Archive Page 11
April 25th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Okay, I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’m a comic book junkie and a comic book movie junkie. So the trailers for Kick-Ass looked pretty interesting. Take a kid in our world who wonders why no one becomes a superhero. Give him a run-in with muggers and the hood of a car that leaves him with metal plates in half his body and a lot of screwed up nerve endings. That’s a super as he gets, physically. His ability? The ability to get beat up a lot and keep going. He runs into other new super heroes and attracts the attention of a real bad guy, a drug lord hiding behind a lumber company as his front.
I read a couple of the comics before the movie, but I didn’t read the graphic novel (which sits on my shelf waiting to be read) before going to the movie. I wasn’t totally surprised that the movie put in the amount of violence, blood, and gore that it did, but just pretty disappointed. I know they were “staying true to the comic book” but it was like watching Quentin Tarantino as a teenager trying to make a movie. It was just over the top. I guess maybe the same people who can sit through Hostel and Saw would probably not have a problem with Kick Ass, but in my doddering opinion, it just wasn’t necessary. Effort put into having people’s heads blow up in your face might have been put in giving any of the characters some heart or depth. Only Nicholas Cage’s whack-job of an obsessed father (Big Daddy) had you caring what happened to him. The rest had the emotional investment of characters in a teenage sex farce.
I wanted the movie to be good. I always want the movie to be good. I watch movies looking for the good stuff. But some movies bring so much of the bad that even the stuff they do well gets lost. There was a good movie to be made here, but director Matthew Vaughn’s third attempt at directing falls far short. (But looking him up on imdb explains a lot… he was a producer for two of Guy Ritchie’s British gang films: Snatch; and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels. He directed a wannabe Guy Ritchie film called Layer Cake which didn’t live up to the promise. Shoulda cribbed more notes from Guy.)
March 25th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I received this book (Lamb by Christopher Moore) at a church “bring one, take one” book exchange. A friend of mine snapped it up and pushed it into my hand. I’m glad he did.
This is my first taste of Christopher Moore’s sense of humor and I’m enjoying it quite a bit. He’s got a great mixture of character attitudes relevant to the time of the story layered with sarcasm and snarky wit of a modern mind. (Okay, sure, I know I’m being ‘age-you’re-living-in-now’-ist, but they haven’t outlawed that yet.)
The concept is that a Jew named Levi (nicknamed Biff for the sound it made when his mother had to whack him upside the head) was Jesus’ (known in the book as Joshua rather than the Greek Jesus) best friend as a kid and all his life. With humor, it mines the story from when they are about 8 years old onward, encountering angels, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, but also filling in the gap of the first ~30 years of Jesus’ life. In the story, “Joshua” and Biff travel to find the three Magi who came to see Joshua’s birth. Their travels take them across Mesopotamia, into Afghanistan and down into India. Woven into the travels are the ways Joshua is educated or exposed to the many religions and other influences which some might say helped to define “New Testament Christianity”. I happen to think that makes 100% sense, but I’ll leave religious debates aside.
So while the book is irreverent, it is also true to the characters. Joshua struggles with knowing that he’s the Son of God but being unable to tell the world about it. He knows he’s different than anyone else in the world and it makes him very lonely at times. Biff acts as a sort of comic relief, but also a stalwart and true friend as well as an honest man to help the Messiah on his journeys.
I’m definitely going to try some of Christopher Moore’s many other titles. With luck, I’ve found another author to help feed my humorous book addiction while waiting for the next Discworld novel from Terry Pratchett (Lord, let him live to 150 years old…)
March 25th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Time for a quick status report on what Dragonlaird Gaming has been up to.
- Jim’s column in the Knights of the Dinner Table magazine is going strong. He submitted columns on Johnny Mnemonic and the 13th Warrior recently. The column on Burn Notice is still pending publication and he’s polishing up one on The Wild Geese. It’s hard to predict what corners of the film world Jim will come up with a unique gaming experience.
