MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: A Little Something For Daddy

 

A Little Something For Daddy

by

Al Bruno III

2008

 

The problem is that the local shopping mall has no bookstores and no place that sells horror movies on DVD so when the Bruno family and I head out there I find myself bored beyond reason or worse. Both my wife and daughter get stuff on these trips but I never do, I mean I'm not greedy but it would be nice to get a little something.

The first thing you notice as you walk into the mall is one of those crane games, you know the kind where you try to free one of the twenty or so stuffed animals crammed into the thing using a metal claw with the grip strength of a geriatric on Quaaludes. My daughter is fascinated by these machines and left to her own devices I think she would sacrifice her entire college fund trying to win a misshapen replica of SpongeBob Squarepants stuffed with shredded magazines and used Chinese diapers.

This time we managed to get away with simply sacrificing one or two dollars but my daughter always voices some disappointment that I can never win one of those things for her. Truth be told I never even try. It's one of her uncles that has a real talent for those things, he can usually empty one in the course of an hour but let's be honest here it's his only marketable skill.

That obstacle bypassed we stopped for a bite to eat, the food court is clean, well lit and surprisingly rat free. Laugh all you want but over a decade ago when I worked at one of Albany's larger malls the food court had a real problem with rodents; and these being New York rats they frequently carried switchblades.

A quick sodium filled meal later we made our first stop a ladieswear store. I am not uncomfortable in such places because I spent a summer working in women's clothing... but I never really learned how to walk in high heels.

Nyuck Nyuck.

Most women's clothing stories have chairs near the changing room for the men to sit in and contemplate their lives of quiet desperation but I didn't get the chance to in one of them because I was busy chasing after my daughter as she rummaged through the spin racks full of beads and baubles near the main register. She likes to try on everything- at once. My choice is not an easy one; do I let my daughter have a good time or get a jump start on this afternoon's tantrum? Eventually I give in to the withering gaze of the clerk manning the register but not before my daughter looks like an explosion at Cyndi Lauper's house.

My wife called me over and asked for an opinion on a blouse.

"Why don't you pick whatever one you like best?" I said.

"Come on," the Missus chided me. "Your opinion matters. Do you prefer the blue or the yellow?"

I paused for a moment considering, "The blue. Yes, the blue works best I think."

The Missus held each blouse up, nodding, "No. I don't think the blue goes with any of my outfits. Yellow is more my color anyway."

"I'm just glad I was able to help." I turned back to see my daughter trying to climb onto one of the shelving units.

One blouse, two pairs of slacks and an apology later we headed for another store but this time it was so the Missus could find a new handbag. It had been over three weeks since she'd changed purses and you could tell that the strain of it was beginning to wear on her sanity. My daughter started fussing that she wanted to go to look at toys so I had her stand near the front of the store as a kind of impromptu time out. As my daughter glared sullenly at the world the Missus remarked to me that she couldn't find any purses that really caught her eye. I suggested that she just use one of the older ones she had piled up in the hall closet.

Once I was out of time out we took my daughter to the toy store so she could 'Ooh' and 'Ah' over the bits of molded plastic. These days Hanna Montana was her drug of choice but she was also starting to get into all those other tweener bands. I couldn't stand the stuff. I mean what happened to kids' music? When I was growing up we had real bands that spoke for an entire generation like The Banana Splits, Jose and the Pussycats and The Brady Kids.

Laugh if you want but do you think the Jonas Brothers could survive being lost in outer space? I think not!

The Missus and I decided to let my daughter get a new doll, after all she hadn't tried to disassemble the apartment's electrical system in almost a week. Yeah she is kinda spoiled but I want to have these moments to remember when she's a teenager and she hates my guts.

The last stop on this little excursion was the beauty salon. The girls wanted to get their hair done and that was fine, except that I knew I would find myself sitting there trying pass the time reading by Cosmo and Modern Bride. The articles were kind of OK but all the perfume ads made me want to sneeze.

The hairdressers were all young and gossipy, the salon was dead so my wife and daughter got immediate service. About halfway through her rinse the Missus suggested, "You know there's no other customer's why don't you get a haircut? You need one."

She was right that I did need a haircut, the sides and back were a ragged mess but as always the top of my head looked like a satellite photograph of the deforested areas of Brazil. Long ago all hopes of a comb-over had been lost so I had taken to shaving my head on a semi-regular basis. There is an old saying that when a balding man shaves his head its like saying "You can't fire me I quit!" So be it.

In the interests of saving money I sheared my head using the clippers we had bought for doing maintenance on our Persian cat's fluffy black fur. This was before we learned that trying to shave down a cat was about as advisable as opening a Fredrick's of Hollywood in Amish country.

"Come on." The Missus said again, "This way I won't be cleaning hair out of the bathroom sink for days."

"Sure." I said, "Why not?"

"Hi I'm Kara." A red haired Chinese girl led me to one of the chairs and asked, "You want me to trim the sides and the back?"

"No." I explained, "Just shave it all off."

"What?" She draped the vinyl cape over me and around my neck.

"Just take a pair of clippers and shear my head down until its like a GI JOE doll."

She looked at me like I was crazy, "You want your hair like an action figure?"

There was a brief moment where I sobbed with the realization of how old I was but then I gathered myself up again and explained, "Just take a pair of clippers and take it all off maybe leave half and inch or so."

"Oh OK."

"You have done this kind of thing before right?" I asked.

"Well your only my third or fourth customer since I got out of beauty school." She explained.

The clippers buzzed to life, I took one last mournful look at the curves of my ears and she got to work.

Thankfully my beautician's hands were steady and the blades of the clippers were clean and sharp.Soon enough my head looked like a farm fresh egg with a light coating of brown mold. "There you go." She ran her fingers along my scalp, "It feels nice."

