And we can see the back of the fireworks from upstairs.
Saturday, 31 December 2022
Happy Hogmanay!
And looking at the TV schedules, with Scottish-specific stuff that only does outside broadcasts for the fireworks here and otherwise does a mix of fiddle folk and local pop stars, and British general stuff that is mostly chat shows and music shows. The US has big live things in New York and/or New Orleans, making more of an effort than they seem to for Christmas.
2022
2022 was not, on the whole, a great year for me. Not as bad as 2020 or particularly 2021, but still. Here’s to something better.
Character Creation Challenge idea
Having been looking at a blank document for weeks, probably more groups of characters. Though I’ve already done most of the games I could run without much thought this year. So maybe Angel to start. Totally different from Buffy. Ahem.
Thursday, 29 December 2022
Dungeon23
Dungeon23 - create a megadungeon (or other large RPG setting, physically or with lots of other details) one piece at a time for a year.
For when the 31 Day Character Creation Challenge and RPGaDay and Vamptober are too short.
(Although the entries can be shorter than generating a full character. Just, hey, for a year.)
Reporting, not even considering for a moment.
Wednesday, 28 December 2022
Stan Lee centenary
Stan Lee, co-creator of many of the foundations of the Marvel Universe, was born 100 years ago today. The A. V. Club looks at some of his Marvel cameos. He was a great promoter for Marvel and for himself, but beyond that he used the power his platform gave him responsibly.
Happy birthday! ’Nuff said.
Tuesday, 27 December 2022
Ghost Stories For Christmas
A very nice BFI set of the first three 1970s Ghost Story For Christmas M. R. James adaptations, the Omnibus Whistle And I’ll Come To You with the 2010 version as an add-on, two of the Christopher Lee readings of the same stories on that disc, interviews and commentaries and things like that.
James has of course inspired me before, someone made a Gumshoe system game for him, and he was the reason The Watch House was set at that particular Cambridge college.
Looking at the different adaptations and readings could be instructive too.
Monday, 26 December 2022
Ready Or Not
Looking at the game potential of some gifts... Ready Or Not is already about games! Board games and party games. And the Hide And Seek to the death plot makes a great one-shot.
And you could mess with the premise of whether the family really has a guardian demon who demands tribute. This is the kind of thing that happens in the Buffyverse on the regular.
Sunday, 25 December 2022
Christmas 2022
After a couple of naturally subdued Christmases, this one had felt big in public and buildup, which was kinda nice.
Thea Gilmore, That’ll Be Christmas
Haul!
I got 2021 MCU DVDs, the Doctor Who annual, The Art Of The Mandalorian and the first Star Wars: The High Republic novel, Skyward by Brandon Sanderson, Ghost Stories For Christmas volume II, Ready Or Not, chocolate including a pack of Double Deckers and a yard of Jaffa Cakes...
Telly!
The Shaun The Sheep movie Farmageddon gets away with being a massive E.T. riff with E.T. jokes among others. The Canterville Ghost with Anthony Head has a lot of Canterville and not enough ghost. A Christmas Carol stage film by Mark Gatiss is good with clever staging, though amusingly the same added twist as his take on Count Magnus for A Ghost Story At Christmas.
But a sword
Miss Universe Ukraine, Viktoria Apanasenko, went with an interesting national costume choice - Warrior of Light, an angel with a sword.
Adventure Calendar 2022 25: Merry Christmas Everybody
Adventure Calendar 2022
25: Merry Christmas Everybody
Slade, Merry Christmas Everybody
Performed by The Cure
It’s a bit late for a Christmas adventure idea now!
Maybe the PCs gather to celebrate something, as a change of pace.
Happy holidays!
Saturday, 24 December 2022
The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special
The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special leans into the tradition the Star Wars one was a late example of (including being released for Thanksgiving) with songs and an animated bit and indeed a similar plot, but holds together better. I laughed several times.
It also provides a good example of the “SF/F characters not understanding Christmas” subgenre.
Adventure Calendar 2022 24: Last Christmas
Adventure Calendar 2022
24: Last Christmas
Wham!, Last Christmas
Performed by Rita Ora
Last Christmas as a story hook has the issue that one literalised version has already been done in the film of the song.
Friday, 23 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 23: All I Want For Christmas Is You
Adventure Calendar 2022
23: All I Want For Christmas Is You
Mariah Carey, All I Want For Christmas Is You
Performed by My Chemical Romance
Can you do a Christmas romcom session? Do you dare?
And if you do, there’s a mini RPG for it. Possibly more than one.
Thursday, 22 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 22: Sol Invictus
Adventure Calendar 2022
22: Sol Invictus
And even on the longest, coldest, darkest night, the light still has power. A song for heroes persisting.
Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 21: In The Bleak Midwinter
Adventure Calendar 2022
21: In The Bleak Midwinter
Today is the winter solstice.
Someone has to go into the dark place and make sure the sun rises on Midwinter. Might as well be the PCs.
In a setting with a high enough Weird Level this can be literal. But even in a setting as weird as Discworld it doesn’t have to be.
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
“Really? Then what would have happened, pray?”
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
They walked in silence for a moment.
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Tuesday, 20 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 20: Joy To The World
Adventure Calendar 2022
20: Joy To The World
Performed by Celtic Women
The Nativity is about the birth of a saviour. And in most games that’s something that would involve the PCs. Is one of them the Chosen One?
And how would they deal with a world-changing prophetic event that isn’t about them?
It could easily become an escort mission, and those are rightly unpopular...
Monday, 19 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 19: Scrooge
Adventure Calendar 2022
19: Scrooge
A cheat to get an excuse to suggest a riff on A Christmas Carol on the anniversary of its publication.
