Black Comedy: The Fourth World Order

[Sonereal]

It isn't too late. Feel free to join.

 

[National]

I'll PM you a signup Conspiracy then. Should I add orders as well?

 

[Sonereal]

Orders locked.

 

[Sonereal]

​

Excerpts from the Various Newspapers and Tabloids

President Bush signed into law a budget bill that will greatly increase funding for several US agencies under the National Institutes of Health. Bruce Jackson of the National Institute of Mental Health has been tapped to take over the National Institutes of Health following the passing of the acting director. The bipartisan bill was coupled with a tax increase, which is provoking a mix reaction from voters ahead of November’s election…

The Army Corps of Engineers have been forced to delay work on an Alaskan pipeline meant to run down into the US Mainland due to protests in Canada over the pipeline. Both governments are working toward a solution.

Nintendo is on a roll folks. Kirby’s Dream Land? Super Mario Kart? The SNES in general? Seriously, why do Atari even bother? The only real competition in my opinion is Sega, and let’s be honest, the Game Boy is the greatest thing of all time.

Andrew Grove, CEO of Intel, has passed away. His successful leadership of Intel has filled business textbooks, but no amount of success can stop death. Craig Simmons will act as the interim CEO of Intel for the time being…

The New York Police Department has been praised in recent months for internal reforms that have led to a decrease in crime in New York City. Many attribute the success to James Ramsey, Police Commissioner of the NYPD. A few notables are already talking about a mayoral run for Ramsey someday.

Rumor has it that Enrique Rouco, leader of the infamous San Francisco Cartel, survived an assassination attempt by disgruntled cartel enforcers. The assassination attempt was carried out in broad daylight as the Rouco Brothers were being driven through the streets of San Francisco. As usual, the authorities can’t be bothered to intervene in “gang problems”.

…Velvet Charity Foundation is under investigation after a smaller investigation revealed some of the European babies brought into the country for adoption to American couples lack the proper documentation. Veronica Violet told the press that “the VCF has done no wrong and the matter will be cleared up with the authorities shortly. The investigation is being undertaken by the Chicago Police Department.

Hunter: A bright flash man. I was freezing, half to death, up in the Alaskan wilderness and I thought I was going to die but then I saw a bright blue flash.
Interviewer: Did the aliens save you?
Hunter: No. I just ran my ass in a direction until I found my car. Reached a road, drove into a tree. It was a miracle a cop found me. I’ll take the DUI because I lived.

The private security firm Safety Corp is under investigation by the US government over its foreign affairs work. Safety Corp is accused of accepting money from brutal dictatorships in Africa in exchange for providing security, but some accuse the company of doing more than just “providing security”. Swartkwasmuishond of Goldsun Security told reporters that “Safety Corp gives all security firms a bad name” and that the company should have every filing comb through for irregularities.

Goldsun Security, as readers may remember, has earned a very big paycheck from the Corrections Corporation of America for guard training. The visible effort by the wo companies has propelled Goldsun Security to the forefront of the American private security sphere.

Vlakplaas has reported greater-than-expected earnings this quarter in light of its recent mark successes. Many analysts report…

A small number of protesters have gathered outside Leavenworth Detention Center to protest the privately-ran maximum security prison. Protest leaders say that it sets a terrible precedent and will advance the prison-industrial complex’s corporate interests.

David Icke is a loon, and if he wants to fly off to Saudi Arabia and discover the “truth” of a crashed military jet in Saudi Arabia, we should all happily see him off and hope he doesn’t come back. His last book, even among his crazy followers, isn’t doing so hot, so maybe even the crazies are starting to wise up on this man’s crazy.

Independent candidate Randolf Batts is proving to be quite the problem for both Bush and Clinton as we head into October. While it is unlikely the man will win, he is taking enough of the vote from both men in the polls to potentially play kingmaker depending if he swing left, right, or sticks to his guns.

Next turn orders will cover 1 October 1992 to 9 November 1992.

 

[Sonereal]

Orders due this Saturday and Noon.

 

[Sonereal]

Due to personal issues, the locks will be delayed one week.

 

[Sonereal]

Orders actually lock tomorrow at noon.

 

[Sonereal]

Orders actually locked, golly.

 

[Sonereal]

Is there interest in a revival/reboot? If so, are there any changes you guys would like to see?

Here are a few- conversation starters for a reboot.

