The Warlock's Home Brew

Icons Session Issue 1: Vanguard 13

2012-01-27T10:59:00.000-07:00

As promised, the session rundown from our first Icons game.

After a brief introduction that went something like this:

1942!

On a brisk spring afternoon in downtown Shore City, the grim populous goes about their business with the ever presence of the war in Europe weighting heavy upon their minds!

In a lecture hall on Tuska Avenue we find Professor Millicent Barnes giving a lecture on her theories of artificial intelligence along with the mechanical marvel of wires, vacuum tubes and pneumatics Automaton!

Professor Barnes: “As you can see, this marvel of wires and vacuum tubes walks on his own, thinks for himself and reasons! Much more 'evolved' that the cold and calculating Mr. Roboto!”

In Stan's Red Cup Cafe, a small coffee shop down the street, we find Nate Brown sipping at a cup of joe and reading the Shore City Chronicle!

Waitress: "Would you like me to warm that up for ya?”

While at not far away at the WEGG Radio studios we find that ace reporter Penelope Kirt interviewing Lord Genovasis, formerly professor Dickersham, the father of Meta-humans!

Penelope Kirt: “Don't you think it's the obligation of meta-humans to support the war effort?”

We got into it with three giant robots attacking the Old Mercantile Exchange on Tuska Avenue (see The Shore City Chronicle for complete details of these metal monsters!).

No sooner had two of the three robots burst into the building in a blaze of gunfire when another metallic being walked out of the Hogarth Lecture Hall across the street and engaged the villainous robot.

The metal being known as Automaton saved a number of citizens from the gunfire of the devious machine before it was taken down by what appeared to be a janitor named Nate Brown, aka the Sponge!

It was then that the infamous Lord Genovasis appeared on the scene.

While preaching his usual rhetoric of meta-human supremacy, he was attacked from behind by the two remaining machines leaving the Mercantile Exchange.

The battle lasted mere moments but the two machines were destroyed and the three mystery men were victorious.

However, the battered and fearful citizens turned their rage upon Automaton and began to attack him but were soon dissuaded by the twenty foot presence of Lord Genovasis.

Before more chaos erupted a convoy of military trucks appeared. After a brief discussion with Col. Buckler and the the three mysterious 'heroes' who were joined by Professor Millicent Barnes, they boarded a military truck and drove off.

The disabled machines were placed onto trucks and hauled away.

Col. Buckler and the trio of heroes arrived at Lord Genovasis' lab. There Buckler revealed that President Roosevelt had started a secret project called Operation: Vanguard. In it, groups of super-heroes would be gathered together to help with the war effort. Roosevelt wanted Lord Genovasis, The Sponge, and Automaton to be the thirteenth Vanguard group to work for the Government. Thus Vanguard 13 was born.

For their first mission, they were to discover where these robots were coming from and put a stop to it.

Automaton had earlier examined one of the defeated robots and found what appeared to be a type of homing device. With that they were able to determine that the robots were being called from a rural area 200 miles south of Shore City.

Hopping on a transport plane, they headed for the area and parachuted down.

They discovered an abandoned farm. Exploring the silo they found it to be just a cover for some kind of metallic wall. Wanting to keep they element of surprise, they entered the barn. Exploring the barn they found that there were grooves in the floor. Automaton found some wires and tried to hot wire the mechanism to open the trap door but was only somewhat successful. Moments later, though, the floor opened up. Nate Brown , aka, the Sponge, leaped away in time to save himself from falling in, Automaton grabbed hold of the edge while Lord G. fell through the opening. He quickly grew to his 20' height to cushion his fall. He helped the other two down into the darkness.

Once down, a mysterious voice crackled over a loudspeaker: “Typical witless Americans. You are no match for Der Fuher's war machines and no match for me, Baron Zero! Now face your end!” And with that, six panels opened on either side of the heroes and out charged Nazi Guard-bots firing machine-guns. The Heroes made quick work of these machines but they were soon joined by a speeding blur assaulting the heroes, Blitzkrieg, and her armored brother Panzerfaust!

The Sponge absorbed Blitzkrieg's speed abilities and soon she was conscienceless. Her brother Panzerfaust shouted her name and ran to her aid firing his chest blaster at the group. Sponge, taking a gun from Lord G. and using his new found speed to fire round after round at the armored foe, eventually striking him in his only weak spot, his face!

The the two Villains defeated, they heard a rumbling sound as the mysterious Baron Zero took off in a Nazi rocket hidden in the silo.

Thus ended the first adventure of Vanguard 13!

Gameplay Thoughts: ICONS

2012-01-24T14:45:00.002-07:00

So last night we had our first session playing ICONS the rules lite super hero rpg.

Every first session of a new rpg is always a little bumpy but we got through it mostly unscathed. Here's my initial thoughts on how the game played through.

The story portion of it went well as did most of the mechanics. We seemed to get a bit stuck on the slams and stuns but it did appear we did it correctly for the most part. The tests against slams and stuns, though simple, slowed us down and took us out of the combat. Though combat was easy it took a bit to get things flowing.

Having the GM not rolling any dice is a bit odd and took a while to get use to. The thing that I like about it is that the GM can just sit back and enjoy manipulating the game and not have to mess with any dice. As GM I did roll for NPC stuns and slams but I think I may bounce that back towards the players. Dunno yet.

The great thing about the game is it's open-ended rules. There's a lot of space for interpretation which is both a good and a bad thing. Taking the rules as is, some powers are extremely powerful - at the moment it seems too powerful while some weren't powerful enough. That caused some conversation at the table that took us out of the game. I guess if you're using ICONS as a one-shot that might not be such a big deal you just kind of play though it and have a good time, but for something more substantial like a campaign, those issues become much more important.

One power that caused us all kind of trouble was Power Theft which turned out to be quite powerful; stealing opponents powers almost at will. The player took the bonus of being able to siphon powers from a distance without having to touch them. Powers stolen are retained for 10 times the level of power in pages (rounds). So Power Theft with a power level of 6 can hold a power for 60 pages (round). Since combat lasts only about 3 to 10 pages, an opponent can be rendered helpless for the combat or even game session. There's no limit, that I can find, on the number of powers that one can steal. Also no mention on which power is siphoned if the opponent has multiple powers. When running a villain, you don't really want to advertise what powers he might have, that should be left up for the players to discover. That can be fixed with a random dice roll.

Also, my issue as a GM was I felt that Power Theft would only work against natural powers and not gadgets or mechanical powers as these were machines mimicking a power and no real power energy would be available. That was a point of debate especially since a good portion of the villains were machines. And any debate at the table takes away from game play.

Other powers that have come up that the rules leave vague or seem to be too weak or too strong are Invisibility and Regeneration. I'll touch on those a bit later.

Also, during gameplay, powers had to be looked up frequently. The way the book is laid-out makes reference a bit of a hassle. I made a number of cheat sheets and downloaded others but the looking up powers were a bit of an issue. It would be nice if they had a simplified version of the powers with quick reference stat blocks that you can reference at a glance, like monster manual stat blocks. I'll have to look at the powers and see what can be worked up.

Beyond those issues, the action and story moved forward and the mechanics did become easier to work with. It is rules lite and fast paced and I think it's perfect for our rotational GM campaign as a game session can be pretty easy to run. I ran my session last night and Corey is up next. We'll see how the game irons out as we progress through the circle. Overall the feelings were pretty positive.

I'll be posting a session summary soon as well as stat blocks of the villains.

Game Prep: ICONS

2012-01-20T11:40:00.001-07:00

A few days closer to the start of our ICONS campaign and I'm really looking forward to it. I've brushed up on rules once again and I think we're ready to go on Monday.

Two of the players have rolled up some ICONS heroes, Automaton, the Mechanical Marvel! A wonder of wires, vacuum tubes, and pneumatics! and Lord Genovasis the father of Meta-humans! The character creation process is great in ICONS and these first two PCs really show that off. We should have a pretty full house on Monday with at least three more PCs and we'll start with chargen for the rest of the players.

The general setting for the beginning of this campaign takes place in Shore City in 1942. Shore City is the campaign city created by John Stater found within his Mystery Men! rules. He did a great job setting up that sandbox, fleshing it out with all manner of locations, plot hooks and characters.
To go along with the campaign I created The Shore City Chronicle, a newspaper formatted blog for the rotating GMs to add plot hooks, red herrings, and general campaign color. You can check it out here.

There's an audio file I made to add atmosphere and kick off the campaign as well. You'll find it in one of the columns of the newspaper or at the bottom of this post.

I'll have more next week about our session, characters, villains and thoughts about the play of the game.

And Now A Word From Captain America About SOPA

2012-01-18T08:47:00.003-07:00

And now a Public Service Announcement from our Star Spangled Avenger.

Click on me for in yo'face Cap!

ICONS Campaign Preparations

2012-01-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

Next week we will have our first ICONS session. Since I will be running the first session, I will be spending this week in final preparation, polishing up my knowledge of the rules, settings, creating some 'props' etc. in the hopes of having everything run smoothly.

The quick summary of what this campaign is about:

The goal is to create an entire campaign universe through game-play with everyone's input.
The campaign will start in 1941, the Golden Age of comics, pass through the Silver Age (60's) and then into the bronze age (70's and 80's) and finally end in the modern era.
This campaign will rotate GMs every session with each GM running one session from each era of comics. When all GMs have run their session within the first era, called a sessions round, we then move to the next era.
For the most part, sessions will be one-offs but if a session is one that needs to be continued the next GM will take the reigns of the story for the next session. This should be a good exercise in keeping GMs loose with a play-it-by-ear approach.
The GM order is determined randomly at the end of every session.
Players are not obligated to GM if they do not desire.
All GMs will be able to use NPCs and situations that have occurred in all previous sessions.
GMs have free reign over what their session is about though it must begin by being rooted in the era of the session round.

ICONS seems to be a fairly easy game to run and is pretty rule's lite system. The story progress and game events relies just as much on the players as the GM so there should be a good community aspect at the game table. I'm thinking that this would make GMing the sessions easy for those out of practice or looking to get their feet wet.

I'm hoping that the rules carry themselves well among our seasoned players. I'm thinking it will. After all, any RPG is more than just rules, it's what you as players make it.

I'll be off and on this week posting my game prep.

The Old Marvel Universe and the Marvel Movies

2012-01-11T09:45:00.004-07:00

With our upcoming ICONS campaign and with the upcoming Avengers movie release later this summer I've been thinking a a lot about how the movies relate to the Marvel Universe that I grew up with.

Regardless of some of the movie elements tying in more with the Marvel Ultimates line, I think that the movies, especially in a particular order, pretty well mimic the thrill of the original Marvel Universe of the Silver Age.

So how would one watch these movies best to recreate the initial excitement of the characters created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and other silver age creators? We'll this is what I've put together:

Captain America: The First Avenger
The obvious beginning; Jack Kirby's and Joe Shuster's 1941 star-spangled creation put the Timely/Atlas/Marvel comics on the map. A well done film which stands as a strong foundation to the marvel movie universe and introduces the super-serum which appears again in The Incredible Hulk. I suggest skipping the post credit sequence, just end it with Cap 'disappearing'.

X-Men: First Class
Though the X-Men comics began in 1964, the same month that the Avengers debuted, I felt that because a portion of this begins during WWII and concludes in the early 60's, this is the obvious second film in the series. The X-Men were always a bit off on their own so this just reinforces that aspect of the movie universe. Another good flick and sets the foundations for the Mutant heroes.

Fantastic Four
Yes. The first FF movie. After Cap and the 'death' of the super-hero during the 1950's (thanks to Prof. Wertheim) superheroes didn't make a comeback until the early 1960's. DC had the Justice League and Marvel came out with the Fantastic Four. As a movie, it has it's problems but I still liked the first one enough. We'll get to the second one in a bit.

Hulk
The second super-hero book marvel put out was Hulk, so the Ang Lee movie places here. I still like this movie especially since it has the Hulk jumping around the desert in a purple spedo.

Spider-man
The Hulk comics only lasted 6 issues but it's canceling made way for the coming of Spider-man in Amazing Fantasy #15. Though the Spider-man series wouldn't actually begin until a few months later, Sam Raimi's first Spider-man movie shows up here.

Now, Thor actually made his debut the same month that Spider-man did but I'm going to hold off on Thor a bit until we enter the more cosmic era of the Marvel Universe timeline.

Iron Man
So now we come to the next hero created, Iron Man. With Robert Downey's portrait of Tony Stark and the Golden Avenger (complete with clunky original Iron Man armor) is a perfect fit for this movie series. SHIELD begins to make it's film universe appearance here.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
We begin now with the cosmic era of the Marvel Universe with the introduction of Galactus and the Silver Surfer in this, yes, sub-par flick. Sure it's a bit of a let down, what with Mr. Fantastic doing his fantasti-dance and all, but they did get the Surfer's look right, though Galactus was a huge disappointment. I swear, if you look closely at that cloud at the end you can just barely make out the head of the Big G - barely. But it's included here for continuity sake.

Thor
Okay, in full cosmic mode. Though Thor was getting cosmic a bit before the FF introduced the Silver Surfer and Galactus with the late 1965 appearance of the Destroyer and the full grandeur of Asgard I think it actually fits better after FF2. Again, SHIELD is present with hints towards the Avengers.

Spider-man 2
With the 'death' of the Green Goblin in mid-1966, Doc Ock became Spidey's main protagonist. While the rest of the Marvel Universe went cosmic, Stan Lee kept Peter Parker and Spider-man grounded in the dramas of day to day real-life. Thus Raimi's second flick places here.

The Incredible Hulk
With Ed Norton's portrail of the troubled Bruce Banner, the introduction of the Abomination and the birth of the Leader I'll place The Incredible Hulk here. An appearance by Tony Stark (and SHIELD) unifies the Universe and begins the build up to the Avengers.

Iron Man 2
We start to break a way from the early 60's chronology a bit by this point as a drunken Tony Stark doesn't really appear until the late 70's (or 80's?). But you do have Whiplash, a classic late 60's Iron Man villain and Titanium man. SHIELD's presence along with the Black Widow tie up things nicely for the debut of the Avengers.

X-Men 1
Since the X-men and the Avengers comic series both began in September 1963, I'm placing the first X-Men movie here (for now) though I think after the release of the Avengers movie I would place X-Men after it. But until that happens I'm happy with it here.

The Avengers
The release date of May 2012 should give you plenty of time to view these Marvel movies in this order to 'relive' so to speak, the thrill of the birth of a comic universe that changed comics.

From here I would place
Daredevil
X-Men 2
Spider-man 3 (if you can tolerate another viewing of it)
Ghost Rider
X-men 3

D&D Evolutions

2012-01-09T08:26:00.017-07:00

At last, the 5th edition displacer beast is outta the bag. By these initial accounts, WOTC is foregoing designing a FRPG by committee and instead going with designing a FRPG by community.

Now, one might initially feel that by going with an 'open forum' style of design you might get the best of the best ideas, the creme de la creme. Well, I'm more of the belief of "too many cooks..."

Lets take a walk down the evolution of Dungeons & Dragons with the 1st level Wizard:

OD&D
Creators: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson
1st level wizard was lucky to survive leaving the tavern. Hell, most characters were lucky to survive leaving the tavern.

1st ed D&D
Mostly Gygax (one man vision)
Wizards still started out quite weak but, if surviving initial adventures, became quite powerful. Big If. What?
I can only cast one spell!?!

2nd ed D&D
Zeb Cook
1st level wizards were still pretty wimpy, no doubt influenced by the earlier editions, but had much room to grow. Looks cool but still only 4 hp.

3rd and 3.5 ed.
WOTC (Okay, I don't know who really put this one together but it's not just a single vision).
The 1st level wizard begins to break away from the wizard tradition into something more super-heroic and super-profitable for WOTC.

4th ed D&D
Designed by focus groups and in committee meetings and directed by suits who know nothing about gamers, games or gaming but only how to produce the maximum profit.
Enter the indestructible Super-wizard.
"I can fuck you up with Magic Missile every round, sucka!"

5th ed D&D
Designed by a fickle community

Or in other words...

Being a graphic designer, there are many times when I have to please a committee and I can tell you from experience that you end up with a product and I would be ashamed to put in my portfolio. Sure, everyone is somewhat happy and was able to put in their two cents worth of their inflated ego onto paper or on the computer screen but they ended up with crap.

So, now WOTC is going to pass the buck and let the game be designed by a bunch of fickle gamers. WOTC can say don't bitch at us, we gave the community exactly what they wanted. Nice to show some real cajones.

So how much coin do you want to bet that 5th ed D&D will be a collectible card based board game?

But I don't really care one way or the other as I haven't bought any of their products.

Oh well, on to games that are actually fun created by people who love them.

Dungeon Art: Mountain Hag

2012-01-05T09:42:00.000-07:00

Here's an illustration for the Mountain Hag soon to appear in a revised Monster book for Swords & Wizardry.

Happy New Year From The Warlock

2012-01-03T08:32:00.008-07:00

Greetings my followers! It has been many cycles since I have spoken as I have been traveling the Outer Rings of Alpha Space and return with tidings of 2012!

I feel that for me, 2012 is going to be a super year and by super I mean in the heroic sense! It seems that the ICONS campaign (which I'm calling Universe) will be moving forward with rotating GMs and all. Sessions beginning in 1942 and working their way up to the present day, whatever that may look like. I'm looking forward to being a GM as well as a player.

