The Finger

The child psychologist was missing the tip of his ring finger. The finger simply ended at the breach of the second knuckle, the abbreviated digit capped with smooth shiny scar-skin. The psychologist had a tic of tapping this cap against his thumb, in a regular drumming motion that might have been an automatic reaction he was helpless to control, or it might have felt good and transgressive like a Q-tip in the ear, or perhaps it hurt and thus concentrated his mind on the task of helping Allan to be well. Allan never asked, nor did he ask how the child psychologist had lost the fingertip, though he was dying to know. He hadn't noticed the shortened finger the first few times he'd come, being more entranced by the child psychologist's trimmed beard and wire-rim glasses and bright solid primary-colour shirts that made him look like a clown or a magician, and at eleven Allan was sufficiently mature to be embarrassed to ask about something like this on their fifth or sixth meeting.

There was a ring on the partial finger, which must have meant the child psychologist was married. Allan imagined their wedding, the bride whom Allan for convenience's sake imagined as looking exactly like the child psychologist's stocky secretary, but platinum blonde instead of raven-haired with a rebellious purple streak, and the moment when she had taken that ring and pushed into onto that finger that was not all there. The child psychologist's secretary-wife must love him very much, Allan decided.

Tuesday Character: Tinman

In the interests of keeping my post count relatively steady, I've decided to start doing some regular features.This one involves detailing, in a few paragraphs, a character for a game, a story, both, or something else. Sometimes, as in this case, the characters will be ones from story fragments or settings I've already posted or will post to the blog. Other times they'll be self-contained things left here for future reference. 

Tinman is a handsome, lanky 20-year-old man with a bright blue mohawk, a remarkably elevated and unshakable self-esteem and a quick, nasty wit¹.  He makes a living as a concert promoter and minor pot dealer. Born Royce Benjamin Cloward, Tinman picked up his current moniker during one long fake-ID'd summer night three years ago. At one point, late in the night, an unattractive girl tried to dance with him. Royce proceeded to wittily point out every one of her physical flaws in rapid succession. Sputtering and stuttering for almost a minute, the girl finally simply shouted "You're heartless! You have no heart!" at him and fled the dancefloor in tears, to the delight of Royce's friends. Someone mentioned the Wizard of Oz² and the nickname (as well as could be drunkenly remembered) was coined.

Ironically³, the heart Tinman isn't supposed to have grew three sizes that day. He realized that he'd gone too far, but of course he couldn't apologize to the girl, and his pride wouldn't allow it even if he could have found her. The incident haunted him long after the hangover cleared the next morning; he never saw her again, and sometimes, late at night, he wonders about that. In the intervening years, he's tried to fight his natural instinct to be a prick, with mixed results - he's a bit nicer, sure, but there's still an element of solipsism to him where he forgets that other people matter. Nevertheless, the change led to him slowly gravitating away from his old social circle (who still consider him their friend, but mostly subconsciously understand and don't really question why they don't hang out any more) and into a different group. The name followed him, since everyone was already calling him that.

Among the new friends he's made is his girlfriend Ronnie, a fairly typical polka-dot-dress and Betty-Page-hair rockabilly girl with a voice that can be heard over club sound systems and a sense of humour similar to his old one, but much blunter. Tinman might be trying to help Ronnie be a better person (and thus help himself) by subtly passing on his epiphany, but this tends to take the form of carefully-aimed insults to which Ronnie simply returns fire. The basis of their relationship is more or less just tearing the shit out of each other, both rejoicing in the chance to abuse someone who never takes it personally. As yet, Tinman's primary effect on Ronnie has been making her a little bit funnier and a lot more effective at being cruel

---

1. The pain in the ass of Tinman as a character is that I've got this mental image of him as being self-obsessed, funny in an exceptionally cruel way, and charismatic as hell, but I can't really write a character like that. You'll notice that both his role the original Kimota and his nickname origin story here commit a cardinal sin of writing by telling you what the gist of what he said rather than using actual dialogue. I need to hang around more charismatic assholes and take notes, I guess.
2. Funny how that keeps coming up on here. Especially since I've never actually read it.
3. Does anyone else just feel their whole body clench every time they use "irony" or a variant? The Internet's ruined it for all of us.

