How 93% of Religions are Named
"Uh, it's called Zargism is mostly because Entropyism sounded stupid, I guess..."
Bryce : hihabnabitmkiii : Hi.
Bryce : Josh has a young cousin named Andrew. I think I've mentioned him; he plays the game well enough and is usually pretty quiet. Yesterday he GM'd.
habnabitmkiii : Hehe.
Bryce : Well, {Generally} quiet and unobtrusive characterized his GM'ing as much as his playing. The group started making characters. I had already made a character for his game because he was supposed to have it for a couple weeks now.
Space Gnome made a character very quickly. It was awesome, of course; I don't remember the details but yes, the character was a space gnome.
Josh, meanwhile, messed around instead of confronting that blank character sheet.
He went and watched TV with the girl who watches the family's baby when they aren't home. He played on the computer. He made semi-threatening remarks towards the GM's gamecube-mooching friends. Pretty much everything except make a character.
The rest of us sat around at the table. Josh ignored my tactful requests that he sit down and play and stop wasting our time; that didn't work and since I wasn't GM there wasn't much I could do about it.
So I tried to learn ancient Greek while we waited for him. I couldn't find any of the words I wanted to use in reference to Josh in the book I was using, but I'm sure they are out there. Someday.
habnabitmkiii : What words were those?
Bryce : Hmm. Good point, there really isn't a specific and succinct word for "a person who wastes the time of other people who have gathered at a specific time for a specific activity, not merely by being late, but by actively doing other things while the persons he irritates are plainly waiting for him and have made numerous remarks to that affect."
I suppose the word "ass" comes close, but it is:
(1) far too general;
(2) too vulgar for my liking; and
(3) in this case it would be an insult to the subgenus Asinus.
Anyhow... I tried to get Andrew (Josh's brother) to take action. Giving him the gavel-of-GMship, I suggested he use it to beat some asininity from his sibling.
I expected him to take to this with relish, but instead he whacked girl-who-watches-babies-and-television. Girl-who-watches-babies-and-television had mercy on him on account of his tender years.
habnabitmkiii : How old is he?
Bryce : Like 12, I think; Girl-who-watches-babies-and-television is 17 or 18.
habnabitmkiii : Ah.
Bryce : Anyway, we gave up on getting Josh to play until this comedian who was on TV was done. So I went and watched television with Josh and girl-who-watches-television. It wasn't even that funny, sigh. So, finally, that was over; Josh was duly roped in and made to make a character.
The question of "How much XP do we start with?" naturally came up. I told Andrew that I had assumed that he would give the 50 XP specified in the rules when I made my character, if he was going to give more than the default, I could just add the difference. (This is not untypical practice.)
So sooner had I asked this than Josh "helpfully" suggests: "Make it 40. We should start with 40."
Thankfully, Andrew did not listen to the voice of Josh and his thinly veiled attempt to make things difficult for me; we got 75.
There was some spending of XP by Space Gnome and me. Josh didn't get very far before asking: "Can I be a Jedi?"
GM: "No! You can't be a Jedi."
Me: "Yeah, it takes years of training to become a Jedi - these are starting characters."
Josh: "But I let you be a ninja."
Andrew boy-who-speaketh-wisdom: "No."
Josh: "Well, can I be his [Space Gnome's Jedi] apprentice?"
Space Gnome: "But then I'd need years of training."
Bryce : This went on for a few moments, in which things such as if it was possible to become a Jedi in the game, and if a Jedi was basically a really advanced swordsman class for game purposes, etc, and Space Gnome saying that if it were possible he would become a Sith to spite Josh. (Josh wasn't really popular at the moment, presumably on account of the delay.)
Eventually, he gave up on the whole Jedi thing and made a space gnome character. (I guess Space Gnome converted him to Spacegnomeism as the one true path to ultimate munchkin power, but to be honest I don't remember.)
We started out, at length, in a shop. I have no idea why exactly; the GM gave no explaination as to how we got there, or if we were already a group.
I quickly discovered that we were not. Space Gnome's character seemed to have a psychotic compulsion to wave his lightsaber (yes, we started with lightsabers, bad sign) in the face of innocent flying android characters.
Okay, so the innocent flying android creature may have been staying in character as a Preacher by trying to convert him to Zargism, but still.
So, we go to the shop, and promptly set about discovering if it is a magical shop that has rare universe-conquering artifacts. After this happens once, there is an inclination to check every shop under a new GM, apparently... it turned out to be merely a very good shop and not one of legendary status.
So we got some powerful grenades and psipacks, but no enchanted mind-control rocks. Pity :D
Trying to stay in character, I tried to convert Josh's character to Zargism.
Zargism, you see, is a new religious movement involving "Zarg, Lord of Entropy". Why he is called "Zarg" I don't know, other than it sounded cool when I realized that I had forgotten to make up any background on this character or the religion that he was supposed to be a preacher of.
habnabitmkiii : Haha.
Bryce : The basic teachings of Zargism are "whatever I come up with before rolling for Convincing", such as "The power of Zarg grows stronger with passing time, verily, the increase of Zarg's power directs the Arrow of Time." "Zarg is the end of endings." Blah blah.
The doctrines of Zargism are: Follow me and shoot at stuff that I tell you to shoot at.
Critics may claim that this is a cynical scam religion, the Scientology of role-playing-game religions, but if any critics say that I'll have my character's disciples shoot them.
habnabitmkiii : So, who's Zarg?
