What's happening in this picture?
I think your initial reaction to the picture, the one you had when you first saw it, can tell you a lot about your perception of old-school gaming. :)
I'll share my thoughts later, but first, what are yours?
Thursday, March 29, 2012
B2/Jeff Dee illo Rorschach Test
Here is an old-school test for you, using a classic Jeff Dee picture "Shakedown" from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands.
What's happening in this picture?
I think your initial reaction to the picture, the one you had when you first saw it, can tell you a lot about your perception of old-school gaming. :)
I'll share my thoughts later, but first, what are yours?
What's happening in this picture?
I think your initial reaction to the picture, the one you had when you first saw it, can tell you a lot about your perception of old-school gaming. :)
I'll share my thoughts later, but first, what are yours?
I never considered that there might be multiple interpretations. From where I sit, it's obvious that the long-haired guy has turned the party's thief upside down to show how much stuff he's surreptitiously looted.
ReplyDeleteI'm with James on this. Nothing else occurs to me straight away...
DeleteThirded.
DeleteThe fighter in the middle wanted to sniff the butt of the thief, accidentally spilling the contents of his bag of holding (the thief had been skimming from the group for quite some time). The fighter on the right is grabbing his rope in preparation for tying up the thief (something he's been fantasizing about for quite some time.) The halfling is pretending to be surprised by how sick and twisted the rest of his party really is (not revealing that his height has allowed him to sniff the thief's butt unobserved for quite some time.)
ReplyDeleteIs that you, Carlton Mellick III?
DeleteWithout looking at the other answers... dude on right is definitely Chaotic. Guy on the left is maybe a neutral demi-human? The guy that's upside down is maybe a thief that got caught stealing from the other party members. More likely... the fighter that's turned him upside down is the only third level character in the party and the DM is letting him get away with bullying the other characters.
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was that two evil guys were mugging a merchant/noble. The warrior on the back left just happened to walk by and is like, "WTF?", and will shortly call for guards since the brigands look tough and well-equipped.
ReplyDeletePut me down as another vote for the "party thief gets a literal shakedown" theory. The two fighters (?) have had enough of him hoarding an extra cut of the treasure.
ReplyDeleteAnother vote for "the thief has been skimming and the party's finally had enough of it" theory. In fact, my first thought was that this was a thief who was scouting ahead and opening chests the rest of the party never saw. My second thought was that this was a thief who'd been "collecting" items from the packs of his colleagues.
ReplyDeleteParty Thief getting "searched".
ReplyDeleteY'all are either paranoid, or have had a lot of jackass thieves in your parties ...
ReplyDeleteor both ;)
The first (and only) thing that popped into mind was that the party thief was finally getting his "shakedown" as opposed to him shaking down the parties loot.
ReplyDeleteSome of the other explanations are amusing but not really what comes to mind for me.
Even shares are even shares. Lets just see what you've been up to while you were away? Hmmm????
ReplyDeleteDefinitely the thief option. Earlier on the page there's a reference to "a thief who steals treasure which he did not report to the party"; this pic is humorously commenting on that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all of the responses guys. It's mostly what I expected, well, except for one of them.
ReplyDeleteI posted what I originally saw in the picture here.