Kimota

The place was called, no shit, the Griddler on the Roof, and whatever evil bastard had concocted that theme had stuck to it with a madman's tenacity. The waitresses wore polyester peasant costumes, the sound system piped a constant muzak loop of the score to the musical, and on the roof, a neon Teyve flipped the same pancake again and again. I stared at the red/white checkerboard pattern of the tablecloth - an element for which I guess there was no suitable musical-related customization - and tried to will the coffee I'd ordered into being before the harpsichord "If I Were a Rich Man" completely eroded my hungover brain.
There were four of us in the booth. Tinman and Ronnie sat opposite each other in the aisle seats, and Beth and I were pressed up to the window. Tinman was still wired from the night before, and was trying gamely to explain his zombie apocalypse in the face of our collective and overwhelming disinterest.
Beth looked like Beth always looked - gorgeous. Even moreso at this moment - she was worried, and being worried made her look even cuter. I couldn't look at anything for more than a few seconds, but I guess I was staring, because she snapped out of her worried reverie, locked eyes with me and said "We shouldn't have left him".
This half-whispered accusation was enough to stop Tinman cold - His jaws snapped shut but his velvet-blue mohawk kept softly waving for a few seconds, carried by the force of his interest in himself. There was a long moment as the three of us tried to avoid making eye contact with each other and especially with Beth. I failed, and her green eyes bored into my bloodshot ones.
I coughed and said as loudly as I could manage under that gaze "I'm sure he'll be fine."
Beth's stare turned frigid and I knew I'd said the wrong thing. If Cricket were fine, it would be the first time any of had ever known him to be. Cricket was not a guy "fine" could really be applied to.

Why I Like G vs E

As my much-put-upon players would tell you, I have an abiding love of monotheistic religion. Not in any sense of actual faith, but just liking the moral simplicity of its worldview, and stories set in said worldview*. One of the few praises I'll give to D&D is for having Good and Evil as unalterable, actual forces of the setting. Of course in the same breath I'll also condemn it for making determining them a matter of a spell or a paladin's concentration. In my view, the ideal is to let the characters know that there is a force of righteousness in the world, but never really letting them be sure that they're working for it.

G vs E was a show on the Sci-Fi network in the heady days of 1999. While it had a lot of issues, most notably a miniscule budget (They had enough to hire Emmanuel Lewis, but not enough to pay him to speak), Sci-Fi-standard sketchy writing and the kind of weird anti-PC backlash sensibility that plagued the end of the Clinton years, it also offered a kicky 70s-cop-show vibe and a lot of excellently plagarizable concepts. The basic storyline runs thus: The forces of Hell offer humans the usual power beyond their wildest imaginings. When one who has accepted such a bargain (called a Faustian, for obvious reasons) dies, then Hell claims their souls. Before being properly damned, these souls (called Morlocks, for less obvious reasons) are resurrected to offer Faustian bargains in turn. This pyramid-scheme arrangement means that actual demons long ago left the picture, leaving the business of tempting mortals to the Morlocks, who are immortal so long as they can keep gleaning new Faustians, which in turn become new Morlocks**. Against this constantly rising tide of evil, good offers its usual seemingly paltry defence: Mortals who die on the very borderline between Heaven and Hell are given a second chance to redeem themselves, and make up the motley crew called the Corps. Corps agents are mortal, have no magic or powers beyond the "standard Morlock killing knife"***, and are forbidden from "intimate contact" both with people from their prior lives**** and mortals generally. Angels are completely unknown (and perhaps unknowable), and divine intervention takes the always-popular form of deniable serendipity.

Corps agents in G vs E are often bastards for good, beating up Faustians, blackmailing them, and otherwise engaging in shady practices that would make them morally questionable if they weren't juxtaposed with the literal embodiment of evil. The show gets around these moral issues by ignoring them, which works well enough with the Starsky and Hutch vibe the show is going for - the source material wasn't exactly awash in moral ambiguity (Their go-to contact was a pimp, for chrissakes). Still, there's a lot to work with here - The Corps never has direct contact with the divine, running more or less on faith and handed-down assurances from previous generations of agents that they're doing the right thing. Contact with mortals is forbidden for complicating the afterlife and providing easy hooks for the other side, but this works about as well as any monastic prohibition ever does. The frustrated desires and lofty dreams of the Faustians are ultimately understandable, and even a Morlock is really just a Faustian that died. That last probably sums it up best: G vs E is an angels-vs-demons universe in which those roles are all played by humans, which makes it all the more understandable and relatable. I've had a lot of fun playing In Nomine, but it never quite feels right trying to play an extension of the divine will, or a force of malevolence dedicated to thwarting same. The concept feels like it could be much stronger than the actual execution, and that's an impetus to gaming if I ever felt one.


* Also I love drawing on the byzantine symbolism of Judeo-Christian mythology. Someday I'll finally be able to run that game with Cain, Abel and Seth as Atlantean immortals.
** The concept that you work for Hell specifically so that you delay going there is one of my favourite elements of Thomas McKay's The Collectors.
*** "Soaked in the blood of an innocent... Don't worry, it's nobody you know." The knives are one of those throwaway details that really raise questions about the essential goodness of Heaven in this scenario. Particularly seeing how common they are.
**** Of course, they're also unrecognizable, a la Dead Like Me. Oh man, one day I am gonna write such a blogpost about all the things that bug me about Dead Like Me.

