October Movie Reviews: Lovecraft Film Fest

Last ones. This last round are some Lovecraft movies.  Pity poor Lovecraft, his books are so good and so scary; but the movie adaptations are usually so bad.  There are some exceptions.

Dagon (2001)
Loosely based on "The Shadows Over Insmouth" it moves the action to Spain.  Here the EoD is slicing up  humans to make "costumes" for the fish mutants.  It has gore, it has sub-par acting and most of the story is preserved but the overall effect is a bit sub-par.  It was an enjoyable little flick, but certainly more of the Lovecraft frame of mind (ie. how many and who survives) than what you normally see in Hollywood films.  It has it's problems to be sure, but it is one of the better adaptations.

Beyond The Dunwich Horror (2008)
This direct to Sci-Fi Channel movie (with an unrated version out there) is Dean Stockwell's second chance at doing The Dunwich Horror (the first was 1970).  This one is more Hollywood and it shows.  In a bad way.  Only barley recognizable as Lovecraft's tale it does have some nice special effects, Yog-Sothoth looks pretty cool.  But there is this whole drug-dream sequences with Abdul Alhazred and his harem of naked girls (I am not 100% sure that Lovecraft ever actually had any women in his stories).  There is a starting scene that is more "Exorcist" or even the movie version of "Constantine" than Lovecraft.  In the end this is weak movie, despite Dean Stockwell playing Henry Armitage and Lovecraft regular Jeffry Combs playing Wilbur Whateley. In fact both are completely misused here to let some D-List actors have all the screen time.  I guess that is how they paid for those special effects.

I'll tally up my movies later.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween from the Other Side!

D&D4 Halloween Previews

Wizards has some previews up for some new Essentials products that have a distinct Halloween flair.

First, the classic Universal monsters, Frankenstein's Monster (Flesh Golem), Dracula (Master Vampire) and the Wolf-man (infected lycanthrope).
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20101029b

And the new Warlocks, Hexblades are up.  Looks like they might be beefing up their combat a bit.
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20101029#71432
People are already talking about them a lot too.
Points of Light, http://daegames.blogspot.com/2010/10/meet-hexblade.html and
RPG.Net, http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=544671
Can't wait to see the full writeup on these since Warlocks are my favorite 4e Class.

Happy Halloween.

October Movie Reviews: Round up

Rounding up some more movies I saw over the last week or so.  The biggest issue is not watching the movies, but finding the time to blog about them.  I also I like to watch a lot of the Halloween related Discovery and History channels shows and I didn't do that this much this year.

The Plague of the Zombies (1965)
Hammer does zombies.  Interesting take really.  The zombies are sorta incidental.  The big bad here is our voodoo master raising up the corpses of the dead to ... go to work mining.  Sure, it actually makes sense really.  Perfect workers, they don't need to be paid, they will work overtime and if poisonous gas hits the mine they keep on going.
And he would have gotten away with it to if it weren't for those meddling kids-err adults.
Entertaining flick but something that I have long suspected hit me.  I am not a big fan of zombie flicks.  Sure I like Romero and the Dead movies.  But as a whole zombies are not really a sub-genre of horror I care much about.

The Covenant (2006)
Saw this cheap at Target, so I picked it up.  Not bad, not good either.  Think "The Craft" only with dudes.  Five families with magic have lived in this town since Puritan times now the next gen is ready for their powers (even if using magic ages them rapidly).  Of the five only four families are left till new guy comes to town.  Wanna guess who he is and what he wants?  The movie had some good chances to break cliché and many times it looks like it will, but instead it just goes right into it.  Well at least it was cheap.

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

My expectations for this one had been pretty low.  I had re-watched Hammer's Frankenstien recently (but didn't review it since I had seen it before) and it was ok.   This movie was something altogether different.  Dr. Baron Von Frankenstein is at it again and again in the form of Peter Cushing.  This time he revives a young woman who committed suicide.  And just because he can, he put the soul of her wrongfully murdered fiancée into her body.  The new woman then goes on a killing spree, killing the men that wrongfully accused her, er him, and got him executed in the first place.
Interesting flick because of the whole metaphysical aspects.   Plus Cushing was fantastic in this, I got so used to seeing him as one Van Helsing or another that seeing this side of his acting really was great.  And lets be honest here, if you are going to go through the effort to create a woman out of the materials you have at hand, you can do a lot worse than Susan Denberg.

