The Inside Scoop on Gaming

There's no point in saying that adventures for Ghostbusters are ood. They're all odd. Uniformly so. With the subject material, there's no getting around it.

Let me say, right up front, that the Ghostbusters RPG - the first edition - is one of the best games I've ever played. Let me also say that Scared Stiffs does not exactly live up to the sterling work done in the basic rules set. It does raise some remarkably interesting questions, but it also fails to address them, and it slowly slides into silliness and a somewhat contrived conclusion by the time that it finishes.

What's it about? The Ghostbusters - the PCs, not the original Ghostbusters from the film - are invited to a supernatural convention - QUACKScon - in Vermont, where the best and the brightest in the paranormal field strut their stuff. The PCs are unpleasantly surprised to see that the Ghostbusters franchise is being threatened by competitors, in the form of a sleek new company called ETI; they do the same job as the Ghostbusters, but they do it a lot better. As a matter of fact, they directly threaten the Ghostbusters franchise through some pretty stiff competition.

This raises a number of question. Should an issue as touchy as ghost management be in the hands of private corporations? What if ETI turned out to be manipulating the spirits of the dead and/or ectoplasmic coagulations of emotional states to their own ends? What if Ghostbusters couldn't maintain the monopoly? What if buying a franchise wasn't necessary? What if catching ghosts became as common as ham radio?

Enjoy noodling those questions, because Scared Stiffs won't answer a single one. What it will do is throw outdated cultural references at you, along with lame jokes, forced characterization, a plot that goes all over the place, godawful accents and lobster-like alien beings called Kryds who have come to Earth in the guise of ETI to suck up all of its parakinetic energy - PKE - in order to bottle it as soft drinks for other alien races.

The first thought, I'm sure, is that I'm being too harsh on a game that's supposed to be basically a fun romp through the world of Ghostbusters. The problem is that it's not funny. It's not even vaguely amusing. It's lame. Hot Rods of the Gods, by comparison, was hilarious without dating itself at all.

What's lame? A step-by-step through the plot. The Ghostbusters show up at QUACKScon, in Wrath, Vermont. Once they show up, there's a firefight with the Grape brothers, inept warlocks who have bcome powerful in death. They're the Grapes of Wrath, Vermont.

Yeah, I thought that it was lame too. ETI sews up another ghost while they're there, showing off their new technology. After that's done, they go to QUACKScon itself, where they meet assorted NPCs. Some of them are interesting, I'll grant them that. One of them, Arthur Floss, is an intrepid journalist who's been infected with lycanthropy; another is a too-cute , lisping little girl who's a prodigy at Boolean mathematics and more than likely to attract stray proton pack bolts and/or slime wads from ghosts. A request from a beautiful NPC provokes them to investigate a possessed grandpa, who's been possessed by six different ghosts, each with a new, awful accent, and enough forced puns to make you want to swallow a .45 automatic. (The Native American is called Chief Tonka of the Issusu.) There's a nice touch where the players themselves get to read them out, and I'm sure that players will get a great kick out of it; that's why the funny accent, and its practitioners, must be locked away where they'll never inflict damage on humanity ever again. Once they've found out that ETI is responsible for the PKE loss referenced by Egon in an earlier chapter, the Ghostbusters are off to an ETI warehouse. Assorted ETI knickknacks turn out to be robotic copycats - amusingly enough, they'll also cheerfully imitate Ghostbuster technology - get chased by zombie citizens, find themselves aboard a Kryd warship/PKE Hoover, save the day through proton blasts, and are returned to a hero's welcome.

Standard stuff. So, what went wrong?

The first, and most glaring error, is the references, which immediately pin this product to its point of origin. There's a parody of Bartles & James' wine cooler ads, where two old men - Bartles and James, I believe - would sit on the porch, jabbering about how their wine cooler was really good. They were amusing. They also haven't been seen in some thirteen years.

I hate feeling old.

If your players are old enough to enjoy this bit of pop-culture reference, then they won't get it until you jab them a few times and wink broadly, at which point they won't care. If they're too young, then there's no point in referencing it - why bother? The Kryds speak in a melange of commercial jargon, including the ancient "ring around the collar", which will also baffle and/or annoy players.

Fatal flaws? Unfortunately, yes. Without the clever references, the adventure falls flat. ETI is an obvious villain, there's lots of railroading, there's little to attract real attention, and most of the NPCs are more annoying than useful. The adventure is worth buying as a curiousity, but it won't give you much more than that. It's unfortunate, but it's just not that great of an adventure.

