Rather than simply picking someone, I elected to decide the matter in a very high-tech way, assigning each volunteer a number then rolling two ten-sided dice. Hey, it’s as close to role-playing as I’ve come since the time I had a bikini-clad Space Bunny rolling Traveller characters in the Bahamas*.
The amusing part of that experience was how Space Bunny was simply in agony over the fate of her characters, one of Traveller’s distinguishing characteristics being that you could actually kill off your character while in the process of making him.
So, after each die roll, she’d immediately cover her eyes, usually as a prelude to something that went like this:
“What happened? Tell me what happened!”
“Well, the good news is that you survived the raid. The bad news is that you were badly wounded, lost an eye and will be cashiered from the Imperial Marines without gaining any more skills. They did give you a nice medal, though.”
“I hate this game! It’s awful!”
Anyhow, next week’s pinata – that is to say, Guest Blogger of the Week – is ANIMATE MATTERS. In 750 words or less, get it to me sometime on Friday, Wes.
* Sure, it sounds bad, but this should not be held as evidence against me in any future Nuremburg Geek Trials. We held the rights to the game at the time and were in the process of designing a second-party title for Sega of America on what was then called the Katana, later the Dreamscape. Unfortunately for Traveller fans and us, Sega of Japan killed off SOA in favor of giving Arsenal a lot of money to put Dreamscape on their jerseys. Good for the Gunners, not so great for the Sega Dreamscape. I still have the Arsenal jersey.