A Cat of Tindalos

A Cat of Tindalos

Saturday, December 31, 2016

Gods Fracked Us All (2016)

The Trump Cometh

“Mark my words, Seinfeld. Your day of reckoning is coming,
when an evil wind will blow through your little play world and
wipe that smug smile off your face. And I’ll be there,
in all my glory, watching, watching as it all comes
crumbling down.”
– Newman, Seinfeld



Thursday, December 29, 2016

The Essence of Noir, Dark or Grimdark Worlds or Genre

"Their characters lived in a world gone wrong, a world in which,
long before the atom bomb, civilization had created the machinery for its own
destruction, and was learning to use it with all the moronic delight of a gangster
trying out his first machine gun. The law was something to be manipulated for
profit and power. The streets were dark with something more than night.”
— Raymond Chandler, Introduction, Trouble Is My Business

My question is this: Is this "fiction" not a better description of our "real world" than most so called "facts"?

“In America politics is an arm of business and the aim of business is to make
money without care for the law, because politics, controlled by business, can
change or buy the law. Politics is interested in profit, not municipal prosperity
or civic pride. The spirit of graft and lawlessness is the American spirit.”
— Lincoln Steffens, The Shame of the Cities

Are things really so different now?


Thursday, December 22, 2016

A Classic One Page Dungeon Conversion for Dungeon World!


The Crucible 

"When the Adventurers decided to assist the sage Baerhoff with his “little alchemical difficulty,” they didn’t realize what they were agreeing to. With a spray of chemical fluorescence, the party finds they have been shrunk to nearly microscopic size, and inserted into the good Doctor’s device in order to “work out any problems!” To regain their size, Baerhoff, now a looming giant pronounces they’ll have to figure out what’s gone wrong with his experiments...from the inside!" 

Adapted for Dungeon World by Mark Tygart

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7cav44145d9ZXdfMlppMjlzY00

Original One Page Classic by P. Aaron Potter 




Monsters? More, please!

Magic doorSolitary, Stealthy, Intelligent, Construct
Magic bolts (d10 damage)12 HP3 armor
Close, Ignores Armor
Special Qualities: Arcane Construct
Created to guard magic doors will only answer to the proper key or code word; often the answer to a riddle. Otherwise they delight in foiling intruders by sending them on a false quest, directing them to traps or simply wasting time.
Instinct: Block entry
  • Guards access
  • Lie
  • Direct to doom

