Review: Eldritch High

Eldritch High by John Wick

I like John Wick.  I like how he can keep coming up with these games that are really cool and really different from each other.  His latest is something near and dear to my own heart, magical high-schools.

Eldricth High

This is a great little game that you can learn and start play in about an hour. I love how the character sheet looks like a class schedule. The mechanic is a card based one and it lends it self well to alterations. The rest of the game is pure role-playing and story telling. If you ever read a YA supernatural book, watched an episode of Charmed or Buffy, or read a Harry Potter book then you have an idea of what you can do. OR better yet, if you were ever in High School and thought "this is ok, but what I really need is a Fireball to liven things up!", then this the game for you.

Even if you don't use the ultra simple game mechanic there are plenty of ideas here for your favorite game. Just now run it in a magical high school.

5 out of 5 stars.

Now what can you do this this game?
Well if you are regular reader here you can see all sorts of idea I hope.

You could for example take my movie from earlier today and do "Satan's School for Girls the RPG", but I doubt the author would approve.  But it would still be fun IF you played up all the camp 70s stereotypes.
Of course you can do a series about a boy wizard and his friends fighting evil.

Another good choice is "D&D School" where you have young wizards before they go out and adventure. Some spells would need to be tweaked, but it looks like it would work well.

You could also combine it well with a game like Hellcats and Hockeysticks for a full curriculum.

I'll be playing around with this one for a little bit.

October Challenge: Satan's School For Girls

Two things jumped out at me right away about this movie. 1. I am surprised I have never seen this. I swear I had, but I didn't remember a bit of it and the movie I thought I was remembering as SSfG must be something else. 2. 25 year old Kate Jackson was HOT.

Satan's School for Girls (1973)

Ok despite being an Aaron Spelling made for TV movie, this was better than some of the others I have seen so far.  Martha's sister Elizabeth has killed herself and now she wants to find out why.  She enrolls under an assumed name at the same school Elizabeth had been at, the Salem School for Girls (unkown if it is the same Salem School mentioned in the Harry Potter books, but let's say yes for fun).  She is greeted by fellow students and future Charlie's Angels Cheryl Lass and Kate Jackson.  They meet the headmistress and a few of the teachers.  Ok only two.  And the creepy mystery unfolds.  Seems another girl had killed herself recently and Martha begins to look into why.  Plenty of very obvious clues are left lying around.  The art teacher and his subjective reality and the psych teacher and his rats. A few more suicides and Martha is thinking this not the best place to be.
Long story short, the art teacher is Satan and he is recruiting 8 (odd number) girls to replace the 9 he lost years ago.  The school burns down but "Satan" gets the last laugh and fades out while smoking a cigarette.
There is no obvious use of magic here.The girls could be in his thrall due to a psych experiment or any number of mundane explanations.  I kinda wish there had been more though.  Kate Jack's character, Debbie, mentions having Power (yes with a capital P) but nothing ever comes from that.

There is a remake in 2000 with Kate Jackson as the headmistress and fellow Spelling alum and TV witch Shannon Doherty, but I have not seen that one either.  At least the drop the witches down to a more respectable 5.

Not a great movie, but a good one to chill out too.

Tally 5 movies, 5 new (to my surprise)

Of course given this, the remake and fun connection to Harry Potter I HAVE to use this in my games someway.  The Salem School for Girls would be a great Witch Girls Adventures location.

October Challenge: The Rite

When it comes to religious-themed horror there really are only two movies worth talking about, "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby". Of the two the Exorcist has left the deepest scars in the American psyche. So no surprise then that every so often we get new exorcism movies. One of the latest is "The Rite".

The Rite (2011)

Anytime you see the words "based on a true story" you know you are either in for a good time or a really bad one.  This movie also stars Sir Anthony Hopkins, so we should, by the numbers have a good flick here.
Sad thing is we don't.  Oh, it is not bad but it fails to live up to all it's potential.
Hopkins is good of course, but not great.  Rutger Hauer is a tad underused as is Ciarán Hinds. I mean these are decent names. Again, names I usually associate with better fare.  Now in all fairness Marta Gastini did a great job as possessed pregnant girl Rosaria.
The Rite's biggest sin was not that it was bad, it was boring.  I didn't care about the main character at all really or his crisis of faith.
It might have been a better movie if they had focused on Hopkins' character more and running into dozens of fake possessions till we got to one that was the real deal.
The final possession could have been creepier, could have been more dramatic and could have been scarier.  This was a movie of could have beens.

Tally: 4 movies. 4 new.

