| Which plot should we use for the MCM2? |
| Fun With Funball |
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48% |
[ 13 ] |
| We're Us, I Promise |
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51% |
[ 14 ] |
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| Total Votes : 27 |
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| Grov-R-LER |
 Posted: Tue May 30, 2006 10:45 pm Post subject: |
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BLUE
Joined: 28 Jul 2005
Posts: 2575
Service Group: Armed Forces
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Well... FWF could work... i guess... but we'd need to find some way of having the players play Funball without them knowing what Funball is, or how it works.
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IC Notes for Grov-LER-4:
Wearing: Trenchcoat, hideous CPU Satisfactory Citizen sash, IR 'pants'. Hair is tied back.
Location: Out of this sector.
Status: Injured. |
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| Phyxius |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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RED
Joined: 13 Feb 2006
Posts: 7
Service Group: R&D
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| Fun with Funball sounds good. I think the play should be vague enough that the game is still a mystery, even to those who play it... |
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| Adam-R-LON-1 |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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INDIGO
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3852
Service Group: HPD&MC
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I suppose when the mission is written up, when it gets to describing how things will play out in the Troubleshooters' Funball game, it leaves the rules up to the GM, with maybe a few madcap suggestions to spur imagination. We can cover that gap in the text with the laziness of Famous Game Designers, etc.
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For the Glory of Friend Computer! |
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| Zach-O-RLY |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 5:28 pm Post subject: |
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YELLOW
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 221
Service Group: R&D
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Depending on the Straightness or Classicness of Fun with Funball, investigations into professional sports can either be as serious as Any Given Sunday, or as fruity as Ace Ventura looking for the Miami Dolphin.
And as long as you're not intending to have the 'shooters play an actual match, you needn't come up with rules. I predict INFRARED hooliganism at work here. Let's take the phenomenon of soccer/football-related violence to it s absurd conclusion. (not parody, mind you, but a satire on the sad state of professional sports fanaticism). |
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| GirdagFireskull |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 6:26 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 2012
Service Group: Armed Forces
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No, a match could work. Have a coach yell instructions filled with vague sporting terms at them -
Now remember, kiddoes, it's a sticky wicket out there, so I wouldn't try for a field goal until the third innings, unless you see a chance for an albatross. Aces are wild, so you might need to add a good bit of backspin, and watch out for the bunkers. John-R, you're the point man, everyone else should scrum down and prepare to rally, unless the point is let. And remember, if they get to two under par, be prepared to play dirty, unless the refbot's playing the Webb-R conjecture
And then throw them into a game with no explanation of what's going on, balls and goals everywhere, and a rabid coach yelling unitelligable instructions from the side. It would RULE.
I still prefer the other one, though.
_________________
IC notes:
Wearing: GREEN jumpsuit
Location: GREEN quarters
Current clone number: 5
Notes: Girdag-G returns? |
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| Thom |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 20 Oct 2005
Posts: 1172
Service Group: Technical Services
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I am suddenly picturing funball as a massive stadium version of mornington crescent for some reason...
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IC Notes:
Full Name: Thom-G-OTT-4
Wearing: GREEN Jumpsuit.
Position: Pfffft, there's a head of Technical Services?
Status: He's back baby! And now 125% overmedicated!
Does have a PDC.
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| GirdagFireskull |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 07 Aug 2004
Posts: 2012
Service Group: Armed Forces
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| Thom wrote: |
| I am suddenly picturing funball as a massive stadium version of mornington crescent for some reason... |
That's what I was aiming for. That would RULE.
NO GOAL! NO GOAL! WE'RE USING THE ISLIN-G-TON INTERPRETATION!
_________________
IC notes:
Wearing: GREEN jumpsuit
Location: GREEN quarters
Current clone number: 5
Notes: Girdag-G returns? |
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| Infested-Jerk |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 6:43 pm Post subject: |
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RED
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 1060
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| Funball, the chance to be seen by millions of clones yet be mistaken for another clone? A chnace to commit treason of all forms and blame it on someone else? |
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| Slice-R-UPP |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 9:14 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 08 Jan 2006
Posts: 928
Service Group: Power Services
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Why am I reminded of Calvinball?
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Slice-[Whatever.]-UPP-4
Walking around with a red-ink stamp of Friend Computer on his stomach.
GREEN jumpsuit and boots
Asleep. Like really asleep. Like you can throw him back and forth and he won't notice asleep. |
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| Thom |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 9:22 pm Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 20 Oct 2005
Posts: 1172
Service Group: Technical Services
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I believe both Calvinball and Mornington Crescent share a certain paucity of rules, I guess we can just add Funball to the unholy trio.
_________________
IC Notes:
Full Name: Thom-G-OTT-4
Wearing: GREEN Jumpsuit.
Position: Pfffft, there's a head of Technical Services?
Status: He's back baby! And now 125% overmedicated!
Does have a PDC.
