From owner-in_nomine-digest@LISTS.IO.COM Thu Oct 9 20:16:41 1997 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id UAA06144 for ; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:16:41 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) id TAA09288 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:46:07 -0500 Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:46:07 -0500 Message-Id: <199710100046.TAA09288@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@LISTS.IO.COM (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@LISTS.IO.COM Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #398 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@LISTS.IO.COM Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@LISTS.IO.COM Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@LISTS.IO.COM Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Thursday, October 9 1997 Volume 01 : Number 398 In this digest: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> On playing demons Re: IN> [FICTION] Chess Game Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies IN> The Aztecs IN> Bast Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> Bast Re: IN> Tethers to Janus or Valefor Re: IN> On playing demons Re: IN> backwards Re: IN> Bast Re: IN> What do we mean when we say "evil"? Re: IN> What do we mean when we say "evil"? Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> On playing demons Re: IN> Andre's Vessels Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> Bast Re: IN> On Playing Evil Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:03:07 -0500 (CDT) From: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin) Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies >On Oct 9, 3:11am, Thomas Davidson wrote: >> Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies >> On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Redneck Gaijin wrote: >> >> > What movie would any given Superior go to watch? >> > >> >[sniperooni!] >> > SAMINGA - Doesn't go. Doesn't care. Until they do a documentary about every >> > possible way to kill a man, he could care less about how the movies show >> > them- ugh!- living. >> > > Also the possibly-non-existant snuff films that you always >hear about. Numerous zombie movies also spring to mind. Nearly >any movie where everyone dies in the end would be right up his >alley. > If you collected the last half hours from four such films and strung them together, I could see this. Saminga wouldn't even care that the plot made absolutely no sense. Otherwise, though, he'd walk out (or alternately kill everyone else in the audience) in the first half hour, bored and disgusted. "It's been ten whole minutes!! Where's the corpses?" Redneck Kris Overstreet, will write for food... | "Don't tell me, I'm keen to http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck | guess... you only know how c/o White Lightning Productions | to play fighting games, right?" http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/ | --- Baal, playing Super Puzzle Webmaster for Antarctic Press | Fighter Turbo with Michael http://www.antarctic-press.com/ | ***QUESTION EVERYTHING*** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:36:19 -0500 (CDT) From: Shadowcat Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, cd skogsberg wrote: > Redneck Gaijin wrote: > > > What movie would any given Superior go to watch? > ----snip---- > > BELETH - Anything by Wes Craven. > > _From Beyond_ by Stuart Gordon, based on the HPL story by the same > name. PPPPLLLLEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEE. Don't mention HPL and that piece of Drek in the same sentence. I have read the story (Goddes I have the bloody origanal pulp), and the movie bares NO relation to the story. Don't get me wrong it was a fun piece of Drek, but it wasn't Lovecraft. For Beleth I would sugest any of the Clive Barker stuff, granted a lot of this is also Name only fodder, but it is fun. "Lord of Illusions" is fun in both formats. If you haven't read the origanal story you should. It would make a great scenario for an In Nomine session. > > SAMINGA - Doesn't go. Doesn't care. Until they do a documentary > > about every possible way to kill a man, he could care less about how > > the movies show them- ugh!- living. > > _Re-Animator_, also by Stuart Gordon, also based on the HPL story by > the same name. Medical student injects glowing serum into corpses, > re-animating them as zombies. A really gory b-horror flick. This one also had lillte or no relationship to the origanal. Read the novella, it is much better, and a lot creepier. Herbert DOES NOT come off as innocent in the book. Shadowcat All cats may look upon a king. No comment on the Queen ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:09:29 -0500 (CDT) From: redneck@txdirect.net (Redneck Gaijin) Subject: Re: IN> On playing demons >Jesus. > >Okay, you win. > >You are eviller then I am. > >For now. > >(Fantastic story, by the way.) > Well, you tend to go more for the grossout factor, the corporeal evil you might say. 