DybbukSolitary, Magical, Terrifying
Personality drain (d10 damage)12 HP0 armor
Close, Ignores Armor
Special Qualities: Undead, Incorporeal, Only harmed by magic or magical weapons
A dybbuk is a misplaced soul who has eluded judgment because of a some great transgression or a pitiful suicide. Like a ghost, it lingers on in the mortal world, either trying to fulfill a need to right some great failure that has marked its soul for eternity or merely to spread torment. Most dybbuks desperately seek a new body to inhabit. A Dybbuk will "kill" a victim and then inhabit that body until driven out by death, spell or ritual.A Heal spell will be required to restore that person's personality. Often confined in a "Dybbuk Box" or other cursed item.
Instinct: Possess innocents
  • Terrify
  • Rectify failure
  • Inhabit human shells
Winter MedusaSolitary, Devious
Talons (d6 damage)12 HP0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Gaze turns victims into ice statues, Immune to Cold
An icy cousin of the normal medusa; the winter medusa is seldom found outside regions of extreme cold.They love conversing and taunting their victims before adding them to their collection of ice statues.
Instinct: Show disdain
  • Collect ice statues
  • Gaze victim into ice
  • Taunt
Harryhausen MedusaSolitary, Construct
Arrows (d6) or Constriction (d12 damage)12 HP2 armor
Close (Gaze or Constriction), Far (Arrows)
Special Qualities: Gaze turns humanoide to stone, Guardian of the Ancient World, Loves to talk, Darksight
A mixture of naga and medusa; more snake than woman the Harryhausen Medusa is usually a cursed guardian of ancient temples, treasures or portals to the Underworld. Amazingly strong, quick and deadly its weakness is often a fondness for toying with its prey. A keen archer even in total darkness.
Instinct: Gaze to stone
  • Collects statues, guards
  • Loves Harryhausen films
  • Likes to monologue
Yellow Musk CreeperSolitary, Large, Devious
Tendril (d6 damage)16 HP0 armor
Special Qualities: Sprays Yellow Musk Zombie Pollen
The yellow musk creeper is a hideous plant that grows in haunted graveyards, grisly battlefields, and other places where death hangs heavy in the air and thick in the soil. The yellow musk creeper's method of procreation is singularly frightful—it slays the living, infests them with its seeds and pollen, then animates them as zombies. These zombies serve the plant as a guardian, but when new zombies are created, older ones wander off, collapsing and breaking apart to give seed to a new yellow musk creeper. Custom Move: When you inhale yellow musk pollen, ROLL+WIS. On a 10+, you keep control. On a 7-9, choose 1: You're not dizzy for hours.(-1 on all rolls until you next make camp) You don't have to Defy danger vs. WIS to attack the musk. You don't take your friends for musk zombies. On a 6-, you're under the yellow musk charm. Fall asleep in the deadly embrace of the Yellow Musk Creeper, zombie soon to be...
Instinct: Create Zombies
  • Spray Pollen
  • Creates Yellow Musk Zombies
Yellow Musk ZombieGroup
Bite (d6 damage)6 HP0 armor
Close
A yellow musk zombie is a rotting creature from which wet green vines have sprouted. Treat a yellow musk zombie as a standard zombie, but it is not undead. It is a plant creation of the Yellow Musk Creeper.
Instinct: Destroy Intruders!
  • Obey the Yellow Musk Creeper
  • Slow
  • Mindless




Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Secrets of the Old City Conversion Notes

Secrets of the Old City, a one page dungeon classic...
I recently ran this pretty much "as is" for a group of newbie players. I wrote up my conversion notes for interested parties...(along with a copy of the classic one-page of course).

Happy Holidays!


https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7cav44145d9OXlvM0NLWk5VeUk



Monday, December 19, 2016

A Few Monsters More...

Magical ChestSolitary, Small, Stealthy, Hoarder, Construct
Toothy Lid (w[2d8] damage)8 HP1 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Arcane Construct, Full of Tricks, Liar
A minor arcane created mimic; the enchanted chest is enhanced with intelligence and arcane tricks; it will do anything to prevent loss of the treasure within but will choose lies over violence.

Instinct: To keep precious contents safe
  • Scuttle off when touched
  • Lead party to trap
  • Wail to attract other dungeon denizens
  • Pour forth flaming oil (2d6 dmg)
  • Spew smog
  • Send party on useless quest
  • Liar



Alchemical OozeSolitary, Stealthy, Amorphous
Acidic Grab (d8 damage)12 HP
Close
Special Qualities: Steals voices, Shapeshifts,Amorphous
Formed from accumulations of runoff from arcane laboratories and regions of magical calamity, alchemical oozes are a sort of weak cousin to the true doppelganger. Briefly able to assume a human shape and mimic the voice of previous victims the ooze will seek to lure a meal to a dark, secluded spot and dine on the poor fool. Children or lost maidens are a favorite lure. Alchemical Oozes gain the voices of previous victims but are cunning as opposed to intelligent. 

Instinct: Dissolve flesh!
  • Arcane accident
  • Can mimic human shape and voice
  • Always hungry



Mechanical HydraSolitary, Large, Construct
Rends with metal teeth (d10+2 damage)20 HP2 armor
Special Qualities: Breathes steam, Arcane Construct
This steampunk horror was designed to mimic the fearsome magical hydra;its mechanic nature prevents regrowing heads but allows its three heads to breathe scalding steam (1d8) on victims. Rumored to have been invented by the infamous Engineer Ferremesz. 

