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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Ascension Address

This morning, you got up, ate your breakfast, hopefully brushed your teeth, and probably got ready to go to work, school, or whatever it is you do. While you were doing so, the mail thudded onto your mat.

Between the bills, circulars, bank statements and other rubbish was an unmarked envelope. Inside it was an invitation, and a set of directions to an address in Ealing, West London. There was probably a pair of plane tickets, as well, and a signed exemption from whatever it is you do from your boss, or headmaster, or parole officer, or whatever. Stick with me here.

You got on the plane, or possibly train, or maybe even just the #207 bus, and headed towards the address on the card. By curious coincidence, you all arrive at exactly the same time.

The door is open. Immediately inside is a dark stairway, leading down to the cellar.

You feel your way down, warily. At the bottom is a rough, wooden door. You push it open.

Fortunately, the room beyond is well-lit, as your growing expectations were both worrying and, it had to be said, quite predictable. In the centre of the room is a large, round table, covered in all sorts; the walls are stacked with shelves, most of which are laden with mouldering game boxes. At the opposite end of the table sits a guy.

“Hi,” he says, “I’m Josh. I was going to do a Western dynasty – y’know, Cowboys and Indians - but I realised we’ve done a lot of genre dynasties and, well, all I really want to do is just play a few games. So I thought I’d invite you guys all round and we would see what we could do.”

You cast your eye over the table.

“Unfortunately,” continues Josh, “this room had a bit of an accident, and everything’s been… well, see for yourself.”

The table is an utter mess. There are probably fifteen decks of cards – only five of which are conventional, and the rest consisting of Magic: The Gathering cards, the Chance and Community Chest cards from Monopoly, Tarot cards, soldier cards from Risk, question cards from Trivial Pursuits, even a few Pokemon CCG cards in the mix, and many more besides. There are hundreds of dice, of all colours, shapes and sizes – even a few Dragon Dice, which many of you wouldn’t have seen since TSP was bought out by Wizards years ago. There are chess pieces, Cluedo weapons, Warcraft miniatures and dominoes. And beneath all of those are the books – D&D, White Wolf and Noblis rulebooks, alternate rulesets for Risk, even a couple of Choose Your Own Adventure and Lone Wolf books. It is, quite simply, a stunning mess, and you can barely take it all in at once.

“Yeah,” said Josh, “there’s quite a lot. And I thought… well, yes, we could sort it all out. Or we could just cobble something together and see what happens. Your call, really.”

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Change all examples of “Philosopher-King” to “GM.” Change all examples of “Disciple” to “Player”. Repeal rules 10-25.

Also, can someone less technologically inept than me change the colour schemes? Thanks!