From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 What Fools These Mortals Be? . . . . . . . 4 by Phil Masters Issue Whether a central need of a campaign or a welcome respite Dying Is Easy; Comedy Is Hard . . . . . . . 10 from more-serious affairs, humor can liven up just about any by Matt Riggsby game. This issue of Pyramid is devoted to drollery, with tips, tools, and add-ons to get your funny’s worth. Eidetic Memory: When players devise characters for a humorous cam- The Monster Mash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 paign, one central question they must tackle is What Fools by David L. Pulver These Mortals Be? Phil Masters – author of the Discworld Roleplaying Game – looks at what’s useful to keep in mind Animating Your Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 to craft GURPS protagonists in a comedic game, including by Kelly Pedersen traits and design decisions that open up the most potential for yuks. Terry Toucan & the Puzzle Pals: No matter how humor is trying to come to the gaming The House of table, it’s a truism that Dying Is Easy; Comedy Is Hard. Matt 10,000 Sock Monkeys! . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Riggsby – co-author of GURPS Low-Tech – discusses some by J. Edward Tremlett of the fundamentals of humorous gaming, including an and Christopher R. Rice exploration as to why comedy games have something surpris- ingly in common with cosmic-horror settings. Random Thought Table: If you’re looking for new threats for crypt-crawling Amongst Your Weaponry heroes to encounter, consider The Monster Mash. David L. Are Surprise and Anticipation . . . . . 35 Pulver – author of GURPS Banestorm: Abydos – provides by Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor three complete “rooms” suitable for dropping into any GURPS Dungeon Fantasy campaign when the hack-and-slash antics About GURPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 could use a bit more hilarity. Discover how faith, necromancy, and customer service can form the foundation of memorable encounters. It includes GURPS stats for a half-dozen dangers that can be used as is . . . even without humor.
Article Colors To include more fun to your campaign, consider Animating
Your Life. Add cartoon characters to your real-world-style Each article is color-coded to help you find your GURPS game, with a new template, powers, and insight into favorite sections. using your powers for maximum mayhem. Unleash your inner meddling kid and uncover the secrets Pale Blue: In This Issue of The House of 10,000 Sock Monkeys! This standalone one- Brown: In Every Issue shot adventure presents an enigma for teen investigators to Green: Columnist unravel – with GURPS stats for the titular threat. You also get Dark Blue: GURPS Features tips for using this in other types of campaigns. This issue also includes a Random Thought Table that Purple: Systemless Features presents more ideas for interjecting humor into your game, including ready-to-use ideas you can drop into your own cam- Cover and Interior Art paign. With this issue, your funny bone is sure to be tickled . . . Aaron Panagos and maybe even tackled!
Hey, where I come from, an anvil to the head is a flesh wound.
– Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham, in Spider-Verse Team-Up #1
Editor-in-Chief z STEVE JACKSON Executive Editor z MIRANDA HORNER Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH Production Artist & Prepress Checker z Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE Assistant GURPS Line Editor z NIKOLA VRTIS Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO JASON “PK” LEVINE Page Design z PHIL REED Marketing Director z RHEA FRIESEN GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH & JUSTIN DE WITT Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON
Pyramid Magazine 2 March 2017
From the Editor The Best Medicine at humor in our games. And this issue examines funny stuff from a bunch of different angles. One of my earliest memories of GURPS is from the There’s something antithetical to humor to explain the description for the Pyromania disadvantage: “You like fires! joke, so I not going to explain too much about this issue here. You like setting fires, too.” (I was delighted when this word- Perhaps the biggest meta-fact I’ll note is that – if everyone ing was retained in the Fourth Edition.) This phrase became in the gaming group is happy – there’s not much of a wrong a standard call and response at our tabletop whenever some- way to do humor in a game. If quoting Monty Python or The one would do something flame-related. Player: “Okay; I get Princess Bride brings smiles to everyone’s faces, then go for it! ready to fling a fireball at this guy.” Me: “You like fires!” If it’s better when the humor stays in-game, great. Other Players: “You like setting fires, too!” There’s some- Yet there’s a certain magic that’s happened in our own thing we all found deeply amusing about those lines, and gaming when – instead of importing other humorists’ quips it helped cement GURPS for us as a setting that – though into the game – we’ve found our humorous efforts spilling steeped in realism – still contains a lot of humor. (Not unlike out into the real world. And it’s a magic I hope can be part the real world, actually . . .) of your game. With the recent releases of the supremely humorous Discworld Roleplaying Game and the (potentially) darkly humorous GURPS Mars Attacks, the continued success of the Write Here, Write Now GURPS Dungeon Fantasy line (which also has a not-entirely So was this issue a harbinger of ha-ha, or do we need to go serious streak), and our in-the-works standalone Dungeon back to the joke mines? Should we do another humor issue Fantasy Roleplaying Game, it’s a great time to be a fan of the someday, or is one enough? Let us know your thoughts via GURPS system. But it’s also a good opportunity to take a look email at [email protected], or join the fun online via forums.sjgames.com.
While GURPS is a rule system that supports comedy of is the characters’ capability to affect the world. Action- various sorts as well as it supports other types of game, it is adventure characters will certainly have disadvantages less explicit about the mechanics of comedy than about those (after all, they need enough points to be really good at what of, say, sword-swinging action. As much as the GM needs to they do), but these will mostly serve to motivate them to get think about setting up comical situations, the players need into action (because, say, they have a Duty to fight for some- to consider their part in such campaigns. Their contribution, thing, or they need to protect their Dependents), or to con- as ever, very much begins with character creation – because strain them in action in interesting ways (as when Bloodlust if you haven’t got a suitable character, for the game style and or Overconfidence oblige them to be rash, or a Code of for your own style of play, it’ll be difficult for you to contrib- Honor forces them to fight fair). ute appropriately. By contrast, in a dramatic game, participants are primar- ily defined by their interactions with each other, and with all the other people they can talk to. While skills (notably social skills) can be important for this, a different set of advantages Inspiration for creating may be crucial in play – social features like Appearance, Cha- risma, and Status. Allies and Patrons, along with disadvan- player characters in GURPS tageous Dependents, represent a whole web of relationships, not just people who have your back or who need protecting. comedy games! “Constraining” disadvantages may have slightly more subtle effects than in action-adventure games; a Code of Honor may determine your whole pattern of social relationships, not just who you can or can’t hit, a Duty implies membership of a sub- Tragical-Comical- section of society and not just a requirement to take orders,
Historical-Pastoral . . . and a Secret Identity will mean that you’re leading a double life, not just that you have to find somewhere to put a mask on To begin with, let’s distinguish comedy from other types when a fight starts. of genres – bearing in mind that the terms that follow are In a comedy game or story, while characters generally loose, overlapping categories, and that a campaign or even have freedom of action (the game would be boring if they a session of play may switch between one and another from didn’t), a big part of almost every story is what the world does time to time. to them. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be competent or Broadly speaking, we can talk about three categories. proactive; plenty of well-known comedy characters are both. Action-adventure games and stories are about people get- (For example, both Jeeves, in P.G. Wodehouse’s “Jeeves and ting things done, and usually exciting things at that. Hence, Wooster” stories, and Captain Carrot in Terry Pratchett’s action-adventure characters are often defined, in GURPS Discworld novels, are notable for being very competent.) But terms, by their skills, along with the attributes that under- the challenges they have to deal with aren’t just obstacles to pin those skills and a few advantages that do the same or be overcome; they represent the perversity of the universe, enhance them – things like Combat Reflexes, Gadgeteer, and determine the tone of the story. Equally, comedy charac- High Pain Threshold, or Talents. This isn’t a hard-and-fast ters will often be quite flawed as people, maybe being unlike- rule – for example, in a supers game, powers (defined in able or unreliable; even if they’re competent at what they do, game terms as advantages) may be the big thing that heroes they may well misapply that competence. This gives us comic and villains have to work with, while fantasy wizards may antiheroes such as most incarnations of the title character of be defined by their spell selection – but the important thing the TV series Blackadder.
Pyramid Magazine 4 March 2017
In other words, participants in comedy games are defined few disadvantages apart from positive things like Honesty or more often by their disadvantages. These don’t have to be a Code of Honor (which might be one reason for him to stick crippling or overwhelming – comedy characters who take around with the less sane protagonists). The perpetual victim too many large disadvantages can just look pathetic, or like type might be an NPC – perhaps an Ally – or might be a rela- annoying spotlight hogs, rather than being entertaining – but tively straightforward useful character, perhaps a big bruiser they should ideally all be interesting and potentially funny. or an expert in one useful but obscure field of science, whose In fact, an interesting selection of quirks, rather than full- player doesn’t mind being the butt of much of the humor if he strength disadvantages, may well be especially appropriate, can sometimes shine when the character’s special competence giving people lots of comic style without dominating the game comes into play. If one should get a player who is unselfishly at the expense of funny. willing and able to act as a functional “feed” for the other play- Even when they have useful advantages, these may incor- ers, at least some of the time, it can make for good comedy, porate interesting limitations with both comedic and dra- but that is a skill in itself. matic potential; for example, an Ally or Patron with the Unwilling limitation (p. B38 and p. B74) not only needs cautious management – they may provide a stream of The Computer is your friend. The Computer sarcastic commentary on the actions of the hated PC. Likewise, Magery with limitations such as Musical wants you to be happy. Happiness is mandatory. or Solitary (p. B67) is a little more colorful than the Failure to be happy is treason. unmodified version, and it provides the potential for comic scenes in which the mage has to work frantically – Paranoia to meet the special conditions. See GURPS Goblins for a Third Edition comedy set- ting which makes a point of giving everyone an assort- The Bumbler ment of disadvantages and deformity-based advantages Physical comedy and farce, and the comedy of easy laughs, before play even begins. are driven by the comedy of incompetence, which calls for incompetent characters. Bumblers are those who can be They Have Their Exits depended on to screw up, and very importantly, to do so in funny ways. An ensemble consisting entirely of such bum- and Their Entrances . . . blers may make for very cheap and easy laughs, which can be frustrating and annoying for audiences who find unre- Within the comedy category, there are a range of more or lenting stupidity annoying. However, really effective physical less standard or appropriate character types. In particular, farce definitely demands groups of seemingly incompetent a comedy campaign likely resembles an ensemble comedy, characters – but that group will then have to be carefully cho- which has its own specific habits and traditions, and can have reographed, which isn’t usually feasible in RPGs. (That said, a set of roles as structured as those in a dungeon-adventuring GURPS Goblins and the roleplaying game Paranoia in “clas- party or a superhero team. sic mode” show what can be done with an unrelenting focus on the comedy of incompetence in play.) The Straight Man Bumblers aren’t necessarily totally incompetent at every- Other characters bounce their comic insanity or stupidity thing – in a game with action-adventure elements, that would off of this person (who may of course be of any gender – the raise questions about why they are present and how they sur- term is just old comedy jargon). He can serve as a voice of rea- vive – but even when they’re good at some things, they tend to son to prevent comedy plots getting completely out of hand, overreach themselves, or succeed in weirdly fumbling ways. and he acts as a surrogate for the relatively rational audience. Extreme-case comedy-action heroes like Austin Powers or the The straight man may be dull-witted and stupid, serving as hero of the TV series Archer illustrate this idea. Other bum- a perpetual victim of comedy humiliation and violence, but blers, like Nijel the Destroyer in the Discworld novel Sourcery, can just as easily be smart and highly competent, especially if just try too hard, but occasionally manage successes through he is functioning as the setting’s lone voice of reason; Jeeves sheer determination. and Captain Carrot are both straight men. Being the voice of A variant of the bumbler is the geek, someone who typi- sanity can be a crucial if thankless task in games with both cally combines bumbling physical and social incompetence action-adventure and comedy elements. with high intelligence and academic or technical skill. Geeks In a classic stand-up comedy duo, the straight man usu- bumble through social situations and action scenes, but may ally acts as the “feed,” supplying a partner with lines to turn still make themselves useful, even in stories with a predomi- into jokes – not as obvious a skill as actually making the jokes, nant action-adventure element, through IQ and focus on spe- but important nonetheless. An ensemble consisting mostly cific topics. (In a more socially oriented dramatic story, the or entirely of straight men doesn’t sound very comedic at all, socially inept geek tends to act purely as comic relief.) Whole although a clever comedy might be shaped about how such a ensembles of geeks can play off each other in a specific sort of group endures and survives the motiveless chaos of a comic comedy, as typified by the TV series The Big Bang Theory. The universe, or perhaps how a set of amoral rival straight men Discworld character Twoflower is something of a bumbling plot against each other. geek, despite his lack of exceptional technical skills, as wealth In a game generally, a competent straight man should have and luck largely take the place of skill or cleverness with him, a good array of skills and other useful abilities, and relatively at least in the early novels.
Pyramid Magazine 5 March 2017
The Joker comic failures. (Meanwhile, all the other, more sympathetic characters are probably honorably monogamous or celibate Not all comedy characters are there to provide deliberate by nature, though they may engage in some harmless flirta- humor. In fact, if too many players are trying too hard to bring tions.) This type tends to be older, and may be a classic “dirty the funny, the humor may well be overstretched. Good com- old man.” In a few cases, a “romantic” character may actually edy is, very often, about ridiculous things happening to rea- be prepared to commit to a respectable long-term relation- sonable people. ship, but be too comically dedicated to finding one, or prone The joker, however, is the person who tests that prin- to misinterpreting casual flirtations from less obsessive char- ciple. This is a type which exists in real life as well as in acters too seriously. comedy, after all; the person who keeps trying, deliber- In more “sophisticated” stories, lecherous people may ately, to be funny. In comedy, though, the joker has the openly pursue casual flings, albeit with partners who under- useful role of guaranteeing a certain working minimum of stand the nature of the game. If the story has a moralistic tone, humor – assuming that he hits a minimum level of compe- these seductions often will be unsuccessful, leading to a lot tence. It’s possible for the joker to be shown as not really of comic misunderstandings, uncomfortable confrontations very good at deliberate humor; in that case, the humor lies in with jealous rivals, and so on. More amoral sex comedies may incompetence and the reactions of others who have to put up feature successful seducers, with the comedy lying in the ensu- with this nonsense. If the joker attempts practical jokes, the ing complications, the problems they have juggling multiple audience may enjoy the sight of him being foiled and humil- relationships, and perhaps in the jealous reactions of their iated by other people, who have more genuine wit but who friends and acquaintances. don’t try so hard. Players who try to make their characters In darker comedies, seducers may be unpleasantly uncar- jokers should be sure that they genuinely can be that sharp ing about the consequences of their actions and willing to lie themselves, or they may end up in this “incompetent joker” to get what they want. However, ruthless heartbreakers will role, despised by the other party members. usually be treated as villains rather than protagonists, and too In a classic vaudeville-style comedy ensemble such as the many broken hearts may make the laughs dry up. Marx Brothers, every character may serve as a joker, at least (Incidentally, “sophisticated sex comedies” don’t have to some of the time, providing both verbal and slapstick com- be modern, although Hollywood has perhaps shifted to a less edy. This is a high-intensity approach to comedy, requiring moralistic approach over the past few decades. Sex comedy considerable skill and energy; it would take an exceptional is probably as old as any other form of humor, and even in group of players to manage it in an RPG. Somewhat sim- the “respectable” 19th century, French playwrights produced ilarly, in classic Hollywood “screwball” comedies, comedy a string of brilliantly constructed farces which were all about musicals, and Shakespearean comedy, almost everyone may characters of both genders quite openly pursuing sex rather display a formidable line in quick-witted repartee and word- than romance.) play, enabling anyone to play the joker when the plot permits; this is a convention of the form, and doesn’t imply that the participants are all really clever and quick-witted, any more The Braggart than someone who gets an aria in an opera has to be thought Lastly, a lot of classic stage ensemble comedy features a of as a professional-grade singer (with their own orchestra) roaring braggart, such as the stock figure of the “Captain” within the setting. in the old-time Commedia dell’arte – a type resurrected in modern sitcoms such as The Office as the boastful, arrogant The Casanova colleague or neighbor. Indeed, the obvious attributes of the type are that boastfulness and arrogance. These may be This is a person whose defining feature is an interest in associated with gross overconfidence and practical incompe- sex – or “romance” in a more family friendly story. In fact, just tence, or with a smarter self-awareness which leads the brag- what this character is after, how considerate he is of poten- gart to disappear somehow whenever their boasts might be tial partners’ feelings, and how successful he is in the pursuit, tested – or, most annoyingly of all, with actual competence, are generally strongly determined by the mood and tone of forcing others to put up with the braggart because he can the story and setting. A cast consisting mostly or entirely of deliver. The TV series House, while not presented as comedy, Casanovas makes the story a full-on sex comedy. actually extracted a lot of humor from the fact that every- In some older stories, such a character may be given to fla- one had to endure the lead character, because he was just as grant leering, and apparently wants to be an amoral seducer, competent as he thought he was. but doesn’t seem to have a clue how, leading to a string of
Most universities would find the sight of a group of students playing Frisbee – in mid-air – at least slightly unusual. Practicing witches, budding telepaths, illegal aliens from Betelgeuse V and novice supers are all welcome at Illuminati University, as long as they (or their parents) have good credit ratings. The University is truly an equal- opportunity institution. – GURPS IOU
Pyramid Magazine 6 March 2017
Many game groups will prefer to treat this sort of char- Igors exemplify this.) Similar comments apply to physical acter as an NPC, to be periodically endured and hopefully problems such as Paraplegic, in fact; a wheelchair-bound fig- humiliated. However, in modest doses, loud-mouthed over- ure who becomes a comedy hero by wit or determination, confidence may be an amusing PC feature – provided that outclassing the able-bodied bumblers around him, is awe- the party’s internal dynamics allow others to get a word in some, not abusive. edgewise. Unfortunately, humiliating a PC braggart, how- Relatively transient, non-disable disadvantages may be ever much he may seem to deserve it, is likely to disrupt party funny despite any issues of taste; Bad Back is one favorite, and unity and possibly cause player-level resentment – and even along with Hard of Hearing, may be the mark of the comedic comedy games need a degree of party and player coopera- “cranky old gaffer.” Equally, Ham-Fisted and Klutz are staples tion. Hence, braggart PCs are best played as subtle, unless of farce, and can be presented more as psychological failings the party features several such characters who can play off than as neurological conditions, while Stuttering is usually each other, while somehow avoiding overshadowing less seen as an acceptable basis for comedy. boastful party members. Mental Disadvantages There is a whole list of behavioral fail- ings which are practically synonymous with comedy. Absent-Mindedness, Clueless, To be sure, humour is an essential part of a grossly misplaced and overly formal Code the Discworld, and some of this humour can be of Honor, Delusions, Gluttony, Gullibility, Impulsiveness, Megalomania, Miserliness, a bit silly. But the things that happen in No Sense of Humor, Oblivious, Overconfi- dence, Paranoia, Short Attention Span, and Discworld stories – wizardly plots, palace Truthfulness are all intrinsically at least intrigue, battles and sieges and wars – are somewhat comic, with varying amounts of darkness and danger mixed in. Alcoholism the same things that happen in terribly (and some similar forms of Addiction) can serious fantasy yarns, just warped by also fit in this category – drunk scenes are a venerable comedy tradition – but some play- the sheer cussedness of the environment. ers may be touchy on the subject, as real-life – Discworld Roleplaying Game alcoholics tend to be more self-destructive than funny. Still, there’s a reason why the Discworld Roleplaying Game borrowed the detailed drunkenness rules from the full version of GURPS. Cowardice can be too limiting in some games, and the prem- T hese ,O A ur ctors ise for whole campaigns’ worth of comedy in others – see Putting all this together – which disadvantages and other characters such as the Discworld’s Rincewind. A few disad- character features should players look at particularly? vantages, such as Sleepwalker, can serve simply to set up occa- sional comedy situations. Conversely, some mental limitations are too serious to be Physical Disadvantages used as a basis for recurring jokes, except in darker, violent Making a joke of physical disabilities is generally con- games, or gory parodies of adventure stories such as Monty sidered very poor taste these days, but a modest degree of Python and the Holy Grail. Berserk and Bloodlust make the physical incompetence – if only in the sense of low physi- character at least a potential killer (as do certain types of Code cal attributes – can drive comedy without appalling anyone of Honor), while Bully and Sadism are just nasty, though a too much. Someone with a fairly minor physical disadvan- Bully character might be a satisfactory target for regular tage may be funny less for the disadvantage itself than for a humiliation. Bad Temper looks similar, but in a social comedy refusal to acknowledge it. For example, Bad Sight is a prob- where the character is more likely to insult other people than lem that could afflict almost anyone, and isn’t terribly funny take a sword to them when his temper goes off, it can be used in itself – but a person who refuses to wear glasses out of as the foundation for a bumbler’s personality. vanity, despite the fact that they are easily available, is a clas- Trickster is the defining mark of a compulsive and possibly sic comedy idiot, and laughing at his failures is laughing at self-destructive joker. Most Casanovas obviously have Lecher- vanity, not disability. ousness – but a few may replace that with Obsession (Find a Similarly, laughing at below-average Appearance (and long-term romantic partner). A variant that sometimes shows related problems such as Bad Smell) is likely to look a lot up in social comedy combines a simple “Romantic” quirk with like nasty bullying – but if it’s made clear that the problem is unremarkable IQ and Will and either strikingly high Appear- more one of poor grooming and hygiene than bad luck, that ance or significant Wealth – making the person the natural makes it clearly the character’s own fault. Also, an ugly char- target of lechers or fortune-hunters. This can still lead to a acter who is well adjusted to the situation and carries things long history of complicated romantic entanglements – see off with style, perhaps outclassing prettier but less compe- P.G. Wodehouse’s stories for examples – making the character tent colleagues, is a comedy hero. (The Discworld’s clan of look like a lecher at first glance.
