A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

A pair of topics today, each too short for a viable post on their own, mashed into one, like Peanut Butter and Bacon!

Agone RPG: According to the wiki page, Agone is "an epic fantasy roleplaying game based on novels by award-winning fantasy writer Mathieu Gaborit". 

According to me, these books were a steal on ebay, where Troll and Toad is offering ALL FIVE of the books for the eminently reasonable rate of $5.19, plus $4.99 shipping, for a grand total of $10.18.  Well, says I, a complete game and four supplements for 10 dollars?  How can I go wrong?

Apparently this game was the bee's knees in France, where there were over 30 supplements published, but only the afore mentioned 5 were translated into English before the publisher, Multisim, went out of business.  Oddly enough, only two of the books upon which this game was based have been translated into English, and those were only in extremely limited editions, although I have come to the conclusion tha they do not inf fact exist, after a somewhat exhaustive search of teh intarwebz. 

So I'm guessing that might have been a contributing factor when T&T was considering their pricing.  Note: its probably a good idea to get the material a game is based on out to the public before trying to sell said game.

I haven't had a chance to give the actual materials more than a perfunctory glance, but I did note that, had I paid full price for the 5 books, they would have gone for over $100.  So that's a win in my book. 

Harlan Ellison: Closing out my gushing fanboy posts on Harlan Ellison, I have written a letter which I will mail later today that let's Harlan know that I would like to make an RPG based on I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream.  I expect to either be ignored, or to have a shrieking swarm of slavering lawyer/locust hybrids descend upon me and flay the skin from my bones.  Let the record show, for posterity, that the following list captures what I believe to be his finest works.

'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, A Boy and His Dog, The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World, Paladin Of the Lost Hour, Mephisto In Onyx, The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, The Deathbird, Demon with a Glass Hand, Basilisk, Shattered Like a Glass Goblin, I'll just save time and say Deathbird Stories because every single story in there is a winner, Night and the Enemy

And seriously, no conversation of Unca HarHar would be complete without mentioning The City on the Edge of Forever.  It's the episode of Star Trek you show to people who don't like Star Trek.  As amazing as the final product was, though, it's nothing compared to the crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat versions that Ellison originally turned in.  The drama surrounding the rewrites Roddenberry's staff made after he submitted his final version is the stuff of legend, and the link provided gives the whole story.  Trust me, it's well worth your time.

The Art of Jacek Yerka

In the comments of yesterday's post, I was reminded of Mind Fields, a book of art by Jacek Yerka, with original fiction penned by the estimable Harlan Ellison.  I don't remember how I got this book, I think it was a gift maybe.  Apparently, Ellison was initially approached by the publishers and asked to write an introduction to the book, but, in typical Ellison fashion, loved the art so much that he asked if he could write a separate piece of fiction for each painting.  While some of the stories are directly inspired by the subject matter of the painting it accompanies, others have a more oblique relationship, dealing with the themes that Ellison saw in Yerka's work.  If you're a fan of Ellison's work, seek this book out, it's well worth your time, solely from a fictional perspective.

From an artistic standpoint, this was my introduction to Yerka, a Polish artist active for the last twenty years.  According to his wikipedia page, "He cites Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Cagliostro, Jan van Eyck, and Hugo van der Goes as formative influencers of his work".  I also see more than a little Escher, but that's just me. 

As much as I love his work, though, the pictures below don't really do them justice - Yerka's genius is in the details, the little things that you find when you see them on a page that you can pull close to your face - he's an artist that rewards close inspection.

If you're not a fan of Ellison's work, go find another book of Yerka's art, I can't recommend him enough.

Good pedigree there, and it shows in his works, which boggle the mind and spur my imagination every time I see them.

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: The RPG

Over on Rather Gamey, Ark was describing an adventure format for Stars Without Number, based on the idea that you're all "Redshirts", beamed in and out of planets, which would allow for quick, one shot adventures with a rotating cast.  In the comments, someone pointed out that if the adventure didn't wrap up at the end of one session and instead needed to carry over to the next, each person would have to show up next time, defeating the modular aspect that Ark was going for.  Instead, he suggested, why not have a crazy computer AI beaming people in and out of scenarios at random intervals, so if someone drops out mid session, oh don't worry it's just that glitchy AI, it must have changed it's mind, Ensign Singh is gone now, and oh it looks like he's been replaced by Yeoman Hossenfeffer.

Now, to me, that sounds like you've left Gene Roddenberry behind, and crossed over into Harlan Ellison, specificially one of my favorite short stories of all time, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream".  What an awesome game that would be.  The story practically writes its own RPG - the AI = GM, you've got different characters, each with their own specialty (even if one of those specialties is f***ing), and they're being led through an endless maze by a crazed AI who just wants to mess with them.  Now that I think about it, you could probably file the serial numbers off of Paranoia and run it pretty well. 

Or you could just make your own game, because hey, Harlan wouldn't care if someone made a game based on his idea, right?  Right? 

Hahaha of course he would. 

Maybe a free version just distributed via fileshare, adapting the book to another system,  a la Thundarr for Mutant Future?  I dunno, I'm not sure how that would work, but I'm curious enough to find out!

Thinking about this has inspired me to crack open some of my Ellison books, and I may post more about him in the near future, as he's been a huge inspiration to me since I was but a lad.  I've written about half of a novel that is a love letter and spiritual sequel to The Whimper of Whipped Dogs, and Deathbird Stories is one of my favorite books, 25 years after I read it for the first time.  As much of a cranky, quixotic bastard as Ellison can be, his stories always manage to evoke a reaction in me, and he'll always be at the top of my list of authors.