'Fear not he who harms the body and not the spirit' is my motto. Every being has their own inner struggle, whether or not they know it. One of my favorite writing tricks is to plunk a character into a situation where they have to confront this struggle head on. I had a point when I started, but it's irrelevant now. }:-{D Thanks for the warm fuzzy. Redneck Kris Overstreet, will write for food... | "Don't tell me, I'm keen to http://www.txdirect.net/users/redneck | guess... you only know how c/o White Lightning Productions | to play fighting games, right?" http://www.jurai.net/~redneck/wlp/ | --- Baal, playing Super Puzzle Webmaster for Antarctic Press | Fighter Turbo with Michael http://www.antarctic-press.com/ | ***QUESTION EVERYTHING*** ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:50:07 -0500 (CDT) From: Shadowcat Subject: Re: IN> [FICTION] Chess Game On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Kingsley Lintz wrote: > > sexually active Servitor of Creation (i. e. all of them). > Exactly. Anyone you can that casually say, "i.e. all of them" > about, is too predictable. > > What about the sexually active Seraph of Yves. "This is going to > be the best orgasm of your life..." > Or of Michael. "No, I WON'T put the feather duster down. Hey, > all's fair, and all that..." > Or of David. "I'm sorry, Tod..I've just never been able to enjoy > it with only one person. Let's get Chris and Cheryl and Claire and Bob > over here and party." > Or Jean. "Hey, we've got to try out this new toy!" > Or Marc. "Strip poker, anyone?" (I'm willing to bet that Seraph > of Trade attunement works just dandy for gambling...look someone in the > eye and know -exactly- how high they're willing to go on this hand...as if > bluffing Seraphim wasn't bad enough normally.) And don't forget the serephs of Jordi. If you have ever seen a dolphin, thay are the HORNIEST animals in creation. Even cats lose interest sometimes, and Dolphins will even INITATE sex with humans. Shadowcat All cats may look upon a king. No comment on the Queen ;-) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 12:41:53 -0500 (CDT) From: Dorothy Bixler Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Redneck Gaijin wrote: > What movie would any given Superior go to watch? (snip) > > SAMINGA - Doesn't go. Doesn't care. Until they do a documentary about every > possible way to kill a man, he could care less about how the movies show > them- ugh!- living. > For now, he sits at home and watches Faces of Death (all of them) over and over again, laughing at the good parts... > VAPULA - Species. (Hmmm, that looks familiar.... must check my notes and see > if someone's been smuggling copies to Burbank....) Are Donald and I the only ones who's given Vap the vessel Queen Alien/6? > > > *Dorothy Michelle Bixler * mudmh10@ecom.ecn.bgu.edu* "Gidget, have you been laying with the Horned One again?" -MST3K's Mike from "The Thing the Couldn't Die" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 14:13:23 -0400 From: johnk@ascc01.ascc.lucent.com (John Karakash - Lucent ASCC) Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies > > (Oh, btw, if you're a GWAR fan, I understand that the new Ragnarok video is > > out, and pretty damn funny. Flattus hogs the camera half the time. I'm > > going to try to mooch a free copy out of Brad (Jizmak) when I go to the > > Cleveland show on Halloween.) > > *sigh* I'd love to catch one of their shows some day, but most of the > other fans scare me. ;'} The best time to catch them (or rather catch a face full of red water) is at a con, like Dragon*Con. The fan are usually less rabid (or have more up-to-date shots). The shows aren't quite as wild, though. - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ |John Karakash - Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T) | | (919)380-4629 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 11:24:35 -0700 From: Tony Zbaraschuk Subject: IN> The Aztecs Martin Leuschen inquired: "... but being forced into the Marches while the European powers devastated their followers ..." - _The Marches_, on the Aztec Gods You mean, aside from Uriel's purge taking place in the eighth century and the Europeans not pushing aside the Aztecs until the sixteenth? Tony Z Special Collections Librarian & Archivist E-mail: tzbarasc@lasierra.edu La Sierra University Et vocavit Deus, "Fiat lux!" ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:52:30 -0500 (CDT) From: Martin Leslie Leuschen Subject: IN> Bast ate: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 19:12:41 -0500 (CDT) From: Shadowcat Subject: Re: IN> Bast >On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, Martin Leslie Leuschen wrote: > >> _The Marches_ claims Bast is slowly fading away. I find this strange, >> considering the amount of cat-fanatics there are out there. > > She isn't faiding away, she just doesn't deal with humans all >that much. Her true followers, the felines, are keeping her in more then >enough essence. I still think that Cherubs of Jordi are just former >sublings of Bast that she decided to loan out. Maybe in your or my campaigns, but: "the rest, like Anubis and Bast, are slowly fading away for a[athy and lack of worship" - _the Marches_, p103 I was a little bit miffed - I've always sorta liked Bast. (Cats and women are both wonderful things...) Hey, wierd thought - maybe the Egyptian Pantheon is getting stray Essence from the "Furry" crowd - Bast more than most. Regards, Martin Leuschen martinl@rice.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 14:53:22 -0400 From: Highway Star Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies At 14:13 -0400 10/9/97, John Karakash - Lucent ASCC wrote: > The best time to catch them (or rather catch a face full of >red water) is at a con, like Dragon*Con. The fan are usually less >rabid (or have more up-to-date shots). The shows aren't quite as >wild, though. I saw them twice in Atlanta that weekend; the night before at the Cotton Club (where the driver of their tour bus kicked me off 'cause I was sick from too many drinks, and me and my friend Kellie had to walk to the wrong hotel, then take a cab to their hotel, where I slept on GWAR's air conditioner). They spray about the same amount of stuff into a smaller crowd during a shorter show at D*C. I got drenched, but I think that RoboSleazy was aiming for me.:) I'm definitely going back next year; is anybody considering going, and willing to run a game of In Nomine? Hell, I might even drag some of the guys in GWAR into it, if they have time...:) (The fans are more sedate there, but weirder; that was the only place I've seen a bouncer wearing leather armor, and people sitting in seats to watch a GWAR show.) SeanMike part time GWAR slave (i.e., I work for their costumes, I get free tickets to concerts and free t-shirts, we all drink lots) - -- Sean Michael Whipkey, smw4s@virginia.edu Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, Publications Div. 804/924-4185 (or -4188) voicenet, 804/982-5536 fax http://www.virginia.edu/~cpserv/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 09 Oct 1997 15:10:51 -0500 From: Earl Wajenberg Subject: Re: IN> Bast Martin Leslie Leuschen quoted: > "the rest, like Anubis and Bast, are slowly fading away for a[athy and > lack of worship" - _the Marches_, p103 I suspect this may be an allusion to the appearances of Bast in "Season of Mists," "Short Lives," and the funerary scenes in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comics. There, too, she has fallen on hard times. And, as in IN, the pagan gods are creatures of the dreaming, arising from it and ultimately returning to it (though there is a hint that dead gods have an afterlife of their own, beyond the dreaming). Earl W. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 16:11:11 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Tethers to Janus or Valefor At 9:23 PM -0500 10/8/97, Redneck Gaijin wrote: >Here's a corundrum for Those Who Know. > >A Tether has a Seneschal to watch over it, right? > >No Seneschal, no Tether. I'm not sure there's canon on that yet. You can certainly have "proto-Tethers" that haven't been assigned a Seneschal (there's on in Night Music, that a Servitor of Vaps discovered). >However, servitors of Janus and Valefor cannot stay in the same area (let's >say a twenty mile radius, since 'area' isn't specified anywhere in the IN >Rulebook). > >How can a Servitor of either of these Superiors anchor and consecrate a >Tether, much less stick around to watch over it? Well, lemme think. (As a GM here, sitting on my LE hat.) #1: They can do it, but they can only stay at it 3 days in a row. They may spend most of their time elsewhere, circulating, while others of their Superior watch over it. (Musical Seneschals, ah, the fun.) #2: They have mobile Tethers. (Check out the Marches for an example in Blood and Circuses.) #3: There are some places that are just *so* very in-tune with the Word that the Seneschal doesn't have to move -- like the top of Mount Washington, in NH. (The winds get *how* fast up there??) #4: The Seneschal can spend most of his time in *Heaven* without problem. He bops around upstairs to his Heart's content, and if there's a problem at the Tether, he bops right back down to deal with it. (This also would want assistants, though.) How's that? - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 16:13:32 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> On playing demons At 12:02 AM -0400 10/9/97, Casca wrote: >On Wed, 8 Oct 1997, Redneck Gaijin wrote: > >> In the IN universe, is it really -possible- to have a final victory? >[snip] >> --- Dark