Trait Ziggurat Barley

Someone on some post in "The Window... to asshattery" thread wrote this:

YES! and so is born the Pseudo-intellectual Heartbreaker. It has the following characteristics.

1) Minimal system
2) Minimal to zero setting
3) Convinced that it's revolutionnary
4) Bad attitude towards all previous RPGs
5) Sprinkled lightly with forgeite jargon.

I picked up the bass guitar and started jamming with that theme of that obnoxious poster. The result was my first published RPG as an adult. I am ashamed.

SPULTURATORAH!
the dark narrativist game of gamist simulationism in ancient retro-future Babylon

Intro If you are a roleplayer, chances are you are an overweight spotty obsessive prat who rolls greasy dice and kills orcs. You are probably dumb, and the things you love and play are dumb. Everyone is immature and ugly and obsessive and only likes killing things.

That is, until you play SPULTURATORAH. You will then be a narrativist StoryEngager who will wow your players (also now called StoryEngagers) with epic storylike stories of storytelling.

No other game has ever been like SPULTURATORAH. The minimalist system is quite easy to grasp, yet hard for old-school spotty roleplayers to understand. You have to let things go to be a Narrativist. But your games will turn from dice-throwing hackfests into narrative Awesome.

Setting: It's like a dark Frank Fazetta mixed with a Tetsuwan-Atomu style flair. Set in ancient Babylon. With flying cars and psychic armies. King Gilgamesh rules over everything with a cruel and controlling eye from his Levitating Darkness Throne at the Ziggurat of Ur.

The heroes must stop him. With Narrativism.

System

All StoryEngagers make a character, called a SelfAvatar. The SelfAvatar has 4 traits only:
TRAIT ONE
TRAIT TWO
TRAIT PRIME
TRAIT ZIGGURAT BARLEY

Traits One and Two are rated at 5 and 4, respectively. The StoryEngager of this SelfAvatar assigns these traits. They can assign them anything they want. Some examples are:
Shoot NinurtaCannon
Pilot EnilHovertank
Play Bentzballah
Look cool in sandals
Impress Shrine Maidens
Spot Hidden Ghosts
Tim Burton
Dodge Fate

Trait Prime is the Trait that the PrimeStoryEngager assigns to each SelfAvatar to help engage the process of Narration. The Trait Prime is rated at 4 as well, and can be things like the above, or it could be motivational forces like:
Passion for Women
Fights Sandzombies
Loves Red Clay
Looks like Rob Schneider
Searching for Immortality for his cat.

DICE For all the above, you roll a 1d6. If you roll equal or under the Trait, you succeed. If you roll over, you fail. If you don't have an appropriate Trait, you need to roll a 1-2 to succeed.
MODIFIERS are for spotty gamist fucks. Away with thee. Go run back to your hit modifiers and flattfooted rules and taking 20.

Trait Ziggurat Barley is a number, set at 8. Every time you successfully play a session, the PrimeStoryEngage assings you Ziggurat Barley points. You can get more points by engaging the story narrativisticly, or having big tits.
You use Ziggurat Barley to change the storyline, frame scenes or exert narrative control over the game. Every time you use the Ziggurat Barley, you may enrage the God Shamash. Roll a 1d6: If you roll over your Ziggurat Barley score, you have enraged Shamash, the god of Sin and Travellers! Fuck!

By the end of the adventure, your SelfAvatar will either be Cursed, Dead, or Shamash may even summon King Gilgamesh, who will chase you to the ends of the Fertile Crescent in his Levitating Darkness Throne. If you overcome the curse, though, you will become twice as powerful as you were before! Choose one TRAIT to raise one point.

That is the entirety of the game. Now go forth, valiant StoryEngagers, and engage in STORYTELLING to TELL STORIES!!!

YES! and so is born the Pseudo-intellectual Heartbreaker. It has the following characteristics.

1) Minimal system
2) Minimal to zero setting
3) Convinced that it's revolutionnary
4) Bad attitude towards all previous RPGs
5) Sprinkled lightly with forgeite jargon.


*looks at his own game...*

Shit.

Searching for Immortality for his cat.

Now I've got a great idea for my next Roach character!

Also, I'm pleased to discover that there's nothing even remotely intelectual about my current endeavour. Nope, nuthin' but brain-eatin' undead over here. Umh'm.

-Eric

4) Bad attitude towards all previous RPGs

Only towards the ones that made me want to write my own damn game...

I don't understand a word of that game, due to brain damage. I do instinctively feel it's awesome power, though.

Jonathan: Link?

Much like LA is on the far borders of Manchurian China.

Bloody Roots: the Game! I used to play Sepultura as soundtrack for our Werewolf campaigns.

Much like LA is on the far borders of Manchurian China.
Ahhh. Oops. :-)

Man when I saw this I though someone had mispelled Sepultura.

Actually, that was exactly what I was going for: A mashing of the words Sepultura and Torah.

I imagined that Gilgamesh was this decked-out double-guitar strumming overlord on a flying meteor chariot, and every time he approached someone had to play "REFUSE, RESIST" or "WAR FOR TERRITORY" in the background.

It'd probably be cathartic at the very least.

It's probably also unavoidable.

You can get more points by engaging the story narrativisticly, or having big tits.

Do man-breasts count?

Oooh, I survive!

Dunno about #1, half at best.
Got #2 nailed down,.
No #3, stealing happily, stealing proud.. It's just the combination that's "new".
No #4, bleah.
#5: I use the terms "Narr", "Gamist" and "Simulationism" in my Introduction, that's it.

Whee!

I should commission exactly two pieces of art, fill out the game futher (from 1 to 3 pages), and publish it in a very very small hardback form through Lulu.

-Andy

And, like a gaming fairy, give it to struggling StoryEngagers who need it most desperately.

Will this be in print by GenCon?

Andy, as long as one of those pieces of art illustrates "King Gilgamesh rules over everything with a cruel and controlling eye from his Levitating Darkness Throne at the Ziggurat of Ur," I'm good.

DUDE THAT IS AWESOME.

-Andy

The motion of Awesome is carried! All hail the Awesome!