bizarre tabletop rpg nattering
I guess I must be feeling better, since my brain has resumed converting angst to inspiration. :)
In this case, it's an obscure bit of canon from the Torg RPG, which was about our Earth being invaded by raiders from other realities. Each of these other realities had ratings called "axioms" which rated its tech, magic, social, and spiritual potential on a scale from 1 to 30. (e.g., "our" Earth was something like 21/7/23/9?)
(con't)
bizarre tabletop rpg nattering
Well, there was a passing reference in one of the Torg newsletters to an area called "Zone Dubbed Dol," that had been created by a weird-science "reality bomb" from a pulp heroes reality. All four of its axioms were zero.
I couldn't find it in my archives, and they never really did anything further with it. But I've always wondered: what the hell would it be like there? No magic, no tech, no gods, no higher meaning... even basic social structures doomed to fail.
bizarre tabletop rpg nattering
So I've been kinda playing with the idea of a storygame RPG set there named "Crapsack." XD
I just can't take "Zone Dubbed Dol" all that seriously. The Torg developers didn't put a whole lot of thought into it, and gave NO insight whatsover into how such a world could even exist, let alone what it would be like to adventure there.
I keep wanting to imagine it as something out of The Good Place, where the very laws of physics are petty and annoying. XD
bizarre tabletop rpg nattering
Or maybe Infocom's Bureaucracy.
It rains all the time, except when it should. The weather detects moods and maximizes inconvenience.
Clothing doesn't work-- it's always 50 degrees, too hot for jackets and too cold for shorts.
Other objects hate you too. Murphy's Law is basic physics. All language is slanted against you. Any attempt to share emotion with another sapient being ends in confusion, annoyance, and heartbreak.
All time in ZDD is solitary confinement.