Great movies coming out this year including Ridley Scott's Prometheus, The Hobbit (part the first), and the highly anticipated Avengers! Don't forget John Carter too (I wish I can get past that flippin' Disney logo). Thankfully there won't be any new cinematic Conan debacle this year!

Our Swords & Wizardry campaign is still moving forward, clocking in at over two and half years and over 40 sessions now. I wonder if my players will finally come face to face with Zenopus? We'll see, but knowing this lot, they may end up on the other side of the universe before that happens!

So, 2012 looks to be shaping up nicely! Remember, however, there's less then a year until the Eater of Worlds arrives to really f-things up! So until then, Merry New Year and Game On!

Session XLI: PornOGREphy

2011-12-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

So Monday was our last RPG session of the year. The holidays just go too damn busy to even try to schedule 10 people to get together to roll dice. So we usually take this time off and regroup after the new year.

We were planning on a full table, even Tim, who hasn't played in I don't know how long, showed up. We lost one player at the last minute and one ended up Skyping in due to new Baby watching duties. Eight faces around the table along with three cats and two dogs; full house no matter which way you slice it.

It was the usual raucous session and much hilarity ensued most of which, unfortunately, doesn't make it into the posts.

After passing through the gore and entrails of the 12 apostles of the Black Sun and catching up to their companions in the Temple of the Black Sun, Gnarly and Wolfheir come upon the scene we left our heroes in last session; Arg the half-orc unconscious by the hand of Skwanky the halfling, Slick Vinny invisible and bleeding after being mauled by a Hydra, the turn-coat Father Halford entangled in a web cast by Vinny, Flora-Fawn the fairy hovering around the remaining snapping jaws of said hydra, and Televon with the Crown of the Black Sun upon his head.

As Gnarly was healing Vinny and Wolf was debating slaying the entangled Halford, in walked their long lost companion, Adessa. Apparently, Adessa had split the group after she had lost a battle with her evil side and had recently taken up with Halford. She was working with Ankral the Dwarf assassin in a distant chamber was was told by her dwarven boss to go see what the commotion was.

Spying his new hire, Halford tries to get Adessa to free him but Wolf leaps onto the amazon and pinned her to the ground. Even with her Gauntlets of Ogre Strength she was unable to free herself from the Viking warrior. Soon afterwards, Wolf and Gnarly had her bound but that didn't last long as she snapped the rope strands and began to attack the Viking. But it was Gnarly that put her down once again by heating her armor and making her pass out. This time they removed her Gauntlets and bound her once again.

The hydra, who was unable to climb out of the hole, fled back into it's lair with one of it's head dragging behind, a causality of Arg and FloraFawn.

Arg and Skwanky wanted to follow the Hydra down it's Hydra-hole but first they prodded Halford a bit. Gnarly stabbed him in the back with his spear and then Arg tossed him into the pit. (Wolf then urinated on him from above but I'll leave that part out).

Then Arg and Skwanky tied a rope to the alter and lowered themselves down into the pit. They saw Halford limping away, mumbling. The two warriors pursued the fallen priest and began to hack away at him. Halford had one last ace up his sleeve as he reached out and grabbed the Half-orc and burned him with the remaining power of the black sun. Then calling the Hydra back upon his enemies Father Halford, former priest of Mithra and now follower of the Black Sun fell dead. But Arg and Skwanky had more to contend with as they were face to face with the now four headed hydra. As one head began chomping on the halfling, Arg began smashing through the other heads until the beast lay dead. Finding nothing in the lair and wounded and bloodied, they ascended back up to the temple.

Adessa, learning of Halford's death felt no obligation to him what-so-ever and told his former companions that there were hidden treasures somewhere within these chambers. The Dwarf assassin had some and Halford had some hidden as well. It was decided to head over to the dwarf and steal her treasures.

Still unsure of Adessa's motives, Gnarly kept her bound as she lead them to the Dwarf's chambers. Now with the Gautlets of Ogre Strength upon his tiny hands, Skwanky the halfling and Arg knocked on the door. A gruff female voice on the other side answered. When Arg, trying to impersonate Adessa responded, a furious Ankral opened the door to discipline Adessa She was surprised to find Arg standing there. A brief fight in the doorway later Ankral was dead but then her lover Charles the Ogre battled Arg and Skwanky but soon he too fell to the onslaught of the Half-orc and mighty halfling barrage!

Lifting some keys off of their fallen foes, the party explored the temple dungeon and the chambers of Ankral and Charles. Within the Dungeons they discovered a handful of citizens of Caladan awaiting their fate to be turned into Ghouls for Halford's undead army. Gnarly and Televon aided the unnerved prisoners.

Meanwhile, Arg broke into Charles' the Ogre's room. Besides a pile of straw and dirty rags the walls were etched with crude drawings of naked ogre females as well as nude drawings of Ankral the dwarf (this is what happens when you let the players help describe the contents of the room).

Finding nothing of value within the chamber the party proceed to explore Ankral's room and found a sensual pleasure chamber; incense, and tapestries, cushions and divans and even a heart shaped bed! It seemed that in the recent weeks of Adessa's employment, Ankral the Dwarf and Charles the Ogre had tried to get Adessa to join them in a dwarf / ogre / amazon three-way but she didn't want any of that.

After finding a trapped chest which hit Gnarly with an arrow, the room was looted and the party, leading the prisoners, moved on. Gnarly lead the prisoners back up to the cabin (the entrance to the temple tunnels) to await their return as they continued to explore the rest of the temple.

Heading down the southern and final passage they descend deeper into the temple. Opening a final door, Arg and Skwanky step into a large cavern guarded by three ogres and overseen by an aid to Halford. In front of this shady character were two tables with two townsfolk on them, other prisoners are in a cell at the back of the cave. Arg tried to bluff his way in and past the Ogres but eventually the shady character called the ogres to attack as the rest of the party rushed into the room.

Skwanky put on his ring of invisibility to try to get behind the shady guy and kill him but it wasn't before the minion pulled a lever that opened up two grates and in rushed twenty ghouls! Televon, acting quickly, lifted his holy symbol of Morpheus and half the the ghouls retreated back into the safety of their cave. Gnarly entangled another portion of them with some vines and thorny bushes. Along with the Ogres the remainder of the ghouls attacked the party. A large chaotic battle ensued with Skwanky and Arg taking out the ogres while the ghouls began to paralyze and the rest of the party. Eventually, one by one, the remaining ghouls were destroyed but not before a number of close calls!

After freeing the other prisoners and plundering the ghoul lab, the party headed back up to the cabin. Dusk was falling so it was decided that they all, party, mushrooms and rescued prisoners, hole up in the cabin until dawn. The session ended with the party discussing where they might have missed some treasure for they never found Halford's quarters.

So after almost two and a half years of gaming, forty-one sessions with S&W and a year passing in game time it was a pretty fun session for the last one of the year. A lot of laughs and some surprises with Brian gifting games to everyone. A great group indeed!

ICONS Campaign Creation: Exquisite Corpse Style

2011-12-08T08:39:00.001-07:00

Update: This post squeaked out before it was done in the oven. I hope it's not too badly written.

I mentioned that I'd start discussing my ICONS campaign idea so here we go.

I've been running my Swords & Wizardry campaign for just over two years now. We took one break last summer so that I can be a player in a Savage Worlds campaign (which still needs to be completed). Needless to say, I'm getting a bit dry on running a fantasy campaign and a nice change is needed. That is where ICONS will be coming in.

Here's the pitch....

I've learned to let the players create the campaign world while I just fill in what is needed. I love campaign histories too so instead of coming up with this on my own for ICONS (which I really don't want to do), I thought I'd let the group as a whole create this campaign. I also want to be a player more and not be stuck 'behind the screen' so much.

Now ICONS, if you haven't checked it out, is a very rules lite Heroes game. I think it would be easy for anyone to run a session. The mechanics are quite simple leaving all the rolling to the players, that leaves the GM as more of a guide for the session, introducing plots and characters and situations without having to keep all the rules and rolls in his/her head.

I like that. I like that a lot.

So the ICONS campaign will rotate GMs every session. The GM can use whatever the previous GM used such as plot, characters, events etc or just go off on his own tangent. Since most of the sessions will be self-contained there shouldn't be much of a problem. Even if a session is 'to be continued', the next GM can take that story anywhere he wants. Any GM can tap into previous events to spark a session of their own. Think of it as an Exquisite Corpse style of gaming. Everyone GMs and everyone plays. Think of every GM as a comic writer coming in to take over a title.

There will four or five rounds of this. The first round will take place in the Golden Age of comics around the early 1940's, the second round will take place in the Silver Age (the 1960's) while the third will take place in the Bronze Age of comics (70's/80's) and finally modern times. So each GM would run just a single session within one of those ages.

This whole process will create a history rich campaign that any GM can tap into for additional story material. Perhaps a villain from the Golden Age puts himself in suspended animation and returns in the bronze age more powerful than ever? Maybe the outcome of WW II is different than real history which would create a totally different world and scenarios than now? Whatever the case may be, everyone would be involved and invested in the creation of this campaign world.

So I would run the first game session starting in 1942. At the end of that night's session, the remaining players that are interested in running a session all roll a die, we'll say a d12 since it's kind of a lonely die. The highest roll will run the next session which continues the Golden Age era, all the way around until everyone had a turn to run a session then we move on to the Silver Age, etc.

Now I like the idea of not knowing when your GMing turn comes up as it keeps you on your toes, letting your ideas form based on previous sessions. Of course, you can come up with a complete adventure without tapping into anything that happened previously. But my experience with this group is that they're very creative and there's gonna be plenty of things happening that no one else would have thought of but could be a great inspiration.

So that's the general concept. The rest of the group liked the idea too. I'll be fleshing things out a bit more and, of course, posting it here for your reading pleasure!

ICONS' Appeal To Me, An Old Schooler

2011-11-30T09:40:00.000-07:00

What is it about ICONS, a modern rules-lite heroes game, that has such strong appeal to me, a self-proclaimed old-school gamer?

Good question, I'm glad you asked me!

I'm not a big fan of modern table-top RPGs. With but a few exceptions, I think most of the rules are way over complicated, character generation is absurdly drawn out, and the marketing aspect of having to purchase more 'optional' books and crap is, well, just a shitty marketing ploy. I'm a cheap-ass gamer, if I can't get something for a few dollars or less I'll just make it myself. Plus I always felt that the odds of killing some monster are really the same no matter if you're a 5th level Fighting-man battling a room full of Ogres or if your a 5th level Gnome Barbarian who's half Lycanthrope with a +8 quarterstaff of dread and rolling 20d6+3 for dammage battling a room full of Ogres (well, you know what I mean). The game mechanics just scale but the odds are the same just over complicated. Feel free to check my math, but that's my theory anyway.

The same story is told, the same battles take place so why not keep it simple? Who really has the time for all that nit-picking? I just want to have a good time with friends where we all tell a story.

So back to ICONS....

First off, ICONS is a rules/mechanic lite game. 2d6 and the players make all the rolls testing one ability against another. Modifiers are kept to a minimum. Anything goes in combat between heroes and villains but the rules are simple and open enough that with just half a thought rolls can be made. The action and the game is colored by all the players involved. Actions are fully open to the depth of the players imagination, which I think is THE key element to any rules-lite game. The same rolls of the dice my be used to determine similar actions but what the player adds to that action determines the drama. Again, the creativity of play falls back onto the players and not the rules.

Though the layout and production of the rules and supplements may have a Bruce Timm cartoon quality to it don't let that fool you, the game can be played with any mood in mind, from a grim, dark and dirty avenging knight to a Kirby-esque cosmic level world eating threat and anything in-between. The rules give you just what is needed to take it anywhere you want to go. It's a complete game in under 130 pages.

Steve Kenson, the creator of ICONS (and of Mutants and Masterminds) hit the nail on the head with what I feel is a modern old-school style game. There are plenty of references in the rules to 'using common sense' and 'just make it up' which might be alien to some strictly modern gamers but is pure gold for someone coming from an Old School background. In the section that is called Game Rules vs. Common Sense Kenson wryly states:

'...ignore the rules and go with what makes the most sense to you and what
you think will be the most fair and fun for your players; and if one of them should object and say, “That’s not in the rules!” point them to this paragraph and say, “Yes, it is.” '

Beautiful loophole to put rule sticklers in their place.

Character generation is quick and exciting and sparks plenty of imaginative characters. Everything is laid out for a player to flesh out his rolled character with his own creativity. That's a beautiful reference to the early versions of RPGs where the player developed the character based on a few stat rolls and not the other way around. And that's the point, there is plenty of room for developing a well rounded, three-dimensional character based on the players imagination and not dice rolls.

Kenson gives us random charts to create adventure hooks on the fly, a handful (13) of fully fleshed out colorful villains each with origins and three adventure ideas, and even a sample adventure. Did I mention a provided single page character sheet with a full quarter of it left open for you to draw your character?

As I mentioned above, it's a complete game in 130 pages. Adamant Entertainment have the pdf rules on sale right now over at RPG Now for $1.99. So for that price it's worth checking out. I'm not a big fan of using rules in pdf format. I usually need to reference and flip back quickly to clarify and compare elements so I actually purchased the print version of the rules. Now, the cost is a bit steep for what I would pay for a 130 page rule book but I made the exception for ICONS and was very happy with the purchase. A very well produced and printed book, the size and shape of a graphic novel.

So in short, why ICONS appeals to me, an old-school gamer:

Complete game in 130 pages.
Quick and creative character generation
Rules-lite with simple mechanics
An anything goes and anything can happen attitude
Creative game play is left up the the players around the table and not the dice
Adventures and villains included.

One common criticism of the game is that it is limited towards long term campaign play. This I disagree with. It can work fine in long-term play as is or with a couple of simple house rules to allow for character 'advancement' or a point based character creation process. Like many of the games I started out with, Holmes Basic D&D, Traveller, and Top Secret the game doesn't have to 'define' specific rules for 'level' advancement, character development and situations define that. Levels are just a guide.

So there you have it. The mystery of the allure of ICONS revealed.

Preparing To Play A New Game Takes Me A Loooong Time

2011-11-28T08:49:00.003-07:00

Time is limited for everyone these days so picking the 'right' game is everything.

For me, preparing to play a new RPG takes me a long time. Once we start playing, however, prep-time shrinks to almost nothing but prior to that first session, I spend months looking over the rules, understanding the rules, contemplating campaign scenarios, debating rule-sets for genre, etc. The main reason is that I want everything during that first session to go smoothly, I want the players to have a great time and I, as GM, want to have a great time as well and not be hung-up on rule mechanics.

When I began our Swords & Wizardry campaign back in October of 2009 I went through quite a long process before that first session. Not in game session prep but in research. At that time I've been out of gaming since the early 80's so I was starting fresh.

After a big reminiscence session with a friend of mine about D&D (he pulled out the LBBs) and soon after Gary's passing, I began being drawn back into the excitement of that FRPG. It was then that I discovered DragonsFoot and from there I found the beginnings of the soon to be called OSR. I found out that many folks kept playing the original rules, that there were plenty Holmes fans out there and that people were publishing 'new' rule books based on the old games.

Those new rules are what really opened things up for me and began the journey to find what rule system to use. I thought about just going back to Holmes (my starter) but I worried about getting other folks interested. I thought that these new rules, however similar to the origins, would be a great way to get folks interested into something new yet old.

I picked up Basic Fantasy RPG and loved what I saw there. I thought this was great! A 'modern' take on the FRPG that I loved so much back in the day. However, though it was so close to what I wanted to run it wasn't quite there. I then found Labyrinth Lord. Ah, now this was much closer to what I was looking for. At first I felt it was closer to my Holmes edition but upon deeper exploration I saw it was closer to Moldvay's. A slight difference to some but a big difference to me.

When I discovered Swords & Wizardry I had found my rule-set (January 2009). Perfect. Loose, open-ended and 'new'. Perfect for getting folks involved and rules-lite for my limited time commitments.

Now that I had my rule-set I began to re-learn the game; combat, monsters, armor class, saving throws, all of that once second nature to me back in junior high and high school but lost to my modern brain.

I took months to understand the rules and the rule potentials which is not surprising as many of you still debate rules from the early versions of the game.

Then came deciding what type of campaign it would be. But with much research with the blogs popping up with the same questions and curiosities that I had, much was answered. With interesting charts found and additional classes I finally put together my first session nine months later. Yes, nine months.

So if you've been following this blog recently, you may have noticed that I've had some interest in running a Heroes game. I've picked up a copy of the 1st edition of Champions, V&V and began playing in an online Mystery Men! game, comparing everything I want in a heroes games. I've had my eyes on ICONS and have been studying the rules for a couple of months now. I think this is the game rules that I plan on going with. They're very lite, and after a few mechanics tests it proved to have some staying power.

Believe me, it took me a loooong time to make that final decision. I've worked up a pretty decent campaign idea which I'll share shortly but it looks like we'll be hitting some ICONS actions shortly after the holidays.

Welcome Black Friday....

2011-11-25T11:52:00.006-07:00

....or as we like to traditionally call it:

Try to guess which picture are the actual black Friday shoppers. I know, it's hard isn't?