Sunday, 18 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 18: It Feels Like Christmas
Adventure Calendar 2022
18: It Feels Like Christmas
The opening theme and central song of The Muppet Christmas Carol is about the feeling Christmas should evoke, all the places you find love, and how it can appear in unexpected ways.
And now I want to play someone with Christmas superpowers.
Saturday, 17 December 2022
Our Flag Means Death is coming
Christmas and New Year Radio Times reveals Our Flag Means Death starting on BBC Two, January 4th.
Adventure Calendar 2022 17: Wintersong
Adventure Calendar 2022
17: Wintersong
For lonely winters and Christmases, a counterpoint to the season’s supposed feeling and a nostalgia for it.
Friday, 16 December 2022
Warhammer TV
Warhammer coming to TV via Amazon, and possibly films as well. 40K, at least to begin with. Henry Cavill starring and executive producing. I wonder who as...
Adventure Calendar 2022 16: It's Christmas And I F---ing Miss You
Adventure Calendar 2022
16: It’s Christmas And I Fucking Miss You
Which sums things up really.
(And barring the swears it would, like much of their work, be Buffy-appropriate.)
Christmas can often be a lonely time, and in the past couple of years it has been for many.
As the absence is physical rather than amotional this time, then for gaming I guess something with people a long way away, like travellers.
Thursday, 15 December 2022
The English
The English felt very much like an RPG in its mismatched Big Damn Heroes having various unconnected adventures of the week before the GM realised it was the last session and rushed through a lot of plot, including killing off a side character offscreen to drop a subplot.
A player's first time GMing
“Why can’t anyone make a decision?” - My first time as a D&D Dungeon Master
Keith Stuart at the Guardian
Thanks to D-503 at RPGnet for the link.
Adventure Calendar 2022 15: Kidnap The Sandy Claws
Adventure Calendar 2022
15: Kidnap The Sandy Claws
Because I wanted to include a song for a “Santa needs the PCs’ help!” plot hook.
Witch of the Vale
Witch of the Vale, support act at the Fields Of The Nephilim concert, are new, local-ish, eerie and sad on stage and lovely and friendly off stage. Expect something like them to appear in Last Dance in 2023.
Wednesday, 14 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 14: What's This?
Adventure Calendar 2022
14: What’s This?
Someone who has absolutely no idea what they’re looking at stumbles across an event as involved and frankly off as Christmas. Jack Skellington manages to grasp the surface (and tries to take it over and “improve it too!”) but he does at least also get the core appeal of it being a nice thing.
How would your PCs deal with an alien cultural tradition, or an alien PC deal with something we’re used to?
Tuesday, 13 December 2022
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse trailer
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse trailer, though I will be waiting to see the movie knowing as little as possible.
The Nevers cancelled
The Nevers has been cancelled, the back half of the season unshown and the available episodes taken off HBO Max as the streaming service’s new owners continue to kill it. At least Fox dumped Firefly without waiting months to do it.
Adventure Calendar 2022 13: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
Adventure Calendar 2022
13: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
Performed by Kylie Minogue
I get where they were going with this, the festivities and presents and the spirit of good will and all... but I always imagine how much work that would be, and how repetitive.
How do you do all the prep?
And if it’s always December, rather than just always being a festive day all year, wouldn’t you miss the other seasons?
To invert C. S. Lewis: “Always Christmas, never winter.”
Or, with a wish, is it a time loop? An even more wintry Groundhog Day? Woken up by the same Christmas carol on the alarm clock radio, seeing the same relatives arriving, ducking the same snowball? There are several movies like this about learning The True Meaning Of Christmas. And Krampus.
Okay, that’s probably enough ideas about Christmas being an invading force from outside time that must be stopped.
Monday, 12 December 2022
Last Exit For The Lost
Listening to The Nephilim ahead of seeing Fields Of The Nephilim play it on Wednesday remidns me that I have never done a ghostly Western RPG.
Adventure Calendar 2022 12: It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Adventure Calendar 2022
12: It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
Performed by Johnny Mathis
A follow-on thought from yesterday about an unseasonal Christmas season.
Signs of a seasonal festival start showing up at the wrong time of year. Not just how Christmas preparation starts earlier and earlier in stores (and Black Friday now apparently extends from All Saints’ Day to Christmas Eve) but people decorating overnight despite it being, say, March. What is happening? Is time going screwy?
Time slips are common sorta-scientific explanations for ghostly apparitions and a way to do one time travel story without it becoming a feature of a series format, but one time spilling out into another is less common. (I borrowed a Dead Of Night moment for The Watch House with the 1880s leaking out of a haunted mirror, and took it a lot further as it could spread and overwrite the present.)
Sunday, 11 December 2022
Back to the Moon
Human beings last walked on the Moon fifty years ago today. Today, the Orion unmanned mission capsule returned safely in preparation for our return.
Adventure Calendar 2022 11: White Wine In The Sun
Adventure Calendar 2022
11: White Wine In The Sun
As well as his conflicted feelings about Christmas as an atheist who still loves some aspects of the holiday, the title refers to the experience of these winter-themed festivities in Australia’s high summer. I know from my brother’s family Christmas photos that Santa’s grottos still have snow instead of sand.
So how do holidays like this, and other traditions, feel so far from their point of origin?
(And of course the Nativity was in modern Palestine, where snow isn’t all that common either.)
Saturday, 10 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 10: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Adventure Calendar 2022
10: Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Performed by Burl Ives for the animated special
Remember this - the moral of the story of Rudolph the red-nosed Reindeer is;
“Deviation from the norm will not be tolerated, unless it can be exploited to serve your masters.”
Posthuman music
Er, anyway...