Instinct: Obey master
  • Breathes steam
  • Each head gets attack
  • Slow and noisy


Sunday, December 18, 2016

Dungeon World Extras

Living Statue (Solitary, Construct)
Fists (d10 damage) 14 HP, 1 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Arcane construct

Living Statues are constructs like Golems, but usually more fragile and achievable at lower cost - represented by the generally weaker combat statistics and fewer magical immunities. The arcane short cut to creating a Living Statue is imbuing the creation with a greater degree of will. Independent thought makes Living Statues less reliable as guards and servants -they're capable of interpreting commands loosely or abandoning their posts in the interests of self preservation. Living Statues are unaffected by Sleep, but they are affected by mind control - Charm and Hold spells can work against them - more evidence that a guiding consciousness is present within the construct, differentiating them from their more powerful Golem cousins. Living statues can be constructed from various materials but crystal and stone statues are the most common.

Instinct: Obey Creator




Ring of "Water Walking"

This ring is often made of coral or bluish metal decorated with motifs depicting rolling waves of water.

The wearer can tread on any liquid as if it were firm ground. Mud, oil, snow, quicksand, running water, ice, and even lava can be traversed easily, since the subjects’ feet hover an inch or two above the surface; protected by a magical shield. The ring's owner can walk, run, charge, or otherwise move across the surface as if it were normal ground.







Monday, December 12, 2016

The New Kitten of Tindalos name is....Piper!

Since she can yowl like a bagpipe! And steal your heart like the pied variety...


Dagoth Lives!

Dagoth (Lizard demon)Solitary, Large, Planar
Talons (d12+4 damage)16 HP1 armor
Forceful
Special Qualities: Reverts to statue if horn removed, Only damaged by magic or magical weapons, immune from harm as a statute or horn

Dagoth, also referred to as the Dreaming God, was a demon worshipped by the people of Shadizar, particularly Queen Taramis. He participated in a large battle with other evil beings, during which his source of power, a jeweled horn, was broken off. Dagoth fell to Earth in a weakened state and his body turned into stone, becoming a statue. As written in the ancient Scrolls of Skelos, if the horn were found placed in the forehead of the statue, it would bring about the evil god's resurrection, and as long as a virgin girl was sacrificed at the hour of the god's rebirth (in this case, Taramis' niece Jehnna), everything would be fine. Legend holds that Dagoth will grant any wish his restorer desires, but great care should be used in the exact words used for the wish. Unfortunately, the ritual was interrupted by Conan and his companions and Taramis' vizier speared by Zula before he could sacrifice Jehnna, and the end result of this is that Dagoth became angered and transformed into a monstrous, lizard-like beast. The wizard Akiro deduced that Dagoth's horn was his life, and in tearing the horn from the ex-god's forehead, returned Dagoth to his statute form. Later both horn and statue vanished from Shalizar in different eras. Scholars speculate that Dagoth may be related to the ancient evil Zargon in some fashion. 

Instinct: Destroy
  • Rage monster
  • Demon of the Ancient World
  • Likes Conan the Barbarian movie better than sequel




New Dungeon World Monsters inspired by J.E. Holmes "Maze of Peril"

Dagonite PriestSolitary, Magical, Intelligent
Warps reality (d8 damage)12 HP0 armor
Close

A human priest of the Cult of Dagon, now touched by the madness of the Old Ones. 

Instinct: Corrupt
  • Transform Human Cultists into Dagonites
  • Serve the Cult of Dagon (Cthulhu)
  • Command Dagonites
  • Spread Madness




DagoniteGroup, Small, Construct
Trident (d6 damage)3 HP0 armor
Close
Special Qualities: Human transformed by Dagonite Priest, Slave Capturing Nets, Cannabalistic, Aquatic

A worshipper of Dagon (Cthulhu) transformed by a Dagonite Priest in a foul ritual into a sterile servitor slave race of frog-fish men. Dagonites will go insane if their controlling creator Dagonite Priest is killed. Some (50%) will then attack everything in sight in a berserker rage (+1 to all attacks) including each other while others (50%) mindlessly flee. If any survive long enough they will return to human form now loathing the Cult and its entire works. Recovered humans can never be transformed again but retain their gills and ability to breathe water. A distant, lesser cousin to true Deep Ones or the Underdark's Kuo-Toas; Dagonites are used as cannon fodder in the Cult of Dagon's War against the Amazons and the Cult's pirate raids and slavery operations.

