Gina Tonic and the @%$^ed up Pancakes

[TonyLB]

So I've had a lot of exposure to children's books recently.  I love the motifs, the recurring structure.  I think you could make a cool game that played like a children's book.  Here's my idea (all illustrated using little bunnies and rats and stuff in kid's clothes, using upturned mixing bowls instead of drums, and all that).

Gina is a punk  She is part of a band.  Gina has a loyal cult following. 

Gina was raised by rabbits, and she looks like a rabbit, but Gina is sure that there was a mistake at the hospital.  She is really a wolverine.  Gina's friends agree with her.

Gina's band gets very hungry.  They need pancakes.  Eddie fixes them up with pancakes.  But whoever Eddie got them from, these are some @%$^ed up Pancakes.  Everybody gets wicked sick.  Eddie ends up in the hospital.

Somebody messed with Gina.  She's gonna find out who.  And she's gonna get some more @$(&*ing pancakes.

There is a list of people who might know where Eddie got the pancakes ... mostly because he probably got the bad batch from one of those people.  These people are not going to naturally want to talk to Gina.  Gina will have to be persuasive.  Some people may well need to sit in the uncooperative chair for a while before they spill.

So this is a game about children's books.  And it is a game about Lines and (particularly) Veils.  And it is a line about no-holds-barred ass-kicking and brutality ... none of which ever gets shown explicitly.  And it's a game about Gina.

I'm thinking that the basic method of the game will be: 

• One person "writes" the text for the page:  "Gina went and talked with Rocko.  The Rock liked to think he was tough."
• One person "draws" what Gina is doing:  "Gina is holding a two-by-four.  Smoke rises off the end."
• Everyone else "draws" other details of the scene.  "Rocko is curled in a corner, looking at Gina in terror," "Rocko's teddy-bear is lying at Gina's feet ... it is very flat, with stuffing coming out, and it is still a little bit on fire."

I want to have players give each other two kinds of awards "Aww points" which are for happy, cuddly moments and "Wiggy points" which are for moments that squick people out with their implications.

Violence, sex, unkindness, unfairness or anything negative may not be shown explicitly in either the text or the drawings.  It's a children's book for pete's sake!

What should Aww points let you do?  What should Wiggy points let you do?  How should the roles of who describes what rotate?  Can I pretend to a punk sensibility if I get people to help me and to double-check the results, or is that a doomed cause of poser-dom?

[Thunder_God]

I love this :)

Heck, I love all such "kid influenced games", like the one on the Photoshop a Game that don't and perhaps shouldn't exist and the Pirate, Monkey game over at RPG.net.

I'd love to see this concept along with DitV engine!

And I disagree, there is meanness and violence in kids' books, either of the "Pow!" format of The Powerpuff girls or meanness where someone doesn't give the other ice-cream or gives %$^$& pancakes! Then they get shunned, see how they erred and everyone hugs in the end!

Butterflies! Trees and sunshine! Pancakes!

[Sydney Freedberg]

This reminds me of a children's book idea I had, before Madeleine was born actually, but whose central theme has been repeatedly confirmed for me during toddler-related mishaps: "No, Timmy! Don't Kick Daddy in the nuts!"

Each page of the book was to have a picture of a ferociously grinning 5-year-old -- Timmy -- being admonished by some firm-but-gentle male authority figure -- on page one, his dad. Then page 2 would have Timmy with some other authority figure, say, Mr. Chops the Butcher, with Timmy's dad clearly visible in the distance in the corner of the picture as he writhed on the ground in agony. Then page 3 would have Mr. Chops in the corner writhing and Timmy being rebuked by, say, Mr. Badge the Policeman, and so on, and so on.

And yes, it is only funny if the moment of the atrocity is never, ever shown -- only (1) the lead-in, so the audience can giggle and shiver with anticipation, and (2) the aftermath.

[monsterboy]

a) I would buy that book, or at least get it from the library and renew several times.

b) Aww points might let you take control of the writing (analogous to GMing), while Wiggy Points could let you transfer writing to some other character who you believe will make something sick happen; if he does get a Wiggy Point, you keep yours, if he doesn't, you spent it. Hmm. That sounds kinda lame.  But the book sounds great.

[Larry L.]

Tony,

Awesome.

If this could somehow be published to look like a Little Golden Book, that would be wild. Maybe a sixteen-page color dealie. (I'm just talkin' Blue Sky here, hell if I know how to print that feasibly.)

I am not sure what the intersection of a punk-rock aesthetic with a children's book is. On one hand, I'm seeing 'zine-style amateurish black-and-white drawings accompanies by chaotic hand-lettered text. On the  other, you've got nice, charming color illos with large-print text. I guess I think the latter is funnier.

But the players must be made to use color crayons for drawing and writing.

