Difficult Simple

Way back when, in those early heady days when the d20 System still seemed like it was a viable roleplaying framework for my ideas, I was leafing through a copy of Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts when a campaign concept popped into my head: Path of the Monkey. I happened to be reading the description for Monkey (AKA Sun Wukong, The Monkey King) at the time, and the concept followed right on the heels of asking myself, “How could I use this guy in a campaign? He’s too powerful!”

The basic idea was this: three or four players begin the game as apprentice-level monks with (-)250 XP. Living in mythic China or some analog, they are on their way to some Shaolin-style monastery or the other, ready to begin their training. Along the way they encounter the Monkey King in disguise, who tests both their attitudes and their (admittedly meager) kung fu skills. When he’s done whipping up on them in various humorous and humiliating ways — this would not take long, because the point is just to show that this mysterious figure is not what he seems — the Monkey King sort of takes the heroes on as his apprentices. The deal is that they will go where he tells them and from time to time he will teach them to master body and spirit.

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Comedian and actor Will Ferrell once said, “Inappropriate behavior makes me laugh.” He must have found Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan absolutely wet-yourself hilarious.

Borat, the brainchild of British comic Sacha Baron Cohen, is funny and sometimes could even be construed as important. But since its style of humor relies almost solely on inappropriate behavior, the most common sensation associated with the film is agonized embarrassment for those involved.

Cohen created the character of Borat Sagdiyev for British television, and segments featuring Borat were included in most episodes of Cohen’s popular program (later produced in America by HBO), Da Ali G Show. The central conceit behind Borat, both the television and filmic varieties, is that the character is a raging antisemite, closet homosexual and aggressively backward citizen of Kazakhstan. In this guise, Cohen would interact with various ordinary people and, occasionally, more famous persons — the film features both former congressman Bob Barr and right-wing nutjob Alan Keyes — while violating every rule of appropriate behavior.

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