Victory, a story of After the Apocalypse [...] >Seriously, it was a great story. I may even use it, if I ever decide to >run a post-Armageddon chronicle. Wow. That would be an *interesting* sort of thing... Yeah... Who. The politics. The politics... >If you ever run a PBEM game, I want in. And at a minimum, I want to lurk! - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 13:01:39 -0700 (PDT) From: lugaid@seanet.com Subject: Re: IN> backwards On 1997-10-08 in_nomine-l@lists.io.com said to lugaid@seanet.com >Unfortunately, the best you are going to do (AFAIK) is the In Nomine >digests - I put some of my ideas on the list a while ago, as have >Oops and Em (and whoever posted the idea of Angels being demons that >God improved - I liked the idea, I forget your name). that would be me... i'm still playing with the idea, and with other ideas that have been posted... i still have time, since my gaming group hasn't gotten it together enough yet to actually meet and play... i'm *really* liking the idea of Janus and Valefor being the same entity... i'm working on trying to fit in the theory that he/they are Mercury in disguise (not that unlikely, really)... Slan agus Beannachtai, Lugaid MacRobert The more you love the more you can love. No limits. - LL Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:57:12 -0400 (EDT) From: Emily Dresner Subject: Re: IN> Bast > Hey, wierd thought - maybe the Egyptian Pantheon is getting stray Essence > from the "Furry" crowd - Bast more than most. > MAYBE. As I go forth and torque people off... It's possible that a few like Bast and Bes are still getting essense in the original forms. But what I imagine for most of the Ennead and Ogdoad (Lower/Upper Egyptian Pantheons) is something a little different. The original Gods are getting essense in very small trickles from the people who still worship THEM in their pure forms - Archeologists, mainly. Some people who study Ancient Near Eastern cultures, that sort of thing. And anyone crazy enough to blow a year and a half of their lives to learn their crummy unreadable languages. :) And then there's a second, shadowy version of those that are remembered, showing up on Beleth's side of the Marches. Inspired from the "Egyptian Resurgance", they are dark shadowy versions of the Gods, who have found a way through pacts with demons of Fate to weave their names into spells and rituals used by so-called human magicians on Earth. Their names are remembered, their rituals are used, and they will obliterate the old Gods soon, and replace them with themselves, promising access to so-called ancient mysteries and powers of all kinds, just to get more worshippers and enforce their existance. A minor version of Ethereal warfare. Live in Ma'at, forever, indeed. I feel very bad for Ptah, myself. - - Em, who has never actually ever met Thoth, but who hears he's cool. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 16:28:18 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> What do we mean when we say "evil"? At 11:16 AM -0400 10/9/97, Gregory Littmann wrote: >> > > A point I *would* like to make is this: >> > > >> > > Damned souls are in Hell for a *reason*. They are evil - not just >> > > kinda bad, >> > >> > Where do kinda bad people go? >> >> They're reincarnated, according to canon. >> > Somehow I missed the roar of this canon. Where is it writ? p. 67, Predistination box, final paragraph. p. 67, "Physical Death, and After," first paragraph. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 16:23:32 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> What do we mean when we say "evil"? At 11:07 AM -0400 10/9/97, Gregory Littmann wrote: >> >> > Where do kinda bad people go? >> >> IN's hell doesn't exhibit this as much, yet, but Dante's Inferno has >> a wide range of "degrees" of damnation. The topmost level, Limbo, >> is actually quite pleasant, and lacks only the vision of God. >> >OTOH, the people in there weren't even kinda bad. They were all the >wonderful ancients who were luckless enough not to have had access to >Christianity. And who have wound up in the Marches in IN, I believe... - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:30:09 -0500 (CDT) From: Donald G Bixler Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies > I'm definitely going back next year; is anybody considering going, and > willing to run a game of In Nomine? Hell, I might even drag some of the > guys in GWAR into it, if they have time...:) Just where is Dragon*Con? (Virginia?) I've heard good things about it... Dotti and I are definitely going to do our best to get back to GenCon (and the demonic game will _not_ fall through again, dammit. I'll bring a club and herd you all there by threat of force if necessary.) I suppose we might theoretically be able to go to another con if it wasn't too inconvenient schedule-wise or expensive... > SeanMike > part