Maybe should have done this one last week, but hey Halloween is not something confined to one day or even one weekend for me!
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Zatannurday: Zatanna Witch
Maybe should have done this one last week, but hey Halloween is not something confined to one day or even one weekend for me!
Friday, November 2, 2012
Halloween Hangover
Well. That was the most postings I have ever done in one month.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Please don't expect that for November!
I doubled my normal abut of visits and page hits and I added about 20 new followers. I also discovered a bunch of new sites and blogs, so that is always welcome to me.
The Witch is selling rather well and I am pleased with the sales. I never expected it to sell thousands of units; it's a niche product inside a niche market for another niche set of rules. There are only so many ways to cut up this pie.
I have a few WIPs on my harddrive. A couple for another publisher, my son's dragon book and a couple of others that people have told me will never sell because they are too "out there". I will share more about those in the next few weeks. Gotta see how they shake out. Maybe I will release them for free.
I still have a desire to write a modern-supernatural game even though I well know the market is flooded with them.
I also have a number of reviews I am really behind on. Have to get those done too.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
And the Winner is...
a Rafflecopter giveaway
David of Tower of the Archmage!
Emails have been sent.
Thanks everyone for participating in everything this past October..
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
October Challenge: BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011)
I am a glutton for punishment. Each year I watch something from Uwe Boll. And each year I ask myself why.
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
This year I didn't, because I finally get Boll. He is not trying to be Spielberg, or Howard or anyone. He is just trying to have a good time and make some movies.
BloodRayne though really has a lot going for it on paper. Hot half-vampire Rayne who is a little bit of everything (she's half-vampire, half-human, ambidextrous, bisexual) is fun to watch. You have Nazi's as the big bad, and really watching them die never, ever gets old. And unlike the first two movies, this one is somewhat closer to the video game.
Don't go into this expecting high entertainment. This is B-Movie all the way. But it is fun. The plot holds together surprisingly well. Michael Pare chews up scenes all over the place and Natassia Malthe still can't act to save her life, but that is fine.
It has all the right elements of a horror or action movie and I will say this. I doubt a "better" director would have done better on this. Sometimes you get steak, sometimes you get cheeseburgers and sometime you get a slider. This is a slider, don't pretend it is steak. That is OK. Sometimes a couple of sliders is exactly what you need.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit to be honest.
Tally: Watched 33, New 24
I am going to go back over all the other participants (next month) and see what they watched.
What are you watching?
October Challenge: Paranormal Activity 1, 2, & 3
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
I wanted to save these for a last. Glad I did because they do live up to the hype.
PA1, the first has this great charm about it. You really feel like this is something that has been going on for a bit and just now they (Micha & Katie) have deiced to something about it.
It starts out slow. Maybe too slow, but I love the build up and payoff was great.
This movie is a very, very effective mix of "Blair Witch Project", "The Exorcist" and any number of good haunted house movies. My only complaint really is the Ouija board scene. It seemed a little over the top compare to the rest of the movie. I think if it had just spelled out the name and not caught on fire that would have been better. Some of the creepiest scenes are also some of the most understated ones. Shadows and noises you can hear in any house at night. I LOVED the scenes were Katie would get up and just stand there starring at Micha for 2-3 hours at a time.
Of course the biggest issue was also why not get more people into the house with you to help. After all that video evidence I'd be calling everyone to help out. Well that doesn't serve the script/movie at all of course.
I'll talk about 2 & 3 together since they share some similar positives and negatives.
I kinda wish I had done my research more on these movies, it might have been fun to watch them in reverse order, but chronologically correct for Katie. The sequels (or prequels rather) are more polished and go for the faster scare. Unlike the sequels to "Blair Witch" and the "Exorcist" these do add something to the mythos of the movies. The biggest issue of course is why wasn't information from movies 2 and 3 mentioned in the respectively later movie 1? Well we know why, of course. For me, I also suffered from Paranormal Activity fatigue. After a few hours I was wanting to see something a bit more. That is more due to me though than the movies I think.
I liked 3 a little better than 2, but 1 was the best.
I am going to say this though, while I have not seen PA4 yet (and I will), I think this well might be dry.
To do something else or even to take it up another notch will make the movie more like the Exorcist really.
You can only jump at so many shadows and creaks. I am reminded of a scene in Tom Hanks' movie Big. When his character as an adult is scared of all the noises outside his apartment, many scenes later the same noises are occurring but he only gives them curious glance and goes back to eating chips and watching TV. That was me, except sitting in front of my computer typing this.
