October Movie: Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)

You have to love October!  Horror movies are everywhere.  I got this one cheap at Half-price books along with the all the Subspecies movies.  It was not on my list of movies to watch this October, but hey sometimes you have to strike when the iron is hot.

So. Dark Angel: The Ascent.  Well.  I have seen worse movies that is for sure.
It features Angela Featherstone, who is not the worst actress I have ever seen. Her only credits are Friends and the girl in the S-Mart at the end of Army of Darkness.
The movie isn't terrible.  Featherstone plays Veronica who plays a teenage (or so) demon that wants to know if there is more to life in Hell other than torture and damnation.  No she doesn't break into Up There, but she does leave hell and finds herself a new boyfriend (easy to do when you show up naked) and she starts killing evil doers.
There are some interesting bits. Hell looks pretty good. The demons are religious interestingly enough.
I didn't go into this one with any expectations and none were meant. Still it was sorta fun.

Tally: Watched 4,  New 4

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Even More New Classes from Barrel Rider Games

I have talked about Barrel Rider Games and their collections of classes before.  Here and here.
I figured with yesterday's posting about Basic D&D this would a good one to do.

Barrel Rider keeps coming out with all sorts of classes.  The idea is simple really, fill in the niches that the four core human classes  (and three demi human ones) don't quite fill.  I think now all BRG needs is a class compendium of all the classes in one edited book.

But until then you can pick up a class for a buck.  All these classes are compatible with Labyrinth Lord or other "basic" old school game.  The Mercenary is actually for Starships & Spacemen, but it is still compatible.
The thing I think I like the most that each release is a bit better than the last. Well that and also I can get a class for a buck.  Good for me since my youngest never wants to play a standard class.

Acrobat
Six pages, 1 for the cover and 2 for OGL. This is more ore less an update of the Thief Acrobat class found in the Unearthed Arcana for 1st ed.  This is a full class, not one that starts at 6th level. It is also redesigned with the LL/Basic rules in mind.  The results are good.  It feels different enough from the Thief (and Buglar and Bandit) to justify being  it's own thing.

Archer
This is an older class compared with some of the others here.  Five pages, 1 for cover, 2 for the OGL.  The archer is exactly what is says. It is a bow and arrow focused fighter.  This one doesn't have the utility for me as the other BRG classes, but my youngest son loved it.  Still I think something like an extra attack per round before level 15 would have been nice.

Bandit
This class is something of a cross between a fighter and a thief.  Think along the lines of Robin Hood or a Highwayman. He has some thief skills, but some new ones like ambush and disguise.  Honestly it would make a good compliment to the thief.

Barbarian
Another fairly self-obvious class.  Your typical barbarian features are here; survival, calling a hoard, and savage strikes. No beserker like abilities though.  I would have liked to seen more details on the Wilderness Survival skill. Does failure mean they don't find food for example.  This is one of the earliest classes from BRG so I am sure an update would clear these up.  Five pages, 1 for cover and 2 for the OGL.

Burglar
This might one of the signature classes of BRG.  The Burglar brings one of the most iconic figures of fantasy to Labyrinth Lord; the Halfling Burglar.  Simply put the Burglar is a thief option for a halfling.  Since Labyrinth Lord is Race-as-a-class then this is required. Otherwise this is a really fun class if you enjoy playing a halfling.

Dark Elf
Another older one. The Dark Elf is exactly that, the Chaotic, underground dwelling, cousin of the the Light Elves. They have some innate thief like abilities and some magic.  On paper they most resemble a thief/magic-user multi-classed character.  All-in-all a pretty satisfying class.

Dragon Slayer
This one I have avoided reviewing since I have my own Dragon Slayer.  Well technically "mine" was written by my oldest son.   The Dragon Slayer has a lot of nice features which actually make the class more useful than some "Single Purpose" classes.  In fact it could be re-tweaked and be any sort of monster hunting class.

