First Loves Blogfest

http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2012/04/friendly-to-z-challenge-and-next.html

Here are my first loves

First Album I loved: Thomas Dolby "The Golden Age of Wireless"

First Movie: Star Wars (I have no idea what "A New Hope" is...;) )

First Book: The Hobbit

First Person: Harder, I mean after all the first people you love are your family. So let's go with first person outside of your family. And that can only be...

BATGIRL!

Specifically, Yvonne Craig's Batgirl from the Adam West Batman TV series.
What's not to love?  She is smart and kicks ass.  Plus she rode a purple motor cycle before Prince was even born (ok, I might need to re-check that date but you get what I am trying to say  ETA: ok, Prince was only about 8-9 at the time.)

U is for The Unexplained

The Unexplained is a game I have known about for years and have wanted to pick up, but something else always pushed it's way to the front of the line.  So when it appeared on DriveThruRPG a couple of weeks ago I knew I had to get it.  I also knew it would make for a great post for the Blogfest.

So today U is for The Unexplained.

I had reviewed the Unexplained's sister game, Now Playing, a while back.  TU uses pretty much the same rule system, Fudge, though the focus is less on emulating a TV show (though there is that there) and instead emulating a real world full of cryptids, ghosts and UFOs.  In many ways The Unexplained is very much like a 70's monster hunter documentary or even a 90s conspiracy show.  Given it's ties, systemwise, to Now Playing it is easy to guess that the author, Bradford Younie, is a big fan of shows like Dark Skies, the X-Files and certainly Kolchak the Night Stalker.  If Now Playing is the TV version, then The Unexplained is the reality they are based on.
Chapter 1 of the book covers a bit of the background of the game with Paranormal Societies, including the FPI (detailed later).

Character creation begins in Chapter 2.
Like many games you have 6 attributes (Brawn, Agility, Stamina, Reasoning, Perception, Will) and these are give levels in words, not numbers.  So "Fair" "Good" and the like.  This is a Fudge game so the levels of everything are words.  Like all Fudge games character creation is a fast affair where where you start with a concept and work from there.  Authors (not game authors or players) might find this exercise interesting for their own characters since there is no/less number crunching than with other games.
The next chapters cover all the other things that can define your character.
TU has a bunch of skills (Chapter 3), Traits and Faults (Chapter 4) and various other means of describing your character (Chapter 6).
If you have ever played Fudge before then you will get this game in a flash.  If you have never played Fudge, then it is simple to understand and the mechanics are not at all difficult. Chapter 6 covers all the gear your character might need.  Enough to make Stanzt, Spengler and Venkman happy or Thelma to go "Jinkies".

Chapters 7 and 8 cover the rules of the game and Storytelling (Game Mastering) respectively.   Chapter 7 is your Fudge basic information as it is applied to this game.  Chapter 8 though is a very good chapter on running any sort of paranormal type game.  I have read dozens of chapters like this and this one still had some good advice for me.

While most people go to Fudge games because of the ease of character creation and game play, what I like most about this game is how well researched it is.  I play plenty of paranormal/horror/conspiracy type games.  After a while one begins to look like the other and I tend to compare them favorably to unfavorably to games like WitchCraft, Conspiracy X and DarkMatter.
The Unexplained stands up to these game rather well.  Characters are assumed to belong to the Foundation of Paranormal Investigations (FPI), which plot wise and thematically puts it between ConX and DarkMatter. They even have their own website, http://www.paranormal-foundation.com/.    The FPI is a game conceit, but that doesn't mean you have to use it.  You can go rogue if you like. Make your game more "Supernatural" than "X-Files".

The rest of the book breaks down this research into major game-playing areas.
Chapter 9 covers Ghost Hunting, with Chapter 10 on Ghost Ships in particular.  Given some the material on Carnivore Games website, I would say Ghost Ships hold a particular interest to the author.  The chapter is nicely done and very in depth.  If you need to know something about Ghost Ships for an RPG then this is a good place to start.  Chapter 11 cover Cryptozoology, so bigfoots, lake monsters and the like.  Chapter 12 Parapsychology and psychic phenomena. Chapter 13 is all about UFOlogy including the various alien races  that have come to Earth, the Greys, the Reptoids, the Nordics.  Exactly what you would expect.  Crop circles are also detailed.  Chapter 14 covers magic.  Again this is a modern view on real world magical practices, as if they were really magical.  So a nice overview here.  But I will admit, I have a hard time mixing UFOs and Magic.  This is not a fault of the game, but rather one with me I think.  This chapter though is a good overview of many magical traditions and ritual magic.

