. I'm figuring it might be developed into a good longish term world, but it also has the potential to be easy to end rather quickly.

Maybe put Rise of the Gods in the Set Two group of worlds because the Patriarch who is the Big Bad in it is a very competent if misguided foe. Then I could do as JTM suggests and put Gates of the EDF in Set One.

One amusing way to do it would be to do an All Zombie All The Verse game.

Intro World: You're on a battlefield and there are dead bodies everywhere. The only ones living are the other versers, and your guide verser. Sun goes down, and Zombies rise. Thousands of Zombies surround you....fight to the end.

I'd need to decide which battlefield although I'm leaning Napoleonic or SF Infantry.

Round One:
A. Tech: Cyberpunk Zombie with an AI downloading instructions through brain-links.
B. Magic: Quest for the Vorgo:
C. Body: Amish Zombie World:
D. Psi:

Round Two: More zombies. Or Perhaps Vamps. We do have something like 14 vamp types.
?????

Final Gather: The Plains of Kharigen with a Zombie Horde as the enemy. Much like Jhiaxus's game now.

Probably won't go with that, but its a fun idea.

In any case, I need to get cracking as the game is the weekend after this weekend.

I remember one Zombie world with aliens and biotech researchers set up as the scapegoats by the aliens. And of course, a Tabloid world would be cool....imagine the first newspaper the PC finds is a Tabloid with a drawing of his face on teh front cover and a headline 'Extradimensional Entity Prophesied to Arrive and Save the World from Zombie Invasion.'

So, basically, the idea for gather #1 is Starcraft II's outbreak mission?

In all honesty, that one was pretty cool and it's too bad you probably wouldn't be able to get away with filing off the serial numbers and running it at a con.

Haven't played Starcraft 2, and perhaps only a tiny bit of Starcraft One.

World of Fog with Jack the Ripper as a well-meaning necromancer raising the dead who then rampage as they are demonic entities lying to him. Perhaps that's too much, two differing threats.

JTM,
I also thought about doing that Warehouse World, but have the last bad GE roll be the opening of the Endless Box of Zombies.

And the Amish Zombie world is called Daywalkers right?

Second Post...

Intro World: Warehouse World with last box is Endless Box of Zombies.
Round One:
1. Tech: Cyberpunk Zombie
2. Magic: Quest for the Vorgo
3. Body: Daywalker
4. Psi:

Round Two:
5. Tech: Biotech and Aliens
6. Magic: Jack the Ripper, Naive Necromancer
7.

Humorously, my playthrough of Warehouse World involved a box containing a zombie demanding "Chaaannngggeee" This was several years before it was topical who was eventually distracted by a coin pouch after being attacked by nanomotile pop-tart filling.

For the Starcraft II mission in question, these two screenshots sum it up pretty well:

http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/850126/images/590/starcraft2_b03_031.jpg

http://guidesmedia.ign.com/guides/850126/images/590/starcraft2_b03_105.jpg

Thanks.

That would be cool to have a bunch of zombies chanting for 'change'. A nicely political poke at the Obamamaniacs who did things like draw naked pictures of Obama on a unicorn. (Yes, I liked George Bush, but no, I'm not planning on a nekkid pic of him on a unicorn any time soon. I think that's proof I'm partisan, but not nuts.)

Psi Rnd. One could be 'World of Fog'. I have to say that Jack the Ripper, Naive Necromancer would be a fairly easy world, and might do for Rnd. One.

Second Post...

World: Pannichonn is a world with zombies in it, but it might be too complicated a world for a convention. Its the one with Necromancers in it that I was thinking about.

Third post...

I'm hopping over to the Con website, and the first gaming page has a list of RPG games that are being run....4e D&D; Vampire; D20; ....my first reaction is 'hey, um, hey, aren't those the games I was going to run...'. Well, as it turns out its not that bad.

Thinking I will do the 'World of Obsolescence' in part because it may have already been listed on teh con sheet, and because, hey, its interesting, different, and already done. I don't have to come up with a long list of characters for it.

I'll just do the 'most vampires are dead or in torpor in the ground, deep sleeping the century away.' So, no one is actively searching for them, and if they learn to be clever and devious they'll do fine. Its a game about being clever and devious, or not, and then hopefully surviving to the point where you can clean up after yourself, or at least break the hounds trail. And it will offer them a chance to grab great power as most vampires are asleep.

