Archive Page 10
January 30th, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Every month I write a column for Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine called Gaming the Movies. From time to time, I take material I didn’t have room for in the column and add it here as bonus content. I also have created a couple full GtM columns published here for free. Today’s addition to that is a piece on using the movie Secretariat for your fantasy role-playing game. I hope it inspires a few people.
January 3rd, 2011 by Jim Davenport
Okay, straight out I’ll say that I’m not a big fan of the whole zombie-mania. I mean 28 Days rocked and the new “Walking Dead” TV series is pretty good too. Zombie+ClassicLit did NOT work. So my hopes for Ex-Heroes, a novel crossing superheroes with zombies, were not high.
I was proven dead, er undead, wrong. Peter Clines’ novel is original and an exciting read. He has his own original heroes which don’t clone popular existing heroes. They exist in a world that also has comic books so heroes tease each other about whether or not they could beat Spider-Man. He is effective in his use of flashbacks to fill in the origins of the heroes and the threads of the plot leading to the current day. The cause of the zombie outbreak is also explained in a cool way that you never see coming.
I’d give it a great recommendation whether you like zombie or superhero novels.
December 7th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Added some more goodies to the Terriers – Bonus content page here on Dragonlaird Gaming. Also submitted the column to Kenzerco.
December 6th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Okay, you heard it here first. If Terriers is resurrected after being cancelled today, y’all have me to thank. That’s right, I started the online petition to have FX Networks give the series more time. Please stop by and help us save great writing: http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveterrierstvshow
And no, Terriers is not a dog reality show. One of the flaws of the marketing of the show is letting them keep the name Terriers which apparently confused a lot of people. Face it, if I didn’t know what it was and saw it in the TV listings, I’d never think hip comedy-drama noir in sunny southern California with Donal Logue in it.
I love this show. As you can see from my previous posts, I’m finishing up a column on it right now. Great writing, characters who have really hooked me, gripping storylines, layered mysteries. And they ended the damn show on a cliffhanger for Pete’s sake! (Actual pantheon of the deity Pete has not been determined as of press time)
So help me out and take a second to sign the petition. I made it very easy to do. http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/saveterrierstvshow
December 4th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I love the Terriers TV show. Soup to nuts, Donal Logue to Michael Raymond-James and the rest, from Ted Griffin to Shawn Ryan to Tim Minear (who always seems to have a hand in great shows, say like… Firefly). So I’m currently writing my next “Gaming the Movies” column on Terriers, jammin’ to Robert Duncan’s Gunfight Epiphany (the theme song), and hoping it gets renewed for next year. These 12-episode seasons are just way too short but hopefully it will make it more affordable for F/X to renew.
Anyway, I’ve already put up a page of bonus content which is copied from and copyright of the Terriers F/X Official Website. I captured it so it wouldn’t be lost whenever they take down the official show page on their site.
Catch an episode of Terriers on F/X while they’re running reruns and get ready to game it when my column runs in Knights of the Dinner Table magazine.
Cheers!
November 28th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Things are ramping up here at Dragonlaird Gaming. In addition to our regular monthly column, Gaming the Movies, in the Knights of the Dinner Table magazine, we’re putting plans in place for the first Dragonlaird Gaming publication. Things aren’t set in stone yet, so I don’t want to say too much, but over the next couple months, I’ll keep all of you updated as I make progress. I’m very excited about getting into more writing and working with the concept that is on the table.
My book for Bards and Sages, Adventure Havens: Temples, has completed editing and should be appearing soon on DriveThruRPG.
I’m also open to requests for other Serenity, Gamemaster, Savage Worlds, etc. content to add to this site for free. Just drop us a comment on the blog.
Cheers, Jim
September 27th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Greetings folks, I just wanted to make a short post to let folks know that I’m still writing the movie column for Knights of the Dinner Table but my day job has not left me much time for gaming or writing. I’m in a rewrite for the Adventure Havens: Temples book I wrote for Bards and Sages but not much else.
Next column? Planet of the Apes. 🙂
August 31st, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Nothing sets the mood of an adventure or scene more than music. Swelling violins for an achingly beautiful elven glade… happy dance music for the tavern… drums of warning in the jungle… dark tones of haunting. But why be too generic?
Give your most important places their own theme music. It works for TV shows and heroes in movies, why not your campaign? Consider ethnic flavors of music to provide differences between different cultures, countries, and cities. Imagine a smoky rural town with the sounds of Celtic reels escaping from the local pub compared to a densely populated cosmopolitan warren of streets with klezmer dance echoing down dank alleyways. Consider Arabic or Asian music to emphasize a city whose culture is markedly different than the characters’ home area.