Pyramid Magazine 7 March 2017
Social Features well as they do other characters. Rank serves the same pur- pose in games set in structured organizations such as the Comedy plots are usually heavily entangled with social military; many “army comedies” feature quick-witted enlisted situations, and the comedy of social embarrassment and men and NCOs running rings round oblivious officers. Also, messed-up relationships is a common form. Friends and foes Social Stigma can fit downtrodden minorities who gain come- can be as important in comedy as in dramatic games – espe- dic satisfaction from going one up on their social “betters.” cially the disadvantageous kind. Dependents can be the less Mistaken Identity (which is functionally a social disadvan- competent, even idiotic, comedy figures who players under- tage, although it’s technically a physical attribute) is a clas- standably don’t want to portray. A dumb-but-strong straight- sic comedy “bit,” and can be hard not to play for laughs even man character might make a useful Ally. The more limited in serious games. Pitiable is a good feature for the victim- types of Enemies, “Watchers” and “Rivals,” really come into in-need-of-help who appears in some adventure-comedies. their own in comedy stories, constraining and making trouble Lastly, Mundane Background is a good starting disadvantage for protagonists and dishing out or suffering comedy humil- for a comedy-with-weirdness game, but the player may want iations, without triggering too many deadly serious combats. to buy it off before it gets boring or grossly unsustainable. Wealth and Status can play various roles in a comedy game. High Wealth can be the key feature of a rich bumbler (espe- cially as spending points on that and the associated Status “Luck” Features may leave the person less competent than poorer colleagues), It’s worth noting that luck-related advantages and disad- while poverty and low Status can motivate comedy heroes as vantages can be quite important in comedy games. Notably, Unluckiness and Weirdness Magnet can drive comedy plots, as people are forced into comic situations which they’d prefer to avoid. Serendipity can help things work out okay for the PCs without having to sweat serious dra- matic logic too much. Along the way, various other sorts of good luck can serve to extract the protag- onists from trouble, and even allow them to win despite their comedy mistakes and suboptimal, disadvantage-driven behavior. Daredevil gives characters a (slightly) better chance of surviving their own folly. An Extra Life might provide a get-out in a game where the comedy suddenly leads to disaster (just come up with a suitably funny explanation for the person’s survival), while Gizmos can represent the comedy character with seemingly weirdly infinite pockets. And of course, Luck can help a comically semi-competent individual pull through in really crucial circumstances. Just remember – the point of the exercise is to survive to be funny. Or at least, to leave an entertaining corpse.
About the Author
Phil Masters is a long-time British roleplaying game writer with a longer list of GURPS and Pyramids credits than he can always remember; notably, he’s the author of the Discworld Roleplaying Game, the second edition of which was recently published by Steve Jackson Games. He’s also the Transhuman Space Line Editor, and has written for a number of other companies, as well as self-publishing a comedy RPG of his own, The Small Folk, which is available through Warehouse 23.
Pyramid Magazine 8 March 2017
Pyramid Magazine 9 March 2017 Dying Is Easy; Comedy Is Hard by Matt Riggsby
Superficially, it would appear that comedy would be a For example, priests, rabbis, and ministers apply religious natural match with roleplaying games. After all, games are a principles to ordering drinks at a bar. People fall down in an fun social activity, where jokes often flow freely. For many amusing fashion rather than staying on their feet. Words are gamers, it’s not really game night until there have been at least used incongruously in puns. The inadequacies in that the- half a dozen Monty Python quotes. However, it’s often easier ory concern how and why some things which violate norms to make jokes with the other people around the gaming table are funny but others aren’t. Many incongruous ideas may be than it is inside the game. Doing it on purpose and without tedious, nonsensical, or offensive instead of funny. A pie in the disrupting the flow of the adventure, or, indeed, while making face, for example, may be classic comedy in one context, but it organically a part of the adventure can be harder still. lead to assault charges in real life. Oddly enough, the genre comic games have most in com- Freud regarded humor as coming largely from relieving mon with is probably horror games. Comedy demands a spe- emotional tensions. A joke highlights tensions and, in its reso- cific mood and requires that the GM and players be dedicated lution, dissipates them. Sexual tensions were foremost on his to achieving and preserving it. Just as horror games demand mind, of course, but he considered any tension as fair game: that a mood of fear and menace be maintained without tip- worries about money, death, and so on. As a Jew in a society ping over into complete despair and helplessness for the par- where anti-Semitism was a respectable position, his religious ticipants, a comedy game has to maintain a steady flow of status was a matter of some concern, so Freud was a sur- comic situations without devolving into chaos and nonsense. prisingly prodigious collector of Jewish jokes. But again, the This article tries to address some of the challenges in running theory was incomplete. Wordplay and humor on seemingly a comic roleplaying game, with attention to fundamental uncontentious subjects remained unexplained. issues like why things are funny as well as consideration of Another useful insight to come from Freud is that humor how comic devices do and don’t work in a gaming situation. is dependent on surprise. The resolution of a joke must be not just a violation of norms or juxtaposition of images; it must,
What Is Funny? in the moment, be an unexpected or unfamiliar one. This, he
argued, is why a joke is funniest the first time it is heard, but Part of the problem with planning to be funny is that humor becomes less so on repetition. is still poorly understood. Discussions of what makes some There are some limited exception to the value of surprise. things funny and other things not go back to the Greeks, but, Studies have indicated that audiences find jokes with punch ironically, it’s a topic which is rarely taken seriously. Many lines they can predict before hearing them a bit funnier ideas have at least partly explained comedy, but few can be than those they can’t. However, this appears to be a prod- regarded as all-encompassing. uct of being able to figure out the humorous twist in a novel One of the earliest theories of humor comes from Plato, joke before actually hearing it, not hearing an old joke again. who considered why people are amused by the misfortune of Running gags, the repetition of humorous tag lines, might others. Observing the antics and failures of the unwise allows appear to violate the need for surprise. After all, if you’ve the observer to take pleasure from feelings of superiority. heard the punch line before, it can hardly be surprising This implied that laughter was a bad thing, since it derived to hear it again. However, what makes running gags funny from arrogance and the hatred of others. This was an idea is having the same punch line recycled in different contexts. which was widely accepted by a lot of Roman and Christian For example, in The Muppet Movie, there are several repe- philosophers until the Enlightenment, who weren’t all that titions of recommending Hare Krishna to someone who is crazy about laughing at things either. However, it began to lost. The first time is in response to someone calling for help fade away when a new wave of philosophers began to point to because he’s physically lost in a swamp (rather than spiri- many instances of superiority that didn’t make people laugh tually unguided), the second in response to an observation and instances of superiority and remarkable skill which did. that a performer in a dive bar has lost the thread of his act, One theory meant to replace the old idea of superiority and third is a sign incongruously outside a church. Each use was the idea of incongruity. Humor, the idea goes, is rooted in makes it a new joke, with much of the humor coming from thwarting expectations, violating moral categories and social how it’s different from previous instances despite having the norms, or introducing sudden shifts in frames of reference. same conclusion.
Pyramid Magazine 10 March 2017
One recent idea about what makes things funny is the example, slapstick, like the Three Stooges and Road Runner “benign violation theory,” which is in some ways a descen- cartoons, depends on never-ending cycles of violence. But the dant of the idea of incongruity. The idea is that things which same participants survive throughout and are no more than are funny violate moral categories and social norms and temporarily inconvenienced by any damage they might sus- so on, as incongruities do, but do so in a way which is not tain. This poses a problem for roleplaying games, which are threatening. This encompasses incongruities, but also points often based on the ongoing risk of lasting consequences. How out that there’s an “upper bound” beyond which incongru- can these two apparently conflicting needs be reconciled? ities become too incongruous or simply too threatening. Here especially we see a parallel between comedy RPGs and Ethnic jokes, for example, may be considered less funny horror RPGs, particularly the cosmic-horror genre. Horror by members of that ethnicity because their threshold for games take steps to incorporate the essential hopelessness of what’s threatening is different from people outside it. The the genre into the mechanics of the game (for example, the theory also more elegantly explains puns and other word- sanity mechanic in Call of Cthulhu and the Fear, Madness, play, which violate grammatical and stylistic rules, but not and Decay rules in GURPS Horror, pp. 139-148) and allow in ways which create nonsense. However, while it points to a short-term successes in the context of the long-term inevita- bound beyond which something funny is no longer funny, it’s bility of failure. Comedy games can incorporate mechanics short on specifics on how to find that boundary beyond the to handle short-term failure in the context of a lack of long- universal advice of knowing your audience. term consequences. In Toon, characters don’t die; they sim- ply “fall down” temporarily and soon return to the action. In
When to Be Funny Paranoia, characters can be killed in entertaining ways, but
are soon returned to the action in the form of clones. One thing to consider when planning comic adventures is However, games don’t have to have special mechanics as how much comic content to use and when to use it. Comedies long as they’ve got a suitable focus. In particular, adventures aren’t necessarily all laughs all the time. They retain an which are heavy on social interaction and light on combat are underlying plot structure and a background of some kind of ripe for comedy. For example, the adventure The Palais du normalcy without which it’s impossible to create the incon- Monde (in Pyramid #3/54: Social Engineering) would be very gruities necessary for comedy. Without that background easy to run as a classical farce. To summarize, it involves fig- to play off of, it’s simply chaotic nonsense. A comic adven- uring out how spies are managing to pass messages to one ture still needs things to do and potentially unfunny people another at a theater while a play is under way; the situation to meet, just like any other. A comic adventure can have a is rife with opportunities for misunderstandings, missed con- straight premise (the king wants the adventurers to escort nections, and rapid-fire incongruities as investigators navigate the prince to his wedding . . . ), but it can come with its own a social landscape of decadent aristocrats and high-strung art- comic twist ( . . . but he wants to elope with the dragon). ists. Interstellar merchants in games like Traveller may deal It’s certainly possible to run entire comic campaigns. with absurd bureaucratic obstacles to selling their goods, There are any number of comedy RPGs, from the lost early chipper but unhelpful tourism boosters, and excessively literal entry in the field Spawn of Fashan through the classic conversations with polite, well-meaning aliens or the vagaries Paranoia to more modern and specialized offerings like of machine-assisted language translation. Monsters and Other Childish Things, as well as supple- At any rate, it’s usually important for the GM to keep comic ments for more serious systems, such as GURPS IOU and and non-comic elements distinct in games which mix these the Discworld Roleplaying Game. elements. Laughter is a release of tension, and individuals Comedy can also fit into more-sober games. There are a may need to operate at less than optimum efficiency if they’re few ways of doing that. For example, an ongoing campaign going to really get in on the comic action. However, in many can have the occasional adventure conceived of as a comic conventional games, it’s important for adventurers to keep interlude, much as the generally serious original Star Trek their guard up. Gags are more likely to be appreciated if play- has “The Trouble With Tribbles” and the sometimes down- ers aren’t busy second-guessing the motives of the trio of win- right grim Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had its sequel, “Trials dow-cleaners who keep whacking one another with ladders and Tribblations.” Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a master class in and mops. combining comic and serious content. Another common device throughout literature, and one easily duplicated in gaming, is comic characters and comic subplots. A wizard’s ongoing side quest for a particular grimoire Everybody Wants to Get Into the Act may turn into a running gag involving mistranslations This article deals mostly with what the GM can do, with an or elderly book merchants finding other books with sim- eye toward setting up jokes and comic situations. Things look ilar titles, or an elite detachment of space marines may very different from the player’s point of view, which is often find themselves acting as security for a military band on reactive, playing off of the situation they’re dealt. Perhaps tour. And supporting characters like servants, under- the best advice to be given here is one of the primary rules world contacts, and distant relatives provide ongoing of improv comedy: “Yes, and.” It’s a cooperative enterprise, opportunities to drop in jokes (many superheroes have so rather than trying to contradict what others have said or had sidekicks for this very purpose) without doing vio- change topics, work with what’s already there and add to it. lence to an overarching narrative. And one could do worse than reading Phil Master’s article Speaking of violence, it’s fairly commonplace in about building comedic characters (pp. 4-8). comedy that its subjects aren’t really hurt or killed. For
Pyramid Magazine 11 March 2017
How to Be Funny but far less, far greater, or even the opposite. Warning dungeon delvers about a deep pit (or Bugs Bunny) by saying “Watch What, then, are the mechanics of being funny? Here are that first step” is classic understatement. Tim the Enchanter in some specific devices to insert into adventures. Monty Python and the Holy Grail warning about a fierce beast which turns out to be a fluffy bunny is classic exaggeration, Literalism: Literalism takes words and metaphors and which is followed in short order by a return to exaggeration as treats them literally rather than figuratively. Use of this device the fluffy bunny turns out, in fact, to be a fierce beast. Critical is rampant in the Airplane movies (as in, for example, run- failures and critical successes that happen to other people are ning gags involving “Surely/Shirley” and “What is it?”) and prime material for this sort of treatment. the Discworld series (among a great many other examples, Breaking the Fourth Wall: This is when characters acknowl- members of the Watch in Guards! Guards!, having resolved edge that they’re inhabiting a story and, often, directly that “million to one chances come up nine times out of ten,” address the audience. A good example is in the middle of make numerous elaborate attempts to engineer odds of suc- the Bing Crosby/Bob Hope film The Road to Morocco, when cess of exactly a million to one). Because it causes plausible Hope delivers a long exposition of the action to that point. miscommunication, literalism is fairly easy to drop into reg- Crosby asks him why he’s talking about it, since he was there ular interactions between people without causing too many to witness everything his companion just described. Hope problems; keep an eye out for words with double meanings says that it’s for the benefit of people who came in halfway or close synonyms to create comic misunderstandings. though the picture, to which a distraught Crosby moans, Understatement, exaggeration, and reversal: These set expec- “They missed my song?” Making people, places, and items tations which are in some way in line with the ultimate result, in the game world lightly disguised versions of ones in the real world falls into this category as well (for example, having the head of space defenses named Ronald Raygun). In campaigns which have serious as well as comic aspects, this can be easy to overuse, since it necessar- ily takes the players out of the game world. Mistaken Identity: Someone has an inter- action with another which appears to make sense at the time, but it gains entirely new dimensions when one realizes that the interaction was with someone mistaken for another. Twins separated at birth are com- mon devices for mistaken identity gags in Shakespearean comedy, but it can work in situations where people are similarly dressed (for example, attempting to arrest someone dressed as a stormtrooper in the middle of an imperial base) or simply receive garbled instructions (making contact with a covert operative, but getting the wrong description of how he’s clothed). This has certain limita- tions in a game. It’s only funny because the audience knows something characters mak- ing mistakes doesn’t. In an RPG, since the characters are directed by the audience (that is, the players), it can be very hard to ade- quately compartmentalize that information. It often works best if the person who makes the misidentification figures out what he’s done almost immediately, but only when it’s too late to easily fix.