There is also a sample adventure/investigation at the end.  Appropriately enough it is about Bigfoot.
The character sheet is similar to the one found in Now Playing, and there is a nice touch of a Character Creation Questionnaire that should really work with every paranormal like game.

I mentioned the research, the game is full of interesting tidbits such as eye-witness accounts, photos and case notes from dozens of "real" reported cases of the supernatural and the paranormal. Everything from cryptids, to ghosts, to UFOs. Thematically this places it closer to ConX than say WitchCraft, though without all the baggage of the government. One gets the feeling that Younie spent many, many hours doing nothing but reading up on conspiracies and everything outside the regular media to give us this information.

A nice treat in the end is the OGL (Fudge is now released under the OGL) AND a plain language declaration what is open and what isn't.  Plus, for lack of a better word, an "openness" about publishing your adventures or supplements that can be used with Now Playing or The Unexplained.

I really liked Now Playing, but I like The Unexplained even more.
The Unexplained has a nice charm about it that I find very attractive.  Now Playing changed my mind about playing Fudge based games, and this might change my mind about running them.

Who should buy this game?
If you have ever been curious about Fudge then this is a good game to pick up.
If you enjoy supernatural/paranormal games then get this.
If you are a fan of Now Playing, then absolutely get this.

Links
http://www.paranormal-foundation.com/
http://carnivoregames.com/wp/
http://www.facebook.com/theunexplained
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2010/07/willow-tara-fudge.html

Zatannurday: Young Justice returns

So last week marked the return of Young Justice and young Zatanna.

Interestingly enough is not that she was back, or even made a permanent part of the team, but that YJ now airs on a Saturday morning.  Yup no longer a prime time Cartoon Network show like Adventure Time, it has been moved to that slot of our youth.  I am of mixed feelings about that.  First I think it is cool that the new DC toons are all in a block during the times I was watching The Super Friends and Batman.  But I also can't help that the show will get ignored a little here.  Time will tell I guess.

So Zee is back in "Misplaced" and it is a magic filled epsiode.  We have Zatara, Klarion, Felix Faust, Wizard, Wotan and even the return of Dr. Fate.  I liked the attention to detail in this episode too.  They had Klarion casting his spell at a crossroads for example.  I also like how it was Captain Marvel that could move between the different realities.  Not just because he could be both an adult and a kid, but but because so much of Capt. Marvel is about being in between worlds; adult/child, magic/mundane, mortal and god.

There is a nice bit of dialog between Batman and Zatara and it made me for the first want to see more about him.  I should spend some time learning more about Giovanni Zatara.

 Long story short (and there are spoilers ahead) all the adults disappear from the world due to magic (yes we saw this before in Justice League Unlimited) and Young Justice has to figure it out.

One part I felt was particularly good was when Zatanna had to use her father's locator spell.  She talked about how it wasn't as easy as just talking backwards, that was just the end part.  There was prep and power and she didn't think she was up to her father's level of skill to do it.  Of course she does do it, easily in fact.  The animators did a great job of showing the disappointment on her face when the spell worked.   Why?  Because it was proof that she was up to Zatara's level now. She was growing up. It was the theme of the episode, but it hit home with her then and there.

We discover that there are two worlds, one of kids and the other of adults.  Both sides debate on whether or not it is time to use the Helm of Nabu and call on Dr. Fate.  Both sides agree that it is not yet that desperate.

Each side battles the magical baddies in their respect dimensions.  Klarion and Zatanna have it out, but Klarion is much more powerful, that is till Zee pulls out the Helm of Nabu, unknown to all her teammates.  She puts it on and Dr. Fate is back.

They manage to destroy the magic whatzit holding the worlds apart with Fate/Zatanna and Zatara working together to destroy it.  Once the world is together again though Fate doesn't want to give up Zatanna's body.
Zatara pleads with Fate to let his daughter go, stating that he will don the Helm of Nabu.  Batman promises to look after Zee.  Zatara dons the helm of Nabu and without a word flies away.

Zatanna moves into Mount Justice in to a room next to Miss Martian.  We end the episode with Zee asking to be alone.