time GWAR slave (i.e., I work for their costumes, I get free tickets > to concerts and free t-shirts, we all drink lots) Oops da Ogre, lucky @&*%$(!... mudgb4@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 17:41:50 -0400 From: johnk@ascc01.ascc.lucent.com (John Karakash - Lucent ASCC) Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies On Oct 9, 3:30pm, Donald G Bixler wrote: > Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies > > I'm definitely going back next year; is anybody considering going, and > > willing to run a game of In Nomine? Hell, I might even drag some of the > > guys in GWAR into it, if they have time...:) > > Just where is Dragon*Con? (Virginia?) I've heard good things about it... > Dotti and I are definitely going to do our best to get back to GenCon > (and the demonic game will _not_ fall through again, dammit. I'll > bring a club and herd you all there by threat of force if necessary.) I > suppose we might theoretically be able to go to another con if it wasn't > too inconvenient schedule-wise or expensive... Atlanta, Georgia, m'boy! I find it more fun that GenCon and it's an adult/subadult con. You are allowed to have adult events (and costumes), but there is stuff for all ages. The costume contest has adult-only sections, for example. - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ |John Karakash - Lucent Technologies (formerly AT&T) | | (919)380-4629 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 15:07:48 -0700 (PDT) From: lugaid@seanet.com Subject: Re: IN> On playing demons reading this thread, i just had a burst of insight... Heaven is suburbia, and Hell is a slum/inner city... in fact, for those of us who live in a city, Hell, as depicted, might not seem so awful, or even unfamiliar... not far away, there is the place where there is a fight at least every night... to the left, that's where the hookers hang out... and so on... always something going on, sometimes in your face, under your skin... Heaven, otoh, is the mind-numbingly bland and homogenized land of the ultra-secure yuppie world... of course, you are more certain of your place there, and chaos is not likely to intrude on your life... ok, so both are "but more so"... but, given this, then Demons are the "working class", and Angels are the "bourgeoisie"... a bourgeois Heaven... i've gotta stop listening to my hard mod friends... Slan agus Beannachtai, Lugaid MacRobert The Bible: based on a true story. The Exorcist: based on a true story. Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 17:12:42 -0500 (CDT) From: "Austin G. Loomis" Subject: Re: IN> Andre's Vessels On Thu, 9 Oct 1997, at 10:45:24 CDT, Martin Leslie Leuschen replied to my: > > >To Martin Leslie Leuschen: Thanks for listing all Andre's vessels, but I > > What I gave was just a start. Thats what I meant by the "..." > Somehow, I managed to look right through said ellipsis. Sorry. > >have to point out, as *the* unregistered SubGenius, that you forgot the > >Prairie Squid vessel. > > That I did. Sorry Austin - I should have remebered that one. Mea culpa, > mea culpa mea maxima culpa. > 'Sokay -- they're not widely known outside the SubGenius mythos, as witness your own next comment. > Hrmmm - ??:"Prairie squid?" Anything like the Prairie Oysters we have > back home? > In the immortal words of Nick Danger, Third Eye: "Maybe yes, maybe no." That is, the name was probably inspired by, but the similarities are mostly tangential. (For those of you who know not from prairie oysters, aka [Rocky] mountain oysters -- maintain your innocence. Martin's playing "Freak the Cityslickers" again.) All I can say without obliterating our presumed PG-13 rating is, check out the SubSITE of Slack at http://sunsite.unc.edu/subgenius which I *think* has some info on the tender cephalopod of the plains. Austin G. "See you at the ceremonial debeaking" Loomis, MiSTie #84029 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 18:27:46 -0500 (CDT) From: Donald G Bixler Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies > Gotta be careful here, Michael thinks his time was wasted with 'Any Which > Way But Loose.' Unless you get him really drunk... > On the other hand, he really identifies with Dirty Harry. "Did he spend six points of Essence or five? Well, do you feel lucky, punk?" > I'm not. RHPS was so weird, so wild, so -original,- only a human could have > come up with it. And it's not really sexual enough for Andre to have an > interest in it, so much as Kobal and Nybbas... and Eli. I dunno. We've got incest, bondage, S&M, MM, FF, and MF sex. That covers a lot of territory. And I certainly didn't suggest that he wrote the movie, merely enjoyed it. > >My vote would be Apocalypse Now. Baal does have a twisted sense of > >honor, remember? > > Damn, another 'wish I'd thought of it.' I'll take that as a compliment. > Shocker is in- then again, anything which inspires nightmares