Thursday, 5 January 2023
Renfield trailer
Renfield, starring Nicholas Hoult as the titular unhappy minion, Awkwafina as one of the humans he can talk to about this and NICOLAS CAGE AS DRACULA looks like it should be fun.
Character Creation Challenge 2023 5: The Scenester
Character Creation Challenge 2023
31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters
5: The Scenester
Grace Dean
Type: White Hat
Description: Would like to be excluded from this narrative
Example quote: “I’ve heard worse plans. I think...”
 |
| Amalia Holm |
Cordelia was the fifth character in the credits in season one, and it took them a while to give her a real role, as the social ninja who is stuck with the group. Having one is useful, so...
Grace feels that someone really has to look after these people so they can, y’know, save the world and everything.
Wednesday, 4 January 2023
Character Creation Challenge 2023 4: The Watcher
Character Creation Challenge 2023
31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters
4: The Watcher
Henry Davis
Type: White Hat
Description: A furrowed brow
Example quote: “I do what I can, but at the end of the day the fight is yours... Um, sorry?”
 |
| Luke Treadaway |
Watchers might be thin on the ground after season seven, but having run a game all about them (by setting it in parallel with Buffy rather than the then current year 2003) I have to include one really.
As a manuscript conservator at the University of York, Henry Davis has seen some odd things in his time, but nothing had entirely prepared him for facing vampires attacking a symposium on depictions of the apocalypse, being recruited into an occult intelligence network, or attempting to share this information with a teenage American with the power to hit monsters very hard. He tries not to seem too uncertain around his charge and her friends.
The Bad Batch 2.01 and 2.02
Star Wars: The Bad Batch
2.01: Spoils of War
“The Bad Batch plans a risky heist.”
21 minutes plus credits.
It’s not much of a spoiler to say...
Tuesday, 3 January 2023
Character Creation Challenge 2023 3: The Slayerette
Character Creation Challenge 2023
31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters
3: The Slayerette
Kelsey Chambers
Type: White Hat
Description: A half smile, not a smirk
Example quote: “We should trade deets. In case of danger.”
 |
| Kiersey Clemons |
Someone who brings useful skills and is good at reading people can be helpful too. A caring, perceptive friend can help keep a lonely Hero grounded.
Monday, 2 January 2023
Character Creation Challenge 2023 2: The Scooby
Character Creation Challenge 2023
31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters
2: The Scooby
Lane Adams
Type: White Hat
Description: A bit gangly
Example quote: “Would you think less of me if I ran away screaming? Be honest.”
 |
| John Karna |
In a game where being kidnapped and having your heart broken are both good ways to get Drama Points, someone who gets in trouble a lot can be fun to play. So we have Scooby Gang types who don’t bring superpowers to the fight and shine more away from it.
Lane got caught up in all this due to a vampire ritual and while his involvement isn’t entirely crush-based that’s at least part of it.
Sunday, 1 January 2023
New Year festivities
The Strauss concert from Vienna was lovely, as normal. One of two Eurovision TV specials per year, quite different than the other.
No Time To Die got its main TV premiere, timed like it cam out when intended. Mum thought “that was a dead loss”. Not what she wants from a Bond movie.
Character Creation Challenge 2023 1: The Chosen One
Character Creation Challenge 2023
31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters
And to start...
1: Ashley The Vampire Slayer
Ashley Cameron
Type: Hero
Description: You’d think she’d be bigger.
Example quote: “There’s this whole thing where in every generation there’s this Chosen One...”
 |
| Olivia Holt |
Whether she’s one girl in all the world, or one girl in this medium-sized college town that seems to attract a large number of demonic attacks, Ashley still feels alone some of the time. But she has friends, and that counts for something.
Character Creation Challenge 2023
Generate a starting character for an RPG every day for a month.
I completed the inaugural 31 Day Character Creation Challenge in January 2021 with a different PC (or other starting playable thing) in a different system every day.
In 2022 I went for starting groups for six games, four of which are among my main go-to systems. I might have used that idea up.
So this year, I was thinking groups for other RPGs I can do relatively easily. Angel instead of Buffy, C7’s Doctor Who (first edition), Hunter: The Reckoning if I get it in time...
Or... hmm...
2023 sees the 20th anniversary of my almost legendary Buffy The Vampire Slayer game The Watch House, and I can do Buffy revised stats with ease, so I’m going to be creative with ideas and lazy with system...
Buffy The Vampire Slayer (revised edition)
(demo at the BBC Cult TV page, which shows most of the system including most of the Drama Points)
Buffy characters are created through points for Attributes, Skills, Qualities and Drawbacks, and there are a couple of different options for how many you get, most commonly Heroes who start with more points in most places and White Hats who start with more narrative-influencing Drama Points and regain them more easily.
A classic Scooby Gang, some Heroes and White Hats I’ve played or could play, some characters in the style of post-Buffy urban fantasy shows, and some weird ideas.
The Chosen Thirty-One
2: Lane the Scooby
3: Kelsey the Slayerette
4: Davis the Watcher
5: Grace the Scenester
6: Blake the Vampire with a Soul
7: Walden the Teen Wolf
8: Dan the Supersoldier
9: Magpie the Vampire with Another Playability Option
10: Carter the Occultist
11: Jodie the Kid
12: Grace the Witch
14: Minda the Ghost
15: “Shelley” the Teenage Frankenstein
16: Jim the Wielder of a Magic Weapon
17: Rachel the Wild Talent
20: Seth the Teenage Antichrist
21: The Spear Of The Dawn the Angel, But Really
22: Abigail the Heir
23: Ken the Expert
24: Mack the Amateur Occult Investigator
25: Santa Claus
26: Sir Adem the Knight of Byzantium
27: Moira the hero Out of Time
28: Red Your Demon Pal
29: Andrea the Fortune Teller
30: Casey the Neo-Slayer
31: Nega Ashley the Nega Slayer
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.
And we can see the back of the fireworks from upstairs.
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.
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