Kitchen Sink Settings, Samurai Jack Style
Last week I was lucky enough to wander into BigLots (a store that sells overstock and discontinued merchandise) and found the first three seasons of Samurai Jack for $6. Not $6 for each season; all three seasons, shrink wrapped together, for a total of $6. As I’ve had them on my Amazon Wishlist forever, I could not pass up this kind of deal.
For any of you who’ve never seen Samurai Jack, the metaplot goes like this: a samurai warrior, battling a demon, is transported from his own time period into the far future, where the demon rules the world. He wanders, seeking to destroy the demon and return to his own time, helping people and meeting interesting friends and foes along the way. There are aliens, robots, anachronistic things like vikings, a kilted Scotsman with a machinegun for a leg (this predates Grindhouse by years), just about anything you can imagine, Jack encounters it. The world really makes no sense, and doesn’t hold together, except as part of the meta-narrative of Jack’s journey.
Setting matters, in so far as it allows you to tell the types of stories you wish to tell and supports the types of characters you need to tell that story. Kitchen-sink settings allow practically everything, so what you need to do is pare down the scope and the purpose. Only use the elements needed for your adventure, your plot; the rest of it is out there, over yonder somewhere, but we’re not worried about that. You can’t try to run it sandbox-style; that way lies madness, zany hijinx, and a game that will quickly run off the rails.
Of course, most of us old grognards already know this. Most of the D&D campaigns I’ve been in have had “make-it-up-as-you-go-along” elements, dropping in an homage to whatever book, movie or comic the gamemaster was grooving on at any given moment, the narrative (such as it was) tied together only by the player characters’ journeys. It made sense because we made it make sense, we brought some sort of continuity, and turned the anarchonisms and paradoxes as opportunities and plot hooks.
Enter Encounter Critical. When I first re-read this system last year (having first played it, and then forgotten all about it, in 1982), my first thought was “I want to use his to run a Samurai Jack game”. First published in 1979, I believe it was the very first “kitchen sink setting” roleplaying game. Elements of nearly every genre are in there, from fantasy to science fiction, westerns to horror. Some critics overlook the build-in flexibility and creative potential and dismiss it as juvenile, silly, or just plain unworkable. It’s the same criticism frequently leveled at Rifts (which I consider to be an inferior EC knockoff, albeit one that’s more widely played and better supported), That’s when I point to Samurai Jack. It’s not the setting, it’s what you do with it. If you have strong characters, and a good story to tell, you can simultaneously overcome and embrace the quirks of the setting and turn them into a strength. All of the disparate elements are given a context that holds it all together.
Has to be said, though, that a kitchen sink setting needs some sort of “plumbing” to pull the disparate elements together — like the demon in Samurai Jack. You can explain all the wacky stuff (if explanation is needed) just by invoking the demon and saying, “He did it.”
DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND is a kitchen-sink setting where the plumbing is in the geography — since everything is on different, unmapped islands, you can sort of include anything and just say, “Well, these Scottish machine-gunners only live on this island” and get away with it.
Encounter Critical sounds like a great system! I can’t believe I never came across it. Thanks for the post.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:40 amI’ve always been ridiculed for buying zany systems like Macho Women With Guns or TWERPS when more “serious” players spent all of their money on AD&D and GURPS books. But in the end of the day, I always managed to squeeze a good story out of my strange systems of choice, while most DMs I used to know couldn’t stay away from the shadow of “whatever book, movie or comic the gamemaster was grooving on at any given moment”.
When the DM is willing and capable of making a good story, even a poker game can be entertaining.
July 20th, 2009 at 7:58 amNow, if Samurai Jack would get released at all in the UK I’d be happy…
July 20th, 2009 at 9:43 am\’zackly. There has to be a reason to blame for _bizzare_element_. Think \”Matrix\”: \”Let it all go Neo, you\’re inside a computer program so any-flippin-thing can happen.\” As long as there\’s a REASON for any-flippin-thing, folks will go with it, especially if you have a wild episode behind curtain #1.
BTW: Jack is my absolute favorite. There\’s a whole series in season 2 where he goes down the rabit hole, joins the spartans, fights the mountain, and flees interplanetary cats. Teriffic writing, great graphics, and \’spot the reference\’ jokes abound. When it was on Cartoon Network, everyone knew to keep the TV clear.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:20 pm>DINO-PIRATES OF NINJA ISLAND
Links? Please?
If you like Encounter Critical AND Savage Worlds, check out the downloads area for ENCOUNTER SAVAGE, my SW conversion illustrated by the legendary Xose Lucero!
July 20th, 2009 at 9:21 pmThere are really two different flavours of kitchen sink games. Samurai Jack and Encounter Savage are two different critters. It’s a constrained madness.
Bad Analogy One: d% can roll any number… as long as it’s two digits. Pi is not something you can really roll.
Bad Analogy Two: The game is Rifts, and the GM says, “You can play anything.” Then watch the look on his face when you announce you are playing Funshine Bear.
Bad Analogy Three: The hooker says, “Three-fifty gets you anything.” Then watch the look on her face when you announce that the game is Rifts and you are playing Funshine Bear.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:31 pmSay… I think Bad Analogy Three just solved my problem of how to get a gaming group together.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:56 pm