Instinct: Devour Infidels
  • Worship Dagon
  • Obey your Priest Master
  • Capture Slaves
  • Hope the world will end


Saturday, December 10, 2016

Beware the Giant Amoeba!

Giant AmoebaSolitary, Large, Amorphous
Acidic Grab (d10 damage)12 HP0 armor

A giant amoeba is a shapeless mass of living, liquid protoplasm. Though naturally translucent with darker interior spots, its surface is slightly sticky and tends to collect dirt and other debris from its environment; therefore, a moving giant amoeba looks like muddy water. A weaker cousin of creatures such as the gray ooze and black pudding the giant amoeba is the result of an alchemist's experiment gone horribly wrong. 

Instinct: Dissolve flesh
  • Slithers
  • Mindless
  • Relentless



Friday, December 9, 2016

WeresharkSolitary
Bite (b[2d10+2] damage)16 HP0 armor
Close, Messy
Special Qualities: Vulnerable to Silver

The wereshark is an avaricious hybrid of man and shark. These huge predators destroy large caches of fish (and fishermen) and have been known to attack nearly any form of aquatic life, including the intelligent races such as tritons, sea elves, and mermen. The wereshark is a huge, muscular brute when in human form, and it takes the form of a great white shark when transformed. Cruel and arrogant in its human form, a wereshark is even more vicious in its shark form.

Custom Move: (When a lycanthrope bites you, ROLL+WIS. On a 10+, you repel the curse. On a 7-9, you go into a bloodthirsty rage for murder until you sleep/fall unconscious. On a 6-, the next full moon will see you join the lycanthrope family.)

Instinct: Consume
  • Bully
  • Serve Cthulhu
  • Devour



Sunday, December 4, 2016

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Only problem is that you don't know what the heck Monster of the Week is?

Heard about the Monster-of-the-Week fan collection of mysteries and want to join in the upcoming collection as an aspiring RPG module writer?

Only problem is that you don't know what the heck Monster of the Week is?

Monster of the Week or "MotW" is a monster hunting PbtA RPG based on television shows like Supernatural or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This product is also going to introduce rules to make it easier to run "X-files or Fringe adventures"; something that a lot of MotW players already do.

A typical mystery involves investigating a strange situation, discovering a monster and its weakness and then the dangerous climax of killing it.

The MotW Rulebook and quite a few free "goodies" can be found at:
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/143518/Monster-of-the-Week

The Rulebook has sample mysteries on pages 149 - 161 (Dream Away the Time) and another on pages 273 - 285 (Damn Dirty Apes).

Here's another example:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cav44145d9dTM3NUYteDBPVTQ/view?usp=sharing

Also check out the MotW Roadhouse, it is the MotW version of the Dungeon Tavern:https://plus.google.com/communities/110209328442902551212/stream/56aba946-716a-47ba-8ff3-97d9abcf7b9e

Look up the "Mysteries" section. A lot of adaptions and my starters, but some "full mysteries" as well. FYI my starters are almost full mysteries and some may be expanded for the collection, depending on the number of publishable submissions.

We’re interested in short ,creative mysteries that have a cool concept and are easily adaptable to the users’ individual games.

We would also be interested in (in order of desirability) play advice, art, custom moves and other rules variants, and new hunter classes.

It will be a profit share gig, so each piece contributed will earn you a share of ongoing sales.

If you have ideas for other material, please write up one short sample mystery or other material (up to 500 words) and email it to michael.sands@genericgames.co.nz by the 18th of December 2016.



Monday, November 21, 2016

A not-so-secret cabal are going to put together a collection of Monster of the Week mysteries, and we need writers!