- Jim is also working on completion of an RPG Supplement for the Bards and Sages company called Adventure Havens: Temples. A total of 12 ready-to-go temple concepts with NPCs and story hooks along with a general section on enriching religion in your fantasy campaigns will be a PDF publication.
- The Soul of Serenity concept got derailed but it is still planned for publication here in the blog. The concept is to examine each of the nine members of the Serenity crew and understand how they enriched the ‘Verse gaming world, what story elements they introduced, how they contributed to the ensemble, and what other lessons gamers can take from them. Once Jim has time to re-watch the series (purely as research mind you 😉 ), we’ll start publishing those articles here.
Outside of the freelancing work, we’re playing Savage Worlds with the home team (the Columbus Gaming Group, going strong for 20+ years). We’ve moved into a mode of short, modular adventures with a team of PCs where different people can GM different nights and their PC is just not there for that adventure. We’re playing in Sean Patrick Fannon’s Shaintar campaign world as Gray Rangers in the Wildlands.
Cheers to the fans and drop us a comment to let us know what you’re up to or what articles you might like to see here on Dragonlaird Gaming’s site.
February 21st, 2010 by Jim Davenport
I just saw the Batman movie that Guy Ritchie made. It really nailed some of the aspects that no other Batman flick ever got right…
Of course, I’m talking about “Sherlock Holmes”, which is a silly alias to hide his work from DC Comics’ lawyers. Okay, what am I blathering about? Well, he got some of the Holmes and Watson stuff right, the CGI was excellent for that period of London, the case was suitably mysterious with overtones of dark magic and the fall of the British government. The parts that seemed quite Batman-ish were as follows.
- The Fellow Can Take a Punch: This version of Sherlock Holmes, through his intense study of human anatomy and physics, is a remarkable hand to hand fighter. He’s also quite well-muscled and strong. There is a dose of James Bond in there as he battles one unnaturally strong and durable henchman of the villain.
- The Most Brilliant Mind: Although the style is a bit different, the same supremely analytical mind is present in both Sherlock Holmes and Batman, the same way of investigating a crime scene and detecting the faintest aroma of a rare chemical only used in the manufacture of a certain thing in a certain place in a certain time… and the encyclopedic knowledge to readily recognize it.
- Catwoman: Okay, in this movie, they call her Irene Adler but I assume that is an anagram for Selina Kyle, though I haven’t cracked that one yet. The consummate thief and female criminal, Irene is the one Sherlock failed to catch, twice. She seems to be the only match for him and the attraction between the two is palpable, though they remain restrained and un-united so the attraction doesn’t catch the screen on fire.
- Watson = Robin+Alfred: Okay, he’s Sherlock’s investigation partner and combat ally in all his melees which is Robin, but he’s got the military background and skills of a doctor, hence Alfred’s role. He’s there to give Sherlock someone to explain things to so we, the audience, ‘get it’. Robin and Alfred serve the same role, otherwise Batman would nearly never speak and we’d have no idea what he was doing and how he solved the case.
- Drama, Drama, Drama: It’s a big budget, action-thriller so it has to have drama. A fight high atop the unfinished London Bridge… the villain falling to his death not by our hero’s hand but by fate… A convoluted plot involving a bomb which has to be deactivated with only moments to spare… I could go on, but the movie delivers the plot devices required to make all this relevant.
Overall, I enjoyed the film. I’d been conditioned that it was a “bad” Sherlock Holmes film so my expectations were low. Yes, he diverted from classic Holmes, but not in any way that I found distasteful. Moriarty raises his sinister head, and Sherlock has ample opportunity to display his famous ‘eye for detail’. I am not a huge Holmes aficionado but I think most people would enjoy the movie.