"Thanks." I said uncertainly, "You do good work."

"Hey Kristy! Kitty!" She called over to one of the other girls, "Come here and feel this!"

My wife and daughter were freshly coiffured and waiting at the register while three college aged hotties took turns rubbing the top of my head telling me how much I looked like that Private Pyle guy from that old movie. However it didn't take long for their amusement to wear off and they all headed off for a collective cigarette break. Kara pulled the cutting cape from around me and announced, "Ok you can get up now."

"No," I said, "No I can't."

A little something indeed.

MY SUITCASE OF MEMORIES: Fully Employed But Half Awake

Fully Employed But Half Awake

by

Al Bruno III

 2009

 

This is not simply a blog entry, oh no.

This is part of today's struggle a delaying tactic if you will.

I am still at work and about to fall asleep at my desk.

mmmmmmm... sleep....

It wasn't that I stayed up to late, I am nothing if not responsible. It's just that I was awoken by the sensation of my face being furiously licked and sadly the culprit was not Jessica Alba or Judge Marilyn Milian but my big eyed dog Jake. I patted Jake on the head and ushered him away. Then I tried to get back to sleep but it was no use, I had been awoken. I checked the clock radio, it was three AM. I groaned audibly and pounded my fist against the mattress. The minor commotion disturbed my wife and half-awake she grumbled "You're supposed to do that in your office."

Awkward.

So now here I am, struggling to stay conscious as the workday ticks by slowly... numbingly... soothingly... so soothingly...

just a few minutes... I'll just close my eyes for a few minutes...

But no! I can't do that. That's the trap, I know that if I close my eyes for what I promise yourself will just be a moment the next thing I know I'll find myself waking up from lying face first on my keyboard, my face slicked with my own drool. I drool a lot when I sleep, I drool like Paris Hilton at a rich douchebag convention. Besides I know the minute I nod off my boss or any number of corporate underlings will come wandering into my cubicle for one reason or another.

So I sit here typing away, pausing only for the occasional blackou-


mustn't... black... out...

...or steal dialogue from Frank Miller comic books.

I'm no stranger to falling asleep at work, it doesn't matter what the job I had I feel asleep there at least once. I once fell asleep while manning a cash register in the middle of an afternoon rush. All I know is that I started to get drowsy at 1:30 and the next thing I knew it was 2:45- I still have no idea what happened during that missing hour and fifteen minutes but oddly enough my cash drawer was perfectly even that day. I rare occurrence for me.

When I worked in an office supply store I would frequently drowse off in an office furniture display while 'straightening it'- I guess it was kind of practice for now eh kids?

and my dreams, brief and disturbing... am at home dreaming of my job or at my job dreaming of home?

And I really do dream of work an awful lot really, maybe that's why I'm so comfortable sleeping here. Maybe its just getting even, maybe its just a sign of old but where I once dreamed I was a character in a particularly Freudian episode of Doctor Who or the X-Files I now dream that I'm on a quest to figure out where the latest productivity meeting is. Where I once dreamed of banging away on Cindy Crawford or Angela Lansbury I now find my dream self trying to bang a toner cartridge into a dirty photocopier- a dirty dirty photocopier. Where I once dreamed I was a long haired Adonis I now dream that I am a long haired Adonis with a clip on tie.

why is it the more tired I get the more offensive and surreal my material gets, like a tiny Nazi riding on a mule wearing a spangled turban...

It is an amazing and cruel thing to be perfectly awake at 3 AM watching infomercials and dead to the world at 3PM when you are supposed to be enhancing shareholder value. I try to give my energy a boost by having sugary snack, there are no shortage of sugary snacks around my workplace. I believe it is an insidious plan by my corporate masters to make us too bloated to leave our cubicles. I can almost see my future self so bloated that he cannot move from his ergonomic chair, kept alive and working via a company that pays us in insulin. Of course we will passing the savings on to our customers.

barely awake now... dreaming of Nutty Buddy bars...

I promise myself that when I get home I'll go straight to bed but that's a lie; dogs need to be walked, then re-walked, my daughter needs to be made to do her homework - reason is rarely effective , the threat of waterboarding has been a rousing success, my wife will most likely yell at me for gently mocking her on the Internet. And really I shouldn't mock her because of all the women I have made love to she is the only one that never shouted "What the HELL are you doing?"

Oh yeah. She's a keeper.

My daughter's homework is a major stumbling block as well, I don't remember my homework being quite so intricate when I was nine years old. Then again I did have to take my classes in the boiler room with the other 'creative' students. Now once my daughter gets focused she does great but getting her to that point seems to take a long exhausting time. Before I know it it's 8:30 and time to take out the garbage and maybe clean the catbox, sure it might make more sense to do those chores in reverse but that's just not how I roll.

Before I can go to bed however I first spend some time with the missus then try to add a write a few pages. It could be anything, my blog, my writing, my ever growing enemies list.

You bastards know who you are.

Then I go to bed but I know I won't make it through the night, something will wake me up at 3 AM even if it is the sound of my own snoring.

waking up now ...I can think again...

Well I managed to stay awake, the brain activity involved in working on this little project is just what I needed.

Of course now that you're read this there is a good chance I've put YOU to sleep.

Vampire The Mass Kid Raid - a postscript

 

VAMPIRE THE MASS KID RAID 

A Postscript

 

Me: “You burst into the chamber just in time to see the Minions of Set pulling the blood fried pregnant woman out of the oven.”

A gasp went up from my players- for all their planning and use of the Celerity discipline they were too late.

