From: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org (deltagreen-digest) To: deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Subject: deltagreen-digest V2 #44 Reply-To: Delta Green List Sender: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Errors-To: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Precedence: bulk deltagreen-digest Saturday, August 28 1999 Volume 02 : Number 044 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:21:54 EDT From: LizardRoi@aol.com Subject: DG: Third World boobies In a message dated 99-07-20 17:26:59 EDT, you write: << In regard to the current thread on cencorship, has anyone remarked on the fact that iin American television and magazines the breasts of white women are obscene but black women in Africa or South America can be shown in full frontal nudity? >> The subliminal message is: white women have breasts (titillating), other races have teats (educational). Consider the situation in the 60s. No cable, no video, and whole areas of the country where porno would be hard to find without underworld connections. Young men going through puberty with National Geographic pictures the only photos of naked women available. In typical twisted psychosexual fashion, these dark women would be inextricably connected with the shameful sins of Onan. They are to blame. Posin' there with that jug on her head, brazen as all get out. She was askin' for it I tell ya! And with the typical primate reflex to externalize, all non-white men would be assumed to have an uncontrollable lech for white women. Can you say Mandingo? Mark McFadden ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:33:37 -0400 (EDT) From: John Petherick Subject: Re: DG: A Stir of Echoes At 05:59 PM 8/26/99 -0400, The Man in the Black Muu-muu wrote: >Other potentially good up and coming flicks (at least here in the good ol' >US of A) are: > >The Fight Club Yes. Many people (female) are looking forward to Brad Pitt and Edward Norton getting hot and sweaty. Lots of people (male) are looking forward to watching Brad Pitt getting the snot beat out of him. Some people (film aficionados) are expecting another fine performance from Edward Norton. >The 13th Warrior Personally, I want to see how badly mangled (different) it is from the original novel. For some reason, Antonio Bandaras was not willing to play a scholarly wimp who was dragged along for the trip. >Elmo in Grouchland (Okay it's not very horrifying, but you get to see the >inside of Oscar's Garbage Can, and hopefully Margorie the Trash Heap from >Fraggle Rock will cameo) > But which character gets to tickle Elmo? ********************************************************************* John Petherick, CIH jpetheri@cyberbeach.net ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 00:32:51 -0400 From: Steven Kaye Subject: Re: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... Peter Devlin wrote much stuff, cutting to the juicy bits: > >Consistency? You can have it if you really want it. I prefer to have >a mysterious, unpredictable, uncategorisable and wonderfully rich >inconsistent Mythos world. Do you have a "GM's-eye View of How the Universe Works," though, out of curiosity? One that's never revealed to the players all at once? You know, drawing curves on walls works to open gates, because [X], and so on? The idea's worked well in some Amber games I've been in, where part of the fun was discovering the rules of a particular GM's universe. Depending on whether you go "all magic is alien science" or emphasize the idea that the universe doesn't work the way we think it does, I could see keeping characters more or less in the dark. Steven Kaye, who's paradoxically an anal-retentive HPL nut AND prone to Mythos experimentation - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - ---------- Steven Kaye box_nine@ix.NOSPAM.netcom.com "Now, just let me fix this band on your head," I added, as I adjusted the electrode. -- William Hope Hodgson, "The Hog" ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:41:32 GMT From: "Fco. Javier Rubio" Subject: DG: [OFF-TOPIC] Gaming shops in London Hello all, sorry for the off-topic, but in a couple of weeks i'll be surely visiting London, so, i would greatly appreciate any info from H.M.'s gamers :) about good shops in London area (I'm afraid Marble Arch's Virgin Megastore is not any more enough for me :) ). Thanks in advance and sorry for the wasted bandwith, [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Fco. Javier Rubio [fjrubio@logimatica.com] __Logimática__ [http://www.logimatica.com] Asesoría Informática Integral Ramón y Cajal, 39, 1º - dpto. 9 Servicios Telemáticos 48014 Bilbao Estrategias de Red Tel.