Gladiator
The Gladiator is a professional show fighter. There are a lot neat tricks for this kind of fighter say over the regular fighter.  You could of course do some of this with clever role-playing.  Though the rules here are pretty nice and well thought out.

Half-Elf
The Original Basic rules and the games they have inspired have missed one important race; the Half-elf.  This race-as-a-class gives you a 15-level class that is a combination of fighter and thief.  The class to me seems to be missing something, but I am not quite sure what. Thinking back to the Half-elves I have read in tales, this class would work fine.

Half-Orc
Another one of the missing races from the "Basic" versions of the books.  The Half-orc is a fighter with some nice abilities to cause extra damage and fear in others.  Compared the classic Dwarf and Halfling classes this one works quite well.

Halflings: Tales from the Fireside
This one is a bit different. First it is longer than all the other books at 23 pages.  This is guide on playing halflings and what you can do with them.  It is actually a rather fun book.  It even has an evil counterpart in a monster section.

Mercenary
This one is really neat. It's a Starships & Spacemen class for starters. And it works great for that. In truth it is three classes that you can use how you need.  This takes S&S from something that mostly "Star Trek" and makes it more Traveller. What I think is most interesting here is the market this opens up for BRG.  Suddenly LL classes could now be converted to S&S classes with this template in mind.
I noticed the S&S compatibility license but not the OGL.  Might need to add that.

Minotaur
The Minotaur seems to be one of those classes/races that people either love or hate. Myself I am not a fan. BUT that doesn't mean that this is not a good class. It is one of BRG newer classes, so it is well thought out and written. Plus it is a good class. I mean there is nothing about it that says it is unplayable to me and I am sure that the people out there that love Minotaurs will be very happy with this.  For me, I might "skin" it and make a Half-Ogre class.

Plague & Shadow Wererats
All about Were-rats.  Again this is not a class book, more of an indepth monster guide.  There is history, new creatures and magic items.  Not at all what I expected and I mean that in the most positive way. It was much more than I expected.

Swashbuckler
I am not a fan of pirates.  I know people love them, I never quite got it myself.  For me it is always "ninjas" that get the vote.  The Swashbuckler class allows you to channel your inner pirate.  Like all the BRG class the book is not long (5 pages with 1 for cover and 2 for the OGL) but it gets right to the point and delivers a solid class.  If you like Swashbucklers (and this one is more Erol Flynn and less Captain Jack Sparrow) then this is a good buy.

Sylvan Elf (with Spell list)
This is one of the newer classes. Five pages, 1 for cover and 2 for the OGL, this is for wood or Sylvan elves. Like the normal elf, this one is part fighter and part spellcaster.  But in this case the spell caster is Druid.  To support this the package includes a 13 page document of spells. Actually it is really nice.  To date this is one of my favorite of the BRG classes. It takes a very simple idea and gives you a simple (as in elegant) solution.

The King Betrayed
This one was another surprise.  It is an adventure for characters 3rd to 5th level.  The art in this is greatly improved and the adventure itself looks like it is a lot of fun.  Complete old-school feel. At 15 pages it is just about perfect for an afternoon.

Wanderer
This seven page document details the Wanderer class.  It's like a non-magical (and less combative) Ranger. It has some nice skills and powers and would work well in any game.  What struck me is how quickly I was thinking of NPCs to fill this class and sending him in with my current Old School game.  Lots and lots of potential with this one.  Also unlike the other classes with have some archetypes I can relate to earlier editions, this one seems fairly unique to me.

Barrel Rider's 2012 Bundle

This is a great deal. 16 of BRG products. For 10 bucks you get Halflings: Tales from the Fireside, Archer, Half-elf, Swashbuckler, Half-orc, Dark Elf, Bandit, Bounty Hunter, Undead Slayer, Barbarian, Assassin, Dragon, Smith and Scholar, King Betrayed, Wanderer and the new (and not available separately) Combat Styles. Not a bad deal at all.