Now you may well be wondering what the Hell is going on here so let me bring you up to speed. It was still the early 1990’s; post Clinton inauguration, pre Contract with America. Two great life changing events had happened to me since my last game with my old group- first and most importantly I had gotten married secondly I had started running White Wolf’s WORLD OF DARKNESS games.

Of course at the time of this story only one game in the projected 5 game series had come out; VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE, but with a year of supplements to work from I had a pretty good campaign going even if it seemed like the creatures in the World of Darkness were in some kind of an Arms Race when it came to superpowers.

In my current campaign everyone was playing a vampire of one form or another


Me: “Ok let’s roll for Initiative.”

Yetch: “Oh I’m gonna be sick. That is so disgusting Al.”

Yetch was one of my regular players he was a nice guy and a good, well behaved player (aside from occasional moments of EXTEREME THESPIANISM). The only trouble was that I don’t necessarily think a man that got dizzy at the description of the sight of blood had the right mindset for horror gaming.


Francesca: “Honey did you take your Tums?”

I think Francesca was the one who was really into the idea of playing VAMPIRE. There were three things you noticed about her, first she was a Goth, second she had a chest you could roll an EXALTED die pool and not lose a single d10 and third she was Yetch’s girlfriend. That last part was the one that confused us the most, most girls go out with guys they know their parents will hate so I can only assume her parents were Anton LeVey and Wendy O Williams.

The funny thing was that this was when the trend of hot nerdy girls really began and it is a trend that continues today. Sadly I came of age in the 1980’s, an era when apparently all the geek hotties had been shipped to Canada. Which explains why we spent most of our Saturday nights desperately trying to watch scrambled porn.

But perhaps I have shared too much.


Me: “As you all watch with increasing horror the light braised flesh of her stomach begins to shudder and split apart.

Slacker X: “That is SO wrong, yet SO cool.”

Now Slacker X is and has been (at least until he reads this) one of my longtime players and friends. I will always admire the fact he was always indifferent to worries about things like employment and women. Somehow as a result that meant he always had a fresh supply of both.

Seriously folks, its like he’s a Jedi or something.

Hentai Wrangler: “My character Lady Bishonen draws her katana and spends a blood point to activate her katana.”

Me: “And then?”

Hentai Wrangler: “And then she waits to see what happens.”

Slacker X: “You always do that.”

Hentai Wrangler was actually in his twenties but he had a very young face and he was another one of that rare species of gaming friend that I wasn’t worried about hanging out with in social situations. He was a big fan of Japanese media, in fact one the reasons I gave him the nickname he has is because if not for him I might never have seen LEGEND OF THE OVERFIEND, this is something I will never forgive him for.


Lando Molari: “I shout at the Setite elder, ‘We had a deal Madden!’”

Have you ever seen the TV series LOST IN SPACE? Remember the character of Dr. Zachary Smith? Well Lando Molari was that character- in every game, every time. He was always trying to go behind the other player’s backs for one reason or another it didn’t matter if we were playing in THE WORLD OF DARKNESS , DUNGEONS & DRAGONS or BUNNIES AND BURROWS.
The players didn’t mind much partially because Lando was an all around nice guy in real life and also because watching his characters get dismembered from their own actions was good entertainment.


Me: “The undead babies tear free from their fleshy prisons and begin crawling towards the party, their eyes alight with inhuman hunger.”


Yetch: “Oooooh…”

Francesca: “Ab3 where is the Goth in this? When are you gonna bring the Goth?”

Slacker X: “I pull out my twin chrome plated .45s and leap sideways while firing at them.”

Me: “Ok roll for it.”

Slacker X: “Ok.”

Me: “Wow that is a lot of ones…”

Slacker X: “Why me?”

Me: “The clips fall out of both your guns in mid leap and you crash to the floor well within crawling range.”

Hentai Wrangler: “Lady Bishonen attacks her blade and panties flashing in the night.”

Francesca: “My gangrel pops her claws and attacks.”

Me: “Well, unlike some people you make your die rolls.”

Slacker X: “Hey!”

Me: “The two of you cut a swathe through the slightly baked undead babies.”

Yetch: “My character looks around the room and says ’Who is responsible? WHO HAS CAUSED THIS MADNESS?’”

Me: “Uh was that shout in or out of character?”

Lando Molari: “I stay behind the rest of my party with my weapon drawn.”

Slacker X: “And how does that help?”

Lando Molari: “Cover fire.”

Once combat was resolved the player characters searched the building for any sign of their longtime adversary Sid Madden Settite Elder- and yes his business cards did say just that. As you can see I had the Vampire side of the game pretty well nailed down but I rarely seemed to have any Masquerade going on; swordfights on high rise window washing scaffolds, exploding gas trucks and midgets in armored vans were the regular sort of occurrences in my game. There was very little brooding upon the vampiric condition, I can’t really say things were very ‘Gothic Punk’ at all, maybe they were ‘Gothic Pulp’

But on the other hand my game had been a very long running affair and there were always players joining in for a session or two… some even stayed for years. Some wouldn’t leave the game even when I begged.

And yes I did name an elder vampire of the Followers of Set ‘Sid Madden’- names were always my weak point.


Me: “You hear the sounds of sirens approaching.”

Yetch: “We better get out of here.”

Slacker X: “Yeah, the last thing we need is another run in with Detective Peter Gabriel.”

See what I mean? I suck at names.


Lando Molari: “Before we leave I search for anything of value.”

Me: “Your wits and investigation reveals a bloodstained business card.”

Lando Molari: “What the Hell is that about? I mean money or valuables. Maybe a vial of elder blood lying around.”

Me: “Uhm…”

Hentai Wrangler: “Do I notice Count Orlock being an idiot?”