- +34/94.474.57.28 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:00:45 +0200 From: "Florian R. Hanke" Subject: Re: DG: [OFF-TOPIC] Gaming shops in London "Fco. Javier Rubio" wrote: > sorry for the off-topic, but in a couple of weeks i'll be surely visiting > London, so, i would greatly appreciate any info from H.M.'s gamers :) about > good shops in London area I'm a swiss cheese but one shop I always thought was worth visiting (and is not far from Leicester Square) is the Orc's Nest - I guess by now they surely have Countdown. Address is here: http://www.orcsnest.com/shop.htm Regards, Florian Hanke spa^H^H^H advertiser par excellence ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:11:36 GMT From: "Fco. Javier Rubio" Subject: Re: DG: Third World boobies ><< In regard to the current thread on cencorship, has anyone remarked on the > fact that iin American television and magazines the breasts of white > women are obscene but black women in Africa or South America can be shown > in full frontal nudity? >> > > The subliminal message is: white women have breasts (titillating), other >races have teats (educational). ---In Spain the joke was: What's the difference between the teats of a white woman and the teats of a black one? The teats of the white woman appear on Playboy, the teats of the Black woman appear on National Geographic, yep, it's true. But, well, consider each place's culture. In "western" cultures, the usual thing is to wear clothes. In some "primitive" cultures they do not, so it is not so "shocking". I guess. ObDG: ...(?) The August Tcho-Thco playmate? (just guessing!) [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] Fco. Javier Rubio [fjrubio@logimatica.com] __Logimática__ [http://www.logimatica.com] Asesoría Informática Integral Ramón y Cajal, 39, 1º - dpto. 9 Servicios Telemáticos 48014 Bilbao Estrategias de Red Tel.- +34/94.474.57.28 [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 08:46:30 -0400 From: graemep@immagene.mcg.edu (Graeme Price) Subject: Re: DG: [OFF-TOPIC] Gaming shops in London >> sorry for the off-topic, but in a couple of weeks i'll be surely visiting >> London, so, i would greatly appreciate any info from H.M.'s gamers :) about >> good shops in London area > >I'm a swiss cheese but one shop I always thought was worth visiting (and is not >far from Leicester Square) is the Orc's Nest Seconded. An excellent little shoppe (and I do mean little!). Another one which is pretty good (or used to be... it's been a few years) is Games Unlimited in Kingston, although that's a bit farther out. Perversely, London is pretty thin on games shops... most of the decent ones switched into selling computer games a long time ago. Reading and Birmingham both have excellent suppliers though, and in a pinch there's always Esdevium in Aldershot. Later Graeme graemep@immag.mcg.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 10:00:53 -0400 From: Jeff Ewing Subject: Re: DG: Third World boobies Hmmmnn, thought provoking as ever, Mr. McFadden. However, I would point out a couple of things. > The subliminal message is: white women have breasts (titillating), other > races have teats (educational). If you check out the early editions of NG, from the 20's, you will see that there are number of photographs, notably one on what was then Dutch Indonesia, IIRC a 1927 number, that are plainly erotic in intent, despite the ethnographic flummery of "Malay women in the communal bath." To be sure, these are next to photos of Komodo dragons, et. al., and a fair amount of academic lit. has been written about the erotics of NG. > And with the typical primate reflex to externalize, all non-white men would > be assumed to have an uncontrollable lech for white women. This *waaay* predates NG, although if, like me, you can't get enough of Victorian travel lit., you know that there're almost always drawings of "types of [foo] women" or "A [foo] belle." To my mind this is a legacy of colonialism/slavery: "Having the upper hand of them, we take their women; surely the reverse would happen?" In a feeble attempt to steer this to DG relevance: It seems to me that much of the RL UFO mythology of abductions and examiniations stem from some of the same psychic mechanisms. "What would we do to aliens if we landed on their planet? Surely they're doing the same to us?" Jeff ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:14:58 +0200 From: Davide Mana Subject: Re: DG: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... Greetings. I was going to keep mum on this one, but something just came to my mind that might put this discussion in another perspective. It all began when Mr Devlin wrote << Consistency? You can have it if you really want it. I prefer to have a mysterious, unpredictable, uncategorisable and wonderfully rich inconsistent Mythos world. >> A reasonable position for a Cthulhu keeper, as virtually any game bends the Mythos in some new direction, willy-nilly. While I'm generally happy when consistency surfaces in Mythos fiction, inconsistencies and "second opinions" are fine with me as they are the essential tool for designing games, writing fiction (if rather inferior, I admit myself) and to start endless late-night speculations with variably intoxicated lovecraftian friends in deserted pubs. [that's the reason why, incidentally, I generally tend to avoid questions like "Where's Leng?" The most logical answer should probably be "Where do you need it?"] But there's something else. I just finished proofreading my brother's short paper about the Isis Myth in Egyptian Culture, that will probably get him a capital high mark (the little sneak) for his Egyptology exam. For reasons of his own - probably some misguided worship of consistency - he has given just the barest hint of what was the main problem he faced while researching and writing the thing: find a definitive version of