spoon-business: Proposal: The Players Fight Back

[Wonko <dplepage@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

{{
__Damn Spectators!__

[[
BEEP! BEEP!

The sound set my heart racing. After three nweeks of searching, finally I
had found one of the Grid's hidden treasures!

I dove eagerly in the direction my radar was pointing and started digging.
Fortunately, the turf there wasn't any of the new Grid substances, just the
old mass-produced generic stuff. My pocketknife cut through it like, well,
like a pocketknife cutting through Grid. This is it, I thought, I'm gonna be
rich!

It wasn't that I exactly needed the money. In fact, after some successful
ventures in the third nweek, I had become one of the wealthiest people in
the entire Game. On the other hand, if there's one thing 6 nweeks of playing
had taught me, it was that if you don't seize every opportunity by the
throat, someone else will seize it for you. Much as I love seeing my fellow
players get ahead in the nworld, I like even more seeing myself get ahead.

I tossed aside all sorts of debris as I dug deeper into the earth... A few
rocks... a beer can... an old newspaper... deeper... a boot... some sort of
hat... deeper... With a sudden shock I realized my radar was no longer
pointing at the ground where I was digging. Now it pointed back at the
debris I'd thrown aside!

Perhaps my radar was busted ­ I'd hit Bean pretty hard, and telekinesis
tended to be hard on headwear. I tapped it a few times, checked all the
connections; no change, pointing straight at the pile. Maybe the Shiny
Things were smaller than I'd thought; could I really have dug right past it?

I started moving the pile back into the hole. The boot... the newspaper...
the beer can... My radar was pointing back at the hole.
"What the hell?" I said. I picked up the boot and the beer can. My radar
swung to point at my hands.

I dropped the boot. No change. I looked closely at the beer can. It was an
NWeiser can, with the cheesy label showing the Frog Gnomes. Nothing outside
it... I shook it. No sound. Either these Shiny Things were much, much
smaller than I'd thought, or... I'd been tricked.

I looked around, to see who might have done it. Not Bean ­ e was out cold,
and had been for some time. Iain? Probably not - e hadn't been moving much
lately. The Voice, perhaps? But e was on my team... surely e wouldn't do
something like that. I looked closely at em. No, I thought, e's too busy
playing Football; it's always a giddy experience when you first get the
Ball. Who else could have done it? There were a few Gnomes, and the Witch,
all lounging about nearby, but none of them had the imagination to pull
something like that. And it couldn't have been the Yeti- in this weather all
it was good for was cowering up in Limbo. Wait a minute... Limbo...?

I looked up into Limbo, certain of what I'd see ther. Sure enough, there
were Glotmorf and Luigi, eating hot dogs and laughing at me like crazed
hyenas. At that moment one of Luigi's hired goons dropped a hot dog. As
Glotmorf was distracted, watching Luigi rant at the thug, I took aim and
chucked the can with all my might.

CLANG!

A perfect shot - center of the forehead. I hope it hurt.

I pulled out my palm pilot and sent off a quick mail to GamCom:
]]
If a rule entitled "Beer Cans" exists, append the following paragraph to it:

If a player on the Grid possessess a Beer Can, e may throw it at any player
in Limbo. When a Beer Can is thrown at a player in Limbo, that player may,
within 2 ndays of the throw, Dodge the Beer Can. If e does not, the Beer Can
hits em and is destroyed, and e loses 1d3 points to the player who threw the
Beer Can. Otherwise, the Beer Can is destroyed.

[[
That should fix 'em.
]]
}}



--Wonko

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to
dance."
- George Bernard Shaw

--Wonko

"If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use? Two strong oxen or
1024 chickens?"
    - Seymour Cray (1925-1996), father of supercomputing