Me: “Yes, you see him bungle finding next week’s MaGuffin like Slacker X bungle a driving roll.”

Slacker X: “Hey!”

With that done I doled out the experience points and we cleared the room for the old school D&D group. I was running my game in the back room of a game store run by my friend Guido Jones- of course it wasn’t just a game store he also sold comic books and pornographic trading cards. I never got the whole pornographic trading card thing. What was the appeal? Let’s be honest here, even if masturbation isn’t bad for your eyesight it can’t be healthy to be staring that intently at a 3x5 card for any prolonged period of time.

Just my opinion folks.

My game ran on a Saturday afternoon and the notice board let it be known I was open to any and all players- so long as they brought premade characters and didn’t antagonize the main group too badly. It wasn’t easy trying to organize up to ten players at once but it was usually a lot of fun. I still can’t believe how patient my wife was through all this, most weekends I was off running a game on Saturdays and then Sunday going over my notes for the next week.

The woman is a saint I tells ya.

As I got ready to leave a very pretty college aged girl waylaid me in the doorway of Guido’s Geek Emporium.


Hottie: “Are you the guy that runs the VAMPIRE game?”

Me: “That’s what is says on my monogrammed stationary.”

Hottie: “Huh?”

Me: “What I mean is yes. Yes I am that guy.”

Hottie: “Would you have room for another three players next week?”

Me: “It’s an open game. We are always looking for fresh blood. Ha ha get it?”

Hottie: “Uh sure. So next week then?”

Me: “Looking forward to it.”

Once she was gone Slacker X approached me.


Slacker X: “Who was that?”

Me: “New player.”

Slacker X: “Awesome.”

Me: “And she’s bringing friends.”

Slacker X: “Even more awesome.”

Guido Jones: “She could be bringing her boyfriend.”

Me: “She said there would be three new players not her and a significant other.”

Slacker X: “Yeah if she had a boyfriend she would have wanted to establish it right away, this is a game store after all.”

Guido Jones: “Isn’t that going to be too many players for you Ab3? Let’s not forget what happened on Halloween.”

Me: “If you don’t bring up Halloween I won’t bring up Project Omega.”

I suppose it would be cruel of me to let that scene end without telling you about Halloween and Project Omega so let’s start with the debacle that was my Halloween marathon VAMPIRE Session. Many would say later it was a great game, others would say it was the worst thing they had ever played in; it was a story that featured a Vampire rock band, human sacrifices and murder by duct tape. The thing is I remember nothing of it. The morning of the game I started feeling queasy and by the time the evening rolled around I was suffering from chills and room clearing bouts of flatulence. I pumped myself full of aspirin and Pepto Bismol but as the night wore on I became paler and paler and my game mastering became more and more incoherent- at least that is what I was told. I still don’t know how much of the stories I should believe. Why would I have a long drawn out scene take place at a gaming convention where people where playing Live Action VAMPIRE THE MASQUERADE? Why would I try to convince the players that TV actor Burt Ward was Caine? Why the Hell would I have the players menaced by an Invisible Zeppelin? All I know is that by midnight Slacker X and Hentai Wrangler called my wife to take me home and I slept for two days.

In comparison Guido’s Project Omega wasn’t that big a disaster at all, you see his master plan to increase revenue by teaching lingerie models how to play Dungeons & Dragons. The exact specifics of the plan were never really explained to me but it involved a lot of time at Victoria's Secret.

The week went by quickly enough with work, spending quality time with the missus and trying to keep our crappy apartment from falling apart around us. I was working for a place called Paper Shredder- the same outfit I had worked for when I was in college; my wife and I were still learning how to be a married couple and mushrooms kept growing out of the bedroom ceiling. There’s a story in all this somewhere but this isn’t the place.

Game night rolled around and somehow I was ready. I planned for the bloodstained business card to lead the players to a den of inbred Nazi cannibal white slavers. I made sure there were plenty of evil NPCs for everyone to fight, including the new players. I got to Guido’s Game Emporium an hour early, and started setting up. My regular players started to filter in, Yetch and Francesca got there first, as always and Francesca spent about ten minutes talking to me about her gangrel’s long term plans and inner landscape. I always had a hard time paying attention to exactly what she was saying because during the whole discussion my mind was warring between wanting to look at her chest yet not wanting to be caught looking at her chest.

By the time she had finished keeping me abreast of her character’s plans the rest of the gang had shown up. Slacker X and Lando Molari were pawing at my rulebooks trying to figure out how to spend their hard earned experience points.


Slacker X: “And a fourth dot of firearms…”

Hentai Wrangler: “Like it’ll matter.”

Slacker X: “Oh come on!”

Lando Molari: “You know what skill I need? The skill that can help my character become an expert in the art of deception.”

Slacker X: “You mean subterfuge?”

Lando Molari: “No, it’s the one that makes you better at hiding your true objectives.”

Slacker X: “That’s subterfuge.”

Lando Molari: “No I want him to lie better.”

Slacker X: “SUB-TER-FUGE!”

Hottie: “You guys haven’t started yet have you?”

Hentai Wrangler: “We’re starting now.”

Lando Molari: “Who is this vision of lovliness?”

Yetch: “More players?”

Slacker X: “Have a seat, and if you need to borrow any dice…”

Lando Molari: “No! Those dice are cursed! Don’t even touch them.”

Slacker X: “Man…”

Francesca: “Uh, who are those three kids behind her?”

Hottie: “These are my nephews, they always wanted to play VAMPIRE.”

Slacker X: “But you’re playing too right?”

Hottie: “Sorry, Guido is teaching me how to play D&D. Bye.”

Lando Molari: “As a great man once said, what a revoltin’ development this is.”

