Blood, Boobs, and Carnage! Blogfest: The Films of Hammer

Today I am participating in the "Blood, Boobs and Carnage" Blogfest hosted by Heather Gardner and Alex J. Cavanaugh.

http://hmgardner.blogspot.com/2015/04/q-atozchallenge-re-opening-of-x-files.html
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-to-z-challenge-q-cult-classics.html

A lot of gamers talk about their "Appendix N", a list of fantasy or pulp-era books (sometimes movies and TV shows) that influenced their games.

Not me.
My Appendix N is full of Hammer Films.

My earliest memories are of horror movies.  Specifically Hammer Horror and the old Universal Monsters. I could not have been much older than 4 and my first memories are of Dracula.  I used (and still do) love old Dracula movies.  At one point in time I could claim I had owned every movie that featured Dracula. It should be no big surprise then that my games all had a horror bent to them.

Every October I participate in the Horror Film  Marathon.  I have taken it upon myself to watch (and rewatch in many cases) all Hammer Dracula films.  They all fit today's theme of Blood, Boobs and Carnage.

I have not seen all of the Hammer films and a few I have not seen in maybe 20+ years but they have always had a profound effect on the games I write.   Ghosts of Albion in particular is overflowing with my love for Hammer, as are most of my adventures.   My vampires are not modern mopey emos.  They are blood thirsty killers in the suave exterior of Christopher Lee.

Even in Eldritch Witchery I have tried t tap into that same vibe of Hammer Horror.  Even though most of their moveis were made in the late 50s and 60's, there is something very 70's about them to me.  Maybe that is when I watched most of them (then and the early 80's).

Sex and horror were the bread and butter of Hammer films.   In fact one of the books that sits proudly with my game book collection is Hammer Glamour; a glossy coffee table book of all the women that appeared in the Hammer films.

Here are some of reviews of Hammer Films I have posted here.  IF I had had the time I would posted a body count.

Dracula (1958)
Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966)
Dracula has Risen From His Grave (1968)
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
The Vampire Lovers (1970)
Countess Dracula (1970/1971)
Lust for a Vampire (1971)
Twins of Evil (1971) and on Blu-Ray
Dracula AD 1972 (1972)
Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973)
Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974)
To the Devil a Daughter (1976)

That was the end of the "Classic" Hammer.
It "rose from the grave" more recently to give us some newer movies.  Less "Blood, Boobs, and Carnage" than before, but still solid horror.

Let Me In (2010)
The Woman in Black (2012) (Daniel Radcliffe blew me away in this!)

Even ones I have seen but not got around to reviewing, like the various Frankenstein movies or the Quatermass ones.

Check out the feature, Hammer for Dummies to learn more.

Zatannurday: Hello New DCTVU!

Last week we lost Constantine.

This week we got previews and extended previews of the newest DC Television Universe shows, Supergirl and Legends of Tomorrow.

Supergirl I showed you, but it is worth another look.




But the big excitement now is Legends of Tomorrow.


I have to admit. The 10-12 year old me is excited as all hell.  Firestorm, Atom, Hawkgirl, Canary?  All my favorite heroes.  It is just a Batgirl and Zatanna short of being perfect.

Plus we still have Arrow, The Flash and Gotham.

Great time to be a DC fan!

Friday Night Videos: Garbage Edition

Welcome back to Friday Night Videos and tonight we celebrate the best of what happens when Wisconsin and Scotland get together. Garbage!

Garbage is like the penultimate 90s band really.  And perfect for the games I was planning and playing at the time.

I have mentioned before that by the mid 90s I was really burned out on D&D and wanted something new.  That new ended up being various World of Darkness games like Vampire and Mage, but most of all WitchCraft.   I made more than one witch that looked like Shirley Manson.

"I'm Only Happy When Rains" is exactly the sort of song that I had in mind when I was playing then.  Alternative, hard, and a great lead singer. From their debut self titled album.




"Stupid Girl" showed that this band was no one hit wonder.




"#1 Crush" appeared on the Romeo + Juliet Soundrack, but that is not where I know it best.  It would go on to later be the theme music to the British witchcraft serial "HƎX". I still consider it a "witch" song.




Garbage 2.0 was another breakthrough album for the band. Getting them quite a bit of critical acclaim and giving them their high chart topping songs in the UK.

"Push It" adds more electronica than their previous outings.  The video has a nice homage to Village of the Damned.




"I Think I'm Paranoid" is pretty much the theme song for any Mage game I have ever played.




What is better than hearing your favorite band?  Hearing your favorite band cover a great song.
"Because the Night" has been covered and recovered by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith (they wrote it), 10,000 Manics and Garbage with Screaming Females.  The song is a passionate ode not just to a love but to the night itself.  As a nyctophiliac myself, I can relate.



Next week I celebrate the White Witch herself.

Review: X-plorers

This really has been a lot of fun going through all of these OSR flavored Sci-Fi games (or are they Sci-fi flavored OSR games?) anyway. I am going back a bit to 2009 and X-plorers which comes to us from +David Bezio and  Brave Halfling Publishing.

X-plorers is somewhere in the middle of Starships & Spacemen and White Star. Both thematically and in terms of rules.  There is a more of an old school vibe of this one.  So to continue my analogies to the point of breaking, X-plorers is more Buck Rogers, the old serials and 50s sci-fi movies.

