Comedy in Tabloid! (et al.)

A public domain photograph of the King which TSR could have used for Tabloid!

Tabloid! has a four-page chapter on death called 'The Final Byline,' beginning with the phrase, “Dying Is Easy...”  The following chapter, 'Anything for a Laugh,' begins with the conclusion of the aphorism, “Comedy is Hard.”  In this two-and-a half-page chapter, designer Zeb Cook attempts to explain how to instill comedy into playing Tabloid!

Cook writes:

This is not a game where the mighty, brave, or even the cynically mani-pulative profit.  In this universe, success goes to those who are willing to risk their characters on the stupidest, most lame-brained, and ill-thought-out plans possible.  It's kind of like real life in that way.

Thereafter, Cook supplies “a few rules of comedy.”

1. Get Physical.  This rule has two parts.  First, “Comedy is action – it's called slapstick.”  (Evidently, Cook did not want to address cerebral humor.)  For inspiration, Cook recommends that the prospective Editor “watch some cartoons... and some Three Stooges.”  (The TSR lawyers may have missed this.  Given that they censored B*g B**d, I would have expected them to give the same treatment to the T***e S*****s as well as R**d R****r and W**e E. C****e.)  The other part of this rule encourages the Editor to be active during the game.  (e.g. “Pretend you're the airplane spinning into a dive.”)

2. Maintain a Manic Pace.  Essentially, this means keep the action going and don't let up on the humor.  Cook says not to give the players a break.  “If they players have time to think,” he comments, “then they won't get themselves into stupid messes.”

3. Steal Shamelessly.  These first five rules actually come Mike Pondsmith's Teenagers from Outer Space.  We know this because Cook tells us he stole them from said game.  Cook also explains that he “stole” the rules with Pondsmith's permission.  Of course, having permission defies the notion of stealing, but I suppose Cook wanted to provide an example of incorporating – “stealing” – outside material.  Anyway, Editors should take jokes “and give them a whole new spin” to keep players from anticipating the punch line.

4. Use Running Gags.  According to Cook, “every adventure should have at least one or two set-ups that always seem to reoccur.”  However, “An important part of a running gag is that it can't always be the same.”  Again, this keeps the players on their toes.

5. Dare to be Stupid.  “Your players aren't going to be stupid if you aren't.”  I beg to differ.

6. The Innocent Must Suffer.  “It's undeserved stuff happening to any character,” Cook tells us.  “If they deserve it,” he continues, “it's a comeuppance” and therefore not funny.

7. More is Better.  “There's no such thing as too much,” Cook says.  He advises adding complications to any situation.  This echos Rule 4 from Cook's Bullwinkle and Rocky Role Playing Party Game ; namely, “The Good, The Bad, and The Funny” or “Bad is Good, the Worse the Better.”

8. Plot?  Cook tells us that plots “give the characters some motivation to do things,” but this should be secondary to fun.  “Just throw out the encounter that's not working,” Cook writes, “laugh, and get the characters toward the goal by whatever means.”  Cook uses the word “Improvise,” which ought to have been the name of this rule.  Contrary to what is said at the beginning of the chapter, Cook reveals the “real secret” is that “Comedy is simple.”

After these rules, Cook provides a concluding section to the chapter, part of which reads:

Because this is a silly game, you've got a freedom referees don't get in other games.  You don't even have to be consistent.  You don't even have to make much sense.  By their very nature, silly universes are illogical! That's part of their fun... Just don't worry.

Cook presents four words in large, bold font and in capital letters, presumably to emphasize their importance:

MAKE IT ALL UP.

This should have been a coda to the last rule rather than a separate section called, “Some Other Extremely Useful Advice.”

I might be inclined to add another rule, Embrace Absurdity.  Regardless, humor is subjective and what might be funny to someone might be tasteless to someone else.  Back in the nineties, one could still get some comedy mileage from disturbed people going on shooting sprees.  Result #10 on the Work table for character generation begins, “Co-worker comes in and plays disgruntled postal worker.”  Yet even twenty-five years ago, there were some things that just weren't funny.  Result #16 on the Journalism School table for character generation reads in part:

Killing the neighbor sure livened up a slow news day.  With good behavior, character gets out after five years.

