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.
I’m personally more a fan of #1. I think there’s a few reasons why Spiff (and Rolf before him) remained as a side plot to Calvin and Hobbes vice being a standalone comic. There’s more flexibility with the Scarlet Moon universe in terms of continuity that you won’t get with the one-offs. I get that it gets tiring to write the same characters constantly, but why not use Spacewoman Spice as an in-verse item/lore, thus making it something that lets you write something different, yet still has a way of being mixed in with development.
I guess one other thing is, why not just make it in the same universe/timeline as Scarlette Moon, just before Midnight shows up in Scarlette Moon?
Anyway, both ideas are awesome and ultimately you gotta do what you like. When you enjoy writing it, we enjoy it too
Valid points.
First with respect to Spacewoman Spice: Is your concern that it will get repetitive, or just not be all that engaging? One nice thing about taking a more explicitly episodic approach is that if the premise peters out and people lose interest, then we can just declare it done and move on. Also, there will still be continuity, people will refer to past adventures, there may be returning villains, etc. I’ll just be avoiding any sort of long, multi-episode plotlines like we see with Scarlet Moon.
And it does give me a way of exploring a bunch of different settings more easily than I could in a Scarlet Moon game (jungle planets! Island archipelagos! Space Stations! Cowboy Desert planets!). It would definitely get old if every episode was crash landing in the an alien version of the Arizona desert and getting captured by tentacle aliens like what tends to happen in Spaceman Spiff, but we need to avoid doing that.
I could also try just starting with a few Spacewoman Spice stories in between Misfortune episodes. Those will be fairly low commitment, and would still give me a palette refresher. Maybe I’ll start with that, and we can always start a Spice game later if people really want one.
As far as setting Misfortune before Scarlet Moon. The tricky part there is that the early episodes in Scarlet Moon kind of imply that Scarlet Moon is the first of her kind, at least the first to show up in public. The reporter is freaked out by Buzzsaw’s ability to tear down a steel gate, the utter inability of the police to figure out how to get a handle on Supremes, etc. I don’t know how well that jibes with having another city that has been wrestling with Supremes for a few years now.
I could always come up with a different, Midnight-like character if people don’t want this game messing with their preferred canon in Scarlet Moon. Sensual, dominant cat burglar in tight leather has plenty of room for variation. That might be the best approach. It would also give me a bit more flexibility with the character. I wouldn’t be “beholden” to how Midnight works in Scarlet Moon that way.
Hey!
After seeing your October post I figured you might not want to stretch Scarlet Moon for much longer. Having written an intro (very good one) to another concept with totally different mechanics made me think you were looking for new challenges. Simple maths says an episode of SM takes roughly a year to complete. Four more episodes, well……
In any case, I’m glad you’ve made the decision and want to complete the story. It doesn’t have to feel like the ending is rushed. There are tons of explanations for why Mysterious Villain needs to move NOW, risking everything including exposing her identity.
Maybe it’s even a three-parter?
1: Villain makes BIG move. SM and crew fight but are beaten back
2: SM and crew hatches a great plan and defeat Villain
3: Tying up loose ends and sets up some kind of a future of the SM universe
And I love both your concepts, especially their episodic structure. Misfortune could work really well, but I think it’s safer/easier/better to place it in the SM universe with some tenuous links rather than an established character. Spacewoman could explore wildly different set pieces each time and that could be really fun.
In conclusion, that you for writing Scarlet Moon. I’ll repeat, for the n’th time: it’s the best written spanking game in existence.
And every time you repeat it, it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks for the feedback on the ideas, and yeah I’ll
probably create a Suspiciously Similar Substitute for Midnight. Possible supervillain names for her are welcome.
That being said, I’ll probably bring over one or two of the villains from Scarlet Moon, but that should be less problematic, since with the exception of Buzzsaw and the Mysterious Villain, they each only appear in a single episode. Plus, their fates are the same regardless of the choices the player makes, so it doesn’t force any sort of canon.
As far as my plans for the final episode, my current plan is to basically just make it a single, rather fat part. So it’ll probably end up being a bit on the shorter side, but I do have two fairly significant paths planned, so hopefully it’ll be satisfying all the same.
Suggested names for Midnight clone: Darkness, Dark Moon, Shadow, NightMoon, Scarlet Night…
Concidering no-one else knows how Glow originated or the game ends, bringing over villains or having superpowers show up elsewhere should be perfectly managable within that world.
Hi!
Great to hear from you after that extended break. I personally think the first choice seems like it has the most opportunity, even though it’s not far off from SM. Honestly though, I’m looking forward to anything you produce at the moment. By far my favorite spanking-related media.
PS I was also really enjoying the start of Samantha Stone and would have loved to see a continuation of that.
I’m glad you enjoy my work so much!
As far as Samantha Stone, she’s not dead. I am still working on it a little bit here and there. It’s just not set up for the kind of episodic structure I want for my next “official” game(s). My plan on that one is to work on it in the background, when I need a break from my primary game(s), but I still have the itch to write. And then release it in its complete form at some point.
If you’re looking for space opera books that might have a bit of a screwball feel, I suggest looking at the Retief series by Keith Laumer (the BOLO series might also be good for you), or the Sten series by Alan Cole and Chris Bunch. Both (all three) are out of print, so you’ll probably have to hunt through used bookstores to find them. Cole and Bunch have another series, can’t recall the title off the top of my head, about a group of interstellar mercenaries who … aren’t always the straightest arrows. There’s also the Willful Child series by Steve Erikson. And, when in doubt, there’s always going back to look at old issues of Astounding.
Really enjoying Scarlet Moon!
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll do some digging. Also, glad to hear you’re enjoying the game.