About the Author
Matt Riggsby attended the whackiest institution of higher learning in the west, then defied blue laws before coming to work for firms with the patronage of Drs. Fine, Howard, and Fine. He lives with his zany wife, madcap son, and several dogs who walk into a bar.
Pyramid Magazine 12 March 2017
Eidetic Memory The Monster Mash by David L. Pulver I’ve always found that even the most serious dungeon can in these facsimile pages of the Book of Phoze and become be enlivened with a few slightly off-kilter monster encounters. one of the Chosen of Phoze.” The inquirers are then handed a Monsters are people, too, and sometimes people can be pretty dirty scroll covered with goblin scratchings. weird, especially if they live in dungeons into which bands of If the PCs agree to sign, they will be given a small mush- adventurers are routinely descending to kill them. room patch to wear on their clothes (+2 reaction from goblins These encounters can be selectively dropped into a in this dungeon and other Phoze supporters), an invitation to Dungeon Fantasy campaign. They can be used as incidental recruit more followers, and a sacred mushroom to eat (HT-3 comedy relief, or, at the risk of being overly silly, combined roll to avoid Hallucinating and Euphoric condition; lasts together in the same dungeon. 20 – HT minutes). The goblin will receive a small bonus from the cult if he brings back some written proof of conversion.
The Mushroom Monks If, as the goblins generally expect, they are attacked, they try to flee. (Chosen of Phoze) Background These are intended initially as random wandering encoun- ters in a large dungeon. The party meet a pair of goblins, who The Chosen of Phoze is a recent cult that was started by a are dressed in shabby ankle-length yellowish robes. The robes charismatic wizard/bard named Othbug the Revelator. After are crudely stitched with a symbol of a large mushroom. Each being kicked out of the mages’ guild for selling substandard wears a small bowl on a chain around the neck. As they walk magic items (he claims racial prejudice), Othbug reinvented they chant the droning phrase: “Praise to Lord Phoze, praise himself as a holy monk and began preaching a new religion. to Lord Phoze, praise to Lord Phoze . . .” Dusting off the figure of Phoze, a mostly forgotten minor gob- If attacked immediately, they run. Otherwise, they cau- lin-kin chief or tribal deity (no one quite remembers which), tiously approach the party. It will be apparent these goblins he claimed to have experienced a revelation in which Phoze have seen better days; most have cuts, bruises, and broken spoke to him to demand restoration of his worship and funds noses, etc. But their eyes light up as they begin their spiel in to find and rebuild the Great Temple of Phoze, somewhere in accented Common: “Hey brother (or sister)! Humble thanks this dungeon. All goblins, orcs, and hobgoblins should work for not slaying us yet, and greetings in the name of almighty together in harmony, to pray for the restoration of Phoze. Phoze! Will you accept Lord Phoze as your patron god Indeed, even other creatures could join up, for Phoze would and savior?” create an army of many races, bound together under his If they refuse, a goblin will extend his begging bowl dark charisma! (which can be seen to hold something like two copper pieces, The Chosen of Phoze preaches radical doctrines of fellow- a rusty nail, and a giant rat’s tooth) and say: “Begging a ship and equality among monsters (“All mortal worms are small donation to Lord Phoze, so that he may build his Dark equal in the eyes of the Great Lord Phoze”). As such, it has Legion and hold the line against the armies of light? Even a only proven popular among those who are the bottom of the copper piece helps!” heap, such as goblins (bullied by orcs and hobgoblins) and a If the adventurers are intrigued enough to ask for details, few dinomen and similar dungeon rabble. Sadly, the Prophet the goblins tell them: “The great Lord Phoze has awakened Othbug met a tragic end in the dungeon when, giving a ser- from his slumber! He is the Guardian of the Dark, protector mon to a bunch of new goblin converts in a cavern filled with of weaker monsters, Voice of the Deep, one true Lord of the giant fungi, the giant mushroom he was using as an impro- Gods! Only Lord Phoze’s grace can protect you in the coming vised altar turned out to be a crushroom. Followers of Phoze End of Night! To accept Lord Phoze simply, sign your name say he was “taken unto Phoze” and took the mushroom as their new holy symbol.
Pyramid Magazine 13 March 2017
The Chosen of Phoze do not fear death due to having been (2-in-6 chance one of them is poison – take 1d toxic dam- told they will go to Phoze after death and – post-Othbug mar- age/minute until HT-2 roll succeeds – due to a failed Nat- tyrdom – their excessive consumption of “holy” hallucino- uralist roll). genic mushrooms. They roam the dungeon seeking converts and picking mushrooms. If they come upon injured people of any race, they will take them to shelter. They live in their own Chara’s Underworld Grill room complexes. They are mostly ignored by other goblin-kin This encounter takes place in a huge room in a lower dun- (“who cares what goblin scum think?”), although no orc is geon level. The room should be accessible through two doors above mugging a Chosen of Phoze if he has more than a few on different walls. The doors are not locked. The encounter coppers in his begging bowl, or to get some magic mushrooms. should occur in a well-populated dungeon with diverse wan- They are considered meals-on-legs by most wandering dering monsters. monsters. The GM may wish to scatter a few mushroom-robed The door the PCs entered through opens into a huge room goblin corpses through the dungeon before the PCs actually (at least 10 ¥ 10 yards). Nearest the door the party opened are encounter their first pair of Mushroom Monks. Other possi- a trio of circular tables, each with sturdy, oversized stools or ble encounters would be Mushroom Monks being harassed or benches beside them. At the first table is a tough-looking ogre. bullied by orcs or other goblins. . . Seated at the second table are two of what look like lizard men, except with crimson scales and wings; the third table Cult Shrines is empty. Each table has large iron trenchers and tankards set out before it. The ogre is loudly chanting “Bring the meat! The cult have a few small shrines scattered about the dun- Bring the flesh!” The winged lizard men hiss in sibilant voices, geon (calling them temples dignifies them), mostly in rooms “Charrraa, Charrraa, we is hungry!” no one else wants. Usually, 1d+1 cultists are there (goblins or The object of their impatient attentions is cooking at a giant dinomen) stitching new robes and mushroom symbols. There iron table and grill, which glows red-hot from dancing flames are crude smelly bedding, some work tables and benches, a that emerge from a crack in the floor. Mouth-watering aro- chest with a few dozen coppers and a couple of silver pieces, mas are coming from great slabs of meat being cooked on it. baskets of mushrooms or other fungi, dead rats and other Working the grill is a muscular six-armed woman dressed in foodstuffs, and a clay altar or stone image of Lord Phoze (a an apron, who has a snake’s lower body! The chef is wielding fat goblin with horns and bat wings seated on a toadstool). two knives, a skillet, a meat cleaver, and a couple of shakers The cult has no real clerics yet, perhaps because the godhood of spices as she sears, chops, seasons, barbecues, and sautés status of Phoze is uncertain. Will worship bring him to life the meat with heaps of giant mushrooms and other dungeon eventually? Of course, a goblin or other PC, or Ally, could also fungi. Her six arms move with inhuman speed and dexterity in become the first cleric of Phoze since Othbug. . . a dazzling display of culinary celerity. Behind the grill, an open door leads to a connected cham- Mushroom Monks ber (see Store Room, p. 16). The room is lit by the fiery glow of Goblin monks resemble deformed hunchback elves with the flame, as well as candles in the center of each table. pointy ears, green skin, and needle-like teeth, wearing yel- Guests have their regular armaments propped against the low-stained robes and carrying staves and begging bowls. tables or on nearby benches, so they can ready weapons in a They tend to have larger than usual eyes (and often a spaced- couple of seconds, but they want to eat, not fight. out expression). ST: 10 HP: 10 Speed: 5.50 What’s Happening DX: 10 Will: 9 Move: 5 This is a dungeon restaurant! It caters to intelligent mon- IQ: 9 Per: 10 sters who are tired of sitting in their lairs waiting to die or HT: 11 FP: 11 SM: 0 wandering the corridors searching for things to eat. The six-limbed chef is Chara, half-peshkali, half-naga, Dodge: 8 Parry: 9 DR: 0 a member of a race of mighty demonic sentinels. Her kind Bite (10): 1d-2 cutting. Reach C. are usually placed by arch-mages or gods to guard ancient Kick (10): 1d-1 crushing. Reach C, 1. places of power. Chara was set to guard the Fabulous Flame Punch (10): 1d-2 crushing. Reach C. of Fajora (that’s the dancing flame) and for many years did so Staff (10): 1d+2 crushing. Reach 1-2. in this chamber, efficiently slaughtering those adventurers or wandering monsters who blundered into her lair or quested Traits: Appearance (Ugly); Cowardice (12); Fanaticism; after the relic. Infravision; Odious Personal Habits (Annoying proselytiz- But Chara was more imaginative than most demonic ing); Pitiable; Rapid Healing; Resistant to Disease 5; Resis- guardians and ultimately grew bored with her duties. She first tant to Poison 5; Social Stigma (Savage). relieved her tedium by strangling or chopping up and then Skills: Brawling-10; Diplomacy-8; Fast-Talk-10; Naturalist-10; eating the occasional adventurer or monster, but that got old Staff-10; Stealth-10; Theology-8. quickly. Then one day she massacred some hobgoblin brig- Class: Mundane. ands who had bags of spices and peppers they’d looted from Equipment: Quarterstaff; robes; a few scraps of parchment; merchants, and a sack of mushrooms from the lower caverns. 1d-2 mushroom patches to hand to converts; 1d-3 hallu- Mixing them together, she found they made goblin-flesh taste cinogenic magic mushrooms; 2d6-2 other mushrooms a lot better! That gave her an idea. . .
Pyramid Magazine 14 March 2017
Now when people visit or blunder into her lair, Chara will due to shortage of funds? I love to cook! Bring me tasty mon- rise up on her coils, and offer them a choice: “Welcome, dun- ster or demi-human parts, and I will give you credit! Or put geon delver or monster! I am your host and chef, Chara of the you on my special suppliers list, like Slinok and Snarg here.” Outer Dark, devil-guardian of the Fabulous Flame of Fajora, (She gestures toward the dragon men table.) and master of the Underworld Grill. If you cross this thresh- One of the dragon men interrupts: “Hisss, we bring Chaaara old, I will be pleased to serve you . . . one way or another. I the best flesh, the most scrumptious crushrooms. Snake-girl offer culinary delights that fill the stomach, if you will pay my pays us in gold and yummies, yesss!” price. . .” This is all on the up-and-up. Chara will deal with custom- Chara considers her restaurant to be “neutral territory” ers or suppliers honesty, or try to butcher anyone she catches and expects guests to refrain from attacking or insulting each cheating her or insulting her food after trying it. The meals other. She is tough enough to enforce it, and most uninvolved are actually pretty good, and even cannibalistic fare is healthy guests are willing to help her beat down any intruders who’d thanks to the sterilizing effects of the holy flame, although per- rather mix it up then chow down. However, PCs may still haps not for the squeamish. wish to charge in with swords swinging and fireballs blazing, Regarding her offer to pay, Chara has a box of coin in her in which case, the result will devolve into a melee. The hun- store room (see below), which is regularly replenished from gry customers (in this instance, the ogre and dragon men, or her profits. She’ll pay $1 a pound for ordinary fungi or ani- whatever other patrons are here if the GM reuses this with mal flesh, 1d ¥ $1 per pound for most monster, human, or a different crowd) will get up from the tables and grab their demi-human flesh (assuming it’s not rotten or undead); and weapons, ready to defend their underworld bistro. Chara will 3d ¥ $10 per pound for anything especially exotic (unicorn, not draw any weapons as such, but will slither forward armed basilisk eggs, human children, etc.) that she can make the cen- with cleaver, sharp knives, a heavy haunch of meat or skillet terpiece of a new dish. It’s up to the GM whether oozes, bugs, (as a club), and two shakers of super-hot pepper. The result and the like count, but the answer is probably yes: Chara can will be essentially a subterranean bar brawl. usually make them into some sort of pudding. Chara is also If the PCs lose to Chara and her customers (and Chara sur- fascinated by cooking magic and lore, and buys magic items, vives), anyone dead will end up on the grill, and anyone taken potions, books, or scrolls relating to cooking at 25% over the alive or incapacitated will be stripped and hung up on meat usual value. hooks in the pantry. . . Chara will awaken them, taunt them After a meal, Chara likes to chat with her customers, for having missed the “meal of their lives” but congratulate hoping to soak up praise and suggestions; provided her food them on becoming part of her dinner service anyway. Chara is praised, she is good source of gossip on the goings on of is, however, susceptible to flattery and manipulation: PCs who the dungeon. Of course, you need to have bought and eaten beg to have a chance to sample her cooking before they die, her meals to get this information. Any gossip will often be cast doubt on her skill and instead challenge her to a cooking couched in terms of things she wants: “By the way, my lat- competition, or express knowledge of some distant rare ingre- est creation would really benefit from manticore liver. I have dient or item that would benefit her cookery may get out of it been informed there is a nest of manticores on the third level alive . . . Should Chara and the monsters lose, the PCs can loot infesting the Dead King’s Chamber. My last supplier prom- the place; possible treasure is detailed below. ised to bring me some, but he never came back. Is there any If the PCs are willing to talk, and ask what her price is, Chara chance you can fetch me some?” She’d be willing to pay recites her menu: The day’s special is “pepper-spiced wyvern $1,000 per liver. tail with fried crushroom” for $100 a serving (hey, dungeons Incidentally, Chara is also willing to deal with the party have inflation), but she can also recommend “seared goblin for ordinary cooking supplies. As she’s bound by sacred vows liver” ($50) and “dragon’s egg omelet” for $200. “Should you to stay in her chamber, shopping is difficult, and most of the have cannibalistic tendencies, I am woefully short of demi-hu- monsters down here aren’t folks who can roll into the general man or human meat, with the exception of stuffed dwarf store and order onions and fish sauce. She’ll pay 1.5 times the brains ($200), also very delicious with mushroom sauce.” usual cost (up to a maximum of $1,000 in any given week) for Any insulting of the meals will provoke her ire as well as ordinary surface dweller’s spices, animal flesh, wine, veggies, that of her customers; she continues to expound on the vir- or other mundane ingredients she’s short of (GM’s option). tues of her food, but advances with a dangerous look in her This could be a good racket for adventurers, although of eyes. The adventurers had better either come on board, flee, course they may run into encounters on the way to or from or prepare to fight. If they’re willing to talk food, however, the dungeon, and any rumors they’re trading with a demon she adds: “All of my meals are cooked in the sacred flames of may harm their reputation. Fajora, and share its amazing properties. Are you reluctant
I cook with wine. Sometimes I even add it
to the food. – W.C. Fields Pyramid Magazine 15 March 2017 The Fabulous Flame of Fajora Chara The reason the iron table Chara uses for grilling is red Chara is a supernatural guardian demon, half-peshkali and hot is that it’s sitting on top of the sacred place that Chara half-naga. While she doesn’t need to eat or drink, she loves was appointed guardian of: the Flame of Fajora. This is a 3’ experimenting with food! She fights with her cooking imple- high flame that emanates from a crack in the dungeon floor. ments and her body’s abilities. According to Chara (or a successful Hidden Lore or Occultism ST: 20 HP: 20 Speed: 6.50 roll by a clever PC), the flame exists because, in ages past, the DX: 14 Will: 15 Move: 6 ancient fire goddess Fajora, fled underground to escape her IQ: 11 Per: 15 enemies. In payment to the earth for sheltering her, she left a HT: 12 FP: 12 SM: 0 piece of herself behind. Dodge: 10 Parry: 13 (¥6) DR: 4 • It is Essential Fire. • Its holy nature purifies anything passing through, or any- Grapple (16): Effective ST for grappling is 22 due to Wres- thing cooked or boiled over it. Effectively it acts as area-effect tling skill. May use snake body and up to six arms, gaining Purify Food and Purify Water spells. This also means the prov- +2 to skill and ST per body part used after the first two! ender that Chara cooks is free of parasites, etc., which is one Inevitably followed by Constriction Attack, which counts reason it’s popular! as an attack. Reach C. • It provides 12 energy (which regenerates at 1/hour) that Weapons (18): Haunch of meat or iron skillet (3d+3 crush- can be used for casting any Fire spells. This can be drawn ing); two cleavers (3d+3 cutting); two large knives (2d upon by anyone within two yards of the flame. impaling or 2d+1 cutting). Reach 1. Pepper Shaker (14): Hot pepper to the face. Treat as an Store Room Affliction jet attack with reach 2 and three shots. A hit requires two HT-2 rolls to resist coughing and blindness The back room behind the restaurant is used by Chara to respectively; both endure until the pepper is removed with hold various supplies. Staff only. It’s a cramped pantry with water and towels. indescribable smells of blood, spices, and meat. It contains: Traits: Appearance (Attractive); Combat Reflexes; Constric- tion Attack; Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t • Six meat hooks hanging from the ceiling, with a couple of Sleep; Double-Jointed; Extra Arms 4; Extra Attack 5; bloody carcasses dangling from them, including the skinned Immunity to Disease; Immunity to Poison; Indomitable; carcass of a man-sized two-legged dragon (a wyvern), its tail Infravision; No Vitals; Oblivious; Obsession (Perfect her and several chunks of its torso missing. dungeon cuisine) (9); Slithers; Supernatural Durability • A five-gallon barrel of orcish fire-brandy ($200, 40 lbs.). (Can be killed only after all six arms are crippled); Truth- • A five-gallon barrel of decent cooking wine ($400, 40 lbs.). fulness (6); Unfazeable; Vow (Guard the Sacred Flame of • Six bronze buckets for collecting blood ($45, 3 lbs., each), Fajora at all times). under the meat hooks. Skills: Axe/Mace-18; Broadsword-18; Cooking-17; Knife-18; • Shelves with sacks holding 40 meals’ worth of dubious Wrestling-16. ingredients (dried rat, spider jelly, powdered dungeon molds, Class: Demon. various local fungi, etc.; $160, 20 lbs.). Notes: Can attack six times but can use each body part – arm • An alcove with 50-gallon barrel of water ($200, 400 lbs.) (to use a weapon or grapple) or serpent tail (to grap- with tap. ple) – just once. Chara is a cooking nerd. • A barrel of salted dwarf brains ($200, 40 lbs.). At the bottom is the key to the iron strong box. Chara doesn’t mind reaching into dwarf brain to get it. Slinok and Snarg • A barrel of 150 lbs. of salt ($1,500) with a wyvern tail (10 (Dragon-Men Customers) lbs., $100) and a dwarf leg (1 lb., $2) in it. These two warriors survived a recent battle and are cele- • A shelf with various iron pots, pans, and kitchen imple- brating by doing lunch at Chara’s kitchen. Dragon men have ments (20 lbs., $200). long snouts, crimson and gold scales, leathery wings, and long • A row of jars holding 2 lbs. of black pepper ($4,800), 5 tails. They wield hefty glaives that glow red with heat. lbs. of ginger ($3,040), 2.5 lbs. of mustard ($1,520), 1.5 lbs. of saffron ($7,200), 0.5 lb. of cinnamon ($1,200), 5 lbs. of cloves ST: 13 HP: 13 Speed: 5.50 ($12,000). DX: 11 Will: 9 Move: 6 • A stack of iron trenchers (4 lbs., $80 each) for serving IQ: 9 Per: 9 food; there are no dirty dishes, Chara just sterilizes them in HT: 11 FP: 11 SM: 0 the flames. • A jug holding 20 doses of toxic monster drool ($800, Dodge: 8 Parry: 10 DR: 4 10 lbs.). Bite (13): 1d cutting. Reach C. Any hit counts as a grapple, • On the shelf, next to the spices, a locked iron strong box even if it doesn’t penetrate DR, after which can roll bite (DR 12, HP 10, $250, 15 lbs.) with 500 copper pieces ($500, 10 damage each turn as a free action; C lbs.) and 600 silver pieces ($12,000, 12 lbs.) and four ounces of Clawed Kick (11): 1d+1 cutting. Reach C, 1. gold dust ($10,000, 0.25 lbs.). Clawed Punch (13): 1d cutting. Reach C.
