Fantasy Games By Allen Kitchen all rights reserved... Has anyone ever wondered what furrys would do for recreation? "My Blue-collar laborer throws the trash can through the windshield of the BMW." "Okay, roll a 20 sided die to hit. You'll need at least a 15." "15? But I am right there!" "Shatter resistant glass, and an aluminum can. Go on, make your roll." "Okay then. And don't forget, I get plus 2 on the roll due to race." "Yeah, I forgot about that. Go ahead then." Paul swished his tail as he rolled the 20 sided die. "Aha, 13 plus 2 is 15!" the snowy white wolf howled. "I shattered the windshield with the trashcan!" "Okay Paul," Richard said. His Lupine eyes just peered over his GameMaster shield, staring at Paul. Nobody could see him grinning. Only the gray fur of his forehead and his eyes were visible. "The windshield shatters into a thousand pieces. The alarm goes off, but of course nobody cares. Just one thing though. The car is owned by a lawyer. And I noticed that you didn't check for witnesses first, so..." "Oh damn," Paul interrupted. His white tail was no longer swishing. "the lawyer is in a window, isn't he? Allen, can your gangster shoot him out real fast?" Allen studied the map on the table with concern, a black paw on his black wolf muzzle. "Well, I am in a good position, but I don't know which window to aim at. My gangster draws his uzi anyway, smelling trouble." Allen always did take his games seriously. Richard's gray tail was now wagging intensely. "Paul, make a save versus lawsuit roll. You need to beat a 65." "Hey! Wait a minute." Paul spoke up. "How can he be suing us? There aren't even any police here yet!" "Make the roll." Richard repeated. Paul sighed, and took out a pair of 10 sided dice. Without his usual flourish, he tossed them into the middle of the table. The dice bounced around, and finally settled out. 43 was the final roll. "Oh dear." Richard laughed, tail still wagging. "You failed to save versus lawsuit, so the lawyer will be serving your laborer with a summons very soon." Allen stood up. "Richard, that doesn't make any sense! We are not talking about something like a teleport here, something that can be done anyplace at anytime. Even a 25th level lawyer can't just sue someone with a telephone call. Hell, the lawyer doesn't even know who we are!" Paul stood up too. "That's right. There have to be police reports, depositions, and witnesses. It says so right in the Lawyer Player's Handbook." Suddenly smiling, he turned to Allen. "And if we run away now, he won't have any of that." Allen grinned back at his packbrother. "Cool." he craftily said as he sat back down to the table again. "Dude the gangster runs north, and puts his uzi away." Paul sat down too. "Mutt the laborer runs north with Dude." he said. Richard didn't give up that easy. His smile was gone. "Well then, the lawyer pops out of the doorway in the east with a handgun, and takes aim at ..." Richard rolled a dice. "Dude." "What race is the lawyer?" Allen asked. "What do you think?" Richard replied. "And he has a handgun? Ha, then he can't hit anything." Allen smirked. " I keep running." "The lawyer fires his gun!" Richard rolled the 20 sided dice out front where everyone could see it. 2. "Dude keeps running." Allen chuckled. "Mutt keeps running too," Paul chimed in. "and he lets out a nasty laugh about such lousy shooting. Sorry Rich, but we aren't going to let you sucker us into a firefight that will land both of us in jail, just so you can cast your lawsuit later on. Give it up wolfen, we are on to you..." Allen nodded. Richard sighed. The game had certainly gone awry tonight. He wasn't going to catch the pair in the lawsuit like he had planned to. All of the campaign that was laid out had hinged on nailing them with it too. If Richard couldn't pull that off, then he had no way of continuing his scenario. He began to collect his dice and his maps, and he closed the GameMaster shield. "Okay guys," Richard said, a tone of resignation in his voice. "I guess that is about as good a stopping point as we are going to get. Let's call it a night, and break out the brew." He then placed the GameMaster tome and the dice in a leather case on the floor. To save their campaign, he would have to think of something other than the lawsuit to get things rolling again. Paul grinned, his lupine eyes shining brightly. "I think you are just pissed off that we ruined your plans for the night." Richard shook his head back while eyeing his friend. "It does complicate my life a little bit, Paul. But I will find a way around it. I always do. And no guys, I am not ticked off. A little irritated perhaps..." Allen pulled Paul's tail as it swished next to him. Surprised, Paul turned to face him. "Remember grasshopper." Allen began with the worst far- eastern accent any of them had ever heard. " 'He who annoys the GameMaster, soon finds himself to be kibble'!" Allen, Richard, and Paul all broke out laughing at the humorous spin placed on the oldest line in the "Porsches and Paychecks" game. 