Castles & Crusades Week

So just about a year ago I asked for some advice on Castles & Crusades.
The response was overwhelming and overwhelmingly positive. I went out and picked up everything I thought I needed for the game, then picked up some extra copies for my kids.

Since then I have gotten the chance to play some more and some really awesome books like Amazing Adventures and Codex Celtarum have been released. I have picked up more books including some adventures.  So I figured that there was a need for me to spend some quality time with these books.

I am going to posting some reviews and my thoughts from the last year of playing, reading and generally loving this game.

Stay tuned for more!

Bloghop Giveaway

To further help promote the Bloghop Against Homophobia and Transphobia I am going to give away a copy of The Witch.

The rules are pretty simple.
Share the url to this post or my blog far and wide to promote the bloghop.  Enter your name in Rafflecopter widget below and on the 27th when the hop has ended I'll pick a winner!

Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you.

Good luck!!
I am still giving money to charity, so that hasn't changed.  This is on top of that.

Edited to add: The Rafflecopter thingy wasn't working. So just post below. Thanks!

Codex Celtarium / Troll Lord Swag

I got my box of Troll Lord goodness today including the Codex Celtarum.

The timing is perfect since I have a bunch of things I want to do with C&C.  So look forward to some reviews this week.

Zatannurday: Happy Birthday Gardner Fox

I have been meaning to do this every year and I forget.  So here I am this year finally remembering!

May 20th is the Birthday of Gardner Fox, the man that created Zatanna.  It is also, according to the 1978 DC Calendar, the birthday of Zatanna herself!

http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/5677896286/zeebirthday
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/23412636790/520bd

By Mike Kevan

By Becca Rocks

So happy birthday Gardner Fox (and Zatanna)!

Willow & Tara: BASH! (and Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia)

Today is the first day of the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia
http://hopagainsthomophobia.blogspot.com/2013/03/hop-against-homophobia-and-transphobia_15.html

As I mentioned earlier in the week that for the time period between May 17 to May 27 I will donate all the money I make from The Witch and from my DriveThruRPG Affiliate money to The Trevor Project.

I signed up for this hop to talk about characters. Honestly, who better to talk about than Willow and Tara. Plus Tara herself is a big fan of the Trevor Project.

Here is something that has been hanging out in my "drafts" for a long time. I think today is a GREAT day to finish it.

Willow & Tara: BASH!

Willow & Tara by Foxfire141

BASH! or as it was known, Basic Action Super Heroes is a great, fun game.

I have talked about it before with my super heroine "Justice", and of course I have done Willow & Tara as superheroes and as animated/cartoon/comic characters.  Bash is sort of the ultimate combination of all of that. While some supers games are "comics" games and others "supers in a real world" games, BASH is certainly a "supers by way of cartoons" game to me.  Trust me, this not a bad thing.

As always I am going with the "Dragon and the Phoenix/Season of the Witch" versions of the girls.  Though if I had stuck with my games this would have been part of Season 3.
The versions I am using are part of a game I never got to run; the Season 3 of my Willow and Tara game.  Basically they are attached to some school for magical/powerful students.  Tara is one of the teachers there so they appeared as NPCs/GMPCs only.  OR they would have been played if I had found someone to play them.  You can see more details of that game in their Cartoon Action Hour, M&M2, M&M3 and Icons write-ups.

Normally I'd do BASH! heroes about 40 points for a starting supers game.  That is what I did with Justice.  Here though the girls don't have any flashy powers.  They have magic and lot of it, but that is different.  Plus they are certainly more "Street Level" or 25 points.  I think I'll split the difference at put them at 30 or 35 points with 10-15 points for stats (like the 25 point level) and the rest for powers.  Plus the "Buffy" like character in the book is aimed at 20 points.  Depending on how I do magic they will end up in the 30 to 40 point range.

Willow Rosenberg

Name: Willow D. Rosenberg
DOB: August 1, 1981
Identity: Public, but unknown as a witch
Occupation: Part time computer instructor; Private Computer Security Systems Analyst.

Brawn: 1
Agility: 1
Mind: 5 (she is considered to be one of the smartest people in the game)

Soak: 1
Defense: 1
Mental Defense: 5

Powers
Super Senses (magical sensing, vision, hearing)  2
Clairvoyance 1
Telekinesis 5
Magic* (limitation: casting) 5 (use any power at 5)
- Force field
- Arcane blast
- Mind Control
Telepath (restricted to Tara only) 3

Skills
(1 physical, 5 mental +1)
Athletics (running)
Computers (hacking), Humanities (Religion), Investigation (Analysis), Occultism (Monsters), Science (Chemistry), Technology (Repair)

Advantages
Headquarters, Quick-thinking, Security Clearance

Disadvantages
In a Relationship (Tara), Minority (out married gay, jewish, witch), Susceptibility (anger issues)

Mental Malfunction: To right wrongs, punish the guilty.