I beat the Challenge! So far I watched one extra movie, but saw one less new movie over last year.
Though I still have one more I can watch and I might even have the time to get it in.
Tally: Watched 32, New 23
What are you watching?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
A lot going on here today!!
First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html
I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).
Also White Dwarf Wednesday.
Foremost though Happy Halloween! The Best of all holidays!
First, don't forget that you have less that 13 hours to sign up for "Spread the Witch"!
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/10/wicked-after-dark-blog-hop-spread-witch.html
I have some movies left to review and put up for the October Challenge (and I am draggin' today).
Also White Dwarf Wednesday.
Foremost though Happy Halloween! The Best of all holidays!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
History of The Witch
The Witch is my latest book of rules to play the Witch character class for a version of the World's Largest and First Fantasy Roleplaying game.
It is not my first book. Or even my second. To date this is my third book on witches.
My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game. It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules. Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".
This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character. I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch. Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy". That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".
The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October 31st of 1999. In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept. Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend! Kinda nice that my newest Witch book was released 13 years later.
After that in 2002 released "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks". This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release. It used the OGL and the d20 logo. I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council. Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL. Many of the members would later go on to do other things. I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.
In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes. Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years. One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997. I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.
So I went back to my books. I re-read not just game books and the latest retro-clones, I also hit books about witches and witchcraft from the 60s and 70s. The things the first and second generation of gamers would have read if they were making a witch class. I watched the old movies like "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Initiation of Sarah". In fact, look over my lists of movies from the October Challenge of the last couple of years. That will give you an indication of my "Research".
You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons. First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then. Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption. Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under. While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.
You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).
It is not my first book. Or even my second. To date this is my third book on witches.
My first was a "netbook" called "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks" for the 2nd Edition version of the game. It was totally a fan-driven work and most of it had been written for the 1st Edition version of the rules. Back then the file on my computer was called "thewitch.doc".
This original "thewitch.doc" was never really meant to be seen by anyone but my gaming group. Indeed, I figured I'd be the only one to ever play a witch character. I took a Magic-User character I had rolled up with the idea of playing her like a witch and then stopped her MU advancement and started her out as a 1st level witch. Occult Powers were spells back then and all I had was a list of spells from the Cleric and MU lists that I felt were "witchy". That document grew to become the "The Complete Witch" and then finally "The Complete Netbook of Witches and Warlocks".
The CNoWaW was in my mind a great sucsess. I released it between October 28th and October 31st of 1999. In fact I remember sitting in the hospital room right after my first son was born posting it on a laptop while my wife and new baby slept. Well that baby turned 13 over this past weekend! Kinda nice that my newest Witch book was released 13 years later.
After that in 2002 released "Liber Mysterium: The Netbook of Witches and Warlocks". This one was far more polished and I considered a "real" release. It used the OGL and the d20 logo. I worked with what was then called the FANCC, or the Fantasy Community Council. Their goal was to make and release quality netbooks that adhered to the OGL. Many of the members would later go on to do other things. I went on to Eden to work a number of their books including WitchCraft, Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.
In the case of all my books I would go back to my ever evolving research notes. Pictured above and below is just one of maybe 4 binders of information I have collected over the years. One of the print outs has a date scrawled in red pen (former teacher here!) of March of 1997. I know I have some materials even older than that. Lots and lots of notes.
In every case and especially when starting a new project I like to go back to my notes. Revisit old ideas, question why I rejected some and kept others.
The Witch is different from the CNoWnW or LM. While in each book the witches have "Occult Powers" their mechanisms are different. Each witch can for example cast "Wave of Mutilation", but how it works is slightly different. Complete Netbook witches are akin to that edition's Priests. Liber witches are more like Wizards. The witches in The Witch are something new. Older versions of my witch needed high Wisdom as their primary stat. Witches in The Witch need a high Charisma.
It is a ritual for me to go back even further when I start a new project to go not just to my notes, but my primary sources. For the Witch I really wanted that feel of a game supplement from the late 70s early 80s.
You can still find my older books online, I don't link them here really for a couple of reasons. First they were done a LONG time ago and I would like to think my writing has improved significantly since then. Also, at least in the case of CNoWaW, they are predominantly fan works and written under that assumption. Those assumptions are not the same that The Witch (well and Liber) was written under. While I don't explicitly state any compatibility I did do a lot of playtesting to make sure that The Witch works with what ever version of the Basic Era game you are using, be it the original games or the newest Retro-clones.
You can read more developments notes under the Basic and Witch tags (there are a lot though).
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