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| Infested-Jerk |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 10:33 pm Post subject: |
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RED
Joined: 30 Mar 2006
Posts: 1060
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For humor you can always give them really stupid things to paly with. Socks, cans of B3, rolling pins...
and give the other team bats crowbars and other dangerous weapons |
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| Zach-O-RLY |
| Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 11:23 pm Post subject: |
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YELLOW
Joined: 18 Oct 2005
Posts: 221
Service Group: R&D
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Some of the Brits out here might recall an old C64/PC/PS1 game called Speedball (The Bitmap Brothers), where it was basically rugby in armor and spiked gauntlets, with a bunch of point-earning nonsense added to make it seem complex, then given the "football manager" treatment.
Not that it wasn't fun, I just found it mostly fluff. But if you recall all the extra details that game had outside of "tackle man with ball, grab ball, run with ball, throw ball into goal", you might start seeing the notion of Funball as a game where the creators took turns adding rules during its conception.
No sport as complex as American football, but that's my opinion. YMMV. |
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| Vatman22 |
| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 7:33 am Post subject: |
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GREEN
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 127
Service Group: Internal Security
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I voted for Fun With Funball. I've already seen We're Us, I Promise done in The Prisoner episode "The Schizoid Man", and it strikes me as a very generic Paranoia mission. Troubleshooters go out and get stuck in a very basic bureaucratic problem they have to try to work around before they get zapped.
I think I'm on safe ground by saying that nobody would expect a Paranoia mission based on sports. It's not what the game is known for, which gives us more room to play around. Plus so far as I know nobody's ever used actual sports in Paranoia, which means we can steal liberally from every sport we can think of and nobody can say boo to us. We don't ever have to have the team set foot on a Funball court.
It's been a while since I played organized sports, but I remember enough to use in this sort of mission. Baseball has batting cages, where a machine chucks a ball so you can hit it. Funball can have swatting cages, where the Troubleshooters have to hit a Funball with a mallet or else it breaks their face. American football placekickers practice with a net and a ball - Funball placekickers can do the same, but if they hit the ball wrong they break a half-dozen bones in their feet. Basketball has dribbling practice - the Troubleshooters are given Funballs and told to do the same, but the hitch is that one of the Funballs is a trick Funball set to explode if bounced incorrectly. This is supposedly a normal tactic that the Troubleshooters shouldn't worry about - in reality it's institutionalized cheating, but nobody cares, since the idea is to bounce it improperly off of someone's leg and conveniently blow him up. My ideal for Funball training is something that gives off an air of "This game is the unholy spawn of Calvinball and Sega's 'Mutant League' sports video games".
I'm naturally fond of my own version of this mission, where the Troubleshooters have to talk to the coaches and staffers left behind after the team disappeared. I'm particularly keen on having the Power-Drill Sergeant as the physical fitness trainer. He refuses to talk to the Troubleshooters until they've proven their fitness by doing a normal morning round of his training regimen and having at least one clone survive. It's an elaborate satire on various elements of the sporting world - maniacal physical trainers, win-at-all-costs pillheads, overstressed bureaucrats trying to do their jobs, a host of secret agendas and an occasional mass obliteration. Plus we can throw in a satire of the fans - the ticket queue has its own body-policing detail because of the number of fans who accidentally get thrown over railings down flights of stairs or are mysteriously shot in the face following a disagreement in the queue.
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"Heads don't USUALLY explode for no reason."
-Friend Computer NugoWis #224. |
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| Holo-O-BNY-3 |
| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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ORANGE
Joined: 10 Apr 2006
Posts: 254
Service Group: PLC
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The more I hear the "We can do it and still keep Funball vague arguments" the more it starts to sound a *bit* more doable. I'm still reticent though.
Really, I just wanted to say that I don't think it can work w/o Funball. IMHO as a GM to keep players off an active Funball field is going to be near-impossible w/o the player-enjoyment ever-destroying railroad. Someone is going to think, "I'm playing Funball dammit! Clones 2-6, the fact that I'm not on either of these teams, and that Green Goon security guard be damned!" and that someone is likely to find a plausible way to do it.
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Remember, exemplary hygiene saves lives.
IC notes: wearing a orange jumpsuit, tattered and full of laser blast holes. looking very anxious as he frantically smooths his long disheveled hair and rubs at the smudges on his face and arms with the zeal of a flagellant. has not shaved for several years. |
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| saulres |
| Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 6:48 pm Post subject: |
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UV Master Programmer
Joined: 18 Oct 2004
Posts: 5686
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Don't know if this has been mentioned before, but you could steal the Fizzbin rules and always come up with a set of rules for Funball at the time the Troubleshooters are playing it. "Of course you have to hammer the wicket with an ice gun! It's Threesday at noon!"
Because I think the way to make the game fun for the players is to let them learn the rules by watching the opposition, what they do, and what the Troubleshooters get penalized for. You've got to give them the hope that they can learn the game and do well to make it engaging for them. Doing it that way, the Funball game could last an hour of real time. If they don't think they have a chance, the fun will last all of about ten mintues -- if that.
Plus, let's not forget the greatest danger to the players should come from the other players. So have their secret societies give each of them one or two legitimate rules which conflict with the other players' rules because the societies think the game's scheduled for a different day or time. Make sure there are rewards for individual outstanding plays. Split the equipment so the two worst enemies on the team have two lethal pieces of equipment which have to be played together. And so forth.
Hmm... Think it's time for me to vote. |
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