Slacker X: “Do you think Guido has any openings in his game?”

Me: “I think Guido has all the openings he needs tonight.”

Our new arrivals stared at us expectantly. They looked to be between 11 and 13 years old. Their eyes were full of that special brand of prepubescent menace I had learned to fear in Junior High.


Kid #1: “Is this chair taken?”

Francesca: “No.”

Kid #1: “Cool. Hey you’re pretty sexy. My name’s Mike.”

Francesca: “I’m Frannie.”

Kid #1: “What grade are you in?”

Francesca: “I’m a graduate student.”

Kid #1: “A senior? Wicked.”

Kid #2: “Hi I’m Greg. Is that your character?”

Hentai Wrangler: “”Yeah, a battle hardened survivor or two of Ab3’s campaigns.”

Kid #2: “What’s a bishonen?”

Hentai Wrangler: “Er, it’s a man with a little something extra.”

Kid #2: “Are you gay?”

Kid #3: “Check out my character. He’s a Brujah.”

Kid #1: “We’re all Brujahs.”

Kid #3: “Well you better watch yourselves of my character will totally kick the ass of everyone in the room.”

Slacker X: “What was your name again?”

Kid #3: “Brian.”

Slacker X: “Well Brian, would you like to borrow some of my dice.”

I checked over the new arrivals character sheets and finding no obvious problems we got started. I wasted no time trying to integrate the new players into the party.


Me: “The Coterie is at their usual hangout when they spot the three Brujahs the vampire Prince of Utica asked you to meet with. That’s you guys.”

Kid #1: “Wait… where are we?”

Me: “You’re in Utica.”

Kid #1: “No I mean where in Utica are we?”

Yetch: “It’s a bar all the local vampires hang out in called The Leather Nun. It’s –”

Me: “-it’s a place for quiet contemplation and hand crafted goods.”

Kid #2: “Sounds lame.”

Yetch: “What are you talking about? This is a total- OW!”

I didn’t want to throw a d10 at Yetch, especially not one of the prismatic ones, but I had to shut him up. I wasn’t about to let my violent perverted little role playing game corrupt the minds of America’s youth. That was the Internet’s job. At least some of my players caught on.


Slacker X: “I walk past the women …selling oven mitts and approach the new arrivals. I say ‘The Prince wanted me to let you know that you are welcome in his city as long as you don’t cause any trouble.’”

Kid #3: “You hear that guys? Some other vampire thinks he can tell us what to do!”

Kid #2: “I spend some blood, pull the hatchet from my overcoat and start whacking people at random.”

Kid #3: “Radical!”

Me: “A hatchet?”

Kid #2: “You Oked it. See right there? Small axe.”

Francesca: “What the Hell Ab3?”

Me: “Uhm, I thought he meant that deodorant body spray stuff.”

Francesca: “What?”

Me: “Well it was capitalized!”

Yetch: “Why the Hell brings an Axe to a- OW!”

Hentai Wrangler: “-craft fair?”

Me: “Good save.”

Yetch: “None of this makes any sense.”

Me: “You’re playing a Malkavian get used to it.”

Kid #2: “Do I hit anyone in the face?”

Me: “Let’s roll some dice.”

Kid #1: “I pee on the bar!”

Lando Molari: “Vampires don’t pee.”

Kid #1: “What if I spend a blood point?”

It didn’t take long for things to spiral into chaos, with the Masquerade in tatters the three Brujah wandered out into the streets in search of more trouble; perhaps spurred on by relative easy and bloodless kills.


Hentai Wrangler: “Lady Bishonen has had enough of this! She draws her blade and orders them to surrender to the Prince’s justice.”


Kid #2: “I throw a knife at her.”

Me: “Roll your dice.”

Hentai Wrangler: “I catch it in kid air.”

Me: “Very nice, lotsa tens there.”

Kid #3: “And while she’s catching the knife I shoot her with my Desert Eagle.”

Me: “Oh God.”

Hentai Wrangler: “So this is torpor…”

Kid #1: “I run off and steal a car.”

Me: “Fine…”

Kid #2: “I use my Potence to pick a manhole cover and throw it as hard as I can at someone.”

Kid #3: “Dude you totally said manhole.”

Lando Molari: “I use the Presence discipline to cow the other two.”

Me: “Sorry guys you’re cowed by Lando Molari’s vampiric awesomeness.”

Kid #1: “And I run him over with the car!”

Me: “What?”

Kid #1: “You said I could steal a car.”

Me: “But I didn’t –”

Kid #1: “You saying a car couldn’t reach him yet?”

Me: “Sigh. Sorry Lando.”

Kid #2: “Now where’s that Gangrel chick?”

Francesca: “Watching in horrified disbelief.”

Yetch: “There’s never an invisible zeppelin around when you need one.”

Kid #2: “I spend some blood and flex for the Gangrel chick.”

Francesca: “Not interested.”

Kid #2: “Fine I use Presence to call her over.”

Francesca: “Ab3!”

Me: “Well, lets make some rolls and see what happens.”

Francesca: “Oh great. I guess I flounce over to him.”

Kid #3: “No way. I Presence her over to me instead.”

They pretty much played a kind of vampire ping pong with her for a few turns while the remaining two members of the party tried to peel Lando Molari off the grill of the Monte Carlo.


Yetch: “My character says 'Will I allow you to continue to violate the peace of my domain. I SAY THEE NAY!!!!' Then I get some Tremere spells ready.”

Slacker X: “I just open fire and kill them, I kill them a lot.”

Me: “All right lets get some combat rolls.”

