Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/13/kickstarting-a-new-edition-of-4.html
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Just read Saladin Ahmed’s Tweets about V&V:
That would have been a cool campaign to play in!
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Surely Car Wars used square-gridded paper?
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I always liked Jeff (and Manda) Dee’s later RPG, TWERPS. While obviously a parody of the then-popular GURPS, it is actually a surprisingly playable rules-lite RPG published a decade or so before the rules-lite thing became a fad.
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It did, to the best of my recollections.
Not that we played the game as much as we used it for inspiration for making kitbash cars from the sale bin at the hobby shop.
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For a touch of perspective and history:
This is the gaming system GRRM and friends were playing when he and they decided writing the character fiction was as much fun as rolling dice and created the Wild Cards series of novels, and I really believe that no Wild Cards = No GoT.
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Did not know that!
I totally loved the first few Wild Cards collections. Really looking forward to the TV series.
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I’ve wanted to see something like that since the late 80’s when I picked up the books! I really hope they work out the rights issues with some of the old favorites. Everything goes better with Croyd Crenson.
The Sleeper is probably the most viable character for making a show.
Everyone else is either too high in melodrama or too deep in depravity or just too expensive in FX. America does not want to see a fat telekinetic in a dramatically sympathetic lead role, nor do they want an effeminate alien lothario as a lead.
Basically take the base personality they gave Constantine then make him a methamphetamine addict. Make him a part time detective for hire/fixer and a thief. Then build the WC universe around him.
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Car War - Grid 1"=15 ft
Perhaps he was thinking Ogre where 1 Hex = 1KM (i believe)
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Isn’t that already Jay Ackroyd? Another very viable character who can be easily done for TV. Even his powers are simple from an FX point of view.
I never considered Tachyon as the main character as much as a walking MacGuffin. Things revolve around him, but he is seldom the main mover of the plot.
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There’s a TV series coming?
I’ll give it a go. I had all the books back in the day. Probably the first book series I ever particularly looked for and bought the new books on sight.
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Popinjay was a real detective and he’d be great in the right story with the right cast (like that actor who can shape change) but he’s not terrible compelling as a character.
Croyd is interesting no matter what he’s doing. With The Sleeper the situation can be mundane and completely relatable but interesting as hell because the person we’re observing is interesting as hell.
And Jay was a primary in only a couple of stories (at least in the original volume) and not mentioned much in the rest of the work but Crenson is legend. When he re-infected half of J-Town that’s worthy of an entire second season right there.
For thinking of a lead I went with the list of characters who carried multiple good stories and/or had entire books with them as protagonist, and who were utilized by multiple authors.
Tachyon (Could work as a Greg House character, but that show already happened)
Captain Tripps (I’d love it, but no fucking way would it happen)
The Sleeper
The Turtle (I love him, you love him. How much of his actual story is internal self loathing, and how do you make a TV show out of that?)
Shad (great character and could work as well as CC, but less well known)
Fortunato (a pimp mystic that looks like Sinestro when he retains semen. You have to be kidding me.)
Modular Man (sympathetic, but most of his story is about him learning to bone and an abusive creator. Good for one plot arc. Not much else)
Yeoman (Too much like Arrow and Daredevil)
Now there are plenty of characters worthy of a show, like Father Squid would be a great center of attention protagonist or Hiram Worchester playing the same role in his restaurant rather than in a Jokertown church of Christ the Joker. Even the original Aces like Golden Boy and Braintrust and Envoy and Black Eagle would be great in a retro show that leads up to the HUAC shit.
Who will play Jetboy for the twenty minutes where he bravely did the wrong thing?
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Sympatico. There is nothing I can add. You hit the nail right on the head there.
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That really means a lot to me. Sincerity does not convey well online, but I mean that.
I’m on a roll. I got peer compliments on a new joke last night and now a peer compliment on something else I’m passionate about. I might grow an actual ego to replace the one I pretend to have on the internet.
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now I have to go and find where I saved these eBooks i found on some Russian server so many years ago…
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Car Wars used a 1/4" grid. Cory may be recalling GURPS Autoduel which, IIRC, used a hex grid.
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Really crunchy interview with the game’s creators:
I got tapped to write a space adventures book for the next stretch goal.
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