and > unreasoning terror is. Silence of the Lambs, OTOH, was a psychological > thriller, not a horror movie, and as such bored her stiff. Well, Shocker just had me laughing, but I know plenty of people who had Mr. Lector visit their dreams after watching Silence. Mmmm... Fava beans... > >> KRONOS - Hamlet. A royal family self destructs. Beautiful. > > > >How about Spellbinder? > > > Haven't seen it, so couldn't say. A cult of satanists set up a guy who thought he was being a hero. It ended with him charging to the "rescue" right into the trap/ceremony/sacrifice waiting area. I love a movie with a happy ending. ;'} > >Pretty close. I'd say whatever was the most current release from a big > >studio. > > No, it has to be especially insipid, overblown, and commercial. Well, that's not quite how his description sounded to me. It doesn't matter whether it's Masterpiece Theatre or Beavis and Butthead, as long as they're hooked to the boob tube (or what have you). Especially since all the important work is done through the commercials, anyway. > Definitely NOT. Christopher HATES anything which 'talks down' to kids, and > anything which takes advantage of kids- and Barney the commercial phenomenon > does both. *shrug* A bunch of kids playing happily with their cuddly imaginary friend while he tries to get in a bit of education sounds like something up Christopher's alley to me. > (notice total lack of smiley- I *despise* the Purple One) So do I. Of course, I don't have a very high opinion of Christopher either. > Redneck Oops da Ogre, how about the Muppet movies, then? mudgb4@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:05:54 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> Bast At 10:48 AM -0500 10/9/97, Martin Leslie Leuschen wrote: >_The Marches_ claims Bast is slowly fading away. I find this strange, >considering the amount of cat-fanatics there are out there. > >Or is Jordi just intercepting most of the Essence so generated? [...] >Beth, are you forgetting to send Bast some Essence every Tuesday? I don't *think* so. And stars know that there are little Bast statues and cat-tags (for luck) in the ads of my Cat Fancy magazine. (I wanna Bast Statue!) And I certainly swear by her... Part of it may be that she's having to work to reconfigure herself to receive Essence (that might otherwise go to the Angel of Cats?); my little deities dictionary says that she was "the personification of ointment" at one point. (Weeeeird.) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:33:38 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> On Playing Evil At 11:51 AM -0400 10/9/97, Gregory Littmann wrote: >> >> > >> >Its just that the way you put it above seemed to suggest that losing touch >> >with reality was on a continuum with enjoying playing an evil character, >> >> No, it's the other way around, or skew. There is the continum of >> "losing touch with reality" and when you put "plays evil characters" >> on it, is when you get the "too much." > >That much is fine, but it looks to me as if you take this model back >later. Hm? No, I just talk about it in different terms, presuming that this model is understood to be the one I'm working from. >> >that the person who goes out an *does* evil things is like the person who >> >pretends to *only more so*. >> >> Ah, but it *is* "only more so." Just as an eco-terrorist is a lover >> of nature, only more so. > >Whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat? You are being consistent, but I just don't >see how you get this. There is more to an eco-terrorist than just an >extreme love of nature. There are also certain views concerning human >beings in operation. True! But an eco-terrorist is still on the "love of nature" continuum, right? Humans are very complex creatures. Discussing 'em means one has to make a few allowances for gray areas that just can't be talked about without five paragraph sentences... >> Or a nympho is someone who enjoys sex, >> only "more so." (Or at least is *obsessed* with it...) > >A nympho is, yet. A rapist isn't. Did I say was? That's on the violence and control continuum, with a dash of "sex as control" thrown in. >> >This, naturally, bothered me. I enjoy >> >playing an evil character but am no more likely to go out and perform >> >attrocities than you are. >> >> Put any behavior on the continuum of "light-normal-enthusiastic- >> obsessive", and you'll get the same reaction from me. There's a point >> of "too much" for everything. > >But I can be as entustiastic-obsessive about predending to be evil as >anyone in the world without having the slightest enthusiasm for actually >*doing* evil. These are the things that I don't see as being on a >continuum. Oh, it's there -- it's just that you're on the *pretending* continuum, not the "Evil" continuum. If you were pretending so much that you didn't do homework, or neglected to eat, or didn't feed