the legends. While the main facts are pretty well established, apparently every retelling, study or analisys added, distorted or subtracted something. And it's been a mere 5000-odd years. So, please let's not forget we are living in an inconsistent world. Beware of too much consistency: when all documents and reports and eyewitnesses give you the same picture, there's something fishy. So, an inconsistent Mythos is pretty realistic, as far as old religious beliefs and legend cycles are concerned (and not only - try and get three different newspapers tomorrow morning). This said, I can only add I felt a vague sense of uneasiness reading Mark's post.... > So, let's say that I've got this idea for a scenario/story that is just so >good that it cries out for playing. I've decided that Hastur doesn't exist. >Never did, never will. It's all old Toe-tapper disinformation. Carcosa and >the KIY, too. Tomes? Forgeries all. Hastur always was and always will be Just >Another Nyarly Avatar (JANA). Nice, if a little unsubtle. Mark, you'll have to tell me where you get your ideas, one of these days ;> Davide Mana ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 16:21:56 +0200 From: Davide Mana Subject: Re: DG: [OFF-TOPIC] Gaming shops in London Greetings Looks like the Continental guys are being faster than the British Gamers >> sorry for the off-topic, but in a couple of weeks i'll be surely visiting >> London, so, i would greatly appreciate any info from H.M.'s gamers :) about >> good shops in London area > >I'm a swiss cheese but one shop I always thought was worth visiting (and is not >far from Leicester Square) is the Orc's Nest - I guess by now they surely have >Countdown. >Address is here: http://www.orcsnest.com/shop.htm Orc's Nest is a fine start (God knows I left there a nice share of my wages when I lived in London). A little less central but worth a visit is also Leisure Games - 91 Ballards Lane, Finchley - London N3 1XY The also have a first class mail order service. Hope this helps. Davide Mana ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 18:26:46 +0200 From: PM Subject: Re: DG: [OFF-TOPIC] Gaming shops in London >>I'm a swiss cheese but one shop I always thought was worth visiting (and is not >>far from Leicester Square) is the Orc's Nest >Seconded. An excellent little shoppe (and I do mean little!). Another one >which is pretty good (or used to be... it's been a few years) is Games >Unlimited in Kingston, although that's a bit farther out. Perversely, >London is pretty thin on games shops... most of the decent ones switched >into selling computer games a long time ago. Reading and Birmingham both >have excellent suppliers though, and in a pinch there's always Esdevium in >Aldershot. Orc's Nest , Earl Ham Street (near Leicester Square. So so) Leisure Games (Balard's lane, subway Finchley Central on the Northern Line) Esdevium Games (Wellington Street, Aldershot, 45 min from Waterloo) Unless you care for the train ride, the best bet is Leisure Games IMHO. PM ============================================= Patrice Mermoud (Paris - France) mermoud@easynet.fr mermoud@multimania.com ============================================= ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 09:57:01 -0700 From: Phil A Posehn Subject: Re: DG: Third World boobies As a matter of fact, I posted something very similar to either DG or Strange Aeons about a month ago. With my tongue slightly in my cheek I suggested that the censors inadvertantly caused the inter-racial marriages of today by limiting our fantasies to African and South American aboriginals. And then there's those "Men's War Stories" articles about Olga's Nazi bondage camp... Phil On Thu, 26 Aug 1999 22:21:54 EDT LizardRoi@aol.com writes: >In a message dated 99-07-20 17:26:59 EDT, you write: > ><< In regard to the current thread on cencorship, has anyone remarked >on the > fact that iin American television and magazines the breasts of white > women are obscene but black women in Africa or South America can be >shown > in full frontal nudity? >> > > The subliminal message is: white women have breasts (titillating), >other >races have teats (educational). > > Consider the situation in the 60s. No cable, no video, and whole >areas of >the country where porno would be hard to find without underworld >connections. >Young men going through puberty with National Geographic pictures the >only >photos of naked women available. In typical twisted psychosexual >fashion, >these dark women would be inextricably connected with the shameful >sins of >Onan. They are to blame. Posin' there with that jug on her head, >brazen as >all get out. She was askin' for it I tell ya! > And with the typical primate reflex to externalize, all non-white men >would >be assumed to have an uncontrollable lech for white women. > > Can you say Mandingo? > >Mark McFadden > ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 11:43:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Jeff Campbell Subject: Re: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... I have to weigh in against the hobgoblins. Part of the mythic power of the Lovecraftion Mythos is how it mimics real religions. Overall, I would say that the mythos is far more consistent than Christianity, and that is a