Grade: B
February 6th, 2010 by Jim Davenport
Just got back from a screening of “The Book of Eli”, a post-apocalyptic drama starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, and Jennifer Beals. The story is set in a world 30 years after a war “tore a hole in the sky, let the sun came down and burned the earth.” The devastated, near black and white landscape hosts a smattering of thugs, refugees, cannibals, bandits, and wanderers. Things from the “time before” are prized, from bullets and books to handi-wipes. Water is very scarce and those who control clean water control people.
Eli is one of those wanderers with an almost supernatural ability to defend himself. Here the movie is very explicit in the violence: cutting off hands, shooting people in heads, cutting off heads, etc. It is not for kids (though sadly I saw several families with small children in the audience). It isn’t as over-the-top gore as say a Tarantino flick, but they show you the battle and then let it rest.
The setup feels very much like a “western”. The lone wanderer comes into a town, becomes a threat to the boss, and is targeted by a long string of thugs and soldiers. The source of the conflict is a book that Eli is carrying, sent on a divine mission by a voice in his head. The boss wants the book to reinforce his hold over his people and expand to more towns.
One Easter Egg in the film that I enjoyed was a movie poster for “A Boy and His Dog” (1975, Don Johnson as the lead) set in a very, very similar post-apocalyptic future.
Overall, the movie was satisfying and it certainly gave me a lot of ideas for running a post-apocalyptic game. I’m thinking of writing a “Gaming the Movies” column based on this film.
Grade: B+
December 21st, 2009 by Jim Davenport
Watch almost any cop show on TV in the last forty years and you’ve seen it. Corkboard, chalkboard, or whiteboard, they all assemble the clues to the murder, pinning up photos of suspects, adding ?s where they know there are connections, keeping the case up to date for all involved. Makes sense in real life and makes added sense for a TV show where you’re trying to keep sometimes inattentive viewers up-to-speed on things in the episode. All these same factors work for ANY RPG game. I guess I call it plot-boarding.
You don’t have to be playing crime drama for plot-boarding to work. The same value can be found in far future, swashbuckling, fantasy, and many more genres. The players need to keep track of NPCs, try to understand what is happening around them, remember places and names, and keep key visuals in front of them. If you don’t meet as often as you’d like, it is invaluable for reminding the players what the game is again.
What should go on a Plotboard?
Goals: Writing down the group’s goals is a good way to force them to agree on what exactly the goal is and to keep them focused on that goal during the sessions.
NPCs: They can log every NPC they meet or just the ones they think are important, allowing the GM the freedom to make things up more on the fly without taking his own notes… the players are doing it for him. Names can be spelled right and phonetic notes made if they wish. The GM can print pictures of NPCs for the players to stick on the board.
Places: Locations in the game can be logged along with a few key words of flavor: “Greyhawk, rich, cosmopolitan”, “Sanctuary: lots of gods, thieves”. An important tavern in a city or location of a combat can be noted.
Things: Are the PCs given anything? Stick that scrap of parchment from the beggar on the board. Give them printouts of the elegant sword they found under the bed of an enemy.
Connections: Connect the people, places, and things together. Who owns that thing? Where was the thing? Where can you find that person?
Motives: Even when not trying to solve a crime, plots are about figuring out what other powers are doing, what their goals are. Use a different color for motives and note if the King seems desperate for money for the empty Treasury coffers or if the thief they catch is trying to save his sister.
In a semi or wholly virtual game, you’ll need an online whiteboard sort of solution. Suggestions for good websites or software for this?
GMs can plotboard ahead of time to help work out what they need to create, if they want to introduce red herrings or false evidence, determine what ‘pictures’ they need to have on hand to give to the players for their plotboard. It can be quite revealing to compare the players’ final plotboard with the GM’s initial one and see how different they can become.
Even if all you do is write things down on a sheet of paper and try to connect the dots that way, I think GMs and players will both benefit from plotboarding their games.
December 16th, 2009 by Jim Davenport
After writing one of my Gaming the Movies columns on the TV Show Burn Notice, I had to try out the Burn Notice novels. I took advantage of the discount you get in the DVD set of Season 2 of the show and ordered The Fix and The End Game. The Fix came out first so I’m starting with that.
