Some years ago Your Humble Narrator entered a contest on the late lamented online journal Topless Robot. "Tell us about your own ideal set of (currently non-existent) action figures," invited the contest organizer. I am not a big action figure collector, but at the time I had just finished re-watching a certain classic BBC series, and noticing how often very talented British TV actors wind up taking second-string (and occasionally leading) roles in SF and fantasy movies. This contest submission grew out of my post-viewing reveries. Sad to say, I didn't win, but I think the editor found my entry mildly amusing, and I suspect some of my readers will, too.
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At the top of my (rather short) action-figure wish list (I wrote in 2009) stands a set of I, CLAUDIUS / Sci-Fi crossover
figures, in which each of the principal characters of the '70s BBC
series dually appears as a character played by the same actor in a SF series or movie. Examples would include:
Dual-action Augustus / Vultan figure, with optional speech
module - pull the string and he alternates between bellowing
"Quinctilius Varus, WHERE ARE MY EAGLES?" and
"Gordon's ALIVE?!"
Dual-action Livia / Reverend
Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam - each with its own unique methods of
poisoning your other action figures!
Sejanus
/ Jean-Luc Picard. Carries a death warrant
in one hand and a cup of Earl Grey in the other. Optional wheelchair for X-MEN crossover action.
Livilla /
Magenta action figure - can either shag your Sejanus (q.v.)
figure or swan about your Frank N. Furter figure dressed as a
maid.
Caligula / Cain figure. Accessories include
face-hugger alien figure and aborted fetus carved directly from
sister Drusilla's womb. Rosy-Fingered Dawn costume and play-set
sold separately!
And Macro / Maximilian Arturo figure -
comes with centurion's uniform, three-piece suit, vortex timer,
and extra helpings of smug. Also included: detachable limbs and
dwarf axeman costume for transformation into Gimli from LORD OF
THE RINGS.
I anticipated that this would inaugurate a whole
series of action figures based on BBC historical dramas and light
comedies. So far my vision has remained a fantasy, but the century is still young.
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(In case you don't already know, Gaius Helen Mohiam
was Sian Phillips' character in DUNE, Magenta was the maid in
the ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, and Maximilian Arturo was the snotty
professor in the SLIDERS TV series, played by
Jonathan Rhys-Davies.)
Diplomacy was a staple of board-gaming geekery during Your Humble Narrator’s misspent youth. First published in 1959, Allan Calhamer’s classic offered unique features: secret movement scheduling (everyone recorded their moves in advance and revealed them simultaneously), deterministic combat resolution, and role-playing. Each player took the part of one of Europe’s Great Powers on the eve of the First World War, and endeavored, through a series of alliances, counter-alliances, and treacheries, to take control of eighteen of Europe’s 34 supply centers (capitals and major cities). Negotiation, as the rule book observed, was key to success. No-one could win without the aid of other players, secured in the diplomacy phase that opened every turn. Equally vital was duplicity: only one player could win the game, so s/he had to betray his/her allies at some point, usually multiple times. Endurance also proved important. Turns took at least twenty minutes to complete, and a full game could easily last twenty turns. Usually players called a draw before someone met the victory conditions.
I have played Diplomacy a dozen or so times since my D&D buddies taught it to me in 1982. It was one of the first historical games I had tried and probably helped spark my interest in history, as it dovetailed with my social studies class’s unit on the Russian Revolution and my history-buff mother’s introducing me to The Guns of August. By the time I reached college, however, I had learned what Margalit Fox observes in her 2013 obituary of Calhamer: Diplomacy rewards not the diplomatic player but the “aggressive” and treacherous one. I can’t say I was surprised to learn of its popularity with attorneys.
Later I got a hankering to play the game to the bitter end, and this inspired me to sign up for a postal game (1996-99) and a couple of play-by-email sessions. These taught me something postal players had discovered in the 1960s: if a Diplomacy match lasts long enough, the two lead players tend to develop a “stalemate line,” a chain of defensible territories blocking each other’s expansion. The game then turns into an inferior version of chess as the two leaders wait for someone to make a mistake, or for a surviving minor player to play kingmaker. Usually no-one cares to negotiate by this stage, after so many betrayals and broken alliances. A disappointing revelation, but I’m glad I finally found this out myself.
Allan Calhamer turns out to have been an interesting guy, of the genius/dilettente type Malcolm Gladwell described in Outliers. Educated at Harvard, a school nearly as fond of eccentric students as of rich ones, Calhamer attended law school but dropped out before getting his JD. He later worked as a corporate consultant, a park ranger, and a postman, and continued to develop games (none published) and amuse himself with mental puzzles. He didn’t leave a huge mark on American culture, but he did provide an unusual and engaging form of entertainment to quirky-bright people of all classes and many nations.
(First image above courtesy of Roger's Reviews and Boardgamegeek.com. Second image via Wikimedia Commons.)
