**CLICK**

[voice of AlkaTRaZ]

"Okay, let me cover the basics before the meds kick in and I start bleeding out the eyes, ya wipe. Take this down. I'm sure yer boss'll wanna hear what I have to say.

1. Bringing up the focus

"As you enter the crowded smoky room, you are assailed by images and the heart-stopping pulse of overly-loud music from some nameless band. The air is thick with human sweat and the smell of gun-oil. Slowly your gaze descends to an attractive man of olive skin and sharp features, dressed in a silk suit. The cut of the suit is of finest in red material, enhanced by the color of a black silk shirt and a wine-colored tie. He has all the mannerisms of a German noble and cuts a path through the crowd as casually as one would delay a blink..."

Check this out, Spanky. The room's wall-to-wall human waste, but, yer mentally challenged PCs are going to follow this one ass-clown "until death do they part." Why? Because, douchebag, you told them to. You sed "Hey, that wingnut over there in da suit is important! Go get him, ya tards!" By glazing over everyone else's profile and spending some time on describing this fuggo, yew made his buttocks undeniably important. In the end, even the most die-hard puckerheads want to go where you point them. You are the camera for the players. You dictate what they see, hear, feel, taste and touch and how much it hurts when you beat them with to death with the business end of a claw hammer. Use definition an lack-of-definition equally to further plots and shift yer band o' merry idiots away from nitpicking about crap that'll just slow everything down. You should never directly control their actions, but, you can make going for stuff that's really, honestly and truly CRAP unappealing by making it as bland as possible. Or, you can just shoot them in the face. That's what I'd do.

2. Pre-rolling Spot and Listen Checks

Player: Okay, I don't think anyone's following us anymore. We should be safe here. Everyone can relax.
GM: Drop a Listen check.
Player: I rolled a 1.
GM: You hear nothing but deafening silence. What do you do?
Player: I empty a clip down the hall anyway, since you called for a Listen check.

Most players aren't that ballsy, but, really, none of your toe-rag players wants to have too much more information than their careening fuggo character does. Their tiny, pea-like brains can't deal with it. It makes the brain-baby kick. Telling them to make a Spot or Listen check can often make the little darlings hackle up like an alley cat sporting a woody and glaring at lunch meat, despite their "noble efforts" to stay In Character. I keep about 10-15 rolls for each character (referring to Spot Listen and even certain saves) as I go and check them against bonuses as needed. Ya don't wanna overdo it for the little darlings tho, that cuts them out of rolling dice, which is all their sad, sick and pathetic lives are for, afterall. Just use it when you need that big honkin' surprise or when you wanna torch a room with them in it because Ralph ate your last piece of pizza and Monica wouldn't give you a foot rub on Friday night.

3. Outlining: Beginning, Middle, End and Coda

Storytelling 101, you nutsack. Hopefully you at least passed third grade English and know what an outline is. Every good story, hell, even most of the ones on tele-waste can be broken down into a beginning, a middle, an end and descending action. You should have some kinda clear idea what yer going ta do for those parts before yer dice ever hit the table. Things may change and players have a habit of screwing things up for a GM, but, at least you have a solid foundation. I tend ta start out a game with a pre-written intro that ends in a combat or some other clearly defined course of action ... chase the PCs with guns and rusty crowbars until they hit the middle ... let them languish in the sheltered harbor of my patience for a bit in the middle trying to figure stuff out ... then I start shooting at them again until they find the beginning of the end section ... give em a second to think they're okay, mug em with the ENDBOSS or important plot point. Let them save the day ... then bash em in da head, arrest em, pour sugar in their gas tanks, steal their lunch money and shoot their girlfriends, all the while pointing at next week's bad guy or whatever. Not all parts have ta or even should be of equal length. Space things out according to the tastes of yer buncha pansies or salivating game-mechanics. If they like roleplay, stretch out the interaction. If they're psycho-hose-beasts, give em a little more time in combat. Don't make me do everything. Damn.

4. Mood is Everything

"You're happy. I hate that!" --Swimming with the Sharks

Well, you've just finished 12 bags of candy corn. The birds are singing. The doves are cooing. You just got some boodie. All your bills are paid up. The world is a good place to be.

Well, cut that shit out.

The ice caps are melting. People are dying on the street everyday. That fat guy behind the grill spit in your burger. Elvis is still dead. What are you gonna do about it, as you sit there in your air-conditioned home eating fast food and watching bad porn? In Digital Burn, mood is everything, ya puke. Even you can pull off the lamest adventure your syphilis-addled mind could come up with if you have the mood right. Get some real music (and burn your Justin Timbalake CDs while yer at it) and try playing it on whatever player you dug outta the dumpster, but make sure the friggin volume's low enough to where you're not talking over it. I know if I wuz given the option to listen to you or music which one I'd choose.

Use props whenever possible. Ransack a Goodwill after Halloween. Get in a fight with someone bigger than you for scars. Reward PCs who dress like their gonad character. Encourage yer little band of lost girls to experience rather than just roll dice. This is a game, and designed ta be fun. Sitting at a table plinking dice and scribbling on a sheet's boring. Pep it up, ya dangler....

**CLICK [END OF FILE]**

That is all the news I can bring you for now, sir. I only hope that the ramblings of this deranged mind can bring this conflict to a resolution soon.

Rep. Katsukitchi Kaufman reporting.