Woman Pepper Sprays Shoppers To Get X-box

Session XL: Jamaican Me Crazy

2011-11-22T10:30:00.002-07:00

WITH former priest of Mithra turned follower of the Black Sun Father Halford captured, our faithful adventurers interrogated the traitor at their Moon-tower.

Slick Vinny, after doing some research on the Crimson Skull of Yam-Gregak, charmed the priest. The priest took a liking to Vinny but gave a rat's ass about the rest of the group.

Vinny found out that Zenopus the Vampire was indeed living deep beneath their tower and that Halford was in cahoots with her for quite a while, using the party to retrieve the Crimson Skull for his own nefarious plans of raising an army of the undead.

Halford had built a temple to the Black Sun hidden beneath the cabin of a female dwarf assassin named Ankral.

After some debate, it was decided to go after Halford's temple of the Black Sun in the hopes of gaining the treasures of the travelers that he had captured and turned into his ghoul army.

With the poisonous Halford leading the wary party down the South Coast Road to the edge of Harrowood, they came upon the abandoned looking cabin of Ankral. The sprite Flora-Fawn flew down the chimney to check things out. She found just an empty cabin and relayed that back to the party.

They entered the cabin and Halford lead them to the hidden entrance to his temple. They all descend down a spiral staircase and into a lit chamber. After coming upon a locked door with the key lost, Arg the Half-orc bashed the door open alerting the acolytes of the Black Sun. Halford quieted their concerns and lead the party to the temple entrance. But Arg turned around and started smashing through the religious fanatics. At that point, Halford rushed through the door and into the temple of the Black Sun, running for an alter with a black crown upon it, shouting to his cult followers to attack the party but spare the wizard, Vinny.

Vinny followed Halford and cast a web spell upon him holding him in place short of the alter. Televon ran up to the alter and lifted up the iron crown. At that moment, from a pit in the center of the floor, rose the five heads of a hydra which attacked the nearest victim which just so happened to be Vinny. Near death, Vinny turned himself invisible and raw away while Flora-Fawn attacked the heads with her magic.

Meanwhile, Skwanky the halfling warrior and Arg quickly hacked and slashed their way through the cult followers leaving a bloody mess in the hallway. Heading towards the temple entrance the Orc and Halfling saw the hydra heads attacking their allies. Skwanky took a sling and tried to attack one of the heads but critically missed and the stone flew backwards and knocked Arg out!

While Televon tried to use the crown to 'control' the Hydra, Vinny attempted to steal it by levitating it off the cleric's head, but the priest of Morpheus was too quick and grabbed onto the crown. This caused Vinny to become even more frustrated with his long time companions and pushed him ever closer to the darker side of his arcane arts.

So that ended the session. You might be asking yourself what the heck does the session title have to do with anything that happened in game? Well, due to a few too many beers at the table the Cleric of Morpheus suddenly began speaking in a Jamaican accent. Hilarious, though typically expected RPG table action.

It looks like we'll be fitting in one last session before our usual holiday break so stay tuned dear reader!

Tales Of High Adventure eBook

2011-11-21T12:13:00.004-07:00

Last week I released Tales of High Adventures as an eBook for the Kindle, today, I'm happy to say, it now also available for the Nook!

Tales of High Adventure for NOOK

Tales of High Adventure for Kindle

Tales of High Adventure in Print at ComiXpress

Tales Of High Adventure Now Available For Kindle

2011-11-17T08:51:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year my colleagues and I put out in print what we hoped would be an on going series of pulp adventure stories called Tales Of High Adventure. The first issue contained reprints of some of our favorite pulp authors from Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft as well as new authors and comic stories.

Our hope was to continue the series with new authors and new stories.

Unfortunately, life always takes unexpected turns. Though we had put together most of the second issue we never quite finished it for publication.

During the summer we put out our Tales of High Adventure Radio Plays: Beneath the Ruined Tower of Zenopus. We hoped you enjoyed those and have some more in the works.

Well, as we finally get back together to tackle finishing up issue 2 of our Tales of High Adventure pulp magazine I've put together the original book for Kindle readers. Since there were a number of comic pages and illustrations I found the Kindle ebook format worked best for our publication.

So those with Kindles check out great pulp adventures with our Tales of High Adventure book now available on Kindle through Amazon.

The book is still available through ComiXpress in print format!

Available for the NOOK too!

Tower Of Zenopus Radio Play Chapters 1-3

2011-11-15T16:07:00.002-07:00

If you remember this past summer the Warlocks Home Brew released its radio play; Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus! in three chapters.

We'll the original concept was that these three chapters actually made up the first chapter of the story. So here is the original three chapters together in their 34 minute entirety for your listening enjoyment!

Or Download and listen at your leisure.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Lieberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot, Morak

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Pirate Captain

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

You Don't Pull On Superman's Cape...

2011-11-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

After finishing the fantastic historical book Men of Tomorrow by G. Jones, I got really pumped up for some Superman action, most notably the earliest newspaper strips of the underwear clad hero. These were exclusively written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster, creators of Superman (with a little help from their studio) for National Periodicals (DC Comics) wayyyy back in 1939.

Siegel and Shuster's pulp influences shine through as this Superman is grim, a bit of a smart-ass, and a cold-hearted do-gooder before DC (without Siegel and Shuster) removed all edge from the hero.

In just only six months of the strip, we have one suicide attempt, 6 death (most of which are by the hands of Superman himself), one case of animal experimentation (let's face it this one is just plain cruel), child abuse from a orphanage superintendent and Superman delivers some cold justice and Superman's 'cold justice' is literally letting you die.

Here's just some examples from the first few months of the strip (pardon the images as I couldn't scan them from my book but had to take photos).

This speaks for itself.

Superman's patented style of 'persuasion' as he liked to call it.

A little too much 'persuasion' perhaps?

Thugs attempting to escape in a plane? Not with Superman around and
his form of Justice!

Cold, Superman, cold. Dick Cheney better watch out, Superman don't like no war-profiteers.

Oh, and this is just an amazing sequence for any comic strip....

No, Clark, sadly this is not a gag....

Ambrose looks a bit agitated, as well he should for in the next sequence....

Yes, Clark, he's dead. DEAD! Ambrose! Noooooooooooooo!

I love this old Superman strip. He's mostly fighting gangsters, graft and corruption at all levels, definitely a sign of the depression era. Siegel and Shuster's hero was pretty dark and grim, much on the same level as Batman was back then too - a direct influence from the pulps that these creators grew up with in the 1920's. But they were heroes in the eyes of the readers as everyone felt the oppression and hopelessness of the times with breadlines, unemployment and the shadows of the coming war. Superman struck a chord of the times and began an industry.

It's sad that today's comic strips are nothing compared to the grim fantastic tales of the origins of adventure strips. They lack the sexuality of Flash Gordon, the noir of Dick Tracy, and the cold violent reality of the times from Superman. Maybe the print media wouldn't be on the ropes so much if they advanced their comic strips with the times. But times are different and they're constantly changing faster today than ever. It sure would be great to have strips like this promoted by your local great metropolitan newspaper.

Warlock's Book Review: Men of Tomorrow

2011-11-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

Though I love reading I'm not much for writing up book recommendations. Movies? Sure. But books, there are plenty of other folks out there that can give you a better explanation of why one should read a book. Me, I either like it or don't like it and I have my reasons.

Today I make an exception.

"Men Of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of Geek Culture" (2005) by Gerard Jones was a fascinating read - a book I couldn't put down and one of the best books I've read this year.

It follows the history of Jewish immigrants and 1st generation Americans as they claw their way into the American dream and into the American consciousness creating our modern geek culture and media empires.

This incredibly researched book revolves around Harry Donenfeld, Jack Liebowitz, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman) and all the other Golden Age creators that gave birth to the superhero and the comic book.

It follows the history of Donenfeld as he works with gangsters and bootleggers during prohibition setting up a network that would later evolve into distributing his Spicy Tales nudie mags and eventually comics. It follows Siegel & Shuster's evolution of geek culture through fanzines of the early pulps and the beginnings of the Science Fiction genre and their creation of and eventual 'sale' to Donenfeld of Superman, the hero that started an industry. It follows Jack Liebowitz, Donenfeld's accountant who cultivated and controlled the comic book industry with National Periodicals (DC comics) all the way to becoming the senior board member of Warner Communications.

Filled in with the other creators of the industry, Bill Gains and EC comics, Will Eisner, Bob Kane and Bill Finger, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and the 'birth' of modern Marvel comics and even Fredrick Wertheim (Seduction of the Innocent) all amidst the backdrop of the 50 year battle over the ownership of Superman, it's the best history of the industry I've ever read.

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in Pulps, Comics and Geek culture in general.

On a side note, years ago I (mostly) read Michael Chabon's fictional "The Adventures of Caviler and Clay". I found that novel extremely frustrating in it's portrayal of the early history of the industry and the (based-on-real-life) characters. As I read his book I didn't want some fictional story I wanted the real story with the real people involved. Men of Tomorrow is that book and I cannot praise it enough.

ICONS Character Sheets

2011-11-04T08:15:00.003-07:00

I just can't stop myself from making character sheets for the games I play. Perhaps it's a curse, dunno. So here are my ICONS character sheets modeled after my Mystery Men! Character sheets I put together a while back. The ICONS sheets have all been gathered together into one PDF file, 5 different sheets (one blank space to draw your own image from scratch for those so inclined).

Download ICONS Character Sheets

Enjoy!

ICONS: The Green Manalishi

2011-11-02T08:25:00.002-07:00

I'm still interested in getting an ICONS game going. Playing around with the system, I rolled this villain up.

The Green Manalishi

Unearthly

Prowess 7
Coordination 6
Strength 6
Intellect 2
Awareness 4
Willpower 4

Stamina 10
Determination 4

Specialties
Expert in Wrestling

Powers
Telekinesis 4
Immortality 5
Wizardry 5
Blinding 6

Qualities
Inhuman
Catchphrase: I shall bring your world to it's knees, for I am The Green Manalishi!

Challenges
Weakness: Powers held within staff. Can roll a willpower test to have staff return if out of his hand.
Hunted: by the Konn
Burnout: Staff may burn out and need to be 'recharged' with the negative black energy from another dimension.

A brash and arrogant warrior who hails from a pocket dimension of a pocket dimension, Xothulituz, the Green Manalishi comes to earth to conquer this pathetic orb. His powers are carried in his Battle Scepter. If the Scepter is stolen from him, the Scepter uses the Usuper's willpower to break-free and return to it's owner. The Green Manalishi is hunted by The Konn, a race of warriors from an alternate reality that was destroyed by the Green Manalishi. The Konn seek to bring the Green Manalishi to justice.

Session XXXIX: Victory!

2011-11-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

Things weren't looking too bad as our heroes, along with the former Watchmen of Caladan, took on the army of Ghouls. The soldiers were holding their own, but soon it became apparent that the hoard of Ghouls were slowly cutting down the line of soldiers.

Skwanky, who was paralyzed by a Ghouls touch was lifted up and was being carried away.

How quickly the tide turned!

But suddenly, out of the darkness across the road came Televon, Curate of Morpheus, holding the symbol of the Lord of Dreams on high and frightening off a good portion of the ghouls. With him came two of Gnarly's strongest Mushroom-men warriors. The battle continued with the remaining Ghouls who were defeated but not until all of the Watchmen were dead, save the archers.

With Skwanky saved and the wounded healed the party searched through the ghouls and found that they were all former citizens Caladan and travellers of the realm. Piling up the bodies, Gnarly lit them ablaze and the party headed back to the Moontower.

But no sooner hitting the road they were confronted by another group of Ghouls lead by an evil cleric of the Black Sun holding the Crimson Skull of Yam-Gregak. This cleric was none other than Father Halford formerly of the Temple of Mithra!

Flora Fauna acted quickly and tried to put the confederate priest to sleep but he shook it off. As the ghouls rushed forward, Halford of the Black Sun engulfed the archers, Arg and Flora Fawn into darkness, but Televon countered with a prayer to Morpheus and held the dark priest in his tracks! Gnarly sent Tuk the owl to lift the Crimson Skull from Halford while the rest of the party rushed upon the remaining ghouls and finished them off.

With Halford stripped of his power (and armor) he was taken prisoner and marched to the Moontower as dawn broke over the coast of Eir-ian.

Creature Features

2011-10-30T20:28:00.006-07:00

If there's anyone old enough to remember (we're talking early 70's) on Friday evenings WGN channel 9 in Chicago would run their classic horror program called Creature Features. This was long before The Son of Svenghoolie though I think around the same time as the original Svenghoolie. Anyway, I grew up watching these classic horror programs on our little black and white tv in my parent's bedroom. The cool thing about the show was the intro recreated here by Dan Siciliano.

Now it's off to watch our annual viewing of Night of the Living Dead.

Happy Halloween all ya Ghoulie Grognards!

Hammer Time

2011-10-27T08:24:00.007-07:00

This Halloween I'm on a Hammer Films kick. Not only do you get gory horror with the likes of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing but plenty of eye candy with Rachel Welch, the late Ingrid Pitt and the rest of the Hammer Glamor girls.

Dracula A.D. 1972
Dracula rises from the dead into the swinging 70's of London in this inspired version of the same old story. Peter Cushing plays Van Helsing's modern heir and Stephanie Beachman plays his daughter who gets caught up with some swinging hippies lead by Johnny Alucard who's real motivation is to bring Dracula back from the dead. The opening scene is pure late 60's hippie schlock with a rock band and a bunch of their followers sticking it to the man. But with Lee, Cushing, Beachman and Caroline Munro this is a must see for Hammer fans. Available through Netflix streaming so perfect for this weekend's Horror film festivities.

Vampire Lovers
An odd but enjoyable vampire story staring Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing. Pitt plays the beautiful Marcilla/Carmilla preying on the young and beautiful Madeline Smith. Great Gothic imagery, though much of the day for night shots look terrible. Some minor nudity with Pitt seducing Smith but, hey, it's a Hammer film. Great for late night Netflix streaming this weekend.

One Million Years B.C.
Now I haven't seen this one since I was a kid but watching it now, with an adult perspective, I see it as a one of the best pre-historic (though not at all accurate) flicks. Made in 1966, a couple of years before Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey and his famous ape sequence, it has quite the spacey intro grounding the audience in the past. If it wasn't for the cheesy narration to spoon-feed the time frame to the audience, it's quite a great sequence. Then we meet the brutal Stone Tribe and the 'enlightened' Shell Tribe and the stunning Rachel Welch as the most beautiful cave-woman in pre-history. When I was a kid watching this flick, I was taken more by the Ray Harryhausen animated monsters then a scantly clad 60's icon. But now, Rachel is the star of the show and real joy to watch. Besides all that, the whole story has quite the pulp feel as the Tomac, the outcast from the Stone Tribe explores this desolate wilderness. Oh and then the great cataclysm at the end? Great stuff! Unfortunately, it's not available on Netflix streaming so I had to order it via Netflix snail-mail (yes, despite everything we're still Netflix customers - for now).

Bonus feature:
Twins of Evil
A great little vampire flick staring Peter Cushing and Madeleine and Mary Collinson (the Twins of Evil). Cushing's role is great as a puritan witch-hunter (think Solomon Kane) who tries to protect one of his nieces (one of the twins) from falling for the satanic Count. I thought this movie had some amazing themes which would make for a great remake.

What To Do With Your Extra 13,138 dice

2011-10-19T13:23:00.002-07:00

More here....

Skirmish (Mass) Combat Part 2

2011-10-18T09:08:00.002-07:00

First off, let me say that I'm not any type of expert at 'creating' gaming rules. I'm fine with tweaking and altering something that exists already and lifting and mixing from other sources but to flat out creating balanced war-game, rpg rules, - nope, not me. There are plenty of other folks out there who are much better creating something like that than me.

So I'm still looking for some alterations on the Swords & Wizardry Mass Combat rules which I've scaled down to just Skirmish Rules.

Justin from Old School Psionics came up with some simple streamlined Mass Combat rules. I'll be giving those a closer look later today.

I also ran across these sets of rules; Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games which looks promising on some levels. For only $5 for the pdf download from Lulu, it's worth checking out.

Grungi posted his results of a similar combat yesterday using the Gabor Lux's Swords and Magic Retro clone and the Ghouls overwhelmed the soldiers as well. That verifies some of the results that I've been getting in my sample combats as well. Very similar to the Swords & Wizardry Combat rules but with a few more things added.

Conclusion: Ghouls are pretty bad-ass as an 'army'.

So there's a lot to look over today but some of the questions I'm looking to answer are the following:

Defensive positions, how would they come into play and for how long?

Would monster units get multiple attacks? Some folks say yes, but how would a special attack such as Paralyzing touch from a ghoul come into play for a unit vs unit battle?

What about the ghoul units that were 'wounded', how would that be handled after the battle? In the example above, sure some of the Ghoul units were hit and their HP numbers deflated, even to zero (which doesn't mean they are killed) but how many are actually left?

How would a PC support a friendly unit in combat or moral? What about adjacent units?

Mass Combat Part 1

2011-10-17T08:48:00.003-07:00

In my most recent S&W session we had a battle of about 40 ghouls vs about 30+ soldiers and a couple of PCs. As I wasn't yet 'fluent' in the S&W mass combat rules and thought I'd like to see the battle play out in 'real scale' we started rolling the dice. It actually worked out pretty well and didn't take too long, though we still have to finish the battle in the next session.

However....