Scene at a Nexus of Dimensions

"So what do you call mine?"
"6338-Gray"
"Yeah, yeah, but what do you call it? Like, there's Anti-Earth and the Gorilla World and, you know, the one with the Nazi Crab-men..."
"Der BrachyuReich."
"Yeah! So what do you call it?"
"... the Craigiverse."
"Fuck off."
"No, seriously, the Arbiter who visited apparently met like a dozen guys named Craig in the three days he was there. It seems to have made an impression on him."
"Bullshit. Can we get a do-over?"
"You may have noticed we have all of the infinite multiverses to catalogue."
"Yeah, but you told me you have infinite other Nexuses helping you."
"That only divides it into smaller infinities, which are by definition still infinite. No do-overs."
"Shit, I can't believe you make decisions for such stupid reasons."
"Hey, when the Craigiverse invents dimensional travel, we'll talk."
"... Total bullshit."

A one-sentence summary of the advice I gave to the guy who responded to a Craigslist ad asking me to teach him to be funny.

"Funny alone is all right. Funny plus looks, money or a reliable drug connection is better."

Errata: Objective, part one

"I am going to beat you so bad, your entire existence will revolve around sucking my dick."
With Bryce's constant smack talk and screechy generic punk echoing in his ears, Tim tried to maintain his focus and remember what was going on. He had the Fire Hazard and the Secondary and they were making good money, enough to keep him afloat for five more turns, maybe even more. Bryce couldn't hack that, not with his current habit. It was just a matter of waiting him out.
"As the days bleed into months bleed into years, you will forget there was a time before my wang."
Christ. He tried not to crack a grin. Okay, so patience would win out. But Bryce definitely had a plan - Bryce always did - and if he lost his club this turn, he wouldn't survive long enough to put it into action. So if he, Tim, hired an Arsonist, it could end here and now.
Bryce's eyes glinted in the dim light, continuing in his best David Attenborough: "Sociologists and anthropologists will be baffled by your inability to engage with any environment that does not contain my balls."
Fuck's sake. Tim snorted, and went for it. He dropped the five bucks and took the Arsonist from uncontrolled. A goth girl at the next table looked over, squinted at their game and made an inaudible comment that set her whole table laughing and hooting.
"Wonder what they'll say about this?" Tim asked innocently as he dropped the character card and tapped Bryce's sole source of income with his finger.
"Wise up." said Bryce, flipping a Security from his hand. Well, shit. "Did you seriously forget I bought that?"
"Fuck you." said Tim, shuffling through his hand again and again as if a helpful card would materialize if he looked hard enough.
Bryce returned to his narrating tone. "Eventually, the decision will be made to return you to the only environment in which you can be truly happy. The Enya soundtrack will swell as you are once again re-introduced to my knob. It will be a tearful, slobbery reunion..."
"Jesus Christ, have you been rehearsing this or is it improv? Because it's simultaneously impressive and pathetic either way."
"Just play the game. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can meet your new boss."
Tim sighed and knocked. Looking up, he saw that Jess had walked in and was sauntering over to their table in a lace-bedecked dress she had described as "the colour of menstrual blood".
"... My penis." finished Bryce, drawing his cards, taking his income and immediately spending it and more on his habit. By the time he was done, only a single money-chit remained in his bank.
"Hey guys, how goes the struggle?" asked Jess,
"About to end." cut in Bryce before Tim could explain the triumphs and trials of the past twenty minutes. He played a Shooting on the Fire Hazard, no income next turn, barely glancing at Tim to confirm there was no counter. He then played a Blackmail to use Tim's own discarded Arsonist against him, destroying the Secondary. Grinning like the card art of the Arsonist, he took in Tim's sole neutered club with a sweep of his arm. "Four bucks bank, no income, a five-buck habit. I think that's game."
Tim crumpled into his chair. "I would have had him, you know. If I hadn't bought that Arsonist." Jess, who was looking over the wreckage of the game like the entrails of a sacrificed animal, made a cartoonishly sympathetic face. "Aww, muffin."
"Don't give him any sympathy, doll. You forgot I bought that Security, and you got hosed by it." As he spoke, Bryce scooped the cards off the table, already reshuffling them.
"Ugh, no thanks, I've been brutalized enough for one night. I think I'll go dance. You can teach Jess how to play."
Jess sprang back as if she'd touched a hot stove. "Ohohoh no,, no way. You guys can play games here if that's your thing, but I'm here to have normal-people fun. Speaking of which..." Her voice turned to honey as she took Tim's arm and marched him away. "Buy a girl a drink?"
Tim rolled his eyes. "I think at this point I've bought you more drinks than I've ever bought myself."
"Come onnnnnn..." Jess set her weight into his arm, steering him towards the bar.