Binders full of Women?

Yeah have that too.

And men, elves, dwarves, halflings, superheroes....but still mostly witches.

October Challenge: Children of the Corn (2009)

Children of the Corn (2009)

Caught this on the Sci-Fi channel recently.  I have not watched the Sci-Fi (or SyFy) is years, but I'll get to that.

This is a remake of the original 1984 film (which I enjoyed) and the Stephen King short story (which I also enjoyed).  If anything this movie does cleave closer to the original story than the 84 movie did.  There are no overt demons and in some ways that almost makes the movie creepier.

This movie though has it's own problems.  Despite the issues with the first movie this one will always come up short compared to it.  There is no "He's waiting for you Malachi!" moment here.
The other is that our protagonists are completely unlikable. Don't get me wrong, Kandyse McClure is very easy on the eyes, but her character is so annoying.  In fact the only character you can related to in this is Malachi's pregnant girlfriend.

I give it a plus for adhering better to the source material but many minuses for poor execution.  My wife, who grew up in the country, though has a deeper issue with it.  She loved the first, but wants to know why city people are so afraid of the country.  I didn't have a good answer for her.

In other concerns, WYF happened to the SciFi Channel??

Once upon time you catch a decent enough movie (to be fair CotC was not bad, just not great) and some good sci-fi or horror related TV shows.  Now it is all "reality" based ghost hunters, terrible movies and Wrestling??


Tally: Watched 21, New 16

What are you watching?

Getting Ready for the Witch

I just sent my final copy of The Witch back to the publisher to get uploaded to DriveThruRPG soon.

I honestly can't wait to get this out to you all.  It seems like I have been working on it forever. I started this blog in fact as a design blog to talk about the development of Eldritch Witchery and The Witch.

A number of the monsters, magic items and spells that appear in the book I have posted here.

My desire to do this book for "Basic Era" games was partially due to my involvment in the old-school game movement, but also because I had been going back to my copy of Moldvay's Basic Book and some of his ideas on what a witch should be.  I also wanted this book to capture what I felt were some of the best books on witches from the early days of the game.

My goals were simple.

• Make the book feel like something I would have wanted to buy in 1982/83.
• Make the witch more than just another type of magic-user, but still allow her to be easily added to a game.
• Keep what was best of the old school, but still keep in mind all the developments of the last 30 years.
• Elmore art.  I might get grief for this, but ever since Dragon #114 came out I wanted a witch book with art from Larry Elmore in it.  I am in a position to do that now.  It's not the  entire book, but there are some choice pieces in the 120 pages.

So what do you get in The Witch?

Well I was reading that selling points that do nothing but list a bunch of numbers turn people off. On the other hand I have had some people ask me what they are getting.

• The Witch class
• Five traditions of Witchcraft with Occult Powers
• Rules for Familiars for Witches and Magic-Users
• New rules for Cantrips for your Basic game 
• Over 300 spells
• Witch Ritual magic and spells
• Rules for Covens, Covensteads and example covens.
• New witch related monsters
• Magic items and artifacts
• Plus appendices on
• Using the Witch in your Advanced game
• Demi-human witches for games that have class and race seperate
• The Wizard, a magic-user class that is different from the Witch

All with years of playtesting.

I am hoping to get a preview up for you all here soon.

Blogwatch: Psychosexual Ravenloft

Back in the 2nd Ed days my game world of choice was Ravenloft.

I loved all the gothic trappings mixed with heroic horror.  So even though I was a poor college student most of the time, I tried to get everything I could for this game.

Including all the novels.

Jack over at Tales of the Grotesque and Dungeonesque is doing a series of reviews on the Ravenloft novels.  So I have been reading them.  The reviews that is.

I can remember reading Ravenloft novels while in my apartment I shared with three other guys, I remember reading them while giving exams when I was a TA, I remember reading them and feeling guilty about it when I wasn't working on my dissertation.

I don't remember them being quite this bad though.