'Though shalt not annoy the GameMaster...' A few minutes later the three of them were sitting around the now cleared off table, drinking beer and talking. Every Thursday night for the past 4 months, they had gotten together to play the game. "Porsches and Paychecks" had become a favorite among gameplayers almost overnight, with it's fantastic premise and incredible creatures. The premise was hard to believe. For one thing, in the game, there was only the one world. There were no colonies to run to, and no teleport arches to send you there. There was only the single known planet, which meant no real escape route existed. You either stood your ground, or you got run over. It made for interesting scenarios. For another, there was no magic, although it was widely known that magic existed everywhere in the universe. And yet another thing that added to the popularity were the bizarre creatures that populated that world. For example, there were lawyers that could stop even the most expensive projects with a piece of paper, gangsters that terrorized the streets at night, and police that despised the both of them. Each had their strengths and weaknesses. All of them spawned from one master species. There were several different races, but only a small amount of difference between them, really just variations on the same weird species. They had no fur or tails at all. And fangs? Forget about it. Whereas in real life, all the races were very different indeed. And what race you were in determined what you could do in life. Some races such as wolves were fairly high on the pecking order, where others like mice were pretty close to the bottom. No security outfit would ever hire a mouse to be a security guard, for example. No one would be afraid of a mouse. At the same time, nobody would hire a wolf to probe inside walls for termites either. Every race had its place in the real world, but they weren't all that equal. In the game, there was no real race, no set place in life, no real differences, and no discrimination. The game was about having no limits... All three of the wolves were now drinking, laughing, and discussing the game. "I think the idealism is what I like about it the most." Paul said. "Imagine a world where there are no interspecies conflicts. A world where all the races are essentially identical. No arguments or protests. It is a wonderful idea." He took a swig of his beer, and wiped his white muzzle on his sleeve. "Too bad it can't exist in real life." "Well, I like the fantasy aspect myself." Allen remarked, nursing his brew. "In the game, there are no magic spells, and no sorcery. Only technology. If you can build it, then you can do it. No limitations. I like that sense of freedom which lets the imagination run wild. How about you Richard? What do you enjoy most about the game?" Richard smiled. "I just like making you two miserable." he said, then took another drink of his beer. Paul set down his bottle on the table. "Yeah joker! We still owe you for that!" he fumed. "Why didn't you tell us that the vehicles in that world only run for a short period of time? That thing cost us a fortune, and now it won't work!" Allen frowned also. "As many as we see on the roads in the game, I think there is something that we haven't discovered yet. Something to make the car run longer. Some kind of non-magical recharge spell or the like." Richard kept smiling. "You'll figure it out eventually." Allen nodded. Both Paul and Richard looked at each other. They knew that Allen would go to the bookdealer tomorrow to study the Vehicles and Midlevel Technology tome, now that the gauntlet had been thrown. The writers of the game were always putting out new volumes to cover some detail or another about the game. Right now, there were 148 tomes in all. Only the most ardent gameplayer had every one. Very few could even afford them all. The tomes were not cheap. Most gameplayers had only enough funds to purchase the bare minimum needed to run their game. Players such as Allen, Paul, and Richard. They often went to the bookdealer and referred to the guides they didn't own when there was a particular point they needed to study. The bookdealers usually didn't mind, because if someone had to keep coming back for that tome, eventually the person would just buy it in order to save a trip. Besides, when gamers came in to study a manual, they usually found some other fantasy book on the shelves that they just had to have. So the gaming tomes acted as lures, attracting customers inside. And the dealers allowed the gamers to refer to them, within reason. "So anyway Richard," Paul said. "Did you see the news the other day? About that massacre on the eastern coast?" Both Richard and Allen winced. "Yeah, I saw the pictures." Richard replied quietly. "Pretty awful stuff, wasting an entire town of beavers like that. It doesn't make a lot of sense why someone would do such a thing." "From what I have heard, it was a bunch of cougars that did it." Allen spoke up. "Seems the beavers ran the local construction firm. The firm laid off a group of cougars. The cougars got stinking drunk, and decided to get some payback last night. So they killed everyone in the village, right down to the women and children." Paul rocked back in his chair, shocked. "I didn't hear about that part! The women and children too? Oh god. And the authorities caught the bastards that did it?" Allen nodded his head. Paul shook his. "Wow. That is unreal. Killing over 50 beavers just because someone got canned. That