A message must get through despite the weather, and the PCs have the ability to deliver it.
Friday, 9 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 9: Silent Night
Adventure Calendar 2022
9: Silent Night
Performed by Sinead O’Connor, for The Ghosts Of Oxford Street TV special
Not going for that excuse to be spooky.
Despite the temptation of the pun, not doing Hush. Tabletop RPGs are a verbal medium, so this would be tricky at least.
It’s about a calm and peaceful night as a result of the miracle birth.
Christmas as a time of peace, with the Christmas truce in the Great War being the most famous example.
Considering how often many games’ PCs find their lives in danger, how would they react to a night where nothing bad happens?
Thursday, 8 December 2022
Paramore, The News
Paramore, The News
Every second our collective heart breaks
All together every single head shakes
Shut your eyes but it won’t go away
Turn on, turn off, the news
After This Is Why, The News sounds much more emo pre After Laughter “classic Paramore angst” as Hayley Williams puts it.
“The 24-hr news cycle is just impossible to comprehend. And I feel a pang of guilt when I unplug to protect my headspace. The common reaction, or non-reaction, seems to be dissociation. Not one of us is innocent of that and who could blame us?”
Adventure Calendar 2022 8: Jingle Bells
Adventure Calendar 2022
8: Jingle Bells
Performed by Bellowhead and guests
One of the classic Christmas songs that’s about winter rather than Christmas, even before considering the playground filk version about how Batman smells. Jingle Bells makes riding in a sleigh sound (a) fun and (b) dangerous.
Obvious adventure idea, put a chase scene on snow.
This happens a lot with James Bond with skis and various motorised snow vehicles, less so in other settings - the original Willow has a bit involving a shield as a sledge, for one.
Wednesday, 7 December 2022
Star Wars: The Bad Batch season two trailer
The Bad Batch is back in the new year, delayed from September.
Voices raise against the Empire.
Also featuring the return of another Clone Wars character, the wee Wookiee Jedi.
Adventure Calendar 2022 7: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Adventure Calendar 2022
7: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Okay. End of the first week.
Time to do Die Hard.
Die Hard, mentioned more than once in previous Adventure Calendars, is the classic snark answer for favourite Christmas movie, but unlike many action films set around the season it really does qualify as a Christmas movie as it centres on someone travelling to be with his family, and there’s also a gift that’s important to the plot...
 |
| And now it has an advent calendar too. Kind of. |
Die Hard On An X (TV Tropes) is one of the easy action adventure plot hooks. In RPGs it’s up there with The Seven Samurai which has a group of PCs built in. There are versions in Buffy, Alias, more than one of the 90s Star Trek series complete with captains in vests, and the Crew doing it on purpose in Leverage.
Where might your PCs get missed during the roundup in an invasion?
I’ve also referenced how the weather outside is frightful when talking about snow and other conditions in games and indeed in real life.
Tuesday, 6 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 6: Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
Adventure Calendar 2022
6: Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
For Saint Nicholas’s Day:
Performed by The Crystals
With the song’s history could also have gone with earlier versions dating back to the Great Depression, or Bruce Springsteen, The Supremes, Chris Isaak...
As the main character of the second big Christmas mythology, I could probably give Santa his own label here.
How does he fit into a real-world adjacent setting like superheroes or urban fantasy? It depends on town, but go back far enough and I highlight a suggestion for a little light in a World Of Darkness.
And do other worlds have gift-giving culture heroes?
The song is about getting ready, being good, and the Depression era versions in particular emphasised charity, giving as well as receiving.
Be a bit of a Santa yourself.
Monday, 5 December 2022
The Three Musketeers 2023 trailer
A new duology from director Martin Bourboulon, in French.
Looks both swashbuckling and a bit grimy. With some scenes involving muskets! And Eva Green as Milady.
Adventure Calendar 2022 5: Fairytale Of New York
Adventure Calendar 2022
5: Fairytale Of New York
The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale Of New York (haggard version)
A reflection on good times in a bad relationship, this would be a good subplot for a series with relationships as a feature.
The lyrics don’t actually frame this as a fairytale, except in the way immigrant stories of the America can be. But of course New York is a city more imagined than seen for most people in the world, me included. And many settings have a city like that where anything seems possible. Small town characters coming to the city at the heart of it all, to live and work or make it there, or just to visit, perhaps for the holidays. What kind of trouble can they get into?
Sunday, 4 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 4: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Adventure Calendar 2022
4: Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
How to have a festive singalong which is also heartbreaking.
Separation, either enforced or a painfully timed breakup. Missing someone desperately, the flip side of trying to get home. An aching counterpoint to the festivities all around.
Being or supporting the affected character is probably a good fit for a subplot in something like Buffy.
Saturday, 3 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 3: We Three Kings
Adventure Calendar 2022
3: We Three Kings
Some characters this time...
Performed by Hugh Jackman, David Hobson and Peter Cousen
The three wise men, sometimes called kings and sometimes magi.
(Ars Magica fans take note.)
Astrologers and seers determine the meaning of the star and follow it to the manger, bringing suitably symbolic gifts.
They’re some of the most puzzling minor characters in the story, symbolic of the wise recognising the saviour and the powerful helping the meek, but I always felt they could be more help.
But that gets into questions like why the Watchers don’t give Buffy a salary. Anyway...
What do the PCs in a setting with portents and the like do when someone shows up and tells them they’re the subject of a quest?
And optionally gives them a box of myrrh, which is used in consecration and sometimes funerary rites?
Drew Goddard goes into The Trenches
Drew Goddard, Buffy and Angel writer, co-writer and director of Cabin in The Woods, series co-creator for Daredevil and pilot director for The Good Place, has a new animated pilot ordered by FX for The Trenches, about a family of monster hunters.