Oh, I remember that many were not very good.  I remember that in the cases of authors that would later go on to do bigger things (like Laurel K. Hamilton, P. N. Elrod and Christie Golden among others) that they read like, well, young but inexperienced authors.

TotGaD though is not doing your typical review, he is looking at the psychosexual mess that underlies each book.

http://talesofthegrotesqueanddungeonesque.blogspot.com/search/label/psycho-sexual%20ravenloft

If you have read these books then you owe it to yourself to read these reviews.
I am enjoying every entry so far and many times I have wished I still had those books laying around.

For myself, I always felt that the Ravenloft books were more akin to a Hammer film; scholcky, over the top, with an abundance of flesh and blood but not a lot of plot.  So I am inclined to see these books more favorably than others might.  That all being said a lot of good points are raised in these reviews that I must have just glossed over.

Honestly though I am waiting for him to get around to Tapestry of Dark Souls.  That thing is train wreck.

October Challenge: Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)

This is one of my favorite movies about Witchcraft.

Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

Instead of talking about it, here it is.



I wanted to rewatch this one because, well I like it and to get me geared up for the release of my Witch books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A4xan

Tally: Watched 20, New 15

What are you watching?

Witches: Hex from Skylanders

It is no secret that I am a fan of the game Skylanders.  I even got caught up in all of the hype about collecting the figures and everything.  I am embarrassed (a little) to discuss the lengths I went too to get some of these figures.  There were other parents right there next to me, so I figured I was in good company.

Well just when we all thought the madness was dying down, Activision is releasing the new Skylanders Giants this weekend.  New game, new figures, and your old figures can now go to level 15 (previously only 10).  Here we go again.

I don’t think it is a stretch to  guess that my favorite character in the game is Hex, the dark elf witch of the “undead” element.  Early this year I stated her up for Dungeons & Dragons 4e and Pathfinder using their respective witch classes.
Given there is a new Skylanders game AND my new books are on the way I thought I Would stat her up once again for The Witch and Eldritch Witchery.

And yes, I have already pre-ordered my "Lightcore Hex" figure.

Here she is as for The Witch.  I picked this one since her background is about serving some "other world power".

Hex, 13th Level (Maleficia Tradition)

Strength: 10
Dexterity: 9
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 18
Charisma: 15

Hit Points: 30
Alignment: Neutral (maybe a little Chaotic)
AC: 6 (talisman of protection)

Occult Powers
Familiar: Floating Skull
7th level:  Evil's Touch
13th level: Devil's Tongue

Spells 
Cantrips: Chill, Daze, Detect Curse, Object Reading, Open, Spark
First: Cause Fear, Ghostly Slashing, Minor Fighting Prowess, Sleep, Spirit Dart
Second: Agony, Blast Sheild, Death Armor, Phantasmal Spirit
Third: Feral Spirit, Ghost Ward, Speak with Dead
Fourth: 3 Dance Macabre, Phantom Lacerations, Spiritual Dagger
Fifth: 2 Death Curse, Dreadful Bloodletting
Sixth: 2 Death Blade, Wall of Bones
Seventh:  Wave of Mutilation

All in all, I like it.  She might be a better Necromancer to be honest, but this works well.

Want to see how she would look for my other book "Eldritch Witchery"?
Head over to the Elf Lair Games blog and see, http://elflairgames.blogspot.com/2012/10/witches-hex-from-skylanders.html

White Dwarf Wednesday #36

It's Christmas in Mega-City One!  Well at least that what you would gather on the is December 1982 issue of White Dwarf.  The cover, an article, an editorial and at least three and half pages of ads are devoted to the new game from Games Workshop, Judge Dredd.   It was through White Dwarf in fact that I first learned about Judge Dredd.  So to me this seemed like a "comic book" game.

Jumping ahead, Ian Livingstone introduces us to the new game in the editorial.   He also mentions that we will see more RPG material in 1983.
The article on Dredd talks about the design of the game. Or rather an introduction to Judge Dredd and what process the author and designer, Ian Livingstone (ah..see how that worked out) went through to make the game.  The process is actually not all that different than what we still do, or even what I did when working on Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.  I would have to say the game was a success since a.) it introduced me to Judge Dredd, b.) I remember people being very, very excited about it back then, and c.) I still catch people talking about it today.