is sick." Paul then reached over and took out another beer. Richard whistled low. "I wouldn't give a quart of owl's piss to be in their shoes right now. When the bards get finished with those cougars... Did you hear why they got fired to begin with by any chance?" Allen shook his head this time. "No, people are being pretty tightlipped about it Richard. Probably the usual though... eating customers and such." "You never kill a customer." Richard agreed. Paul nodded too. All 3 of them sat there for a moment, and stared at a leftover 20 sided die still sitting on the table. "If only this game were real." Allen sighed. "That would be so cool. Technological societies don't have any of these problems." "Oh they have problems all right." Richard replied. "You just aren't seeing most of them in the game. I'm sure there would be all number of problems to deal with, if such a place truly existed." "Yeah, true." Allen said, more heartfelt this time. "But nothing like this wholescale massacre. The problems of a technological world would be nothing compared to the problems of this one." Richard ruffled his neck fur. "I don't know why you think that Allen. There would be problems there that we can't even imagine. Why do you think they have police in the game? For show? How many people has your Gangster killed again?" Allen spread his arms wide. "Yeah, but those were all adults. They played their parts Richard. But you don't see women and children killed in the game, now do you?" Paul set his beer down with a thud. "Damn! I don't know why you two are going on like this! Your world is here, whether you like it or not! Wishing that you could be in some fantasy universe is not going to miraculously get you there. You have to deal with the here and now gents. The game isn't real, and both of you know it!" The other two wolves stared at Paul as he lifted up his beer again. "Besides," he grinned at the two of them. "There is no possible way that a technological society could ever really work in the first place..." Richard took his own beer into his paws. "What do you mean Paul?" he asked, then took a drink himself. Paul finished swallowing, and looked back and forth between the gray and the black wolf. "What I mean is that no such civilization could truly ever exist. Not without the mages to make things run smoothly. Not without bards to teach and enforce the law. Not without the warriors to ensure peace in the land. What do they have to secure peace? Not a damned thing, that's what. And boxes that can do anything, depending on what disc you put into them? Rubbish." Paul then chuckled out loud. "It makes for a good game, and a good reason to hang out with you two. But don't ever think that a technological world could ever truly exist. It can't. There would be anarchy, and it would collapse in weeks." Allen took a deeper drink this time, then looked at the bottle thoughtfully. "Yeah Paul, I suppose you are right. But it is nice to dream of a better world from time to time." Richard stretched, and stood up from the table. "Well guys, it is getting late. I have a very large buffalo scheduled for tomorrow, so I had better pack it in." "Are you going to need any help with it Rich?" Allen asked, also getting up. "You know that I am looking for some temporary work." "Actually, I probably could use some help. These old-timers never go down easy. Come on by the office in the morning, and we will get you on the payroll for the day, okay?" Allen nodded, and started to collect the empty bottles sitting around the table. He put them into the Refuse box in the corner. In the morning, the recycler would pick them up and take them to be sent back to their original factory, where they would be cleaned and reused. And the broken glass in the bottom of the box would be melted and reblown by the glassmakers. "What are your plans for tomorrow night Paul?" Richard asked. Paul shrugged. "I dunno. I thought I would run down to the watering hole for a while, and see if some of the ladies wanted to howl. How about you guys? Do either of you have any plans?" Allen and Richard both shook their heads. "Hey, great! We can all go out together then. We'll pick up a couple of babes, and make a party out of the night. I've got some hard stuff in the cabinet we can bring along. We'll be the hounds from hell!" Richard laughed out loud. "Okay Paul. But this time, keep your paws on your own date. Alright?" He then turned to the black wolf saying "Well how about it Allen? Are you coming with us?" Allen chuckled. "Sure, why not? You guys don't mind if I bring Sheila as my date, do you?" "Sheesh, Allen. Are you still dating that vixen?" Richard asked. "Why can't you find a nice lady wolf to go out with, huh? Are you too good for your own species or something?" Allen slyly grinned, and winked. "Let's just say that Sheila can be very... athletic. And I don't have to worry about little black paws running around in a few months, if you get my meaning. Fair enough?" Richard and Paul both smiled back. "Fair enough." Richard replied. Paul then stood up and shook paws with Richard and Allen. "It was very nice having you two over again. We'll do it again next Thursday night. It was fun. Shall we all meet here before heading out tomorrow evening?" Everybody nodded.