I don't think I would run something like that again as a straight combat. So it was off to explore the S&W Mass Combat rules.

I ran through the same combat, minus the PCs, on my own to see how it would turn out compared the actual combat. Using the Swords & Wizardry mass combat rules the Ghouls pretty much overwhelmed the soldiers. Perhaps that is what would really happen? Ghouls are pretty vicious creatures and with forces of equal number on both sides the ghouls would still have the advantage.

For those unfamiliar with the Swords & Wizardry Mass Combat rules, they are part of the Core Rules and only take up two pages. The rules are quite simple, as they should be. Soldiers and monsters are grouped in units of 5 or 10, hit points added for a unit's total and you roll on the regular charts to determine out come. If a hit is scored, the unit is not destroyed (1 in 6 chance) but could be 'broken' and unable to fight until moral (d%) is made. That's just a broad stroke and if you are more interested in reading the details you can download the free version of the rules and look it over yourself.

A number of questions come up using these rules as is, and who says you have to use the rules as is?

Ghouls normally get 3 attacks per round, would this hold true in Mass Combat? Thus three chances to 'wound' a unit and roll a d6 for reaction results? That would seem pretty extreme but perhaps true to the monster. Perhaps just one attack with a d6 damage would be fine. For other monsters as well? How would you handle the paralyzing effect of their attacks?

How are PC's handled? That's not really handled much in the rules. A unit attacking a PC does half damage to the PC which could still be pretty vicious and deadly. In this case, would Ghouls still get their 3 attacks? How would the PC's presence affect the ally unit's moral on breaking?

I know the Mass Combat Rules are a very broad stroke to handle a situation like this and maybe works fine for larger scale battles but groups of about 10-50 combatants on each side should be handled by this rule as well as taking the PC abilities into account. So maybe what I'm looking for isn't mass combat but something in-between?

This week I'll be exploring this Mass Combat system and tweaking things and hopefully come up with some useful additions. I want to keep it simple and don't want to break out of the RPG and into a totally different (war) game. I'm looking to make or add some supplemental tweaks to make a combat such as this flow better within the scope of a table top RPG and make it fun, exciting and have the outcome be 'realistic' in terms of the outcome of standard melee combat.

If anyone has any thoughts on this I'd love to hear from them. I'd want to keep things pretty quick and simple using the Mass Combat rules but tweaked a bit to make it a bit more scaled to a large group of combatants and not so much an army.

Session XXXVIII: War With The Living Dead

2011-10-14T08:30:00.001-07:00

Ah, to have a cleric in your party when needed - which was not the case in Monday's session. The hints were there but who listens to their DM when there's slaying to do, right?

IN camp with the Watchmen, the rebel group of former Caldan watch members, Arg the half-orc, Flora the fairy, Gnarly the druid and finally joined by Wolfheir and Skwanky plot their rescue of Lord Osric who had been overthrown by Morak.

After much discussion it was decided to try to move the Watchmen to the Moontower which would involve crossing a guarded bridge and working their way around the outskirts of Caladan unseen. It was decided to go with the ol' Wookie in chains trick.

At dusk, Skwanky and Gnarly, after paying a toll, crossed the bridge and hid in the woods on the other side but not before being warned about traveling at night.

After a while, Wolf and his brigand followers dressed in stolen soldier uniforms, lead Arg and some of the Watchmen, as prisoners, to the bridge. There the guards question Wolf and Arg which goes something like this:

Guard: Where are you taking this...thing?
Wolf: Prisoner transfer from cell-block 1138.
Guard: I wasn't informed about this....
Arg: Look out, I'm loose!

And Arg proceeded to toss a bunch of the guards over the bridge. Meanwhile, Flora cast sleep on the rest of the guards rendering them helpless.

After some looting by Skwanky and more body tossing by Arg, the bridge guards were replaced by the five charmed soldiers from the previous session to cover their tracks.

Flora flew back over the bridge and gave the signal for the Watchmen to cross.

From here, the large group headed around the farmlands of Caladan. Edging the woods south to cross the Great Coast Road to return to the Moontower, they spot a lone figure standing in the dark in the middle of the road. Trying to get it's attention but to no avail, Tuk the owl and Flora fly out to spy who this might be. It turned out to be a ghoul.

Arg, loosing patience, walked out of the woods and approached the creature who turned to face the half-0rc and let out a fearsome screech! From the woods on the other side of the road rushed a literal army of hungry ghouls, former travelers and townsfolk of Caladan!

Arg high-tails it back to his party and the Watchmen while Wolf organized his men into defensive positions.

After burning the initial wave of undead, the ghouls rushed the group of defenders and a brutal battle erupted. The Watchmen along with Wolf and Skwanky on the front lines hack and slash at the fierce creatures who claw and gnaw their way through the lines of fighters.

The session ended with half of the Watchmen dead, half of the Ghouls dead and Skwanky paralyzed by the attack!

The beginnings of battle. The tokens with the peanut butter cups are ghouls ablaze!

The faceless tokens are allies while the imaged tokens are the Ghouls. Slips of paper keep track of the monster's HP. We played the battle out completely - every monster and every NPC and PC.A rules lite combat make this possible.

It appears that the ghouls are breaking through the lines...

To Be Continued....
(thanks to Zach and Corey for the war photo)

Campaign Hex Map

2011-10-12T14:55:00.004-07:00

So I've had to work up a full 11 x 17 campaign hex map with a 2 mile scale.

I've worked up pieces of the map before in a 10 x 10 hex format on the One Page Wilderness pages and populated most of the hexes randomly.

You'll notice that the hex numbers repeat as those are pieces of the 10x10 hex maps which fit on the one page wilderness layouts. I've had to piece these together and add the currently 'unexplored' areas into this larger map so the players can get a better view as they travel around Caladan which we will be using the chits form Death Maze!

007 Dr. No Pre-credit Sequence

2011-10-12T08:23:00.008-07:00

*UPDATE: Sorry, but it doesn't appear that this video will play due to various 'issues'. Dunno why Youtube plays tons of copyrighted material but not this. Oh well.

I've been on a bit of a James Bond kick these past few week, specifically analyzing five of the first six films.

Watching the early Bond film adaptations in the order as they were written; From Russia With Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball and On Her Majesties Secret Service is a fantastic viewing experience to watch the progression of a very human James Bond. The only issue is the reversed order of the first two films films From Russia With Love and Dr. No.

Dr. No (1962) was the very first Bond film. Without any disrespect to a great film and though it had many of the elements that would later be expanded upon in the future Bond films, it lacked some of the polish that showed up in the second film (From Russia), most notably, the full John Barry score and the infamous pre-credit sequence. It becomes quite apparent watching Dr. No after From Russia.

So I created a edit of Dr. No with a pre-credit sequence and a new score over the title credits. I never liked the looped James Bond theme which eventually breaks into "The Three Blind Mice"during the Dr. No titles. Though it blends in with the first scene of the three blind assassins, the lightness and comical attitude breaks the thrill of the Bond film especially placed second in the film sequence.

The music I placed there instead was an unused track from the Dr. No soundtrack which fit quite nicely into the sequence and keeps the mood a bit darker and dramatic (or so I felt). Ironically, it too is called James Bond Theme but it was only an early version of the theme.

So placing Dr. No as the second film with this edited pre-credit sequence I think helps smooth the transition between the new sequence. I'd be curious for your opinion on this too.

Avengers Assemble!

2011-10-11T08:07:00.002-07:00

No doubt to be talked about all day....

Quite a lot going on there but it all looks quite marvelous in the Merry Marvel Manner!
Highly anticipated? Hells yes!

This Week In The War Of The Ring

2011-10-09T09:12:00.000-07:00

October 3rd
Gandalf is attacked at Weathertop.

The Warlock's Digest of Dungeon Dwelling Denizens

2011-10-04T08:13:00.000-07:00

I've been working on trying to keep the GM's side of the table a bit less cluttered these days. I love the digest sized books or smaller for quick look-up reference. I needed a quick guide for monster stats so I didn't have to flip through books for AC, Experience, Damage, etc.

S0....

I've put together The Warlock's Digest of Dungeon Dwelling Denizens, a no frills old school monster statistical reference in digest format. It lists the stats only for all the monsters published in the Swords & Wizardry Core rules with a couple others monsters that I've used in my campaign thrown in. It sports ascending and descending armor class so it should be helpful in most old school style games.

It's a free download so have at it!

This Week In The War Of The Ring

2011-10-02T08:29:00.001-07:00

Sept 25
The hobbits re-unite at Crickhollow.

Sept 26
The hobbits enter The Old Forest and have an unexpected encounter with Old Man Willow. They're saved by Tom Bombadil

Sept 27
Gandalf crosses Greyflood.

Sept 28
Those poor hobbits run into a barrow-wight.

Sept29
Bree at last and a drink at the Prancing Pony. An' w'hos dat? Why it's Strider!

Sept 30
The Black Riders attack Bree.

The hobbits and Strider leave Bree in the morning.
Gandalf arrives at Bree in the evening.

Oct 1
Gandalf leaves Bree.

The Bond Films In A New Light

2011-09-30T08:40:00.003-07:00

I've been a huge fan of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels since I was in junior high. Of course, prior to that I loved watching the movies as they were replayed on television. At the time, they were all the Connery films and the first two Moore pix, Live and Let Die and The Man With The Golden Gun.

But the first time I read Fleming's original novel, I believe it was Dr. No, I was blown away! The character and story seemed so much different then the invincible, gadget heavy, overly promiscuous secret agent of the films. The character in the novels was much more human, and vulnerable. He wasn't the blockbuster 'superhero' but a deep cover secret agent up to his neck in cold war espionage.

Out of the 22 Bond films produced (with six actors playing the lead) only a mere five followed Fleming's novels; From Russia With Love, Dr. No, Goldfinger, Thunderball and On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The rest were lifted in title and character only with screenwriters taking the stories into their own directions (with mixed results).

These five novels were adapted into film in almost the exact order that Fleming wrote them and with only minor changes to the stories, with the exception of Dr. No and From Russia being reversed. These five films are often thought of the pinnacle of the Bond 'franchise' and indeed they are.

What if these were the only Bond films made? What if we reversed Dr. No and From Russia With Love and place them in the order that the books were released? What I think we end up with is a very human character and a thrilling short and sweat franchise that builds up to an appropriate climax.

These 5 films, in the order they were released as novels, complete a full story arc of the Bond character and also fixes some continuity errors in the films (while adding a few). It displays an agent with human weaknesses and emotions and a villain that builds over the five films as well. Also, director Terrence Young would be director on three of the five films while Peter Hunt would edit all of films and direct OHMSS. Also, screenwriter Richard Miabaum would adapt all of the related books to film. All this helped unify this five film series.

So getting past the minor issues with reversing Dr. No and FRWL we come in as spectators in the middle of Bond's career in the order of the novels. The first four novels; Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker and Diamonds Are Forever; though great cold war spy thrillers themselves, built up to the middle novels where you get the grandiose villains of Dr. No, Goldfinger and SPECTRE.

So we start with the movie....

From Russia With Love
Our intro to James Bond as he is the victim of an assignation attempt, fights for his life (the hand to hand with Robert Shaw is one of the best fight scenes ever) and nearly dies at the end of the film (as in the novel though the reader actually doesn't know if he survives). The only gadget is a fancy brief case. This film will introduce the Bond character (quite late into the film) as well as SPECTRE and it's leader Blofeld (and his infamous white cat). Bond must be a bad-ass if this organization would want him out of the way. We're coming into the middle of the character's story, remember. Think if it as Episode IV: A New Hope. Here Bond still believes that he is fighting his cold-war rivals SMERSH, which will fit well with the plot of stealing the Russian Lektor, but is introduced to SPECTRE . It shows SPECTRE to be a international organization. Also, the late John Barry completes the entire score for this film and along with the infamous pre-credit sequence solidifies the Bond film right from the start. And the exotic European locations fill out the foundation of a Bond story. Minor continuity issues would involve SPECTRE's mention of Dr. No and his defeat at the hands of 007 but one could look at it as a precursor to the next film in the 'series'. SPECTRE want's Bond out of the way so that their operation with Dr. No can go on without a hitch. The other is Sylvia Trench, a woman whom Bond 'met' in the film Dr. No and is seemingly having a long term relationship with at the beginning of FRWL. Trench mentioned Bond's trip to Jamaica.

Dr. No
SPECTRE's first big plot with the series' first colorful villain Dr. No, mechanical hands and all. Bond comes out of this story beat to hell and tattered in rags but, of course, with Honey Rider in his arms. No gadgets at all - man vs man. Dr. No will again introduce Bond to SPECTRE. Famous for being the only Bond film without a pre-credit sequence, placing this movie second may prove to have an abrupt bump after the more polished FRWL. Minor continuity issue would involve Sylvia Trench, mentioned above, whom Bond 'meets' for the first time in the casino at the beginning of the film. A minor re-edit at the beginning to add the typical Bond walk barrel shot and the scene involving the Three Blind Mice assassins killing Strangways and his secretary would serve well as the pre-credit sequence. From there the movie can roll without a hitch.

Of course the first two films can be viewed in their original release order but there's something about watching FRWL first that makes the beginning of the series quite intriguing.

Goldfinger
Of these five films, it is here that the Bond character reaches his heroic peak and would also be the only film to not directly involve SPECTRE which gives some breath to the series and builds the return of the SPECTRE threat into the final two films (as they recover from their failure Dr. No?). Though he fights for his life against the colorful Oddjob and Goldfinger, the plot consisting of creating economic chaos by irradiating the gold in Fort Knox is still human is scale. Here, however, Bond comes out unscathed and smelling like roses.

Thunderball
Here we begin the two part conclusion to the series. SPECTRE reaches it's full potential of a world-wide blackmailing terrorist threat with the abduction of two nuclear weapons. Bond actually gets shot and bleeds running for his life from Largo's agents in a memorable scene filmed during the Junkanoo celebration in Nassau. Again, less myth and a more human character in the midst of a world threatening plot though it is pretty spectacular. All this brings us to….

On Her Majesty's Secret Service
The finale of this five film Bond series (skipping the film You Only Live Twice). Again, SPECTRE is involved and Bond comes face to face with it's leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, for the first time (as does the viewer). But the key here is that Bond falls in love and actually marries giving more depth to some of his romantic entanglements in the earlier films. Of course we all know that this doesn't end well and thus ends the series on a very human level. Major continuity issue solved, however. In the movie You Only Live Twice, which came out in 1967, two years before OHMSS, Bond meets Blofeld face to face for the first time. In that continuity, though Bond has already met Blofeld, in this film they act as if meeting for the first time staying true to the novel but disrupting the film continuity. Removing YOLT from this 5 film series fixes that continuity problem. Also, this would be the only time that anyone sees Blofeld. No issues with multiple actors playing this villain (Donald Pleasence and Charles Grey) but, of course, we have George Lazenby replacing Connery as Bond.

This would be the end of the series as no Bond film again ever truly tackles a Fleming novel nor brings a sense of vulnerability to this 'super' agent. Nor does a film ever touch upon the death of his wife with the brief exception of a small scene in For Your Eyes Only where Moore places flowers upon the grave of his beloved. Other than that, Bond becomes the super-hero.

These five adaptive films, in the order that they were written in, present a story arc of a thrilling spy facing real death and real life.

I think it would be a fun exercise to watch these five films in this order which I'm currently in the process of doing.. If you're a true Ian Fleming James Bond fan I think you might enjoy it too.

Session XXXVII: A New Cause

2011-09-28T12:45:00.003-07:00

Six months have passed since our party of adventurers, lost beneath the ruined tower of Zenopus, have returned to their Moon-tower. In that time, Caladan had fallen to the forces of Empress Kushana allied with the Pirates of the Blue Rose and all lead by Morak, who installed himself as ruler of Caladan.

To fortify their Moon-tower, Gnarly created a perimeter of thorny bramble with a pathway that only he and his companions knew about. He also sent out his woodland friends to gather information about Morak and Kushana's troops and while he had down time built up a Mushroom-man army (well more like a squad).

During this time the party had discovered that there was a possibility that Morak had spared Lord Osric and locked him in the Merchant Guild's dungeons and that the bandits north of Caladan are former Caladan watch members who escaped during the invasion of Caladan.

Vinny, along with Arg and Flora headed into Caladan to try to get in touch with the Crafty Magi. Stopped at the gate of Caladan, they were only allowed in with a special Writ of Passage by order of Lord Morak. After paying the fifty gold coins each, they entered Caladan and headed over to the Green Dragon Inn.

Finding members of the mysterious guild, Vinny learned that Risiri, the leader of the guild, is in good favor with Morak and thus, an enemy of Osric and Arvin's Avengers.

Vinny hatched a plan where the party would set out and look for the band of 'bandits' north of the town to try to gather a force to expel Morak and rescue Osric.

The party, including Gnarly, traveled around the outskirts of Caladan and headed for the Bridge of Avery over the Blackmoore river. They ran into some soldier guards who questioned them about their travels. Arg, almost began a fight with them but eventually they were given passage without incident.

Traveling north along the the Great Coast Road they were eventually way-laid by bandits who were discovered to indeed be the former Watchmen of Caladan. After it was determined that Vinny and Gnarly were original members of Arvin's Avengers (who helped rescue Lord Osric's daughter over a year ago), the Watchmen took them into their confidence. Blindfolded, they were lead to the camp.