There is more going on in this episode than just this of course.  There is the ongoing "Light" arc (which I won't detail here) and more details of what was going on.

This was a watershed episode in Zatanna's development.  We see for the first time that she may in fact be up to Zatara's power level.  Both in terms of her magic and Zatara's own assessment of her.  We also get a Doctor Fate that is more powerful than anything we have seen before. Kent Nelson in the YJ universe was just a normal human, albeit a long lived one.  Giovanni Zatara was already a master of magic and world class magician.  His power, plus that of Nabu would make Fate very, very powerful.

It also ties up one little issue.  How do we separate Zatanna from her father.  In the comics he was just "missing" and then later dead.  Here we have a clean (cleanish) break.  Zatara could always come back of course.

Again, like I said this episode really makes me want to read more about Zatara.  Maybe even put up some M&M3/DCA stats for him.

Later today (depending on when you read this) we will have a Wally West focused episode, but I am sure there will be some Zatanna bits in it.

In other Zatanna news, DC Adventures, Heroes & Villains Vol. 2 is now out with write-ups of Zee and Zachary Zatara.

Zatannurday: Happy Birthday Bruce Timm!

Bruce Timm, artist, animator, director and producer celebrates his birthday this coming week (Wednesday, Feb 8).  So I figured what better than some Bruce Timm and DCAU/Timmverse version of Zee!

Zatanna came in to the Bruce Timm/DCAU/B:TAS world in the episode naturally titled "Zatanna".

It featured a young Bruce Wayne and an even younger Zatanna back when Bruce was learning escapology.

Here is what Timm and Paul Dini said at the time about this episode.

Paul Dini on Zatanna’s appearance on Batman: “Bruce [Wayne] had to learn to be an escape artist from someone, and I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if he learned from Zatara, DC’s old Golden Age hero, who at the time had a cute, little sixteen-year old daughter?’ I pitched this to Paul Levitz, president of DC Comics, who said, ‘That’s wonderful; that’s better than anything we’ve ever done with Zatanna! And it was logical that, if he learned from her father, he would have had a little thing going with Zatanna (courtesy of Cinefantastique Magazine)."

Bruce Timm on Zatanna (circa 1998): “We wanted to make sure [that] any superhero guest stars would make sense within the context of the Batman show. So we played Zatanna’s down and made her more of a David Copperfield-type of magician so that she had a bit more realistic framework for her appearance (courtesy of Wizard Magazine).”

She would then go on to stay friends with Batman, even learn his real name and display the power we are accustomed to seeing.

We all know Paul Dini loves Zatanna, but Bruce Timm can't be too far behind.

So happy birthday Bruce Timm!

Zatannurday: Young Justice Secrets

We were treated to another Zatanna episode of Young Justice recently. It was a the Halloween episode "Secrets".
It had some nice non-Zee moments.
Wendy and Marvin were there.  Megan disguising herself as Marvin the Martian from 'Looney Tunes'.

Of course there are lots of good bit with Zatanna and Artemis in this epsiode.  Zee figures out right away that Conner and Megan are a couple.   I like how they are opting to portray her as younger than the rest of the team (except for Robin).

I enjoyed the heck out of the old Teen Titans cartoon when it was on, but this one is really good.  Love the storyline they are building here.

Here are some more pics of her appearances from 'Humanity' and 'Secrets'.

I normally don't post animated GIFs but this scene made me laugh out loud.  (might need to click on it to make it work)

It got me wondering about when in this continuity Zatara was going die.   Not to be morbid about it, but it is a central part of her character just as much as Batman's.

Zatannurday: Young Justice

The newest episode of Young Justice aired (for me) last night and featured a young Zatanna.  I thought I would share my thoughts about the episode today.

Humanity

The Young Justice team is still getting backtogether after their betrayal by Red Tornado when there new "baby sitter" Giovanni Zatara and his teen daughter Zatanna.   The team "kidnaps" her (her idea) to go after Red Tornado.

There is some good natured flirting between her and Robin; I think they are supposed to be about the same age.  Zee shows off some cool magic and even a couple of quick costume changes.  The team grills her on her powers and she mentions that she is no where near her Dad's powers.  I thought it was great that she has a "sneak out of the house" spell.

She wears a variation of her classic outfit, modeled after her dad's.  May she picks up her penchant for fish-net from Black Canary.