Pyramid Magazine 16 March 2017
Flame Breath (14): 2d+2 burning. Treat as a jet spell with This is a complex of two connected rooms: Zabrina’s outer reach C-3. Five-second recharge between shots. chamber and inner sanctum. The outer chamber connects via Glaive (14): 1d+5 impaling. Reach 1, 2*. Fine weapon. When its own door to her inner sanctum and office. wielded by a dragon man it becomes a Flaming Weapon, Zabrina, the master of this complex, is only in her rooms doing 2 extra HP of injury. about half the time. The rest of the time she’s working in the Tail Strike (11): 1d+2 crushing. Reach C. dungeon. It’s up to the GM whether to have Zabrina present when they first visit her rooms; it is probably more amusing to Traits: Disturbing Voice; Flight (Air Move 12); Nictitating let them hack through the skeleton guards, then try to make Membrane 2; Odious Racial Habit (Eats other sapient sense of what they find there, only to have Zabrina show up beings, ‑3 reactions); Peripheral Vision; Temperature Tol- later, perhaps half-way through their ransacking of her lair. erance 5 (Heat). Skills: Brawling-13; Glaive-14; Stealth-11; Wrestling-12. Class: Mundane. Outer Chamber and Laundry Room Class: Glaive, $100, 8 lbs.; belt pouch with 1d gold and 3d This is a plain stone room (perhaps about 6 ¥ 7 yards) silver pieces. with two doors, one of which leads into the corridor the party entered from (and the other to the inner sanctum). The room Grumpf the Ogre contains three large tubs filled with soapy water. Busy in the room are five undead skeletons, doing laun- This hulking brute works as a heavy for some of the dun- dry – squeezing out water, scrubbing stains from clothes, etc. geon orcs. He heard good things about the kitchen and wants Already hanging up or in the tubs are six very wet hooded his spiced wyvern tail. black robes, several cute little indigo socks, four black ST: 20 HP: 20 Speed: 5.75 cloaks, and five black slips. The skeletons wear black robes DX: 11 Will: 10 Move: 5 and helms and have swords or hammers slung on their back IQ: 7 Per: 9 Weight: 800 lbs. (there’s no reason for them to take them off; unlike humans, HT: 12 FP: 12 SM: +1 they don’t get sweaty. . .) These are Zabrina’s guards, pressed into service as servants. Dodge: 8 Parry: 11 DR: 2 (DR 6 on skull) The lich is fastidious about her personal hygiene (one reason Bite (13): 2d-1 cutting, Reach C. she prefers skeletons to icky zombies) and once a week insists Morningstar (13): 3d+6 crushing. Reach 1, 2*. her guards do her laundry. They will, however, put down their Kick (11): 2d+1 crushing. Reach C, 1. work to defend her lair. Punch (13): 2d crushing. Reach C, 1. Traits: Appearance (Hideous); Fearlessness 3; High Pain Zabrina’s Skeleton Guards Threshold; Magic Resistance 2; Night Vision 5; Odious The skeletons Zabrina has attending her were the result of Racial Habit (Eats other sapient beings; ‑3 to reactions); animating some ancient bones (the Knights of Zor) in a crypt Resistant to Disease 3; Resistant to Poison 3. she found. She outfitted them with some salvaged armor and Skills: Brawling-13; Flail-13; Intimidation-12. weapons from their burial chamber. Half are armed with war- Class: Mundane. hammers, the other half with greatswords. All have weapons Equipment: Morningstar ($80, 6 lbs.); oversized pot-helm sheathed while going about their laundry or cleaning tasks, ($200, 10 lbs.); belt pouch with $170 in copper coins. and wear black robes and boots along with their mail. ST: 12 HP: 12 Speed: 8.00 DX: 13 Will: 8 Move: 8 IQ: 8 Per: 8 If you cannot get rid of HT: 12 FP: N/A SM: 0
the family skeleton, you may Dodge: 11 Parry: 10 DR: 6 (see notes) Bony Claw (14): 1d crushing. Reach C. as well make it dance. Weapon (14): Greatsword (1d+5 cutting); Reach 1-2; or War- hammer (1d+5 impaling; Reach 1-2). – George Bernard Shaw Traits: Appearance (Monstrous); Automaton; Brittle; Cannot Float; Cannot Learn; Dependency (Loses 1 HP per minute
The Dungeon Detective in no-mana areas); Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; High Pain Threshold; Immunity to Disease; (Lair of Zabrina the Lich) Immunity to Mind Control; Immunity to Poison; Indom- itable; Mute; No Blood; No Brain; No Eyes; No Sense of This encounter may be used if the same party have been Smell/Taste; No Vitals; Reprogrammable; Single-Minded; raiding a single dungeon over a period of multiple weeks, kill- Skinny; Temperature Tolerance 5 (Cold); Temperature Tol- ing and looting monster lairs. erance 5 (Heat); Unfazeable; Unhealing (Total); Unliving; The party will come upon an ordinary dungeon door. If Unnatural; Vulnerability (Crushing ¥2). anyone listens, there are some noises within that vaguely Skills: Brawling-14; Two-Handed Axe/Mace-14; Two-Handed sound like washing. Sword-14.
Pyramid Magazine 17 March 2017
Class: Undead. On another wall is a crude partial map of the dungeon Equipment: Mail shirt ($150, 16 lbs.), pot-helm ($100, 5 lbs.), drawn in charcoal. What’s interesting about the map is that leather boots ($80, 3 lbs.), leather gloves ($30, neg.), and certain rooms have Xs marked on them and next to them either a greatsword ($800, 7 lbs.) or warhammer ($100, various numbers and letters; some have question marks. The 7 lbs.). layout will seem familiar if the party has been mapping the Notes: Total DR is 6 (4 vs. crushing) for torso, 6 for skull, 4 dungeon, as the areas in it are mostly those they have vis- for hands and feet, and 2 elsewhere. Unaffected by Death ited. In fact, what the map actually depicts are rooms where Vision or Sense Life. Susceptible to Pentagram, Sense the party attacked and wiped out monster denizens, and left Spirit, and Turn Zombie. behind evidence of this; the dates are those in which the room’s occupants were believed to have been attacked. Inner Sanctum The work table contains not just a mere selection of nec- romantic spell components. In fact, the macabre collection of A large room that serves as the lich’s bedroom, conjuring “monster bits” (skulls, bones, and other hard residue of var- area, and laboratory. The door has a Magelock spell on it. ious dead monsters, many in advanced states of decay), are There’s an iron four-poster bed covered with a white bear- also remnants of the adventurer’s own dungeon depredations. skin and two big black silk pillows (filled with griffin feathers). The exact mix of this evidence will depend on the PCs prior On a bedside table (4 lbs., $100) sits a stick of charcoal and a actions, for these are any remnants that were left behind after dagger ($400, 0.25 lbs., very fine). their attacks (and after opportunistic scavenging by oozes or In the center of the room is large reinforced-iron work table rats). All have tags or marks written on the bone (date and (400 lbs., $800) heaped with the sort of disturbing things one room) that match the map that is keyed on walls. might expect in a necromancy lab: skulls, bones, body parts, In short, this is basically a giant “serial killer wall” by some- and so on, some labeled. one who has been tracking the PCs raids into the dungeon, On one wall is a 6’ ¥ 3’ oil portrait of a very handsome and playing Dungeon Detective for the monsters! young but pallid man with red eyes and a sinister half-smile dressed in a fancy hunting outfit and cloak. An appropriate Area Knowledge, Occultism, or Hidden Lore roll will identify Zabrina’s Background it as the vampire Count Karzi (supposedly driven into exile a Zabrina was a teen prodigy of a necromancer. Her jealous century ago). stepmother, a powerful baroness and wicked sorcerer, had On a shelf behind the bed is a thick book (A True Account seen her own power and beauty fade with time; somewhat of the Depravity of the Undead); perusing it shows it is a pop- envious of her husband’s daughter, the older woman “just ular bodice-ripper detailing lurid affairs between vampires wanted what was best for her” and tricked the young woman and humans, written by the bard Ingrid Yalvatter a century into drinking a potion of lichdom when she was only 15 years ago, and often banned by moralizing clerics (1 lb., $100). old. Her body quickly rotted away, but she became an immor- Another well-thumbed grimoire, Mastering the Art of Death, tal undead. Peeved by this, she ran away from home and got a or Necromancy for Beginners, sits next to it (2 lbs., $2,000). A room of her own in the nearest dungeon to find herself. third well-thumbed book – Great Adventures of Toramere the Zabrina is fairly good at being a necromancer but turning Sage (1 lb., $500) – is a popular set of morality tales starring a into lich as a teenager is a drag. She never got a chance to do cunning scholar who solves mysteries using logic. weird potions, drink, or attend school, and she really misses A wooden chest of drawers (80 lbs., $400) are normally the whole courtly romance thing. She is still rather girlish, full of clothes, but today empty. Atop the chest of drawers and in fact, she wants a handsome guy. These days, she fig- is a black obsidian unicorn statue (0.25 lbs., $2,000) and a ures maybe a darkly handsome vampire or budding dark large fluffy stuffed bunny-demon with fangs and a spiked lord would be willing to accept her, but a hunky barbarian or tail (2 lbs., $200). anti-paladin will do! Something tall that is draped in layers of black silk (3 lbs., She is a fairly social for an undead horror, and has spent $300) stands in one corner. It is in fact a silvered glass mirror. the last few months getting to know other monsters in the It is enchanted (the Mirror of Life and Death). After a sec- dungeon. Imagine her surprise when they started turning ond, any living person who looks into it will see themselves up dead (after adventures began dungeon raids)! Zabrina is transforming into a rotting corpse and then a skeleton (treat overconfident, so she has decided to see if she can solve this as Death Vision 15 spell). However, any undead who looks mystery and track down the villains behind it – hence the into it will see an image of themselves as if they were alive “serial killer wall” she erected in her office, the result of her and healthy at the age at which they became undead, even if forensic investigations. they are of a type that normally do not produce a reflection. Zabrina doesn’t sleep so she doesn’t need the bed, but she The mirror is heavy (20 lbs.) but worth $20,000 to collectors of does like lounging on her pillows while she reads her spell- weird items, vampires, necromancers, etc. book, detective stories, and romances, or wistfully viewing Other than the decorations noted above, the walls are her original form (pale, long black hair, perky nose) in the whitewashed. On one wall are numerous glyphs and spell mirror. Zabrina is quite sensitive about her looks (especially formulas drawn with charcoal. They can be recognized by a the “skeleton” thing). While she does appreciate no longer mage as essentially study notes for someone learning a necro- having to watch her weight, she is insecure at becoming a mancy spell, specifically Skull-Spirit (something Zabrina has lich so young. Also, lich jokes such as accurately saying she just recently mastered through her studies, for the purpose of “lacks a brain” will annoy her. Unlike most liches, she has self-defense, and which she is eager to try on intruders). not had centuries to invent obscure diabolical spells, cre- ate an array of cursed magic items, or build up a big lair.
Pyramid Magazine 18 March 2017
She is, however, very clever, as well as competent at rais- (4 lbs., $20,000) and Blur. She has little interest in money ing the dead, fear spells, basic necromancer things, and but has a belt pouch with 10 gold and 10 silver pieces, and general magic. a magic mushroom she got from a wandering Phoze cultist ST: 9 HP: 10 Speed: 7.00 (which she can’t eat). DX: 12 Will: 18 Move: 7 * All spells include +3 for Magery. IQ: 16 Per: 16 HT: 14 FP: N/A SM: 0 Dodge: 10 Parry: 11 DR: 2 About the Columnist David L. Pulver is a Canadian freelance author. An avid Staff (12): 1d+1 crushing. Reach 1, 2. science-fiction fan, he began roleplaying in junior high Traits: Brittle; Cannot Float; Curious; Dark Vision; Depen- with the newly released Basic Dungeons & Dragons. Upon dency (Loses 1 HP per minute in no-mana areas); Doesn’t graduating from university, he decided to become a game Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; Energy designer. Since then, David has written over 70 roleplaying Reserve 25 (Magical); High Pain Threshold; Immunity game books, and he has worked as a staff writer, editor, and to Disease; Immunity to Poison; Magery 6; No Blood; No line developer for Steve Jackson Games and Guardians of Brain; No Eyes; No Sense of Smell/Taste; No Vitals; Over- Order. He is best known for creating Transhuman Space, confidence; Skinny; Unfazeable; Unhealing (Heals only co-authoring the Big Eyes, Small Mouth anime RPG, and when Unkillable is triggered); Unkillable (Total; Achilles writing countless GURPS books, including the GURPS Heel, Can be truly killed in no-mana areas); Unliving; Vul- Basic Set, Fourth Edition, GURPS Ultra-Tech, and the nerability (Crushing ¥2). GURPS Spaceships series. Skills: Area Knowledge (Dungeon)-16; Criminology-15; Hidden Lore-15; Occult- ism-15; Research-15; Staff-12; Thauma- tology-15. Spells*: Armor-20; Apportation-20; Ban- ish-20; Control Zombie-20; Counter- spell-20; Daze-20; Death Vision-20; Deflect Missile-20; Delay-20; Detect Magic-20; Dispel Magic-20; Eviscer- ation-20; Fear-20; Flight-20; Foolish- ness-20; Hide Thoughts-20; Illusion Disguise-21; Lend Energy-20; Lend Vitality-20; Levitation-20; Light-20; Magelock-20; Mass Zombie-20; Minor Healing-20; Mind Reading-20; Mind- Search-19; Panic-20; Reflect-20; Sense Emotion-20; Sense Foes-20; Sense Life- 20; Sense Spirit-20; Shield-20; Simple Illusion-20; Skull-Spirit-20; Soul Jar- 20; Soul Rider-20; Steal Energy (H)-20; Steal Vitality-20; Steal Wisdom-20; Sum- mon Spirit-20; Teleport-19; Terror-20; Truthsayer-20; Turn Zombie-20; Ward- 20; Zombie-21; Zombie Summoning-20. Class: Undead. Notes: Favorite spells are at ‑2 to energy cost and half casting time due to skill 20+. Depending on how seriously the GM may wish to treat this encounter, Zabrina could have on an Illusion Disguise that makes her look like a teenage girl, and will likely have a few spells (such as Armor, Shield, or Hide Thoughts) pow- ered up at all times. If she is out and sees signs that her front door has been knocked down, she retreats and sum- mons some Skull-Spirits or raise some more undead first. She has a staff taken from her mother tipped with a jeweled bat-winged skull that is 10-point Power- stone and enchanted to cast Deathtouch
Pyramid Magazine 19 March 2017
Animating Your Life by Kelly Pedersen
We laugh at the antics of Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, or This article describes “animates,” cartoon characters who Woody Woodpecker because they are safely contained behind can interact with the world of humans. It gives the option the silver screen. But what if they came out of cartoon-land of playing as one and presents some advice for the GM. For and invaded the human sphere? Would that be “funny-ha- more details on playing animate-style characters in their own ha”?Or “funny-strange”? setting, with no humans involved, see Toon: The Cartoon Roleplaying Game, published by Steve Jackson Games.
