Friday Night Videos: Guest VJ Elizabeth Chaipraditkul of WITCH

Welcome once again to Friday Night Videos!

Tonight I want to welcome my very first Guest VJ.
Back on the original FNV guest VJs were a staple.  Usually they had something to promote, a new movie or TV show, or they were pop-culture icons.

Tonight I want to welcome my very special guest Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, author and designer of new game WITCH!

I featured WITCH this morning on my Kickstart your weekend post so please check that out.
So without further ado here is Liz!
--

Hi! I am Liz and I was asked by Tim to guest VJ and make a playlist based on my game WITCH and what I listened to while creating it. This was difficult and I spent a lot of time agonizing over my Spotify playlists and YouTube history before I came to this core essence list. I hope you enjoy it.

Florence and the Machine - No Light, No Light


When I need to get in the mood for writing I love listening to beautiful things and for me that is Florence and the Machine. Their lyrics stay with me and make me think. No light, No Light is no exception. It is a simple love song with beautiful lyrics. “You are the night time fear, you are the morning when it’s near, when it’s over you’re the start, you’re my head, you’re my heart.” When creating WITCH, the fluff pieces that are meant to tempt and entice readers, I try to emulate what I feel when I listen to Florence and the Machine

Lana Del Rey - Gods & Monsters



Lana is so apathetic in all her songs, it is brilliant. I am a pretty passionate person, at least I like to think so, and Lana is the perfect Yin to my Yang. Furthermore, the subject matter of her songs is darkly shallow, the perfect mood for a simple noir setting- smoking a cigarette, sipping a martini, and trying to hide the run in your stockings. Lana Del Rey just works for WITCH, she’s mysterious, deceptively shallow, and seductive- just like magic.

Johnny Cash - I Hung My Head



Anything Johnny Cash was the soundtrack to my university years. He is a fantastic storyteller. His voice conveys so much emotion, it’s clear and it’s strong. I try to emulate Johnny when I write and listening to him clears my mind. I Hung My Head is one of my penultimate favourite songs by Mr. Cash, it is a simple story of utter tragedy. It makes me think a lot about WITCH, what would you do if you did something so stupid, what would you give up to get out of a stupid mistake you made?

Stevie Nicks – Edge of Seventeen



We’re shaped a lot by our parents. I wasn’t the coolest kid in school so, when I wanted to get into music, I asked my mom to buy me “cool” tunes (big mistake). She came back with Fleetwood Mac. While this didn't make me the most popular kid, I am now happy she did. I love Stevie Nicks and she helps me when things just aren't working the way I want in WITCH. Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac are my editing music. They get my head bopping, they allow me to let go of crappy pieces of text I through were brilliant weeks ago, and the help me get work done.

Shireen - Unmarked



Shireen is actually a band who’s lead singer I know pretty well. She’s my friend and her name is Annieke and she has the voice of a siren. Normally, when you meet people and they tell you they have a band you cringe a bit. (Note: This normally has nothing to do with the band and more me just being too judgmental). However, when I heard Shireen I was sold. Their music is amazing and haunting. I ended up listening to this one track so much while working on our Kickstarter Campaign. It’s a perfect song for WITCH (especially if you take the lyrics a bit too literally).

Thank you for listening in with me. I had so much fun compiling this list :).
If you like the playlist and you’re interested in our Kickstarter for the corebook of WITCH, please check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1568822309/witch-a-dark-modern-fantasy-role-play-game

--

Tim here again. Thanks Liz. That's a great playlist.
Are you interested in being a Guest VJ here at Friday Night Videos? Send me an email at timothy.brannan@gmail.com

Kickstart Your Weekend: WITCH

I am really trying to cut back on my Kickstarters.

But this one looks seriously cool.

WITCH - a dark, modern fantasy role play game

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1568822309/witch-a-dark-modern-fantasy-role-play-game

The designer is Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, +Liz C. . She is new but she has a lot of neat ideas. You can find her at Angry Hamster Publishing.  http://angryhamsterpublishing.com/

The game reminds me of C. J. Carella's WitchCraft and a bit of Ron Edwards Sorcerer.
Now I will be honest.  I have scores, if not hundreds of "Dark Supernatural" rpgs.    So I am looking to see what is new in this one.  So what can this do (not just in terms of mechanics but game play) that I can't already do with other games.

The character creation sounds interesting enough.

There is a lot of information out there on this game already. Check out the links on her website and here are some interviews.

