Computer issues

New computer requirement moves from ASAP to now would be good.

Vive Chapter Seven

Sires, also trouble.

Most badass fight scenes in RPGs

A query on RPGnet. And yes, I summarise that Star Wars story.

Glastonbury 2025

Kneecap got heard anyway.

Filmhouse

Filmhouse, Edinburgh's independentart cinema, is open again after nearly three years!

Today is my birthday - give me genre-switching retellings!

Today is my birthday - give me genre-switching retellings! on RPGnet.

No, Mister Bond...

Denis Villeneuve to direct the next Bond film, whatever that is.

51.

Ironheart

Come back next week.

In the meantime, Riri has some very Stark traits, some she shares with his other “heir” MCU Peter and some very much not. Peter has the “jump in plan later”, Riri has the “I can fix anything”.

Rogue Trooper first look

Empire shares a first look at Rogue Trooper, directed by Duncan Jones using Unreal 5.

Buffy revival update

Sarah Michelle Gellar on tone, returning characters, and what it’s like for a teenage hero now compared to then:

“It will be lighter than the last few seasons of the original. We will try to find a balance between new and old characters. My dream is to bring back everyone who has died, but space will have to be made for new stories as well.”

“We’re trying to figure out how to modernize the themes of the series, especially what it means to feel like an outsider in a world dominated by social media. What we want to explore are the space-time boundaries that affect society today.”

A video from the same show where she talks about “what does this world look like in 2025” and charmingly evades some other questions.

Vive Chapter Six

Ghouls are a problem. Yours or others’.

Pride 2025

Me in the most rainbow-y garment I own, photo thanks Jamie Wheeler

The logo is yellow, pink and blue. Honest.

Midsummer

Yes, so far this summer has been quite mid.

Garbage, Vow

Thirty years ago today.

Jaws games

When I was a kid we had the original Jaws game. A Buckaroo variant where you fish things out of a plastic sharks mouth and lose if it snaps shut. I’m not kidding.

Howdy howdy howdy!

Some missing pieces meant Bruce the shark spent more time fighting Action Man.

(There’s now a more screen accurate rerelease for the anniversary. I’m still not kidding.)

There have also been more involved board and video games since.

I could imagine a small town horror game running a few sessions, though the last encounter would be a bit tactical for my style, unless it ran entirely on high fatality vibes, maybe with a Dead Of Night transferable survival system to possibly avoid a TPK.

Jaws

Fifty years ago today, working around a faulty mechanical shark changed cinema forever.

Shocking tech news

My tablet has updated and...

... I like one of the changes?

(The Clock icon now shows the current time.)

(It took me a couple days to notice.)

How do I look? Like a hood ornament!

Bentley patents a tiny drone you can launch from the front of your car to find parking and help in emergencies.

Via Gar Hanrahan: “This reads like an entry in some dodgy equipment supplement for an off-brand Cyberpunk RPG.”

Also the kind of thing a less serious James Bond might have next time.

#RPGaDAY2025

#RPGaDAY2025 has a banner image!

Featuring a bookshelf!

Looking forward to seeing what they ask!

Strange New Worlds

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is to end with season five, announced before season three airs. Shame because it’s fun, and also because we got pretty small portions - ten episodes a season, so we get an opener, a closer and eight episodes, a third as many as a season of traditional TV Trek. So these five seasons will be fewer episodes than two of TOS, with hardly any space for “normal” episodes.

The team are already talking about trying the obvious Captain Kirk followup as they have everything sitting there already, which would be fun but also feel even more backward-looking than SNW. Or Picard for that matter.

Darrington news

Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford jump ship from D&D to Darrington Press.

First time I’ve seen a news story about two people switching tabletop RPG job, like transfers between football teams. But it’s a move that will get the attention of people who dig current D&D and know other RPGs exist.

A happy Captain Picard Day and a quiet reflection on that last show!

Vive Chapter Five

French Revolution vampires burst in on the vampire aristo who has been lurking in his manor and attacking people on the road to Paris.

“Who are you?”

“We are justice!”

Which is the kind of thing that gets your character targeted by said vampire aristo.

I should probably buy more Fortitude.

The Black Iceberg

This is fine.

When I was a young boy
My father took me out to the ice cap...

KiwiRPG Week 2025

KiwiRPG Week 2025, the third annual celebration of games from Aotearoa New Zealand, 15-21 June.

Are You Afraid Of The Dark Universe?

Eight years after The Mummy 2017 and three years after they started, Are You Afraid Of The Dark Universe? has reached its Endgame.

(And just after a theme park of the same name and different setup, and Faith Erin Hicks doing a different take on The Mummy 1932.)

Interview with Christopher La Vigna about how it works and developed.

What if The Mummy 2017 had launched the intended Universal Monsters franchise after a few years instead of... not doing that?

They’re generally a lot of fun. Of course I have notes (some don’t work for me, some are too MCU and some too horror for how I feel it should go, and yikes at the start of Dark Legion and big yikes all over The Exorcist) but am mostly impressed how far writers Dylan Roth and Dalton Deschain took it, especially running at a scriptment each every month or two.