The Unbearable Lightness
of Being (a Cartoon) Animates can be unique intrusions into otherwise-normal unconsciousness. Most importantly, they can’t die (at least not settings, rare-but-known creatures, or a recognized group in the traditional sense). Animates can be crushed into a pan- with their own communities and concerns. Animates or even cake from a fall, burned into a pile of ashes by a huge explo- humans turned into animates can show up in any genre that sion, turn green and fall over after taking poison, and none includes a wide variety of strange beings: superheroes, urban of it will be permanent. A few minutes later, they’ll be back, fantasy, or even soft science fiction. cracking jokes. There are two important
T A he nimate Animates may be temporarily limitations on these tricks. First, all of them are subject R T acial emplate inconvenienced by many hazards to the Rule of Funny – ani- mates may be temporarily 205 points they would normally be immune inconvenienced by many You’re an animate, a living ani- hazards they would nor- mated character. Even if you don’t to, if that would be funnier. mally be immune to, if that want to be funny, you’re a magnet for would be funnier. Animates comedic situations, and your abilities on the ocean floor might work in the funniest way, not necessarily the most useful. talk and breathe normally – until someone points out they’re Animates always look somewhat different than humans, underwater, at which point, they start to flail about as bubbles usually appearing drawn or painted. Some may look more rise from their mouth. These restrictions form the Comedic realistic, but they are always distinguishable from humans. limitation; for more guidance on how to apply it, see pp. 24-25. Whether or not this is a disadvantage depends on the status of The second major flaw is less humorous. A chemical mix- animates in the setting – see Animates in Public, p. 21. ture has been discovered (composed of paint thinner, acetone, An animate’s body is enormously resilient – they don’t and other substances) that can literally dissolve an animate. need to eat, drink, sleep, or breath, and they don’t lose fatigue Even brief contact with this substance inflicts 1d-3 of injury from physical exertion (though deliberate expenditures in every five seconds, while contact in major quantities (such as the form of Extra Effort still cost FP). They’re challenging to full immersion) can inflict up to 2d per five seconds. Injury harm (divide all injury by two, except from their Weakness, from this source is not reduced, cannot be regenerated and see below), and they don’t bleed (wounds sometimes leak must be healed normally. Any crippling injuries inflicted by it “paint,” but this doesn’t bother them – not so the janitorial can’t be grown back. If the animate fails an HT roll to resist staff, though!). They’re very difficult to knock out. If they are death due to damage from it, he is really dead – no coming hurt, animates recover quickly, both from the raw injury and back next week!
Pyramid Magazine 20 March 2017
Mentally, animates have extreme reactions. Animates never just flinch in pain, grin a bit at a joke, or gaze appreciatively Animate Traits at someone attractive. They scream in agony, laugh uproar- Several traits in the template need a little explanation. iously, or do a wolf whistle then literally howl at the sky. They also frequently act before they think – animates may be Easy to Read clever enough to come up with a good scheme on the spot, but they’ll rarely consider the long-term consequences. see p. B134 Finally, animates are just more likely to find themselves in Animates use several new modifiers for this disadvantage. situations with the potential for humor, often at their expense! Animates can’t walk down the street without dodging three New Special Enhancements banana peels, ducking a ladder swung by an incautious house- Extreme Reactions: You don’t just display your intentions painter, and having a big bag of money shoved into their or feelings, you flaunt them! Others get +8, rather than +4, hands by a very nearsighted bank robber. on all skill rolls or quick contests that Easy to Read normally gives a bonus to. +50% Advantages: Doesn’t Breathe (Comedic, -20%) [16]; Doesn’t Heart on Your Sleeve: You not only give away your inten- Eat or Drink (Comedic, -20%) [8]; Doesn’t Sleep (Comedic, tions, but your emotions, too. The bonus from Easy to Read -20%) [16]; Hard to Subdue 5 (Comedic, -20%) [8]; Indefat- also applies to all skill rolls or Quick Contests when a watcher is igable (p. 22; Comedic, -20%) [24]; Injury Tolerance (Dam- trying to discern what you are feeling right now. Additionally, age Reduction 2; Comedic, -20%; Limited Defense, Not anyone trying to read your emotional state can roll against IQ, against paint remover mixture, -10%) [35]; Injury Toler- if that would be better than their default, including the bonus ance (No Blood; Comedic, -20%) [4]; Perfect Comic Timing from Easy to Read. +25% 1 (p. 24) [12]; Recovery (Comedic, -20%) [8]; Regeneration Physical Reactions: Your body’s physical state – tired, (Fast; Bane, Rare, Paint-remover mixture, -10%; Comedic, hungry, in pain, etc. – is just as obvious as your feelings and -20%) [35]; Regrowth (Bane, Paint-remover mixture, -10%; intentions. The bonus from Easy to Read also applies to skills Comedic, -20%) [28]; Unkillable 2 (Achilles’ Heel, Paint- such as Diagnosis, First Aid, or Observation, when someone remover mixture, -10%; Comedic, -20%) [70]. is trying to determine what sort of physical state you are in. Perks: Can always spend character points to buy success on Additionally, whenever you are subjected to pain (definitely Public Speaking (Comedy) rolls; Animate Gifts*; Unusual including any wound that could cause a shock penalty, but Training (Can buy Enthrallment skills without Charisma; also common hazards like stubbing your toe), you must make audience size equals margin of success). [3] a Will roll, at a penalty equal to half the bonus Easy to Read Disadvantages: Easy to Read (below; Extreme Reactions, provides to others, to avoid crying out, interrupting stealth +50%; Heart on Your Sleeve, +25%, Concealed Intentions, and possibly causing social offense. +25% -100%, Physical Reactions, +25%) [-10]; Impulsiveness (12) [-10]; Weakness (Paint-remover mixture, 1d/minute; New Special Limitation Reduced Time 3, +60%; Variable, -40%) [-24]; Weirdness Concealed Intentions: Your intentions are not made obvi- Magnet (p. 22) [-15]. ous by Easy to Read! You can lie, and your body language, Quirks: Leaves animate traces†; Animate takes‡; Visibly obvi- facial expressions, or other “tells” will not automatically give ous§. [-3] you away. Others do not get the usual bonus to discern your Features: Physician, Surgery, Diagnosis, and similar skills intentions. Note that this only applies to intentions. If you are ineffective for healing an animate, instead replace with have taken either Heart on Your Sleeve or Physical Reactions, Artist (Cartoonist), Electronic Operation (Media), or other above, your emotions or physical condition will still be obvi- skills for manipulating art. ous. -100% * Allows the character to increase or purchase animate-appropriate abilities; see pp. 23-24. † Leaves obvious traces of yourself on the scenery – holes shaped like you when jumping Animates in Public through a window, touches of paint in your colors The animate racial template assumes either that the animate on objects you handle, and so forth. Gives +1 to is a weird one-off, or that animates are completely integrated into Forensics, Tracking, and similar skills to trace you general culture. Either way, they aren’t significantly restricted or identify your presence at a location. in civil rights or by “racial” prejudice. The GM can change these ‡ Your reactions, due to Easy to Read, are not assumptions. First, animates can be creatures; the public at large only obvious, they also fall into standard animate reacts to them as potentially dangerous beings, not people. If this clichés, such as showing anger by having steam is the case, animates should have Unnatural Features (Animate) come out of your ears. Observers with any points [-5] and either some level of Secret or Social Stigma added to their in skills like Artist (Cartoonist) or Connoisseur racial template. The other option is to treat them as a minority; (Cartoons) get an extra +2 above the bonus Easy to animates are viewed as people, but not treated as full equals of Read already provides. humans. Their status (and corresponding Social Stigma) can range § You’re visually distinctive, usually because from “treated with suspicion and socially limited” to “assumed to you’re “painted” in bright, primary colors. Enemies be property, with no civil rights at all.” have +1 to spot you, or you have -1 to Stealth rolls, whichever is most appropriate.
Pyramid Magazine 21 March 2017
Indefatigable Cursed or Unluckiness 30 points see p. B129, B160 This trait is essentially Immunity to FP Loss from Physical These are remarkably common disadvantages among ani- Exertion. A character with it is immune to losing fatigue from mates. Schadenfreude makes it funny to see characters have any sort of physical exercise; they can run all day, swim for bad things happen to them. Some animates experience this hours, etc. It doesn’t prevent FP loss from deliberate expendi- constantly; others have the Karmic limitation, below. ture, such as Extra Effort, and doesn’t block loss from other sources, such as missed sleep, suffocation, and so forth. (This New Special Limitation trait is based on the zombie feature No Fatigue described in Karmic: Bad things happen to you, but only when you GURPS Zombies, pp. 67-68). deserve them. You only suffer the effects of Cursed or Unluck- iness when you do something bad first. On Unluckiness, this Perfect Comic Timing means that you get one bout of bad luck for each bad action you take. Do three misdeeds in succession, and you can look See the description of this ability on p. 24. forward to three sessions of Unluckiness. Similarly, the more nasty actions you take, the longer the effects of Cursed will Weirdness Magnet persist. Each evil deed gives you one hour of play time where see p. B115 Cursed applies. For animates, this functions as “Funny Magnet.” The situ- The GM decides what counts as a “bad” action. He should ations they find themselves in are still inconvenient and cause make it fairly clear what counts ahead of time, but there’s no others to react to them poorly, but the circumstances are need to warn the player each time the character seems about always comedic. Note that animates don’t react negatively to to transgress. The strength of the disadvantage’s effects can each other because of this. After all, that’s just their life! also be tailored to how bad the triggering action was – a minor sin results in a small inconvenience like spill- ing coffee on your dress shirt, while a seri- ous crime could lead to crashing a car into A nimate M ortality a dynamite factory. A series of smaller, related bad actions is best treated as a sin- Animates’ weakness to the chemical mixture has been included to add gle worse one, to make a short, memora- additional drama. If there’s absolutely no chance of death, it may be hard ble punishment, rather than a prolonged to care about such characters. But this isn’t absolutely necessary. A hero series of annoyances. -50% who isn’t an animate full time, but only transforms into one, is vulnerable when he isn’t transformed. In some settings, the GM may just feel like ani- mates should be totally unkillable. Removing the weakness to paint remover Delusion increases the cost of Regeneration, Regrowth, and Unkillable to [40], [32], -10 points and [80] respectively, and removes the Weakness disadvantage entirely, for “Humans are just like animates”: This a final template cost of [253]. Conversely, in a setting where animates’ weak- Major Delusion means that you don’t rec- ness is well-known, or expanded to any mix of such chemicals, the degree of ognize any difference between humanity rarity should be reduced, making the limitations and disadvantage larger. and . . . animanity? You treat them both Alternatively, a different substance or condition can be substituted for the same. This can be very dangerous, the chemical. If animates are really a species of faerie, for example, iron because a human cannot take the sort of would be an appropriate replacement, or the “removing drawings” theme punishment an animate can. Drop a safe could be retained with something like erasers (giving a whole new meaning on them, and they don’t get back up! to “rubber bullets”). Or animates could be vulnerable to other conditions, such as “children crying.” Higher Purpose see p. B59 “Make people laugh”: You have a
Animating Characters goal – comedy – and the skill to pull it off. You get a +1 to any rolls deliberately intended to amuse at least one person watch- Besides the traits on their template, there are some advan- ing you. tages and disadvantages that are common to many animates. Talents Compulsive Comedy see pp. B89-91 and GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents -5 points* Many animates are natural entertainers. Talents such as You want to make people laugh! You try to do an Born Entertainer (Talents, p. 6) or Musical Ability (p. B91 impromptu or formal comedy routine at least once a day, or Talents, p. 13) can represent this. Other animates are occupying at least 15 minutes. You must also make a self- skilled in fooling their opponents, which can be repre- control roll whenever an opportunity to deliver a punchline or sented by Craftiness (Talents, p. 9) or Talker (Talents, p. 16). complete a classic “bit” presents itself. If you fail, you do so, Smooth Operator (p. B91 or Talents, p. 15) covers both these even if that would compromise stealth or a disguise. areas and is very appropriate.
Pyramid Magazine 22 March 2017
Unaging Make ’Em Laugh see p. B95 24/31/39/46/54 points for levels 1-5 This advantage isn’t on the template because it won’t come Your comedic abilities are so potent they can leave oth- up in most games. But many animates seem immune to the ers stunned, paralyzed with laughter, or even give them ravages of time! Animates can justify taking this easily, and permanent disadvantages! You usually need to do at least a the GM might add it to the racial template. brief comedy routine to make this work, but sometimes just a single well-timed quip can do the job. Your targets must
Animate Abilities either be able to see your antics, or hear and understand your words. Several abilities are common to animates, but not univer- To use this ability, decide whether you are doing a phys- sal. Thanks to the Animate Gifts perk (see p. 21), an animate ical or verbal routine, and if you are trying for just a quick can spend points to buy them at any time. The animate racial gag or taking a full minute for a proper bit. Once you’ve deliv- template includes one level of Perfect Comic Timing (p. 24), ered the punchline, everyone who can see you or hear you, as but animates can buy more. appropriate, must roll against their Will, at -1 per level you All animate abilities have the Comedic limitation (pp. 24-25) have above the first, but with a +5 if you tried this without the minute of set-up, and an additional +1 for every previ- ous time within 24 hours you’ve used this ability on them. If Animated Exit a target’s Will, after all modifiers, exceeds 13, treat it as 13, 10/20/30/40 points for levels 1-4 as per a Fright Check (p. B360). This includes your friends! When you’re scared or startled, you can really move. Add Anyone who succeeds is immune to your jokes for the next 25% to your Basic Move as long as you’re running away from hour. If anyone fails, the GM rolls 3d, adds the victim’s mar- whatever spooked you, though you will need to make a DX gin of failure, and consults the Awe and Confusion Check roll to suddenly change direction. If you take a second before Table (GURPS Powers, p. 85), using the Awe results (except bolting – a good time for a cartoon moment like your eyes for result 21, which uses the Confusion result), and interpret- bulging out or running on air briefly – add 50% to your Basic ing the outcome as being overcome by hilarity. Move instead. Two levels of Animated Exit double the speed bonuses above, three levels quadruple them, and the fourth Statistics: Terror (Awe, Visual; Comedic, -20%; Weakened level multiplies them by six. Without Immediate Preparation, 1 minute, -15%) [20] + Ter- ror (Awe, Audible; Accessibility, Only on those who share a Statistics: Enhanced Move (Ground) 1/2 (Accessibility, language with you, -10%; Comedic, -20%; Weakened Without Only to escape danger, -20%; Cosmic, Instantaneous acceler- Immediate Preparation, 1 minute, -15%; Alternate Ability to ation, +50%; Emergencies Only, -30%; Takes Extra Time 1, above, 1/5) [4]. Each additional level adds -1 to resist both Only applies to half the levels of Enhance Move (Ground), versions of Terror. -5%). Notes: Takes Extra Time is an example of Partly Limited Abilities, GURPS Power-Ups 8: Limitations, pp. 6-7.
Big Back Pocket Payload and Gizmos
Payload with Cosmic increases what a hero can do 11.8 points/level with Gizmos. Since someone with such a Payload could Once per session per level, you can pull nearly anything reasonably carry considerably larger items without out of your pocket, handbag, sleeve, or just from behind your being spotted, the size and weight restrictions on Gizmo back. The object can be anything that you could potentially (“small enough to fit in a coat pocket”) are relaxed to own (that is, you could afford it based on your Wealth), “whatever you could fit in your Payload.” weighs no more than 12 lbs., and fits into a space of about 2/3 of a cubic foot. Multiply the weight and space limits by the number of levels you have of Big Back Pocket. You can store things you pick up in the same way. Anything you stash Don’t Mind The Drop must fit into your space’s volume and weight limits. If you have already stored something, your ability to pull out any- 10 points thing else is limited to the mass and volume remaining. You can walk on air . . . as long as you don’t look down! One common gag is to pull out several useless items before You can only move horizontally, since this trick is based on finding the one you want. The extra stuff never seems to stick the fact that gravity only works if you acknowledge that you’re around, and thus doesn’t count a use of Big Back Pocket. not on a stable level surface anymore; vertical movement breaks the illusion. If you move out over thin air accidentally, Statistics: Gizmo 1 (Comedic, -20%) [4] + Payload 6 you must make a Per roll every second. On a success, you (Comedic, -20%; Cosmic, Items are pulled from “nowhere” realize there’s nothing under you and must make a Will roll and cannot be found by searches, +50%) [7.8]. Features: Pay- to avoid looking down and plummeting. After that, or if you load mass and volume are always calculated using Basic Lift walked out over empty space deliberately, you can survive 20 and are unaffected by the character’s actual ST. Each by very firmly looking up, at a friend, or anywhere besides additional level adds one level to Gizmo and an additional the deadly, deadly ground. Whistling nonchalantly is not six levels to Payload. required, but does help convince no one of how cool you are.
Pyramid Magazine 23 March 2017
You must make a Will roll every 10 seconds, at a cumulative Other Animate Abilities -1 per roll, and a similar roll every time someone interacts Other advantages can become animate abilities with the from below you – attacking, shouting, etc. If you fail, you look addition of the Comedic limitation (below). These are usu- down involuntarily. Whoosh! ally physical, involving the animate manipulating his body, Statistics: Walk on Air (Accessibility, Not while looking or meta-narrative ones that change the story to make it more down, -20%; Comedic, -20%; Horizontal Only, -10%) [10]. funny. Notes: “Horizontal Only” is a new limitation. It is a smaller • Clinging (Attraction, +25%*; Comedic, -20%) [21]. limitation than “Vertical Only” (GURPS Powers, p. 87) • Elastic Skin (Comedic, -20%) [16]. because you can reach more places with horizontal movement • Enhanced Dodge 1-5 (All-Out, -25%†; Comedic, -20%) than vertical. [8.25/level]. • Extra Arms 1-2 (Comedic, -20%) [8/arm]. • Flexibility or Double-Jointed (Comedic, -20%) [4 or
Animate Tricks 12].