So not to ignore my gaming folks, but what can The Rite bring to your games?  Well it seems odd that we have a game full of demons (we even have Pazuzu!) and yet no great rules for possession. And really no good reason why demons would want too.  I think I am going to have to fix that.

October Movie Challenge: Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla

Last night I was really busy so I popped in something I had laying around. My oldest son is a big Godzilla fan and I remember the old Godzilla movies scaring the crap out of me as a kid so I watched one.

Godzilla vs. Space Godzillia (1994)

In truth I have never seen this one before.  I had seen bits an pieces of it here and there.  My son loves to watch it when he is at home sick.  He even curls up on the couch with his stuffed Space Godzillia and we even used his Space Godzilla figure in D&D once as a huge demon.  But the movie itself?  Never watched it all the way through.

First off it was not as bad as the net would have you believe.  But it is not very good either.

I almost hesitate to call this one horror.   There are a lot of horror elements here, but in truth it is more Sci-Fi or even Fantasy.
True, two giant monsters fighting (well three and half, Mothera and Baby Godzilla. Four if you count Mecha Godzilla/MOGUERA) is scary.  But is it horror?

Plot, in a nutshell, Godzilla cells get sent into space where a new monster is formed, aka Space Godzilla.  Then what happens is the same for most G movies.  Godzilla and monster fight a few times.  New Monsters seems to be kicking Godzilla's ass.  Godzilla comes back in the end to destroy new Monster.  The only people that loose anything are the poor people of Tokyo who get to watch their city trampled again.  This throws in Mothera, a new Mecha Godzilla like robot/mecha and the ever annoying Baby Godzilla.

In the end this movie just seemed to have too much going on.  Maybe it is because it has been translated or maybe I am outside of the demographic now.

My wife wants to watch a classic monster movie now.  Something with a vampire or werewolf.  I think that is where I'll go next.

Tally so far: 3 movies, 3 New.

The Other OSRIC Player's Guide

So last week I discussed the OSRIC Players Reference (which I had been mistakenly called Guide).
Well it turns out that there was an "OSRIC Players Reference" and its development has been detailed here: http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=8038

It is now out and you can get it for free at:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=95496&affiliate_id=10748

Now to be clear there is nothing new here.  The rules are straight out of OSRIC.  BUT they have been re-written and re-edited into a new volume for the Players only.  Plus it comes with a bunch of old-school-style art that is very reminiscent of the old DMG and PHB.  It would not be appropriate for a new book, but for a book like this (one trying to invoke the feel of the late 70s) it is great.  Frankly I really like the art.

Speaking of the art.  The artist is the editor of this edition, Steve Robertson.

I have not read it all yet.  But I have flipped through it.
Again, the price is good (free).
I noticed some funky bits with the OGC deceleration, but some of that could be due with the addition OSRIC license/permission needed. (IE Claiming Chapters 4, 5 & 6 as PI when this book only goes to Chapter 3).

If you are a player of OSRIC then this is certainly a good resource.

October Movie Challenge: The Fallen Ones

I am not doing so hot with my movies so far. I watched this one last night after trying to get some work done. I would have been better in all cased if I had just went to bed.

The Fallen Ones (2005)
Another SyFy Channel special I am sure.  This one appealed to me since it was about the Nephilim and I was working on some Fallen Angel stuff for Eldritch Witchery.  Frankly if anything in this movie makes into something I have written (other than this course) then you know I have used up every idea I ever have or will have.

This movie is terrible.  We have the evil Angel Ammon who has decide that the only way for his big dumb son (he is a giant and can't act) to survive the coming flood is to kill him and mummify him.  Solid logic there champ.  Fast forward 5000 years and he is discovered by an archaeologist and Richie Cunningham's dad (sadly this was one of his last movies ever).

What we have now is part mystery, part giant monster movie and part religious murder/slasher film.  The saddest part is there are some actual names attached to this.  Not great names by any stretch, but names I usually associate with better movies.

This movie was so bad I am sure I fell asleep a couple of times while it was on.  It certainly didn't help or hurt the plot any.

Ah, what the Hell. NaBloWriMo 2011

Since I am going to be writing every day anyway.  I'll throw my hat in to the National Blog Writing Month, NaBloWriMo, which is the most awkward acronym ever I think.

They also have a blog, http://nablowrimo.blogspot.com/ and that Facebook thing, http://www.facebook.com/pages/NaBloWriMo/203905936342372

So look forward to a bunch of stuff from me all through the best month here at the Other Side, October!

So tune in tomorrow folks for a rare Sunday post.