I do need to run up a list of vampire sketches, and situations and such.

Residents and Locations of Huntsville 2030
==========================================

1. The Fort Fight Massacre in 2019....the local library looks like a fort so residents call it 'the Fort'. A group of desperate Malkavians and Brujah holed up in there as they were pursued. They killed everyone there, and in turn, they were slaughtered. This might have led to serious issues with autopsies, but a ghoul police detective was able to 'accidentally drop' an incendiary grenade and burn the whole place down. This also pretty much finished the Malks and the Brujahs as an active force in the Tennessee Valley.
2. J wrote up the Vampire PC character sheets, and for his own amusement, he put in that at least one of them was being pursued by the Ventrue Clan of Vampires, the Ashleys. So, I figure to make the current mayor an Ashley, but a ghoul. But, I'll make it less obvious...she's married. Her married name is Helen Rochester, and she's married to the Prince of the City, an Ashley vampire...unfortunately for him, he's a Prince without much of a domain. He has one elder in his court, and few vampires answer to him. He spends his days in the top most room of the Purple People Eater Building (what my father named a purple skyscraper downtown) moodily self-pitying himself over his diminished state.
3. The only Elder to answer to Lord Ashley is Hans Broughton, Brujah, former concentration camp guard and current human eliminationist. He's graduated from loving nature and hating Jews to loving nature and hating Humanity. He wants to find someone to make a lethal virus to kill all humanity, but his problem is that he's not that bright. And the few times he gets close, Lord Ashley out maneuvers him, and has the person killed.

He'd be sympathetic to that guy that got shot at the Discovery Station or Center about a week or two ago...the one who ranted about 'parasitic human babies'.

Hans believes that Nature created Vampires to cull the herd.
4. A Toreador 10th gen Ancilla (a rank down from Elder) named Ms. Logan is trying to head up the 'Nice City Patrol'. As Toreadors do, she's obsessed with beauty. Her form of beauty is a city like the one in Demoliton Man. Her solution to rudeness is 'the punishment fits the crime'...so for a dirty mouth she pulls the tongue out, and for insulting the skin color of someone...'you n....' she flays the person alive. She's the Harpy (a political office) for the Prince who considers her a raving loon, but not wanting to be subjected to her fanaticism mostly lets her do her own thing. Yes, he's fairly weak-willed.

She has a large number of handsome guys as ghouls. One of her businesses is 'Models, Inc.' which hires out models for photoshoots, and its where she recruits her newest members of the Nice City Patrol.

There are a couple groups of Nosferatu in the sewers, and in the Tenn. River, but they don't bow to the Prince. They just hide.

5. Ravnos...there will be one Ravnos, the King of Gyspies self-styled, who is behind the scenes running the one week only mobile amusement park that runs on the back parking lot of Parisian Mall. For 20 bucks, you can ride all night on the unsafe amusement park rides...which are haunted.

6. The Church of the Open Mind is run by a Ventrue 12th gen. Its basically a 'be nice, materialist' cult that serves as a herd for Jack Hooper, former Old West gunslinger/bandit, and now 'spiritual leader'. It tries to 'work together' with other churches in order to boost Jack's power, but so far, almost no one is biting even though it has commendable views on helping the poor, and opposing raciscm (Jack's not racist....He likes Thai food, and African food, and English food...). Jack opposes any real spirituality in his church because the last thing he wants is someone to access a Power.

I need some more later, but suggestions are welcome.

Part of my MV problem, just part, is that I'd like to run like twenty or thirty different worlds.

With Warehouse World, I think I will make the Warehouse be the hold the Mary Piper in a Ptolemaic world where teh Piper's crew got lost on the outer sphere, and realizing they were going to die on the long trip between the stars, they decided to have a Last Feast and die like men. So there's no food on board. And the MP is a giant sail sled sliding across a crystal sphere a lightyear in diameter.

The intro character will be Dark Mistress Stephanie who first showed up in a WAW story as a 'wannabe the centre of attention, and lets be evil eventually' person.

This will definitely fulfill aim one of an intro world...this ain't Kansas.

Intro: Warehouse World/Mary Piper/Ptolemaic Universe/Ghost Ship
Tech:
Magic: Quest for the Vorgo
Psi: Men of Steel, Engines of Iron (Jhiaxus's former 1920's game which I keep trying to remember the title of.
Body: Grendel Rex

Tech: EDF Refugee Ship and Matmak Meatbots
Magic:
Body:
Psi: Possession World (the one in which others try to steal your body).

