Name of the Game

[Paul Czege]

Y'know, I'm liking Ectropy quite a bit. The game plays as a process of forging a homogenous aggregate of points into a highly organized, heterogenous game reality. And if that ain't ectropy, I don't know what is. How about:

Ectropy: Build a Universe Tonight, from the Homogeneity You Have on Hand

Paul

[Jack Spencer Jr]

On 2001-09-25 12:21, Ron Edwards wrote:
- one-word-wonders: Vampire, Sorcerer, Swashbuckler, Toon, Universe.

This is a side note but Vampire isn't a one-word wonder.  Vampire: the Masquarade is part of the "Cool Title: Cooler Subtitle" school.  You know Magic: the Gathering, Wedgie: the Humiliation, et al.

[Mike Holmes]

Hmmm. Sorcerer, an intense role-playing game. Is that part of the title? If not, what do you call it. Yeah, I used to love colon separated subtitiles. Then at some point they became mandatory. About the same time as ST:tNG.

Well, what does everybody think? You certainly get more bang from your title with a subtitle. And Paul's is hytsterical. Homogenaity on hand. LOL  That's precious. We may be forced to use that at least in the advertising. Or something about Jungian Dialectics.

But are people just tired of subtitles like I am, or does anybody think they still have some milage left?

Mike

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I think you're about a decade late to be using a subtitle.  It's old hat now.  In another five years it'll be retro-cool.

An Intence Role-Playing Game isn't part of the title.  It's a descriptive statement.  Ron could follow it up with Apothocary, An Intense Role-Playing Game or Barbarian, An Intense Role-Playing Game, etc.  It wasn't Wraith: The Masquarade, right?

(Not to plug my own crumby work but I'm calling The Wheel An Active Role-Playing Game.  God, that's pretentious.)

It's got to be past time for the old D&D-type titles to be cool again.

Maybe you could combine it with the subtitle.  Kit & Kaboodle: The Whole Ball of Wax.

Hmm...  maybe not.

[Ron Edwards]

Mike,

"An intense role-playing game" is NOT part of Sorcerer's title. The phrase is an advertising tagline, nothing more.

Oh yeah - and the game was never called "Sorcerer RPG," which somehow got established a while ago, to my aggravation.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

Jack, I agree that a subtitle wouldn't fly these days. But I thin that Ron's tagline is a good idea. I now have waaayy to many ideas all of which I think are pretty cool. This is where I let Ralph at them and he chucks most of them out until we get down to the best.

And we still might use Universalis. Who knows.

Mike

P.S. if we don't snatch up the Ectropy... title as Paul put it out there, somebody else should use that one. That's just too cool an idea.  :smile:

[Valamir]

On 2001-09-25 12:24, Mytholder wrote:
Eh. Calling a game Universal or anything like Infinity triggers the nasty little nitpicky part of my brain which says "right. You're universal are you? I want to run a game involving a sentient toadstool in the year 3 billion bc, a artificially intelligent starship the size of a small moon, and God. In a dungeon. In four different parallel universes. And the mechanics have to account for the importance of Tori Amos in all things."

Well actually, Universalis could handle that.

You (all players) create the world and everything it, populate it with whatever challenges and obstacles you find entertaining, assign those challenges whatever set of characteristics you find appropriate, and have free reign (and rules providing for) the introduction of custom rules which we call "rules gimmicks" to account for things like the "Tori Amos effect".  Universalis pretty much could handle a game like this (or at least make a better go at it than any other game I know of).

I won't vouch for how enjoyable such an eclectic hodge podge would be, but you are free to create a sentient toadstool as a character as long as the other players don't think it too stupid. One of our demos already involved a sentient starship as a character, and given that total world creation is already a player power in the game it would be an easy step to make characters who are gods.  In fact, a "Populus" type game experience is one of the Genre Book supplements I have in mind.  You are also provided with all the Dramatic authority and directoral power you need to lead this group into a dungeon, with the only limits being 1) how much you can afford given the game's currency mechanics, and 2) how much the other players are willing to let you get away with before they a) draw the line, or b) decide they want to add ideas of their own.

[James V. West]

pblock sayeth:

"I used to be part of Crtters, an on-line critiquing group, but I quit because I was too damned lazy to be a worthwhile member."

Me too!

"Durning my time there, I submitted two stories for critique. One was titled "My Baby Will Have No Head" and response was unbelieveable. Moreso because the story came up in the queue around the Fouth of July holiday and it was a double sized bundle of manuscripts to cover two week due to the holiday and all of that. More than one person mentioned that the title was the reason why they read my manuscript."

I was one of the folks who critiqued your story. Check your emails and you'll see James V's name there. Small world, huh?