You can see why I might be interested.
Fingers crossed!
Friday, 2 December 2022
Adventure Calendar 2022 2: 2000 Miles
Adventure Calendar 2022
2: 2000 Miles
Finding another numerical Christmas song, here the Pretenders’ wistful hope that someone will be back at Christmas time, written for a late member and friend.
Having already done the big journey to get home in a comedic way, could the long trek through the cold work in something more serious? Weather causing threats and concealing enemies.
(Bear costume optional.)
Thursday, 1 December 2022
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny trailer
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny trailer.
After years not revealing the title, here we are. Sounds like a dice replacement spinner from a kids’ boardgame, but never mind. Empire takes a look, with links to their big cover feature.
The de-aging effects look fine in the couple of seconds we see, though it’s only ever worked for me properly with Samuel L. Jackson in Captain Marvel, when he was not being de-aged as much and also had very different hair and no eyepatch.
The Muppet Christmas Carol
Empire talks to some of the creators of The Muppet Christmas Carol for its 30th anniversary, with a rerelease returning the cut song When Love Is Gone.
Strange World
Disney’s Strange World came out in time for Thanksgiving... here as well as in the USA. Presumably because they expect Avatar: The Way Of Water to be the CGI alien ecosystem people want to see around Christmas. A shame as it’s a fun family adventure with some laughs and something of a message. It’s not as Indiana Jones as the logo and the explorer dad makes it look, being more of a Hollow Earth thing.
Also, Alan Tudyk voices the narrator and a radio host.
Adventure Calendar 2022 1: The First Noel
Adventure Calendar 2022
1: The First Noel
Performed by King’s College Chapel choir
I’ve looked at the Nativity as a source of adventure ideas before, noting the vulnerable people it focuses on as well as the possibly miraculous birth, but this Christmas carol focuses on spreading the message.
In a suitable milieu, say a fantasy world in need of help, how would the PCs react to a mission from above to spread the word? The news came to shepherds as well as wise men, which feels like a wide call to adventure.
And PCs being PCs, are they actively rebelling against the occupying force?
Wednesday, 30 November 2022
Take The High Road... morally, I guess?
Happy St. Andrew’s Day! The first of three roughly monthly Scottishness-based holidays we insist on having in the dead of winter.
Tuesday, 29 November 2022
Willow
Willow, the one-off trad fantasy movie from George Lucas and Ron Howard, returns tomorrow as a Disney+ series, with Warwick Davis back in the title role. From the trailers it looks fun.
Edit: first episode establishes some stuff right away, has some nice D&D movie style touches, and goes with a small supervillain team instead of a horde of monsters for the opening attack.
Ending edit: Every episode (including the making of) had at least one WTF decision. Why so much denim? Why do two different “everybody acts out of character” bits, one during a bit where one character is already acting out of character? Why did they go with Skip from Angel as a model for the troll leader? Why is one of the Four Horseman types called the Dag?
Monday, 28 November 2022
Last Dance 1.02
Vampire: The Masquerade
Last Dance
1.02: Needs
Preston might have to help around the Met Gala...
Sunday, 27 November 2022
Last Dance 1.02 preparation
Vampire: The Masquerade
Last Dance
“When people think of vampires, they think of us. Beautiful monsters terrible in our passion. And when vampires think of our clan they think of me. Devoted to my art, they think to the exclusion of everything else. Let them think that. Let them envy us. And let them overlook those of our blood who do not so closely match their preconceptions. The ones with no art to show and no pretty faces to dismiss.”
“My sire claimed that he Embraced six childer, and that I was the fourth. The first died quickly of his recklessness, The second threw herself into the rising sun after the night he turned her. The third went west, and after a handful of telegrams was never heard of again. I was selected to immortalise my voice, and my face, but chosen because of my ambition, to come as far as I had in that era. The fifth remains a dear friend. The sixth...”
“I was fortunate to live and die in a time when a kind of immortality was not available with the press of a shutter. I was one of the most celebrated sopranos of my time, but there are only a handful of recordings of my voice and photographs of my face from my lifetime, and I was able to be pronounced dead a few years later and fade into the dark without people recognising me on the street. Now it is quite easy to become too famous to disappear. The artists who die young tend to do so in the public eye, and we cannot save them. Victims of their own success twice over. Remembered forever but unable to see it.”
Elizabeth Lamont, elder of Clan Toreador
 |
| Marion Cotillard looking more vampiric than usual |
Saturday, 26 November 2022
Tutankhamun
On this day in 1922, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Egyptology became a craze in the 20s and into the 30s, and mummies and curses became a horror staple.
We had a book from the 1972 touring exhibition in the house when I was growing up - I was born a couple years later - so the image of the golden mask has always been around for me.
Friday, 25 November 2022
NY By Night season two wraps
Jason Carl visits Club Auspex with host Ash Minnick to discuss Vampire: The Masquerade - New York By Night seasons one and two, Camarilla versus Anarch games, his Storytelling style, and running games for streaming.
The Traitors - BBC One does Werewolf
The Traitors (trailer) starts on Tuesday. Of course to fill sixteen episodes with mostly the same players there are more side games like a spookier The Crystal Maze or less spooky Release The Hounds and a reality show element where we get to know the contestants, but yeah, basically Mafia / Werewolf.
Thursday, 24 November 2022
Glass Onion
Glass Onion (subtitled A Knives Out Mystery in the promotional material) brings back Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, and his accent, for another Christie-ish mystery, this time on a Greek island owned by a billionaire tech bro who invited his friends to a murder mystery weekend.