So if you have a couple of bucks and like classes then you can do worse than Barrel Rider Games.

October Movie: Ginger Snaps 2 (2004)

Ginger Snaps 2 Unleashed (2004)

Watched the first one last year and wanted to check out the sequel.  I also wanted a real werewolf after yesterday's Jack and Diane.

This one is a bit slower and bit more crafted and lacking something the first one did.
Brigitte is now afraid she is going to turn into a werewolf herself and she is seeing all the signs.  She is also injecting small amounts of wolfsbane into her veins to keep the change at bay.  There are some interesting bits and Ghost is not who I expected her to be.  The end was a little bit of a let down to be honest.
The big shock to me was Ghost portrayed by future Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany.

Tally: Watched 3,  New 3

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White Dwarf Wednesday #82

White Dwarf #82 is one I do remember well.  I was not immune to all the Warhammer ads I saw and I remember picking this one up.  I just don't remember if the copy I have now is my original or one I got with the majority of these magazines.  Either way I still have the Warhammer pullout and I recall this was one of the very, very few times that Thrud the Barbarian made me laugh.

Ok the cover.  This one is obvious and it might be the watershed issue of WD.  The cover is the same as the then new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game.  Personally I always thought that was an awesome cover and really colored what I thought the game was all about.  I don't think that has changed much really.

Paul Cockburn's editorial is interesting since it reads more like a press release for Games Workshop rather than an editorial for the magazine.  Now to be fair, Dragon was doing the exact same thing at this time.

Getting right to the reviews of Open Box we have the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. I have to admit I am little surprised to read about how much the reviewer Jim Bambra liked it.  the DSG and WSG get derided a lot but I always enjoyed them. For Call of Cthulhu we have an adventure, The Statue of the Sorcerer/The Vanishing Conjurer. Also liked.   At this point I am really feeling the loss of the old scaled 1-10 reviews.  There is a Paranoia product (Orcbusters) that I didn't like then and still don't.  Not that it is a bad product, just gets on my nerves.  Skyrealms of Jorune also is favorably reviewed.  This was another game I always wanted to try, but never did.  It also always seemed to be about 180 degrees away from Warhammer to me.

Win a copy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on page 5! Just answer the quiz and get it back to WD by October 17...1986. Damn.

Critical Mass covers the newest Stephen Donaldson book, The Mirror of Her Dreams, which I always though looked cool. But I never read it.   I did read With a Tangled Skein by Piers Anthony.  I actually liked but Dave Langford didn't.  Yeah, I read all the Incarnation of Immortality books.  Like many TV shows series' it was great for 5 but too much at 7.

A Dwarves on the high seas game is next. Interesting idea. But you need to basically buy or build your own ships. Mine would have been cut outs or stolen from a toy set.

Another ad for the Immortals Set.

The Light Fantastic is a short story sequel to Terry Pratchet's The Colour of Magic and an introduction to the Discworld article later on.
The article, A Stroll Across the Discworld for AD&D.  There is a bit on how different the Discworld is from an AD&D world and how magic is different. There are some new monsters, including Death. It has some interesting ideas, but nothing is gone into detail.  I think there is a GURPS Discworld.

Mercy Mission is our Traveller adventure for the issue. It is actually quite long.

It is interrupted by the Warhammer Fantasy insert.  I have to admit it looks pretty. Not a word you normally use with Warhammer, but there is a lot of good use of color here.  GW really put out the cash for this one.

The aforementioned Thrud is next.

'Eavy Metal features painter John Blanche.  I like the Mona Lisa he painted on one of the shields.

Letters complains about the adventures.

Fracas has nice picture of Up the Garden Path another one of those ultra-rare D&D books that I other people pay too much for on eBay.

Graham Staplehurst discusses how maps are used in RPGs.

Narks is about informants in Judge Dredd.

We end with ads.