1. Scale
Black Comedy was focused almost entirely from the perspective of America, even though we did have a Dutch conspiracy and a lot of actions in the Middle East. Some players expressed a desire to expand the scope and scale of the game, while others have worried (as have I) that expanding the scope would lower the chance of players bumping into one another.

I worked around the problem in Black Comedy with events that draw in multiple parties, which was fun to see play out in orders. Still, I would like opinions.

2. Time period.
I picked the 1990s because X-Files and the general weirdness craze of the period. One popular suggestion is a late-20s, early-30s game, which I'm totally down for. The only issue is my ability to research for those games. A lot of my research for this game was done through Wikipedia, and even that involved me jumping to different sites to dig up interesting information a lot of the times.

Still, that wouldn't really stop a game set in the 20s/30s. I will say right now that I won't run any Black Comedy before 1920 though.

3. Public postings.
Black Comedy is heavily focused on private actions, which is a ton of fun but means players don't often get to negotiate with one another directly. Heck, none of the players even knew who else was playing besides themselves and a few other obvious candidates.

If you guys want to encourage more thread activity, how should we go about it? What would be a useful framing device for the reboot campaign that would justify the players being aware of one another enough that they can speak to one another without everybody knowing what everybody else controls?

 

[Nuka-sama]

I would join a reboot;

I'd prefer 1990s, kept to the USA but if you did 1920s/30s I think it'd make sense to have it world spanning

 

[NinjaCow64]

I would prefer a world-spanning 1990s game, but I was like a person who stayed on the game for the entire run so I might not be the best person to conduct market research on.

As for encouraging thread participation, that's a toughie. I'm honestly not sure how to do it, or if it is even desirable.

 

[Omega124]

I would prefer a world-spanning 1990s game, but I was like a person who stayed on the game for the entire run so I might not be the best person to conduct market research on.

As for encouraging thread participation, that's a toughie. I'm honestly not sure how to do it, or if it is even desirable.

The fact this was UScentric honestly was a big reason why I personally didn't join the game.

I would like a 20s/30s worldwide game personally. That sounds pretty unique, even.

 

[Sonereal]

The fact this was UScentric honestly was a big reason why I personally didn't join the game.

I would like a 20s/30s worldwide game personally. That sounds pretty unique, even.

Which was really unfortunate because as "UScentric" as the game was supposed to be, it ended up being more worldspanning than planned because the United States is worldspanning.

I would join a reboot;

I'd prefer 1990s, kept to the USA but if you did 1920s/30s I think it'd make sense to have it world spanning

Yay.

I would prefer a world-spanning 1990s game, but I was like a person who stayed on the game for the entire run so I might not be the best person to conduct market research on.

As for encouraging thread participation, that's a toughie. I'm honestly not sure how to do it, or if it is even desirable.

I feel that if I do a reboot, it will be set in the 1920s/30s.

 

[Decamper]

I didn't join the first time because I had no idea what was going on. Now that I know that was the point, I'd be super down for a 30s version.

I do think there needs to be some sort of focus to keep players actually interacting with each other, or else we'll end up sitting in our little occult corners of the world.

 

[inthesomeday]

Can someone tell a normie like me what the heck this was

 

[Sonereal]

I didn't join the first time because I had no idea what was going on. Now that I know that was the point, I'd be super down for a 30s version.

I do think there needs to be some sort of focus to keep players actually interacting with each other, or else we'll end up sitting in our little occult corners of the world.

This did happen a lot, but again, it isn't entirely visible publicly. A lot of the events I created existed to bring two or more entities together. There was a very cool game of cat and mouse between two opposing conspiracies. Neither knew the other existed, and they were fighting against each other on two or three fronts without even knowing that the fronts were connected.

I should have made clearer in the original post that not knowing everything that is going on is 100% the point, however. This is different from the usual IOT where everybody knows who has what and who is being attacked where and why and all that.

Can someone tell a normie like me what the heck this was

Black Comedy was a game set in the 1990s. Players created secretive organizations and key members of the organization and plotted to achieve their goals. Every update involved a series of news clippings, some with a deeper meaning and some that were just chaff. Every player received a private update which, itself, was not even 100% accurate a lot of the times.

In short, it was a game about having a giant bulletin board, a lot of pictures, places, and news clippings on said board, and connecting everything with strings and thumbtacks and hoping to find out what was really going on.