It’s more a comedy mystery than a mystery that is also funny, and gets to Blanc early as more of a viewpoint character this time, after introducing the suspects through the invitation, a game box which you can play virtually on the official site.
And speaking of games, the cast spent evenings during the shoot playing Mafia / Werewolf among other things. And in-character references to Clue and an appearance by Among Us. Someone needs to introduce Blanc to less kiddie mystery board games too.
Setting it in 2020 brings some downer reminders that don’t add much, but this is a quibble. I laughed quite a bit, not least at the recurring gags about automation with a security measure repeatedly going off in the background like the swearing fine in Demolition Man. The location, as well as the cast, definitely leans more absurd this time.
In cinemas for a week, starting yesterday, before going to funders Netflix in time for Christmas. Some small details may well be missed as a result.
Wednesday, 23 November 2022
Star Wars: Andor 1.12: Rix Road
Star Wars: Andor
1.12: Rix Road
“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks.”
As a northern industrial town planet, of course Ferrix has a brass band.
Credits scene. Oh, har har.
Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Tokyo Vice
From director Michael Mann, who knows a thing or two about Location Vice, the miniseries Tokyo Vice about a local cop and an American reporter at the front line of a Yakuza war is... well, pretty slow.
Monday, 21 November 2022
Another big sport thing
The World Cup (for football, it being the one that can get away without saying that) is happening, controversially for various reasons.
There'll be bluebirds over...
Twitter archive downloaded, and out for the duration of this regime and/or the site.
Sunday, 20 November 2022
Vampire: The Masquerade - Last Dance 1.01
Vampire: The Masquerade
Last Dance
1.01: Nightclubbing
Malice, a Ministry hacker, thief, bassist and DJ
Mo, a Caitiff brought to them for shelter, a drummer
Preston, a Toreador lead guitarist, perhaps not the most unwanted of his lineage but close
Vincent, a Malkavian singer, with connections to the Daughters of Cacophony?
Mo followed the stranger to a club called the Electric Room, where he called in an old marker with Vincent and left unseen.
Saturday, 19 November 2022
Shazam!
I missed Shazam! in cinemas, and I’ve only read a couple of DC event comics the character appears in. I appreciate it as the logical second step in superhero wish-fulfilment, and know it’s pretty light in tone. Anyway, here’s the film on TV...
The Shazam reference in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man is the one word. The Spider-Man: Homecoming reference in Shazam! is the end credits. Not subtle.
(And like that, this shows a world where superheroes are a known thing kids can be fans of, as they are in our world.)
I liked the Big reference too.
And I loved the meta bit about his superhero name. (His longest-running one being Captain Marvel, which Marvel used and one can see why DC stopped fighting there, after a few decades.)
Shazam himself really needed to work on his Chosen One letdown procedure.
How many DC villains can John Glover be the father of? (Why not all?)
Friday, 18 November 2022
Do a good deed
I have given some money to Children In Need and can therefore watch the show with a clear conscience.
Thursday, 17 November 2022
Character Creation Challenge 2023 announcement
January 2023: Character Creation Challenge
After the success of the 2021 and 2022 challenges, the Character Creation Challenge returns for a third year!
And... hmm. Having managed a different system every day in 2021 that ate through a lot of systems I know, and the 2022 groups covered a lot of the games I know really well. What to do...
Wednesday, 16 November 2022
Leverage: Redemption season two
Leverage: Redemption season two is back on Amazon Freevee and here the same time as the US, with the first three episodes on day one and another episode weekly, like a TV show or something.
2.01: The Debutante Job takes a well deserved sideswipe at Britain hosting Russian oligarchs. It also has a hilariously unconvincing New Orleans as London moment, but never mind.
2:02: The One Man’s Trash Job introduces several extra problems in fun ways. It also addresses how the Crew can’t solve all the world’s rich and powerful asshole problems.
2.03: The Tournament Job is about an evil E-sports guy.
Star Wars: Andor 1.11: Daughter Of Ferrix
Star Wars: Andor
1.11: Daughter Of Ferrix
You made B2-EMO be too emo!
The Mummerset alien fishermen were a bit Star Wars for this Star Wars.
Tuesday, 15 November 2022
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Retaliation
Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Retaliation from the makers of Vampire: The Masquerade - Chapters and probably needing the miniatures more than it does because while still investigative and narrative it’s naturally designed to be more violent. Now on Kickstarter and already funded twice over.
Zola Jesus - Alive In Cappadocia
Zola Jesus performs Desire and Into The Wild from Arkhon, as well as Skin and Siphon, in Cappadocia where she filmed the video for Lost, on piano. The snow, log fire and candles make it sort of festive, while the songs do not.
Monday, 14 November 2022
Mastodon
I am on Mastodon having remembered my password from last time Twitter looked like vanishing. This may change to dice.camp later. I am not sure how any of this works.
Rats Have Rhythm
Rats have a sense f rhythm, something mostly restricted to humans, and not even some humans I know.
Sunday, 13 November 2022
Saturday, 12 November 2022
Zen - Grogu And Dust Bunnies
Baby Yoda gets his own hand-drawn Studio Guibli short. So short it will take me about as much time to type this post as to watch it, but never mind. As the title implies, it is the least warlike Star Wars thing in quite some time.
Friday, 11 November 2022
Kevin Conroy
Kevin Conroy on being recognised as the voice of Batman in September 2001.
A reup for The Heart of Batman.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever starts by playing T’Challa’s death offscreen, of an illness like Chadwick Boseman’s death, which hangs over this consequently largely serious film. This made me tear up early on, and had me engaging with the core emotional story much more than the other elements. (The big threat being Namor didn’t help. They did him well, but.)
