Der PigDog's PigBlog

 Here's my prep for the game: There's some heavy stuff in there; content warning for sexual violence, drugs, and all kinds of prejudiced -phobias.  A disclaimer about the depiction of Mormons in this scenario: it's totally fictional. I know/have known many Mormons, none of whom were serial killers. This scenario is based on a paranoid fantasy of Mormon-Pentecostal syncretists. Unlike modern Mormons, the villains in this scenario still believe in polygamy (now forbidden by the Church of Latter-Day Saints), they make and take drugs (always forbidden by the LDS), they worship the cross, speak in tongues, and handle snakes (Mormons don't worship the cross, and the latter two activities are Pentecostal), and they kidnap, rape, and impregnate women to serve as their "wives" (which is not something I associate with any modern religion). Prep and writing  This scenario evolved from a dream I had, in which killer hillbilly farmers worked a pumpkin patch, and simultaneo...

One of my obstacles to play is my fear of creating content: what if I get it wrong? What if it's not good enough, there's not enough of it, it's the wrong sort? (It would be dreadful to have to  practice  that sort of thing. (I'm saying that with my tongue in my cheek; of course you have to practice!)) This only applies to GMing. Creating a character is usually easy. Since character creation and scenario creation are the same task under different headings, I know the fear is irrational.  I don't feel this fear when I'm making content on the fly, because there I'm simply responding to prompts or gameplay demands in play, without time to worry. So "no prep" games, and games where prep is both communal and a part of play, like Monsterhearts and It Was a Mutual Decision, don't stress me out. Nor would My Life with Master. I'm stressed out by games like Sorcerer, Wuthering Heights, and Bushido, where I have to make a bunch of stuff in advance. D...

I say "Part 1" because this movie is the first of a planned trilogy. The movie doesn't announce that anywhere explicitly -- I had to read about it on Wikipedia -- and if you don't know this, you'll be confused and annoyed by its final minutes. I give this movie a strong 3 or weak 4 out of 5. If you like this sort of movie, you'll enjoy this one, and you may enjoy it even if you don't normally like this sort of movie. Thematic summary This guy is desperately trying to find healthy masculinity I don't remember anybody's names, so I'm going to call them the kid, the mom, the dad, the grandad, the alpha, the Swedish soldier, the doctor, and Jimmy. The kid is presented with several conflicting archetypes of masculinity, all of which prove unsatisfactory. He rejects them and leaves society to establish his own values. In more detail: the kid goes on a rite of passage hunting trip with the (his) dad. He thinks he has failed to act properly and feels...

It Was a Mutual Decision (2002) Photo of It Was a Mutual Decision, stolen from the internet Played with Misha, Divya, and Ken. Misha and I are a real-life couple, and Ken and Divya are a real-life couple. Misha and Divya are women, Ken is a man, and I am nonbinary, though I played on Ken's team in the game. All three, and everyone else I have talked to, were absolutely charmed by the premise of the game. It is an extremely easy sell. The rulebook promises that the rat content will serve to soften the blow of the breakup content, and this is certainly what I observed in play. We would go from shouting and breathing hard as we hurled in-character invectives across the room, to giggling uncontrollably while figuring out how to add rats to the scene. Authorities in play were natural and easy. Ken and I, and Misha and Divya, handed of narration without a word and without conflict. Everyone was creatively focused. We did not put much work into establishing the social landscape around our...

Untitled Vampire Game with Martin. Martin played a refugee and orphan from a civil war between rival ethnic groups in a small east African country. I played a charismatic older boy assembling a gang of child soldiers among the refugee. Despite the oppressive subject matter, play was in a sense relaxed; we didn't drive towards any climax or conflicts, we simply narrated events as they struck us. In the end, the boy survived the gang, but his overall odds look grim, and I doubt he'll live much longer. I have complicated feelings about the ending of the game. It worked, as in, it felt right, that the boy should escape the gang by jumping off a bridge, and in the process breaking his leg. But I don't want things to be up whim like this in general; the chance of wimping out and pulling punches is too high. I want a resolution method with teeth. My current thought is that the Vampire should add a die whenever they take steps to feed on the Victim, and the Victim sh...

Played two games of Murderous Ghosts with Misha, Divya, and Ken. I was the MC for the first game. Ken was the MC for the second game -- his first-ever time MCing! Unfortunately, I don't remember the sequence of pulls or moves precisely, so this  Before play I thought up a pretty detailed chronology of the violent act which spawned the ghosts. A husband, the owner of the hotel, found his wife cheating on him. He castrated his wife's lover and tossed their twin babies in the fireplace, and then hung himself. His wife clawed her eyes out in despair and slit her own throat. The precise chronology turned out not to matter at all during play. And the whole thing was more complicated than it needed to be. We started off with "Fang" finding the husband's corpse, still swinging, dripping someone else's blood from its hands. Fang recalls that he doesn't want children any time soon. Fang moves to another room, a richly appointed living room, where he finds the burnt ...