the cat, that's "too much." (And there are degrees of that, too!) If you went out *doing* Evil, you'd have gone to "too much" on the Evil-line. >> >> >> I think it's the "getting off on" phrasing. Without modifying >> >> >> circumstances, somebody who evidences pleasure in the concept >> >> >> of hurting others is a little odd. >> >> > >> >> >"Odd" seems an odd choice of words. >> >> >> >> Odd. Not normal. >> > >> >But this is the R.P.G. default. Violence is amazingly common in >> >role-playing games. Most sessions of most people's games will include >> >some fighting. >> >> But is the person obtain pleasure from the concept of *hurting* >> the enemy, or of "succeeding in the task"? If the goal is to >> toast all the orcs, then yes, there's pleasure to succeed -- but >> is it in the pain inflicted, or in sheparding your character to >> success? > > For some reason, achieving success tends to require toasting a bunch of >Orcs. Why? There is no reason why the G.M. can't set things up so that >success is best achieved through peaceful means. But problems that >require lashings of the old ultra-violent happen to be pretty popular. You're going off my point here. My point is that if, in a violent situation, someone wants to *increase* the violence, wants to get *detailed* about it, wants to *enjoy the concept of **HURTING** someone*, then it's probably justified for other people to look at him funny. If someone just goes through the violence like a videogame (Pac-man, say, where you eat the dots and the ghosts come back), then that's pretty well "normal". If somebody tries to talk their way out of the simulated violence, then that's possibly me! >> >> With lack of other referent points, maybe even dangerous. >> > >> >You need more than just enjoying the idea. You need the *reality* to >> >appeal to you. Its not like I'm a psychopath with a conscience, wanting >> >to hurt people all the time but held back by my outstanding moral nature. >> >I genuinetly don't want to gun people down in real life. This is >> >compatible with playing Doom until my eyes bleed. >> >> If you say so... But you're not seeing what I wrote -- >> *With lack of other referent points*. If all I knew of you is that >> you liked to play Doom until your eyes bled, then I might be a little >> alarmed or predisposed to consider you mildly threatening. However, >> I know that you like In Nomine, so obviously you're not totally evil. >> O;> > >:) I misunderstood what you meant by "lack of other reference points". >But my position was really just that there is nothing wrong with playing >the bad guy. And this seems compatible with what you want to maintain. So why are you arguing with me? O:> >> If you didn't know me, you might wonder at *my* deep dark corners. >> I *like* putting my fictional characters into troublesome circumstances. >> In the case of my In Nomine characters, I enjoy dragging them through >> Hell (or at least parts ofit). You should see the stuff I *don't* >> write down! I torment my characters, and/or they torment each other. >> Worried yet? > >Nope. Sorry. :> Ah, but you know more about me than just that. >> >...I just said that violence in R.P.G.s is the norm. Look at the >> >popularity of AD&D. Look at the endless books on guns and engines of >> >destruction that get churned out into R.P.G. stores. Look at the >> >majority of adventures that get published. Look at the equipment lists in >> >just about any game you care to mention and see how much of it it taken up >> >with weaponry. >> > >> > It is you and I who are the odd ones out, not those who play lots of >> >violent games. >> >> True, though by the time it's been sanitized down to die-rolls, I'm >> not sure it's the kind of violence that one worries about > >I agree, but I don't see why any other sort of violence *should* be more >worrying. Because somebody who takes obvious pleasure in something dark, in the violation of others, may be dangerous. If you don't know that they're "normal" on enough other continuum, you could get worried. (Okay, if *I* don't know that, etc.) If somebody goes around talking about how much they like fire, do you let them play with matches unsupervised? If I had a player in a game who wanted to A: play an evil character, and B: play an evil character *graphically*, and C: I had never seen that person play a *good* character, and D: I didn't know anything else about that person... I'd worry. It's the combination, you see. There's nothing wrong with A. B starts getting some of my squick-points (at the least, I might not want to play with this person, just from personal taste), C means this is *common* (which suggests, at a minimum, that the person may be playing a power-game to gross out the other players), and D means I don't know anything to make me think, "He's just being a munchkin. Whatever." >> -- we've seen >> enough violence of that nature to not be as worried. We