It reminds me of TWH plotting and scheming evenings.

Favourite things: big hero Gwen, the Frankensrein legacy, ruthless Punisher style badass Adelaide Van Helsing.

I also like the guest speakers talking about spinoff games and fandom and more movies starting in phase two, including Night Vale’s Joseph Fink doing a very Buffy Teen Wolf. And did I like author Lindsey Kelk swipe from The Covenant for Sounds Like Hell? Oh.

Could you game it? Sure. Probably something adventurous or mildly supers like Buffy for the action-y side. Maybe a spy game as it all started with The Mummy Meets Mission: Impossible Meets Iron Man (2). Something else for the horror entries.

Friday The 13th

Careful with ladders!

Filmhouse

Filmhouse reopens on June 27th!

Thermogenesis

Springwatch providing ideas: a plant that attracts pollinators by producing warmth. That might end up in a fantasy setting sometime.

New computer sooner rather than later.

Ballerina (From The World Of John Wick)

Ballerina was fine. Which is a vast improvement on John Wick 4. Best bit was in the trailer.

Confused by the is-that-the-same-guy-or-not minor assassin played by the main henchman from 1 who I was pretty sure was dead.

Though I was somewhat amused that a John Wick spinoff from the director of Underworld has Gabriel Byrne’s villain say “We embraced you” and “we welcomed an outsider into our clan” in his opening villain speech.

Hamlet 5, Macbeth 3

The Fringe programme is out!

Predator: Killer Of Killers

Predator: Killer Of Killers, the animated spinoff about three battles across history from the director of Prey, almost gets over the weird distancing effect of feeling like it should be live action but some of the stylistic choices pull me back out.

The Shield isn’t Beowulf, but references it in-universe.

The Sword is an homage to ninja and samurai media, and I suspect the famous G.I. Joe comic Silent Interlude.

The Bullet is only slightly less wacky than Shadow In The Cloud.

Cymera 2025 quiz

1. Which roleplaying game was the basis for the 2024 Hugo winners for Best Game Or Interactive Work and Best Long Form Dramatic Presentation?

2. "Universes Beyond" introduces settings from The Walking Dead to Tales Of Middle-earth to Spider-Man into which trading card game?

3. Space Marine by Ian Watson was the first novel based on which wargame?

4. What kind of monsters are you trying to find in the Black Forest, Miller's Hollow and Within?

5. True or false? The Ghorman Massacre dramatised in Andor was first created (tough the details vary) for a sourcebook for the original Star Wars roleplaying game?

6. Reign Of Cthulhu is a spinoff from which not-normally-SFF cooperative boardgame?

7. In which fantasy series would you find the card game Gwent?

8. Which of these series does not have an official adaptation of the boardgame Risk? Lord Of The Rings, Star Wars, Stranger Things or The Wheel Of Time?

9. Stealth Chess adds the Assassin piece that moves on extra rows called the Slurks in which setting?

10. Which came first, DIE the roleplaying game or DIE the comic series about being trapped in a roleplaying game?

-1 to all rolls

Tooth out, took five minutes unlike the one right behind it which took 55 minutes when it had to come out to make way for a wisdom tooth, and numbness faded after three hours.

007: First Light

We have a new James Bond! In video game form.

007: First Light from the makers of the new Hitman games, which seems like a solid choice.

A young Bond. As in day one.

Rumoured to be performed and based in Patrick Gibson (Dexter: Original Sin) looks kinda like Taron Egerton in Kingsman by way of Tom Holland. (While we have a diverse group of grownups aiming this white boy at things.)

Similar tone too.

They’re really snapping back to larky. They must have put real effort into getting that smirk right.

Is this a sign of what to expect in the next films? Maybe, maybe not.

RPG bundle for Ukrainian hospitals

itch bundle, 254 items including RPG PDFs for $8.00

V5: City Of Angels 1.34

Vampire: The Masquerade - City Of Angels session 34

Paris arranges a backup haven because if she stays with Eve more than a week she’ll start calling her “mom”.

She also double-checks that the Gangrel leader they’re going to ask for help is the same one who murdered a Ventrue they’d offered to help get out of town.

“We’ll be careful.”

“Okay...? Not really what I was worried about...”

Sounds Like Hell 1.06

My Buffy play-by-post game just got to the end of an episode which took two years to play. Feels a bit weird.

Vive La Vitae 3

Playing a French Revolutionary vampire, I had to get this particular ‘share with Name’ cola bottle so I could pop his cap off and drink from his neck.

Take that, Louis!

Mwahahahamycharacterisnicereally

Frankenstein (2025)

First trailer for Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein!

Due November. No sign of any of the Edinburgh bits yet.

From Netflix’s announcement thing, also with Stranger Things ending in November and a teaser for Benoit Blanc mystery Wake Up Dead Man due in December.

June

Pride was a riot