The episode is cool, though not really as Zee-centric as I had hoped. Plus despite being grounded for life at the end it looks like's she might be joining the team.  Or at least I can hope.

Zatannurday: It's in the Cards

The upcoming Young Justice will guest-star a young Zatanna.

I don't know a lot about the episode to be honest, but there is this cool card that was being used to promote the show at the SDCC.

Of course I am guessing that the "7" here means she will be the seventh member of the Young Justice team.

Here is what I do know of the episode:

Friday, October 21st, 2011 at 6:30pm (ET) - “#15 Humanity”
The Team is on the hunt for Red Tornado, determined to find out once and for all whether the robot was the mole – even if it means kidnapping new friend Zatanna and dragging her along on their quest!


I am sure Zee does not go quietly.

I like her costume design.  Evocative of her "classic" costume, but still makes her look like she is a teen performer.  So something she would wear given that she would be standing next to her dad on stage.

Looking forward to seeing more of Young Zee on Young Justice.

The Secret Circle

I watched the new WB witch show "The Secret Circle".

So far it is not so bad, not great, but it has a lot of potential I think.
I'll be checking it out next week I am sure.

X is for X-Files

X-files

In the 90s everything was conspiracy theories, don't trust the government and the Truth was Out There.

On TV we had the X-Files.

There was a paranoia in the 90s.  Today it has boiled over into disgust about our government (believe I know, I live in Illinois, we have one ex-Governor in prison and another headed there).  But back then it was a general low hum of paranoia, suspicion and doubt.  It started with Iran-Contra, and moved on to movies like "JFK".  It was the climate that allowed the X-Files to grow.

It began on a start up station called Fox, long before they became synonymous for killing shows, good or bad, too early.  X-Files was their hit, their main show outside of the Simpsons really, and they kept it on for 9 years.

Let be honest here, the X-Files did more for genre TV than anything else. It was a cultural phenomena and most shows that we enjoyed in the 2000s and on are a result of this little show by Chris Carter.   People go on about Whedon, but Carter and the X-files has been nominated for more Emmys and the show had won more collective  awards.  Even in it's "worst" season X-files still had 3 times the views of Buffy.
Plus there is not an episode of Supernatural that doesn't in some way or another recall the X-files.  The Winchesters are this decade's Mulder and Scully.

I came to the show late.  I was working on my thesis at the time and I rarely watched TV.  Once I graduated I became a fast convert.  It became my Friday night ritual (I was watching them with my then girlfriend, so that is ok).  It was also one of the shows I did not invest in any of fandom.  I have an X-files CD and Mulder and Scully action figures, but I got them as gifts.  I really got into it the show all the same.  One of the first desktop "themes" I had for my brand spanking new copy of Windows 95 was an X-files one.

I loved the season long and multi-season long story arcs, I loved the characters, I didn't even care when my then girlfriend (and now wife) would go on about how hot Mulder or Skinner were.  That was fine with me.  I got to see Scully; hot and smart.

The trouble with X-Files is it was doomed from the start.  You can't keep the characters or the audience in the dark all the time and have a god show, and the more secrets you reveal the less the characters have to uncover.  They kept it up though for a good long run.

The same is true for any conspiracy game.  Conspiracy X, also by Eden Studios, is a great example.  You can totally run an "X-Files" game with it, but how often can you keep the players in the dark when they are looking for secrets?

The Godfather of the X-files is "Kolchak" and Darrin McGavin even made some guest spots on the show.  X-Files, while the "mythos arc" is lauded, sometimes worked the best on the "monster of the week" episodes.  Sure the aliens were great and those were the ones I got excited about, but the ones I recall the best, Flukeman, "Theef", the freaky weird family, the hallucinogenic fungus, the chupacabra.  Like Kolchak, X-files did it's best job when it dealt with "small stories"; episodes that dealt with a local myth, legend or monster and came at it with Mulder the one ready to believe anything and Scully looking the reasoned explanation.  I also liked the "spin-offs" Millennium and the Lone Gunmen.

One day I am going to go back to the world of the X-Files.  Back when Clinton was still president, freaky half-worm/half-man things lived in chemical toilets, cigarette smoking men and well manicured men sat in dark rooms with darker purposes, aliens kidnapped little girls and the Truth Was Out There

Even Witches have itches

Saw this the other night on "That 70's Show", yeah I know I am behind a bit on my TV watching.

Cause even witches have itches... Made me laugh.