And one botch later the party’s last stand ended what Slacker X’s charcter accidentally shot Yetch’s character in the back. I could hear Guido and the Hottie giggling in the next room which meant someone was getting treasure. I decided to call it a night.


Me: “Sorry about tonight guys.”

Slacker X: “I never thought anything could be worse than having to watch MANOS THE HANDS OF FATE. I was wrong.”

Hentai Wrangler: “To think I missed a night of fandubbing for this.”

Me: “I’m really sorry.”

Lando Molari: “As soon as I wake up I’m selling my soul to the devil for more disciplines.”

Me: “You did that already.”

Francesca: “Ab3, if Mark Rein Hagen were here he would slap your face. I can’t belive you let- Hey! My eyes are up here!”

Me: “I was hanging my head in shame, really.”

Yetch: “Thanks for everything buddy.”

Me: “Oh great sarcasm from you too.”

Yetch: “No. No. Really. Thanks. Whenever you run a bad game she wants to have angry sex. I mean really angry. You’re the best.”

Me: “Oh… well enjoy.”

Kid# 1: “That game was awesome. What time do we start next week?”

So that’s why I started running games at my apartment, but that’s a whole other story.

RPG.NET rant #1 The Team That Couldn't Shoot Straight

 

RPG.NET rant #1

The Team That Couldn't Shoot Straight

 

I have been in a super hero frame of mind lately. Maybe it's the fact that I have Godlike and Freedom Force on order but it has set me in a nostalgic mood for the Champions campaigns I used to play in. Then as I remembered I realized those long lost games I began to shudder with the memory of THE TEAM THAT COULDN'T SHOOT STRAIGHT.

Never before or since has there ever been a super hero team so dysfunctional. We had no base, we met at a Burger King and then headed out in our flying Monte Carlo from there.

Let me tell you about the core roster of characters. Please share my Hell.

(The stories are real only the names have been changed)

MY CHARACTER: Take some BATMAN YEAR ONE, throw in Don Quixote and marinate with some pulp and you had my character. Out in the cold cruel superhero world with only his fedora, trenchcoat and one gadget he had his hands full dealing with characters like panda and Raccoon. I really enjoyed playing a beginner hero but he never really go the chance to develop as I would have liked.

THE INFECTIOUS GUY: His power? That he has ALL known diseases. He had to wear a containment suit at all times and he blasted villains with a gout of toxins and pus that equaled a ranged killing attack. The really fun part about this guy was that it turned out that his containment suit wasn't strong enough and my character was nearly taken out by a case of jaundice!

THE INSANE KILLING MACHINE: How insane? The player lobbied for a ranged hand to hand killing attack to properly simulate his character's deadliness. This crazy cyborg would just show up, fight (and mostly kill) the baddies then speed away. Who was he? Was he really on the team at all? I was never sure.

THE SUPEHERO INSPIRED BY THE WORKS OF AYN RAND: I admit I know little of Rand's work mainly because of the nightmare of this character- a mentalist named Atlas in honor of the book ATLAS SHRUGGED. When a fight broke out he would hide and fire off mental bolts while extolling the virtues of objectivism.

THE GUY WITH A JETPACK AND A HIGH POWERED RIFLE: When combat broke out he would zoom up into the air and start sniping. He had a kind of code against killing, he only killed villains if they fought back, or sassed him.

THE DINOSAUR IN THE CLIP ON TIE: I don't want to talk about this one, I just don't.

THE ONE MAN ROTATING GUEST STAR: Every week the player had a new character; every damn week. There wasn't an original one in the bunch, let me name a few and give you their defining moment. THE ONE BASED ON THE MAIN CHARACTER FROM AIRWOLF: Spent the combat trying to cross the map to his helicopter. THE ONE BASED ON THE MAIN CHARACTER FROM STREETHAWK: Spent the entire combat zipping around the map on his super-powered motorcycle. THE ONE BASED ON LSH's ULTRA-BOY: Died because he forgot that he couldn't use super strength and flight at the same time and he tried to catch a crashing spacecraft. THE ONE BASED ON LEE VAN CLEEF's CHARACTER FROM THE TV SHOW THE MASTER: Since most of the character points were spent juicing his character's defensive combat value through the roof he had no attacks that could hurt anything. he bounced around like a sterile flea hitting one villain after another until he was killed by a ranged attack. THE ONE BASED ON JULIAN SANDS CHARACTER FROM THE FILM WARLOCK: Skulked in the background and drained endurance points from any player character that wandered to close to him. THE ONE BASED ON ALPHA FLIGHT'S LEADER GUARDIAN: I never knew why he was there since our team was based in New York. His whole thing is that he would kidnap unconscious super villains to Canada for 'rehabilitation'. Since all the villains were sexy female villains my opinion was dubious.

THE BLUE-SKINNED RED-EYED FALLEN ANGEL: An ok character but the player insisted on making the character's secret identity himself.

THE LITTLE OLD LADY WITH AWSOME MIND CONROL ABILITIES: Another character that seemed to want to do nothing more than pound on my character because he 'looked sinister'

And lastly....

THE DESTROYER OF CAMPAIGNS: With his combination of rules lawyering and outright cheating he could unmake an Amber diceless game. His character was supposed to be just a guy in powered armor but his merciless point-whoreing created an unstoppable juggernaut. How unstoppable? How about knockback that sent NPCs off the map? How about combats that lasted a number of rounds equal to the number of adversaries facing him? How about the high-end Dr. Destroyer had to run for his life? Finally the GM tried to kill him with a nuclear explosion- this knocked the character unconscious for ONE ROUND then he recovered...

Shortly after the arrival of the last character the campaign died, all I have left now are the memories but with therapy and drugs I hope to supress them.