At camp they parlayed with the leader, Bronswick, and told him that Osric was possibly alive and that a possible rescue of Caladan's former lord would rally the citizens and force Kushana's troops out. Bronswick thinks it's a good idea but doesn't have the man-power to overcome the ever-increasing troop presence. Vinny suggests that he will head into a near-by town to try to gather some more men-at-arms (intending to charm them if they refuse) and so leaves with Arg and a couple of watchmen.

While they were gone, Gnarly and Flora head north to Harrowood to seek out the head of Gnarly's order, the druid Morrison of Morrisonwood. On the way they ran into a party of adventurers on their way towards Brookestone on the trail of Fumark the Foul who has gone missing searching for the slain dragon Medora's treasure. The travelers tell Gnarly and Flora to avoid Morrisonwood as the master of the wood cares not for uninvited guests.

Not heeding the warning they continued on, and entered Morrisonwood. As the mysterious woods closed in around them, they had the intense feeling that they were being watched and followed. The creatures of the forest kept a close eye upon them. Eventually, Gnarly spoke with a chipmunk and convinced him to take him to see the master of the wood. A large bear came out of the woods and told Gnarly to follow him.

The bear lead them into a beautiful natural grove where dwelt Morrison and his lovely companions Pamela and Rose. He invited his guests to partake in the sweet harvest of the forest as he and Gnarly spoke.

Gnarly tried to convince Morrison to aid them in their efforts to free Caladan from the rule of Kushana's forces. Morrison laughingly refused as he felt the city was a blight on the face of the landscape. Gnarly offered up that Kushana was even raising the dead to aid her in her quests. Morrison only replied that he felt that there was no difference between the living and the dead as the living wrapped themselves in man-made environments. Though he was slightly swayed by Gnarly's arguments of the roaming undead, Morrison remained unmoved to aid them.

After finishing their meal, Gnarly and Flora headed back to their camp.

Meanwhile, Slick Vinny and Arg were traveling through the wood when they came upon a party of soldiers seeking out the bandits. From a distance Vinny charmed half of them while the rest returned arrow fire. Arg pulled out his mace and hammer and charged across the field dodging the hail of arrows coming at him. He burst upon his enemies and began bashing bones and brains all over the field. The charmed soldiers headed back to camp lead by Vinny and Arg carrying a pile of soldier's armor.

Back at camp it was decided to seek the aid of Lord Blackmoore and Gnarly sent Tuk the owl, along with a note, west to the town of Blackmoore...

(Gnarly, Morrison and Flora hanging out in the 'Druid Grove')

Madness Chart

2011-09-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Exploring deep dark places can be quite trying to the psyche of even the most stout warrior. After being stressed in the confining tunnels of some rancid tomb and facing horrific death and beasts only believed to exist in nightmares can be enough to tip anyone's scales into madness. Toss in some mutant demon leaping from around the corner and they're carrying you off to the mad-house.

Here' a reaction chart for those failing any type of sanity save.

Madness Chart
d20

1. In Shock! Drops all held items and stands in a passive catatonic state. Totally helpless and useless.
2. Screams uncontrollably, attracts wandering 'guests'. Will attack anyone who is near or comes near him.
3. Runs screaming in a random direction, shedding items behind as he goes until he is completely without items or clothes
4. Begins raving and drooling.
5. Drops into convulsions and foams at the mouth.
6. Becomes paranoid. Thinks everyone is an enemy out to swallow his soul. A very dangerous person to be around.
7. Begins to talk to himself and is delusional. Looses connection to reality.
8. Looses all sense of self.
9. Becomes another personality (determine randomly or GM choice).
10. Begins speaking in tongues and becomes violent
11. The voices! The voices in my head! The voices tells him to do stupid and dangerous things. Not good to have in the part.
12. Becomes blind, deaf, and dumb.
13. Has an obsession with eating bugs and freshly killed things.
14. Urinates self and stands there helpless in catatonic state. Violently resist any attempts to move.
15. Begins clawing at own flesh. Sustains 1d4 hp damage every turn.
16. Can't stop pleasuring his/her self.
17. Begins hitting head against wall until unconscious (Sub-dual hp zero).
18. Starts sobbing uncontrollably. Becomes totally helpless and defenseless.
19. Seeks out the smallest, darkest place and refuses to come out (cave, nook, under a bed, etc.).
20. Believes the end is near and doom is upon us all. Becomes fanatical in this belief.

Remember any screaming or tantrum attracts wandering monsters.
These affects can last as long as the DM deems appropriate from a number of rounds (3d6) to a number of turns (1d6) .Quite and peaceful rest becomes the only cure.

This Week In The War Of The Ring

2011-09-24T08:44:00.005-07:00

While I post the quick highlights the the Journey of the Ring in the right column on a daily or semi-daily basis, I'll summarize in a weekly post the goings on.

Sept. 18th
Gandalf escapes from Orthanc....

The Black Riders cross the Fords of Isen.

Sept 19th
Gandalf Comes to Edoras as a beggar, and is refused admittance.

Sept 20th
Gandalf enters Edoras but Theoden kicks his ass out by bribing him to take any horse. Wormtongue gets the giggles.

Sept 21st
Of course Gandalf selects Shadowfax, but the lord of horses will have none of it and runs off. The grey wizard follows.

Sept 22nd
Frodo's birthday, hooray!
On a grim note, the Black Riders reach San Ford that evening and drive off the Ranger guards.
Gandalf and Shadowfax are now friends.
Sept 23rd
Four Riders enter the Shire before dawn.
Merry leaves with Fatty
A Black Rider comes to Hobbiton that evening.
Frodo leaves Bag End along with Pippin and Sam.
Gandalf, having tamed Shadowfax, leaves Rohan and speeds towards the Shire.

Sept 24th
Gandalf crosses Isen

Happy Birthday Mr. Frodo

2011-09-22T08:45:00.002-07:00

It's Frodo's birthday today (and Bilbo's as well) so make merry!
(Make Merry do what?)

The Screen Pass

2011-09-20T08:40:00.005-07:00

I've been becoming quite annoyed using a DM screen for my S&W game. Though I've created a custom screen with the charts I need and a space to clip a map I haven't been using it much. In a rules-lite game such as we are playing (using ascending AC), I rarely have to look anything up on the charts and when I do, it's usually something that I don't have charted anyways and have to flip through the rules or my collection of random charts. Plus, a good full character sheet gives the players everything they need for play.

The other thing is that the screen separates the DM from the players to much. I like to be part of the table more which helps me, as DM, participate more in the game.

Plus with beer, snacks, dice, character sheets, and minis a screen just takes up too much room.

The last number of sessions I haven't had a screen set up. The maps and keys I just keep folded on my lap. But I would still like some quick access to some of my charts.

I made this little micro folded booklet with some of my current charts. It won't take up much room and it has just what I currently need. I'll be testing this out on Monday and see how it works. But however it works out, I'm taking a permanent pass on the screen.

Feel free to print this out (at 100%) and follow the instructions below for folding the booklet and give it a try. Oh, the Crit hit and miss charts were lifted from Gothridge Manor.

Instructions

Fold A over to B.
Fold C down to D.
Fold E over to F.
Unfold twice (it will look like step 2). Cut on red line.
Open paper all the way. Fold G to H.
Push from ends so I meets J. Press down on folds to smooth out rough edges.
Now self-publish a collection of favorite jokes, illustrate a short story, or just doodle to your heart's content.

Today In The War Of The Ring

2011-09-18T10:08:00.002-07:00

I'm starting a small calendar in the right column of this blog which will track the journey of Fellowship of the Ring and their journey to Mordor and Mt. Doom in real time. I'll comment a post at times as well.

Where we are at now is that Gandalf has already talked with Frodo about the ring and the journey to Mordor and has left for Isengard. On July 20th, Gandalf was imprisoned by Saruman and he has been there ever since. On July 4th, Boromir sets out from Minas Tirith for Rivendell. We pick up the story at this point....

...when Gandalf escapes Orthanc

The Black Riders cross the Fords of Isen...

A Little Friday Fun With Kingdom Rush

2011-09-16T08:45:00.003-07:00

I'm not one to play or even promote video games especially online 'flash' games but I ran across this online game the other day and found it pretty fun. It's called Kingdom Rush by Ironhide Game Studio.

It's a great little concept of protecting a kingdom from invading goblins, orcs, wolves and other creepy things by strategically placing defending towers of soldiers, archers, wizards and bomb flinging dwarves along the road to various towns. Your job is to pretty much prevent the monsters from passing down the road by killing them.

The graphics and animations are fun and it very much has a hint of D&D to it that I think you all would like.

Kingdom Rush!

Session XXXVI: Into The Light

2011-09-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Anyone following along with our campaign will be happy to know that our lost party has finally made it out from Beneath the Ruined Tower of Zenopus. Yes, that's right, with only 3 PC deaths, experience and treasure was finally divvied up.

Of course Skwanky, the halfling that caused all this trouble to begin with, survived but that is beside the point.

Session XXXVI: Into The Light

The party, now only consisting of Arvin and his Mushrooms, Skwanky Furrytoe and Slick Vinny with a hand full of pirates at his command entered a large lit chamber that appeared to be a type of waiting room. There was a Giant Bat, a gnoll, an orc and orche jelly and a Gelatinous Cube all waiting to be called in from beyond a door where a giant spider had just left and a voice called out "Next!".

As the orc walked through the door, Skwanky started up a conversation with the Gnoll. It turned out that the Gnoll was here to see a wizard who would help him with his personal 'problem' (which turned out to be a four hour erection). He came from another part of the dungeon down a long, long tunnel.

After a while the orc exited the room and one by one the other creatures were called in. The orc (half-orc named Argh played by Brian who lost two characters down here and rolled up yet another one) struck up a conversation with the party still waiting their turn. It turned out that Argh found a flier for the services of the wizard in his village and came down here to trade his two orc sons for a scroll of the world's worst insult, which, after Skwanky read, made him cry.

As Argh's village was on the surface, it was thought that the half-orc could help lead them out.

All this time Vinny was getting anxious thinking that this wizard could grant wishes and give Vincent unlimited power. He no longer cared about the fate of Caladan thinking that they were now on some other planet or plane - which all turned out to not be the case.

When finally the wizard beyond the door called out for our party, it was decided that only one person will go in at at time. Vinny stepped in first.

Bowing before the mighty wizard, Vinny asked for more power. The wizard laughed and said that was not what he was giving out. He was offering potions, scrolls and other magics, such as his home-made skeletaurs. Slick Vinny then asked for a powerful spell of the eighth circle and the wizard laughed again. He wasn't so stupid as to give away his more powerful spells.

The Wizard introduced himself as Mordrith and this dungeon was his home.

Vinny asked him if he had heard of the city of Caladan. Mordrith replied that of course he had. He had lived there for many years before he came down here to continue his studies. When Vinny asked him about Zenopus, Mordrith spit out her name and called her evil and a powerful witch who had betrayed her lover and his friend Onyx for his tower and his magic. It was discovered that Zenopus was in alliance with Empress Kushana of the southern Empire.

Vinny finally mentioned the Crafty Magi and again, Modrith raged as he told Vinny that he actually started the Crafty Magi to share magic with one another but his guild was taken over by Risiri, a sorcerer from the south who took over the Crafty Magi and began worshiping the Yellow God Hastur with human sacrifice.

Mordrith offered Vinny treasures beyond count if he could bring back the head of Risiri.

To win favor with this powerful spell-caster, Vinny offered him Zenopus' spell book which Mordrith accepted with much triumph.

Suddenly the dungeon wizard was too preoccupied to be of assistance any longer and, after telling Vinny to follow the long tunnel to get back to the surface, closed his doors for the day(?), which was good, because a conversation with Skwanky could have been quite counter-productive.

So, the party left Mordrith's office and headed up the giant northern tunnel, avoiding any side passages. After passing Mordrith's skeletaur guards, they continued traveling for a couple hours down this passage until it opened up into a cavern with bridge crossing over a pool of water and three cave opening on the other side. Crossing the bridge, they decided to take the center passage which headed upward for a short while then turned and began to spiral downward. It was here that they were attacked by some Albino apes. Vinny cast a web spell on them and blocked the passage. Argh stepped in and slew the apes.

Heading back up the passage they found the cavern was filled with a bunch of giant worker ants which they slew as well. Taking the right passage, they headed towards the surface eventually coming out into another wide and carved tunnel that lead to a cave and the outside!

Traveling a short distance from the cave opening they made camp and rested. Here, Vinny looked into his Cat's Eye crystal ball and saw that indeed Caladan was overrun by pirates and soldiers from the southern empire.

It was in their camp that Gnarly spied a tiny figure watching them. It turned out to be a fairy that was lost in the caves and had followed them out. Her name was Flora Fawn and wanted to accompany them to Caladan (this was my wife's new character after her dwarf Maudlin was killed last session).

Not knowing quite where they were, they headed south and passing through some woods found the Great Coast Road and headed back to Caladan and their Moon-tower. It was from this vantage point that they saw the port town ablaze with the remnants of battle.

Back at the Moon-tower, Skwanky immediately ran to the kitchen. While the pirates wanted their fair share of the treasure so that they can head back to Caladan and pillage. Of course Vinny wasn't going to have any of it and soon the pirates drew their swords and demanded their fair share. Argh, didn't stand for any of the pirate's shenaggians and slew one while Vinny called up an illusion of Zenopus to frighten the other who ran off down towards Caladan.

Not wanting him to get away, Vinny sent One-Eyed Jones, the charmed pirate leader, after him, and Gnarly sent Tuk. As the sun was beginning to set, One-Eyed Jones was catching up to the fleeing pirate but saw that he was set upon by a pack of ghouls coming out of the forest. One-Eyed Jones high-tailed it back up to the tower.

The party, relieved to have survived their day and a half lost beneath the tower were quite happy to make it back and divided up their loot.

So this ended a great side-quest of a party lost in a dungeon. It was great fun for all of us. The players didn't think they were actually going to make it out alive. With three PC deaths it was looking pretty grim for a while but, for the most part, they prevailed.

So the party is united once more and the next sessions should have the whole group back together to begin an new chapter in the story of Arvin's Avengers.

Dice Rolling With The Rockers

2011-09-13T09:15:00.002-07:00

I was chopping down a tree this weekend and I began humming a Rush song which was strange because I was never a big fan of the band growing up. Over the years, though, I've learned to appreciate them and enjoy what they brought to the 70's FM radio.

This got me thinking, what if these bands that we grew up with were the kids in our neighborhood playing classic rpgs with us. What would they be playing? Would we be invited to play with them? Would we want to?

RUSH - The kids from RUSH would definitely be playing Traveller. A serious campaign run by Neil taking you to the furthest cosmic reaches of the Spinward Marches. Some real sci-fi action and no screwing around.

Blue Oyster Cult - They'd be playing a serious Gamma World campaign. Not too gonzo but with some great sci-fi themes. A good game to join if you'd like a grim realistic grim campaign and if they'd let you play. Their sessions would be talked about with awe and become things of legend.

Black Sabbath - Ozzy and his friends would be playing a mash-up of Tunnels & Trolls, OD&D along with a bunch of Judge's Guild material. Tekumel would be their campaign world house-ruled to high heaven. Their weekend games would be held late Saturday nights and everyone would end up drunk and/or stoned and sneaking out until the wee hours of dawn. All the neighborhood church-goers would believe that odd kid Ozzy and his friends and their 'weird' game were all about worshiping the devil and your parents wouldn't let you go over there. You'd sneak over there anyway. They would be the kids who end up exploring the town's drainage tunnels.

Styx - Some high fantasy game; SPI's War of the Ring. Denis DeYoung would always insist on controlling Frodo.

The Who - Okay, these guys would be a bit older than everyone else and just won't quite understand this game ' of the imagination'. They make fun of everyone else playing that 'gay' game. Besides, they're too busy getting drunk and getting laid to really care. Many years later, Pete would discover the allure of the game.

Nirvanna - Kurt and his friends would be running just about everything. They'd start with Basic D&D then move on to 1st ed. AD&D, Boot Hill, Gamma World and Champions. All one big campaign with the same characters. Totally gonzo, anything goes, good times. Only problem, is that Kurt's girlfriend would show up and ruin everyone's fun. But they'd all put up with her 'cause she was hot in a trashy sort of way and pretty slutty.

The Ramones - Good ol' fashion D&D. Dee-Dee would be known to let anyone play but he'd always run Tomb of Horrors and take great glee in killing everyone's character. Everyone would drink beer afterwords.

PJ Harvey - Yeah, one of the few chics that was into playing RPGs. She started with OD&D and just stuck with that version, obsessed with re-interrupting the rules.

Queen - Metamorphis Alpha.

Duran Duran - A very gadget based Top Secret but soon ditched it for James Bond 007 RPG.

Smashing Pumpkins - Billy created his own campaign world with 1st ed AD&D and evolved it with each new edition. He currently plays the same campaign in 4th ed. but no longer plays with his original gaming group.

Cheap Trick - Paranoia

David Bowie - I hate to say it, but definitely a LARP - Vampires. David has played all the other games, though, so he's still cool.

Sonic Youth - Thurston would be running a Cyberpunk game full of edgy irony. Not many of the other kids would get into this but his gaming group is pretty dedicated and they'll end up playing the same campaign for years.