I promise not to tell anyone what a poser you are.

[TonyLB]

Larry:  Yes, it's clearly got to be childrens book format.  I think I will totally make the punk-aesthetic sub-rosa.  It is implied by the text and pictures of the book, but very seldom (if ever) explicitly stated.

Like, I'm trying to figure out an image (in my head) for Gina.  And if she were really, really punk then her ears would be all ragged and cut, and they'd be pierced all over the place, and like that.  But I think the image of a cutesy little rabbit trying to fill a spiked leather jacket three sizes too big for her, with like two cute little skull earrings in one of her floppy ears is so much more effective.

I think the "Awww" comes from what's on-camera.  On-camera Gina is trying to look all mean, but she's just too darn adorable!

And I think the "Wiggy" comes from what's off-camera.  Off-camera, something happened to explain why Gina is licking red off her wee widdle paw, and why she's now wearing Bobby Beaver's favorite hat.

[Larry L.]

The way I see it, anyone who plays this game has already signed on for some comically off-camera brutality. "Awww" points are there to mechanically reinforce the fact that, you know, this is supposed to be children's genre.

"Wiggy" points, if even necessary, would have to be doled out to reward imaginitive violence, so you don't narrate lameness like, "Gina killed those guys, gimme a Wiggy point."

[Larry L.]

Also, if Gina and friends are furries, I will instantly lose all respect for you, Lower-Basch.

[TonyLB]

Uh ... 'kay.  I'm not sure where the exact borders of "furry" lie.  Are animals who walk around and wear clothes, like Max and Ruby or the Cat in the Hat furries?  'cuz if so you can just lose your respect for me now, and save the waiting period.  I'm definitely using walking, talking animals.

[Larry L.]

Dangit, that's not what I meant. I turns out that word means something much broader than I thought. My error. Give me a sec to pull my foot out of my mouth.

The thing I was thinking about was that vaguely pornographic sort of artwork featuring anthropomorphized animals. Does that make more sense? If not, I'm happy to drop it.

Of course there will be walking, talking animals! I don't know how you would not do that.

[TonyLB]

Ahhhh ... yeah, I get it.  Gina will not be curvalicious.  She will probably be a small, rounded blob with stubby little arms and an egg-shaped head.

[Sydney Freedberg]

Minor revelation: This is, in a lot of ways, film noir, or a detective novel, or even Kill Bill -- you find a problem, you find a guy behind the problem, which leads you to the guy behind the guy behind the problem, rinse and repeat.

So you could use something along the order of Dogs in the Vineyard town creation -- probably regeared so instead of a GM prep'ing it, you can any player derive the next "suspect" in the chain according to some logical, simple guideline on the spot.

Other minor relevation: The difference between Gina Tonic and L.A. Confidential, or Dogs in the Vineyard, is that the protagonist should not change. She is not corrupted, not disillusioned, not traumatized -- she is the same person at the end of the story as she is at the beginning: whatever awful things she has seen and done, she remains innocent. If you look at good children's stories -- and I'm talking little kids now, 2-3-4-5, not "young adult" stuff which is generally about change -- the protagonists may get sad, worried, or angry during the story, but that emotion ends up being discharged and the protagonists return to equilibrium again -- which is fundamentally comforting, unlike adult (or young adult) stories, and frankly a pretty accurate depiction of the rollercoaster emotions of a toddler, based on my experience with my daughter.

So you do not want a Fallout system like that in Dogs, or Humanity checks, or anything of the kind: Whatever pressure your conflict system puts on the protagonist (yay, pressure!), it should be something that can be discharged again, leaving the character uncompromised. (Heh. Tony, I bet you've understood where I'm going already.) You need, in a word, something like the Debt mechanic in Capes.

[monsterboy]

Ahhhh ... yeah, I get it.  Gina will not be curvalicious.  She will probably be a small, rounded blob with stubby little arms and an egg-shaped head.

I was picturing something along the lines of Mercer Meyer's "Little Critter" illustrations, myself. ::shrug::

[Callan S.]

What should Aww points let you do?  What should Wiggy points let you do?

How are you going to have them, in terms of what they do? In a 'Hah, I staked my debt, split my dice and used an inspiration - you didn't think to do that, so your screwed. Now what you didn't want to happen, will!" way, or "Well, I guess that'd work even though it's kind of against what I want to happen, but in the name of everyone getting together to make a really good story I will resist arguing over it"?

[Ben Lehman]

How about this?  At the beginning of any given scene, whoever has the most Wiggy points must write the next scene and whoever has the most Aww points must draw it.  Both the artist and writers' points drop to zero at the start of the scene.

yrs--
--Ben

P.S.  This is directly ripped from one of my current designs, so if I beat you to press don't cry.