Me and Rollo (or, Despatches From an Alternate 1997)

Last night/this morning I dreamed of a forgotten Britpop-era banger, circa 1997, from a band with the initials "FF".

It was a jangly, jolly, upbeat number, somewhere in Feeder or Supergrass territory, and although I don't recall most of the song, I do remember the chorus:

Me and Rollo, me and me and Rollo,
Me and Rollo, me and me and Rollo,
Doing lots of puff and going to the disco! (hey!)

I can't imagine Radio 1 letting that one go out without editing, even in the hedonistic 1990s.

I have a vague feeling that despite the overall jolly attitude, things did not end well for the singer's friendship with Rollo, but alas, the details are lost to the eye-rubbing haziness of waking up and facing the dread of being an adult.

DLC for the FF GBs

On Monday night I dreamed that I visited my Korean cousin in Toronto. I don't have a Korean cousin in Toronto, so I suspect this is my subconscious telling me I'm sad about Kim's Convenience being cancelled.

Anyway.

While there we went to whatever the Canadian equivalent of a charity shop is, and I was excited to find a bunch of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. I managed to plug a couple of gaps in my collection, and found a second copy of Blacksand! to probably sell, but alas even in the realm of dreams Allansia eludes me, which probably says something about my sense of self-worth. I also discovered that Vault of the Vampire is called Vault of the Vicar in Canada, no doubt to some obscure Canadian law about promoting vampirism, or a general Canadian fear of the clergy perhaps.

The most interesting find was a series of short, 30 to 50 page books that were designed to be used in conjunction with the main FF adventures, as side quests of sort. They had GREENSPINES and everything. The main books would be edited to add something like this:

You now have the opportunity to embark on a sidequest. Select a book and turn to 1 in that book. If you survive your sidequest, follow any special instructions there, or return here to continue on your adventure.

If you would rather ignore the distraction of another quest and continue on your journey, turn to 87

Would this work in practice? I remember there being a disclaimer in the shorter books warning against the potential unbalancing effect of sidequests on the main book -- again, that tells you something about my subconscious -- but it seems like a viable idea, a sort of analogue DLC to make replays of one's favourite FF adventures a bit more unpredictable and interesting. You could tailor the digressions so that they would be suited to certain books over others, both in terms of game balance and setting, so you don't suddenly end up fighting a bunch of medusae on a pirate ship or whatever.

(I suppose in theory you could do this with the existing books. Start Caverns of the Snow Witch, then interrupt it to play Moonrunner, then jump back, although that seems clunky and excessive. If you paired up the right books it might just about work. Hm.)

I woke up before I could try any of the new books, but if I dream about them again, I will report back. Meanwhile, if anyone has a copy of Allansia they don't want, let me know.

Drop the Loot!

I woke up at about one in the morning the other, er, morning with this thing in my head. I tried to dismiss it and go back to sleep but it occupied my thoughts for another two hours, damned thing. Assuming that it is some sort of Lovecraftian mental virus I've put it on paper so it can infect your minds too.

The table is available as a 400dpi png (Google Drive or Mediafire) or a pdf (Google Drive or Mediafire).

(And here's a reformatted version that you may find easier to use, courtesy of +Dyson Logos.)

I have no idea if it works or if it's any good; I may test it on Friday in what will probably be my group's last Lost Mine of Phandelver Trolltooth Pass session. If you use it, let me know how it goes.