Hot Wet Planet

Thanks to the beautiful people at Fandom Wank, I discovered this thread over at RPG.net about a game called, ahem, Hot Wet Planet. It's pretty much as horrible as it sounds. Or as Darren MacLennen put it, "You can develop your writing skills by playing a dumb barbarian, a rape victim or a tentacle monster."

Here are two "attribute scores":

Attr = Attractiveness, beauty, appearance. It's chosen as -2, -1, +0. +1, +2, etc... It may not be more negative than a -2 for any player-character. +0 is normal, but still considered attractive by human standards. For female characters, Attr adds to Def when they are attacked with harmful intentions (such as somebody trying to kill them or injure them), but subtracts from Def when they are attacked with lustful intentions.

So, if you're a woman, being hot means that you can't be killed, but you can be raped.

HWPE = Hot Wet Planet Effect, which is an overall level of the Hot Wet Planet's mysterious energy influence upon the character. The higher the HWPE, also the higher the character's libido & constant arousal (more than exponentially increased for each level up), but also HWPE can add to Psi for "danger-sense", and makes it less likely that the character will be attacked for the purpose of becoming a meal. On the negative side, a higher HWPE makes it more difficult to resist the Hot Wet Planet's mental & emotional effects. A higher HWPE for the guys makes them more aggressive, domineering, sexist towards the girls, more likely to fight each other, etc... A higher HWPE for the girls makes them more submissive, more shy & easily embarrassed, a lot hornier & wetter (all the time), less able to cover themselves, and overwhelms their willpower to force them to flirt & sexually expose themselves - even when they don't want to, nor intend to - and magnifies pleasurable sensations. The mental & emotional effects can be countered by Det.

And some more game text!

In addition, some unidentifiable element of the environment is changing the survivors, eroticising them, making the females constantly horny yet more shy at the same time, more youthful, more like a guy's wet-dream fantasy, and removing all their body hair from their neck to their toes. The guys get bigger dicks, muscles, a penchant for crude violence, and that sort of thing, as if the planet was turning the men into barbarian warriors.

In the background, unknown at least at first to the Offworlder survivors, the planet's higher lifeforms have a simple mass-mind that is using it's powerful psionics to mentally influence and sometimes dominate the humans in lecherous ways, having it's strongest effect on the females (who gain the benefit of being occasionally protected, & subtly forewarned about real dangers); many of the younger (or younger appearing) women discover they are incapable of wearing underwear, or any kind of pants, or even anything more covering than an indecently short tunic or mini-dress...and the effect is becoming stronger with the passing of time.

Then there are the Tentacle Monsters to contend with....the size of a small car or as large as a house, in many shapes and forms, but always having phallic tentacles and a sexual obsession with humanoid females.

What more needs to be said? But, on dear lord in heaven in whom I don't believe, a great deal more is said. The author of this game is offended at people's offense, apparently living in a world where publicly discussing wanting to pretend to be a rapist tentacle monster is socially acceptable. Still, it's handled with the typical RPG.net subtlety of trolling the person, flaming them, and then banning them, but, hey, it's RPG.net. That's why people go, I guess. But, yes, a great, great deal more is said.

This hobby is depraved, isn't it?

John McCain and Gamers - I don't think he likes us, hehe.

From McCain's own website comes this little gem, "It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others." That's from Mike Goldfarb, McCain's campaign manager.

The really goofy thing is that a lot of servicemen and women play role-playing games. It's no surprise, of course, that McCain's campaign is a little out of touch, but unbeknowst to them they just alienated a fair number of people who are his core constituency. Gamers are generally pretty touchy about this kind of crap, too. It seems particularly inane to create a new kind of discrimination in this day and age, based on a person's hobby.

Apparently someone straightened Goldfarb out because he recanted with this: "If my comments caused any harm or hurt to the hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons, I apologize. This campaign is committed to increasing the strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma scores of every American." Considering McCain's health care plans (read: do nothing) I don't believe that he's interested in our physical stats, and considering his education plans (read: cut yet more taxes on rich people and abandon yet more schools) I don't think he's lookin' out for my mental stats, either. ;)

New Fandom Word - Allpurposenacht!

I was playing Mutants & Masterminds, and a magical ritual was in the offing and the party was unsure about the time. My character, the Magnificent Mountain Lion said, "Oh, they always have those ceremonies at midnight on Walpurgisnacht." And one of the other players said, "Allpurposenacht?"

So Allpurposenacht has entered our lexicon! It is the plot convenient magical ceremony day - you know, the new moon, "when the stars are right", at the alignment of the Houses of Mercury and Aquarius or whatever - that is immediately to happen in order for the action of the plot to be driven!

It's a neat word. And you should use it as much as possible.