• Lifting ST and Striking ST at level 1-10 (Comedic, One thing you can say about animates, they’re versatile. -20%; Preparation Required, 1 minute of weight lifting, Most can bring out a particular joke ability as needed, even -20%) [4.8/level]. if it isn’t part of their common repertoire. Swapping out • Peripheral Vision (Comedic, -20%) [12]. uses of Perfect Comic Timing via Using Abilities at Default • Slippery 1-5 (Comedic, -20%) [1.6/level]. (GURPS Powers, p. 173) represents this. The hero must • Speak Underwater (Comedic, -20%) [4]. declare which other ability he wants to use, concentrate • Stretching 1-10 (Comedic, -20%) [4.8/level]. for a second, spend 1 FP, and make a roll against IQ, at • Super-Jump 1-5 (Comedic, -20%) [8/level]. -2 if the ability chosen is worth three points or less, -4 if it • Terror (Visual; Comedic, -20%; Preparation Required, is four to six points, -6 for seven to nine points, and -8 if 1 minute of deforming features into a “fright mask,” -20%) the ability is worth 10 to 12 points. More expensive abili- [18]. ties are available if the animate has more levels of Perfect * An enhancement from GURPS Powers (p. 45) that Comic Timing. Divide the point cost of the chosen ability allows the character to cling to surfaces with just their by the number of Perfect Comic Timing levels expended hands or feet, allowing them to walk up walls or on ceilings. when calculating the penalty. Additionally, if the GM † A limitation from GURPS Powers (p. 110). In this thinks the ability used is particularly funny or unfunny, he case, it only allows the bonus when the character takes the can declare a modifier from +5 to -5. All-Out Defense action. Example: Wilhelmina Weasel is stuck in a jail cell, due to a complete misunderstanding regarding a large pile of explosives and a banana-cream-pie truck. She’d like to get The Comedic Limitation out now (that fuse was long, but it won’t burn forever), and This limitation is key to understanding animates. It is, she could really use Double-Jointed to squeeze through in effect, a power source limitation (see What is a Power? the bars. Unfortunately, she hasn’t bought Double-Jointed. in GURPS Powers, pp. 7-8), although it doesn’t really have But she does have a level of Perfect Comic Timing left. to represent an actual source as such. But it is common to She declares what she’s swapping it for, spends the FP, all of an animate’s abilities and behaves the same on all of and rolls IQ, at -8 for an ability worth between 10 and 12 them, so describing it as a power modifier is reasonably points. Wilhelmina’s description of tying herself in knots as accurate. she squeezes through grants +3, enough to succeed. Now Any advantage with the Comedic limitation only works there’s only all those police officers staring at her! Easy! properly when that would be funny. Every use should get at least a smile, if not a chuckle or outright belly laugh, from the audience (typically the GM and the other players). If the GM doesn’t think a proposed use of an advantage with this Perfect Comic Timing modifier is funny, he is free to twist it until it is. On passive, normally always-on advantages, the Comedic limitation often 12 points/level means they fail, if that would be funnier. Once per session per level, you can suggest a coincidence This limitation absolutely requires a good rapport between to occur that sets you up for a joke or is inherently funny. This the player and the GM. They need to be on the same page can involve anything plausible (which isn’t the same as likely), about what’s funny and what isn’t. Good gags often require including having you appear on the scene unexpectedly, as cooperation. The other players should also be willing to play long as you could have moved from your last known location along with the humor, or at least try to find the animate’s to the new one in a reasonable manner. Your request can be antics entertaining. specific, but the GM decides what actually occurs. He may The GM shouldn’t treat this as a reason to make a player’s supply an alternate situation if he thinks it makes a better joke. life miserable, and the player should remember that a good bit This trait also lets them try using other animate abilities in may require some setbacks or pratfalls first. Good comedy is a pinch; see Animate Tricks, above. also not repetitive. Don’t use the same joke, or even the same Statistics: Serendipity 1 (Comedic, -20%) [12]. type of joke, for every action.
Pyramid Magazine 24 March 2017
Failing an HT Roll to “remembers” that he hasn’t done that in a while and suddenly has to make up the lack. Imposing the penalties for the missed Avoid Death Is Easy, Comedy Is Hard substance or condition until then is good for a laugh, as long The Comedic limitation is on many of an animate’s “defen- as he can still act. sive” advantages, including Doesn’t Breathe, Doesn’t Eat or Dying is a special case. The sort of joke that involves the Drink, and Unkillable. Does that mean those traits will fail protagonist’s death is not usually the sort of joke that animates when it’s funny? Well, yes, but . . . an animate who’s incapaci- do. When Unkillable gets involved, err on the side of letting tated is an animate who’s not making jokes. So the GM should the animate continue to function. Elaborate death scenes that treat these traits carefully. It’s best if the animate’s resistances never get around to the death, bodies lying there that continue fail in a way that puts in him in trouble, but not in a way that to talk, sudden bolts of reanimating lightning, or even tem- takes him out of the action entirely. For example, when asked porarily letting the animate walk around in an Insubstantial “hey, don’t you need to eat (or sleep, or breathe),” the animate “ghost form” are all good tricks that let the funny flow.
Cartoon Comedy Cartoon humor tends to fall into three broad categories. the group besides the GM who wants to participate in your The simplest, but also possibly the hardest to learn, is wit. comedy, and it isn’t a completely one-man show. Animates have snappy dialog and make quick jokes. Being While an animate might be a funny character, nothing says witty is a skill you can learn, but it takes a lot of practice. One that the stories surrounding them have to be hilarious. Several good trick is to have a strong, consistent persona in mind. It’s of the source works for animates have plots that, if they didn’t easier to think of something funny if you know your charac- happen to involve wacky animated characters, would be fairly ter well. dark – noir tales of public corruption, innocent protagonists The second sort of humor in classic cartoons is slapstick. thrown into mob conflicts, and even stories where the whole This sort of comedy is very physical, involving lots of pratfalls, Earth is in danger. Ensuring that the plots of the adventures violence, and general injury to both the protagonist and their involving animates are still serious, with significant conse- opponents. The laughs come at the expense of someone, either quences to the heroes, can make it easier to shift the tone back how the violence is done to them or their reactions. Slapstick to completely serious later on if animates stop getting involved. can be tricky to implement in a roleplaying game. It’s easy to bore your fellow players with an over-detailed explanation of the terrible things happening. Keep it brief! Spreading the Ink Around The third major type of humor animates indulge in is Animates can have a place in other published settings, with absurdism. These sort of jokes rely most heavily on the unex- a little bending, folding, and mutilating. Good thing they can pected, because they create comedy by breaking with reason recover from that! GURPS IOU is nearly the perfect setting and logic. When an animate pulls a giant sombrero out of for animates – they fit in just fine with the wackiness of Illu- a back pocket, something far too small to contain it, that’s minati University, and the Departments of Animation or Com- absurdism. Absurdism is often the easiest sort of joke to edy are suitable additions to the usual IOU politics. The titular make – just make sure your actions are impossible by the society of GURPS Cabal knows of eidolons and eikones who usual rules of the world. Remember to maintain some con- take the forms of entities from popular culture, which could nection to what’s happening though. Complete randomness include cartoon characters. GURPS Infinite Worlds could isn’t that funny, just confusing. contain timelines full of animates, with or without human- Of course, all these sorts of jokes can overlap. When an ity alongside them, and the Patrol might even recruit one or animate reacts to someone on the beach blocking the sun by two. (Centrans would despise animates, but that’s what makes pulling a giant bazooka out of a nearby picnic basket and them perfect straight men.) In the hidden world of GURPS exploding the offending beach umbrella, that’s slapstick for Monsters Hunters, a deranged animate could be a deadly foe, the violence, and absurdism for both the unlikeliness and and the hunters would have to work out what it was before level of the overreaction. And if the animate quips afterward they could fight it. Is it a strange fae or an in-betweener? The “the umbrella got blown away,” that’s wit. result of a ritual? Something even stranger? Or an animate One very important tip for being funny is don’t hog the could be an ally! To create a suitable version of the Inhuman spotlight! While your fellow players are your audience, they’re racial template, add Unnatural Features 5 [-5] to the animate also your co-actors. If you constantly interrupt or talk over racial template, and perhaps tweak the weaknesses if appro- everyone else, your jokes are going to wear thin very fast. priate (a fae animate, for example, would avoid iron). Don’t try to interject at every opportunity; save your wit and funny actions for the most appropriate moment. Don’t forget you have skills and advantages without the Comedic About the Author limitation, and use them, too. Another good trick is to agree Kelly Pedersen has to eat, sleep, breath, and can’t take with one or two other members of the group in advance that much more than a small anvil to the head. He hopes he’s they’ll be regular parts of your “routine,” either setting up funny nonetheless. He’d like to thank Jason “PK” Levine for straight lines or being the ones delivering the punchlines you the name of Indefatigable, and, as always, Nicolas Juzda for set up. This ensures that there’s at least one other person in helping to turn the article into something actually readable!
Pyramid Magazine 25 March 2017
Terry Toucan & the Puzzle Pals: The House of 10,000 Sock Monkeys! by J. Edward Tremlett and Christopher R. Rice
“So,” the middle-aged man at the drive-in burger joint said, darn meddling kids. So the conniving bird’s going to do every- looking down at the teens and their squawking tropical bird as thing possible to get them killed. he brought out their food. “You kids are interested in the ghost of As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s not the only one aim- Mingo the Monkey, eh?” ing to make this their final mystery. Unbeknownst to anyone, “That’s right,” the one in charge said, “What have you heard, real ghosts – their vengeance kept at bay for generations – are sir?” about to rise from their slumber and destroy the living. “Oh, I don’t know much,” he said, leaning into the car. “But Within one day, the sunny town of Solivar, California, you know what? All these years this town’s been eating out on will be overrun by the cutest killers of all . . . possessed his name, but no one ever stopped to ask him what he felt.” sock monkeys! “Well, like, what does he feel?” one of the others asked – his This GURPS adventure (set in a fictional town on the face suddenly rather pale. West Coast) for three to six players is a cock-eyed homage to “Anger, son,” the man said, grinning. “And trust me, there’s the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons, where a wholesome group nothing worse than an angry monkey.” of kids and their semi-intelligible animal companion solved Silence fell, broken only by the toucan saying, “Uh-Oh,” fol- mysteries through curiosity, grit, and dumb luck. But it takes lowed by what may have been canned laughter . . . it one step further, asking what would happen if the kids encountered a real monster for a change, and adds a wild- California – dateline 1960-something. The Puzzle Pals and card by having the adorable animal be monstrous as well. It their noisy friend Terry Toucan have been solving spooky could be run as a (somewhat) light-hearted GURPS Monster mysteries for years. There isn’t any part of the state they Hunters scenario, standard GURPS Horror, or with some haven’t driven their converted ice cream truck to, bringing other game system. greedy crooks in silly costumes to justice. But their fun’s coming to an end. Soon they’ll graduate from high school and go their separate ways, so there’s not Being a Teen Sleuth much time left to say what needs to be said. Will he ask her Depending on the campaign, and how the GM wants to run out? Will she tell him what she really feels? Will they all finally the adventure, a template for the Puzzle Pals may be needed. air their grievances with each other? Heartwarming teenage That Darn Kid (GURPS Mysteries, p. 106) will probably work drama abounds! best, with skills like Brawling, Filch, First Aid, Knot-Tying, That isn’t the only drama at hand, though. Their cute ani- Search, Stealth, and Traps substituted for some of the listed mal sidekick, Terry Toucan – smarter and more sour than secondary and background skills that would be otherwise use- they ever knew – had enough of their nonsense a long time less in this adventure (Area Knowledge, Musical Instrument, ago and wants revenge for being dragged all over by these Swimming, etc.).
Pyramid Magazine 27 March 2017
Darn Those Like, What’s Happening, Man? Meddling Kids Hopefully this scenario will This is a mash-up between the comfortable comedy of a Scooby Doo-style mys- appeal to those in search of tery and a one-shot horror scenario where a total party kill is a definite possibil- humorous, pseudo-retro “Scooby ity – with the adorable animal “friend” trying to destroy them (however ineptly). Doo” roleplaying that eventually Ideally, the players will have no idea this will go from cute to deadly, and will be implodes into actual horror. How- genuinely surprised when their retro-RPG trip suddenly acquires a body count. ever, if some aspects don’t quite work for the GM or players, there’s Teen Sleuth Mystery lots of customization options. It The teens are right – this is the work of some clown in a ghost suit. C. Richard can be easily transformed into Oriza (frustrated geologist and former locksmith turned local burger cook with a more “realistic” scenario, be delusions of acquiring wealth) learned that Solivar’s abandoned Bluefeather brought up to date, or placed into stuffed-animal factory sat on a fortune in rare minerals. He didn’t have the money an ongoing campaign instead of to buy the land, so he decided to use the legend of Mingo the Monkey to scare being a one-shot. buyers away. He figured he’d purchase it for a song once the price came down, and make at least 10 times its worth back. I Want My Internet: The story Oriza’s in cahoots with his wife, Danni, who made Massive Minnie when she can be brought into the modern was just 12. She stitched together a costume of Mingo for him, and they’ve soaked it day without sacrificing the 1960s with luminescent paint. He then broke into the abandoned factory – cleverly hiding flavor. Small tourist towns don’t his entrance point in the back – and used it to store his costume between hauntings. change too much, and the PCs will Unfortunately for Oriza, the factory sits next to the spooky, old sock mon- still have to dig through non-digi- key museum, home of the nosy Widow Redheel. She caught him early on, so the tized info at the town hall and talk scummy land-grabber conked her over the head, tied her up, and hid her in the to real people to find out what’s factory. Danni’s been pretending to be her ever since, and visits once a day to make really going on. If the GM is wor- sure she’s alright, relatively speaking. They plan to keep her alive for as long as it ried that cell phones might amelio- takes to buy the factory. After that, who knows . . . rate some of the suspense, then it turns out reception is rather spotty in Solivar (all those darn ghosts). One-Shot Horror I Hate Kids: If teen sleuths with The Orizas did more than just inconvenience an old woman. Redheel also has a talking animal doesn’t appeal, been placating the evil spirits that haunt the town. In May of 1852, Solivar’s initial this mystery can be done with other settlers – a disgraced Spanish noble and his followers – slaughtered a whole village actors. It could be run as a GURPS of Omop natives. One year later, the angry ghosts possessed inanimate objects to Mysteries procedural (at least at attack and kill their murderers, driving the survivors far away. first), with the PCs being some com- After that, anyone who settled in Solivar was killed or run off at the end of bination of eccentrics, specialists, May – known ever after as Malo Mayo. Fortunately, a settler to the area was a witch and helpers. Perhaps they’ve been who found a way to keep the spirits placated using a special amulet. The Widow called in to investigate the “ghost” Redheel is the last descendant of that witch. When Malo Mayo approaches, she by the sheriff, who’s too scared to leaves the stone out in the moonlight (or lack thereof), and the ghosts stay at rest. confront the monkey, but wants the The anniversary is midnight, this Friday. The widow’s unconscious, tied up, case closed before the mayor finds and impersonated by someone who knows nothing about the amulet. When the a way to have him removed. ghosts awaken, they’ll surge into the widow’s home to take revenge, only to find a Needs More Guns: While this is house full of stuffed bodies for them to inhabit. One thing leads to another, and a lighthearted take on the Monster the killing begins. Hunter genre, it doesn’t have to be divorced from that game. Maybe a How the Party Goes Down group of hunters find out about the The Puzzle Pals most likely spend Friday asking questions, exploring locations, haunting from one of their sources. and gathering clues. They know they’ll be dodging curfew if they stay out too late, They figure it’s a hoax, but go to but probably figure anything they miss can be visited the next day. check it out as a favor to that infor- By the time the teens wake up Saturday, the monkeys have been on the move. mant. However, when dead bodies Unless freed or captured, the widow and Mrs. Oriza are both dead in the factory start to appear, they’ll realize their and museum, respectively. The monkeys have holed up in both locations, along unique skills are truly needed and with the town hall – where they’ve disposed of the mayor and his secretary. The break out the weapons. If the GM sheriff most likely escapes the carnage, but gets so freaked out he goes into hiding needs some extra laughs, the teens until night, when his nerve returns. and their toucan can show up as Saturday night, the ghosts meet at the ruined mission and swarm through the part of the comedy – meddling town, killing anyone they encounter. By Sunday morning, Solivar will be a tomb, incompetently before dying horri- unless the Puzzle Pals learn how to use the amulet to dispel the ghosts, or join bly, either at the hands of the sock the survivors in stomping stuffed monkey butt. monkeys or their disgruntled bird.