The first intro world has an unreliable narrator (evil and narcissistic) and a chance to gather up cool toys.

All the first four round worlds are worlds that are adventurous, and places where a verser can do a lot of good easily.

They're also seriously different.
Medieval Zombie and 1920's Green Men of Venus and Purple Men of Jupiter SF on a spaceship and Hidden History with Vikings and Dinosaurs with the real?? truth behind the Grendel legend.

Now, I'd like Cyberpunk Zombie which is pretty neat for the Tech slot and a good world for newbies, but I already have Medieval Zombies.

(And yes, the idea of All Zombies, All the Verse is kinda neat....someone should write a book with a collaborator about it. :) But, its also a kind of artistic pressing the boundaries/being clever thing which is not so neat for the normal layman.)

I need to reread Jhiaxus' world.

More later...

I had fun with the 1920's Science world, I still use that Axe and Shield belts to this day, the Mindmaze, The Sensitive's Ring as well. Also a lot of carnage, and possession skill learning.

Yes, I think that was one of my better worlds. Its strange, and clever, but easily accessible.

I think in Rnd. One I'll go with possession world aka Bodystealer's World which is cruel, but not too hard, and it gets you into the action right away. Its also strange, but easily accessible. The second negative is that it doesn't have as much opportunity for advancement in otehr skills as 1920's Space. I suppose I should have some sort of tech advance that normal people use as well.

So that's Rnd. One.

On two

Tech: EDF/Horror with 'zombies'
Magic:
Psi:
Body:

You ran a magic world I think with Avahur that gave him a mentor, and he was studying at a tower, sounds like a good one for magic. I might be wrong about who went through it, might have been Krillis, but same difference.

Body is the tough one, hard to find a world that makes Body the focus, maybe a Ninja/Martial arts themed one.

Intro: Mary Piper/Warehouse World (I need to make a GE chart for this).
Round One:
Tech:Iron Men, Iron Fusion
Magic:Quest for the Vorgo
Psi:Bodystealers
Body:Grendel Rex

Magic: Tower of Rhodes
Tech: EDF/Horror
Psi: This might not be Psi, but Kyler's game goes here.
Body: Daywalkers aka Amish Zombie World

Final Gather: Iron Plains of Kharigen vs. the necromantic Man of Steel and his legion of headless zombies (because headless zombies are just creepier).

Backup world A: Jack the Ripper, Naive Necromancer
Backup world B:
Stall world A:(in case one player gets ahead of another, and I want to bring everyone together about the same time. Very high lethality.) Florida 1987 (all your proteins are turned the opposite way from local proteins so you starve to death even as you pig out.)
Stall world B: SS Titanic Interstellar Pleasure Cruise Ship. You're on a cruise ship to the stars. Unfortunately, its about to crash into the sun in five minutes. Everyone else has evacuated, but there are robot security to stop you shoplifting.

I do have a Pan-Galactic Martial Arts tourney world which would be good, but its for too high level characters.

I thought you agreed in 1920's SciFi for first level Tech?

As for second level Psi, Don't you have a Psi Cop like world?

Pan-Galactic Martial Arts world is on page 17 or thereabouts.

I do agree...I keep trying to change the name. I had struggles with the name the first time around, and finally came to something I liked, and then I forgot it.

I'd want to do something weirder than psi cop....maybe...it does fill a niche, but it feels predictable. Besides, I promised Kyler I'd do his world. However, I can stick Psi Cop 1984 which was MJ's or ER's world in as a backup world.

Warehouse Boxes
===============
==Unending horde of zombies chanting 'chaaaange'. They are defeated by 'coins', holy symbols, pick axes through the skull.
==Mutant Starbear is hungry
==Mega-Obliterator Cannon (It says so on the exterior of the barrel) (its a very realistic looking and sounding child's toy with no actual damage power).
==An orange. Just an orange.
==A pickaxe
==A Belt of Smacking on a mannequin.
==A 2000 pound bomb.
==A leather bag with a dozen gold coins (Spanish Doubloons(4), American Double Eagle, Krugerand, Imperial Bank of the Canadian Imperium mark, Roman denarii with Julius Caesar on it, New Lunagrad Mint standard credit, Free Nevada Republic Dollar, City of Jerusalem Shekel, and Viennese franc.)
==Drop foil.
==Ten road flares.

