Shannara

Apparently I’ve been pronouncing Shannara wrong for thirty years. (SHA-nuhra, not Sha-NAA-ruh.) Not that I say it much, having read the first three books and wandered off. The TV series appears to mostly be the second book.

Apparently I’ve also been picturing it wrong, as I never actually noticed it was a post-apocalypse Earth.

The Elf royal family are a bit too regular-YA-TV. I could handle that with the humans but the titles and pointy ears just seem to need posh...

The Whining

And now in slightly rubbish X Files, a strange sound terrifies worries bothers the people of an Oregon town.

The next D&D movie aims to be... fun

Producers of the next Dungeons & Dragons movie citing a fantasy Guardians Of The Galaxy and Raiders Of The Lost Ark as the tone to aim for.

News thanks to John Rogers on Twitter:
“nothing wrong with fun. I should write a comic like that sometime...”

Choose Life

The twentieth anniversary of the film of Trainspotting. Which I always liked for the fact that the chase out of John Menzies at the start goes the right way. Granted, that security guard (screenwriter John Hodge) chases Renton (Ewan McGregor) about half a mile, but half a mile in the same direction.

That John Menzies on Princes Street, long gone, is where I bought my first miniatures, back in the mad days of the Fighting Fantasy boom a decade earlier.

Trainspotting works as an example of making something dangerous seem like an adventure without glossing over the danger.

A TV writers' room is like an RPG group

This observation comes from Robert Hewitt Wolfe, developer of Andromeda, on a Twitter roll collected here.

I found it today as it was quoted by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman, talking about rebooting Xena along with Genevieve Valentine, writer of the comics carrying on the original continuity. The interview also discusses reboots’ fealty to original stories and what you can and can’t change: “Of course she’s gonna have a Chakram, what am I, a monster?”

Propulsion 2016, and my current emergency GM plans

Propulsion, the charity gaming marathon I have in the past helped run, is back on after much room-seeking and eventually settling for a mere seventeen-hour run rather than the classic twenty-four.

And I should probably GM something, I guess.

Dunno what.

Likely candidates:

Star Wars. Apparently something happened with this setting recently, did you hear? The pitfall here is that people might expect or want the new system, which is not where I’d go. And I already forwarded my d6 System cut-down version to Matt for the game he’s planning to run at Propulsion. Which also has Star in the title, being Star Trek...

Buffy. I can do this in my sleep, and indeed have. Although after Conpulsion 2015 when I got zero uptake for a Buffy game...

Leverage. Speaking of zero uptake, the game nobody wanted to play on Sunday afternoons. Am I just being spiteful at this point?

Doctor Who. Easy enough to sell, but all of space and time makes deciding on a specific adventure a bit tricky. If I were running a mini-campaign over seventeen hours, sure. Although that would give Matt (Kai in The Door In Time) a sad.

Icons. Probably with the Avengers or equivalent. Again, the trick there is providing a suitable adventure.

Vampire: The Masquerade. Running it now, so... but it’s not a good game for one-shots.

Something with a high body count without charity rerolls. Ideally on an Aliens level. Sort of gaming the system, though...

But will I ever run any of them?

Thanks to a charity auction, I am now the proud owner of Pendragon first edition, Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade and FASA Star Trek deluxe, and the ambivalent owner of Hawkmoon.

And the answer to the above is probably... no.

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco, philosopher, author, critic and analyst of myths and conspiracy theories, has died at 84. He is probably best known for The Name Of The Rose, which is among other things a mediaeval murder mystery and an inspiration to the likes of Ars Magica.

The 100 is back...

The 100 is back, and Claire C, Onyx Path freelancer, has written up Chronicles Of Darkness merits for Ark Survivors and Grounders.

Chronicles Of Darkness

The core rulebook is now downloadable and printable. I jut hit 20,000 in my Gmail by ordering it. Expect pictures of shiny new book when it arrives.

Keep walking. Eyes straight ahead. Don’t look back.

The ZX Spectrum as a handheld console

I started computering (that is the word, right?) with the ZX Spectrum+ (individual plastic keys instead of a rubber mat!) and, yes, mostly used it to play games rather than becoming an avant-garde programmer, damn it. So a chance to play old Spectrum games on a wee gadget is sort of tempting...

Thanks to Adam Tinworth for the news.

"Find your happy place on the dark side"

The Occult Activity Book, for all your Satanic Panic needs.

Unseen Tolkien poems, on love and on Christmas

The Shadow Man and Noel, found in a school magazine from 1936.

Lego Star Wars: Poe To The Rescue

I am going to presume this is only a slightly exaggerated version of real events.

Lens flare!

Why does C-3PO have a red arm? It could fill a book...

And nice to see Phasma getting something to do. :D

Pugmire T-shirt seen in the wild!

Okay, in my game...

As sported by Jamie (TWH’s Andy) and photographed by Rick. Outfit is model’s own.

Destiny Mega Bloks

Destiny Mega Bloks - not quite miniatures, but I believe fairly close in size terms, more humanoid than Lego, and taking advantage of the customisation that not-Lego presents to provide swappable variant outfits. The ships and mecha could also work for other SF games. Opinions, Destineers?

Monopoly Rey

Star Wars Monopoly Rey looks pretty good. She has the lightsaber, so they can keep the spoilers excuse. Not sure she and the previously included Finn and Kylo Ren are quite enough to make me buy a board game I hate, but I thought I should at least inform the blog having previously done so for the complaints.

February 14th

Happy Internet Friends Day, internet friends! One of several but never mind.

Happy birthday Simon Pegg!

Happy Statehood Day Oregon and Arizona!

It’s also Valentine’s Day. Love-related plots (with or without magic causing them) optional.

The World's Greatest Thief

Research for Les Fantômes has led me to note that the classic Adventure! era of the mid 1920s is just too early for The Saint to be around... and the fictional World’s Greatest Thief who best lines up for the time would therefore be Flambeau, from the Father Brown mysteries. Do I want to make Father Brown Adventure! canon? YES I DO.

Family Game Night

A family as the basis for an adventuring party could be very interesting, if the players are up for it. A party of PCs is often essentially a group of strangers when they begin, whether the players are or not.

As noted with the news of a Lego Star Wars series...

Would you find it too restrictive? Everyone has to be related or at least connected to the family.

With command structures often getting loose in RPG parties, would you be willing to play another PC’s child? I suspect a family of PCs would have a loose authority as well. I can imagine The Addams Family as a party, or example, not just because they go on adventures and a variety of supernatural powers would be available but because the kids can run amok and the parents find it amusing up to and including attempted fratricide.

For the record I’ve done this exactly once, as a player in a one-shot Vampire: The Masquerade game at the Nationals where the pregen characters were (a) a Sabbat pack and (b) The Simpsons. Due to that structure it wasn’t a big factor, but it certainly informed our roleplaying.

An extended family makes this easier - “you’re all grandchildren of the King” is easier than “you’re all his children” - cousins aren’t generally as involved in your lives as siblings. The Amber RPG plays with a very extended family, spread enough to be more like a nation.

Borrowing a campaign hook from Matthew Knighton of Distant Stars fame, a weird family like the Addamses also allows more variety. And aren’t all families a bit weird?

An estranged family might help too, so everyone has less of a shared background.