Tara Maclay

Real Name: Tara A. Maclay
DOB: 11/07/1980
Identity: Public, but unknown as a witch
Occupation: Youth Counselor and Art instructor at <> Academy

Brawn: 1
Agility: 2
Mind: 4 (Tara is lot smarter than given credit for)

Soak: 1
Defense: 2
Mental Defense: 4

Powers

Super Senses (magical sensing, vision, hearing)  2
Clairvoyance 1
Telekinesis 4
Healing 3
Magic* (limitation: casting) 5 (use any power at 5)
- Force Field
- Arcane blast

Telepath (restricted to Willow only) 3

Skills
(2 physical, 4 mental)
Perform (Dancing), Riding (Gallop)
Humanities (Art), Medicine (first aid), Occultism (Rituals), Social Science (History)

Advantages
Grimoire (The Journal of Tamara Swift), Headquarters,

Disadvantages
In a Relationship (Willow), Minority (out married gay, witch)

Mental Malfunction: To protect the innocent

All in all similar to their Icons counter-parts.   Obviously this is a better choice of system for supers and not supernaturals.  But I expected that and wanted to try it out anyway.

Blogfest: The Best and Worst Remakes & Monster Madness

Today is:
The Best and Worst Remakes Blogfest
http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-to-z-challenge-memento-meant-to-live.html

Hosted by:

Alex J. Cavanaugh  http://alexjcavanaugh.blogfest.com/
Stephen Tremp  http://authorstephentremp.blogspot.com/
Father Dragon Al  http://fatherdragon.blogspot.com/
Livia Peterson  http://leaveittolivia.blogspot.com/


And the last day of The May Monster Madness.
http://www.anniewalls.com/2013/04/may-monster-madness-sign-up-linky-list.html

So here are some "monster" movie remakes.

Best Remakes
Back in 2011 for my horror movie blogathon I covered the Swedish Horror film Let The Right One In (2008) and it's remake Let Me In (2010). It is rare when a remake can capture the same feel of the original and still have something new to say. Let Me In does that.   Many will claim that Let the Right One In is superior, and it is in some ways (Eli's backstory is very disturbing), but Let Me In is also very, very good.

Another one that is better than the original is The Omen.  The 2006 remake of The Omen is much better acted and better looking, just not sure if the story is any better (though I like Richard Donner as a director better).  The remake of the classic Amityville Horror is scarier, even if the movie itself isn't as good as the original.

Among my non-horror faves hats of to Yojimbo (1961) and Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Last Man Standing (1996).  Both added something new to the classic Yojimbo.  It should be remade again today with gang lands or drug cartels (maybe it has).

Worst Remakes
Halloween is notable. I like Rob Zombie and I think he has some great ideas, but his Halloween movies really do suck.  Same with the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.  Nothing was as scary as the first time you saw Freddy in the theatres. The Ring was not as good as Ringu.
Though I keep a special loathing for Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.  Sorry, but there is nothing here and even Psycho 4 was better.

I'll go as far as saying that most horror remakes come up short of the original.

ETA: forgot about the song!  Anyway, here is a cheat.  One song, two remakes. The Smith's "How Soon is Now". The original was teen-agnsty sitting in your bedroom crying because you are so deep sort of song.  Love Spit Love did it better in The Craft and it became the theme song to Charmed. Here it sounded more adult.  tATu redid it again for the worse version I have ever heard.

More Blogfest posting fun later today!

May Monster Maddness: Monster Books

Monster Books

I can't beleive I almost forgot this today.  It is still Thursday where I am sitting.

So I am presently working three books with monsters.

Eldritch Witchery, which you all know about which includes all the demons and devils I have been talking about since February for the Spellcraft & Swordplay game.

Here There Be Dragons, is the book I am working on with my son.  It has all sorts of dragons, dragon like creatures and some new classes for Advanced Era Old School Games or OSRIC.

Lastly, and the one that I have been working on the most, is Darwin's Guide to Creatures.  It is for the Gaslight game, so both d20 (3.x era) and Savage Worlds.

Each one has a different focus, different feel and almost no overlap between the books.  I think there is one creature in both the Darwin's Guide and EW, but they are presented very differently.

So all in all I figure over the last 3 months I have written the stats and or backgrounds for some 400+ monsters.  I am getting a touch burned out by them to be honest!  But hey, you do what you can and I hope that all those years of reading monster books and my public library as a kid will now pay off.



Enjoy this? Please check out the other monster posts today!