Remember Magic the Gathering and other collectible card games of its sort? Well JB and I had a nice chat about our own idea for a CCG. This one involves writers, and it's going to be big. I've included the full conversation since most of it is pretty laudible in the usual JBGB fashion.
Here's the transcript:
TrainTrackTrees (8:06:31 PM): that's right, i installed it
corrinad0 (8:06:34 PM): nie.
corrinad0 (8:06:36 PM): cei
corrinad0 went away at 8:32:30 PM.
TrainTrackTrees (8:32:33 PM): this is brutal
corrinad0 (8:32:37 PM): why
TrainTrackTrees (8:32:52 PM): because i've never written a long paper on something unliterary.
corrinad0 (8:33:01 PM): hah
corrinad0 (8:33:06 PM): yeah, i hate writing those
corrinad0 (8:33:13 PM): lots of citation
corrinad0 (8:33:19 PM): and objectivity
TrainTrackTrees (8:33:31 PM): i know. that's what i hate. and this paper can't be objective because it's essentially a position paper.
TrainTrackTrees (8:33:44 PM): even though it's supposed to be objective
corrinad0 (8:33:51 PM): what a maniac
corrinad0 (8:33:57 PM): she likes william blake quotes
corrinad0 (8:34:04 PM): i remember that from my critical writing class
TrainTrackTrees (8:34:20 PM): i should just write the entire thing without citing and then go back nad cite it. oh wait, creativity won't be understood by the mandatory peer-reviewers.
corrinad0 (8:34:21 PM): i feel like a baby being shaken
corrinad0 (8:34:27 PM): hahahahha
corrinad0 (8:34:29 PM): YES
corrinad0 (8:34:34 PM): welcome to my history career
corrinad0 (8:34:43 PM): and why i never write papers in groups
corrinad0 (8:34:47 PM): unless its with craig
TrainTrackTrees (8:34:58 PM): now i'm coming down off the one adderall i was able to buy off hilary earlier today and i've got approximately one and a half pages.
corrinad0 (8:35:11 PM): get some of that Rock Star
corrinad0 (8:36:17 PM): boil boil
TrainTrackTrees (8:36:18 PM): hah. i should. want to leave at 10 or 1030 so i
don't get an aneurism?
just so you know what we're dealing with and what your answer depends on, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aneurism
corrinad0 (8:36:49 PM): brain bleeds
corrinad0 (8:36:51 PM): love those
corrinad0 (8:37:04 PM): i honestly feel like slow electricty
corrinad0 (8:37:07 PM): damn this taurine
TrainTrackTrees (8:37:21 PM): taurine and doppelgangrine
corrinad0 (8:37:28 PM): thats the worst
TrainTrackTrees (8:39:30 PM): i use Destroyer as one of three epigrams in my paper
TrainTrackTrees (8:39:39 PM): soften up the reader before they get to the shitty material, i guess
corrinad0 (8:39:51 PM): ahaha
corrinad0 (8:39:56 PM): what is the epigram
corrinad0 (8:40:08 PM): what is the topic
ATTENTION (8:46:53 PM): Direct IM session initiated. What is this?
TrainTrackTrees (8:47:06 PM): houssssing foreclousres
TrainTrackTrees (8:47:08 PM): cloures
TrainTrackTrees (8:47:09 PM): closures
corrinad0 (8:47:16 PM): oh yeah
corrinad0 (8:47:19 PM): how boring
ATTENTION (8:47:26 PM): Direct IM session disconnected.
TrainTrackTrees (8:47:28 PM): If that is what it takes
to be a stone, a stone's throw from your throne,
no man has ever hung from the rafters of a second home.
corrinad0 (8:47:35 PM): hahahh
corrinad0 went away at 8:47:40 PM.
TrainTrackTrees (8:47:52 PM): yeah, the quote... from a great song with the title of a publishing company
TrainTrackTrees (8:48:00 PM): farrar, straus and giroux
TrainTrackTrees (8:48:03 PM): (sea of tears)
corrinad0 (8:48:07 PM): nice
corrinad0 (10:01:41 PM): new monster avenue
corrinad0 (10:01:44 PM): sad f*cking tune.