Mining for strong heroic themes in soundtracks is also likely to be fruitful. Don’t be ashamed to steal obvious ones (Raiders Theme for pulp 1930s adventures, Superman theme for four-color super hero campaigns). Here is a list of some of my favorites: Unbreakable, Hercules, Last Samurai, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, any collection of Gregorian Chants, Deadwood, Air Force One, Gladiator, Punisher, Open Range, Reign of Fire, Hidalgo, Blackhawk Down, Ocean’s 11, Italian Job, Master and Commander.
And it would not be a proper list without the grandaddy of them all: The Conan movies (Barbarian and Destroyer).
Just using genre soundtracks in a game is a well known bit of gamemastery. The point is to pick a theme and assign it to a particular city, town, or region of your game world. Use it every time they come to that place from somewhere else (don’t overuse it) and you’ll establish a flavor in the mind of the your characters.
Using your computer to organize these cuts and label them with the place they represent will make it easier to keep up the technique.
July 5th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I’ve been working on a new (short?) story with two characters I’m quite enjoying. I thought my faithful followers on my blog or facebook might enjoy reading it serial-style. The more comments, the faster the next part comes out.
Teaser
Chapter One – A Cold Winter’s Night
Warmth and light in the middle of a snow-choked wilderness, the fortress was an ember tossed by a far away fire. It would not burn with life forever. Some day the deep cold and snow would consume it in darkness and silence.
Its smooth walls spoke of careful, ancient craftsmen not the hasty work of Amji slaves one saw in the south. Snow clung to its walls in places but it was still an imposing structure of dark grey stone. It was an unusual design for the region but the Olifs were never castle builders. Others had placed it here long ago.
It had been breached in several places, likely long ago, and crude remedies had been wedged into each failure. Commanding a view for miles around, it sat on the hill like a crown, a garment of snow-covered wheat fields arrayed about its feet. Blunt towers rose above the outer bulwark while the inner keep was all torn and broken stone.
“That it?” asked Corso. His friend merely nodded. Their horses shifted in the cold, their sweat freezing. It had been a long day and the light was already failing in the recesses of the woods. A sparse snowfall had been drifting down all day with promises of much more soon.
The two men looked out from their cover in the woods, across a mile of open land, up the rise to the fortress. Corso saw the watchfires on the walls and a larger glow in part of the interior. The higher inner keep was dark and cold. Hard to make out but perhaps the keep wasn’t usable.
The heavy flakes of snow kept falling. Soon only the distant road would be passable. By midnight only people with wings would be leaving this place.
Bern’s horse whinnied softly. Fear.
“They still back there then?”
“Getting bolder.”
Corso stretched in his saddle, his back aching. “Then we had best get inside where it is warm. I say we wait for dusk to deepen, charge from that nearish copse over there, scale the wall and…”
“We could ask,” interrupted the heavier man quietly. Corso turned to him and watched the snow grip the heavier man’s beard.
“Well, right, we could just ask,” he said in the tone of a child whose great idea has been forbidden by his nana. He turned back to face the castle and urged his horse forward.
They could see that they were crossing fields as they approached the fortress. Unharvested stalks of wheat lay moldy and frozen under the snow. Light was truly failing as they met the slight improvement of the road and neared the gatehouse.
“Haillu! Veso tu Compan?” called out Corso in Amji.
“What?” came a voice from behind the battlements. Corso counted two arrows aimed at them from well-designed arrow slits, but also two other slits unoccupied. The voice spoke Capellan which was good. Corso’s grasp of Amji wasn’t great.
“Hail! What company are you?”he repeated in the more flowing lilt of the Capellan tongue.
“Who by Errelsen’s balls are you?”
“Corso and Bern, Order of the Wolf with a warrant from the Olif.” Bern raised an eyebrow slightly at this but said and did nothing.
There was a pause. Corso’s horse shifted and he felt the gaze of several eyes upon them. Instinctively he touched the ring to reassure himself that it was alive.
“Which Olif?”
Corso cringed. A bad guess would mean a very cold and exciting night.
“Jhamun, of course.”
More silence. Corso heard the creak of bowstrings tightening, shifting; arms getting tired. He began to wonder who was being consulted or if the gate guard was just dithering.
“Open the fucking gate before our horses come lame!” snapped Corso. Another minute passed and finally he heard heavy bars lifting and the gate opening just enough to let them in single file…
June 27th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I’m pleased to report that the voting for the best Role-playing Game Supplement at Origins 2010 went to “Big Damn Heroes Handbook” which I had the pleasure of being on the writing team for. Thanks to all the fans of a great license, a great RPG company, and my work here at Dragonlaird Gaming.
Jim