The Rewatcher, a new Buffy podcast
The Rewatcher, a new Buffy podcast by two true crime people, one a big fan and one a first timer. Well times to launch after Buffering concludes. And with a theme by Nerf Herder!
Thanks to Jamie (TWH-er Andy) for the heads up!
Thursday, 10 November 2022
John Wick Chapter 4 trailer
John Wick Chapter 4 Trailer Has Keanu Reeves Fighting Donnie Yen as Empire does not bury the lede in its headline.
But which Vampire clan will he also be fighting?
Trinity at 25
Ian A. A. Watson notes:
Æon, and the overall setting we now call the Trinity Continuum, was released in hardcover format 25 years ago today.
It's been an honour to do my part to shepherd its latest edition.
Here's to 25 more.
Wednesday, 9 November 2022
Tuesday, 8 November 2022
Halloween Horror Nights recap
Halloweenies at Bloody Disgusting look at Universal Halloween Horror Nights and talk to some of the creators.
I know I got a bit deep into some haunted house walkthroughs I didn’t get to go to because they were in another country, but hey, when an entertainment company hands you a dozen horror one-shot plots you take them.
The English, a Western
The English premieres 9 p.m. Thursday on BBC Two, and Friday on Amazon Prime elsewhere. A six-part Western starring Emily Blunt and Chaske Spencer. Clip and talk at The A.V. Club.
Indiana Jones And The Streaming Series
When Disney bought Lucadfilm, they got Indiana Jones as well as Star Wars. Indy 5 is on the way, but now they’re looking for pitches for a Disney+ series. But what about? Recasting Indy live-action is a non-starter, unless of course they make him really young, and while there are other characters who could carry a show, personally if I wanted Indy himself front and centre - and for the first show I would - I would try a cartoon...
Monday, 7 November 2022
Dracula Daily done
The Dracula Daily email newsletter concludes with the epilogue, barring an FAQ next week. It’s gotten lots of people who know the story through adaptations to read the book, and its heroes have definitely had their profiles raised - I suspect more people cared about Jonathan than have for a long time.
Sunday, 6 November 2022
Dawn's in trouble. Must be 21 years.
Time for the more-than-annual play of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer legend Once More With Feeling.
Saturday, 5 November 2022
Friday, 4 November 2022
The Watch House premiere at 19
Today marks the 19th anniversary of my first Actual Play report for our Buffy game The Watch House. I wish I could have arranged to record and podcast it so I could hear friends again, but the polished script format was probably for the best so you don’t have to listen to 19-year-old “um”s and “er”s.
Reminder for next year to do something on October 19th, the actual game anniversary.
To celebrate, I might ask somebody who’s good at painting miniatures to tackle my Buffy Unmatched figures as I finally managed to import a copy.
Thursday, 3 November 2022
The Sandman season two
Good news that should be totally unsurprising but one never knows with the streamer, or any of them nowadays.
Wednesday, 2 November 2022
TROLL
An unexpected early Christmas present from Netflix: a movie about a giant troll riffing on the 1998 Godzilla among others.
Channel 4 at 40
Happy 10 times itself anniversary to Channel 4, home of Film4, S P A C E D, Max Headroom, The Crystal Maze...
Star Wars: Andor 1.09: Nobody’s Listening!
Star Wars: Andor
1.09: Nobody’s Listening!
Well, that was... not fun.
Tuesday, 1 November 2022
7TV Dracula
This Dracula miniature has the moustache!
With a nod from Dacre Stoker, who is also involved in an RPG on the way.
Emerson
Emerson is something I just heard about via Bloody Disgusting and didn’t get to for October. A found footage style horror story... playing out in real time on Instagram and TikTok.
Monday, 31 October 2022
31 Days Of Horror Movies
My results on RPGnet. I think I did pretty well considering how this month got busy and I had to pause for two weeks.
Ghostwatch
Ghostwatch
(1992)
Clip
As noted before, I was there. But...
I never got to see Ghostwatch as intended when it aired 30 years ago tonight. I saw it as the BBC intended, with the note in the Radio Times listings magazine stating it was a drama and the announcement and drama ident at the start.
I like to think I would have figured out that it wasn’t a real live broadcast sooner rather than later, but as it was I just got to appreciate the craft, which is very clever, and when it was over I turned over to BBC Two for the Vault Of Horror night of films and mini-documentaries.
So I’ve always been a bit jealous of people (like Wood Ingham) who didn’t know...
2023 edit: BFI screening interview.
Last Night In Soho
Last Night In Soho
(2021)
Trailer, not the most spoilery available
A fashion student in modern London starts to dream... or maybe not dream... the life of a singer in the same streets sixty years earlier. And things from one time start to affect the other...
After playing with horror throughout his career, Edgar Wright aims for the real thing. His style sometimes clashes with the mood, but it’s certainly an intriguing attempt.
Wendell & Wild
Wendell & Wild
(2022)
From Henry Selick, director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline, another stop-motion movie about two contrasting worlds, though here the comparison between fostering, juvenile detention and the private prison system and Hell shows that at least Hell has the excuse of being run by demons.
The Curse Of Bridge Hollow
The Curse Of Bridge Hollow
2022
Trailer
A rationalist science teacher moves his family to a small town, and needs a moment to deal with the fact that his daughter just discovered their house was once home to an evil wizard and unleashed a curse resulting in Halloween decorations coming to life.
Note for spiders, and an old word for Romani which is still in use here but I thought was outmoded in the US.
While coming from Netflix it’s been described as the kind of thing the Disney Channel would show around this time, and I think that’s a fair assessment. Though maybe with more chainsaw action.