I need to be weird too.

Hey, for once, I'm not the most frequent poster in a 24 hour period.... (Laughing Hysterically)

(Dextroland)

Well, panic and excitement at an upcoming con I have not prepared adequately for...

GE List for Warehouse
====================
Cybernetic alligator
Dalek
Laser rifle

This is not working well. I think I'll just come up with stuff on the spot.

What sort of stuff are you looking for, I can make a list, and leave you free for other board related recreational activities :P

tsk, Eric, you promised NOTHING, don't go making up stories when you aren't running games =P besides, you'll make me feel obligated to finish work on it when God's unexpected will for me seems to be to go to work at my new job tomorrow (yay! cast free thine bonds of unemployment!) as far as grendel rex goes, i would think it was based on the original story beowulf, not how to train your dragon, especially if in the after scenario (aka the verse-out scenario) you need to fight grendel's mother (shudder). beowulf is a good read. it would be interesting to thrust a verser into a classic like that... PS warehouse world needs a crate with a malevolent jack-in-the-box complete with clown make up, blood soaked clothes, maniacal laughter and a massive cleaver. that would be great. PPS and a permanent vacuum would be pretty cool too, open the box and it's like opening the door of an airlock. heheh.

More Vampiric Bites
===================

1. There is a large cat, solid black, that can transform into a young woman. This cat is a Power. It needs to eat magic, and it likes the taste of evil better than good, but its more self-centred than devoted to good. Or its good because it follows its nature.

Its powerful enough that reality bends under its paws as it walks. It can rip through about any barrier. Legend has it that it ripped a hole in the gates of Hell because it was looking for a meal and a toy to play with.

It can fold reality carefully, and put someone inside a bubble with itself.

2. The Faith given ability to Sense Wrongness is a dice roll. Its not an automatic success.

3. Some factories, a few, and more each year, have moved into orbit. Still more have begun half-shelling themselves as its called...that is, digging a pit in the side of a hill, and having windows on side of the building, and most of the building buried underground. You can get substantial tax rebates for this. Glass Walkers and the more nature focused Weres embraced this, except for the Red Talons.

4. There is a substantial movement in SF, the Greenlanders, that portray an optimistic future where the cities are buried, and bears roam what used to be Wall Street. GW weres support this with grants and good press. Vampires are not totally enthused as they forsee cities where Sunlight Lamps are everywhere, but they're not sure what to do...except for Nos who like it and who plan on hanging out in the ductwork.

5. Near West Huntsville Baptist Church there is a sizable neighbourhood called the Hound's Land among vamps. Vampires who enter report hearing a hound pursuing them. Some don't come back. This is CS Lewis' Hound...the love of God. If caught, it will force a vamp to make a choice. The wrong choice means being burnt to a crisp, but usually the Hound won't catch the vampire until the Hound is ready.

6. Vampires have to make a Willpower check to even step on Whitesburg Drive, and entering the property of Whitesburg Baptist is a 10 diff. (parking lot).

7. The Museum of Modern Art is haunted by a ghost who does not like Ms. Logan,a nd consequently does not like vampires. This lady ghost is a strong believer in art as a provocation, and as beauty. She's a bit divided in her own mind, but both halves of her sometimes divided self hate Ms. Logan's idea of art. 'banal, insipid, lying hack' was the kindest thing she howled about Ms. Logan before tossing a vamp out the second story window.

8. The Japanese Bridge in Big Springs Park is unpassable by vamps due to a samurai ghost who stands guard over the bridge. Also the water in the whole pond near the bridge has teh same effect as holy water on a vamp.

9. About a third of the churches and other worship centers are barred to vampires during services by prayers. About a tenth of all churches are permanently barred to vampires. This is not vampire specific.

10. UAH campus, besides having abundant security cameras, is watched over by an AI created by a Virtual Adept Dean of Computer Studies. The AI believes that vampires are an offense against science, and the dead past, and should be scrubbed from existence. Attracting its attention likely means finding your bank accounts empty, and your traffic tickets overdue at a minimum.

Jhiaxus,
Imagine you're a player, and your character is arriving in his first verse in a large warehousy space with lots of large cardboard boxes. Now, as a player, not as a character, what would be amusing to find in those boxes. A mix of stuff that is useful, and stuff that is dangerous, and stuff that is weird, and stuff that is just useless.

