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Well, here it is, what you've all been waiting(?) for, more U:tF stuff. I think this will probably be the last U:tF supplement, as I think that this joke should stop while it's still funny.

Here's the format: If there's no one's name after the card, it was all my idea. Otherwise, the original idea came from the named person, and I either left it as it was or changed it to suit my taste. So that's why you might see your name after a card and say "Hey, I didn't send him that!" ;-)

Also I'd like to apologize to anyone who sent me mail over the summer and didn't get a response because I couldn't send from my hamp.hampshire.edu account.

USENET: THE FLAMING v1.2

SEPTEMBER Booster Set

September, when sysadmins turn color and fall from the trees...
-someone's .sig

Long the most feared month of the year on Usenet, the secrets of September have long been hidden by fearful system administrators. Now, at last, they have been revealed in this exciting booster set for Usenet: the Flaming, the collectible trading card game of Usenet politics and global domination. This supplement is not a stand alone game; you must "purchase" Usenet: the Flaming v 1.2 (the "Somewhat-Limited Edition"), available here.

And now, before we begin, a word from our CEO:

Hello. We at Wumpuses of Western Mass., inc. (WoWM) are pleased to report record profits this year from sales of our blatant scam, "Usenet: the Flaming" (I prefer to call this game a "blatant scam" rather than a "collectible trading card game", because I believe the focus should not be how much the cards are worth to some piddly little collector, but how much money this game is making for us). Our other blatant scams, "Medusa: the Eternal Struggle", "Usenet--Next World Order", and "Legends of the Big Eight" have also been very profitable.

In fact, we've made so much money that we've decided to celebrate by doing two things. First, we are opening an office in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, to tap a potentially vast market in the only country where people haven't heard of our game yet.

Second, we are downsizing our role-playing game department. Sure, we said that we were going to make role-playing games, and sure we went and hired many of the most talented people in the industry. Sure, "Usenet: the Role-Playing Game" was only a week away from going to the printers. But we realized that these games just won't make as much money as our line of blatant scams, so we have decided to fire thirty people with three days notice.

Some of these people will be able to get new jobs in WoWM working at our new game-design factory in Mexico, the others will just have to find new jobs. Merry Christmas, suckers!

And now, September:

Rules changes: From now on, references to "power" in connection with sites should be replaced with "computrons"; thus, hamp.hampshire.edu produces 1 computron when downed.
-Eric S. Raymond

CARDS

Partial Site Cards:

These are sites that are too weak to even get one computron; instead, they only produce 1/2 computron when downed. Probably they only have a PPP or SLIP connection, or it's some student's PC hooked up to the campus network (like mine, say...). So you need several of them to accomplish anything.
-Duncan Blake

198.114.177.14, .5, My PC.

Instant Event cards:

NAZI EMAIL SPAM, 3, Play this card immediately after suffering a cred loss. A site that you secretly control becomes the source of Nazi email, and everyone forgets about you while they hunt down the Nazis. Sacrifice one site with computrons equal to the amount of cred you would have lost, and keep the cred.

T3 LINE, 3, Target site now produces two additional computrons when you tap it.
-Eric S. Raymond

RETROCOMPUTING, 1, Target site administrator is overcome with a fit of nostalgia and decides to refit the site to run on a PDP-8. Site loses 1 computron, but the player who controls the site gains 1 cred.
-Duncan Blake

COOL SITE OF THE DAY, 1, All players vote on whether the target site is host to a "Cool Site of the Day"; if it is, the controller gains 1 cred, but the site goes down for a turn, as hordes of people connect to it to find out what was so cool.
-Duncan Blake

THE POWER OF THE SPOKEN WORD, 1, You skip the cold, impersonal world of 7-bit ASCII and verbally intimidate the hell out of the target player. You get to look at the top card in his deck.
-Michael Tresca

Continuous Event cards:

GRUBORTROLL, 2, Taking on the persona of a disbarred lawyer, you launch a frontal assault on Usenet customs and common sense. Then, while everyone is distracted, you can proceed with your schemes. Take an extra turn.

UDP, 1, Target site is under the Usenet Death Penalty. Computrons from this site may not be used to play a posting card (figure out what _that_ means!).

LAZARUS, 1, As long as this card is in play, the player is immune to the effect of CANCELBUNNY.

ADVENTUROUS UNDERGRAD, 1, An undergraduate hacker takes over this site and does _something_. From now on, this site can multitask; for example, a 2 computron site could be downed to power _two_ 1 computron cards, or one 2 computron card.
-Elvish Wanderer

TROJAN HORSE, 2, You infiltrate the target site and take it over. You now control this site, and can use it just as you use one of your sites. This card is blocked by RISKS DIGEST.
-David Donachie

Attack cards:

BOGON FLARE, 2, VDT radiation, or something, scrambles everyones' brains. All players lose 2 cred.
-Eric S. Raymond

IMMINENT DEATH OF THE NET PREDICTED, 1, ...by target. Target loses 1 cred.
-Eric S. Raymond

IS THIS THING ON?, 1, Your parents become "hip" and get onto the Internet despite your best efforts to stop them. They confuse email with news postings, and write to you about your acne problems and how they think they know a good dermatologist, etc. Lose 1 cred as your carefully constructed net.persona is exposed as a fraud.
-Michael Tresca

BOB DOLE, 1, Goes around getting people mad at target's net site and makes him lose 1 cred. Also, anyone playing offensive music must throw it out the window.
-rcorrion@acadia.net

Contributors to this booster set:
Matthew E. Grossman megF91@hamp.hampshire.edu
Eric S. Raymond esr@locke.ccil.org
Duncan Blake dblake@PrimeNet.Com
Elvish Wanderer ranger@student.umass.edu
Michael Tresca trescami@student.msu.edu
David Donachie daviddo@castle.ed.ac.uk
rcorrion@acadia.net (sorry, I don't have your name!)

And thanks to everyone who sent me stuff which didn't make it in.