The book itself is 41 pages. This includes cover, title page, ogl page and a trademark license.  The trademark license is nice.  You can make content that is "X-Plorers Compatible" as long as you abide by the license.  Yes other games do this too.

Characters have class, hit points, and levels just like most OSR books.  The characters in X-Plorers though only have 4 attributes; Agility, Intelligence, Physique and Presence. They are still ranked 3-18. There are also four classes; Scientist, Soldier, Scouts and Technicians.  Personally I think some sort of Royalty or Ambassador class might have been a nice inclusion as well.
There are some multi-classing rules too which are nice to see.

Equipment is covered next.  The basic unit of commerce is the credit (cr).  It functions largely the same way the gold piece does.  Gear and weapons are covered, but also vehicles and robots.  Near the end we cover skills as well.

Chapter 3 covers running the game.  This includes saves, combat and skill checks.  All similar territory to other games.

Chapter 4 details Space. This covers ships, buying and outfitting with crew as well as combat.  Each phase of combat is discussed, so the gunner, engineer, pilot and so on.  This reminds me of some the of old school Naval ship battles.  Ship repair is also covered.

This is followed by a referee's section.  This covers creating a game and running one.  There is a small section on Aliens and Planets.
NPCs, Allies and Monsters are featured in the next section. I would have liked more, but again, these are easy to take from any fantasy game.

Chapter X is an adventure/background piece on Roswell.  There are even stats for the Greys, whic is really cool to be honest.
Chapter Y covers psionics and pyschic characters.  This is also pretty cool.

We end with some sheets for characters and ships.

X-plorers is a light game and designed to emulate the games of the 70s.  So in that respect it does the job well.  Some people will want more, but there is still a lot here.  Rule-wise it reminds me more of White Box Swords & Wizardry, in fact you could use S&W as the rules and the rest as add-on.

There is a free version with no art, X-plorers (no art), a Quick Start, a printable Players Guide, and Character Sheets.

Kickstart Your Weekend: The Dwarves of Demrel

The Dwarves of Demrel is an independent fantasy film and exactly the sort of thing that Kickstarter should be about.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/257801402/the-dwarves-of-demrel

From the site:  "In this steampunk fantasy adventure, a collapse imprisons three dwarven miners who must now work collectively to combat starvation, despair, and a mysterious creature."

Honestly I think it looks rather cool.

They have met their goal, but that could still use more funding for those stretch goals.

Check out their page on FB as well for more information.
https://www.facebook.com/dwarvesofdemrel?_rdr

Should be a lot of fun.

Review: Metamorphosis Alpha, 1st Edition

MORBIUS: Back. To. The. Beginning!  - Doctor Who: The Brain of Morbius.

There is a game going all the way back to the dawn of time, or at least the dawn of the roleplaying age, that has fascinated me.  I knew of it's children games, Gamma World and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but it has not be till recently that I have seen the father of sci-fi games.

Metamorphosis Alpha is considered to be the first popular Scifi game available.  While many of us heard of and purchased Traveller first (and that could be another entire week for me) MA really is the first. Published a year before the Traveller books.  Written by James "Drawmij" Ward, MA has deep ties with D&D.  The game was playtested by Ward and Gygax and others at TSR.  This lead to the aforementioned Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Gamma World.  The forward of the game was written by Gygax and Brian Blume.

The basic game outline is that characters, human, mutant and other all live on a fantastic colony ship, The Warden, that has broken down.  The ship is basically a giant flying dungeon. In space.
The character creation rules, monsters and everything are like Original D&D through a distorted lens.  To use an analogy from computer programing if D&D/AD&D is Pascal then Metamorphosis Alpha is Modula. Naturally this makes Gamma World Modula 2, AD&D2 Turbo Pascal, D&D3 Borland Pascal, D&D4 Oberon, D&D5 Delphi and so on...

It would be a fantastic game to play when you are in a great old-school mood and I do know people that have made great long campaigns with it.  Think about it, the idea would later pop up in the series Red Dwarf.

The book itself is 40 pages which includes front and back cover, an updated errata sheet, pages of tables, character sheet and maps of the Warden.

The game itself is complete and a prime example of old-school minimalism.  Modern readers might be tempted to ask "is this it", but to these eyes it is succinct and complete at the same time.

MA of course is perfectly playable on it's own. Has been for 40 years.
But it also works great as a setting or a as a "Mega dungeon" in space.

Mix MA with any of the games I have been reveiwing over the last few days and you have a mysterious, ancient colony ship. 80 km long, 40 km wide and 14 km tall and filled with humans, mutants and who knows what else.   Think of the ship in "WALL-E" now fill it with mutants.

Honestly I am using it in my own old-school D&D game and it is part of my world's history.  The uses and re-uses of this game are endless.

The mutant rules in the book are easily ported over to any game.  So use them as mutants or aliens or even demons in your fantasy game.

At just under 6 bucks it is also a steal.
There are character sheets too for humans and mutants at a buck each.  Normally I think sheets should be free, but I am only paying $5.99 for the pdf.  If the sheets were free and the game was $7.99 I would not balk or fret at the price.

If you have any interest in old-school gaming, sci-fi gaming or even the roots of our hobby, then this is a fantastic game to add to your collection.
If you are playing any of the new "old-school" sci-fi games then I consider this a must buy.

Not a bird. Not a plane.

I am inordinately fond of Supergirl.

This looks so awesome.


And I am going on record that Calista Flockhart is going rock as Cat.

Marvel may have the theaters, but DC owns TV.