know most people >> don't go around the bend from it. It's not a potential warning sign of >> "too much" of anything. > > Don't we also know that most people who play evil characters don't go >around the bend? Of course, it *is* a *potential* warning sign of "too >much". If someone liked loads of violence, then they might play games >with loads of violence. Yeah, and one should possibly go looking around to see if the person has *other* warning signs. And if they don't, then it's cool. If they do, then it *was* a warning sign. This isn't black and white here, this is shades of gray. Playing demons, even thoroughly evil demons, doesn't mean anything unless the person has other symptoms. But there's justification for others to *look* for those other symptoms -- it's called self-preservation. (Making up the symptoms to find is bad, though, of course.) >We just know that its not a potential sign that >needs to be taken very seriously - and I think that enjoying playing the >bad guy is another potential warning sign that doesn't doesn't need to be >taken so danged seriously. Playing the bad guy is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about somebody who plays a bad guy in a way that creeps me out. Just as I'd talk about somebody who came up to me in a bus stop and started talking about something that creeped me out. Or somebody who started giggling when talking about a dog hit by a car. >> Someone who evidences pleasure, not in slaying the orc with dice >> and removing the counter, but in torturing one for information... > > Why is killing a less awful thing to take pleasure in? With dice. With dice. Read every word I write. They're almost always chosen for a reason. (And because slaying something, *especially* in the abstract, is less morally reprehensible to myself, and many others in the US, than torture.) >> Someone who evidences pleasure in torturing "innocent civilians"... >> Without anything else to go by but *that*, well. > > The player gets to have their character torture someone whether >it is for a good cause in the game or a bad one. And, of course, the >player themself is *not* working for a good cause. They are just trying >to have fun in either case. So *their* decision looks morally on a par to >me. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm saying that it's a behavior that, if it were the *only* thing I knew about someone, I'd be worried about. Lemme put it this way, too: I'd be less concerned for my own safety around someone who said, "Okay, we torture the orc for the information. I roll a 8 on Interrogation. Does he make his Will roll?" than someone who said, "I take the poker and stir it around in the fire until it glows. Then I walk over and hold it in front of the orc's eye. Slowly, letting him feel the heat on his skin, I lower it down his face, lower, lower, until it's just below his belt. I grin at his fear, and then..." Knowing nothing else but that... Hey, I'm a socialized female. I'd worry, and I *have* had my character threaten nasty torture to an NPC. (He'd brainwiped her. We two females were the ones discussing monowire and vibroblades.) >> Motives and context is *everything* in figuring out where someone >> is on the "normal-too much" continuum of anything. And we're probably >> not going to have any sort of other consensus over email... >> >Hm. Methinks this is a hint that you are ready to see this thread die... > >O.K.. :) I'll work on it. But it should go into Email soon if it doesn't. - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:13:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Kim Foster Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies > >> (notice total lack of smiley- I *despise* the Purple One) > >So do I. Of course, I don't have a very high opinion of Christopher >either. > Whats the problem with Christopher? He's one of the more likeable AAs as I see them.... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 20:39:28 -0400 From: Elizabeth McCoy Subject: Re: IN> [FLUFF] Superiors at the Movies At 3:30 PM -0500 10/9/97, Donald G Bixler wrote: >> I'm definitely going back next year; is anybody considering going, and >> willing to run a game of In Nomine? Hell, I might even drag some of the >> guys in GWAR into it, if they have time...:) > >Just where is Dragon*Con? (Virginia?) I've heard good things about it... >Dotti and I are definitely going to do our best to get back to GenCon >(and the demonic game will _not_ fall through again, dammit. I'll >bring a club and herd you all there by threat of force if necessary.) (*I* went looking for you... And I had K.K.'s character sheet with me, too. ) - --emccoy@nh.ultranet.com // arcangel@io.com In Nomine Line Editor GURPS, Roleplayers, In Nomine stuff; Art: http://www.io.com/~arcangel/ ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #398 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.