I believe the Spirit Halloween movie has a similar premise. And the threat of the curse resulting in Halloween forever came up in the seasonal Ghostbusters RPG adventure Pumpkin Patch Panic. So this would make a good Halloween-y one-shot setup, as it already has!
Happy Hallowe'en!
Actual trick or treaters! In double figures!
With costumes where I understood the reference! And ones I didn’t!
And a kid in a The Purge style light-up mask! Who couldn’t see where he was going with it on!
Huntober 2022 Overview
It seems like my take on Hunter: The Reckoning would have some low-key paranormal mysteries, as the prompts highlighted a few and I went with them.
1: I, Hunter
4: Safehouse
12: The Weird Find
15: Investigation
19: Lost Fight
20: The Final Shot
22: Weapon Of Choice
24: Faith
27: Unusual Methods
Vamptober 2022 Overview
This year’s prompts nudged me towards a lot of gloomy and reflective vampires.
8: Memoriam
11: My Safe Haven
Huntober 2022 31: The Death Of A Hunter
Huntober 2022 31: The Death Of A Hunter
“No ID on him. Waiting on prints.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. This looks like a professional hit...”
Attempt at foreshortening inspired by the Underground RPG.
Vamptober 2022 31: The End Of Me
Vamptober 2022 31: The End Of Me
“It’s going to be a beautiful day.”
Sunday, 30 October 2022
S.A.S. Rogue Heroes
S.A.S. Rogue Heroes is a new series from the creator of Peaky Blinders and oh boy does it show. Adapted from real research (covered in a documentary series reshowing after it which has already flagged up some dramatic inaccuracies) it features period and non-period music, shaky history, a fistfighting poet with a moustache, and a ghostly father turning up.
The “rogue” part of the title refers to the S.A.S. being created ad hoc for commando missions with little oversight, had to steal a lot of their equipment and catch lifts from desert reconnaissance scouts, and generally acted like the kind of special forces that player characters tend to end up being in war-based campaigns.
Huntober 2022 30: The Horrors Beyond
Huntober 2022 30: The Horrors Beyond
“Why does Meyer have two shadows?”
A future Vampire game Harpy
Due to an electronic music event nearby this weekend with Lothian Buses providing transport, I saw an ad for it and this woman in an audience shot. It turns out that the folding fan is event branding, but the image of someone coming to a rave all in black (complete with sunglasses) with a lace fan said Cool Vampire to me very clearly.
Update: A Young Person responds -
I've spent ages staring at this trying to work out why this is weird, but it's because I'm perfectly used to people bringing folding fans to dance events isn't it?
Thank you, Young Person!
Candyman (2020)
Candyman (2020)
Shadow puppet teaser, a technique used for stories told in-character in the film
As one of those legacy sequels that uses the original title, I was expecting Candyman 2020 to be more fully standalone, using the original film’s events purely as the legend that inspires the new one, but it’s a more direct sequel in some ways.
While it focuses strongly on the bigotry highlighted in the original, and revisits other elements like the Philip Glass score and the title sequence taking a look at the city from an unfamiliar angle, it’s also different tonally (as well as from the previous sequels it ignores but doesn’t specifically erase) and that while the original was famously serious this has a lot more humour, being partially a snarky look at the art scene.
The DVD comes with some deleted scenes including an ending, and some shortish featurettes and a 20-minute special talking about Black horror films with creators and experts on the subject.
Saturday, 29 October 2022
Huntober 2022 29: Unexplained Creature
Huntober 2022 29: Unexplained Creature
“Routine surveillance outside a club and... It’s a glitch in the recording. But it’s every recording of this one person.”
Vamptober 2022 29: Don't Trust The One With Fangs
Vamptober 2022 29: Don’t Trust The One With Fangs
After a first thought pointing out that almost all vampires have fangs...
“One each from the pack that tried to move in on Long Street. They won’t be bothering us again.”
How to spell Arrr?
I once again very slightly challenge you with the Guardian Kids Wordsearch! From last Saturday! With words to do with pirates!
Friday, 28 October 2022
Vamptober 2022 28: What Makes Me Remember
Vamptober 2022 28: What Makes Me Remember
“Her name was Constance. This is the only photograph I have of her. Hard to imagine now, how rare that was.”
Garbage, Witness To Your Love
Having provided lyrics for me to quote in Vampire games since 1995, Garbage finally make their own thee and a half minute vampire movie. Witness To Your Love.
Thursday, 27 October 2022
Huntober 2022 27: Unusual Methods
Huntober 2022 27: Unusual Methods
Remote viewing, psychometry, can require sensory deprivation. What might you be able to see?
Vamptober 2022 27: Something To Unlive For
Vamptober 2022 27: Something To Unlive For
“When the Symphony Orchestra returns for the autumn season, and I always hope for some Brahms in the year’s programme.”
Wednesday, 26 October 2022
Huntober 2022 26: Light In The Darkness
Huntober 2022 26: Light In The Darkness
“Always good to get a coffee before heading home.”
“Yeah. And it’s a nice sunrise.”
Vamptober 2022 26: Fight Until The Last Drop
Vamptober 2022 26: Fight Until The Last Drop
“You killed me! I’m gonna return the favour.”
Star Wars: Andor 1.08: Narkina 5
Star Wars: Andor
1.08: Narkina 5
Are we doing a prison break episode? I hope soon, this is making me antsy.
Is the prison a bit THX 1138? A bit.
(And why is the music a bit Vangelis?)
Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Neil Gaiman, Bloody Sunrise
Neil Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet, featuring Lara Goodridge, Bloody Sunrise. A first single from their debut album Signs Of Life, about an amusingly forlorn vampire.
Huntober 2022 25: The Reason I Hunt
Huntober 2022 25: The Reason I Hunt
“It’s not safe to carry photos of your loved ones if they’re still around.”
