After Tom Hanks’ disappearance, his three friends are interviewed separately by a scary detective, who seems intent on trapping them in an admission that they play Mazes and Monsters. They’re perfectly willing to sell Hanks up the Mazes and Monsters river, though. They claim that he played with a Mazes and Monsters group whose identities are shrouded in mystery.

Detective: Who’d he play with?
Kate: I – I don’t know. He never talked about that part of it. … I don’t think he really realized how dangerous the game was.
Detective: (significant pause) Was Robbie a doper?

Finally the Detective explains his theory about Hanks’ disappearance.

Detective: One of the players that Robbie played with… got carried away and killed him.
Blondie: That’s kind of far out.
Detective: Mazes and Monsters is a far out game. Swords… poison… spells… battles… maiming, killing…
Blondie: Hey, it’s all in the imagination!
Detective: Is it…?

We’re so lucky that the Detective knows so much about Mazes and Monsters game rules!

Introduction
Mazes and Monsters is a far out game.

Equipment
Poison: Applied to a weapon or to food or drink, Poison instantly kills the subject with no possibility of survival. Similar to Traps, the Maze Controller is obligated to give the following disclaimer to the players about any poisoned – or potentially poisoned – item: “Be wary: it may be harmless… but it may be poisoned.”

Maiming
Whenever a character is hit, the Maze Controller should roll a d12. On a roll of 1, the character is Maimed. The Maze Controller should roll again on the Maim Subtable.

Maim Subtable
1: The character is instantly killed.
2: Loses a hand or arm.
3: Loses a foot or leg.
4: Loses an eye.
5-6: Facial disfigurement. Character takes -2 on all Charm spells.
7-8: Concussion. Character is Mazed.
9-11: Permanent scar; character looks awesome. No other effect.
12: Flesh wound: Character got lucky… this time. No effect.

In the next scene, we’ve finally caught up with the beginning of the movie, which, as you remember, started with a bunch of cops and reporters gathered around the entrance of Pequod Caverns. They’re looking for a missing Mazes and Monsters player who’s lost in the caves. This is the moment that’s been foreshadowed for the whole movie: cave jaunt after cave jaunt has promised us tragedy, only to deliver anticlimactic safety. And… that’s what happens again. After the search for Hanks in the cave turns up empty, we see Hanks stumbling through Times Square, looking lost, confused, dazzled – just like every other Times Square tourist, in other words. Tom Hanks isn’t in Pequod Caverns at all!

So the whole uproar at the caverns was for nothing. It’s almost as if the message of the movie is that clueless adults are creating a media frenzy based on misinformation and speculation, and that you can’t trust reporters and writers to get their facts straight before they propagate panicked jeremiads. But of course, that’s not the case. Mazes and Monsters IS dangerous. Just look what happened to Tom Hanks.

Hanks’ friends decide that since the cops haven’t found anything, they’ll have to find Hanks themselves, using their GAME SKILLS.

Kate decides that “The Great Hall” isn’t a place – it’s a person! Hanks’ little brother ran away to New York City on a Halloween past, and he was named Hall.

By the way, here’s how popular “Hall” is as a first name. Not very popular. Its best year was 1881 where .007% of boys were named Hall.

Also Kate didn’t really use her GAME SKILLS to remember that fact, unless “game skills” and “knowledge of Tom Hanks” are synonymous, which, in a way, maybe they are. After all, you can’t write a real history of RPGs without frequently mentioning Tom Hanks. My RPG group did enjoy many sessions of FASA’s ‘burbrun, and who can forget the hit White Wolf scored with Joe: The Volcano?

While Kate recreates Tom Hank’s family tree, the boys apply game logic to determine his next move:

JJ: Where would a Holy Man go?
Blondie: (thinking with visible effort, then having a Thought) On a quest!
JJ: Exactly!

Holy Men go on quests.

More precisely, Holy Men go on quests to New York.

Next week, we’ll catch up with Tom Hanks in the Big Apple. Will his spells be enough to defeat these goofy New York hoodlums?

Jay Jay is throwing a Halloween party! Jay Jay is dressed as Noel Coward. Blondie is a naval officer. Kate is, uh, the naval officer’s girlfriend? (I forgot to mention, Blondie and Kate hooked up at the end of the last scene.)

The party also contains Frankensteins, maids, Darth Vaders, and pirates. (No mummies. Too bad. A mummy is, like, the easiest Halloween costume. All you need is gauze, or, in a pinch, toilet paper.) Everyone is bopping to generic 80s party music, except Tom Hanks, who is stalking through the party with the spooky asceticism of one who has been visited by the Great Hall. Hanks is dressed like a Holy Man. But it’s NOT A COSTUME.

Hanks leaves the party and closes the door. He lays his hand on the door in a mystic gesture.

This peculiar gesture is undoubtedly some Holy Man spell, meant to prevent his friends from following him.

Spells

Lock Portal: By laying his hand on a door, a Holy Man can lock it for a few hours. Anyone who tries to force the door or open it with a key must succeed on a RONA based on the Holy Man’s level.

At this point in my notes from the first time I watched the movie, I have the following puzzling scrawl:
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Remember the caves? They were featured, ominously, in the first shot of the film, and then Jay Jay was going to commit suicide there, but didn’t, and then the players LARPED there without incident. It seems that something is finally happening there!

