Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 02-17-2017, 02:24 PM   #121
PTTG
 
PTTG's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Wasn't only the virgin Galahad able to touch the Grail? That might lead to some teasing amidst an ISWAT team. Sooooo, about your girlfriend that totally exists in Canada?
So it'll be discovered by a grad student.
PTTG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-17-2017, 08:28 PM   #122
Astromancer
 
Astromancer's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Wasn't only the virgin Galahad able to touch the Grail? That might lead to some teasing amidst an ISWAT team. Sooooo, about your girlfriend that totally exists in Canada?
That's one form of the story. Parvizal was married, outside of the Church, and he held the Grail.
__________________
Per Ardua Per Astra!


Ancora Imparo
Astromancer is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2017, 06:04 AM   #123
Jasonft
 
Join Date: Aug 2008
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Hmmm... 'Tomorrow is the day for Strangers with Dangerous Secrets'

Next day: ISWAT covert scout team enters town.
Jasonft is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2017, 11:15 AM   #124
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

And locals wonder why they keep mistaking the obviously ethnicity X PCs for Asians?
(As a child, I fell to that common mondegreen from the referenced song Secret Agent Man. I too heard it as Secret Asian Man.)

That would be an odd parallel too. Badly heard song lyrics play out with real people.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-18-2017, 09:51 PM   #125
PTTG
 
PTTG's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

A nearby parallel, Melodrama, is inhabited by normal humans with a latent psionic ability to create thematic music from nowhere; The music, as far as anyone can tell, is determined by culture, personality, and situation. In groups, a song appropriate for the aggregate behavior of the group is played.

As such, all people born here have Noisy 4+ (maybe higher if the individual personally associates with loud music). When they are trying to be stealthy, the music is frequently tense and dramatic. Guards know full well to be alert for changes in the music (most of the time it's just something fairly soft and airy, maybe a little pompous if the place they're guarding is important).

Walls here, especially in homes, are often soundproofed, not in the least because ever since sultry saxophones entered the cultural lexicon, it's been impossible to have privacy...

Muscisians do exist here, however, the mainly use instruments as study tools; once they invent a riff or a sound, it "associates" with that musician and becomes part of their soundtrack. Shows and concerts consist of that musician showing up at an event and simply being the focus, which naturally means that their musical library takes over the venue.

Someone who is a dedicated fan of a musician might pick up the same musical elements (it's not really well understood how), and indeed this is the mechanism by which musical elements flow through culture. Note that musical skill or knowledge isn't related to the background music; one doesn't even need to know what a musical styling sounds like in order to produce it, so long as the music would be relevant to the situation.

It's currently 2010 and similar to a (non-secret) Homeline parallel, but only in broad strokes. Individuals seem to be totally different, cities might be in the same place but layed out differently, and anyplace named after a person is also likely named something else. For example, their USA is the United States of Georgio, named after an explorer and financier in Florence, etc. For instance, the music of the '50s was largely inspired by one William Lee, a pompadoured guitar player from Mississippi (literally, Great River,) who is both alarmingly close to and significantly deviating from the biography of Elvis.

That brings us to singing. All the background music is instrumental. a musician may be an inventor of melody, but it is often seen as a separate skill and practice entirely from singing, in the same way that we see guitar makers as a somewhat different profession from guitar players. Singers must be skilled improvisors and capable of matching the conditions of the BGM. Do entire streets spontaneously burst into song? Yes. It's not often good, though.
PTTG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2017, 10:39 AM   #126
fchase8
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer View Post
Reprise is the name of this parallel. Basically classic stories tend to repeat themselves, sometimes with the full mechanics, sometimes not.

At any given time stories like Cinderella, Robin Hood, the Nibelungenlied, the Arabian Nights, and the Mahabharata, are acting themselves out at any given time. Sometimes tragedy, at others farce, but Perseus, Dorothy, Ulysses, Medea, Helen, Rustrum, Arthur, David, Sinbad, and Jack, rub shoulders on the subway and in buses. At any time an outsider could get caught in a tale and be unable to leave until he or she has played their part.

The party that was forced to find the Gravitational Realignment Anti Inertial Loop, were really ticked off.

Is this a world with magic/psionics/superpowers or such? Because a lot of those stories require something beyond science to work.

And can it include more modern stories? I'm thinking of the Batman story - though Infinity agents would only be side characters, maybe having to take on the guise of a supervillain in order to finish out their part.
fchase8 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2017, 10:42 AM   #127
fchase8
 
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: New York, NY
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
A nearby parallel, Melodrama, is inhabited by normal humans with a latent psionic ability to create thematic music from nowhere; The music, as far as anyone can tell, is determined by culture, personality, and situation. In groups, a song appropriate for the aggregate behavior of the group is played.