So the overall themes with this issue are "Games Workshop is our Lord and Master" and every article is about a page too long.  Most of the three page articles could have been two pages and the two page ones should be about a page and a quarter.

Well. Lets see what next week brings.  We should be getting the results from the reader polls.

Reviewing the Classics, B/X Edition

I love the Basic D&D game and the B/X version in particular.  I love it's simplicity and its ability to be adaptable to just about anything I want it to do.  So I was thrilled to death that the B/X pdfs starting showing up on DriveThruRPG, even if I knew that also meant that there was little chance of them getting reprinted.
B/X was also one of the first systems I own every product.  There are still some AD&D items I don't own and even some later editions, but B/X was and still is one of my favorites.

I have picking up all the B/X material I can on DnDClassics.com.

D&D Basic Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic)

If you are like me then this is it. THIS is what D&D was. Sure I had read a friends Holmes/Blue-book Basic set and I knew of AD&D through the Monster Manual. But this is the D&D book that started it all for me. This is the one that set fire to my imagination.
This is a complete set of rules. Character creation through to 3rd level. Monsters, treasures, dungeons. Everything that ever was or will be D&D had it's start right here (more or less). Honestly this book is not worth 5 stars here. It is worth 6 out of 5.
I almost would say that if I could only play one version of D&D ever, then this might be the one. It lacks the complexity of AD&D or 3e, but anymore I see this as a feature.
64 pages plus cover. Marbleized dice and crayon not included.

D&D Expert Set Rulebook (B/X ed.) (Basic)

This was the 1981 followup to the D&D Basic set. Designed for the Moldvay Basic there was even a little bit about what to do if you had the Holmes Basic.
This expanded the game to level 14 and for most of us it was all we needed for a very long time.
I loved the introduction of all the new undead like Vampires and Spectres (was a big horror fan even then) and that little map of the Known World. I starred at that map for hours, learning lands and names of places far off and never were.
Plus all the new spells! The options of spells for my cleric and magic-users were beyond my 11-year old brain's reckoning at the time.
At 5 bucks this is a criminal steal. I wore my old copy of my expert book out, now I have a PDF to go back too anytime I like. Combine it with the Basic book and some adventures and you are set. Everything you need to play D&D just like the good old days. No skills, no feats, no attacks of opportunity, but plenty of flexibility and action.
I love newer games, but this is the one. The one that keeps me coming back. Back to the Keep, back to Glantri and back to D&D.

B1 In Search of the Unknown (Basic)
This is my "go to" adventure anytime I want to start up a new group or game.  It's a ritual for me, roll up characters and run them through the halls of the lost Castle of Quasqueton. I still have my copy that I bought all those years ago and it was also one of the first PDFs I purchased from WotC. I never really expanded on Roghan the Fearless or Zelligar the Unknown save that they were long dead and their Castle was now overrun with monsters.
It is one of those adventures I can run with zero prep time and each time I learn something new or remember something I forgot.
This module is simple, easy to use and can adapted to any campaign world and even any game.
It is a perfect module for the Basic game.

B2 The Keep on the Borderlands (Basic)
I once read that more people have played through the Keep on the Borderlands more than any other adventure. Of that I am sure. I have run scores of new players through it myself including a new generation of gamers.
The module hardly needs an introduction and it really is almost immune to review. Who cares that the Caves of Chaos look like some sort of Monster Condo where all these different creatures live together until those meddling humans show up from the Keep.
Going to the Caves is rite of passage. It is the hallmark of a real honest to Pelor adventurer.
If you don't have it you can't really call yourself a D&D player.
Just remember, "Bree-Yark" means "I surrender" in goblin. Yell it out really loud.