TrainTrackTrees (10:02:01 PM): listen to... High Doses #2 of the acoustic version of Sunset Tree
corrinad0 (10:02:11 PM): yeah, i just did
corrinad0 (10:02:14 PM): for the first time
TrainTrackTrees (10:02:12 PM): awesome
corrinad0 (10:02:20 PM): a few minutes ago
TrainTrackTrees (10:02:23 PM): you trickster mindreading hero
corrinad0 (10:02:36 PM): just call me nestor
TrainTrackTrees (10:02:38 PM): man, one bottle of wine is not going to make us pass out. good thang i gotz weed, nigga
corrinad0 (10:02:45 PM): nance E nestor
corrinad0 (10:02:48 PM): haha
corrinad0 (10:02:49 PM): same.
TrainTrackTrees (10:03:02 PM): tho maybe H-luke von Skywalker has more of the Danielson
TrainTrackTrees (10:03:07 PM): i can't believe i just wrote that
corrinad0 (10:03:27 PM): haha
corrinad0 (10:03:40 PM): what a meta-conversation
TrainTrackTrees (10:04:15 PM): i should use it as an appendix for this paper. maybe nance (e) will find it groundbreaking
TrainTrackTrees (10:04:17 PM): or just breakage.
corrinad0 (10:04:31 PM): worth a try
TrainTrackTrees (10:08:14 PM):
TrainTrackTrees (10:08:19 PM): is that blank?
corrinad0 (10:08:31 PM): ?
TrainTrackTrees (10:08:32 PM): i'm assuming it is
TrainTrackTrees (10:08:53 PM):
TrainTrackTrees (10:08:55 PM): oh well
corrinad0 (10:09:20 PM): http://www.jstor.org/view/00267910/dm980900/98p0254a/0
corrinad0 (10:09:26 PM): really cool article
corrinad0 (10:09:44 PM): modernist fascist
corrinad0 (10:09:59 PM): ugh, that should've been my paper title
corrinad0 (10:10:05 PM): er, topic
corrinad0 (10:10:17 PM): but we didn't discuss enough Eliot
corrinad0 (10:10:24 PM): and I guess I know Beckett better
TrainTrackTrees (10:10:34 PM): eliot! great killer of modern poetry!
corrinad0 (10:10:53 PM): ok charles olsen
TrainTrackTrees (10:11:00 PM): hahaha. and williams and rexroth
corrinad0 (10:11:10 PM): kenneth.
corrinad0 (10:11:13 PM): nuff said.
TrainTrackTrees (10:11:14 PM): we should have a fantasy writer league.
corrinad0 (10:11:25 PM): guy had a bone to pick, straight up.
corrinad0 (10:11:30 PM): ok
corrinad0 (10:11:41 PM): i get shakespeare and dante, you get everyone else
TrainTrackTrees (10:11:41 PM): or come up with a trading card game like magic that utilizes novelists, dramatists, and poets
corrinad0 (10:12:01 PM): i like the idea
corrinad0 (10:12:08 PM): we've been throwing this around for years
TrainTrackTrees (10:12:04 PM): i was thinking something a little less lame than that. you antiquitous bumble breath
corrinad0 (10:12:13 PM): hahaha
TrainTrackTrees (10:15:39 PM): should each writer get like 3 special "abilities" or "attacks", or should we have a more quantatative way of going about it, with certain categories of stats
TrainTrackTrees (10:15:40 PM): ?
TrainTrackTrees (10:15:51 PM): or both
corrinad0 (10:16:02 PM): i think it should be relativly simple
corrinad0 (10:16:05 PM): so kids get into it
TrainTrackTrees (10:16:10 PM): fair enough
corrinad0 (10:16:37 PM): Schopenhauer's power will be to spread a bleak malaise on your opponent's morale...draining their manna
TrainTrackTrees (10:18:47 PM): mana? i was thinking we could use a system that replaces mana and life with logic / rationale and passion / irrational or something
corrinad0 (10:19:01 PM): hmm
corrinad0 (10:19:14 PM): yeah, and use some of those famous A's
TrainTrackTrees (10:21:03 PM): the A's could be other card types. if you played magic, then you know there were cards like "instants" and "land" -- instead of having this game be based primarily on physical movement and physical battling (though due to Pound's physical isolation, for example, we'd have to have a minimal physical part) we could have the game be based primarily around spiritual / philosophical / mental environments and gameplay. so then we could have Alienation be a card type, Authenticity be a card type, et cetera et cetera
corrinad0 (10:21:34 PM): interesting
corrinad0 (10:21:47 PM): how would hit points be determined
TrainTrackTrees (10:21:59 PM): maybe the alientation would be the way to incoporate the physical, though it would have extreme affects on the spiritual. again with pound as example, if he gets locked up at st. elizabeth's, he's not going to be able to function very well.