The author, Tod Goldberg, has done a very good job of capturing the voices of Michael, Sam, Fiona, Madeline, etc. as well as the pace and content of a Burn Notice episode. You get a little bit more background on them here and there but nothing that couldn’t have popped up as an aside in a future episode. Some of Michael’s comments to the viewers are more lengthy than a TV show would allow, but all in all, the feel is remarkably similar.
So if you’re looking to the novels to be different or more or better than the show, they won’t be that. You won’t see characters change much if at all, which is a hallmark of most long-running stylish TV series. You expect Michael to be snarky, Fiona to be hot-tempered, and Sam to be, well, let’s just say Sam.
If you just need your fix for new Burn Notice stuff before new episodes air, I think the Fix does just fine.
November 29th, 2009 by Jim Davenport
Hey fans,
I finally got a full bonus column posted to the site so you can get a taste of what the published column is like in Knights of the Dinner Table magazine. I review the movie Wanted from 2008 with Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, and James McAvoy and describe how to create an RPG campaign inspired by the movie.
Enjoy!
November 1st, 2009 by Jim Davenport
Third in my series of Superhero books takes a look at a collection of short stories edited by Owen King and John McNally (both of whom have entries in the book). The book is divided thematically into:
- The Most Unlikely Beginnings
- The Beast Within
- A Shadowy Figure
- Behind the Mask
- Super Ordinary
I found all the story concepts to be quite original but they were uneven in quality of execution. One story, the Somewhat Super by David Yoo, stood out in my mind with a neat setup, good characterization, and an ending that made me go “Wow!”. I’ll leave that one for you to discover, but give you a taste of some others.
Man Oh Man – It’s Manna Man by George Singleton tells us about someone who discovered that he could reach through the television set and put words into the mouths of the people speaking there. In order to do good works, he focuses on forcing corrupt televangelists to call for money to be sent to places, people, and organizations in true need.
The Thirteenth Egg by Scott Snyder looks back to the atomic bomb experiments after World War 2 and the man infused with all that energy. The real story is what happens when he gets home, discharged from the service without any guidance and little control of his power. What happens to him as he tries to adjust to life as a civilian again.
The Rememberer by J. Robert Lennon examines a life where nothing is forgotten, ever. How can it be of use? How vital is the ability to forget for our sanity?
This anthology is labelled as “No. 1” so I hope they keep trying. There was enough intriguing ideas and deft writing to make it worth the read.
November 1st, 2009 by Jim Davenport
Time for another book review! We’re continuing our look at Superhero Novels with Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty. (Full Disclosure: Ms. Lafferty is a columnist for the Knights of the Dinner Table magazine where I am also a columnist).
“The supervillain attacked at the most inconvenient place and time: right on Keepsie’s walk to work. She looked into the sky at the costumed combatants and groaned.
‘Why did they have to do this on a Thursday?’ ”
Those opening lines quickly set the tone of the book. Powers exist, superheroes battle supervillains, and the rest of us still have to worry about paying the bills. In her version of the world, superheroes were created in waves. The First Wavers are classic superheroes with great powers. Our heroes? The Third Wavers with powers like the ability to hold a serving tray and never spill a beer, or to heal you… a little bit. They gather in a bar, a haven belonging to Keepsie, and complain about the arrogance of the heroes.
The book builds quickly using the familiar trope of ‘useless’ powers that slowly become more useful through creative thinking. Lafferty does it well without telegraphing it early. The tension rises as the problems at hand get bigger and bigger. Our heroes refuse to cave in to heroes or villains and become key to the battle of the day.
Lafferty’s sense of humor is subtle and keeps the book from becoming an outright parody of the genre. The heroes and villains are very creative and the powers would be very interesting to try to model in an RPG.
I’d recommend the book as an amusing read with a lot of original ideas. I hope Ms. Lafferty is writing another already.