Glenn Danzig & Henry Rollins - These two guys and their friends started out with Moldvay's basic set but would become obsessed with playing Twilight 2000 for a summer and then give it up to begin pumping iron.

That's all I got. Feel free to post any others, I'd like to see what else folks come up with. I'm heading back out to cut some more trees.

Creative Commoners

2011-09-12T08:09:00.004-07:00

Corey, Level 1 Gamer, and fellow gamer group member along with a couple of his colleagues have a pod cast called Creative Commoners a weekly podcast discussion for regular folks looking to add a bit more creativity to their lives. It's a great little show that's quite entertaining as they casually chat about creative endeavors.

They asked me to come on the show and talk about self-publishing and the radio-play. So if you have a chance to sit back today and listen to a great conversation about the creative process, check out Creative Commoners Episode 11.

Mystery Men! Character Sheets

2011-09-09T09:28:00.010-07:00

I've been playing in a Mystery Men! online campaign for the past couple of weeks now and it's been quite enjoyable. It's a great, easy to run/play system. I'm hoping to get a heroes game running this fall.

I thought I'd add to the MM! pool by coming up with some character sheets that have a more comic book feel. In the space for the character illustration I added come figure outlines so you can draw your own hero with a nice foundation. One of the things that I always loved in the original Champions game were the character sheet hero figures to fill in. I also added a character sheet with a blank space so you can completely draw your own or paste an illustration from an online hero generator.

Click on the image to download the pdf file.

Hero 1

Hero 2 Female

Hero 3

Hero 4

Blank Hero

Session: XXXV From Bad To Worse

2011-09-01T10:00:00.003-07:00

So after a looooong hiatus, we returned to our Swords & Wizardry campaign. We have a side-quest of sorts going as a handful of party members took a delve beneath the ruined tower of Zenopus on their own, stepped through a portal and have become lost in the Underworld.

Three hour tour, indeed!

Thanks to Skwanky the halfling, who willy-nilly jumped through the magical portal, a beloved PC had died a horrible death while lost underground, Tibag Backstabber!

This party has had their ups and downs seeking a way out, but last night's session was a bit grim. In fact, I even killed my wife's character, Maudlin the dwarf. Well, I didn't kill her, a Gelatinous Cube did, but it brought up the moral question: Should a DM allow his wife's character to get killed?

That question and others answered in Session XXXV: From Bad To Worse!

After slaying a pack of sleeping Bugbears and looting their corpses, our party, Gnarly the Druid, Maudlin the hermaphrodite dwarf, Slick Vinny the Wizard and Skwanky the troublesome halfling and along with a handful of pirates and joined by Radius Longshadow (the racist warrior) explored the enormous chamber.

They decided to pursue the lone Bugbear that escaped when he was set alight by farie-fire. Traveling down the twenty foot wide hallway they eventually came across the frightened creature who drew it's sword to defend itself. But his bravery was short-lived as Vinny paralyzed the hapless beast with a wave of his wand.

It is then that they noticed the large cavern they were in with the facing wall a featureless gray mass unlike the rest of the cavern walls. And in that gray mass they can see things moving around - swimming. It appeared to be some kind of membrane with a view to an underground sea.

Skwanky the halfling, examining the membrane discovered it had some give. So, pulling out his sword, he attempted to pierce it to the horror of his party. Gnarly, being quick on his toes tried to hold the halfling back but Skwanky was a bit too quick and punctured the membrane. Immediately, sea-water began to pour through the ever widening hole.

Realizing the danger they were in, Gnarly, along with his Mushroom-men, and Maudlin started to hightail it back down the hall while the rest of the party chastised the curious halfling.

Back in the large chamber, Gnarly sent out Tuk the owl to explore a couple of the chamber's openings. Down one passage was what appeared to be a thick jungle. The party, together once again, headed down to the Jungle room to seek an exit. While Gnarly and Maudlin explored the jungle room, the druid was attacked by a crocodile who soon fell with a couple of hits of Maudlin's hammer.

Meanwhile, standing outside the jungle entrance, Vinny, hoping to poison the troublesome halfling tricked him into eating a mysterious vine. Indeed, the vine was poison but it failed to kill Skwanky. Instead it gave him a terrible case of the uncontrolled vomiting which eventually lead him into unconsciousness!

Vinny called out to Gnarly and said he would take a couple of the pirates and try to open the large portcullis in the back chamber in hopes of finding a way out of the ever deepening water.

Finding the portcullis locked and unable to open, Vinny cast a spell of strength on a couple of the pirates who, with the help of Maudlin, busted the lock and raised the gate. The party trudged through the flooding waste deep water and entered another wide hallway. Eventually finding that the floor began to angle out of the water the party was high and dry for the moment and in the beginnings of another large chamber.

Again sending Tuk the owl out to explore, Gnarly found that deep inside the chamber there were a number of odd, floating objects; swords, coins, shields, armor, hovering no more than ten feet off the ground. Wary of what his might mean for the party, Radius moved ahead to see what could be. Gelatinous Cubes! Three of them! However, he also discovered a large set of double doors in the distance.

Thinking it better to avoid the cubes, they retreated behind another door they had found only to discover that the passage beyond had collapsed. They were now trapped!

Impatient about their predicament, Radius burst out of the hallway and made a run for the double doors followed by Maudlin. Unfortunately they got cornered by a fourth Cube with two more on the way. With the three heading for the doorway where the rest of the party was holed up that made six Gelatinous Cubes! A dire situation indeed!

Gnarly and Vinny tried to fend off the Cube attacking the doorway flinging magic missiles and torches with some success, but Radius and Maudlin did not fare so well. Radius is quickly paralyzed and engulfed by his cube which disappeared into the darkness dissolving the flesh of the new companion. Maudlin defended herself a bit more, actually slaying one cube before succumbing to it's poisons. Soon she too was engulfed and consumed (and thus, a DM has slain his wife's character!).

Seeing their companions fall to the Cubes, Gnarly and Vinny along with the pirates burst out of the doorway to engage the Cubes. With three of the cubes lined up perfectly, Vinny decided to let loose a powerful lightening bolt he had discovered in a magic ring many months ago (see session 19) and was saving for a dire circumstance. The lightening bursts forth engulfing each of the three cubes but as the smoke clears the Gelatinous Cubes were unharmed being immune to electricity! Lesson learned!

It's a battle to the death now, as the pirates engaged along with Gnarly. Vinny, slinging spells, was joined by Skwanky who didn't know what the heck was going on.

Eventually the cubes lay dead along with many of the pirates.

Scooping up the loot, the battered party made their way to the pair of doors and discover that there was light coming from beneath. Opening the door, they discovered an odd site. Before them was a large stone chamber raised by six pillars. Standing guard by each pillar were two centaur skeletons dressed in full armor. There were a number of chairs in the room filled with an odd assortment of beings; an orc, a giant bat, a bugbear, an orchre jelly sitting on a chair, even a large gelatinous cube. One of the Skeletaurs waved his hand and offered the party to take a seat. As they waited, a door on the far wall opened and out walks a giant spider who proceeded to leave through the double doors. A voice from beyond the door shouts out "Next!" and the orc stands up and goes through....

Session notes:

So that's where we ended.

Quite a night. Two PC deaths including my wife's character. She was a bit shocked but took it in stride and began to roll up another character. Now that's the spirit, eh?

The other character death, Longshadow what Brian's new character he rolled up at the beginning of the session to replace his infamous Tibag Backstabber. Alas, he ended the night rolling up a new character.

Skwanky (the character) has become (actually he always was) quite the troublesome little bugger having put the party at risk in more than a few occasions. Now, he is indirectly the cause of 3 PC deaths. But it's great! Some players are beginning to stretch their concepts of what role-playing means in the game and that's a good thing.

I also got to break in my new table along with using the Jenga blocks as walls which all worked out nicely, though the snacks and beer bottles still took up most of it. I've just started breaking in the new Swords & Wizardry Core rules so I have to make a number of adjustments to some of my house rules and charts. But after that, I should be pretty set on my rules. I do not foresee having to 'upgrade' the rule-set as I'm quite happy where we're at right now.

Looking forward to our next S&W session in a couple of weeks.

Quote of the game:
"You just vomited yourself into unconsciousness!"

And now for some awesome cube action!

I love this one, especially the Halfling. Typical!

Sir Brian of Gamealot

2011-08-31T08:20:00.000-07:00

I'm lucky to be part of a pretty great group of gamers. Counting myself, there are nine of us that regularly participate in our bi-weekly gaming sessions. This summer we've branched out into Savage Worlds and had a number of board-game nights.

It's a creative and talented bunch that likes to kick back and have a good time killing things.

One of the members of our group, Brian, is especially skilled at tracking down games at the various local resale shops here in town. We're all in Tucson Arizona, mind you, a great little city but it's no metropolis like Chicago, LA or NYC. In those cities can be found just about anything you seek in the small privately owned independent used book stores and resale shops. But here in Tucson it's a bit trickier.

As small as Tucson is, I've had my luck at scoring some great classic gaming items for real cheap mostly through yard sales and antique sales; a box full of classic Grenadier minis, a bunch of classic TSR D&D modules for just a couple of dollars.

But the true king has to be Brian.

He has scored the most amazing classic gaming items by casually scouring the resale shops here in town - and consistently too! Just about every week he comes up with some amazing find at the most unbelievable prices. Some of the games he keeps to play with his two sons (growing gamers themselves!) or sells/trades on the interwebs. But he's shared quite a bit with us, his fellow gamers.

Last night he brought over a bunch of 'presents' to hand out including a bunch of old Star Fleet Battles stuff.

But the real prize....the most amazing score had to be this:

Yes, the original Traveller box set with a stack of supplements.

And do you know what he paid for this?

Come on, just guess......

$5.00

Yup, just $5.00

Don't ever give up hope shopping around on a quest for those classic gaming items, 'cause they're out there.

So long live the king of amazing gaming finds: Sir Brian of Gamealot!

Original D&D Radio Play: Conclusion

2011-08-24T08:29:00.003-07:00

We continue with the third and final chapter to this portion of our original scripted radio drama Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus; a pulp fantasy about a group of adventurers exploring the labyrinth beneath a magician's ruined tower!

If you missed the earlier chapters you can catch up here:
Listen to Chapter 1
Listen to Chapter 2

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS
Chapter 3: Dark Sorcery

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Lieberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot, Morak

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Pirate Captain

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

Listen Now (14 minutes)...

Download Chapter 3 for your listening leisure!

If we leave you hangin' with this one, not to worry! We'll be continuing this tale as well as other original adventure fantasy dramas with our Tales of High Adventure Pod-casts. Coming to you totally infrequently and without warning!

Player Badges

2011-08-23T11:23:00.020-07:00

Inspired by Stuart over at Strange Magic and his awesome DM badges and Zach from our gaming group I felt that the players needed merit badges too.

Hack and Slash! I like to kill things and take their stuff!

I'm only in it for the money! Gold! Gold! Gold!

I like to roll by character and crunch numbers. My character's mad skills are not mine but better! I've never met a skill roll I didn't like!

I like to role my character. I am my character!

I better end up a king in your campaign!

Keep me away from torches and barns.

My character's actions are not for kids under 17 or sensitive ears at the table. Yeah, I'm that guy.

I survived the Tomb of Horrors and all I got was this cursed merit badge!

I like to explore the underworld.

I like to explore the wilderness.

Wine, women and songs! Towns are for me!

I enjoy epic high fantasy!

I enjoy gritty pulp adventures!

UPDATE: Feel free to use how you wish!

DM Badges

2011-08-22T14:00:00.000-07:00

I've been out of the loop on this whole FLAILSNAIL Convention thingy but from little I've gathered it sounds like a great idea. I just don't think I have the time to put into it at the moment.

BUT...Stuart over at Strange Magic came up with a great shorthand for your DMing style with these DM Badges. But why restrict it to just FLAILSNAIL, all DMs can let their geek-flags fly.

The Warlock's Badges:

I roll the dice sometimes in public view, sometimes in private but I never fudge. Let the dice fall where they may! Live it!
Character Death? Check! It doesn't matter how high level you are, you can always die. It's what makes the game fun and memorable.
Gonzo? Enough. Instant death icy blue lava, giant eyeballs, 100 crotch-goblins and giant Halflings.
I've gotten to waaaay less planning as the improvisation is so much more fun.
My players have tons of cool ideas, much more than I can come up with. It makes my job a hell of a lot easier.
Mystery and exploration is why I play RPGs in the first place.
It hasn't come up but I ain't against player vs player as long as it's in character.
BYOB, what's left over put it in the fridge for next week. Chips go on the bookshelf.
You better run if things look harry, though my players haven't figured that out yet.
Always felt inhibited in the long ago past but I love to tinker and house rule these days.
Player-skill over character skill. It's role-playing, ain't it?

Mystery Men! And My Ass-whoopin'

2011-08-22T08:17:00.006-07:00

Yes, that's right. My Mystery Men! character the Firefly (based on a golden-aged hero) got his ass handed to him in the online PBP game I'm playing in. He was taking on TWO baddies, mind you, but I still think his performance was less than heroic - especially with a bunch of innocents in jeopardy.

He did get one good lick in, bashing a sound-blaster guy, but the Pinball dude kept shooting pinballs at me and that was my end.

But after his failure, and with the aid of The Green Mask, the Firefly brushed himself off and went back to his lab to 'invent' some crime-fighting tools.

That's the one really cool thing about Mystery Men! over ICONS; there is plenty of room for character development and improvement. It's built into the system and I like that a lot. It lends itself to more campaign play and not just a one shot evening.

The other thing I really like about MM! are the three character classes; Adventurer, Scientist, Magician. It seemed a bit odd at first but actually works quite well. Firefly's alter ego, Harley Hudson, is a scientist / entomologist and so I went with that class. The cool thing about that class over adventurer is that not only do you get your powers, but you also can have a 'Science Pool' that you can use to 'invent' new powers for each adventure depending on what you think you might need. It gives a lot of flexibility to that character. Of course you need a lab or workshop which costs you points during character creation.

Determined to not make the same mistakes again with this new age of super-villains (after all, Firefly is a golden-aged hero fighting in a Silver-aged campaign world), Firefly added some 'enhancements' to his abilities.

I present to you the Silver-age Firefox!

FIREFLY (Level 7 Scientist)

STR 13 | DEX 7 | CON 5 | INT 7 | WIL 3 | CHA 5 | HP 34 | DC 16 / 20 w-shields | ATK +4 | SPD 3

Powers: Iron Grip, Potent Attack, Jump, Invulnerability I, Super STR +7, Super INT +2, Super DEX +2, Super CON +4, Super CHA +4, Super Speed +1

Gear:
Shield – when activated, wrist guards create small invisible discs which help FF defend against incoming attacks; Can only be used for up to 7 rounds; FF must see the attack coming for them to be affective. DC 16, hp 5
Firecycle
Chest Symbol emits light 60' when controlled by button in belt. DC 10, hp 5
Apartment/lab

Flaw:
Ordinary human.
Joan Burton love interest and reporter.
Wrist shields only last for 7 rounds before needing recharging.
Science Pool: 4,550
Science Pool Gadgets:
Energy Hands Stinger (wristband)
Web Cocoon (wristband)

Now....Bring on the badguys!

ICONS: The Scarlet Hood

2011-08-19T08:55:00.004-07:00

Finally finished reading the rules to ICONS. It sounds like it should be a fast paced fun game an. I hope to get a session going in the next few weeks. There's a couple issues that I have with the game and I'll be talking about them soon. But for now, I'm enjoying the random character creation. It's really a fun challenge to piece together a character based on the powers and abilities rolled but it's a great creative exercise.

The Scarlet Hood
Kane Foster

Trained

Prowess 4
Coordination 4
Strength 3
Intellect 7
Awareness 5
Willpower 3

Stamina 7
Determination 5

Specialties
Investigate
Science (physics)
Athletics
Stealth
Electronics
Weapons (expert Quarter Staff)
Weapons (Gun)

Powers
Invisibility 5

Qualities
Motivation: Wife, Sharon Foster Asst. DA was murdered prosecuting a crime-boss' son.
Identity: Kane Foster
Catch Phrase: The Scarlet Hood passes judgment upon thee.
Motivation: Hunting wife's killer
Connection: Informant on the street Henry Corbits

Challenges
Hunted by police
Obsessed with murder of wife.

Total Points: 39

When physics professor Kane Foster's assistant DA wife was murdered while prosecuting the son of a local crime-boss, something inside of him died. Shattered by the brutal murder and without much aid from the corrupt police department, Foster felt forced by circumstances beyond his control to take the law into his own hands. Thus, inventing an invisibility cloak to aid in his hunt for those responsible for his wife's death, the Scarlet Hood prowls the dark alleys and the grim underworld of the city.

Beneath The Tower Of Zenopus Radio Play Chapter 2

2011-08-17T08:26:00.004-07:00

We continue with the second chapter to our original scripted radio drama Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus; a pulp fantasy about a group of adventurers exploring the labyrinth beneath a magicians ruined tower!

A bit shorter than last weeks episode but I'll make up for it next week with Chapter 3. If you missed Chapter 1, you can listen to it here.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS
Chapter 2: An Unexpected Alliance

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Lieberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Morak

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

Listen Now (11 minutes)...

