One more thing...
It's not about channeling the spirit of Hunter
ing Thompson while you prepare to spray the table with a fistful of d10s. You don't need a smack-addicted porn star on one arm holding your Jack Daniels while you tap your last Swamp to summon your Sengir Vampire. It's not paying the cabana boy to scrub your nutsack while you try to stay upright in the shower and plot 40K strategies. Stop fixating on the word "gonzo" and distracting yourself with a cliche. It's balls-out gaming, not balls-out hedonism.
Balls-out gaming is about being a hardcore gamer, not a hardcore rock star. It's
Pi, not
Animal House. It's
Fight Club, not
Fear and Loathing. The player who burns his wizard in the ogre barbarian fight doesn't get respect because he's making a crazy play that seems to give the finger to convential wisdom. He doesn't get respect because he's playing after drinking 12 cansof Schlitz and four Screwdrivers. Most alcohol or drugs hurt your game, dulling your tactical wits. Balls-out gamers don't care about fitting in a few rounds of anonymous sex with women dressed like Renaissance waitresses or Sailor Moon. There are plenty of cheap and easy women in your hometown, hotshot. Why are you spending this much money to travel across the country to get laid? There are hookers within two miles of your house at a much cheaper price. Balls-out gaming is about playing your
game.
The balls-out gamer whose mage is eating the ogre's great axe gets respect because he's at the end of a 36-hour gaming bender and he's still in there swinging, even though his moves are total crap. He's in a sharp, lonely place where it's almost impossible to succeed on a Concentration check even if you've got a
ing Feat to boost the roll. But he's still rolling the dice, still hungry for just one more victory before he collapses headfirst at the table and lobotomizes himself on a stray d4. He's still rolling dice because when that final critical hit comes up, it will be the sweetest, purest critical hit he's ever had.