Bryce : The Lord of Entropy or something. Maybe my character would know more if he had spent any skill points on "theology", but "dodging" and "acrobatics" seemed more important.
So far there are only three Zargists, but, to quote a Dilbert comic, "I have ambitious plans for brainwashing."
habnabitmkiii : Hehe.
Bryce : Josh's character has proved suprisingly resistant, perhaps because of the vaugely threatening way he acts towards his brother whenever I roll high on "trying to make him see that Zargism is the true path."
Anyhow, the group split up after the shop. I went looking for potential converts in the marketplace. A few good rolls later and I had a hobo and a grocer who was a psionist.
That's not much, I admit, but it's a start. You don't just go up to an army and say: "Hey, want to follow me and have a holy war?"; you have to build up these things gradually, I guess.
Meanwhile, Space Gnome started walking across the planet to find a lightsaber shop that was said to be (literally?) on the other side of the world.
habnabitmkiii : When did you come up with Zargism? Just this game?
Bryce : Yes, seriously. Previously I had a character who followed a religion that was opposite and worshiped energy, teaching that entropy was bad and to be avoided. This one was the other way around: entropy is the natural order.
The name "Zargism" is mostly because "Entropyism" sounds stupid.
habnabitmkiii : I'm wondering how someone can be the lord of entropy, though.
Bryce : I don't think one actually can be... But since when is "making sense" a requirement for a cult?
habnabitmkiii : True.
Bryce : I suppose one could imagine a "God of Entropy" in the usual nature-god form like a "Sea God" or "Fire God". Certainly Zarg's worshipers could say that it was obvious who's god was winning. But Entropy is almost too primal to be anthropomorphized thusly.
But I digress. That message caused me to think more about the whole concept than I did in the entire game...
habnabitmkiii : Haha. You could incorporate it back in the game you GM!
Bryce : I could... reading Dune makes me think there needs to be more religion in it. That brings me to another short digression, actually, but perhaps a funny one. I don't know if I mentioned this to you... did I tell you about gnome cannons?
habnabitmkiii : I don't think so.
Bryce : Okay. I'll do that then. The Gnome Cannon is of course a notional weapon that shoots gnomes from it. I don't know where the stupid idea came from - probably me - but it has been a topic of occasional discussion for a while now. Space Gnome has described at length how he thinks this is a plot to destroy his character of awesome, etc.
At some point - I don't remember what provoked it - I said: "Fine, there will be a gnome cannon in the game."
Well, then, said Space Gnome, he would destroy it, become a hero, nay, a god to gnome-kind. Sure.
Bryce : Being a man of my word, I'm going to go through with it, but I'm going to take advantage of homophones and have a gnome canon.
habnabitmkiii : That's horrible. :P
Bryce : I know :)
He was asking questions the other day about the rumored Gnome Cannon.
Was it used for torture? It could be, but that wasn't the intended use. (if you read all 233 Songs of Glubork the Long-Winded in a single sitting.)
Executions? Oh yes, for a period in gnomish history, it was used in every execution. (Last rites of the gnome...)
But now the gnomish government has banned it. In fact, the Gnome Canon is very rare.
So, come saturday, I'm going to enjoy it very much when I say "And in the back of the book store, you see the gnome canon," and he says "I use Flaming Death level 7 at it!"
habnabitmkiii : Hahahaha.
Bryce : He might not fall for it that badly, but it will be interesting I'm sure. So anyway... the party split up.
Space Gnome decided to hire a ship to take him to the saber shop, because Andrew claimed that it would take him five years to get there on foot.
Things were fairly headless at this point. I went to the spaceport and asked around for rumors of quests. Of course I asked "do I see anyone who looks weak-minded?", but, amazingly, I was informed that everyone in the spaceport was "highly intelligent".
I guess that's why there weren't any other cultists working this airport; accursed Mensa convention was in town.
I did however get a rumor that some sort of half-pickle-head thingy or other was hiding in a cave. It was very vauge.
It did, however, sound like a passable quest. I asked (hopefully, trying to get the party together and on the quest, if there was one) if it was near town where the saber shop was. It was, yay.
So finally, the party was reunited, but Andrew insisted on ending the game before the cave... as if there wasn't, you know, actually anything planned.
So, next week, we face the mutant thingy in a cave.
habnabitmkiii : Ooh! How many GMs have been invited to do it again, then?
Bryce : Sage (the girl who draws charming decapitated wookie pictures) ran two games, Space Gnome ran three.
Sage's campaign ended by universal domination by the party; Space Gnome's game ended in a total party kill.
Or do you mean "invited to GM another campaign?"
habnabitmkiii : No, another session.
Bryce : Well, then, everyone who has tried his or her hand at GMing has done at least two sessions, except Josh and Biptetk the Rogue's player, although the latter probably doesn't count since he was just GMing the player-versus-player free for all we had one time.
habnabitmkiii : Ah.
Bryce : Right now, my friend Dylan (he played the Space Gnome Preacher Ike Einberg - the one who suddenly became morally aware and defected to the bad guys - a while back) is the heir apparent of the Wooden Gavel of Power, since Space Gnome doesn't like GMing that much. (despite being pretty good at it.)
I'm leaving for university in the fall of this year, which, of course, prevents my continuing to be GM for our primary game.
habnabitmkiii : Neat! Where are you going?
Bryce : Chico State, they have a good computer science program.
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