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In addition, this review is written in the style of and inspired by the books in question, so if I ramble, deal with it. Well, I guess the "inspired by" is obvious, so, whatever...SHUT UP.
When I first started to get back into gaming after high school, I remember there being a disclaimer in the front of the book reasoning with me. It said:
"Look, if you were to win a game of Battleship, would you go down to the docks and molotov the ships? No."
So, when I picked up my wife's copy of Human Occupied Landfill and began to read the CLAIMER...I should have known something was up. This thing actually warned me to put the book down, smile, and slowly back away. On no uncertain terms, it let me know that I was about to delve into the type of debauchery and twisted thought processes that lead to, and I quote:
"...start[ing] a prostitution ring made up of destitute nuns...jumping off the balcony of your local movie theater with seven running chainsaws strapped to your chest. They will likely be showing a matinee of Bambi, too."
Nothing is sacred. Nothing is safe, especially your fragile, little mind. I quote, once again:
"This game will fuck you up."
The book is jam packed with absurdist humor, unglorious references to classic gaming, and a less than healthy ammount of drugs, violence, and rock 'n' roll. The only two reasons the sex was left out is because the end of the player's section states openly that no women have been stupid enough to get sent to HOL, and that your character probably won't survive long enough to have sex, anyhow. If he's lucky. And for explanation on that, I have two words for you. Sodomy Bikers. All I'm sayin'.
So, where are you? You are on Confederate Outpost #665, designated: Human Occupied Landfill. This shithole is where the Confederation of Worlds (yes, yes...COW) dumps all of it's trash and undesireables, including everything from rancid pizza boxes to psychotic killers to excess accountants. 'Cause you KNOW how much we hate accountants. What can I say, every game needs it's standard issue zombie, after all. I'm not joking; look in the beastiary.
Okay, I'm getting off on a tangent. Sorry. Just kidding. About being sorry, not being off on a tangent.
HOL is the worst possible place you can be outside of Hell itself, and even then, there's room for argument. I'm not even mentioning the biker gang again (woogah), but in addition to they who shall not be mentioned (again, woogah), there's "crickets" (small robots with four blades for legs and top-mounted cameras for the galaxy's most watched reality show, "Life on HOL"...they explode if the ratings start to drop), disenfranchised jumpslug handlers (Imagine your elementary school janitor, you know, the one with the lazy eye and the constant drooling? Now, make him retarded, leperous, and, oh yeah, he reeks to high heaven. Now make it much, much worse.), Fleshtenders (and you thought V:tM's Clan Tzimische were bad?), Uncle Mickey (Mickey Mouse + Alien - all social graces and moral hinderances), wastits (more on these later), The Sedud Neerg Elttil Esoht (write it out backwards, you'll need no explanation at that point), and orcs. That's right, thousands and thousands of fat, fetid, foul, fucking orcs, completely in the public domain. Hey, man, public domain is public domain, and orcs are in it. Oh, yeah, and because he does so much business there, Death Himself has set up a branch office on HOL. Prolly has a freakin' tent cot in the back, too. The book even gives his stats.
The system is screwed up. Firstly, and since no review of HOL would be complete without this, there is no character creation system. Well, that's not true. "Buttery Wholesomeness", the one and only supplement to the game, has character creation rules. They're almost twenty pages long. It's one of those "Roll on this chart, the result will tell you what chart to go to next" things. This is making fun of the Traveller system, specifically since your character can die during creation, as well as being sent to Hell to be the devil's loofah.
No, I'm not kidding.
Anyhow, skills range from "Making Anything You Say Sound More Important Than The Voice Of God" to "Putting Sharp Things Through Soft Things That Scream And Bleed" and "Endure Hideous Ammounts Of Bloody Mutilation And Still Eat Fast Food." My favorites are "Withstand Bagpipes" and "Convert Toasters Into Howitzers." One interesting skill is "Spot Wastit" which is used to tell the difference between wastems: mindless, cute, little twinkie-with-limbs-and-a-face shaped creatures that can be used for anything - food, greasing engines, pillow, target practice, plasma burn salve, toilet paper...ANYTHING, DAMMIT - and wastits: devious, cute, little twinkie-with-limbs-and-a-face shaped creatures that are good for nothing except getting you killed. Without this skill, you will never be able to tell the difference between the tasty snacks and the little demonic things that sprout fanged jaws the size of a whale's testicles. Here's the quote from the book:
"Without this skill, your character will not be able to identify them, even if you catch one walking away from a hacked up, bloody mass that used to be an infant's body while carrying a gory butcher's knife. You just can't tell."
