CRACK OPEN A BOY WITH THE COLD ONES

A dark comedy game of banter and one-upmanship for 2-4 players. You play as some of the most evil people imaginable (billionaires) during their weekly transfusion of youthful blood, as they chat with one another about their casually life-ruining pursuits of profit.

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Safety Note: This game puts you in the shoes of bad people who likely have catastrophically bad opinions about the world, including race, gender, sexuality, and so on. It’s highly recommended to discuss and approve topics ahead of time if you play this game.

Something Lines and Veils would probably work fine. While I haven’t used it before, I imagine that Jay Dragon’s Palette Grid safety tool may be especially appropriate for a game like this.

This game is an untested rough draft, written in the space of a couple hours, so it doesn’t have a ton of scaffolding to support safety right now. As always, look out for each other at the table first and foremost.

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The Bloodsuckers

The year is 2048. Each of you is a powerful tech CEO who wields an enormous global megacorporation, amassing wealth and tugging on the geopolitical puppet strings of the world as you please.

You’re also cheating death, or at least trying your damndest. Medical science has shown little to no evidence that transfusions of youthful blood meaningfully combat aging, but you do it anyways because you’re smarter than those four-eyed fucks.

Setup

First, take turns choosing one of the following prompts and answering it. Repeat until all have been answered.

• Things like cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and AI are relics of the past. Today, the biggest craze in computing is ________________.
• Everyone used to talk about “agile software development.” I think we can all agree about how agile works, but lately we’ve left it behind in favor of ________________.
• Today, the most important place in the world for technological innovation is ________________.
• Nobody was sad to see the end of ________________ in the mid 2030s. At least, nobody we know.

Then, each player should create their bloodsucker (a.k.a. tech CEO). Use the details established above as a foundation, and invent:

• A name for the company that they helm (parody names work well here)
• A name for themselves (it can just be a first name like Gavin or Mark or whatever)
• The software product or service your company is known for (”search engine” or “social media” or “e-commerce website” are obvious ones, but feel free to have fun with it)

All of you have long since undertaken the expensive procedure to mutate your blood type to that of a universal donor. Now you receive weekly transfusions of hale, youthful blood, at a convenient clinic where you happen to also rub elbows with one another and talk business.

Is today’s blood boy a retired athlete desperate for a paycheck? Or maybe a promising college student looking for tuition money. Or perhaps they’ve started using those vat grown ones by now. You squint at his sculpted face, which is becoming pale and drowsy from the transfusions. You’re not sure. It doesn’t matter.