Hey guys, Monster of the Week is a cool PbtA game of monster hunting that is easy to learn and fun to play. Michael Sands is launching a product to collect good fan written MotW modules called "mysteries" to a PDF product and share the proceeds with the writers. If you would like to get your feet wet as a RPG game writer this is a fairly forgiving place to start.

If this works it may be possible to apply this model to Dungeon World products as well. I would love to do another collection of Dungeon Starters with my Tavern friends and I already have a mini-project with Chris Stone-Bush that could roll over into something like this. Anyway, I will be part of this project and would invite Tavernites to learn about this system and submit. MotW Mysteries are generally only a few pages and I even developed a DW style "Mystery Starter" for Monster of the Week but we want the full fledged MotW mystery for this project. 

I'll let Michael speak-

Here's Michael-

We want your mysteries! A not-so-secret cabal are going to put together a collection of Monster of the Week mysteries, and we need writers!

It will be a profit share gig, so each piece contributed will earn you a share of ongoing sales.

We’re interested in short (less than 1000 words), creative mysteries that have a cool concept and are easily adaptable to the users’ individual games.

I’ll be including my expanded weirdness rules for games that are more Fringe and X-Files than Supernatural and Buffy, as well, so mysteries that use those would also be appreciated. Get the draft athttp://www.genericgames.co.nz/files/MotW_more_weirdness.pdf if you haven’t seen them.

We would also be interested in (in order of desirability) play advice, art, custom moves and other rules variants, and new hunter classes.

If you have ideas for other material, please write up one short sample mystery or other material (up to 500 words) and email it to me at michael.sands@genericgames.co.nz by the 18th of December 2016.



Thursday, November 17, 2016

Crichton speaks

“This is the gift of your species and this is the danger, because you do not choose to control your imaginings. You imagine wonderful things and you imagine terrible things, and you take no responsibility for the choice. You say you have inside you both the power of good and the power of evil, the angel and the devil, but in truth you have just one thing inside you - the ability to imagine.”

― Michael CrichtonSphere


Future Kitten of Tindalos

More pictures (if less cute) of my soon to arrive future feline friend...any ideas on names?


I have decided to adopt a Bengal kitten (Many thanks to 20 Dungeon Starters buyers for allowing me to afford her)





Tuesday, November 15, 2016

New Dungeon Starter: Altar to an Unknown Demon

You have my niece Bridget to blame for this one and her fan love of the wonderful Netflix series Stranger Things (which I share). I have always wanted to do a Dungeon Starter based on the tremendous first edition D&D PHB cover and that has somehow gotten mixed up with Bridget's desire to slay the Demon Prince.
Enjoy!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7cav44145d9SXhMQkd3Zk9SUDA/view?usp=sharing




Friday, November 11, 2016

The lesson for 2016


Happy Veteran's Day!

As a history buff I find the record of shame with how we treated our veterans only matched with wars we fought for terrible or misguided reasons. Let's hope for better in in the future, but I doubt it.
Still, no nation would exist without humans willing to fight and die for it. 
Thank you, veterans.



Thursday, November 10, 2016

listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go

I feel the need to post a notice to my readers. This is my blog and it expresses my thoughts and feelings.
So no apologies for the anti-Trump craziness, that is from an honest place and place of real despair. I have lost my father this year, a beloved cat has disappeared. I am caring for my mother who is dying very , very slowly to be honest. I started writing my "Dungeon Starters" while my father was having chemo treatments in the hospital before he died. So I'm pretty prone to despair anyway and this whole "Dungeon World" business has been about my sharing my geekish glee about the hobby and maybe reconnecting a bit with the happier elements of my childhood. It is many things but it is oddly enough my little candle in the darkness against despair sometimes. I have others: two wonderful friends who have stuck with me since high school and my sister and her family. I am so much more fortunate than many others but I confess to be prone to black moods and unforgivable self-pity.