...or download for your leisure listening.
Beneath the Ruined Tower of Zenopus: Chapter 2 An Unexpected Alliance

Tune in next week for Chapter 3: Dark Sorcery!

Chapter 1: Into the Dark

Warlock Movie Review: The People vs George Lucas

2011-08-16T08:25:00.002-07:00

"If only you knew the power of the Dark Side."
-Darth Vader from The Empire Strikes Back

As our gaming session fell apart last night due to birthing a baby, my wife and I went out to the local movie house in Tucson, The Loft, and caught The People vs George Lucas - an entertaining and often hilarious documentary about a bunch of 40 something geeks loving and hating on the famed director's revisionist obsession of their childhood space fantasy sandbox; the Star Wars epic.

The People vs George Lucas touches on all the famed subjects of this infamous debate over the original Star Wars, the prequels and the revised editions of the original movies. It leaves no stone unturned as director Alexandre O. Philippe hits everything from Amadala to Jar Jar and all the midichlorians in-between. Filled with interviews, clips from the movies and fan made films it's a clever 'Hell-ride' (yes, there's even an appearance by Wesley Willis

Philippe's camera is not only focused on George Lucas but also the sub-culture that was spawned back in 1977 and the obsessed fans who we can probably identify with all too well. In fact, as the folks interviewed recount their experiences of the original films and then the long awaited prequels you can't help but feel a part of the same emotional roller-coaster ride that well all experienced.

The film is limited release right now but it is well worth trying to get previewed into your town.

It's a brilliant and entertaining little movie about a man who expanded our dream of a galaxy far far away and then demolished it.....from a certain point of view.

Supers Inspiration: The Avengers Cartoon

2011-08-13T07:21:00.006-07:00

I grew up a Marvels guy. Sure I had my handfuls of Superman, Bat-man, JLA, GL and the Flash, but it was always Marvel's high-octane drama that did it for me. Spidey, Cap and of course The Avengers.

Lots of folk liked the Bruce Timm DC series'; Batman, Superman and the JLA. I agreed, they were beautifully drawn animated stories that took the characters seriously. A big departure, IMO, from the Japanese Anime influenced hero cartoons from the late 80's and 90's. But I was never 'hooked' so to speak.

But now we have The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes animated cartoon and on this I am hooked. It's a Bruce Timm influenced cartoon of the Marvel Universe. They capture the evolution of the bickering team quite well and pack it with all aspects of their prized universe. Though a modern take on the heroes, it pays great homage to the Avengers of the 1960's & 70's through the development of the marvel expected depth of characters, the interwoven extended plots and villains galore.

From Ant-man / Giant-man (which is awesome in and of itself), to the discovery of Captain America, the crabby Hulk as a member, to the Masters of Evil and the Kree Skrull war it's a cartoon that touches on every almost every aspect of classic Marvel Comics greatness.

Though kids will love it, adults and fans of the characters will enjoy the character dynamics and plotlines even more.

I do have to say that the theme-song is the most irritating, ear-bleeding piece of crap I've ever heard that anymore than just a brief first listen will explode your brains.

So, for some great Supers action (and inspiration) check out The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, streaming from NetFlix! You will not be disappointed.

Tales Of High Adventure Original D&D Pod-Play

2011-08-10T08:15:00.005-07:00

So for all of you that have returned from your journeys at GenCon, for all of you getting ready for the OSRCon, for all of you Grognards out there old and young, for all you classic role-players, fantasy bloggers and all other fans of pulp fantasy drama The Warlock's Home Brew presents the first chapter in it's original Pod-Play drama Beneath The Ruined Tower Of Zenopus! An original scripted performance about a group of adventurers exploring the labyrinth beneath a magicians ruined tower! Dedicated to and influenced by John Eric Holmes' sample dungeon in the original blue book.

Tune in to the theater of your mind with Tales of High Adventure!

THE RUINED TOWER OF ZENOPUS
Chapter 1: Into the Dark

Written and Produced by Paul Fini

Music by Kevin MacLeod

Performed by the Warlock's Home Brewed Role-players:

Corey Bishop…..Arvin Ardmore, priest of Mithra
Brain Dunkle…..Tibag Backstabber, rogue
Paul Fini…..Announcer, Father Halford, Sorcerer
Zachariah Hoffman…..Skwanky Furrytoe, halfling
Clay Lewis…..Gedleesmote Hammersend the Dwarf
Max Liberman…..Vincent the Wizard
Mike Moran…..Wolf the Viking
Christy Cameron Smith…..Narrator, Harlot

Also featuring
Richard Gabriel…..Mithra pirest
Sara Gabriel…..Jesse the bar wench, goblin
Brendan & Adam Gabriel…..Goblins
Michael Griffith.....Morak

This Pod-play is dedicated to John Eric Holmes

Listen Now (17 minutes)...

...or download for your leisure listening.
Beneath the Ruined Tower of Zenopus: Chapter 1 Into the Dark

Listen to Chapter 2: An Unexpected Alliance

Listen to Chapter 3: Dark Sorcery!

Warlock's Ramblings

2011-08-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Last night we finally got back into some role-playing. This summer, our sessions have been a bit scattered as summers usually tend to be. But we continued our Savage Worlds campaign with a full house (eight souls around the table). Clay ran a great session and there was a lot of laughter as we haven't seen some of each other for a while. Sometimes you forget how great this group storytelling concept really is.

Two of our players, Clay (who is running Savage Worlds) and Mike are having babies within a week of each other. Once their little role-players come into the world we'll most likely be taking a break from Savage Worlds and delving back into our Swords & Wizardry campaign, tying up some loose ends.

During this past summer we've had a number of board-game sessions which is always great fun and a nice break from the rigors of a RPGs.

But that's not all we've been doing. This summer we've also been putting together a special project to present to all of you who enjoy classic adventures and tales! I won't say much more now except that I think you'll all enjoy it (well, I hope you will).

So be sure to check out tomorrow's post here at The Warlocks' Home Brew!

More Mystery Men!: Shore City

2011-08-08T09:00:00.001-07:00

I've been going through the Superhero RPG Mystery Men! by John Stater and I've been really enjoying this set of rules for a Supers game. Though I have yet to take it out for an actual test-drive, the quick pace, familiar rules-lite system is much to my liking.

The one thing that has just blown me away is the inspired campaign setting that comes with the rules: Shore City. Stater has put together a really fantastic broad-stroke hero's setting that gives you just enough to spark your imagination but without getting bogged down in over-descriptive location and characters. An imaginary industrial city on the Great Lakes, Shore City is filled with all manner of colorful neighborhoods, characters and plot hooks that can keep a campaign going for ages. Rich industrialists, ambitious politicians, gangsters and clever scientists all help to bring this city to life in any style of campaign; whether it be for a gritty street-fighting hero or a powerful cosmic entity. Shore City can cover the gambit with room to spare.

Every good comic hero has as his backdrop a city that is as much a character as himself; Bat-man has Gotham City, Superman has Metropolis, Marvel Comics has all of New York City. The city itself should be a major character and in Shore City you get that.

Reading it I couldn't help but feel that I wanted to dive right in there and cause some havoc or chase some baddies down and there was plenty of room to add enough color of my own. That's a sign of a well written setting.

I've really enjoyed reading this rule set. It's well put together and written with passion of the genre. I'm hoping to get a game started this fall. I'll keep you posted.

Hero Creation: the ARGHs! BAMs! and Crunch! of it all

2011-08-05T10:34:00.003-07:00

So I've been looking at the Super's games Mystery Men! and Icons (though I may delve into Supers as well due to high recommendations). I really like Mystery Men! so far and Icons has certain qualities I like as well. But a heroes game all comes down to character creation, now doesn't it?

Mystery Men! uses a character build point system while Icons uses a random character creation. Icons also has a point system thrown in as an afterthought and I'll look at that as well.

There is something to be said about random character creation but for a Supers game I've never been sure how that would work. For me, part of a Supers game is creating a hero you want to play, whether it's your own creation or inspired by a classic comic hero.

So I rolled up an Icons character. I'm not going to get too into the mechanics of the game, I'll just talk about the results. Regardless, Icons uses 2d6 for the most part in it's creation process.

In Icons you go through a 7 step character creation process:

1. Origin
2. Ability Determination
3. Power Determination
4. Specialty Determination
5. Stamina, Background, and Description
6. Aspects (Qualities and Challenges)
7. Game Master Approval

Origin is your base starting point of how you received your powers, ie. trained, birthright, etc. I rolled Gimmick meaning all powers come from devices.

Next I rolled abilities, 3 physical and 3 mental. I ended up with low strength and a very high willpower (mental abilities). Still unsure what this character was going to be so lets see what powers I roll. Hmm, 2 powers, Animation (bringing inanimate objects to life) and Life Support. No real offensive powers. So this guy was going to be some kind of mentalist, in more of a support role, maybe alien (life support) so I choose Mental resistance for a skill.

I was a bit bummed about having a Prof. X type of character but then I thought this over once again and ended up with a brain kept alive in a floating jar of goo. Kinda like Basil Cronus from Godland. This was sounding more like a villain than a hero but really it could go both ways. This guy would be flipping' odd to have in your hero group.

I decided to go with villain and ended up with Hitler's brain in a jar come back to build a 4th reich (yeah, all this talk about Captain America hasn't influenced this at all).

Der Fuhrer's Brain! His brain is kept alive in this floating machine not needing to sleep, eat, or breath and he's protected from the vacuum and pressures of space and the oceans. He plots evils with his big brain and fights by bringing an assortment of inanimate objects to life through his connected machinery to fight his enemies. He's always in fear of having his jar being broken.

I actually kinda liked this guy. I don't know if I would ever have come up with this on my own so there's something to be said about random hero creation. He would even be a weird, freaky super-hero, something interesting to play. I'd take that challenge. Maybe Hitler's brain in a quest for forgiveness and redemption. Interesting and surprising. Either way, we've got some Kirbyesque gaming in this guys future.

One thing I would like to mention in the Icons random CharGen is that a hero can end up being just a bit better than a plain old guy or a superman, which I think is great for a multi-player team. A lot of diversity.

Now on to Mystery Men!

I built a character for an online game I'm participating in being run of the creator of the rules, John Stater. It's a silver-aged era campaign and we were allowed to build a character from scratch or base one off of a public domain golden age hero. I went with the golden age hero Firefly!

Mystery Men! foundation is based on an original fantasy game system so it's quite easy to pick up and create a character. In Myster Men! you get a pool of starting experience points ranging from normal (10,000) to cosmic (200,000). We were playing superhuman so we started with 50,000.

You start by rolling your standard 6 abilities on a 1d6 (yes, a 1d6) than building up from there. You add points to your abilities, use the points to buy powers, equipment, housing and even your character level.

There are three character classes to base your hero on, the adventurer, scientist, and sorcerer. At first I was a bit turned off by this lack of inspirational naming but it turns out to work well as it doesn't leave the class pigeon-holed. It's just a general category that you can just make into whatever you want - a true rules-lite open system and huge plus IMO.

Since Firefly was a scientist and used his knowledge to enhance his natural powers I built him as a scientist class character who still turned out to be quite strong. It was quite easy to match powers to the Firefly comic character, in fact, character creation was quite a breeze and fun. With a character concept in mind, you can pretty much breeze through the process.

FIREFLY (Level 6 Scientist)

The Firefly's real name is Harley Hudson, an entomologist and chemist. He discovered that insects can lift masses greater than their own weight because of their ability to coordinate their muscles. He taught himself to coordinate his muscles as insects do and found himself able to perform amazing feats. He then created a costume and called himself the Firefly. Thus, the Firefly does not possess any real superpowers but is merely a man possessing great physical and mental prowess due to his natural abilities.

Harley Hudson's romantic interest is Joan Burton, a newspaper reporter.

STR 13 | DEX 7 | CON 5 | INT 7 | WIL 3 | CHA 5 | HP 27 | DC 16 | ATK +3 | SPD 3
Powers: Iron Grip, Potent Attack, Jump, Invulnerability I, Super STR +7, Super INT +2, Super DEX +2, Super CON +4, Super CHA +4, Super Speed +1
Gear: Firecycle, chest symbol emits light 60' when controlled by button in belt. DC 10, hp 5 (I rolled a d6 and got 5 but if you want to roll on your own be my guest), Apartment/lab
Flaw: Ordinary human. Joan Burton love interest and reporter.

Finally, I wanted to see how the point system in Icons played out with the same character Firefly. The baseline hero points are 45 and that goes into all of your abilities and power levels. This can be adjusted by the GM, of course, for whatever campaign he/she would like to run.

So with 45 points I was able to create a pretty compatible version of Firefly. Housing and transportation isn't figured into the character cost like it is in Mystery Men! but the system worked better than I thought it would. With multiplayers starting with the same base points it may bring all the heroes into a closer power range with each other but I haven't explored that yet.

Regardless, both games process of character creation was fun and painless and didn't take to much time.

It's time to dive a bit deeper into the game playing aspects of both games and maybe take a look at Supers as well.

Ye Ol' Dice

2011-08-03T21:55:00.003-07:00

Alas, my Holmes dice are long gone. In fact, I know exactly when they left - exactly 6 years ago last month. I sold them at a yard sale in a dice bag with a bunch of minis and the original TSR Dungeon! game before my wife and I moved to Tucson.

Thanks to Tim over at Gothridge Manor for his Dice Marathon!

Rolling Heroes

2011-08-02T11:12:00.005-07:00

All my previous posting about Captain America a couple of weeks ago has got me thinking about running a Supers game. Actually I've been thinking about it for a while now and thought no better time than to dive back into the colorful world of the super-hero.

Back in the day, other than D&D and Top Secret, Champions 1st ed. became one of our regular RPGs. As soon as it came out I scooped it up as I saw no better combination for me than comic book heroes and role-playing games. At the time we loved the chunky rules and building the heroes and villains. The sessions turned into just full on bash-fests but we loved it - not to mention the cool character sheets with the hero figure lightly sketched in for you to finish up.

Late last year I picked up a copy of the old Champions rule book off the interwebs (mine having disappeared many centuries ago) and enjoyed flipping through the familiar pages. Alas, my old brain is not up for working with such a crunchy style game so I began to search for an alternative.

I was looking for something rules-lite. A game with enough rules to play a wide variety of heroes and villains without getting the feeling you're just changing the surface dressing of powers.

We've been playing a Savage Worlds pulp adventure campaign. Though having played Savage Worlds and have been enjoying our sessions I haven't been blown away with the system. Sure it's pretty easy to get going but I was looking for something else. Savage Worlds have a Super Powers Companion supplement for their basic Explorer rules. So that is a possible option but I'm not sold on it.

Right now, what really appeals to me are two sets of rules that are quite different - Icons by Steven Kenson (published by Adamant Entertainment) and Mystery Men! self published by John Stater.

I haven't completed reading both sets of rules yet but here are my initial impressions thus far...

Icons can be a bit pricey for a pdf but that price sometimes fluctuates. Keep an eye on it, you could get lucky. The print version runs about $30 plus shipping. A bit pricey for a cheap-ass gamer such as myself. Mystery Men! offers a free e-book as well as a print on demand for $7.30 (which I will be picking up on my next Lulu order), much more my cup of tea.

Both are rules-lite and seem to be fast paced and loose games.

I enjoy the layouts for both books with Mystery Men! taking a clean layout sprinkled with golden age heroes and images - a nice touch. Icons has more of a modern, Justice League / Bruce Timm look and feel and is in full color which all fits the mood of the game pretty well. The thing I liked about Icons is the terms used for time in the game; when it's your turn it is called a panel, after everyone completes their turn (panels) that's considered a page. A number of pages make up a chapter etc. all of which sticks with the genre. I love that little detail and would use that concept in any heroes game I run.

The main difference is that Icons sports a random generation character creation while Mystery Men! sports the character build.

Having played Champions, I enjoyed the planned character building process and customizing the hero's powers to fit your vision or copy of an existing hero. Mystery Men! seems to capture that pretty well in a much more simplified format. It also seems to give you options to grow your character over time - a big plus for an ongoing campaign.

I've also always enjoyed the random character creation in your typical FRPG (D&D Traveller, etc), but I've always been a bit apprehensive about that process in a heroes game.

So I'm in the process of character creation in both games. I'll post my results later.

For some insight in rolling up Icon characters you can check out Tower of Zenopus recent post.

Make Mine Marvel

2011-07-28T08:18:00.002-07:00

While your Warlock has been out of town this week exploring the wilderlands of Arizona, I was able to fit the Captain America: First Avenger movie into my journeys. There's plenty of reviews out there so I won't burden the interwebs with another. Needless to say, it was a great story-based action movie that laid the final stone for the Avengers movie next year (those who haven't seen Cap yet, be sure to sit through the credits for the infamous Marvel tail - it's a doosy).

The thing I've really enjoyed about these Marvel films is the excitement and build-up of the cross-overs and the cohesive Marvel film universe. It is very similar to their building of a cohesive universe back in the early days of the Silver Age when Spidey went looking for a job with the Fantastic Four (The Amazing Spider-man issue 1) or when the FF went on the hunt for the Hulk (Fantastic Four #12). That was back in late 1963 and was soon expanded upon to create a more realistic comic book story which Stan Lee said he always wanted to do and was an instant success!

The excitement those readers felt in a 'realistic' comic universe can be felt in the same excitement building towards the first Avengers movie.