What else does this issue feature?  We have an odd ad of the magazine "Pssst!", which only lived for less than a year I think.  So odd that I didn't even know what it was for  till I found the name off in the corner.

Fiend Factory is up, but only has one monster, the Loculi. It is like an 8-legged, sword wielding ankylosaurus. It's stats improve with age (like a dragon) and there is a lot things you can play around with with this creature.  Unlike the dragon though I don't find it interesting enough to want to use it.

Andy Slack is up with an Introduction to Traveller.  Part 1 is about players and characters.  I have mentioned that this about the time of my decline in interest in Traveller.  I still enjoyed reading about it, but I never did much more than that.

Letters is a fun bunch this time with people coming to Ken St. Andre's defense over Don Turnbull's letter in #34.  I didn't post anything about that here, but I really should have.  Turnbull felt that T&T was nothing more than a rip off of D&D.  People this month choose to disagree. Next month also promises to be good.

Microview is back and in this month Mike Costello has two BASIC Traveller programs.  He also mentions how greaat it would be to have a character creator software for RuneQuest or D&D.  The programs are simple, but you have to type them out.  I remember typing in EVERY program I saw in a magazine just so I had the practice of doing it.  I don't recall if I ever did these on my trusty TRS-80 Color Computer 2, but I am sure I tried them out on my Jr High's TRS-80 Model 3s.   These programs would have worked on the built in BASIC of the Model 3 (or was it Model III), since it had a Zilog 80 chip.

Our AD&D contribution is The Druid's Duel by Mark Byng.  I remember being quite excited about this since I was playing a druid at the time and gave this to my DM at the time and told him he now had something for my duel before I can advance in level.  Never went through it though.

Open Box has some reviews of classic products.  Nicholas J R Dougan gives The Warlock of Firetop Mountain a 10/10.  Up next is a product I really wanted back in the day and should see if I can find it.  Tollpak was all about playing Trolls in RuneQuest, but honestly you could port the ideas over to any game that has trolls.  It was one of the first "revisionist" books (and I say that with a bit a hesitance, "revisionist" has such negative connotations and I don't mean that here.)  We would see something similar for Orc/Orks in Orkwrold and eventually even goblins and kobolds.  But this was the first. Tim Moyse gives it a 9/10.  We also have Pirates of Plunder (10/10) and some long out of print Traveller books from FASA; Merchant Class Ships (8 or 7/10), Aslan Mercenary Cruisers (6 or 8/10), and The FCI Consumer Guide (9 or 8/10) ranked for Novices and Experts.

Simon Early has some Rules Additions for RuneQuest as this month's RuneRites. Mostly realted to SIZ and climbing.

Lew Pulsipher wraps up his A Guide to Dungeon Mastering with Part III: Some Conclusions.  Mostly this is advice on how to deal with high level characters.  Not to beat a dead horse here, but this material still works today.  This is another one of my choices for my own "Best Of White Dwarf".

Treasure Chest has More Necromantic Abilities for the Necromancer of the last issue.

A couple of pages of ads.   Nothing interesting in the classifieds.
As an aside: Did anyone use classifieds in a magazine to find other gamers?  Did it work? Have any good stories?

A contest to win your very own Mattel Intellivision Advanced Dungeons & Dragons video game cartridge. The first six correct entries to their quick quiz will win.  Deadline December 15, 1982.

A few more pages of ads and finally another ad for Star Frontiers.  Described by the ad  as "the 'playable' one.  Certainly a dig at Traveller.

Remember when the future was silver lamé and hot pants? Well now it is big sunglasses/goggles.

If you are interested in how White Dwarf is doing in good old 2012, check out Lasgunpacker's post last night about the newest issue, http://lasgunpacker.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-style-white-dwarf-review.html