I have always been a political junkie and I have never intended to hide who I was or the things I believed in or whether I liked the last Star Trek film (Awesome!). People are free to disagree. However, this site is basically about Dungeon World and will be in the future. I find myself needing to open that door and play there more and more as the world seems darker to me. Anybody who wants to play to is invited. As e.e. cummings said...

 'pity this busy monster, manunkind'


pity this busy monster, manunkind,

not. Progress is a comfortable disease:
your victim (death and life safely beyond)

plays with the bigness of his littleness
--- electrons deify one razorblade
into a mountainrange; lenses extend
unwish through curving wherewhen till unwish
returns on its unself.
                          A world of made
is not a world of born --- pity poor flesh

and trees, poor stars and stones, but never this
fine specimen of hypermagical

ultraomnipotence. We doctors know

a hopeless case if --- listen: there's a hell
of a good universe next door; let's go

E. E. Cummings





LOTR Hope



I know ome anti-Trumpers like myself have found this a source of solace. I wish I did, I feel sort of like Smaug has just eaten Bilbo and Fedexed the Ring to Mordor.

Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Trump Despair

There turn out to be a huge number of people — white people, living mainly in rural areas — who don’t share at all our idea of what America is about. For them, it is about blood and soil, about traditional patriarchy and racial hierarchy. And there were many other people who might not share those anti-democratic values, but who nonetheless were willing to vote for anyone bearing the Republican label.
I don’t know how we go forward from here. Is America a failed state and society? It looks truly possible. I guess we have to pick ourselves up and try to find a way forward, but this has been a night of terrible revelations, and I don’t think it’s self-indulgent to feel quite a lot of despair.
-Paul Krugman

Cowards

The Huffington Post’s editor's note calling Donald Trump as a “racist” and “xenophobe” is no more, a source in the newsroom tells POLITICO.
For months, every story on the Huffington Post about Trump came with the following note at the bottom of the article.
"Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S."