Will have to see what I can catch tonight.

Not sure where my count is now.  Will have to add them up later.

The Dragon and the Phoenix: Episode 10

Episode 10: The Enemy Within

Jerome: "Come on dere Oz. Lets all do this one more agin'."
- Willow and Tara: The Dragon and the Phoenix, Episode 10 “The Enemy Within”

Episode 10: The Enemy Within by ~WebWarlock on deviantART

April 30, 2003. Wednesday

Buffy and Spike quest for a weapon to stop Yoln and Leviathan. While they are gone a group of werewolf bikers come to town to cause trouble and Oz is with them. S
tory Arc elements: The return of Oz. The coda to New Moon Rising. The rebuilding of the trust between Buffy and Spike and the reveal of Spike’s roll in the upcoming battle. The discovery is not a weapon, but rather the one item that Yoln still needs for himself, his missing hand.
Guest Stars: Oz, Kit (a Japanese werefox), Jerome LeCoeur and his band of werewolves, Angelique (a witch knight), The Dealer.
Game Design Elements: Introduce Werefoxes. Provide a cure for lycanthropy.
Soundtrack: Rush “The Enemy Within”, Nick Drake “Pink Moon”

Notes and Comments:
This one is really two adventures in one. The “A” Plot features Giles discovering the location of a weapon they could use to defeat Yoln, who apparently can’t be killed. Weapons has no effect, since he has no body, and magic bounces off of him. Giles only knows it is an item of great power and it has something to do with Yoln’s previous defeat. Figuring he already has his sword, they should get this. The weapon though is in France. They determine the location and Willow works out a teleport spell for them both to get their and back. The rest of the cast with Giles remain behind to do further research. Besides, the Order protecting the weapon does not want a bunch of people popping in. Contrived? A little, but I need to separate the cast.
So Buffy and Spike search for this weapon in France. They discover a weapon connected with Yoln, his severed hand, it possession of a cult of witch-guardians (a mix Christian and Pagan beliefs). The gauntlet is not the weapon they were looking for, but witch-knights do tell them it is vital in the final confrontation, though they are not sure how. Buffy tries it on and it begins to drain her life force. Spike wears it and discovers that he is immune. He also discovers that he can withstand sunlight, is much stronger and can’t remove it.
Back at home a gang of werewolf bikers show up. These guys are straight out of Abomination Codex so that was fun. Their leader is this big Cajun guy, Jerome Le Coeur. Shortly afterwards Oz comes into town with his new wife, a Japanese girl named Kitsune. They have been following Jerome for weeks, looking for the chance to kill him, which will cure Oz. Long story short, the cast works out a spell to stop the bikers, Oz fights Jerome. To keep the action going the Spike-player got to play Oz. Likewise, Buffy’s player played Kit. Yes, Kit was a werefox, but she had complete control over her form and was helping Oz with his. In the end Jerome is killed, Oz and the rest of the werewolves turn back to normal. Oz and Willow have nice conversation as do Kit and Tara. This was a coda to “New Moon Rising” and had originally been called “Under a Cajun Moon” under the “Road Stories” outline. I later re-used it in it’s original format, minus the Oz stuff, for “Season of the Witch”.

This episode also featured a rather snarky cut-scene where a new Slayer, some spoiled dark-haired girl from a rich family, was sent by the Watchers to infiltrate the Cast. Her job was divide the cast and seduce Willow, Spike and anyone else to get them on the Watcher’s agenda. Of course she gets into town she confronts Yoln and before she can say “I am Ken-”, Yoln cuts her off, literally. Petty of us? Yeah. So what.
I introduced Japanese werefoxes, Kitsune, in this adventure as well as slightly modified werewolves. These both appear in Ghosts of Albion.