As such, all people born here have Noisy 4+ (maybe higher if the individual personally associates with loud music). When they are trying to be stealthy, the music is frequently tense and dramatic. Guards know full well to be alert for changes in the music (most of the time it's just something fairly soft and airy, maybe a little pompous if the place they're guarding is important).

Walls here, especially in homes, are often soundproofed, not in the least because ever since sultry saxophones entered the cultural lexicon, it's been impossible to have privacy...

Muscisians do exist here, however, the mainly use instruments as study tools; once they invent a riff or a sound, it "associates" with that musician and becomes part of their soundtrack. Shows and concerts consist of that musician showing up at an event and simply being the focus, which naturally means that their musical library takes over the venue.

Someone who is a dedicated fan of a musician might pick up the same musical elements (it's not really well understood how), and indeed this is the mechanism by which musical elements flow through culture. Note that musical skill or knowledge isn't related to the background music; one doesn't even need to know what a musical styling sounds like in order to produce it, so long as the music would be relevant to the situation.

It's currently 2010 and similar to a (non-secret) Homeline parallel, but only in broad strokes. Individuals seem to be totally different, cities might be in the same place but layed out differently, and anyplace named after a person is also likely named something else. For example, their USA is the United States of Georgio, named after an explorer and financier in Florence, etc. For instance, the music of the '50s was largely inspired by one William Lee, a pompadoured guitar player from Mississippi (literally, Great River,) who is both alarmingly close to and significantly deviating from the biography of Elvis.

That brings us to singing. All the background music is instrumental. a musician may be an inventor of melody, but it is often seen as a separate skill and practice entirely from singing, in the same way that we see guitar makers as a somewhat different profession from guitar players. Singers must be skilled improvisors and capable of matching the conditions of the BGM. Do entire streets spontaneously burst into song? Yes. It's not often good, though.
Do people make 'regular' music (aside from singing)? Like, are there guitar players, drummers, pianists and the like? Or do the natives not associate their theme music with actually made music?

And has this been going on forever, or is it a more recent development? Theme music has existed in plays with orchestras, but only became a lot bigger with movies (and later television), and recorded music in general.
fchase8 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2017, 11:37 AM   #128
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by fchase8 View Post
Is this a world with magic/psionics/superpowers or such? Because a lot of those stories require something beyond science to work..
Not technically true. I can't think of any classic story that can't be rewritten to be mundane. The Tempest becomes a very coincidental story if you remove Prospero's ability to use magic to trap his enemies on his island of exile and don't replace it with more mundane scheming like an agent on board who sabotages the navigation to run the ship around...but even if you don't so what? But it probably would be a world where magic works just to multiply the different possible variations.
David Johnston2 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2017, 01:14 PM   #129
PTTG
 
PTTG's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by fchase8 View Post
Do people make 'regular' music (aside from singing)? Like, are there guitar players, drummers, pianists and the like? Or do the natives not associate their theme music with actually made music?

And has this been going on forever, or is it a more recent development? Theme music has existed in plays with orchestras, but only became a lot bigger with movies (and later television), and recorded music in general.
As far as anyone can tell, it's always been around. As for the other question, musicians exist, and they use instruments, but only to experiment with sounds and try to invent new ones. Actual "performances" mainly consist of the musician showing up and their personal themes dominating the venue. It works because, perforce, the musician is the guest of honor, in effect, and thus has a major pull on the collective soundtrack. There are problems; it's difficult for anyone with a great deal of social importance to go somewhere and only be an observer, so their own theme is frequently incorporated into the music.

I think the fact that the place is basically an off-brand copy of Homeline (needed because the place has an identical musical history but very different ways of making music) makes it somewhat useful to both sides. Both can operate there in English, and in fact have a slight advantage (non-natives don't produce the music, although they do influence music when near natives).
PTTG is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 02-19-2017, 01:27 PM   #130
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Catalog of the Weird Parallels

Quote:
Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
...
As such, all people born here have Noisy 4+ (maybe higher if the individual personally associates with loud music). When they are trying to be stealthy, the music is frequently tense and dramatic. Guards know full well to be alert for changes in the music (most of the time it's just something fairly soft and airy, maybe a little pompous if the place they're guarding is important).
...
Is it only people that are noisy? Just intelligent animals like primates, cetaceans, etc.?
If all animals, then how do predators hunt as successfully as here? Could some musically lie? A venomous snake that produces lullabies?
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
infinite worlds, weird worlds

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:08 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.