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So, right, back to Planet Fucking Crazy. I was talking about game systems that would be appropriate for doing games set on PFC in my last post, so come up to speed there if you’re lagging behind.

A number of people posted replies, and I think it’s probably a good idea to start by answering some of their questions in the main context, then moving on to the larger issues.

merb101 and jake_richmond both bring up Classroom Deathmatch¹, which is a fine, fine example of a game which definitely borrows elements of PFC. In CD, you essentially enact the events of Battle Royale, playing out the actions of a number of students forced to kill one another until only one is left. This is definitely a suburb of one of the main cities on PFC, without question. Where there’s a bit lacking is in the fairly limited scope that CD allows you to game out. It’s a very, very focused architecture and if you really want to do something beyond Battle Royale, there’d be a lot of work waiting for you.

Beyond the focus, there’s another, more metatextual² reason to avoid Panty Explosion / CD for PFC setting games. One of the big mechanical hooks of the PE system is the idea that your character has a Rival and a Best Friend; your Best Friend narrates how you succeed in a conflict and your Rival narrates your failures. This is wonderful, brilliant design. Absolutely incomperable in many ways, but one of the effects is to focus on your character’s interpersonal connections to other characters as a mover of narrative power. Additionally, the size of the die you roll in conflicts is directly tied to your character’s social popularity. Again, an awesome reification of the high school experience³, but it’s not entirely appropriate for the bulk of the PFC experience since character social leverage is often directly at odds with their narrative influence. In fact, in many cases it appears the further you are outcast socially from core culture on PFC, the more influential you are.

This may be because everyone on PFC is, indeed, fucking crazy. The quiet next door neighbor, the friendly cop on the corner, your best friend, your parents?! All of them absolutely, unequivocably, entirely bugshit nuts, possibly only requiring the slightest nudge to boil up girlfriend-face stew or believe their grief makes them physically invincible.

As much as I love PE/CD, guys, it’s better grounded in a setting that’s not wholly on PFC. The more FC you want, the more you need to lean on the social-focus strengths of the system, and they’re at odds.⁴

As Jake says, “Plus, Classroom Deathmatch is free!” which is its own advocation. I suggest going to check it out, and having a good time with it even if it is only in the same solar system as Planet Fucking Crazy.

_grimtales_ suggests Feng Shui which, while it’s one of my favourite mid-crunch games, I’m just going to have to say “No” to. Yes, you could run around on PFC in FS, the problem as I see it for that solution is one of insufficient insanity and a tendency toward over-mechanification. So much of the things your character can attempt and be successful have to be pre-considered and worked into the sheet that it doesn’t catch the edge of the wave you need to ride to get really deep into PFC. Plus, it’s just too crunchy for what it does. A great game for the period (1996 for the 1st ed, 1999 for the second), but really, guys, we’ve moved past explicit skill lists in mechanics for almost half a decade now. FS was great in the fact it helped pioneer the “merged attribute-skill matrix” as I think of it, with the ability to apply different attributes to a skill to get different results⁵. That was great. But it’s kind of done these days; Trait systems express the core idea better and more flexibly.

thandrak suggests Teenagers From Outer Space or Toon. This is me giving you the stink-eye, dude. Not the least reason being in the first case it’s always better to recommend something that’s actually seen print this decade, and in the latter … Take six Bonk. Have you ever tried running something even remotely serious (and PFC is very remotely serious) with either of those? Aside from having mechanics that grate and jitter like a twenty-year old transmission that’s never been tuned up⁶, neither of them even remotely work for the feel we’re talking about. I’ll even cop to having Toon and all its suppliments on my shelf, but I’d never think of taking it down for this.⁷

Next post, I promise, I’ll get down to talking about Beast Hunters, Over the Edge and Universalis, plus the obvious option I completely forgot, Wushu. Possibly, in a flash of “spacing it out and making fat egoboo from each one because I write as if I’m posting game suppliments, one at a time and stretched out interminably” I’ll treat each one seperately.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/seniordeath.asp

http://education.yahoo.com/college/wotd/

realussr

• How Khrushchev had killed the “Vampire”


• The Book on Tasty and Healthy Foods: Una Dolce Vita, Soviet Style (featured at DYT)


• Soviet automobile industry – Part 1, Part 2


• Funtime with Soviet Playthings

http://education.yahoo.com/college/wotd/