Yikes.

It's 2013, Do You Know Where Your Cyberpunk Is?

or

The Future Ain't What It Used To Be (Part II)

Johnny Silverhand

In 1988, R. Talsorian Games published Cyberpunk, “The Roleplaying Game of the Dark Future.”  What is meant by “Dark Future” is the near future with rampant social decay and technology.  How near?  How about twenty-five years, a quarter of a century?  That ought to be long enough to posit credibly a cyberpunk dystopia.  Of course, that means the “Dark Future” is now.  Although many might consider the present to be 'dark,' it's certainly not cyberpunk dark.  While it's still 2013, it may be entertaining to take a look back at a look forward to now.

Cyberpunk was designed primarily by Maximum Mike Pondsmith, a storied game designer who was inducted into the Origins Awards Hall of Fame in 2006.  He remains involved with the latest iteration – Cyberpunk 2077.  The first edition of Cyberpunk has come to be known as Cyberpunk 2013, in reference to the date of the setting.  Only two years after 1988, the second edition was published.  Not mush had changed, but the date of the setting had become 2020.  Apparently, thirty years – rather than twenty-five – was a more appropriate distance in time for the setting.

Welcome to Night City is the 38 page sourcebook included with the initial game.  It is this book – having the subtitle A Sourcebook for 2013 – that provided the inspiration (and material) for this post.  Pondsmith intended for Referees to use their own cities as the location for their adventures and Night City was presented to demonstrate “the feel, not the substance” of a Cyberpunk setting.  Realizing that not all Referees would live in a big city, the book provides a map of a Night City that could be used as a substitute for the urban challenged.  With a nod to one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre, the Night City map shows the W. Gibson Memorial Freeway, even though the reports of Gibson's death seem to have been greatly exaggerated.

Here are some highlights from the past two-and-a-half decades:

1990 – Fall of South Africa.  There is little or no communication from Southern Africa for the next four years, although terrible atrocities and genocidal wars are reported.  (Fortunately, the end of Apartheid was not so violent.)
1991 – Gorborev regime purges last of old Soviet hardliners.  (Well, the year is right, but everything Soviet was purged.)
1992 – ...the Euromarket, is formed...A common currency unit, the Eurodollar, is also established... (Well, the eurozone wasn't established until '99 and the euro didn't enter circulation until '02.)
1996 – Lawyer Purge:  irate citizen (sic) lynch hundreds of crimal (sic) defense attorneys.  (Good times.)
1997 – Mideast Meltdown.  Tensions in the Middle East escalate to nuclear exchange.  Iran, Iraq, Lybia, Chad and the Arab Emirates reduced to radioactive slag.  World oil supply reduced by half.
2000 – Wasting Plague hits the U.S., Europe, killing hundreds of thousands.
2004 – First Corporate War
2007 – Second Corporate War
2008 – An orbital war begins between “Euros” and the “Yanks”, until Luna Colony massdriver drops a rock on Colorado Springs.

Communication technology has improved dramatically since 1988.  Let's see what the sourcebook says.  “A [postage] stamp in 2013 costs 75¢.”  (Yay!  We're saving 29 cents!)  Check out this thing called a “Fax”:

This is the letterwriting mode of the future...You may type your letter in using the keyboard provided, have it scanned from your own laser disk, or use the built in scanner to “read” any typed letter.  The faxed copy is then transmitted by wire to a local post office in your destination area, where it is automatically typed off, inserted into an envelope, and delivered by letter carrier to the mailbox.

Golly!  Newspapers now make use of fax technology; they are printed for customers directly from 'newsboxes' for 1¢ per page.

Cell phones have a convenient size, but memory-autodial can be expensive!

By the way, today Rachael Tyroll filed with Arasaka Security Corporation her report on the 'Iron Sights' Booster gang that Arasaka bankrolls (for now).  (Rachael Tyroll / Rachael Tyrell – get it?)

I guess Rachael doesn't have spell-check

Another example of “let's change a letter so they won't sue us:”

"Balron"