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April 2004
This issue of Collector Times marks the 6th anniversary of CT on the web. Like any healthy 6 year old, CT is concerned with playing games and having toys, and my inclination is that, if you're reading this, you probably are too. Happy birthday, Collector Times, and may we all never grow out of our love of playing!
If you've visited your local game store recently (provided some greedy restaurant owner hasn't bought it out and shut it down), you've probably noticed a proliferation of Role Playing Game books written to emulate the environments and scenarios of popular computer and console games. The beauty of this is that it allows those without the proper systems to play these games anyway, and incorporates the most State-of-the-Art processor/Controller known to human kind: The Human Imagination. While you might always know what's right around the corner in the computer or console version of the game, you never know with a Game Master what they're liable to throw at you. This spot has always had a couple of weak skeletons waiting? Not this week. This week, your Game Master is in a bad mood, and the Unobtainium Dragon is waiting instead. Before you can say "Huzzah!" your whole party is dead. What could be more fun than that?
Well, we here at Collector Times have uncovered the most ambitious effort yet to bring the computer/console game to the RPG book market:
SIMS: D-20 System
Not only does the SIMS D-20 System book contain all the information you need to make your real life into nothing more than a SIMS game, it includes handy tips on how to maximize your game playing experience. The first, of course, is signing up for the EA Games/SIMS Special Cell Phone package. The SIMS D-20 Experience will appeal quite strongly to those type 'A' personalities that feel a strong longing to run other people's lives. Just like in the SIMS computer/console game, where the player runs the lives of the SIMS they control down to such little details as when they eat, bathe, and use the bathroom, SIMS Game Masters will control the lives of SIMS players down to the smallest detail. To do that, it is vital that both the Game Master and the Player have their special SIMS Cell Phones, with unlimited SIMS to SIMS minutes each month. This allows the player to stay in nearly constant contact with the Game Master to find out such details as what they should do next, and allows that vital feedback to the Game Master of the SIMS Player's needs and moods, just like in the computer game.
Feeling hungry? Tell the Game Master, who will then decide whether you should eat or not. Tired? The Game Master will tell you when to go to bed. Bladder full? The Game Master will direct you when to use the bathroom, or subject you to the embarrassment of keeping you away from the bathroom until you wet yourself. Need friends? The Game Master will contact other Game Masters, and arrange meetings between yourself and the other GMs' players. Can't decide whether to get the 4 poster bed or the waterbed? Not your problem anymore! Your Game Master will look at your bank account and decide which bed you'll be buying!
Meanwhile (since this is a D-20 system book), tables in the book will enable both Game Master and Player to determine such things as skill gains, employment promotions, etc. on the roll of the dice. No more will the indecisive person need to worry about vacillating over every decision, when they can have a micro-managing Game Master to take that responsibility. Now, when everything goes wrong, the player can merely blame the Game Master, who will in turn blame either the dice rolls or the player themselves, and no one has to feel bad about those pesky little failures in life.
The SIMS: D-20 System book. Watch for it in a Gaming Store near you, and be prepared to take your gaming experience to the next level of LIVING your gaming experience!
(Disclaimer: No official announcements or plans have been made concerning SIMS D-20 system books, nor has EA Games, producers of the SIMS computer and console games, branched out into the Cell Phone business. The above article is satire, and neither the writer nor the editorial staff of Collector Times will be held responsible if you spend lots of money and time driving around trying to find the books. Besides, we're only 6 years old . . .)
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