Spankers, Spankees and Switches of All Adult Ages,

Sorry, I’ve been so silent. Real life has been insane, above and beyond the usual holiday craziness. Illnesses flying all over the place.

It hasn’t helped either that even before the holiday cheer hit the holiday fan, I’ve been struggling a lot with this episode. I think I’ve written and thrown out like three different openings, each like 500+ lines. I think I’ve finally settled on something that I’m happy enough to run with.

Basically, my plan is to accelerate my time table, and make this the last episode for Scarlet Moon. We will be resolving the myth arc involving the Mysterious Crime Boss of great Mysteriousness. This does mean that the pacing is a bit off, but the last thing I want is to just peter out because I burn myself out trying to make it perfect. Better to have a game with a bit of a rushed ending, than one with no ending at all.

Anyway, I’ve been working on Scarlet Moon for years now, since around October 2015 according to the tags on this site. That’s 6.5 years! I’m ready for some new mechanics, new characters, new situations.

I’m still very much in the idle musing phase of what I want to do next (I’m mostly focused on getting Scarlet Moon done in a reasonably satisfactory manner). I do think that the next game will use some variation of the mechanics I talked about a few posts ago (October: https://www.spankingrpgs.com/october-update-2/), because I think that will be fun, well integrated to the narrative stuff and even help me come up with ideas (always the hard part!). The question is just what story do I want to explore.

Here are a few possibilities I’ve been kicking around. These would use the same basic engine as Scarlet Moon, so you will still be able to pick your character’s gender, bodyshape, clothing etc. I’m using the feminine pronoun for expediency.

1. The Mischievous Misfortune: A game that takes place in a different city in a Scarlet Moon universe where Scarlet Moon never met Midnight. It would follow the misadventures of a part time cat burglar. Basically his/her powers function on stored “Luck.” When bad things happen to her, he/she stores the bad luck and can later use it to get really good luck. By day she is a rather hapless-with-flashes-of-extreme-competence secretary at the local Silver Ant office, working directly for one Tania Peters, who has recently arrived from Generica to take over management of the place. By night, she is Misfortune (or Luck?) a cat burglar who steals little bits and bobs to help keep herself and her aunt afloat. All going fine, except she’s got some *new* burglar named Midnight pushing in on her territory, and don’t even get her started on that obnoxious wanna-be hero Moonlight… And the universe keeps throwing annoying moral quandaries at her, when all she wants is to break into places, make off with some sweet loot, and help her aunt a little.

2. Spacewoman Spice. A lot of my inspiration here comes from Spaceman Spiff. She is a brave, intrepid explorer of the universe, who constantly seems to find herself stranded, hunted, and captured by such vicious enemies of Humanity as the Space Amazon Matriarchy, the Many-Armed Giantesses of Alpha Giganta, the Discipline Droids of the Delta Quadrant, the…well, you get the idea. Sort of an over-the-top swords-and-lasers space opera. Except the lasers are always either set to stun, or miss, and the swords are energy swords that mostly just kinda cause pain and numbness when you get whacked by one. And don’t even get me started on the lightpaddles…

I kind of like both premises, so one thing I might try is sort of interleaving them. Basically, write an episode for one, then an episode for the other. While both games will probably have a strong continuity, I would likely eschew any major myth arc and keep them very episodic. That way, once I’ve played out one or the other setting, I can just slap a Done! sticker on the game and call it done without having to force myself to resolve any loose ends or whatever.

I am of course open to other ideas to explore. Also, if anyone knows of any fun, over-the-top swords-and-laser space opera romps, I would love to read them! I have to admit that most of the science fiction I’ve read in my life has been painfully serious, and it would be fun to read some space operas where you could totally slot in a spanking, and it would work.

Once I finish Scarlet Moon, I’ll probably write a story in each setting to try to get a feel for them, and see if I have enough fun to commit to them. I’ve had other ideas that sounded fun, but once I sat down and started writing, they just sort of dudded out.