Pyramid Magazine 28 March 2017
No Time for One-Shots: If the group doesn’t want to interrupt their long-running campaign for an entirely different kind of game, this can be added in as a palate-cleansing “funny” What the Puzzle Pals Know The teens have taken the case based on a recent story from the story – giving a few sessions of much-needed Groovytown Gazette: “Mingo the Monkey Run Amok?” amusement in an otherwise-serious chain of Mystery, Monster Hunters, or Horror adven- • About a month ago, residents of Solivar, California, witnessed tures. It could also be the start of a campaign, what appeared to be the ghost of the town’s long-dead mascot, Mingo as the surviving teens, now all too aware of the Monkey. The famed capuchin was said to be angry, destructive, the supernatural, “grow up” to become proper and much larger than normally depicted. monster hunters. This can’t be the only haunted • The glowing ghost was seen on a stretch of highway north of town in California, and maybe the widow’s jour- town on multiple occasions. He came out at night, making a spectacle nal has more information on haunts, spooks, of himself before quickly disappearing. Eyewitnesses include: Sidney and other situations in need of cleansing. Plus, William, the owner of the nearby closed Bluefeather stuffed-animal were some of the hoaxes they “solved” in the factory; Barbara Redheel, curator of the Sock Monkey Museum; Sher- past actually the real deal? iff George Smothers; and several panicked motorists. • Local business owners claim they’ve lost business, as tourists are
Welcome to too scared to stay after dark. Mayor Fred Norbert has angrily denied the existence of the ghost as “some hippie fools causing trouble,” but Monkey Town cannot positively identify who’s responsible. • Mingo was a capuchin monkey who escaped from his abusive It’s 5:45 p.m. on a pleasant Friday afternoon organ grinder, back in the 1920s. He made it to the small town of Soli- in late May, and the Puzzle Pals are almost at var, and everyone there took turns hiding him. Eventually, the town Solivar, California – Sock Monkey Capital of made him Solivar’s mascot – erecting a statue after his peaceful death the West Coast. The small tourist town lies just in 1932. This is what led to the town’s profitable monkey obsession. west of Santa Rosa, between Freestone and • Solivar has a spooky history. It’s named after the disgraced Occidental on the woodsy, two-lane Bohemian Spanish noble who settled the area in the 1850s, only to be pur- Highway. But as much as everyone might love portedly driven out by the ghosts of a local native tribe who called to see the ruined Spanish Mission, pose with themselves the Omops. All other settlers who followed had similar “Massive Minnie” – one of the world’s largest experiences until 1875, when the Redheel and Smothers families sock monkeys – or just go down to Bodega Bay managed to stay past Malo Mayo and built the town. Some say the and hit the beach, there’s a mystery to solve! mission Don Solivar failed to complete is haunted, but no one’s seen According to a recent article in the an actual ghost until now. Groovytown Gazette (see box What the Puzzle Pals Know), the ghost of Solivar’s long-dead mascot, Mingo the Monkey, is haunting the Notable establishments include: Solivar’s General Goods, town. The spooky, glowing primate has been seen scampering with anything an intrepid teen could need; Krump’s Kamera, around the highway, north of town, and scaring people away. which sells film and cameras, and offers overnight developing; Local police are baffled, so it’s up to the Puzzle Pals! the Banana Bar, which won’t serve minors, but whose tipsy After so many years of solving cases like this, the gang patrons may say more than they should; Doctor Kasem, whose already figures it’s just some guy dressed up like a mon- office is open from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., but can be rousted key to frighten people. As for why? Well, they’ll solve that for small emergencies (the nearest hospital is in Freestone); when they get there and start snooping around. They and the Solivar Sleep-Well, which has large number of small, always do. no-frills rooms, but won’t allow teenage co-ed cohabitation, Still, their good spirits and amusing conversation have a noise after 10:00 p.m., or personal checks. slight edge. High school graduation’s right around the corner, A small drive-in restaurant named Mingo’s serves the and an uncertain future looms ahead. Everyone’s all too aware all-important tourist staples of hamburgers, hot dogs, soda, this mystery’s the last ride of the Puzzle Pals, and there’s so and malts from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. When he isn’t pretend- many things left unsaid and undone that everyone’s more than ing to be a dead monkey, grumbly proprietor C. Richard Oriza a little distracted. serves “banana burgers,” and happily warns impressionable Except for Terry Toucan, of course! That silly bird’s as outsiders about the dangers of staying out after dark. He also perky as ever, and just can’t wait to get to town and solve one proudly shows off a recent picture of his wife, Danni, beaming more puzzle. as she poses before Massive Minnie. The center of town’s important locations follow, listed First Impressions from south to north. Solivar’s a small town of a few hundred people. Most of their houses are along the Bohemian Highway, south of the The Midway Monkey Mart town’s center, and they primarily work for Solivar’s tourist- “The Midway” is exactly what it sounds like: a store selling friendly businesses. The closure of the Bluefeather toy fac- anything with a monkey on it, smack-dab in the town’s cen- tory didn’t really affect the local population – its workers ter. It primarily carries clothing, toys, and gee-gaws, generally mostly drove in from nearby. sporting likenesses of Mingo and/or Massive Minnie.
Pyramid Magazine 29 March 2017
Minnie is a 9’-tall, 30-lb. monkey – squatting in the center Mingo’s Statue of the round store, and surrounded by overly cheerful signs The “world famous” monkey’s coquettish bronze likeness asking customers to not sit on her. Pictures are allowed, and sits on a brown, concrete pillar. It’s in the center of a small, most folks try to get one by the recently added explanatory sparsely wooded grass park between the Monkey Mart and plaque telling the story of the stuffed leviathan. It bears an town hall, directly across from the Ruined Mission. A historical equally recent picture of Danni V. Oriza – the same one her plaque tells the story of poor Mingo and how the town saved husband shows off at Mingo’s. him from a hard life as an organ grinder’s monkey. The bored teenage staff is happy to talk about the ghost, but A small band of hippies sits under a tree, strumming on they don’t know anything more than was in the Groovytown guitars and busking for change for food and gas. If asked, they Gazette story. They will mention that Malo Mayo is almost say the ghost’s just something the “ungroovy” mayor came up here, and wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with with to hassle them, and bust out into a funny song about it – if you believe in ghosts, that is. Mingo haunting the town.
The Ruined Mission
Oh, That Silly Bird! The mostly collapsed adobe structure is bro- Having a trusted and beloved part of the party secretly trying to ken, sad, and surrounded by a 6’-high iron fence kill the others is part of the humor of the scenario. But, like any joke, with no entrance. It’s clearly infested with spi- the punchline’s timing is critical – the GM should be careful about derwebs and vermin, and feels cold and haunted, having Terry tip her hand too soon. even in the daytime. Luckily, Terry exists to do two things: provide comedic relief, and A historical plaque tepidly speaks of “unfortu- find clues. The comedy is mostly physical, with her ungainly bum- nate deaths and unforeseen complications, cul- bling and poor flight skills causing her to knock things over, and minating in Don Solivar’s untimely demise at the then try (and fail) to keep them from falling. Her constant hunger end of May, 1853.” It says nothing about dead makes her seek crackers, birdseed, or other toothsome goodies, often Omops. demanding them of her “owners.” As for clues – whenever the gang enters a new environment, Town Hall Terry hops away and explores on her own. When she finds some- The stately, two-story building houses thing interesting she says, “Over here!” or “A clue!” She then expects the mayor’s office, town records, the sher- a cracker or at least a pat on the head. iff’s office, and the two-cell jail. Seeing either It’s not at all unusual for the teens to lose sight of their “friend” Mayor Norbert or town records requires for several minutes, during which time she could find ways to set up talking to his very stern secretary, Mrs. Joseph, a trap. If the assassination attempt goes awry, they’ll probably think who, like the mayor, doesn’t want to hear any she had yet another accident. Any otherwise-suspicious behavior is “nonsense” about a ghost. She’ll let them look just Terry being “that silly bird.” at the records regardless. Terry’s well aware of these advantages and doesn’t want to Sheriff Smothers has quite a bit more to say, ruin them. She won’t attack blatantly unless she gets desperate, or but won’t say it where the mayor could over- actually gets a PC all alone. She will happily stand by and watch hear. See Town Hall Clues (pp. 31-32) for more a stricken PC bleed out instead of going for help, and hop-flap information. away for cover if the teens get ambushed by sock monkeys. She also knows all their weaknesses and failings: who can’t see with- out glasses, who always goes poking where she shouldn’t, and who bends over to look down the well every single time . . . Looking for Clues Checking into the hotel takes until 6:00 p.m., Provided the Puzzle Pals don’t figure it out, the GM should save and then there’s five logical avenues to explore. the revelation for a dramatic moment. Perhaps Terry blatantly tries Each one takes a group around two hours to do. to kill the PCs while they’re desperately fighting or fleeing for their If the gang splits up, that allows two groups to be lives. Alternatively, if the teens have had it too easy, having one of active at the same time, so they’ll hit four of the them get suddenly stabbed by a knife-wielding toucan will bring the five areas before 10:00 p.m. – a half hour after horror home. the well-posted curfew. Each entry describes the Another option is to drop the clue-brick: have Terry accidentally important clues, how Terry might take advan- intercept a fatal blow from a monkey, or get carried away by a swarm tage of the situation, and what happens at that of them. Her last words will be to croak, “I hate you all!” – at which location after the monkeys come alive. point the GM can take a moment to remind the players of all the weird things the goofy bird’s been up to since Friday, and let them slowly realize the awful truth . . . The Scene of the Crime Terry’s stats aren’t really important. She’s just smart enough to The twisting stretch of the Bohemian be dangerous, just tough enough to engineer slow-moving “acci- Highway where Mingo’s ghost was seen is quite dents,” and can survive as much damage as the GM needs. If the spooky. The tall redwood trees seem to stretch GM wants full stats, see GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 5: Allies, p. 23, up forever and block all sunlight – even during for a (suitably cinematic) macaw template. the bright of day. It’s easy to imagine shapes swirling out of the dark, and jumpy teens might scare themselves silly.
Pyramid Magazine 30 March 2017
During the day, there’s steady, slow-moving tourist traffic The widow’s happy to talk about the ghost. She says that as people enjoy the natural sights of the highway. At night, at the same time the ghost was being seen on the road, she there’s much less traffic, but people speed up to avoid seeing started seeing it around the abandoned factory, too. It would the ghost. yell and scream, and then disappear. She told the reporters when they came around, and since then, there haven’t been as Clues many visitors to the museum, sadly. Mingo appeared by a turn in the highway – one that allowed the ghost to remain hidden until it leaped out. Myste- Clues rious large footprints lead to and away from that spot, going The widow’s really Mrs. Oriza, wearing a gray wig and into the brush beyond the trees on the road’s west side. Fol- made up to look like the old lady. Somehow, no one’s caught lowing the footprints during the day becomes almost impos- her yet. If the teens bumble back into her rooms, they’ll find sible, but does uncover a torn patch from the costume on a work clothes covered in traces of glow-in-the-dark paint under pointy tree branch. At night, traces of the costume’s glow-in- the bed, and stage makeup and a wig box in the bathroom. She the-dark paint make finding the spot and following the path has the keys to the locked doors in the factory on a ring in her much easier; they gently luminesce after being illuminated by pocket. The real Widow Redheel keeps the monkey amulet in a headlights or strong flashlights. The spooky path eventually locked box in her room – the key is on a chain around her neck. leads to the glowing torn patch, and then the rear exit of the The amulet is small, made from translucent brown stone, and abandoned stuffed animal factory. looks like either a monkey’s face or a human skull, depending on what Terry The wily bird can lure the teens He’s not in a bad mood, angle it’s held at. Next to the box is her family journal, which tells how into the path of oncoming cars, or Scoob, he’s a monster. her ancestor placated the Omop scare them into stumbling back into one. The woods are full of hazards – Shaggy, spirits, and explains that the amu- let should be left out at night on the to trip over, and old trees with heavy Scooby-Doo (movie) last days of May. Reading the jour- dead branches that can fall down. nal takes an hour. Monkeys Terry The possessed critters are more interested in the buildings The house is old and spooky, with long and dangerous than the woods. Some might be cruel enough to jump out at stairwells teens could fall down, and heavy glass cases that passing cars with rolled-down windows – attacking innocent could topple onto them. It’s also full of old, precode wiring motorists, and piloting their cars into dangerous situations. that could give nasty shocks if someone fiddled with appliances.
Museum Clues Monkeys
The Sock Monkey Museum sits near the end of Museum Fighting the monkeys here will be dangerous; as soon as Road – just south from where the ghost was seen. It’s thought- one is destroyed, the spirit can inhabit another. The house’s fully marked by a very large sign. Another large sign sits next creepiness invites the sort of low comedy where the stuffed to it: the one for the Bluefeather factory recently covered by a beasts slowly sneak around – making scary noises and push- “for sale” sign, complete with the owner’s phone number. ing objects about to unnerve the teens before attacking. They The museum is a sizable three-story faux-Victorian house, may even stack themselves up into the widow’s disguise to sitting before the tree line. It sits next to the long, rectangular pretend to be her before attacking. factory, and shares its cracked and weed-grown parking lot. A historical marker by the front door identifies it as one of the Town Hall Clues oldest homes in Solivar, built by James Redheel shortly after The initial reason to go here is to talk to Sheriff Smothers the town’s founding. about the ghost. During the day they can find him at his desk, To enter, one must ring the large bell and be let in by the doing paperwork, as he only ventures out if he gets a call. He Widow Redheel – proprietor and caretaker of the collection. will not discuss the matter in his office, but will quietly agree She’s an old and officious woman who’s happy to take the dol- to meet with the teens either after work, or before it the next lar admission charge (children, retirees, and animals are free) day. He also begs them to say nothing of this to anyone – espe- before pointing toward the “exhibition areas.” She doesn’t give cially the mayor. guided tours, preferring to sit in her rocking chair by the door Smothers wants to meet north of town, a little way down and knit; guests can go anywhere except for the back of the Museum Road. Before he’ll talk he wants to know why they’re first floor – helpfully roped off. If anyone tries to do anything so interested. If he finds their answers earnest and well mean- snoopy or sneaky, she’s there in seconds, asking if they need ing, he’ll spill; if he thinks they’re just thrill seekers he’ll clam help in a tone that indicates she knows what they’re up to. up and go. The entire house is packed with 10,000 sock monkeys of His story is exactly what the Pals read in the papers, except every shape, size, and color. Most come from “private donors” that he admits Mingo scared him (he’s terrified of monkeys) who sent their stuffed childhood friends to the museum for and he didn’t dare get out of the car. He also says he thought evaluation and possible display. They’re spooky and still he saw the ghost head into the woods. He can show them things, and after a time, one can barely breathe for feeling like where, but isn’t keen to go too far past the treeline. they’re being buried alive in the black-eyed, staring toys.
Pyramid Magazine 31 March 2017
The sheriff’s a practical man, and shares the teens’ belief look for things that have been disturbed recently, they find that it’s some prankster. He can’t imagine who would do the following. it, though – it’s too elaborate for the local kids, and everyone’s • The History of Solivar, written by Augustus Redheel in being hurt by the lack of tourism. As for the mayor’s accusa- 1932. The chapter “Ghosts and Legends” has been book- tions, Smothers says all the hippies do is sit by the monkey marked. It tells how Don Solivar’s party slaughtered the local statue, play their guitars, and ask for spare change so they Omop tribe, only to flee the area in terror a year later. The can go to Bodega Bay. He’s supposed to run them off, but ghosts “took form within the trees and rocks and tore apart really just gives them a few bucks for the trip. the Spaniards, dashing them to pieces upon the ground.” After He won’t get any more involved in the investigation, that, no one could stay past the end of May without similar or explain what’s up with him and the mayor, but tells the results – hence Malo Mayo. Undeterred by “Spanish super- Puzzle Pals to call if they find more evidence. He also gently stition,” the Redheels and Smothers settled, and no ghosts reminds them of the town’s strict curfew for teens, an hour attacked. Some say you can still hear the Omops screaming after nightfall. near the mission, late at night. Not many care to try. • The Register of Deeds has clearly been perused. The Clues Bluefeather factory’s plot has been taken out and examined. The hall of records is a dusty trove of historical and One reason for doing that would be to see the exact lay of the legal treasure, occupying the whole of the second floor. The land, and who owns it. Puzzle Pals won’t get any help from Mrs. Joseph, but if they • The Mineral Assay of the town. The one page has been earmarked, correspond- ing to the Bluefeather factory’s location. B ut . . . T ’ hey re o ute S C ! Deposits of certain rare and valuable min- erals were found there. The spirits of the Omop have been kept at bay for lifetimes – their anger blocked by the efforts of the widow’s family. Without her to complete the Mrs. Joseph makes everyone who isn’t annual ritual, they have risen and infested the handiest forms available. an elected official sign the book of town-re- A legion of evil sock monkeys now stalks Solivar, armed with whatever cords appointments. While signing in or sharp and pointy objects they can get their cute little paws on. out, the teens can see it’s been accessed by C. Richard Oriza six times in the last year and a half – the last time being a month and Animated Sock Monkey a half ago. The only other visitor was Bob ST: 6 HP: 12 Speed: 6.00 Tucker, two years ago, and he’s since died DX: 12 Will: 12 Move: 6 of dropsy. IQ: 10 Per: 12 Weight: 5 lbs. HT: 12 FP: 14 SM: -5 Terry Dodge: 10 Parry: 10 (Brawling) DR: 0 The toucan won’t start any problems with the sheriff around, but the bird might Improvised Knife (14): 1d-2 cutting or 1d-3 impaling. Reach C. Typically lure the teens into the woods near the aban- a pair of scissors (-1 damage), pencil (-2 damage, no swing damage), or doned factory before or after Smothers some other object sharpened into a shiv (-1 damage). shows up. As for Town Hall itself, the Punch (12): 1d-3 crushing. Reach C. building has a long, steep stairwell lead- Other Improvised Weapon (7): Based on damage 1d-3/1d-2. ing to the town records. There’s also many Traits: Combat Reflexes; Dark Vision (Color Vision); Disturbing Voice*; heavy shelves to topple over, and many Doesn’t Breathe; Doesn’t Eat or Drink; Doesn’t Sleep; Double-Jointed; dangerous things lying around to cause Fragile (Combustible); Ham-Fisted 1; High Pain Threshold; Immunity an accident. Terry might also get crafty. to Metabolic Hazards; Improvised Weapons (Knife); Injury Tolerance She knows the teens want the authorities (Damage Reduction 2; Limited, Only crushing, impaling, or pierc- on their side, or to be invisible to them. ing); Injury Tolerance (Homogenous; No Blood; No Eyes; No Head; So if she engineers an incident – like get- No Neck); No Sense of Smell/Taste; Numb; Regrowth (Reattachment ting them into an off-limits area, and then Only); Silence 4; Striking ST 2; Unfazeable; Unhealing (Partial†); Vac- making a racket to draw the sheriff or sec- uum Support; Vulnerability (Knockback ¥2‡). retary – she’ll make them look bad. Being Skills: Brawling-14; Cimbing-14; Knife-14; Stealth-14. stuck in jail and/or told to leave town won’t Notes: Thanks to its Injury Tolerances, it takes ¥1/2 damage from crush- dampen the teens’ desire to find the truth, ing attacks, ¥1/4 damage from impaling or huge piercing, ¥1/6 from but it will make it harder for them to be large piercing, ¥1/10 from piercing, and ¥1/20 from small piercing. seen in the open. Terry can find all kinds of ways to kill them, in private. * The sock monkey sounds normal (even cute!), but it’s coming from a talking stuffed animal, which results in penalties. Monkeys † Can be healed by using Sewing or Professional Skill (Seamstress/ The spirits make Town Hall their Tailor). deranged headquarters after “cleaning up.” ‡ Any knockback damage suffered is doubled after totaling final injury. Norbert and Joseph get stabbed with office supplies and then flung down the stairs.
