Thursday 22 July 2010

Theatre of the Absurd

The Amazing Inflatable Trotsky!
Tonight, in our sort of pulpish, kind of steampunkish game set in amidst the chaos of the Spanish Civil War, we made an inflatable Leon Trotsky to lure away the NKVD from our area of operations, so that we could sneak on board a Russian freighter by means of a mad scientist's untested submersible, launched via a mile long underground railway running beneath the streets of Barcelona.

That's one of the things I really love about roleplaying games. You can create the most amazingly ridiculous scenes that, in the context of the game, are a perfectly rational response to circumstances.

Maybe not rational. But fun.

3 comments:

  1. The only thing better than a inflatable Trotsky would, of course, been a clockwork Trotsky--but I realize those are difficult to improvise on short notice. ;)

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  2. Trying to imagine Ramon Mercader sticking an ice pick into the inflatable Trotsky, only to have the bearded one go hurtling round the room making a hisssssssss-wheeeeeeeeee noise.

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  3. Trying to imagine Ramon Mercader sticking an ice pick into the inflatable Trotsky, only to have the bearded one go hurtling round the room making a hisssssssss-wheeeeeeeeee noise.

    Damn! Daddy Grognard beat me to making a joke about the ice pick popping the inflatable Trotsky!
    I guess I will just add that you could fill the inflatable Trotsky with hydrogen (tied to a suitably weighted chair to prevent him from bobbling around the ceiling) and leaving him in a chair, appearing to read PRAVDA by candle light. Assassin sneaks in, ice-pick meets Trotsky balloon, Hydrogen meets candle flame and would-be Assassin meets afterlife.

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