flaw. Judeo/Christianity is filled with accepted texts, apocrypha, heresies, new revelations, etc., that don't quite fit. For the Mythos to have the same force, it needs to do the same thing. So go ahead, and give your players evidence that Hastur does not exist. When they later get contrary evidence that he does, then they will have to decide how to deal with it. A million years ago Twilight Zone magazine did a review of "Call of Cthulhu" and worried that codifying everything into a rulebook would rob them of the literary power that they have. If a group of players con ever in complete confidence say what some entity's powers and spheres of infuence are, then that worry has been realized. Some of my favorite moments as a keeper are listening to "in character" conversations where the players are trading sketchy information about some entity drawn from their different gaming and reading experiances, "If that is true, then what are we to make of this ancient story where..." Jeff Campbell. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 21:46:42 +0200 From: Davide Mana Subject: DG: Spot the Mythos Greetings, gentlemen (and ladies) I was browsing the Amazon pages, looking for new ways to blow my money, when I stumbled on the following... - ------------------------------------------------------------ Striker Vs. the Third Reich by Hiroshi Takashige, Ryoji Minagawa (Illustrator) Viz Communications Paperback - 160 pages Book Description In this volume of the Striker series, the Arcam Foundation faces its greatest challenge in the ongoing struggle to protect humanity from magical artifacts of an ancient civilization. Operative Yu Ominae must travel the globe to secure these powerful relics from neo-Nazi evildoers who would rule the world. - ---------------------------------------------------------- Sounds familiar? Just for your information. Davide Mana ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 17:00:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Womack Subject: DG: Keeper Eyes Only: Rules of Engagement Review The following review will be appearing next week at RPG.net. Chris Womack Keeper of the List oaktree@nocturne.org ********** Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement Author: John Tynes Category: Novel Company/Publisher: Armitage House/Pagan Publishing Line: Delta Green SKU: #5008 Cost: $19.95 Page count: 229 ISBN: 1-887787-16-5 Capsule Review by Chris Womack on 08/27/99. Genre tags: Modern day Horror Espionage Conspiracy This review contains Delta Green spoilers. You have been warned. In his new (and first, I believe) novel Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement, John Tynes grabs the Delta Green conspiracy like a rabid dog and gives it a few vicious, neck-snapping shakes. (For those unfamiliar, Delta Green is a 90's-conspiracy-setting campaign background for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu RPG, created by the evil geniuses at Pagan Publishing. Go beg, borrow, or steal a friend's copy of the original Delta Green sourcebook (alas, it's currently out of print), read it, then come right back here--that's an order.) For summer reading, this hardcover is perhaps a bit small (5 3/4" x 8 3/4"), slim (229 pp.), and hard to come by (a limited-edition print run of only 250 copies is available exclusively via mail order from Pagan Publishing; I'm unsure whether a mass-market edition will follow) for its $20 price tag--but that's if you compare it to more standard offerings from the publishing giants and chain booksellers. But Rules isn't your typical summertime fare (especially not when compared to the schlock that passes for RPG-inspired fiction), and Pagan Publishing, a boutique (or perhaps "garage" or "basement" or even "living-room" would be a better word choice) outfit known for its sporadic publication schedule and its "we shall produce no magazine/gaming supplement/work of fiction/whatever before its time" philosophy, isn't your typical bookpeddler. With the scales thus balanced, I'd say that the question "is this book worth twenty bucks (plus the mail-order hassle)?" must be left up to the individual. If you're a fan of the Mythos fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and his followers, or if you enjoy action-packed spy novels, then the answer is "probably"; if you're already a DG devotee, then the answer is "hoo baby!" The book itself is rather small (as noted above) and unassuming-looking; there's no dustjacket and its clothbound cover is a stark matte black, broken only by the gold-stamped title/author/publisher info and Delta Green logo on the front cover. There are no illustrations, save for a black-and-white photograph (taken by the author) watermarking the front flyleaf and the title, contents, and dedication pages. (The photo doesn't really have any bearing at all on the story; doubtless it just appealed to the author's idiosyncratic visual tastes--visit his website at www.john.tynes.com to get a clearer idea of what I mean). The book is sturdy (case binding and heavy, acid-free paper) and staid (stick it on that bookshelf where you keep all those old college textbooks you can't seem to get rid of, and nobody will ever give it a second glance); in short, you couldn't ask for better production values (this goes for the