• http://tabletoptorch.com/2015/03/witch-2/#sthash.GTZvRJHd.LxfCZMWl.dpbs
• http://www.contessa.rocks/contessa/interview-with-liz-chaipraditkul
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNYLmaYX9c (Character Creation)
• http://www.guysgamesandbeer.net/2015/02/g2b-ep-140-thats-one-angry-hamster.html

My favorite thing so far is this FateQuiz flow chart.  Want to know what sort of character to be?  Use this!  It's a good graphic to add to Pintrest, Tumblr or Instagram.

I hope to be talking to Liz C. again soon and learning more about this game.

I am a Dungeon addict.

Hello. My name is Tim Brannan and I am a Dungeon! addict.

It started out simply enough in 1981.  I got a Dungeon board game for Christmas along with the D&D Basic Set. I played that game for hours and hours.  I even made little version of my own D&D characters on Dungeon cards to run them through.  Yup my first game conversion.

At some point I lost that game along with a lot of my Basic/Expert and Advanced stuff.  But I never forgot it.
I have bought other Dungeons in the past, but none really measured up to that first one with the color in dice and little grave counters.

Well. I fixed that!

Presenting my newest acquisition!

Just like my original.

Here is a close up of the dice and the Erol Otus art.

And more of my expanding collection.

Yeah.

I might need professional help.

But in my defense we do play these games, they are not sitting on  shelf collecting dust.

DriveThru Drive by: GMs Week!

Been a really busy day today at work so I'll make this one short.

DriveThruRPG is having their annual GMs Week sales.

This is always a great time to pick up that game or book you have been wanting but also wanted a sale to do it.

Still working through all my books too.  Picked up the audio book of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".  "The Mist-Torn Witches" is turning out to be really good.

Tomb of Horrors, Finale

Yesterday the Dragonslayers finished up the Tomb of Horrors.  They defeated the Demi-Lich Acererak and found their way out.

A total of seven potions of extra-healing where used, three healing, and many cure * wounds spells.
One character was dropped down to point where she had to be taken out of the dungeon by one of the hirelings (a zero hp, but stabilized). Three characters nearly died in Acererak's tomb alone.   One character was hit with Acererak's soul sucking ray, but we determined that since the character (Lawful Good Dragonborn Paladin) was protected by his god (Bahamut) he was allowed Advantage on his save.  Which is good since one of his rolls had been a 1.

We had converted all the Dragonslayers characters from 3.x to 5th edition, focusing on archetypal conversion rather than direct conversion.   It seems to have worked out really  nice.

Again my youngest son loved this one. He was in his element; solving puzzles, finding traps. I set the disable DC of most traps at 35, but he still managed to get some.

Conversions were a breeze on the module itself; I have versions of it for every edition of game except for 5.  Given the history of the game, I suspect we will see 5th Edition conversions in the future.

Up next is S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. This will take care of all the S-series modules.  We played them "out of order" but I think this worked well for us. Plus there is no real order to the S series anyway.

The Mist-Torn Witches

First up for March is Barb Hendee's "The Mist-Torn Witches".

This has been sitting in my "To Be Read" pile forever it seems.

Here is the Amazon blurb.  Sounds like a good mystery is involved.

In a small village in the nation of Droevinka, orphaned sisters Céline and Amelie Fawe scrape out a living selling herbal medicines in their apothecary shop. Céline earns additional money by posing as a seer and pretending to read people’s futures.

But they exist in a land of great noble houses, all vying for power, and when the sisters refuse the orders of a warlord prince, they must flee and are forced to depend on the warlord prince’s brother, Anton, for a temporary haven.

A series of bizarre deaths of pretty young girls is plaguing the village surrounding Prince Anton’s castle. He offers Céline and Amelie permanent protection if they can use their “skills” to find the killer.

With little choice, the sisters enter a world unknown to them—of fine gowns and banquets and advances from powerful men. Their survival depends on catching a murderer who appears to walk through walls and vanish without a trace—and the danger grows with each passing night.

I am a fan of her other work and she is also writing the Introduction to Strange Brew.

I am REALLY looking forward to this one.  What I have read so far there are a lot of cool ideas I can add to my games.

More on the finale of "Tomb of Horrors" later today.

Witchy Read A-Thon

New month. New books to read.

This month I am going to take part in the Witchy Read A-Thon hosted by The Domestic Witch.

http://thedomesticwitchblog.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-witchy-read-thon-info-and-sign-up.html

I know I have the next Harry Potter book on tap, but this is also a way for me to get at some of my "To Be Read" pile that is stacking up on my tablet.

Updates throughout the week!