Did I mention that this game is designed to kill your characters?
Since there are no rules for character creation in the first book, they provided some pre-gens. Now, here's a charming line-up. Psychotic child with anti-grav assisted plasma cannon bigger than he is and pet wastit (don't ask). Pedophile monk who carries around a staff with a gumball machine on top and a pouch around his neck with his toenail clippings in it (I said don't ask). Overweight, zinc-covered Silver Surfer knockoff (I didn't even ask). Mouth-sewn-shut Frankenstein monster knockoff who wears glasses (I tried to ask, but the backstory they gave was just wierd). The epitomy of every ruleslawyering gamer that every GM hates with a purple flaming passion (He's a player character and the Holmeister can cheat - do you have to ask?). Oh, yeah. And a character who carries around a stainless steel bag of doughnuts and a microphone with an infinitely long cord for weapons and is clad in sequined, caped armor named "The King" (Backstory page has two sentences: "Whaddya want? It's Elvis.").
Each character sheet has some vital statistics, not all of which are completely game related. There's name, oldness, bent (the game assumes all characters on HOL are screwed in the head somehow, and two examples are The King's bent: Fucked up and Chows Jelly Doughnuts Like They're Nuking the Factory in Four Minutes; or one of the supplement characters, Popeman's bent: Fucked up! PRAISE JESUS!), and the actual game stats, which are Meat, Feets, Greymatta, Mouth, and Nuts. Rolling requires 2d6+stat+skill. That's it. Just like the Storyteller system's "10 again" rule, boxcars get rerolled and added to the result, as well as snake-eyes. If the player rolls boxcars, sweetness ensues. If the player rolls snake-eyes, the Holmeister starts rolling, and if the HM rolls boxcars, well, let's just say that those with small children, heart conditions, and even those with the most powerful tolerance for violence besides the player in question will likely be told to leave the room...if they haven't already...which they should have been by now, you sick, twisted, demented freak.
What has to be my bar-none favorite aspect of the game is one of the enemy archetypes, called the Dickens Boys. These stunning little credits to the human race started out as overdue book collectors for the galactic library, but when all the censorship laws began in the COW, they bacame book confiscators and went all barbarian + mafia + mercenary. Here's the highlight: they are all provided with standard issue armor called "War and Peace Armor" (because NOBODY gets through "War and Peace"!).
The worst part of the game, and sadly, what makes it not even a game at all, is the fact that it is virtually unplayable. Now, to be fair, I've seen web blogs and heard stories of people actually running a campaign through the HOL universe, but I just don't see how a friendship could withstand it. The book tells the player that the Holmeister can cheat whenever he wants, and I don't think I stressed enough the low surviveability rate of PCs. I attribute these rumors of actual games being run to one of the following: 1) they're lies, 2) they're not playing the game true to the books, 3) they didn't get it that this was a combination comedy book/job application to White Wolf and Black Dog on the part of Todd Shaughnessy, Daniel Thron and Chris Elliot, or 4) these people are the greatest GMs EVER. The only way I've ever been able to play in a game is while casually LARPing a completely social game in another setting and my character in THAT game rolled up a HOL character. I hope this illustrates how much I cannot take this seriously as a game: I have to artificially induce schizophrenia to actually play it.
That being said, this pair of books is freakin' awesome to read, and if you can still manage to breathe through the laughter after the first ten pages, then you're not paying attention. Not even Hackmaster is this funny. Then again, Hackmaster is actually playable. But that's beside the point. The entire thing is a work of art in and of itself, since it's drawn - not typed, and I can't even call it hand-written because the scribbled over mistakes are too funny to be merely described as "hand written." You know it's going to be funny when they give stats for Ghandi in the beastiary. If you want to play a game, this probably isn't the set of books for you unless you're looking for one hell of a challenge, but if you're looking for a good time, you cannot go wrong here. In short, BUY THESE BOOKS IF YOU EVER SEE THEM ANYWHERE.
Oh, yeah, and snag me a pair of copies too, 'cause my wife got them in the divorce. The bitch. The kids, fine, but "HOL"? WHY, GOD, WHY?!?
[Editor's note: I don't exist]