I also introduced a reoccurring character in this episode, the Dealer and his bar Halfway.

Up next. The Cast gets their weapon and a suprise (or three). Then the final battle.
In the meantime here is a teaser,

Will D&D 4 last?

JB over at the fantastic B/X Blackrazor asked an Honest Question:
http://bxblackrazor.blogspot.com/2010/10/honest-question.html

I wanted to answer his questions, but got off track and took a while to get to my point.  But in any case here it is.

What do you think is going to be the longevity of 4th edition D&D?
Well there are a few factors to consider.

First, those older editions have appeal because they were the first editions we played. Just like the guy ten years younger than me who cut his teeth on a game that I own and played and very likely will never play again (AD&D 2nd ed).  That is not a slam on AD&D 2nd ed or it's relative value or merits but rather a commentary that I have many games that fill the same void.

I play 4e now. I enjoy it. It is really fun. 

Will I be playing it 20 years from (when I am 60?) no idea. Most likely not.  Maybe I'll go back to Chill or maybe I'll finally convince my kids that the games I wrote are just as fun as D&D.

Plus there are other factors.  D&D4 does not live in the same world as AD&D/OD&D, they left a significant cultural stamp on our collective awareness.  D&D4 has to fight against MMORPGs, the Internet, other games AND it's own legacy.  It had an uphill battle from the start.  I doubt that even the great AD&D1 (of which I am huge fan) could have fared any better.

The truth is it is not 1 single edition of D&D that will endure as time moves on, it is D&D has a higher order concept that will.  Whether the details are called "D&D4", "Basic D&D" or "Pathfinder" will only matter when you get down to the details.

Things to consider though, D&D4 is played by a lot of people.  A lot more than the Old School community I think likes to admit.  Yes there are sanctioned events (like MtG) but there are also plenty of us older gamers that are introducing the hobby to our kids and doing it with D&D4 cause that is what other kids their age are also playing.

So I guess I am saying, "don't ask us, we are old and set in our ways and will give you the answer you want to hear cause we all read the same blogs" and "ask the kids that are new to the hobby what they will be playing in 20 years."

Will D&D4 be around in 20 years?  I am surprised that people are still playing some of the games they are playing now.  But D&D4 as a system has enough going for it, and enough material, to last for 20 years.  Though I bet support for it will end when D&D5 comes out (though you can still find material for D&D 3.5 on WotC's site).

Hell I have enough games for the next 50 years and I am not even sure what we will be playing at my next game session.  It could be Traveller, it could be Pathfinder, it could even be something our GM bought the night before. 

I agree with the Grumpy Celt, we will most likely see a new D&D around 2016.

Backstory

How much back story do you like to have for your characters or for characters in game you run?

I get the opinion from many old school blogs that back story only comes up if the characters survive.  The proverbial "you meet an Inn" as if the characters were born there fully formed.  In other games I play  back story is more important.  Even with the same group of players I see differences depending on the game played.

Starting on my My Back to Basics posting, I wanted to get some basic ideas where the players want their characters to come from. 
So I talked to my boys today about it, about their characters and how sometimes the greatest heroes start out as small. So here is what my oldest came up with.
His characaters (I am lettting them play two each) are Dragonborn brothers that grew up on an orphanage/farm.  Farming is not considered to be a good choice for a dragonborn (even though they are raising giant boars) so the lowest members of society are left with the chore.  Dragonborn are used hunting their food, but they see the need for farmed food as well.  So farms are a bit of a necessary evil, but these farms are not easy work.
Liam's characters are dragonborn brothers working on this farm.  They don't know, at least not yet, that their father was a great adventurer who did from "Dragonitis".

I thought this was rather cool. AND it shows why I am loathe to indrisciminantly kill characters.  Could you have imaged a movie or book where you follow the hero for a bit only to have him die in the third scene/chapter only to die and have him replaced by another character.  The movie was named after Indiana Jones, not Sapito.

How much do you know about your characters before the game starts? Or is your character just a collection of numbers to you or do you figure it out as you go along?