Moore was right

Michael Moore posted this on his blog ages ago...
Friends:
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I gave it to you straight last summer when I told you that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president. And now I have even more awful, depressing news for you: Donald J. Trump is going to win in November. This wretched, ignorant, dangerous part-time clown and full time sociopath is going to be our next president. President Trump. Go ahead and say the words, ‘cause you’ll be saying them for the next four years: “PRESIDENT TRUMP.”
Never in my life have I wanted to be proven wrong more than I do right now.
I can see what you’re doing right now. You’re shaking your head wildly – “No, Mike, this won’t happen!” Unfortunately, you are living in a bubble that comes with an adjoining echo chamber where you and your friends are convinced the American people are not going to elect an idiot for president. You alternate between being appalled at him and laughing at him because of his latest crazy comment or his embarrassingly narcissistic stance on everything because everything is about him. And then you listen to Hillary and you behold our very first female president, someone the world respects, someone who is whip-smart and cares about kids, who will continue the Obama legacy because that is what the American people clearly want! Yes! Four more years of this!
You need to exit that bubble right now. You need to stop living in denial and face the truth which you know deep down is very, very real. Trying to soothe yourself with the facts – “77% of the electorate are women, people of color, young adults under 35 and Trump cant win a majority of any of them!” – or logic – “people aren’t going to vote for a buffoon or against their own best interests!” – is your brain’s way of trying to protect you from trauma. Like when you hear a loud noise on the street and you think, “oh, a tire just blew out,” or, “wow, who’s playing with firecrackers?” because you don’t want to think you just heard someone being shot with a gun. It’s the same reason why all the initial news and eyewitness reports on 9/11 said “a small plane accidentally flew into the World Trade Center.” We want to – we need to – hope for the best because, frankly, life is already a shit show and it’s hard enough struggling to get by from paycheck to paycheck. We can’t handle much more bad news. So our mental state goes to default when something scary is actually, truly happening. The first people plowed down by the truck in Nice spent their final moments on earth waving at the driver whom they thought had simply lost control of his truck, trying to tell him that he jumped the curb: “Watch out!,” they shouted. “There are people on the sidewalk!”
Well, folks, this isn’t an accident. It is happening. And if you believe Hillary Clinton is going to beat Trump with facts and smarts and logic, then you obviously missed the past year of 56 primaries and caucuses where 16 Republican candidates tried that and every kitchen sink they could throw at Trump and nothing could stop his juggernaut. As of today, as things stand now, I believe this is going to happen – and in order to deal with it, I need you first to acknowledge it, and then maybe, just maybe, we can find a way out of the mess we’re in.
Don’t get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women – check. Abortion should be legal – check. Stronger environmental laws – check. More gun control – check. Legalize marijuana – check. A huge shift has taken place – just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year. And there is no doubt in my mind that if people could vote from their couch at home on their X-box or PlayStation, Hillary would win in a landslide.
But that is not how it works in America. People have to leave the house and get in line to vote. And if they live in poor, Black or Hispanic neighborhoods, they not only have a longer line to wait in, everything is being done to literally stop them from casting a ballot. So in most elections it’s hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the problem for November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question. Who’s the candidate with the most rabid supporters? Whose crazed fans are going to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, kicking ass all day long, all the way until the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick and Harry (and Bob and Joe and Billy Bob and Billy Joe and Billy Bob Joe) has cast his ballot?  That’s right. That’s the high level of danger we’re in. And don’t fool yourself — no amount of compelling Hillary TV ads, or outfacting him in the debates or Libertarians siphoning votes away from Trump is going to stop his mojo.
Here are the 5 reasons Trump is going to win:
  1. Midwest Math, or Welcome to Our Rust Belt Brexit.  I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million). Trump is ahead of Hillary in the latest polls in Pennsylvania and tied with her in Ohio. Tied? How can the race be this close after everything Trump has said and done? Well maybe it’s because he’s said (correctly) that the Clintons’ support of NAFTA helped to destroy the industrial states of the Upper Midwest. Trump is going to hammer Clinton on this and her support of TPP and other trade policies that have royally screwed the people of these four states. When Trump stood in the shadow of a Ford Motor factory during the Michigan primary, he threatened the corporation that if they did indeed go ahead with their planned closure of that factory and move it to Mexico, he would slap a 35% tariff on any Mexican-built cars shipped back to the United States. It was sweet, sweet music to the ears of the working class of Michigan, and when he tossed in his threat to Apple that he would force them to stop making their iPhones in China and build them here in America, well, hearts swooned and Trump walked away with a big victory that should have gone to the governor next-door, John Kasich.
    From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!
    And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November.
  2. The Last Stand of the Angry White Man. Our male-dominated, 240-year run of the USA is coming to an end. A woman is about to take over! How did this happen?! On our watch! There were warning signs, but we ignored them. Nixon, the gender traitor, imposing Title IX on us, the rule that said girls in school should get an equal chance at playing sports. Then they let them fly commercial jets. Before we knew it, BeyoncĂ© stormed on the field at this year’s Super Bowl (our game!) with an army of Black Women, fists raised, declaring that our domination was hereby terminated! Oh, the humanity!