typesetting as well, which uses a clean, easy-on-the-eyes custom typeface, with decent margins and nice bold chapter headers). But this "little black book" aesthetic isn't incongruous, like a guy wearing a pocket protector and Buddy Holly glasses driving a Ferrari; rather, it's fitting--it's stealth technology, slipping a payload of fin-de-siecle angst and Mythos horror right past your radar and dropping it smack into your cerebrum. Yes, make no mistake--this is Mythos fiction 90's style, HPL meets John Woo. There's plenty of blood, guts, and horror to go around, a veritable (and in some scenes, literal) feeding frenzy of the macabre and gruesome. Tynes has previously demonstrated himself a competent wordsmith, even beyond the copious and diverse gaming materials bearing his name in the author credits. His short story "The Dark Above" in the fiction anthology Delta Green: Alien Intelligence (see my earlier review) serves as ample proof of his ability to spin a gripping yarn while providing characters with real depth, who are more than just the stereotypes the conspiracy genre fosters. Indeed, readers familiar with that earlier piece will be delighted to see those characters brought back, along with a whole stable of others made famous (or infamous, as the case may be) in the original DG sourcebook (and its sequel), all woven into a solid, tightly-paced plot. I say Tynes' writing is competent--as opposed to, say, obtuse (at one extreme) or stellar (at the other). While his prose is generally very good and technically solid (only once did I catch him in a flat-out grammatical flub, confusing the homonyms "proceed" and "precede"), it's not without its flaws. His writing is somewhat uneven--at times it's worthy of the Master, HPL himself, evoking scenes of horror whose power is based upon what is suggested rather than what is revealed; occasionally such homage is surely unintentional, as he briefly falls prey to HPL's own weakness for turgid, even purple, prose. At times he becomes so intent upon displaying his own mastery of espionage tradecraft jargon, dwelling on the nitty-gritty of clandestine observation tools and techniques and rattling off enough information on firearms and ammunition to make the NRA stand up and salute, that readers who aren't bona-fide alphabet soup connoisseurs or diehard gunfondlers might be left floundering. And the plot, while solid, reaches a climax that's perhaps just a little too overt a tip of the hat to Dr. No, even with its unique Mythos-fueled twists. He succumbs to the temptation to render a bad guy sympathetic, and to kill one of the good guys out of hand (there's a bait-and-switch plot twist there that I won't go into). I suppose the lessons here are that even the enemy (well, some of them, anyway) aren't so far gone as to have lost all traces of their humanity (there are certainly more than enough inhuman enemies to go around, certainly), and that sometimes good people die for all the wrong reasons; but these are lessons that Keepers who've been paying attention should've taught their players already--many times over. Thus far, I've pretty much stuck with talking about this book in book-reviewer's terms; the time has come to speak to its utility as adjunct gaming material. In a nutshell: DG Keepers, latch onto this one as fast as you can, and do everything within your power (up to and including termination with extreme prejudice) to keep it away from your players. In the wrong hands, the knowledge contained in this tome could easily derail a Keeper's most nefarious schemes. There's something here to appeal to every gamer's basest instincts: the munchkins will be clamoring to have ghouls as PCs; the rules lawyers will square off against the gunfondlers arguing over how best to represent the MP-5 submachine gun in game terms; and those sneaky rat-bastards who deliberately ignore "spoiler" warnings (e.g. the one at the top of this review) at every opportunity will load up on enough OOC knowledge about the conspiracy to choke a mule--or a ghoul. For Keepers, though, this book is golden. You say you're not quite clear on how things stand between DG and the Fate? Read Rules and be enlightened. Fuzzy on just how much inter-cell communication there is within DG? Here's your yardstick. Want to know what Alphonse's home life is like? Have a gander. And most significantly, if you're curious about the terms and conditions of DG's and MJ-12's internecine sibling rivalry, well, that's exactly what the book's title references. If you've run your players through the scenario from the original sourcebook entitled "Convergence," then this novel will be a sweet stroll down memory lane. And if you're stuck for NPC's, plot hooks, or new ways to deceive, inveigle, and obfuscate, then look no further for a new source of plunder. Be warned, though; if you're in earnest about borrowing from this book, you'll do well to get your hands on the second DG sourcebook, Delta Green: Countdown (available now; see reviews elsewhere on this site), and maybe even DG Eyes Only vol. 2: The Fate, in order to get the most mileage out of Rules. But any DG Keeper worth her salt has these sitting on her shelf already, I'm sure. Tynes isn't in danger of winning a Pulitzer for this one, but he does stand head and shoulders over much of his competition in the game-related-fiction market. Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement is a fast, gripping read, easily as worthy of taking to the beach as anything from Stephen King or Tom Clancy (okay, so horror/conspiracy gamers sunbathing on a beach is an image that's a little hard to summon up; but work with me, people!). Call up the folks at Armitage House/Pagan Publishing today and order a copy; if you're lucky, maybe the author himself will answer the phone. Tell him I sent ya. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tynes' "novel of personal apocalypse" does for Delta Green what "Two Fathers"/"One Son" did for The X Files. All bets are off. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:56:25 -0300 (ART) From: kranondp@usa.net Subject: Re: DG: Prize email Hello. Sorry for wasting the bandwith, but I cannot help it, I have to thank The Men in Black and Daniel Harms for both replies on the topic... you've been very helpful... hehehe :) Bruno Di Pentima. kranondp@usa.net Santa Fe - Argentina. "No está muerto lo que puede yacer eternamente, y con extraños evos puede morir hasta la muerte." -- Howard Phillips Lovecraft. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:16:21 EDT From: LizardRoi@aol.com Subject: DG: TRADECRAFT: practicing the tale In a message dated 99-08-27 13:10:32 EDT, you write: << As a matter of fact, I posted something very similar to either DG or Strange Aeons about a month ago With my tongue slightly in my cheek I suggested that the censors inadvertantly caused the inter-racial marriages of today by limiting our fantasies to African and South American aboriginals. And then there's those "Men's War Stories" articles about Olga's Nazi bondage camp... >> Actually, my message was a reply to that post. The reply was stuck in a queue that only jarred loose last night. Apparently it was ghosting at 57K and they had to degauss the microspooler and install the 5.5 patch. Damn clever those email boffins. Good lads. OK. Ghosting at 57K which inevitably requires degaussing that damn microspooler and applying the ubiquitous 5.5 patch is a reflexive piece of pseudo-jargon I toss at people who are trying to interrupt my train of thought while troubleshooting. It's descended from a line in an old episode of The Rockford Files. Part of a con to get access to some VIP's PC ASAP. He and his accomplice show up like the Pros From Dover explaining that the VIP's PC was "ghosting at 98 hundred baud. We've got to degauss the microspooler" and their return flight was in 2 hours. Over the years the ghosting speed has increased and the 5.5 patch was added, and it still works fine. The next revision will replace a few terms. Ever since monitors started including a degauss button I've known it was time for an update. The 5.5 patch just won't be enough. The key to it's successful use is the way it's presented. Memorize it, internalize it, make it yours. Just like the bathroom story in Reservoir Dogs. When it's unconscious and reflexive it's ready for a test drive. When working undercover, or pretending to be a repairman for a daylight B&E, this little piece of technobabble, or whatever you prefer in it's place, is there to buy you time if someone surprises you or asks you what you are doing. And since you've practiced it to the point of reflex, you won't stutter or look for words. If they do a double-take instead of accepting your "explanation", you smile and admit you are joking which should give you enough time to remember the plausible story you prepared. Mark McFadden Tested it in real life. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 23:33:10 -0400 From: Daniel Harms Subject: Re: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... Note: Daniel Harms makes his living from Mythos consistency. Well, part of his living. When they're kind enough to send him royalties. Rarely enough as it is. Also note: The Emerson quote begins, "A foolish consistency..." Yes, I am anal. At 11:23 AM 8/26/99 +0100, Peter Devlin wrote: >BEGIN RANT MODE > The 'little minds' amongst the anally-retentive HPL nuts seem incapable of >dealing with anything outside the published works. Indeed, many of them >cannot even agree as to what is 'true' Mythos literature (sic) and what is not. I >recently asked all these HPL scholars to tell me definitevly where Leng was. >Would you be surprised to learn that I received only one reply, and not from >one of these Mythos bores but someone like myself who seemed rather more >open minded to Mythos experimentation? The problem is, of course, is that anyone who purports to give you a "definitive explanation" as to what Leng really is will be doing the same thing - making it up. I do agree with you to some extent, but I also tend toward what a friend of mine who reads the DG digests once said. He commented that this list tends to the opposite extreme - many people don't know the source material, so while there's a great deal of creativity, we often spend much time re-inventing the wheel. >As I have opined before, the strength of the Mythos for both fiction and RPG >lies in the fact that it is inconsistent. It can be adapted and added to with a little >bit of work. And it cannot (or perhaps should not) be broken down into easily >resolved, readily identified little parcels of data such as 'Hastur lives here, he >looks like this, here are his stats'. >Consistency? You can have it if you really want it. I prefer to have a >mysterious, unpredictable, uncategorisable and wonderfully rich inconsistent >Mythos world. I agree partially, but not entirely. The Mythos is best thought of as inconsistent as a set of myths might be, but inconsistency shouldn't form its very foundation. The idea behind Lovecraft's fiction, if we choose this as our model, is piecing together bits of information to form a terrifying picture. If the setting is too inconsistent, it merely becomes confusing rather than horrible. Some sense of continuity has to be maintained, in the same way that you can't have a character living in Spokane one adventure and in New York the next without some explanation. >OK, apologies for the rant. However I believe my point is valid. I have observed >DG being slated for its rather novel approach to the Mythos. Many years ago I >used to hear similar barbs directed at the original Illuminati game, at Ramsay >Campbell, at the Arkham board game, at anything not suitable to the sad >mindset. To all such critical persons I make no apologies for shouting GET A >LIFE! Still, I can see their point. Everyone sets their limits on how they use the Mythos, and what they prefer to use. For some, using nothing but a few Lovecraft stories is enough, while others want to include everything and the kitchen sink. If someone is telling you that this is wrong, it's a shame, but there's no real way they can stop you... Yet I think that the Mythos can be used inappropriately. Actually, I might point to Illuminati (both the books and the game) as an example. Undoubtedly, the books are fun, and I've heard great things about the card game. But when you get down to it, Lovecraft's beings are included more because they've become underground icons rather than out of any real attempt to integrate them. Change Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu to Satan and Beelzebub, and the story hardly changes one whit. When you get down to it, someone put it in because it was cool. DG, as I've seen it, sits at an uneasy place between black ops, X-Files, and B-movie material on one side, and the Mythos on the other. The Mythos is wide and diverse, and people can read the fiction in different ways. Daniel Harms' DG campaign (whenever it starts up again) will probably be much different than yours. But if you've only included the Mythos because you think Cthulhu and the Necronomicon are neat, or you're using the CoC monsters listing as a Monster Manual, then you may want to re-assess your priorities. This is not aimed at anyone in particular. Just something to think about. ;-) Yrs., Daniel Harms Crotchety Young Bastard (predicts that someone will post to the DG list at some point telling us how many Y'golonacs he's killed) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 04:53:27 -0400 (EDT) From: The Man in Black Subject: Re: DG: Third World boobies On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Fco. Javier Rubio wrote: > The teats of the white woman appear on Playboy, the teats of the Black woman > appear on National Geographic, yep, it's true. Now I cannot just sit idly by while the mammaries of the female persuasion are woefully and inadequately described in such a fashion. As there are many types of computer virii, guns to be fondled, and martial arts combos; so too are there the many and varied spendors of boobies, breasts, gazongas, juggs, melons, titties, tits and yummies. Each seperate type differing in categories such as size, firmness, texture, shape and nipplality. One cannot go throwing around such improper generalizations. Clearly, much has to be learned about the subject of the Boulders in the "Over the Shoulder Boulder Holders (TM)" and their direct relationship to Delta Green through Whole Earth Enterprises' breast cancer inducing line of lingerie. Another horrifying and threatening connection between the Silicon/Saline/Shoggoth conspiracy and the desire to acquire such jiggly monstrosities is instilled by the training bra stuffing sorcery ritualized by the Teese Tissue Corporation. I will cease to go into detail about the fertile spawning terror that sports bras and halter tops can induce on the warm summer beaches of an unsuspecting world. > But, well, consider each place's culture. In "western" cultures, the > usual thing is to wear clothes. In some "primitive" cultures they do not, so > it is not so "shocking". I guess. Actually, it's just hot, and they don't have too many manufactured clothes. Maybe it's the humidity. The Man in Black is : implanting himself with a nice rack. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum Code Z: 233,1,42; 140,39,23; 91,3,7; 5,52,3. http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 06:05:54 -0400 (EDT) From: The Man in Black Subject: Re: DG: RE: Consistancy is the hobgoblin... On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, Daniel Harms, a known jabronie and three time mopery loser wrote: > Note: Daniel Harms makes his living from Mythos consisten... IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW YOU MAKE YOUR LIVING~! > The problem is, of course, is that anyone who purports to give you a > "definitive explanation" as to what Leng really is will be doing the same > thing - making it up. I do agree with you to some extent, but I also tend > toward what a friend of mine who reads the DG digests once said. He > commented that this list tends to the opposite extreme - many people don't > know the source material, so while there's a great deal of creativity, we > often spend much time re-inventing the wheel. I like to think of it as rebuilding the structures to be more consistent with recent popular science, and with some of our Ivory-Tower scum, in your face science. > but inconsistency shouldn't form its very foundation. The idea behind > Lovecraft's fiction, if we choose this as our model, is piecing together > bits of information to form a terrifying picture. If the setting is too > inconsistent, it merely becomes confusing rather than horrible. Some > sense of continuity has to be maintained, in the same way that you can't > have a character living in Spokane one adventure and in New York the > next without some explanation. What if piecing together information reveals the inconsistency of reality? Surely this would be cause for a SAN roll. Perhaps a single Investigator is going insane, with the surreal belief and confirmation of others merely being facets of this insanity, without even the knowledge of the players. A sadistic Keeper could move cities on an Investigator without explanation, and leave it as an unsolvable mystery. Worse this inconsistency could be at the heart of a campaign centered around Carcosa. As a sideline, I would like to propose that "Carcosa Mythos" be used to refer to the whole King in Yellow business, while the Hastur Mythos remain the term for the 5% Byakee summoning Lake Blob entity. This would prevent some confusion among those familiar with KiY, but not DG:CD. > Change Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu to Satan and Beelzebub, and the story > hardly changes one whit. When you get down to it, someone put it in > because it was cool. INWO (Illuminati:New World Order) put Servants of Cthulhu in there because SJG was copying the Illuminatus trilogy and Chaosium. Both the Wilson novels and INWO were meant as satire, not setting out to add to the Mythos. This is perfectly proper, in addition to being "cool" (it's actually Kewl, but I'll let you go this time) > But if you've only included the Mythos because you think Cthulhu and the > Necronomicon are neat, or you're using the CoC monsters listing as a > Monster Manual, then you may want to re-assess your priorities. CORRECTION* Cthulhu and Pals were never listed in any edition of T$R and now WotC's Monster Manual. They only existed in the first edition of Dieties and Demigods, and were removed for legal reasons. HASTUR~! Now then on to other matters... I think the primary difficulty is that "Mythos" is a subjective term, like "Dweeb." Now while there is a readily definable area of Dweebness, there is also a fuzzy boundary where Dweebness is unclear. For example, no one would doubt that Daniel Harms is a total Dweeb. Whether or not said individual is the blind idiot Dweeb at the center of all Dweebness remains to be seen. However, let us take into account the case of John Tynes, who may or may not be a Dweeb. Certainly many people, perhaps the great majority of people, consider this individual to be a Dweeb. Some might even go so far as to suggest that Tynes is among the most premienent Dweebs ever to have ascended the pedestal of Dweebness. Other might disagree and maintain that Johnny Pagan is rather of the genus Buttmunch. Still others might hold forth that Mr. John Tynes, M.A., esq., Notary Public and D.DS; is wholly consumed by both categories. These subjective factors are also prone to dynamic change (much better than the stagnant change we used to have). Perhaps one day Ms. Harms will emerge from the silent blackness of the deepest depths of Dweebness and become known only as a mere Choad-Smoker. Perhaps some far off time Tynes will be removed from the list of Big Ol' Bedwetting Doody Heads and once again be able to raise his head in retail mattress establishments - once the restraining orders expire that is. The point being that what little Mythos scholars there are, have yet to establish criteria for what constitutes the very body of their work. Definitions are the basis of language and literary criticism, and these have yet to be agreed upon. Clearly this is a matter which should be left to myself and my cronies. This conclusion is based not only on our obvious correctness, but also our vastly superior firepower. Anyone who wishes to make their opposing viewpoint known is encouraged to make an appointment with the Gunfondlers' Proving Grounds desk which is open 24/7. > Daniel Harms > Crotchety Young Bastard > (predicts that someone will post to the DG list at some point telling us > how many Y'golonacs he's killed) I'll bite. I killed 'em all! Gotta kill 'em all! Gotta kill 'em all! The Man in Black is : now hunting Pokemon. Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum Code Z: 233,1,42; 140,39,23; 91,3,7; 5,52,3. http://www.carnwyffa.u-net.com [EMERALD HAMMER] ------------------------------ End of deltagreen-digest V2 #44 *******************************