Roadside Velvet part two

Price Breaks and Heartaches

A journal of retail and failed romance

Chapter Four

Roadside Velvet

part two

The schedule Paul DeSanti had set up for me was a simple one; if the sun was shining I showed up for work, if it was raining I had the day off. Since I was paid under the table I had plenty of cash to play with, as long as I reminded Paul to pay me that is. On the days I didn’t work I spent my take home pay like a sailor on leave- without the whole drinking and getting laid part of course.

Although I do wonder how many sailors on leave would spend about $100 dollars on comic books and Doctor Who merchandise. Probably a couple, but probably they still get drunk and laid too.

This rainy day I found myself at Adrian’s place. He was running another game of Dungeons & Dragons. For those of you unfamiliar with Dungeons & Dragons I think the best way to explain it is to imagine a Fantasy Football league crossed with the Lord of the Rings trilogy with all the arguments of a game of Monopoly added in for spice.

Gordon and Daniel were there but we had a new guy; his name was Harry K and I knew him from high school but we had lost touch since graduation.

The five of us worked together to craft a tale of heroes and horrific injuries...

*

...So it came to pass that the dwarf, the elf, ranger and wizard arrived at the ruins of the temple of Fructose the High Lord of the Reverse Hobbits...

*

...“Woah woah here,” I interrupted by putting my thumb against my forehead and waggling my fingers, “Fructose? Where the Hell did you get that name.”

“Research,” Adrian said as he looked up from the back of his soda bottle.

“You’re not making this up as you’re going along are you?” Gordon asked as he copied my gesture.

“I’m offended.”

“Hey guys!” a voice, “Hellraiser II is on!”

Adrian turned in his seat, “Goddamnit Harry get back in here!”...

*

...The cries of ravens filled the air, the ragged remains of previous adventuring parties littered the ground. Chemlar the elven thief began to root through the bodies taking one purse full of coins after another. He smirked, “This is already turning into a most profitable excursion.”

“Cool,” Bruce the ranger said, “maybe I can finally get the new crossbow I’ve been wanting.”

Chemlar became wild eyed, he rounded on the cloaked man, “I’ll burn in Hell before I share this with you!”

“Whatever happened to dividing the treasure up evenly?” Bruce began to step away.

“This is mine.”

Thad the Dwarf shook his head, “That’s not very nice.”

“So?”

“There might be...” Thad paused meaningfully “...repercussions.”

Bruce nodded in agreement, “Yeah, there’s just one of you and three of us.”

The ranger and the dwarf glanced to the Wizard With No Name for some sign of unity but he just stared blankly...

*

...“Goddamnit!” Adrian called, “where are you now?”

Harry looked up from the Dungeon Master’s IBM computer, “I’m paying attention.”

“So what is your wizard doing?”

He scratched his chin trying to puzzle out Infocom’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Whatever everyone else is doing.”

“You mean arguing?” Gordon put his thumb to his forehead and waggled his fingers.

“Yeah... sure... damn Babelfish...”

Daniel rattled his d20’s menacingly in one hand and made the thumb to the forehead gesture with the other, “There’s no argument You guys try to take my thief’s stuff and you get backstabbed.”

“Why do you have to be like this?” I copied Daniel and Gordon’s handsign.

“You’ll never see me coming.”

“Neither will any other girl in this town.” I said...

*

...Chemlar snarled menacingly, “You better watch your mouth.”

The dwarf sighed with resignation, “Let’s just get going. We’ve wasted enough time.”

The three heroes started walking again, then doubled back to drag the near-comatose Wizard With No Name along with them. The doorway that led to the cursed inner chambers of Fructose the High’s temple hung open but showed only darkness.

The stood there in silence for a time, especially the Wizard With No Name. Bruce spoke first, “We need to establish a marching order.”

“The dwarf goes first,” Chemlar snorted, “he’s got the best Armor Class.”...

*

...“You know better than to break character without doing the hand sign,” Adrian said, “that will cost you 1000 experience points.”

“No fucking way!” Daniel said, “And those handsigns are stupid.”

“You want to lose another 1000 experience points?”

Daniel sighed with resignation and put his thumb against his forehead, “I think the dwarf should go first he has the best armor class.” His finger waggling was half-hearted at best.

“Fine,” I said, “let’s just get this show on the road. I have to get to work in the morning.”

“Hey!” Adrian glared at me...

*

...the dwarf staggered in place one hand clutching his chest. He felt as though a thousand experience points had cried out and were suddenly extinguished.

Everyone but the wizard looked on with sympathy and understanding. “Come on,” the ranger said, “let’s move.”

The elf agreed, “You guys first.”

The four heroes marched into the ruined temple, tunnels had been carved into the walls. “These were made by Kobolds,” Thad observed. His dwarven vision allowed him to see perfectly in the dark, there was nothing the shadowed tunnels could hide from him.

Bruce lit a torch, temporarily blinding the dwarf. The dwarf blundered backwards into the wizard. The Wizard With No Name panicked in confusion and cast a magic missile now the Kobold tunnel.

Before the thief could stop laughing dozens of Kobolds charged out of the mouth of the tunnel. The ranger cursed, the dwarf called upon Odin to guide his still blinded eyes, the thief tried to take cover. The wizard said, “Just a minute, I have to go to the bathroom.”...

*

...Everyone else immediately raised their thumbs to their foreheads and started waggling away. Gordon said, “That’s gonna cost you 1,000 experience points dude.”

“Whatever,” Harry shrugged as he stood.

“Should we just go on without him?” I asked once he was gone.

Adrian shook his head, “Nope. This is a scenario designed with four players in mind.”

“Designed?” I said, “You can’t really expect me to believe you aren’t making this up as you’re going along.”