Katie drives by the cave and sees a car parked nearby. Panicked, she rushes in to save … Blondie? He confesses that he has been mapping the caves between official game sessions. “”I wanted to figure out where Jay Jay hid the treasure.”

Katie and Blondie get home safe. Another fake-out where no one gets lost in caves. Something is going to happen there soon, though, I can just feel it!

What we learn from Blondie’s confession about “the treasure”, though, is that there is just one treasure at the heart of every maze! It sounds like when you find the treasure, you win the maze. Players have a lot of motivation to find the best possible route to the treasure, avoiding unnecessary dangers and obstacles.

This is how early editions of D&D worked too. Most of players’ XP was earned from treasure; wandering monsters were things to be avoided. By third edition D&D, though, character advancement came primarily from combat. If you skipped the combats, you’d never level up.

We’d better codify this in our Mazes and Monsters rules.

The maze treasure

At the center of every Maze in Mazes and Monsters is a treasure! The object of Mazes and Monsters is to find this treasure. Only by finding the treasure will the characters gain the wealth, powers, and spells they need to gain Levels and defeat their personal problems. Be wary, though: every treasure will be guarded by formidable obstacles!

I think that, while the bulk of XP in Mazes and Monsters comes from finding the Treasure, you must also get some XP from incidental encounters. After all, everyone was excited when the party met a dozen bloodthirsty undead!

How long to level 9?

I have another question about gaining levels. All the players are so proud of having level 9 characters. How hard is this? How long does it take to get to Level 9?
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I’ve been blogging the Mazes and Monsters RPG for about two months now, which is a long time in internet land, so, just in case you’re new to the project:

I’m watching Tom Hanks’ Mazes and Monsters to glean the rules of the Mazes and Monsters RPG. So far, the game players (Hanks, Jay Jay, Kate, and the blond guy) have stolen costumes from the college theater department and LARPed in a dangerous cave, and Tom Hanks has gone totally insane, hallucinated a fight with an evil monster, and broken up with Kate because a spectral figure called “The Great Hall” told him to.

Now we’re all caught up!

Confused and hurt by her breakup with Hanks, Kate meets Blondie in a diner (apparently there is a diner on campus? it seems to be called “Fat City”) for some post-breakup flirtation, and to ask whether Hanks might be acting a little more… Pardieuxy than usual. Blondie is unable or unwilling to recognize the change in Hanks’ personality.

GIRL: What about his blessing people all the time and giving his stuff away and acting so holy?
BLONDIE: He’s just staying in character. […] I don’t think Robbie’s turning into Pardieux. We work out our problems in the caverns and then we leave them there.

It’s been a while since we were reminded that Mazes and Monsters is a game meant to help us Work Out Our Problems. But it is. Who knows how many thousands it helped during the 80s? Such a powerful healing tool was undoubtedly invaluable for professional psychologists. I bet this scenario played out a lot:

PSYCHOLOGIST: Hmm, your marriage does seem to be troubled. Perhaps we should try some role-play. (lights candles) You are standing before the greatest adventure of all: marriage. Shall ye enter?
HUSBAND and WIFE: Aye! (dice are rolled)
WIFE: I slew a Gorville!
ALL: Marriage saved!

But for every problem solved, there is a life ruined. For every yin, there is a Hanks. The game really should come with a warning to that effect.

Mazes and Monsters is a game about FUN – but it is also a game about self-improvement. Mazes and Monsters players work out their problems in the game and then they leave them there.

Like any respectable psychological tool – hypnotism, LSD, lobotomy, Scientology – Mazes and Monsters is dangerous if used improperly. Don’t try to work out serious real-life problems until you are high enough level to deal with them! And never play the game except under the guidance of a fully licensed Maze Controller!

The other fact to notice about this scene: Blondie writes off some pretty wacky behavior – blessing people all the time, giving away his stuff – as “staying in character.” Well, we know that Blondie isn’t so smart. This is the guy that advocated splitting up when they were LARPING in the cave. But still, “staying in character” seems to be something that is acceptable within the Mazes and Monsters subculture.

A high-level Mazes and Monsters player may want to start acting like his character in the real world. This is perfectly normal. This is what Russian theater director Konstantin Stanislavski calls “staying in character”. It can help players gain the naturalistic playing style they really need to work out their problems in the game.

The next night, Tom Hanks again dreams of The Great Hall!

HALL: Pardieux. Next you must find the secret city under the earth.
HANKS: When?
HALL: When you have purified your mind as you have your body.
HANKS: I’m making a map!
HALL: When you are ready, you will need no map.

From Hanks’ madness we can glean game rules. He is a player, not the Maze Controller, and yet he feels it is his responsibility to make a map. Therefore, a player must be appointed to be the party mapper, as in Dungeons and Dragons.

Player Responsibilities

The players should be prepared to do a little work to ease the task of the Maze Controller.

One player should be the maze mapper. This player notes down the twists, turns, corridors, and rooms of the Maze. Only by studying the map will the players be able to reach the treasure.

Here’s Hanks’ map. Pretty nice, huh?

Next session, we’ll talk about XP!