-Darren MacLennan

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Scared Stiffs
Author: John M. Ford and Bill Slavicsek Category: game Company/Publisher: West End Games Line: Ghostbusters Cost: $1 - $15? Page count: 32 ISBN: 0-87341-062-8 SKU: 30021 Capsule Review by Darren MacLennan on 05/19/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Horror Vampire Gothic Superhero	There's no point in saying that adventures for Ghostbusters are ood. They're all odd. Uniformly so. With the subject material, there's no getting around it. Let me say, right up front, that the Ghostbusters RPG - the first edition - is one of the best games I've ever played. Let me also say that Scared Stiffs does not exactly live up to the sterling work done in the basic rules set. It does raise some remarkably interesting questions, but it also fails to address them, and it slowly slides into silliness and a somewhat contrived conclusion by the time that it finishes. What's it about? The Ghostbusters - the PCs, not the original Ghostbusters from the film - are invited to a supernatural convention - QUACKScon - in Vermont, where the best and the brightest in the paranormal field strut their stuff. The PCs are unpleasantly surprised to see that the Ghostbusters franchise is being threatened by competitors, in the form of a sleek new company called ETI; they do the same job as the Ghostbusters, but they do it a lot better. As a matter of fact, they directly threaten the Ghostbusters franchise through some pretty stiff competition. This raises a number of question. Should an issue as touchy as ghost management be in the hands of private corporations? What if ETI turned out to be manipulating the spirits of the dead and/or ectoplasmic coagulations of emotional states to their own ends? What if Ghostbusters couldn't maintain the monopoly? What if buying a franchise wasn't necessary? What if catching ghosts became as common as ham radio? Enjoy noodling those questions, because Scared Stiffs won't answer a single one. What it will do is throw outdated cultural references at you, along with lame jokes, forced characterization, a plot that goes all over the place, godawful accents and lobster-like alien beings called Kryds who have come to Earth in the guise of ETI to suck up all of its parakinetic energy - PKE - in order to bottle it as soft drinks for other alien races. The first thought, I'm sure, is that I'm being too harsh on a game that's supposed to be basically a fun romp through the world of Ghostbusters. The problem is that it's not funny. It's not even vaguely amusing. It's lame. Hot Rods of the Gods, by comparison, was hilarious without dating itself at all. What's lame? A step-by-step through the plot. The Ghostbusters show up at QUACKScon, in Wrath, Vermont. Once they show up, there's a firefight with the Grape brothers, inept warlocks who have bcome powerful in death. They're the Grapes of Wrath, Vermont. Yeah, I thought that it was lame too. ETI sews up another ghost while they're there, showing off their new technology. After that's done, they go to QUACKScon itself, where they meet assorted NPCs. Some of them are interesting, I'll grant them that. One of them, Arthur Floss, is an intrepid journalist who's been infected with lycanthropy; another is a too-cute , lisping little girl who's a prodigy at Boolean mathematics and more than likely to attract stray proton pack bolts and/or slime wads from ghosts. A request from a beautiful NPC provokes them to investigate a possessed grandpa, who's been possessed by six different ghosts, each with a new, awful accent, and enough forced puns to make you want to swallow a .45 automatic. (The Native American is called Chief Tonka of the Issusu.) There's a nice touch where the players themselves get to read them out, and I'm sure that players will get a great kick out of it; that's why the funny accent, and its practitioners, must be locked away where they'll never inflict damage on humanity ever again. Once they've found out that ETI is responsible for the PKE loss referenced by Egon in an earlier chapter, the Ghostbusters are off to an ETI warehouse. Assorted ETI knickknacks turn out to be robotic copycats - amusingly enough, they'll also cheerfully imitate Ghostbuster technology - get chased by zombie citizens, find themselves aboard a Kryd warship/PKE Hoover, save the day through proton blasts, and are returned to a hero's welcome. Standard stuff. So, what went wrong? The first, and most glaring error, is the references, which immediately pin this product to its point of origin. There's a parody of Bartles & James' wine cooler ads, where two old men - Bartles and James, I believe - would sit on the porch, jabbering about how their wine cooler was really good. They were amusing. They also haven't been seen in some thirteen years. I hate feeling old. If your players are old enough to enjoy this bit of pop-culture reference, then they won't get it until you jab them a few times and wink broadly, at which point they won't care. If they're too young, then there's no point in referencing it - why bother? The Kryds speak in a melange of commercial jargon, including the ancient "ring around the collar", which will also baffle and/or annoy players. Fatal flaws? Unfortunately, yes. Without the clever references, the adventure falls flat. ETI is an obvious villain, there's lots of railroading, there's little to attract real attention, and most of the NPCs are more annoying than useful. The adventure is worth buying as a curiousity, but it won't give you much more than that. It's unfortunate, but it's just not that great of an adventure. -Darren MacLennan Style: 2 (Needs Work) Substance: 2 (Sparse)