Vamptober 2022 25: Faith(less)
Vamptober 2022 25: Faith(less)
“May the light of Caine guide you through the night.”
Monday, 24 October 2022
Vamptober 2022 24: The Masquerade
Vamptober 2022 24: The Masquerade
“Jane Doe, about the right age and size. Once we crash and burn your car someone will take care of the paperwork and your family can have a closed casket service.”
Sunday, 23 October 2022
Huntober 2022 23: Forbidden Artefact
Huntober 2022 23: Forbidden Artefact
A driftwood cross with a figure made of bent old nails. Someone went to a lot of work on this to ward something...
Vamptober 2022 23: Can Vampires Feel Love?
Vamptober 2022 23: Can Vampires Feel Love?
“I just wish I could have met you before. You could have heard my heart beat too.”
Comedy Wildlife Photography Award finalists
The Comedy Wildlife Photography Award finalists, more of them cute than embarrassing this year.
Saturday, 22 October 2022
Huntober 2022 22: Weapon Of Choice
Huntober 2022 22: Weapon Of Choice
“A short sword like a gladius doesn’t have the hacking power of something longer and heavier, but you can wield it one-handed easily and it fits in a laptop bag.”
Vamptober 2022 22: Fashion Never Dies
Vamptober 2022 22: Fashion Never Dies
“The Little Black Dress is a timeless classic going back nearly a century. Ditto.”
Freaky
Freaky
2020
Trailer with narration not featured in the film
The release date was part of the high concept. Freaky Friday The 13th.
Because it’s a body-swap comedy between a masked slasher and a Final Girl.
(Although due to delays we finally got it in cinemas here on a non-13th Friday. By that point they could have just waited six weeks for the next one.)
So I watched the DVD on Friday the 14th, but we work with what we have.
You know how in movie posters they put the star names on top with the biggest star on the left and then a bunch of character pictures with them in the middle so some of the names and faces don’t line up? That always bugs me. But for this poster the mismatching names are on purpose...
(It’s a bit of a spoiler because we don't get to the chainsaw till the end.)
From Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon, making a career out of Buffyish horror-comedy spins on modern fantasy plots, it’s brisk and funny and silly-gory. (And has a bit of the “establish a normal day” bit that HDD required, to show how different our hero’s days before and after are.)
It takes almost half an hour to get to the swap, which surprised me because it’s the central concept you know about going in.
I was expecting it to stick to TV or movie type teen dialogue but it has some more realistically rough language in there.
Tagged for The Watch House because Milli and Ziggy did a body swap episode, and I threatened a Milli and Victoria one as well.
Wreck
Wreck
BBC Three, 2022
BBC Three, the “youth” channel, was home to the original Being Human so after a few years online-only it came back to broadcast with a couple of horror shows in its 2022 schedule. Red Rose was about a group of school leavers under attack on and offline from a lifestyle app that knew far too much, and Wreck, running now for spooky month and all online here, is a comedy slasher set around the young staff of a cruise ship. Our hero is the brother of the girl we see jump rather than be killed by the slasher disguised in the ship’s mascot costume, who signs on to find out what happened to her. On the way we get mysteries, conspiracies, romances, and danger in unexpected places. (It’s not the only genre-adjacent series where I’ve seen a fight in a ball pit due to Psychoville, but it’s still unusual.) It’s tonally very swingy but the setting adds a lot.
(And of course I’m thinking how it could work as a game setting.)
The Twilight Zone (2019)
The Twilight Zone
2019-20
Previous TV revivals of The Twilight Zone used the name and the approximate format for anthologies of short SF/F/H stories, but this one, produced and hosted by Jordan Peele, is expressly about The Twilight Zone as a source of ideas and images. Every episode has visual references and quotes in the press kit, Peele plays the on-screen narrator like Rod Serling, and one of the episodes in the opening double bill is Nightmare At Thirty Thousand Feet. There are a couple of great episodes here but it doesn't always work. Though that was always true of The Twilight Zone.
One advantage this version had is that streaming meant episodes could vary wildly in length, especially in season two, so only a couple overstay their welcome. (Although 8 manages it for me despite being one of the shortest.) My favourite here is A Small Town, a light-hearted take on sympathetic magic.
No Exit
No Exit
2022
Trailer
Getting caught up on my 31 Days, 31 Horror Movies reviews.
No Exit came out in February to basically no fanfare at all. Adapted from a novel I’d never heard of, and not the Sartre play of the same name - although it does have a tiny cast of strangers in an isolated location so could probably be a play too.
It centres on Darby, an addict in rehab to avoid jail time when she receives a call that her mother’s in hospital and leaves without permission, and then gets stuck in a snowstorm with a handful of other people in a park visitors’ centre. And then discovers one of the vehicles in the parking lot has a child bound and gagged inside.
Directed by Damien Power, maker of the Australian kidnap horror-thriller Killing Ground, this is also a kidnap gone wrong in a dangerous isolated environment. It plays like a mystery to begin with before shifting into a thriller that plays like a mostly serious take on the Coen Brothers or Fiasco RPG “desperate people making things worse” crime subgenre, and like them it includes some really nasty violence once it ramps up, some wince-inducing and some gallows humour, and it has some “oh really?” twists, but it’s a much more humane film than Killing Ground (which I found pretty unpleasant) and I liked it overall.
Disney+ Star here, Hulu in the US. In the Halloween section rather than the Horror section, which seems wrong.
Friday, 21 October 2022
Huntober 2022 21: If I Was The Monster
Huntober 2022 21: If I Was The Monster
“Did they know their neighbour was a demon? They should have. Doesn’t matter now.”
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