"What we need are some new cliches."
--Sam Goldwyn
The following is a list of themes which are common, perhaps a little too common, on Puzzlebox. Note that players are absolutely not forbidden to use the following notions just because they're overused. Every incarnation of an idea is different, and in fact, we would rather see players breathe new life into these cliches by analyzing, revising, and subverting them. We just don't want you to use these ideas by default; generally, cliches become cliches because they are the easiest or most obvious solution to a problem that probably deserves a more careful and original consideration.
(list perhaps to be broken down into subcategories as this grows)
CLICHES
- Amnesia: sometimes a brilliant exploration of a strange psychological state, sometimes an excuse not to deal with a character's background...
- A beautiful variation on this would be a character with the ability to talk about eir fully detailed background, but an inability to remember the present. Effectively, working long-term memory but malfunctioning short-term memory.
- I'm on it. :) -- Morty
- Clouds: characters that are completely protean, without any specific form or distinguishing features. Remember, just because you can be anything on Puzzlebox doesn't mean you have to be everything at once.
- Nanomachines: especially being made therefrom. There are plenty of other options for technomagibabble on Puzzlebox, after all. The Mess is not limited by real-world physics, so much of the appeal of letting tiny robots do their dirty work may even be lost to its inhabitants!
- Mortals (Single-Lifers): People who can't, or won't, be recovered by the backup system. The theme itself is interesting, but all dishes need spice - how, and why, are thou mortal?
- Not sure this qualifies as a cliché. Usually, variants of mortality are the result of an in-depth character concept, not its arbitrary basis. This may not be something we want to discourage.
- Then, in this as with other things: whatever you are, be a good one. -- L.
- Far-Easterners: Characters with appearances or behaviour eerily congruous with old-fashioned or traditional Chinese, Japanese or Korean manner.
- IMHO, This is more of a backlash of Top being seen as strictly Victorian England territory. -Yi
WARP STEREOTYPES
This is another fine example of a cliche, or rather a whole category of them, that have spawned some excellent characters. The point is not that playing a Topwarper who's adopted 19th-century British styles and mores, or a Downwarper with a leather jacket and Liberty spikes, or a Charmer who looks like a girls' toy from the 1980's, is a reason for shame. It's just that these have become the default concepts of those Warps, even though the Warps' themes were intended to be very loose and adaptable. There are thousands and thousands of other Terran cultural moments to riff on.
Consider instead, say, a character who seizes on Down's countercultural themes and affects 1950's Beat slang and attitudes. Or a Topwarpian craftswoman with a samurai spirit. Or a hyperreal Charmer who's just a 2D portrait of a dancer made of throbbing psychedelic patterns, like a cut from Yellow Submarine. Or an Upwarper inspired by the Houyhnhnms, the gentle, snobbish, ultra-rationalist horses from Gulliver's Travels. Or a neo-classical Bottomwarper, inspired by the fantastically dirty erotic poetry of the ancient Greeks and Romans. (It is, trust me -- get a modern translation that's true to the original contexts, not some prim-and-proper Victorian one. The textbook Games of Venus is a good start.) Or a Stranger Chitin-Queen drawn from William S. Burroughs's damn creepy interpretation of the Mayan priesthood as bloodthirsty, alien control-addicts. ("Bad people here. Worship fucking bug.")
Create your own Cliched PBX Character
This is a satire zone. There is no loading and unloading in the satire zone.
- There are, however, loaded assertions. ;D
With just easy use of this chart, you too can create your own genre-busting post-furry creation in just 3 die rolls!
Species (1d10):
1. Cat.
2. Sorta Cat.
3. Kinda Cat.
4. Sorta Kinda Cat.
5. More or Less Cat.
6. Definitely Cat.
7. Certainly Cat.
8. Catiwumpus.
9. Catapult.
10. Something other than Cat. (Pysch! It really is a cat!)
Substance made of (1d10):
1. Latex (Black).
2. Latex (White).
3. Latex (Off Yellow Surgical Tubing).
4. Rubber That Isn't Latex.
5. Vulcanized Parsley.
6. Plastic Cup Material.
7. Shiny Stuff (tm)
8. All See-Through Polymer.
9. Nanothingies.
10. MEAT.
Occupation (1d10):
1. Sexual Therapist
2. Genital Rehabilitation Specialist.
3. Libido Inflater.
4. Undercarriage Architect.
5. Pubic Relations Official.
6. Whore.
7. Probe. (not the sexual kind - see previous entries.)
8. Science-Fantasy Pedant.
9. Desperate Writer.
10. Work Idled Wizard.
Home (1d10):
1. Earth
2. Terra
3. Gaia
4. Urth
5. Downwarp
6. Charmwarp
7. Charmdown
8. Bottom
9. The Nexus
10. Tapestries
- What about the wondrous Charmdownbottom, one of the twenty Booths that will connect the Parks that will connect the Warps? My entire character concept revolves around it and all the really cyberpunk latex shaman sexdolls that live there! So could you build it, please, preferably within the next 24 hours? Oh, and did I mention the whole thing was inspired by Bruce Sterling in some vague fashion which I will not detail here? -- OR
- I've toyed some with warps and warp combos as personality types, and I always figured a charmdownbottom combination sounded a lot like me. ...I feel sad now. ;o) -- Indi
- Not to worry! You must have missed the summary comment, which was something like "The sad thing is, I'd probably PLAY a character from Charmdownbottom." :) I wasn't parodying the choice of warps, so much as I was the requests we get now and then from applicants who want us to build a Park NOWNOWNOW, not realizing how difficult it's been to conceptualize them. Or even worse, from people who want us to make radical changes to the infrastructure of the MUCK -- like a seventh Warp -- just to accommodate their character. The "cyberpunk latex shaman sexdoll" is one of those concepts that could be either very good or very bad, but it's real easy to imagine somebody doing it for the wrong reasons! I also do have to say, while were being frank, that I wish the MUCK had as much cutesy BDSM content as our Gentle Satirist perceives it to. ;p -- OR
- Oh, nah, I saw the summary comment all right, that's why I went to go check out what it was referring to. I just find it curious, I have a feeling charmdownbottom might an association for a LOT of people on the muck, for some reason. :o) -- Indi
Faction (1d10)
1. Bubbledoll
2. Toy
3. Charmvirus carrier
4. Lobotomized servitor
5. Pet drone
6. Architect slave
7. Chitin Queen slave
8. Hemotopian (Ha! Just kidding! Really a Bonobian's pet)
9. Undecided
10. Terrans!
You have left the satire zone. The universe welcomes careful drivers.
Reference