Misspent Youth

Misspent Youth is a game where you get together with friends and create a dystopian antagonist so repugnant you want to take a pipe to its teeth. Players take the part of YO’s, Youthful Offenders and the GM is the Authority. The Authority ravages the world while dice sitting in the middle of the table, daring the players to pick them up and start shit and they will start shit. There might be consequences. It might go on the YO’s permanent record. They might die or worse – sell out.

When we used to demo this game at Gen Con, we’d play Blade Runner from the replicant’s POV.

To paraphrase the Misspent Youth text, Wil Wheaton and friends are going to play a fucking awesome science fiction game about friendship and rebellion; it is so much fun they might wonder why it isn’t illegal.

Yes, as I talked about with Jen on the Jennisodes, I am game-fasting.

This has led to me fantasizing about what games I’d like to play and with whom.

Monsters and Hearts: In this fantasy, I have moved to New York City and we play Monsterhearts with my lady-friend, our friend, Janira and her special friend. This is based on our love/hate relationship with Buffy and Supernatural, a love of YA fiction and seeing Janira play a teenager in a game of Shock:.

Stick it to the Man: Also a NYC fantasy game, in which there are 10 days to any given week so I can play Misspent Youth with the lady-friend and my buddies Rob, Jason and Witt. It would be one of those games that Jason plays with his newborn on his lap. I like the idea of our first game all together being something finite that we can bring to a definite close.

The Siege: I’d love to run a BW game with my house-mate, a long time Warhammer fan. I asked him what kind of Warhammer PC he’d like to run and he said he’d like to play an Imperial Engineer. This would be a game about an Imperial Engineer fresh out of the Imperial Gunnery School in Nuln and put on the front lines of a vicious siege. If roommates wanted to play, they could pick up other characters, like an Imperial Wizard or a grizzled Sergeant.

Excelsior Highway: Another 8 days in the week NYC fantasy, where me and Bret have an evening to play Marvel Heroic Role-playing Game about Ghost Rider on a road trip or in the midst of some homemade magical event. Mayhaps friends come and play as guest starring heroes but the main adventure is about Ghost Rider kicking ass for vengeance.

Good-bye Games: I’d like to play a game with Paula and some folks, a way to say, “good-bye,” to the Ithaca gamers. I think they’d like Monsterhearts too, actually. Maybe an epilogue game with the Apocalypse World crew and a good-bye game with Jim and Charlotte and Pete and Aaron.

Burning Wheel Greed: Yeah, I’d to play in a BW game with only the dwarven lifepaths with the BWHQ posse.

This is what game-fasting brings on at my current stage of game-hunger, fantasies about not only campaigns ideas but social set-ups that there are not enough days in the week to bring out and play. As much as I miss gaming, it is a relief to have that big gap of time in my week to get other things done and when I get to New York City, begin my career, move into a new place with Janaki and start a new city life, I am going to be very careful as to how I fill that time.

The more I think about it. The more I look hard at my goals, at the short amount of time life has to offer, at the many glorious things to learn and see, the things that keep me happy, healthy and sane, I am wondering where and if gaming will fit in. I’m looking at a period of time in my life where visiting fictional places with friends just might not work at all for a while and I’m finding that exciting.

And you? What games are you thinking about playing and how is gaming fitting into your life at the moment?