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There is a gonzo setting/game in there somewhere

Started by tellius, April 14, 2010, 10:59:18 PM

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tellius

I found this on a forum that has a section to remake/remodel obscure old comic book characters:

QuoteWarren Ellis
Tiger Hart of Crossbone Castle is a dual sword-wielding pseudo-medieval warrior who battles against lawbreakers on the planet Saturn. In his one known exploit he fought to recover Queen Hilda and the Solinoor Diamond from Turk-the-Terrible and his Talon Man. He shattered the diamond with his sword so that no one would ever kill for it again. Tiger Hart is fairly brutal. He tortures two of Turk-The-Terrible's men by hanging them up over a pit of tigers and threatening to cut them loose.

For some reason this (and your blog Aos) has given me the bug to play some old school styled sci-opera gonzo schlock fest. Tell me many people of this site, what would be a good system that I could use to do this?

stu2000

I recently picked up this compilation of strips. It's called "You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation." It compiles the art of Fletcher Hanks, a comic hack from the thirties. The stuff is amazing. Besides Tiger Hart, there's Big Red, a two-fisted lumberjack, Space Smith, an interplanetary troubleshooter, Stardust the Wizard, Whirlwind Carter, Yank Wilson Superspy, and my far-and-away favorite, Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle. It all unquestionably adds up to a particularly demented multi-genre tru-pulp campaign.

Reading it, you're baffled by the distorted, sub-standard art, perplexed by the repetitive, nonsensical narrative, and almost hypnotized by the ludicrous, off-kilter dialog. I would want a game that takes advantage of this. It's a dirty hippie story-gamer idea, but I would combine the drinking mechanic of Baron Munchausen and the random word-draw mechanic from Weather the Cuckoo Likes, the cut-ups sourcebook from Over the Edge. Drive the players to competitively concoct an outlandish plot, and compel them to say ludicrous phrases with a straight and earnest face. You would capture the gist of Fletcher Hanks.
Employment Counselor: So what do you like to do outside of work?
Oblivious Gamer: I like to play games: wargames, role-playing games.
EC: My cousin killed himself because of role-playing games.
OG: Jesus, what was he playing? Rifts?
--Fear the Boot

Phantom Black

"Mars", either the original system, or the savaged version.
It has pulpiness, sword-wielding guys, gonzoness and much weird stuff.
Rynu-Safe via /r/rpg/ :
Quote"I played Dungeon World once, and it was bad. I didn\'t understood what was happening and neither they seemed to care, but it looked like they were happy to say "you\'re doing good, go on!"

My character sheet was inexistant, and when I hastly made one the GM didn\'t care to have a look at it."

Bloody Stupid Johnson

Tiger Hart reminds me a lot of Kylun from Dragon magazine #183's Marvel Phile (You might be able to do it with Marvel Super Heroes, though it may not be the best system for it...characters may be too overpowered/weird). The gamma-world retroclone could work for it, or maybe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.