Pyramid Magazine 32 March 2017
Smothers most likely freaks, fights his way out, and runs Factory Clues away, but he can come to the teens’ rescue at some point if the Mr. Sidney William, owner of the abandoned factory, hap- GM decides. Alternatively, they find him at some appropriate pily speaks with the Puzzle Pals about what he saw. He’ll only juncture – run over by his own car. meet in town; his wife’s very ill, so he doesn’t receive guests at his house. Town Center Clues He saw Mingo while traveling to his house, late at night, Separate from town hall (pp. 31-32), this includes the after a meeting in town with a potential buyer. The beast Midway Monkey Mart, the Ruined Mission, and Mingo’s leaped out and scared him, and he almost ran off the road. Statue. The two-hour period allows for some quick shopping Now he won’t travel the road after dark, and is nervous about at the general store and/or Krump’s, some discreet inquiries at being too close, even in the daytime. That’s all he knows, other the Banana Bar, and a hasty meal at Mingo’s. than to complain that the land prices are probably going to fall, and he’ll have to sell at a lesser price – if he ever finds a “legitimate buyer.” Clues Asked about the property, he wistfully tells them the Checking out the various locations, the Puzzle Pals discover Bluefeather Stuffed Animal Factory used to be a booming what is described in First Impressions (pp. 29-30). People at business. In better times, tourists could see the museum and those locations either don’t want to talk about Mingo, or are then go to the factory’s gift shop to buy an exclusive sock mon- happy to blab what’s generally known. One common thread key. Unfortunately, automation put paid to the factory’s long the teens haven’t read in the paper is the notion that Mingo’s tradition of making things by hand, and it’s been shuttered taking revenge on the town, but no one’s able to remember and locked for five years. where they heard that. Asked if anyone still wants to buy it, Williams tells them a One point of interest: no one’s buying the mayor’s story local man has been trying for about a year and a half. However, about hippies, but they love the funny story about how the he wants it for an unreasonably low price, won’t come any sheriff wrote him a parking ticket his first day on the job! higher, and has gotten very shrill, so he stopped taking the Norbert’s hated him ever since, but can’t fire a fellow elected man’s calls. William’s too genteel to name names, but if asked official. Rumor has it he’s trying to have Smothers legally if it’s Oriza, he nods. removed, and plans to use his statement to the papers about If they ask Mr. William if he knew that Widow Redheel has “seeing ghosts” to do so. seen the ghost by the factory, he turns pale, excuses himself, A few locals hanging out at the Banana Bar are drinking and leaves. He will never go back to the factory again. away their terrified memories of encountering the ghost. The teens aren’t allowed in, but they could catch someone going in or out. They don’t get more information, but the less ine- Clues briated could give a description of where they saw the ghost. If the teens check out the factory, they find the building’s in One person who’s happy to talk to the Puzzle Pals is the decent repair. Getting in seems tough, as the doors and lower ghost himself – C. Richard Oriza. He’ll serve them tasty grub windows are tightly boarded up, and one would have to climb at Mingo’s and tell them all about the angry monkey taking to shinny into the high windows. However, the boarding on revenge on the town. He gives such a virtuoso performance the rear exit is false, and can be moved aside to reveal a locked that the teens might decide he’s been the sole cause of the steel door. revenge rumor and investigate him. If they do, people describe Inside, the cavernous and mostly empty factory floor him as a ne’er-do-well with aspirations who failed to become a is dark, spooky, and dusty. A trail of recent, slightly lumi- geologist, bankrupted Solivar’s only lock shop, and then mar- nescent footprints leads to the offices by the front doors. It ried the town celebrity for her share in Mingo’s. He does, how- continues past the long-empty gift shop, full of nothing but ever, make a mean banana burger. tall, tottering shelves, and the business and shipping depart- ments, stuffed with empty desks and office equipment too large to throw away. Terry The trail ends at the assistant manager’s office, which is The bird’s smart enough not to try anything in broad day- locked up. The whole office is spattered with drops of lumi- light. As with the town hall (pp. 31-32), she might get crafty nescent paint, mostly in the center of the room. The glow-in- and try to engineer some kind of problem with tipsy infor- the-dark Mingo costume is hidden in the ceiling tiles directly mants outside the Banana Bar, steal food from the general above, along with cans of the special paint. store, or make too much noise after curfew to try and get the Across the hall, in the also-locked manager’s office, the real teens busted. Widow Redheel lies bound and unconscious next to bottles of knock-out drugs. Danni comes over once a day to check on Monkeys her, and then uses the pills to put her under again. Except for the town hall, the possessed stuffies leave the rest of the city alone until Saturday night, when they meet at Terry the Ruined Mission, raise a war cry, and go forth to kill every The factory could be a murder park for Terry, given that living being they can get their cute little paws on. At some what remains here is heavy enough to be slid, pushed, or point Massive Minnie is broken out of the Midway and carried knocked over onto her victims. The power’s off, though, so through the town like some weird idol; they eventually start she can’t turn on any deadly equipment or electrocute anyone. tossing smaller victims in front of her.
Pyramid Magazine 33 March 2017
Monkeys their ghosts leave. After a time the real-life haunting becomes Dealing with the widow’s a top priority for the mon- conflated with Oriza’s poor imitation of Mingo, and he takes keys – they break through the windows, crawl through the the blame for all the deaths. The teens are feted for their her- vents, and kill her where she lies. Some stay behind with oism, urged to keep quiet about the weirder points, and leave her corpse, and the teens may encounter them. As with the town for home – knowing that while their toucan was a jerk, museum, the place offers a lot of opportunities to sneak and their future might be uncertain, the last mystery of the around and unnerve victims before pouncing. Puzzle Pals was solved. Sensible Surrender: Surrounded by ectoplasmic entities with a seemingly infinite supply of spare bodies, the teens do When Stuffed the smart thing – fight their way to the ice cream truck, get
Monkeys Attack in, and flee. At some point in the exit, Terry makes one last, desperate attempt to kill as many of them as she can, pos- Given the short timeframe before the ghosts appear, this sibly dying in the attempt. For weeks thereafter, the papers scenario’s unlikely to end with a trap, a cop, and a pulled-off are filled with details of the “Slaughter of Solivar.” The teens mask. It’s more likely the Puzzle Pals will still be trying to do their best to avoid talking about how they were in town, solve the case, or else have it mostly cracked – but still need to and just missed being killed by what the governor has called catch “Mingo” in the act – when all Hades breaks loose. That “an angry army of hippies.” Shamed, the Puzzle Pals disband said, it could be incredibly amusing for the monkeys to attack after graduation and never speak to one another again. just as the teens are about to put their trap into play, or while Affendammerung: Faced with legions of cute stuffed kill- they’re explaining the whole caper to Sheriff Smothers. ers intent on slaughtering everyone in town, the Puzzle Pals What happens to the widow, and when, are key factors. dig in their heels, grab whatever weapons they can, and kick Discovering her before midnight on Friday effectively ends stuffed monkey butt. The good news is that no adults are the teen-sleuth part of the story, but can lead to a faster, going to tell them to unhand the guns in the sheriff’s office, potentially less-bloody resolution. If the GM wants the play- or the knives from the restaurant, or pay for the high-test ers to enjoy the full brunt of the plot twist, it’d be best to ultra-flammable booze from the Banana Bar, or various wea- have any Friday-night factory explorations be cut short by ponizable objects from the general store. The bad news is Terry’s deadly antics, necessitating a trip to town for first that they might not be able to find more than a handful of aid and recuperation. NPCs to stand alongside them as they slash, shoot, and burn If the widow does get found before the monkeys attack, their way through 10,000 sock monkeys. With luck, they hold hopefully the teens get her to the doctor’s, or call the sheriff. out until outside help arrives, the next morning, and those However, the widow will be so out of it that she won’t be able who survive are quietly praised for their heroism. But see- to coherently warn about the ghosts, much less identify her ing all this death and destruction never quite leaves them. abductors. Getting her to the doctor’s rouses her enough to Between that and Terry’s betrayal, the Puzzle Pals return look them in the eye and cry “amulet!” before collapsing for 24 to Groovytown changed people. No longer swinging teens, hours; the sheriff will want to get her to the doctor, and then their 1960s innocence is gone – replaced with the hard, gray go to the museum by himself to arrest the impostor – a trip he cynicism that predominates the decades to come. In time, won’t return from. their childhood seems like some strange cartoony dream If they find the widow on Saturday, she’ll be either dead or they all woke up from. dying. Dead, she leaves a cryptic note in her own blood (“get amulet into moo . . .” “stop ghosts with am . . .” “find journal in my roo . . .”). Dying, she gasps out a more grammatically com- About the Authors plete sentence, only to trail off at the end. Either way the key Christopher R. Rice hates sock monkeys. They are evil. around her neck could be in her hand, unless the GM wants to From Portsmouth, Virginia, he’s eking a living out of writ- watch the PCs squirm while searching a dead woman’s body ing (somehow). Of course, if he’s not writing about GURPS, for clues. he’s blogging about it. Visit his site “Ravens N’ Pennies” Getting into the house to retrieve the journal, or find the (www.ravensnpennies.com) for more GURPS goodies. He amulet, should not be easy. The investigators might not under- wishes to thank L.A. and his gaming group, the Headhunters; stand what they’re up against until they walk in and find doz- and Beth “Archangel” McCoy, the “Sith Editrix,” for being ens of killer sock monkeys. With pluck and a good plan (like most excellent sounding boards. smashing in her bedroom window instead of running through By day an unassuming bookstore clerk, J. Edward Tremlett the infested house), they might avoid a lot of character death. takes his ancient keyboard from its hiding place and unfurls They might also get chased out, and have to fight or flee with- his words upon the world. His bizarre lifestyle has taken him out the amulet. to such exotic locales as South Korea and Dubai, UAE. He is a frequent contributor to Pyramid, has been the editor of
The End The Wraith Project, and has seen print in The End Is Nigh and Worlds of Cthulhu. He’s the author of the fictional blog The scenario most likely ends one of three ways. SPYGOD’s Tales (spygod-tales.blogspot.com) and writes for Op-Ed News. He currently lives in Lansing, Michigan, with Happy Victory: The Puzzle Pals figure out how to use the two cats and a mountain of Lego bricks. amulet in time, and bring it out into the moonlight. The mon- keys all shudder, scream adorably, and fall down “dead” as
Pyramid Magazine 34 March 2017
Random Thought Table Amongst Your Weaponry Are Surprise and Anticipation by Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor
As a GM, one of the greatest challenges to having humor- could be anything, so there’s no fun in filling in the secret. ous adventures or encounters is providing the framework for Now, if – instead – the adventurers learn that the princess the players to make their own humor. It’s not the GM’s job to hasn’t yet revealed the name of the child because the prince create humor, per se. Yet, paradoxically, the GM has to design doesn’t approve of the name . . . well, that’s a bit more inter- situations that are humorous. esting, but not necessarily humorous. The difference? Well, it’s a lot like an amusement-park roller Imagine if the heroes have the hook of the premise above, coaster. A roller coaster relies on participants to generate its and they overhear the prince yelling at her, “The name’s not thrills. Watching an empty roller coaster from afar might be even anatomically possible!” If confronted, the prince refuses somewhat interesting, but it’s unlikely to instill much in the to clarify. Now we’ve got the hook of a humorous encounter. way of actual excitement in someone watching it. A park that What kind of name couldn’t be anatomically possible? continually draws attention to how exciting its roller coaster It’s a fine art to let something percolate in the background is likely will be less enjoyable than one that shows people on an appropriate amount of time. Let something hang too long, it having a blast. and the players can lose interest or forget. Resolve it too The same holds true for comedic elements. If you draw quickly, and the players may not have as much enjoyment as attention to the fact that they’re humorous, then you’ll likely they might otherwise have. It’s possible to drop clues and pos- have less impact than if you let events play out. Plus, if you sible answers to keep interest up. For example, a townsperson set up a comedic situation but don’t draw attention to the fact might say, “Maybe she’s chosen the name ‘Bill’? The prince that it’s supposed to be, and no one laughs . . . well, that’s okay! isn’t the brightest bulb, so maybe he thinks it’s, like, a duck’s Folks don’t laugh at lots of things . . . what’s one more? bill or something.” Here, then, is some advice for providing the situations of Ideally the revelation raises more questions than it comedy, using two broad ideas that you can apply to your answers, or leaves everyone struggling for an answer. own games. Perhaps the heroes confront the prince, who exasperatedly admits to the heroes, “Triscore! She wants to name the child
The Mystery Box Triscore. It’s Old Common for ‘counts to 60.’ I mean, who can do that?! It’s not even anatomically possible. Ten! [shows One of the greatest tools in a comedic arsenal is mystery. his fingers] That’s as high as you can count. Or maaaaybe 21 To maintain a sense of mystery, have something the char- [whispers] if you’re nude.” acters don’t know but are at least somewhat curious to find Again, how the heroes (and players) resolve this is up to out about. It’s especially helpful to ensure there isn’t an air them, but the odds are fairly decent that it raises more ques- of mortal danger around this secret. It’s also useful if the tions than it answers, and exposes them to a problem – or players can anticipate what the secret might be (see p. 36); possible opportunity – they didn’t have before . . . namely, even if they’re proven incorrect, the desire to fill in the gaps that the prince isn’t the sharpest spoon in the drawer. generates more humor than a wide-open mystery where the Some other possible mysteries to give you inspiration: answer could be anything. • The queen is hiding from both the royal baker and the For example, the heroes might learn that there’s a battle in Captain of the Guard. (The queen stole a stellar recipe from the court, as the crown princess has yet to reveal the name of her baker to enter the annual spring festival’s baking contest, and the newborn child. That’s not terribly funny by itself; the name Captain of the Guard is the judge of that contest.)
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• A previously staid – but successful – businessman has about the BBC television adaptation of his novel Neverwhere. started wearing hideous, garish cowboy boots everywhere and He was explaining to the audience about budget concerns. laughing in a high-pitched squeal periodically. (He recently After showing a scene set in a sewer, he said (paraphrasing): acquired a pet kitten that he absolutely adores. He’s been carry- “In a Hollywood production, you’d build a set that looks like a ing it around with him in his coat pocket, but he doesn’t want sewer, and you’d do all this special-effects work to make sure people paying attention to the fact that his torso is squirming the sewer looked realistic. But the BBC realized that it’s much periodically, so he’s hoping the boots will draw attention down- more affordable if, instead, you just go . . . [laughter from the ward. He’s been laughing like that because the kitten periodically audience] Exactly.” mews, and he’s trying to stifle the sound.) In an RPG, to build a sense of anticipation, let the charac- • The short alien ambassador – the first (and, so far, ters know that Something Interesting will happen if X condi- only) contact of a new species – has successfully negotiated tion is met. You don’t need to know exactly what will happen two treaties with other races; now the heroes are charged . . . only that it will be noteworthy. Ideally, the tone and situa- with negotiating with it for humanity’s sake. Unfortunately, tion make it clear that this will not be life-or-death stakes; the it spends most of its time sleeping and seems remarkably end of the world usually isn’t funny. cranky and prone to attack, even as it’s making salient points Some examples include: about its species and what it can offer. (In fact, the “ambassa- • A tongue-tied wizard tries to dampen the embarrassment dor” is a koala, a long-forgotten species genetically resurrected he feels sending an anonymous written declaration of love to from extinction centuries prior. It’s had a voice box implanted the object of his affection. However, a magical mishap means that’s being controlled from far by another – hostile – species it’s been sent to everyone in the kingdom . . . staggered, at a hoping to embarrass those races who negotiate with a dumb- rate of one per hour. Given the thousands of people in the but-cute animal.) realm, this is going to play out for a looooong time. • Due to a scheduling mishap, a crate of live butter- flies intended for a wedding has ended up at the church “I U nderstood hat T for a funeral for an adversary the PCs had a direct hand in sending to his maker. R eference !” • The heroes have analyzed a universal back- ground radiation “noise” as concurrent with six musi- It’s tricky, but it can be very humorous when the heroes cal tones – C, G, G, A, G, and (after a period of silence) don’t know something, but the players do. In the last example B – each of which has lasted for dozens of years. If the above, you could show the players a picture of a koala and heroes speed it up to something more human-scaled, say, “It looks just like this,” then remind them that their heroes they recognize it as the first six notes of the seven-note don’t know that; they’ll have the chuckle of the inside knowl- “Shave and a Haircut” ditty . . . and the final note is edge. Go ahead and let them import their knowledge to their due any day. players if they can figure out how in the game or universe. (“It seems fairly animal-like; are there any Earth animals like In all things, it’s important to remember that what that?” “Well, let’s see how your Research roll goes . . .”) you’re looking for at the game table is the heroes’ (and As another example, if the newly discovered “coffé” beans their characters’) reactions to madcap events that go on have been brewed into a strong beverage, the players can around them; reveal the situation, and let the charac- chuckle as they bring their own knowledge to the situation. ters react as they wish to. The odds are good there will (“Those who attempt to stop coffé consumption after drinking be some laughs. And if not . . . well, no one laughs when it for a while find themselves possessed by demons that claw various monsters attack in a dungeon, so what’s one their skull from the inside out.” “That’s . . . accurate.”) more guffawless situation?
About the Editor
Steven Marsh is a freelance writer and editor. He has con- I See You Shiver . . . tributed to roleplaying game releases from Green Ronin, West A sense of anticipation can be vital for humor. Matt Riggsby End Games, White Wolf, Hogshead Publishing, and others. notes in his article (on pp. 10-12) that we actually enjoy jokes He has been editing Pyramid for over 10 years; during that a bit more when we anticipate the punchline. As one minor time, he has won four Origins awards. He lives in Indiana with example, I remember seeing author Neil Gaiman talking his wife, Nikola Vrtis, and their son.
Eddie Valiant: Do you mean to tell me you could have taken
your hand out of that cuff at any time? Roger Rabbit: No, not at any time. Only when it was funny. – Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Pyramid Magazine 36 March 2017
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