My Geekiness Knows No Bounds. Good Thing I'll Be Allowed To Bring It On The Airplane.

[dr_pretentious]

Is it just me, or does the TSA's list of permitted and forbidden carry-on items read like the equipment chapter of a role-playing game handbook? It was when I got to the section that lists ice axes, swords, and sabers--none of which are permissible for your carry-on, but all of which could be checked in your suitcase--that I started having Dungeons & Dragons flashbacks. Maybe it would be easier to explain to the American public why they can't bring blasting caps in their luggage if the TSA told them the caps would cause, I don't know, 2D6 of damage?

If I were still in the Game Master business, I'd be inspired to run a one-shot or maybe three-session game set in an airport, in which players could only equip their characters with items from the TSA permitted and prohibited item list. What can you do to a shoggoth with a crochet needle, hair straightening gel, and a cricket bat? The GURPS combat system is a pain in the butt to run, but Call of Cthulhu would work just fine.

Comments

[siobhra.livejournal.com]

I have used blasting caps. I would not rate them quite 1D6 damage. You can lose a few fingers but they are not much more than a firecraker.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how bad those actually were. Okay, so they wouldn't do much good against a shoggoth, but they might buy you a couple of minutes against a zombie.

[red-haired-girl.livejournal.com]

This should be part of an update to Douglas Adam's "Bureaucracy" game...

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'll have to check that out.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Be careful trying to bring your geekiness on the plane. TSA officials have told people they couldn't bring "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" on a plane, nor have they permitted certain mecha-inspired T-shirts. Can't have a drawing of a robot carrying a gun!

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I was going to type, "Oh, you have got to be kidding", and then I realised how sad it was that I wasn't actually that shocked.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I'm shocked, but motherhood may be mellowing me. I no longer want to demand heads on pikes, or even that heads roll, about this kind of thing. Oubliettes for all of Bush's appointees would now suffice.

It's a good thing I'm not in charge, isn't it?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

::several seconds of boggling and sputtering::

I guess my capacity for shock has survived the Bush administration. I didn't know I was still that shockable.

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

Mind you, it hasn't been a *consistent* policy of turning away people with books about Azkaban, or with mecha T-shirts.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Sort of the way it hasn't been a consistent policy of booting people off planes for nursing their babies. And here I thought my bosom was my only major hazard.

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

What you need is a Somebody Else's Problem field. When Critter was about 9 months old, she used to insist on holding the contralateral breast while she was nursing and she hated having a blanket over her head. So there I was, on a plane, nursing a toddler in clear view, with the other side of the bra open so the kid could hold on...the flight attendant passed me without saying a word. I concluded that I looked SO bizarre that the SEP kicked in and she couldn't see me at all.

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'll bite. Why? I know some of the Harry Potter books are large, but surely they aren't large enough to be considered a weapon. I doubt they'd do 1d4 damage even if brought down on someone's head. And the T-shirt...er? TSA can't tell a drawing of a gun from a real one? I know certain characters had issues with that in Closing Arguments, but really...

[jeneralist.livejournal.com]

My bad: the fellow who was told he couldn't board the plane because of his T-shirt was in the UK, not the US: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7431640.stm

and the guy who had his Harry Potter book inspected for 20 minutes was eventually allowed to board: http://www.citypaper.net/articles/101801/news.godfrey.shtml
Turns out that his first selection for flight-time reading was a novel that had a picture of a hand holding dynamite on the cover; he was told he couldn't board the plane. Then he changed his flight and his book, and watched as the TSA folks carefully inspected Prisoner of Azkaban.

[leapfaith.livejournal.com]

So you're permanently out of the GM business? Alas... I'd been really curious about what it would be like to run a character in Middle Earth, courtesy of a GM who really cares about the setting.

The equipment and services players' characters can purchase can be an amusing topic. I was especially amused by the GM who allowed his characters to purchase a Helm of Teleportation for what the DM's Guide said it should cost. While exorbitant, I suspect it ought to cost about as much as any competent thief thinks she can lift from public treasuries...

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I don't know about permanently, but trying to game while anyone in the party is on baby duty was really, really hard when Dan was GMing something small with D&R and me. I can't imagine how much harder it would be if the GM herself had a baby, even if the other parent were on primary baby duty.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Dthon tells of a GM who did a "avatar" style game, and you had the count of ten to collect what you got to take before you went where you were going.

Hell of a thing.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I can picture the players flipping pages through the manual and scribbling item names down frantically.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

No, no I mean you really had to go get it - and it had to be real. Eventually someone accidentally destroyed something (parent related) and that was the end of it.

[oldsma.livejournal.com]

Didn't the Egyptian priests use something like a crochet hook to get brains out through the nasal cavity in the mummification process?

MAO

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

They did, but it might be more challenging with a moving target.

[oldsma.livejournal.com]

That is what the hair-straightening gel is for--you use that in their eyes to stop them, then deploy the brain hook.

The cricket bat, of course, would be used in case you wanted to stop a group of people from the UK or South Asia. If you start a match, they will be out of your way for several days.

MAO

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

For bonus points, you could run the game in an airport. Or, if it's a very small game, on an airplane. Bets on whether you'd win a free F14 escort to the nearest airport as soon as the flight attendant heard someone say, "Then I spray the hair gel on him and remove his brain with a crochet hook"?

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Ah, but if the plane belongs to an airline based in the UK or South Asia, you can just offer the flight attendant the use of your cricket bat...

[happy-dr-friend.livejournal.com]

Just make sure that it isn't the flight attendant from Kricket or the universe will end.