June 20

June 2014 Blog Carnival – What’s in the hole?

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June 2014 Blog Carnival – What’s in the hole?

For the month of June Moebius Adventures are hosting the blog carnival and want to know What’s in the hole?

I think that holes are fascinating things; empty voids where something used to be, be it earth or in the case of Pompeii voids where bodies used to be.  I always wanted to know how many could fill the Albert Hall?

Currently in my hole is Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, how they got there I don’t know but its a fair bet that magic item the portable hole was probably based upon that animated film featuring the Beatles;  an inspiration that resonates into TV today, like the series Fringe where a portable hole making device was used to break into bank vaults.

It is therefore a useful item for people wishing to gain entry to a locked or guarded facility, just slip it onto the wall and in you go!  Used in this way they item can allow the players to get away with all sorts of tricks without repercussions, what if there was a darker side to this strange item.  What if it displaced the matter somewhere else or perhaps once attached to a wall the enchantment only last for a number of minutes which allows the group in one way before it seals up and drops off the side of the wall it was applied to.

Then you come intro the tricky ground of how would you store it since it is a potentially deadly device and not the sort of thing you slip into your pocket as it would probably adhere to the wall and make all the items spill out over the floor.  I guess you could create it to be triggered by a command word as this may make it safer to handle and you wouldn’t worry about it dropping onto the floor and creating a tunnel all the way to the core of the Earth; allowing all sorts of dinosaurs to flee hotly pursued by Doug McClure and Peter Cushing.

You could expand this item yet further with the portal-able hole, consisting of two  holes of different colours; say for arguments sake one blue and one orange.  To make use of the item you would have to affix both holes to different surfaces before you could create an entrance or exit.  Its  up to you to determine whether or not the holes obey the laws of gravity but I feel  it would break the sense of disbelief if it didn’t.

There are thousands of potential applications for such a simple concept and very often the simplest ideas are often the best.

Have fun and may your dice always roll true.

 

 


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Posted June 20, 2014 by GeneralTangent in category "RPG

About the Author

I've been gaming on and off since about 1989 and during that period have played with numerous game systems. I'm fluent in a few, have a basic understanding of quite a few more and can get by in others. Somewhere along the way I found time to be a playtester, contribute to an unpublished game supplement and be associated with another gaming magazine written by far more talented people than I. This lead to one infamous article being written in which I followed the letter of the adventure and torched the parties river barge. I'm also listed on http://rpggeek.com as a game designer.