corrinad0 (10:22:39 PM): perhaps all players get sent to an asylum upon defeat
corrinad0 (10:22:40 PM): to recover
corrinad0 (10:22:46 PM): but then return weakened
corrinad0 (10:22:49 PM): until the next battle
TrainTrackTrees (10:23:08 PM): it'd be more interesting to have a sliding scale that balances logic with irrationality. go too far to logic and you might kill yourself. same with the opposite? i think that'd be an interesting thing... to keep yourself sane. but you could sacrifice a character like Nietzsche (special power perhaps?) to benefit all your other writers in a great, great way
TrainTrackTrees (10:23:18 PM): yeah yeah, that sounds good good
TrainTrackTrees (10:24:14 PM): i guess we have to start out with "what's the goal of the game?" since we're talking aesthetics and purpose as winning and losing. perhaps intellectual liberation? or some kind of nirvana type thing? i don't know.
corrinad0 (10:25:22 PM): i suppose we'de have to be the first to successfully define what it means to be a successful artist
corrinad0 (10:25:38 PM): Stephen King would wreck Samuel Beckett, for instance
corrinad0 (10:25:58 PM): Wallace Stevens would be in Bedlam within 10 minutes of meeting Maya Angelou
corrinad0 (10:26:17 PM): Should we also have an Oprah card that boosts the reputation of a writer exponentially
TrainTrackTrees (10:26:20 PM): hahahah
corrinad0 (10:26:45 PM): and I think critic cards should be modifiers
corrinad0 (10:27:10 PM): In descending order from era and l'ouvre
corrinad0 (10:27:23 PM): like, Hazlitt would outweigh Frye who would outweigh Bloom
corrinad0 (10:27:27 PM): that fat-ass
TrainTrackTrees (10:28:56 PM): yes... there's got to be a "community" aspect that enhances how characters function. for example, you have a level of "aspiration" or "ambition" (two ideas) that exists separately, and only be having it at certain points are writers able to perform certain actions. joyce can't automatically write ulysses... you've got to raise the meter a certain amount. writing portrait would require less ambition or aspiration. but by doing portrait it would raise the bar enough to write ulysses. OR there could be a system where certain cards (a type of card called "work") would have a prerequisite before it could be played. the origin of species would be requires for maggie a girl of the streets to be played. something like that.
corrinad0 (10:29:52 PM): cool
TrainTrackTrees (10:29:52 PM): hahah yeah the critics... forgot about them. certain cards could be unaffected though. shakespeare's critics would be his fans i guess... some writers wouldn't even be able to be affected by critics... like Homer, for instance.
corrinad0 (10:30:05 PM): How would you do that with poets though
TrainTrackTrees (10:30:15 PM): do what?
corrinad0 (10:30:28 PM): especially a work like the Cantos
corrinad0 (10:30:34 PM): or Faust
corrinad0 (10:31:01 PM): or Les fleurs du Mal
TrainTrackTrees (10:31:11 PM): lifelong poems you mean?
corrinad0 (10:31:19 PM): or guys like Rimbaud who give up on poetry at the age of 25
corrinad0 (10:31:20 PM): yeah
corrinad0 (10:31:30 PM): to run guns and have anal sex
corrinad0 (10:31:50 PM): haha, there could be a social conventions! card
corrinad0 (10:31:52 PM): censoring the work
corrinad0 (10:32:13 PM): as a defense by the opposition
TrainTrackTrees (10:32:06 PM): i don't know. special rules for each writer perhaps? certain works require the writer to die in a certain amount of time after they are written, or certain works like the cantos are more than one card that has to be played in a chronological sequence?
TrainTrackTrees (10:32:17 PM): definitely censoring
corrinad0 (10:32:25 PM): hmmm
TrainTrackTrees (10:33:12 PM): there could be mythology cards, or model cards, where the idea of Faust would have to be played for Marlow to write Faust or Goethe to write Faust
corrinad0 (10:33:26 PM): can we leave
TrainTrackTrees (10:33:26 PM): soon, in a few minutes
corrinad0 (10:33:37 PM): ok
