anyway.

Confidential to people who were there and wonder which project I mean:

I mean the one that sounds like "llama flames."

To decypher people who were not there should investigate the cross product of the two sets from the rhyming dictionary*.

{bramah, cama, comma, dama, drama, fama, gama, groma, hama, kama, lama, mamma, rama, sama, schama, slama, somma, tama}
x {aims, ames, blames, claims, crames, dames, frames, games, grames, haimes, hames, haymes, james, maims, names, rhames, sames, shames, tames}
———————————————-
There are actually 342 unique ordered pairs we can create, but many are unlikely.

From the first set I like {comma, drama, mamma}.

From the last set I like {games} very much, but {aims, dames, frames, names} are also possible.

I really hope it is "comma games" because I have always wanted a game based on punctuation. (Only mostly kidding. As is apparent above I love things everyone else finds boring. My players are concerned that I will write a long campaign arc about a 0.40 USD accounting discrepancy similar to Cliff Stoll in The Cuckoo's Egg).

* Nota bene: I only accepted rhymes that matched the number of syllables in drama and flames respectively. The sets are much larger if polysyllabic words are admitted, but I think that is unlikely.

Fun fact. llamas = flames (Spanish to English)

Oh! Llama flames! Can not wait.

Interesting development. Turns out I've been working on this problem already, from 2 different angles, and now a third. Might be able to synthesize them into a proper thing.

Sad that I was still schmoozing at the Film Institute and could not quaff a mug with all of you!

THE PROBLEM WITH MURDEROUS GHOSTS

A murderous ghost is a creature of sadness turned to violence. In order to create one for a game, you have to find sadness in yourself, turn it to violence in yourself, and then impose it on the people close to you. Finding sadness and turning it to violence in yourself is already challenging enough, but then imposing it on your friends makes it into an unpleasant intimacy. Challenging for reals.

Look at my little scheme for the functions of horror. My instinct is to push these murderous ghosts counterclockwise, toward "instrument of clarity," of course. That's what I like. But it comes to me in this minute, as I'm writing this, that maybe that's the wrong direction. Maybe I should start at "thrills" and see how far toward "sick glee" I can really go.

Vincent, I still don't know what your project is about, so maybe I shouldn't be commenting here. But what you are saying about the ghosts remind me of what you wrote in Apocalypse World about asking questions like crazy. Specifically, what you wrote about asking questions but leaving things to wonder about, because there might a fish below the surface.

Maybe You should do something similar to the ghosts? Maybe they should be just not that complicated, like AW's NPCs, but instead be just some kind of thrill. Then, as the game goes on, you might wonder about how the ghost behaves in certain situations, and if there is a fish deep there, the ghost will end up acting as an "instrument of clarity".

Anyway, this is kind of a shot in the dark. Sorry if it is not really useful, but what you posted resonated with something I am trying to do right now, so I thought it might be worthwhile to post about it.

Oh ... as a matter of fact, I think you've just shoved all those pieces into place.

Ghosts are just not that complicated, but leave yourself something to wonder about. Very good!

**Urist McLumpley is possessed by fey spirits!**
**Urist McLumpley has retreated from society...**

Murderous Ghosts is a game that will intimately murder you.