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lumpley games
In a Wicked Age
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Poison'd (buy!)
kill puppies for satan (buy!)
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The sad, strange case of me
Making Monster Sausage
Yeurgh.
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2007-12-13 : Mechaton rules questions?
Hey, if you're stopping by looking for answers about Mechaton's rules, welcome, and I'm at your service.

2007-08-24 : Poison'd errata and Q&A
1. The cruel fortune accursing is all wrong. All wrong!
2. Ask the player if her pirate is enduring duress.

Click in for the rest.

2008-01-11 : In a Wicked Age: Four Oracles
In a Wicked Age: Four Oracles.

Also check out the Oracles page at Abulafia. Dave's got the Four Oracles and the original AG&G Oracle, plus space for new "unofficial" oracles. I believe I'll be submitting some new unofficial oracles myself, come a day.

In a Wicked Age
sword & sorcery roleplaying

2008-08-11 : GenConward
I'm leaving home for GenCon this afternoon. I'll be more or less out of touch.

See you there or see you later!

2008-07-31 : Burn Notice
Hey, who wants to talk about Burn Notice season 1?

I like the show quite a bit. Its fluffiness is all misdirection. It's got some really interesting stuff happening, deftly downplayed.

I think that it has some things to teach us as rpg designers. Anybody else watch it?

2008-07-30 : The sad, strange case of me
I happened to be reading some old emails just now, and I happened upon this one from me to Emily from March 2002:

The sad, strange case of me

I had a dream last night that you, Meg and I went to a movie at the Tower theater. They'd redesigned; now the seats were like roller coaster seats, or kids' carseats, you buckle yourself in. They were suspended from the ceiling or something and they were a big pain to get into.

But we'd gotten there early, so we got seats right up front and we had plenty of time to wiggle into them and lock the restraints.

At the appointed time, the doors closed, the lights dimmed, but instead of a movie these insane guys with like power tools came out. The tools were a lot like regular power tools like Serena has only chromed and super clean, like dental equipment. They went down the line, prying people's mouths open with one tool and smashing them in the head with another. We were struggling with the restraints, thrashing.

Afterwards, we were staggering out to the exit, and the next group of people were coming in for the next show. Somebody said to me, "hey, how was the movie?"

I said, "movie, damn! I'm getting my money back."

2008-07-27 : Making Monster Sausage


I'm in Fight On! volume 2. I have a couple of illustrations in it, plus an article, "the Monster Machine." It's the monster creation rules from Storming the Wizard's Tower, adapted to old school D&D.

Check it out! It's fun stuff.

2008-07-10 : Yeurgh.
I'm playing around with the oracle for my developing surreal horror anthology engine game.

Seed 1: To love her, he needed her to change after all.

Seed 2: The social worker had beaten her lover with a crowbar for trying to stop her suicide attempt.

Everybody's about PSYCHIC RESIDUE
Character 1's about PSYCHIC RESIDUE & INHUMAN SOCIETY
Character 2's about PSYCHIC RESIDUE & INFANTICIDE
Character 3's about PSYCHIC RESIDUE & AUTOIMMUNE HYPERACTIVITY
Character 4's about PSYCHIC RESIDUE & ANIMAL-PEOPLE

Who's intruding: THE DEAD FUTURE? THE CANNIBAL SOW?

Obviously it'd be different if, like, Meg were creating character 1, Julia character 2, Emily character 3, and Joshua character 4, but here's what I'D do with them:

The social worker is character 3 (psychic residue & autoimmune hyperactivity). Her suicide attempt was her psychic immune system hyperactively trying to protect her from the contents of the psychic residue. She's good with Perception & Physicality, and I'd highlight her Moral Center. Self-interests: resolve the case; learn to function amidst horrors.

Her lover, beaten with the crowbar, is character 1 (psychic residue & inhuman society). He grew up in the inhuman animal-people society. He needs her to learn to keep herself safe even in the face of the psychic residue, or else he has to stop loving her to protect himself, because next time she's going to succeed. He's good with Moral Center & Survival Instinct, and I'd highlight his Creative Spark. Self-interests: get his lover to adapt; escape being drawn back into the inhuman society himself.

Character 2 (psychic residue & infanticide) is the social worker's case. She killed her own baby when she found out what his father was and his father came to claim him. The psychic residue is her fault - it's the psychic residue of her half-human half-animal-person infant victim. She's good with Perception & Moral Center, and I'd highlight her Survival Instinct. Self-interests: escape her baby's father; get someone to believe her.