B3 Palace of the Silver Princess (Basic)
Another classic. B3 has had a storied history, but the module we all actually played has a special place in many gamer's hearts.
For starters it is a Basic module, and lot of material in it is aimed at new DMs working on their craft. While the programmed text of rooms 1 to 6 might look quaint by today's standards, there is a lot of good things here.
For starters the basic premise of the module is a fun one. An Evil artifact, an innocent princess, a dashing rogue on a white dragon. Lots of the cliches of fantasy gaming, but all are played earnestly and not a hint of irony is here.
The module itself is not without issues as mentioned elsewhere. The map of the castle is enough to drive a sane mapper crazy and some of the NPCs (like the green elf "Protectors") are annoying. But all that fades when you discover the Eye of Arik and destroy it.
I recently re-ran this one for my kids using the D&D 3.5 edition rules. Worked great.
If you are new to the Basic D&D game (B/X flavor) then this is a great adventure to get.

B4 The Lost City (Basic)
Another great Moldvay module. This one is so strange, but so much fun.  I remember playing this one in 8th grade and honestly I had a blast.  It wasn't though till many years later while running it for my own kids did I see it's Pulp fiction roots.   Plenty of great influences can be seen in this from Robert E. Howard to Lovecraft to Clark Ashton Smith.
To me this one was always on the edge of that B/X divide. Sure it was a B series module, but it could have easily been one of the X series.
Unlike some adventures I played or ran in the 80s I went back to this one appreciated it more now then I did then.

X1 The Isle of Dread (Basic)
Maybe second only to B2 and B1 in terms of numbers of players, but The Ilse of Dread lasts as one of the best Basic-era adventures out there.  In today's frame of mind the adventure is equal parts Pirates of the Caribean, King Kong and Jurassic Park.  It is a heady cauldron of tropes, ideas and just plain crazy fun.  It was included in the original Expert set and it still had expanded maps and more creatures.  I never understood why the creatures where not just in the main book, but it did make the module special.
What was so nice about X1 over B2 is you had the feel it was more integrated into the Expert rules; it felt like a logical extension.
I ran it again recently with 20+ years between the last time I had ran it and it felt like a very different adventure.  There is a lot of untapped potential here. Enough for several adventures.

X2 Castle Amber (Basic)
This adventure had always been something of a Holy Grail for me.  I was a huge fan of Tom Moldvay, I  had heard this adventure took place in Glantri and it was full of horror elements.  As time went on and I still never found a copy I began to hear more; that it was a crazy dungeon full of crazier NPCs. That it is was more of a thinking module and not a hack and slash one and finally it was heavily influenced by Clark Ashton Smith, whom I always felt was superior to Lovecraft in many respects.
I did finally get a copy, paid a lot for it and I also got a copy here.
The module lives up to the hype.  It is not a particularly easy module to run and you better spend a lot of time with it.  But for me at that time (the mid 90s when I finally got a copy) it became a great addition to my growing Ravenloft collection.  It was not officially part of Ravenloft mind you, but so much of it feels the same that is would have been a crime not to bring them together.
This is one of the last of the truly classic modules.

Though not official there have been some great B/X related products.

• The B/X Companion
• Basic Arcana
• The Witch

October Movie: Jack & Diane (2012)

I didn't get to this one last year so it is one of the first up this year.  Of course the question here is whether or not this is a monster/horror movie.  Yeah there are a lot of horror elements to this story and there are even some horror like scenes.  The movie is a touch slow, but it kept my attention. Partly because Riley Keough and Juno Temple are both fantastic actors. Partly because I was expecting some sort of monster reveal at the end. And partly because I was also was hoping to hear the John Mellencamp song.  Didn't happen.

It was a fun movie and if you like a psychological type of horror where the monsters are mostly metaphorical.

Tally: Watched 2,  New 2

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Threshold #1 is out

It is no great secret that I love Mystara.

So imagine my joy to discover that Threshold, a Mystara Fan-zine has published issue #1.

Threshold Issue #1 (pdf)

And it is a big one.

Thanks to everyone that made this possible.  I have often said that the online Mystara groups have been the most consistent in terms of their fandom and their creative ways of keeping their "dead" world alive and well.