    That’s a small peek into the mind of the Endangered White Male. There is a sense that the power has slipped out of their hands, that their way of doing things is no longer how things are done. This monster, the “Feminazi,”the thing that as Trump says, “bleeds through her eyes or wherever she bleeds,” has conquered us — and now, after having had to endure eight years of a black man telling us what to do, we’re supposed to just sit back and take eight years of a woman bossing us around? After that it’ll be eight years of the gays in the White House! Then the transgenders! You can see where this is going. By then animals will have been granted human rights and a fuckin’ hamster is going to be running the country. This has to stop!
  3. The Hillary Problem. Can we speak honestly, just among ourselves? And before we do, let me state, I actually like Hillary – a lot – and I think she has been given a bad rap she doesn’t deserve. But her vote for the Iraq War made me promise her that I would never vote for her again. To date, I haven’t broken that promise. For the sake of preventing a proto-fascist from becoming our commander-in-chief, I’m breaking that promise. I sadly believe Clinton will find a way to get us in some kind of military action. She’s a hawk, to the right of Obama. But Trump’s psycho finger will be on The Button, and that is that. Done and done.
    Let’s face it: Our biggest problem here isn’t Trump – it’s Hillary. She is hugely unpopular — nearly 70% of all voters think she is untrustworthy and dishonest. She represents the old way of politics, not really believing in anything other than what can get you elected. That’s why she fights against gays getting married one moment, and the next she’s officiating a gay marriage. Young women are among her biggest detractors, which has to hurt considering it’s the sacrifices and the battles that Hillary and other women of her generation endured so that this younger generation would never have to be told by the Barbara Bushes of the world that they should just shut up and go bake some cookies. But the kids don’t like her, and not a day goes by that a millennial doesn’t tell me they aren’t voting for her. No Democrat, and certainly no independent, is waking up on November 8th excited to run out and vote for Hillary the way they did the day Obama became president or when Bernie was on the primary ballot. The enthusiasm just isn’t there. And because this election is going to come down to just one thing — who drags the most people out of the house and gets them to the polls — Trump right now is in the catbird seat.
  4. The Depressed Sanders Vote. Stop fretting about Bernie’s supporters not voting for Clinton – we’re voting for Clinton! The polls already show that more Sanders voters will vote for Hillary this year than the number of Hillary primary voters in ’08 who then voted for Obama. This is not the problem. The fire alarm that should be going off is that while the average Bernie backer will drag him/herself to the polls that day to somewhat reluctantly vote for Hillary, it will be what’s called a “depressed vote” – meaning the voter doesn’t bring five people to vote with her. He doesn’t volunteer 10 hours in the month leading up to the election. She never talks in an excited voice when asked why she’s voting for Hillary. A depressed voter. Because, when you’re young, you have zero tolerance for phonies and BS. Returning to the Clinton/Bush era for them is like suddenly having to pay for music, or using MySpace or carrying around one of those big-ass portable phones. They’re not going to vote for Trump; some will vote third party, but many will just stay home. Hillary Clinton is going to have to do something to give them a reason to support her  — and picking a moderate, bland-o, middle of the road old white guy as her running mate is not the kind of edgy move that tells millenials that their vote is important to Hillary. Having two women on the ticket – that was an exciting idea. But then Hillary got scared and has decided to play it safe. This is just one example of how she is killing the youth vote.
  5. The Jesse Ventura Effect. Finally, do not discount the electorate’s ability to be mischievous or underestimate how any millions fancy themselves as closet anarchists once they draw the curtain and are all alone in the voting booth. It’s one of the few places left in society where there are no security cameras, no listening devices, no spouses, no kids, no boss, no cops, there’s not even a friggin’ time limit. You can take as long as you need in there and no one can make you do anything. You can push the button and vote a straight party line, or you can write in Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. There are no rules. And because of that, and the anger that so many have toward a broken political system, millions are going to vote for Trump notbecause they agree with him, not because they like his bigotry or ego, but just because they can. Just because it will upset the apple cart and make mommy and daddy mad. And in the same way like when you’re standing on the edge of Niagara Falls and your mind wonders for a moment what would that feel like to go over that thing, a lot of people are going to love being in the position of puppetmaster and plunking down for Trump just to see what that might look like. Remember back in the ‘90s when the people of Minnesota elected a professional wrestler as their governor? They didn’t do this because they’re stupid or thought that Jesse Ventura was some sort of statesman or political intellectual. They did so just because they could. Minnesota is one of the smartest states in the country. It is also filled with people who have a dark sense of humor — and voting for Ventura was their version of a good practical joke on a sick political system. This is going to happen again with Trump.
Coming back to the hotel after appearing on Bill Maher’s Republican Convention special this week on HBO, a man stopped me. “Mike,” he said, “we have to vote for Trump. We HAVE to shake things up.” That was it. That was enough for him. To “shake things up.” President Trump would indeed do just that, and a good chunk of the electorate would like to sit in the bleachers and watch that reality show.

I fear the bill for this show when it come due. -MT