OK. Kyler. Funemployment ends. I think I may put World of Fog in that place then. Jackin the box is a good idea indeed.

I got the idea from a Creationist website whose author had analyzed Beowulf, and noted that no where in the original text did it say troll. He pointed out some facts, and worked his way up to theorizing that Grendel was an immature male T-rex. Pretty straightforward ripoff on my part, but I doubt the guy minded if he knew because I'm spreading his ideas and he's not a game designer I'm fairly sure. Although I maybe should contact him if I ever decide to publish it.

Amusing/Useless:

Crate of Whoopie Cushions
Crate of Pop out Eye Stress Dolls
Crate of Shawn of the Dead DVD's
Crate of 10 Habits of Highly Effective People Books
Crate of Cans of Silly String
Crate of Teenage Muntant Ninja Turtles Action Figures
Crate of My other car is a Porsche bumper stickers
Crate of Staple Removers
Crate of Fake Rub off Lottery Tickers
Crate of Tape Dispensers but no tape
Crate of Laffy Taffe, assorted flavors
Crate of Joke Soda, tastes bad, turns poop different colors
Crate of Packing Peanuts, packed in Packing Peanuts
Crate of Circus Peanuts
Crate of Gore 00' Campaign Buttons

Dangerous

Crate of Broken Biological Samples (maybe what created the Zombies)
Crate of Pocket Mirrors, all broken, sharp glass everywhere
Crate of Potatoes, starting to go rotten, gangrene causing
Crate of Non Potable Water in gallon jugs, not labeled (not safe to drink)
Crate of Dynamite, sweating
Crate with Kangaroo with Boxing Gloves (could have either been silly or dangerous, chose dangerous)
Crate of Cheese Wheels, infested with maggots on the inside
Crate of a Honeycomb with Bees
Crate of Car Batteries, leaking
Crate of Gas Cans, full of old gas (can be useful can be dangerous)
Crate of Boomerangs (defective come back but never at same angle)
Crate of Beef Stew in cans, botchulism has ensued
Crate of Glow in the Dark Bouncing Balls, painted with irradiated paint
Crate of Ceramic Containers made in China, lead enhanced
Crate of Angry Not Fed Cats

Useful:
Crate from Smith and Wesson, Their MP Handguns, AR-15, and magazines
Crate from Remington, 6 Round Shotguns, ammo for shotguns, handguns, and AR's
Crate of MRE's Non Expired
Crate of Gerber Knives
Crate listed Survival Equipment Package: Tent, Sleeping Bags, works for camping/survival
Crate of Bottled Water
Crate for a Hardware Store, Mix of Saws, Hammers, Screwdrivers, nails, pliers, tools of all sorts
Crate from Honda, One Motorcycle
Crate of Backpacks, Bags, Clothing from an Army/Navy Store
Crate of Swat Armor, radios, batons, shields for a police department
Crate of Dummys books, Computers, Survival, Repair, Construction, etc
Crate of Bathroom Supplies for a Supermarket, Shampoo, Soap, Razors, Deodorant
Crate of Electronics, Laptops, GPS's, Cellphones, etc for Radio Shack
Crate of Pens, Paper, Pencils, Sticky Notes and other Office Supplies
Crate of Climbing Equipment, Ropes, Catches, Harnesses, Gloves, Flashlights

I hope that helps, should be 45 different things, 15 Useful, 15 Useless/Funny, 15 Dangerous.

Jhiaxus

Yes, useful it is, but do not hope, been useful you have. Thanks are many. /Yoda.

Could the Zombies be defeated by the Gore 00' Campaign buttons, he did campaign for change? :P

Jhiaxus

Heh. Sure.

Yeah, when I saw that the whoopie cushions were classed as useless, I remembered that it was one of the items carefully packed in their equipment bag in The Great Muppet Caper. I have no idea how it might have been used, but--indeed, in the later Harry Potter books, a great deal of the battle against the forces of Voldemort was accomplished by the use of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes.

I played Gamma World. I know that supposedly useless items can have great value. I remember trading a lace dress for a crate of grenades. We went back to deal with that giant intelligent moth again when we found another set of good clothing.

--M. J. Young

Useless/Funny :P I did make that classification :P