“What are you talking about?”

“First you’re pulling the names out of your ass, otherwise why would Princess Solo be asking us to travel to retrieve the Graven Eye of Timor from the temple of Fructose the High Lord of the Reverse Hobbits?”

Adrian said, “Sounds like a standard D&D campaign to me.”

“Sadly you’re right.”

“Can I put my hand down? Daniel asked, “All this waggling is cramping me up.”

“Sure,” Adrian said, “for now.”

“I miss seeing you around the mall Al,” Gordon grabbed another Sprite from the six pack he had brought with him. Gordon worked at the local arcade Arthur’s Castle, his lifelong dream. I was concerned he was heading for trouble however, he seemed to be spending very extravagantly and usually with handfuls of singles and roll after roll of quarters. “I’ve got no one to hang out with.”

“Or mooch rides off of,” I smirked.

“That too.”

Adrian asked, “Where are you working now anyway?”

I replied, “I am selling pictures on the side of the road.”

Everyone laughed at that.

“No. I’m serious,” I said.

“Why in the Hell are you doing that?” Gordon asked.

Daniel said, “Yeah, I doubt a job like that has much health care or a retirement plan.”

“Well, there are other benefits.”

Adrian chuckled as he made fresh notes on his graph paper, “You’ve just flipped out because Lilly broke up with you.”

“I wouldn’t say that was the case,” I tried to sound casual, “after all how can we be broken up if she never called me again?”

“You’ve got a lot to learn about women my friend,” Daniel said, “you should hook up with a Asian girl. They give great blowjobs.”

“Really?” I replied, “And where did you read that?”

Adrian looked around, “Where the Hell is Harry?”

We took a vote and sent Daniel to the bathroom to find our fourth player. He wasn’t there, a brief search revealed his car was gone...

*

...undaunted by the wizard’s strange disappearance the three heros engaged the kobold hordes in battle and made short work of them.

“That was easy!” the thief bragged.

“What do you expect?” The ranger said, “They’re like one hit die creatures at best.”

The dwarf gasped in horror but it was too late.

Bruce the ranger staggered and clutched his chest. When it was over he was a thousand experience points weaker, he almost seemed to have shriveled up in his armor. “Verily...” he said, “the gods of this land are cruel but just. I should not have blasphemed.”

Thad patted him on the shoulder, “It happens to the best of us... and the elf too.”

The three heroes ventured deeper into the ruins only to be attacked by twice as many Kobolds as before...

*

...“And once again,” I said with my thumb against my forehead and my fingers waggling, “you insist you aren’t making this up as you go along?”

Adrian sighed with frustration, “This is all planned out.”

“Then why do you look so surprised that we’ve slaughtered wave after exponential wave of angry kobolds?”

“I’m not surprised,” he shifted in his seat, “I’m... proud of you.”...

*

...the passageways of the temple ruins were becoming clogged with bodies, the dirt floor was swampy with kobold blood. “Are we any closer to the treasure chamber?” Bruce the ranger asked, “I’m running low on arrows.”

“I’m running low on patience,” Thad the dwarf commented; in a completely in character way of course.

Chemlar the elf announced, “I see a glow up ahead.”

“Where?” the ranger strained to see.

“Up ahead,” the elf said, “where it’s glowing.”

“Oh.”

The cries of yet another kobold war party filled the air. “Here we go again,” the dwarf said.

The kobold horde drew closer, the pale silver glow became brighter and brighter. “What are they carrying?” Bruce asked, “Lanterns?”

Chemlar narrowed his eyes, “They’re too sharp-looking to be lanterns and that glow is magical...”

“Magical?” Thad stood his ground. His years of working as an apprentice in his father’s weapon smithy had left him with an expertise in recognizing magical weapons. “Those are...” he croaked, “...those are vorpral blades.”

Bruce staggered in shock, “One hundred and twenty kobolds wielding vorpral blades? Is this some kind of a sick joke?”

The dwarf cast an angry glare to the heavens, “It is almost as though the very gods themselves are trying to kill us out of spite.”

The elf tried to run but the piles of gore slickened kobold bodies they had left in their wake slowed him. The three heroes were overwhelmed in a swarm of glowing blades that went snicker snack....

*

...Adrian was happily rolling critical hits, “Al your character loses his shield arm at the elbow and the elf loses both his ears.”

“What?” Daniel drove his thumb fast and hard into his forehead, there would be bruises in the morning, “What’s the point of playing an elf without pointy ears?”

Gordon put his thumb to his forehead and suggested, “If we live you could use all those coins you grabbed to buy some pointy earmuffs.”

I waggled my fingers with frustration, “Balanced scenario my ass.”

Adrian shrugged, “It isn’t my fault you guys got cocky.”

“What did I miss?” Harry walked back into the room.

“Where the Hell were you?” we all asked.

“I went to get something to eat,” Harry sat down and picked up his dice, “let’s kill something!”...

*

...and just when everything seemed lost the Wizard With No Name charged into the chamber. His exhausted and partially dismembered companions looked up at him. The kobold army paused, uncertain what to make of this new stranger.

The wizard paused dramatically, “Uhm... I cast... I cast FIREBALL!”

“A fireball?” The ranger shouted, “Did you read about the dangers of casting fireball in an enclosed chamber?”

“You fool!” the elf cried, “Even if I make my save I don’t have enough hit points to soak that kind of damage.”

“Damnit!” the dwarf cursed, “You do not know how to roleplay.”

In the half-second before the ruins of the temple of Fructose the High Lord of the Reverse Hobbits was consumed in a mushroom of mystical hellfire each of the heroes grabbed their chests with the pain of losing another thousand experience points...

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