Thursday,
December 12, 2002.
Now playing: Fallout
2 (again) and MORTAL KOMBAT!! for Xbox.
Crazy. Sexy. Cool. Corean. ... Sue!
(Yeah, baby.)THE REVISED RULES - NEWER NEWEST EDITION
I've been cleaning out some old boxes from my mom's house.
Getting nostalgic over musty old comic books and crinkled nudie mags. My, how the rules have changed.
Back in those days, the only way an eleven year old boy could see a naked woman on-demand was if he crawled face first into a garbage-filled possum-infested dumpster in the dead of winter and fished each crinkled page out with his teeth. Just like a Young Indiana Jones in the Temple of Poon.
Then there were those $0.35 to $.075 comic books (perfect when combined with a 25-cent Snickers bar). Each story tried so hard to teach a moral. Before anti-heroes became the heroes du jour. Before making fun of old comic book naivete became a comic book itself. Even Ghost Rider and Deadman did good deeds (dirt cheap - OY!).
I found my old Dungeons and Dragons books ... oops, excuse me, I meant ADVANCED Dungeons and Dragons books - what the hardcore players played. I was an elite geek before it became 1337 g33K, thank you very much.
Since then they've come out with two or three new revised editions of rules, I hear.
Oh how I miss those games, Top Secret and Car Wars and Villains & Vigilantes and Dungeons & Dragons. Oh my. Those were real role-playing games.
Today, the whippersnappers play their cutesy smoochsy "RPGs" on computers or fancy Playstations. But back in my day, we didn't need no computers or soulless mice. We used parchment and graphite. We rolled twenty-sided dice that were so worn down, you had to chase them uphill BOTH WAYS just to see if you hit a damn kobold. We used four-sided dice that you could actually take your own eye out with if you weren't careful. (Which is why all the really hardcore nerds wore thick protective glasses. Yeah, that's it.) We actually used the word "die," as a singular noun for "dice," in daily, even hourly, conversation.
I remember at one point, as the Dungeon Master, it dawned on me that maybe things weren't so simple black and white. Maybe clearing out monster-filled dungeons for the sole purpose of recovering loot and magical artifacts (and fighting experience) wasn't the most ethical way of making a living. But then again, who cares? They were different - they were the monsters and obviously evil. How did we know they were evil (since they lived deep underground and all)? Because the High King of Lawguard Fortress told you himself, that's how. Humanifest destiny.
But even bugbears have children, don't they? I guess "evil" is in the eye of the beholder sometimes.
It was still loads of fun though. Better than real life. Better than the limited worlds of video games. Better than porn or sex. It was such a high.
I still remember reading the "advanced" Top Secret rules (a spy game) about going into "shock" after your secret agent (or preferably an enemy agent) would get shot. I couldn't quite understand what shock was exactly, although there were tables for unconsciousness, blood loss, knockback, spin and yelping after taking a bullet. (Those "realistic" gunshot rules never became very popular -- after the third table, players would be begging to "just let me die already.")
These days, I could make up a lot more realistic tables for shock. For at least four different kinds of shock, even (septic shock, cardiogenic, hypovolemic, and extracardiac ... I don't believe in neurogenic shock). I know how clammy the skin feels and what it's like compressing someone's chest with just a few staples holding their sternum together. (Surviving CPR would be like a saving throw versus dragon breath at -5).
I found our old D&D folders and character sheets for recording all the vital details, ranging from how much weight you were carrying to how well you could avoid "petrification" attacks (such as Amy's Stink Eye of Disapproval).
Today the character attributes (like strength, wisdom, dexterity) I keep track of are a little different, with regards to patients in the hospital :
In place of STRENGTH ... I watch their HEMOGLOBIN. (Blood count.)
INTELLIGENCE ... Ammonia levels? High levels = increased delirium in Sir Roses (cirrhosis) patients.
WISDOM ... Serum chloride levels. Like wisdom in the actual game, it is mostly useless.
DEXTERITY ... White cell count. Nimbleness in reacting to infection.
CONSTITUTION ... Renal and liver function? When the kidneys or the liver start to go, everything starts to go.
CHARISMA ... Drug allergies. The more allergies you have to meds, the less attractive (and more difficult) you are to take care of. Sorry.
Those games taught me how to study. How much time would I spend trying to figure out the difference between weapons like a flail vs. a mace vs. morning star, or constantly re-reading rules so I could apply them in the next gaming session. And I still don't know what the hell a bec de corbin vs. a guisarme-voulge vs. a bardiche are. (Probably the reason you don't see these weapon names in Diablo or Baldur's Gate.)
It was easier figuring out the differences between thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura and idiopathic thrombocytopenia in medical school I tell you.
In the game, you had your choice of character class-types like Fighter, Magic-user, Thief, Paladin, Barbarian, Illusionist, and Monk.
Now I deal with the patient equivalent class-types such as Diabetic, Neurotic, Substance-abuser, Vasculopath, Train-wreck, Petri-dish, and Nursing Home Gome (respectively). The difference being that most people don't actually choose these class-types.
And levels of expertise? In the hospital, that would equate to hospitalization visits. Those Level 140+ Train Wrecks could certainly teach me a thing or two. Assuming they can still swallow their own saliva down the right tube.
It's hard to let go of these old things. Most of the older comics we had bought while spending summers with our dad in Detroit. I always thought it would be cool if our dad would read comic books like we did. He preferred reading the newspaper instead.
We'd also do some serious paper-and-pencil gaming at the kitchen table as well. One time I actually asked our dad if he wanted to play D&D with my brother and me. I felt bad that we were always leaving him out. (I was probably eleven or twelve.) I remember him politely answering in his raspy voice from behind the daily newspaper,
"Nah, that's okay son. I think it would be too involved for me."
"Are you sure?" I asked again, hoping to share my favorite thing at the time with my favorite person.
He was sure.
Oh well, he didn't need to play in our game. He was already a 70th-level Vasculopath in the real world by then anyhow. He stopped playing in that "game" as well after a year or two.
I miss those days, before all the rules changed.
I miss the days when we used the word "die" as a singular version of "dice."
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NEWS FLASH !!
Sun Su The Cheek Slobber Monster strikes again!
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MEDEA SIN HOT MODEL
Our Medea Sin Hot Model for this entry is none other than the wild Corean rage in a cage herself,
SUE !
(Alias: Incycle)She is descended from the Court Genius of a Chinese Emperor (true). And is a master of Me Dusa Do, the art of deadly hair attacks (probably true). This beautiful fury-fatale is also the mother goddess of the handsome Prince Enzo, who was born just a day after my Sun Su. Now this is one crazy sexy cool Corean I would like to have in my corner any day.
When Sue is not perturbed about people misplacing apostrophes, she is often kind and contemplative, like in the picture below (don't forget to mouse-over all pics on my site).
Sue is wearing the Corean goddess shirt she asked me to make for her. Other shirts (already made upon request) include: Lipsticky, Three Warriors , Medea Sin, Medea Sin 2000. Requests for any drawing as well as text/drawings on the back of any shirt will be honored. (Non-profit.)