Character 4 (psychic residue & animal-people) is the baby's father. He's not human. Maybe he's some kind of werething, maybe he's subtly bestial, but he's a predator living secretly with his kind among us. He's good with Physicality & Survival Instinct, and I'd highlight his Perception. Self-interests: father another child with her and protect it this time; be rid of the social worker. He clearly gets to be the villain of the piece.

The predatory animal-people pretty clearly enact the cannibal sow, and the dead future would be enacted by people within the bureaucracies of social work, law enforcement and institutionalization who have succumbed to the if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them that the social worker's immune system was trying to protect her from.

So that's pretty ... good. Or y'know.

Also, Meg keeps insisting that she likes this game just fine, and I keep being absolutely convinced that THIS TIME it's going to gross her out so bad that she'll hate it from now on. Maybe this is the time!

2008-07-07 : A Very Short Movie Opinion Poll
On a scale of 1 to 5, would you say that Wanted is:
1. Extremely Freudian
2. Extremely, extremely Freudian
3. Extremely, extremely, extremely Freudian
4. Extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely Freudian
5. Extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely Freudian

Edited to add:

On a scale of 1 to 5, would you say that Southland Tales is:
1. Extremely strange
2. Extremely, extremely strange
3. Extremely, extremely, extremely strange
4. Extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely strange
5. Extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely strange
...and maybe 50 times the movie Wanted is?

2008-07-04 : God emailed me

From: Jehovah Almighty [Add to Address Book]
To: lumpley@earthlink.net
Subject: Killing puppies for satan
Date: Jul 2, 2008 10:51 PM

Hey! It's the Big G, the Man Upstairs, Jehovah! The Almighty God, God. Listen,
I would have done this in another way but I really like your site and, hey, it was
more entertaining this way. Now you can post your Official Correspondence with The
Creator on your fancy website!

I think I've got to apologize. Some of my fans, well... they are fanatics. My
son's been stealing a lot of attention lately, but I'm getting over that
jealousy and genocide thing. Deep down, most of them are decent people, if a little
narrow-minded. Sometimes I wonder if free-will was the right choice after all! Don't
get discouraged when people don't see the humor -- they just haven't been
paying attention to mine in the Bible, I guess.

I bless thee,
G/D

2008-06-30 : A Really Good Weekend
1. Everybody should see WALL-E, but J? You should especially see WALL-E.

2. I have written the ultimate social conflict rules. They're for Storming the Wizard's Tower. They let you roll dice to seize social power over your opponent, but without disrupting the natural conversation. In fact they enhance the natural conversation, they don't impose formalism onto it the way Dogs in the Vineyard's dice do, and they don't cut it short the way lots of other social conflict resolution rules do. Also they handle NPCs' lying better than Dogs in the Vineyard does, while nevertheless showcasing the characters' psychologies. Furthermore they're lightweight, in fact one of the lightest weight subsystems in the game. They may be portable to other games, I dunno, but they fit into Storming the Wizard's Tower like it had a hole in it just their shape.

Don't ask what they are! It's a secret. I'll tell you soon.

3. We spent all day yesterday at the Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown NY. We are weary but happy. They have a working small-batch print shop there with these great old hand-cranked hand-set printing presses, and I think I'm in love.

4. I'm not going to get punched in the eye! Probably. I guess there's still time for me to screw it up.

2008-06-17 : Cordelia's Dad followup
It turns out that I never told you about the coolest thing from Cordelia's Dad's acoustic set. I thought I had, but no! Anyway it doesn't matter. Now you can see it for yourself: Tim Eriksen: Fiddlesticks on Mt. Pollux.

(Stay through the credits.)

2008-06-04 : I am culled
Ryan Stoughton is undertaking an undertaking: a new "I go through it all and report on the worthwhile" review blog called The Cull. I admire it as an undertaking and I hope he sticks with it - but I'm fully aware that I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Particularly, I'm honored to be one of his first subjects: antiquated anyway part 1. I don't know how many parts he intends to chop antiquated anyway into, but so far he's covered only December '04. He says that three of the threads from then are worth reading.

If anything from the threads he's picked out strikes you as interesting, please say so! I'd love to revisit, maybe revise and update. Somebody kick us off?