Wherein your humble scribe presents an NPC for Ghostbusters. This cat could be a Ghostbuster. Or he could be a guy with a paranormal pest problem. It could go either (or both) way(s), really. Any similarities between this character and your humble scribe are purely coincidental, surely.
Vincent “Vinnie the Mouse” Paoloni
Traits / Talents
Brains 3 / Music Trivia 6
Muscle 2 / Drink Booze 5
Moves 3 / Make Music 6
Cool 4 / Bluff 7
Brownie Points: 20
Goal: Rock & Roll
Residence: Austin, Texas
Man, Ghostbusters (1st edition, since that all I’ve been able to look at) is a light, simple system. It’s nice to see where the D6 System got its start. I think GB might be a bit too light for any other than really light-hearted play. But then again, that’s what it was designed for, so no biggie.
Ghostbusters RPG was West End Games, right? Never played it, but I remember skimming the rules and thinking it was pretty gonzo. For some reason the game reminds me of Tales from the Floating Vagabond (gonzo, but not really rules-lite).
Ghostbusters has new relevance in our household: my four year old son just switched his idols from Thomas the Tank Engine to Peter Vankman.
Yep, GB was from WEG. It’s the forerunner of the whole D6 System, which they later turned into Star Wars and all that other stuff that eventually lead to D6 Fantasy/Adventure/Space and on to Open D6 and the simple beauty of Mini Six (which is awfully close in spirit – pardon the pun – to Ghostbusters). I’d never read GB until recently – as I obsessively traced the history of the D6 System the way I obsessively traced the roots of punk rock after I first got turned on to Fear back in the day. I’m kinda hoping I can put together a Ghostbusters game (or at least a Mini Six game on similar ground – the Farnsley’s Phantasm Investigations mini setting from Mini Six seems like a cool playground) for Halloween.
I have no experience with Vagabond at all. I used to see it at Half Price Books a lot, but never quite got around to picking it up even to slip through. Tell me more, amigo.
Your little boy has taken the next step on the road to manhood! You must be a proud papa, G. 🙂
Vagabond is a multi-genre, comedic sort of mash-up game where you can basically play anything, and the ongoing conceit is a bar that exists in several dimensions . . . never played it, but some guys in my old gaming group flirted with the idea once. The rules are interesting in and of themselves–lite for their time, I guess you could say. PC’s could buy “schticks” at character creation with amusing names like the ‘Rambo Effect’ and the ‘Scharwzenegger” effect.
I’m very proud of both my kids. My 8 y/o dtr. dressed up as Cheetara from the Thundercats last year.
It sounds like Vagabond is thematically similar to the Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon books by Spider Robinson (and the official GURPS supplement). I played in a short Callahan’s GURPS game back in the 90s that way pretty fun. But ultimately it was just a bit too gonzo for my tastes. I like gonzo, of course, but this was just too far out there for a game ostensibly set in the “real world.”
It sounds like your kids are just plain awesome and well deserving of dad’s pride. I love to see other folks raising good, honest geeks 🙂
True story: my daughter had a talent competition coming up at her school, and instead of wanting to sing Taylor Swift or other pre-pubescent fare, she wanted to sing . . . “The Mothra Song” (the one that those two tiny Japanese fairies sing to summong Mothra).
My heart swelled with pride.
Awesome. Absolutely awesome.
That, good sir, is truly great! What a daughter.