Homeless LARP: "You're a heartless bastard, and you deserve what's coming to you."

Posted by Chris Ward at 2:38 PM Jun 10, 2008

Every couple of years, I find myself hunting down this incredible game again online (which is now, wow, 8 years old), and I finally got to put it's lessons to use last night. It's called THE NEGOTIATOR, and it's the most darkly hilarious Flash game of all time—a weird and crudely rendered sociology RPG where you're forced to deal with a homeless man who demands $200. Kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure with winos and death. And, just like all encounters with hobos, the wrong responses get you killed with a bottle. This is all preceeded by my favorite line and cutscene ever: "You're a heartless bastard, and you deserve what's coming to you." Well, he's right you know.


Hit the jump to see how the actual encounter went down, just before I called my video game skills to action and turned a Homless RPG into an actual Homeless LARP!
And If you guessed "this somehow involves the Indiana Jones Whopper," you are correct, and are probably part of Stalin's psychic army.

My wife and I pulled into a gas station around midnight to pick something up, and I waited in the minivan (yes, a minivan...so shut up about it already) eating my Indiana Jones Whopper with Alien dipping sauce or whatever. I see this guy sitting against the wall. "Goddamn it, he's going to get up and come over here. I just fucking know it. Can't a guy eat a Indiana Jones sandwich in a gas station parking lot in peace?"

Within 30 seconds, he's tapping on my window. I really didn't have any change, and he didn't look too interested in my Shoji Tabuchi cassette, though it would have been a hilarious piece of kitsch to add to his ironic tape collection.

"Isn't there ANYTHING you can spare?" the guy asked, and I detected a hint of "you're not a heartless bastard that deserves to die, are you?" in his voice. I was going to use my default "my wife handles all my finances" lie reserved for hobos/the fraternal order of police/video store late fee collectors, but decided she might not like the idea of getting jumped immediately upon exiting the store, called a heartless bastard, and stabbed with a bottle. So I improvised, using everything I learned in The Negotiator video game.

Someone was going to get stabbed with a bottle tonight, but it wasn't goint to be me.

How I resolved this potential conflict was genius on my part, though some of the credit must be given to the Indiana Jones hamburger, which already had me thinking like Dr. Jones himself.

Shown: The Origin of the Indiana Jones Whopper.

I peeled off three Crystal Skull scratcher game tickets off my fries and drink and handed them to him. "Listen carefully: Scratch off only one Crystal Skull," I explained to the man, careful to outline the rules of an Indiana Jones promotional game to a man with no concept of alien temples, the spaces between the spaces, or Karen Allen's career trajectory.

If you thought explaining the plot of the new Indiana Jones movie to your friends was tough, try explaining the finer details to a man with no access to basic human needs, much less the Internet Movie Database! Am I right?

"If you scratch off both, it's void," I went on. "You have to pick ONE. Also, prices and participation may vary."

"So, this right here...this is worth a hamburger? Cause I'm HUNGRY, man," he asked, holding up the ticket and completely disregarding everything I had painstakingly went over.

"No, no...you have a 50/50 CHANCE of winning food. Maybe it's a hamburger, maybe French Toast sticks. You might even win a million dollars, I don't know. Good luck though." He smiled at the idea of winning a million dollars and the chance to eat that evening, as I smiled along with him...secretly terrified he'd actually win a million dollars and a date with Shia LeBeouf. "Heh, heh! I like you!" he even commented before walking off to begin his own kind of adventure quest: "Harold Jones and the Promise of French Fries."

In the end, I don't know whether it's sick and depraved to make hungry hobos play games of chance in order to win fast food, but it sure was a lot of fun. He seemed to be having fun, too. But then he realized he didn't have a penny to scratch the ticket, and I sped off before he could smash me with his bottle.

Level Up, bitches!




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