The Marvel films have done a great job at bringing to the screen the very elements that made Marvel Comics an icon of American pop culture.

It's great to see them (Hollywood) doing it right.....for a change.

Make Mine Marvel!!

p.s. I know my posts have been a bit lite lately but you'll see why next week.....
more later!

Captain America Week: Silver Screen Hero

2011-07-22T09:08:00.003-07:00

Captain America: First Avenger is not the first time that ol' wing-head has flashed his shield on the silver screen or small screen for that matter. Since the early days of America's hero he's been fighting spies and sabatours for pop-corn chompin' audiences across the this great nation of ours, though 'First Avenger' seems to be the first to capture the hero in all his glory.

Cap first appeared on the silver screen in 1944 in a serialized story called "The Purple Death" (also called Captain America and Captain America Returns). Now, he's missing his trademarked shield going with a pistol instead, and he's not even fighting Nazis. This hero is more reminiscence of the 1950's Captain America than the Hitler smashing Cap of the 1940's. Still, as serials go, it's not too bad and has the requisite hero, police chief, feisty chic who gets captured a lot, and a handful of baddies.

Watch CAPTAIN AMERICA SERIAL TRAILER 1944 in Action & Adventure | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Next Cap showed up in 1966, revamped for the silver age in the Marvel Super Heroes cartoon program. Now any comic fan of the time couldn't help but love these cartoons, as limited motion as it was. The cartoons were filled with the original artwork from the comics, many of which was Jack Kirby's mini-masterpieces and Stan Lee's peak 60's dialogue. Plus each hero had their own theme song...

Alas, we come to the 1970's.

In the late 70's Marvel had a hit with The Incredible Hulk television program and a minor hit with the Spider-man series as well. So why not toss some more heroes into the action?

Well, I don't know what these studio heads were thinking but this movie sucked, at least for me as a kid waiting for a highly anticipated action movie of his favorite hero. I don't know, Steve Rogers never seemed to me to be a dirt-bike riding California stoner driving around in a make-out van with some easy-listening music in the back-ground. I mean WTF?

Here, just see what I mean....

Someone needs to get kicked in the nuts even now for this. I mean Cap doesn't even look like himself, and what's with the see-through shield.

Believe it or not they actually made two of these movies. See-through shield, crash-helmet. *sigh*

In the 90's Cap returned to the Silver Screen for, at least, a decent attempt and capturing the red, white and blue avenger but you can only go so far in a B-movie production. The costume was right and at least the story starts in WWII and the Red Skull looked pretty awesome. Not bad but not for the ages...

So finally we come to the present day. It's as if Captain America has been in a state of suspended animation and is only now being thawed out. So head on out to see Captain America: First Avenger (or wait until it gets to the cheap theater -- if you can!)

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!

Captain America Week:
Day 1: Eat it Hitler!
Day 2: Captain America Must Die!
Day 3: And A Phoenix Shall Rise
Day 4: Bring On The Bad Guys!
Day 5: Silver Screen Hero

Captain America Week: Bring On The Bad Guys!

2011-07-21T09:15:00.003-07:00

Like every super-hero, Captain America has a menagerie of colorful villains, but a couple of them are so iconic and bizarre that they stand out above the rest.

First we have.....

The Red Skull!

Nazi tool of terror, the Red Skull first appeared upon the pages of Captain America issue 1 (1940) and has been a villain rarely topped, and to this day is one of Marvel's (Disney's ooh, it hurts to say that) all time greatest trouble-makers. Always a thorn in Cap's side he's been defeated many times but always returns.

The Origin of the Red Skull

Baron Zemo

Ah, Baron Zemo; creator of Adhesive X, leader of the Masters of Evil and murderer of Bucky Barnes! Forever blaming Captain America for sticking that pink mask to his head and Cap always seeking revenge on Zemo for killing his sidekick these two would go head to head in the early issues of the Avengers. Cap, on a personal vendetta, finally defeated and killed Zemo in Avengers #15, one of the first major character deaths in the Marvel universe (and he actually stayed dead).

The Swordsman

The Swordsman first appeared as an enemy of Hawkeye of the Avengers back in 1966 but when the Avengers refused to let him join he took is frustrations out on Captain America. Beefing up his sword with the help of the Mandarin and then joining the Lethal Legion with Power-man and the Enchantress, he was a thorn in the side of the Avengers until his finally joining them years later.

Bartroc aka The Leaper

A crazy frenchman who liked to kick folks in the face (boxing with his feet) was after the Inferno-42 cylinder in Tales of Suspense (1966) when he crossed paths with Captain America. Though an enemy of Cap, he switched sides many times to aid the star-spangled hero as Bartroc determined him to be a 'man of honor'. Oh, and he spoke with an outrageous French accent!

Arnim Zola

A Jack Kirby creation, this mad Nazi sympathizing scientist had a bunch of weird gizmos to toss at Cap as well as a gun that shot yellow goop and and project his conscience.

MODOC

Who other than Jack Kirby can create this nightmare! The legendary MODOC (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing). Working with AIM against S.H.I.E.L.D. he ran across Cap a number of times. Mostly just jealous of Cap's bod, the horrific Kirby creation tried to off our hero a number of times.

One thing I want to point out is that most of these villains were created by Jack Kirby (as was Captain America). It proves, once again, that Kirby was the master creator of the Marvel Universe.

Captain America Week:
Day 1: Eat it Hitler!
Day 2: Captain America Must Die!
Day 3: And A Phoenix Shall Rise
Day 4: Bring On The Bad Guys!
Day 5: Silver Screen Hero

Captain America Week: Story Time

2011-07-20T08:25:00.002-07:00

Captain America week: day 3 and it's story-time kiddies!

Enjoy Captain America and the Falcon in "A Phoenix Shall Rise"! (mp3 audio download)
I don't think this is how I pictured the Falcon's voice...

Read along with the comic too!

Next Issue: Bring On The Bad Guys!

Captain America Week:
Day 1: Eat it Hitler!
Day 2: Captain America Must Die!
Day 3: And A Phoenix Shall Rise
Day 4: Bring On The Bad Guys!
Day 5: Silver Screen Hero

Captain America Week: Captain America Must Die!

2011-07-19T08:20:00.001-07:00

I first met Captain America back in the glorious bronze age in the pages of the The Avengers issue 116 during the Avengers / Defenders war back in 1973. Though the Avengers were a pretty awesome collection of heroes, for whatever reason, Captain America jumped out.

I don't know if if was his iconic star-spangled costume created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby back in 1940 or the fact that he looked totally pissed and was ready to kick some ass but there was something about him that struck a chord, though I only saw just a tiny bit of him. I knew nothing of him or of the Avengers, I couldn't even read yet, but I did know that they were the most colorful group of heroes I've ever seen (having seen only Super-man and Batman).

It wasn't until 1974 that my mom picked me up issue 177 from the corner news-stand and I had a real Captain America comic.

But what was this? I see the Avengers but Cap is tossing his costume away! And what's this on the first page? "Captain America must die!" being shouted by the man himself?!? What have I stumbled into.

Captain America must die?? I just met him! (why is he always screaming?)

Cap's history in a two page splash. Nice!

The great things about classic comics, and the thing I love the most, is that the artists were classic story-tellers. These comics told the entire story visually. I hardly knew how to read, I was six years old, but I was able to decipher the stories just by the drawing alone.

I was able to 'read' the struggles of a man in the midst of a great decision, his origins and his weighty past. Finally I was able to see his friends trying to support him. Now I couldn't read a lick of this (though I think "Captain America must die" and "..But so much has happened since then" were probably the first comic words I did read) but it was a dramatic story, not action yet it still spellbound me. Quite different from the pissed off Avenger.

But that changed with the next issue I had.

Again I saw Captain America getting his ass kicked by this goopy monster (the Alchemoid). I saw that Cap was putting up a brave fight but, alas, it didn't seem he would be able to defeat this....thing....

Until....Note to super villains: Do not overpower you main weapon....

...'cause once you do that, you've go a really pissed off superhero coming after you and the only thing standing between you and an ass-kickin' are your pack of weasly minions...and we all know how that is gonna to turn out.
I'm sure the Druid doesn't pay that guy enough to take a shield in the face!

again....minions...

After a total ass-whippin' the Druid is out and Shield comes in to mop up.

Happy ending!

Yeah. Captain America was my go-to hero back when we played 'Super-Hero' on the school playground.

The next time I saw Cap it was when Kirby returned to marvel. Ol' wing-head was then fighting all manner of dimensional alien, accompanied by a colorful array of characters all in the typical explosive Kirby style.

Next Issue: And A Phoenix Shall Rise!

Captain America Week:
Day 1: Eat it Hitler!
Day 2: Captain America Must Die!
Day 3: And A Phoenix Shall Rise
Day 4: Bring On The Bad Guys!
Day 5: Silver Screen Hero

Captain America Week: Eat It Hitler!

2011-07-18T08:06:00.010-07:00

With Marvel's highly anticipated Captain America: The First Avenger movie coming out at the end of the week I though I'd dedicate The Warlock's Home Brew to my favorite comic hero.

Captain America burst onto the world in December 1940, a full year before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, with a jaw shattering smash to none other than Adolph Hitler. With his iconic star spangled costume and shield he captured the patriotic imaginations of both kids and adults in the tense months before America entered the war. When a 90 pound weakling, Steve Rogers, volunteered to be part of an experiment to become a super-soldier, an American hero was born.

Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for Timely Comics which later would become Marvel. The publisher, Martin Goodman, loved the idea so much they decided to debut Cap in his own title, something unheard of back in the early days of the colorful medium.

Though the comic hero, along with his sidekick Bucky, were a smashing success, not everyone embraced the patriotic hero. Simon and Kirby received threatening hate mail and death threats from isolationists, pacifists, and fascists who found it antagonistic to depict a 'respected' leader of a sovereign nation getting pummeled by the American flag. Within a year though, America would be dragged into Hitler's war and Captain America, in the hands and back pockets of the American GIs, would be marching towards Berlin and Nazi Germany. Cap would be fighting along with the Allies against saboteurs, spies and the notorious Red Skull!

With the great 'evils' of the Axis powers defeated, the post war saw a decline in the Superhero, replaced by horror, crime and romance stories. It wasn't until the early sixties that costumed heroes made their explosive return.

Again, it was Jack Kirby, this time along with Stan Lee, that brought the red, white and blue avenger back. Being frozen in ice since the end of World War II (the post-war years erased), Cap was found by the colorful new team of the 60's The Avengers! Captain America would soon take his place as leader of that group.

Over the years Steve Rogers/Captain America would struggle with being a man out of time and even (post Viet-Nam) what it meant to be a patriotic American hero. But through all the struggles Cap has always held that shield high.

In 2007, Marvel 'killed' off it's major hero. But like all comic book deaths (a post for another day) Cap is back and fighting for the red, white and blue.

Jack Kirby on Captain America:

Next Issue: Captain America Must Die!

Captain America Week:
Day 1: Eat it Hitler!
Day 2: Captain America Must Die!
Day 3: And A Phoenix Shall Rise
Day 4: Bring On The Bad Guys!
Day 5: Silver Screen Hero

John Carter.....

2011-07-14T10:46:00.002-07:00

No doubt this will be talked about on just about every OSR blog, but it looks....well....just see for yourself.

Conan The Barbarian: It's All In The Details

2011-07-11T08:42:00.013-07:00

The more clips I see from the upcoming Conan movie the more interesting it appears, at least as a swords and sorcery flick. Whether it's Howard's Conan remains to be seen.

The one thing that's been really bugging me this whole time (besides the contemporary 'metal' music played during the preview, which, at least in one version has been removed) is Conan's eye color.

Jason Mamoa, playing the northern-born Cimmerian, has a naturally shaggy mane and brown eyes. I'm sure he'll be great in the role he's been asked to play but the devil is in the details, son. Our Cimmerian needs those steely blue eyes, no?

A very, very subtle thing but very important, IMHO, to solidify the actor in the role.

Now, contacts? Why not? Simple fix.

Color Mamoa's eyes blue in post? Totally possible.

All of this has been done before....

Brown eyed Jessica Alba and Blue eyed Susan Storm

Giving Sue Storm blue eyes didn't make or break these mediocre films of the worlds greatest comic but it was a nice minor detail.

So what about Howard's barbarian?

I've lifted a couple of stills and altered the eyes (I know, how obsessive is that?).

Click to embig

Again, hardly a noticeable change but it's those minor details that can nail the film character more into the vision of Howards warrior. I may be grasping at straws here, after-all the post-production CGI animator may have more important things to do like making the monsters more dramatic, or tweaking that walled city in the background a bit. Come on, Nispel, toss a few more dollars his/her way.

Will this happen? We'll only know once we pay the ticket price and sit down in our seats with our pop-corn and sodas waiting for that first scene.

But.....

It's all in the details.....

PS, I'm not the only one pondering this....

New Horror Movie Preview

2011-07-08T12:51:00.001-07:00

The Undefeated! This looks flippin' scary!

The Undefeated Teaser Trailer from Dain Valverde on Vimeo.

The Many Faces Of Dwarves

2011-07-07T14:49:00.020-07:00

There's a preview pic of Peter Jackson's dwarves from The Hobbit.

From these pics, there's been blog-talk about how these dwarves look and about how Jackson made Gimli the butt of all the jokes in the LOTR movies.

I was pretty annoyed by Gimli's portrayal in The Two Towers and The Return Of The King. I mean, Dwarves are not the butt of anyone's joke - and if you don't believe me try making one a butt and see how far you get.

The first film (Fellowship) I felt was the best adaptation . I wasn't that hip on the other two films but then again, the first book in the trilogy has always been my favorite. Regardless of how the films turned out, which were pretty decent for an iconic fantasy novel adaptation, Jackson and his crew loved Tolkien's story and characters and tried to stay as true to it as possible.

I cut him some slack.

Not everyone (fans mostly) is going to be happy with adaptations of their favorite characters into film (LOTR, Conan, Solomon Kane, Bat-man, Spider-man, X-men, etc.); it's an impossible task as everybody's vision of the story / characters are going to be different.

But I'm with Jeff Rient's on this, these dwarves would be awesome to have in my party. Who cares about the 'wrong' weapons or the 'colorful' hoods, they're going to kick a dragon's ass.

The Hobbit's tone is more of a fairy tale, a story told by Bilbo Baggins of Bag End - embellished no doubt with a hobbit's whimsy. There is no doubt that the 'actual events' were quite dark and foreboding; evil trolls, giant spiders, a battle of five armies? Bless my soul!

I prefer my fantasy to be far out, whimsical and dark and a bit twisted. The themes in the Hobbit are just that.

Jackson's movie will be a great addition to the fantasy film genre.

But keep the dwarf jokes to a minimum please.

And just to prove that there is more than one way to 'skin' a dwarf....

Jackson's comic relief

The Bros. Hildebrandt

Bakshi's Gimli. No butt here! Always will be a fan of Bakshi's LOTR.

A dwarf SPI

Rankin Bass dwarf, red hood and all!

The Hobbit, the comic!

D&D dwarves; hard at work.

My wife's hermaphrodite dwarf Maudlin

A Not Safe For Work Dwarf

Now, they're all cool (well, lets leave poor Grumpy outta this) as dwarves should be!

And since you've all been good little hobbits'es, here's a really interesting interpretation of The Hobbit I came across. Very old school D&D. I'd love to see this animated!

The Warlocks' Last Night On Earth!

2011-07-05T08:13:00.005-07:00

Well, not really, but this weekend we got some gaming in with the thanks to Brian bringing over Flying Frog Productions "Last Night On Earth".

LNOE is a zombie apocalypse board game that takes place in a small town. One player controls the zombies and up to four other players control the heroes. Now there's quite a list of heroes to choose from which fit perfectly in the small town environment; the sheriff, the sheriff's son (a track star), the high-school outcast, the priest, the farmer's daughter, the drifter, etc. A perfect cast for this cinematic zombie game.

The rules were pretty easy to pick up as you search building to find weapons or other aids while fighting off an unrelenting hoard of zombies. D6's resolve combat and drawn cards aid players and zombies alike.

Now these are slow moving zombies (the Romero kind) but it's not as easy as it sounds to fight them off, there's always a chance that you can run out of ammunition, loose your weapon or any other number of spine tingling events determined by dice rolls or drawn cards.

The game is fast paced and quite balanced for either side to gain the advantage (which shifts frequently during play) or win the objective. There are a number of scenarios to play out as well. The game has a B-movie quality to it which add to the fun

As opposed to WOTC's Castle Ravensloft which sported clunky rules, Last Night On Earth was quick to jump in and get playing.

A great game for friends or gamily who want to spend an hour or two chasing down or running from zombies!

New Captain America Trailer

2011-07-01T15:46:00.007-07:00

For those who thought Iron-man (I) and Thor hit it out of the park, just check out the new preview of Captain America: The First Avenger!
(please ignore the Nicolas Cage Season of the Witch ad)

Featuring the most awesome screen villain since Darth Vader:

'Nuff Said!

Origin Stories And Do We Need Them?

2011-06-30T09:30:00.001-07:00

When I was a young kiddie I never knew how the Fantastic Four became the Fantastic Four. I new some of the basic super-hero origins, Superman, Spider-man, Captain America, something about Bat-man and his parents, but there were plenty I didn't know about. Did that stop me from enjoying their exploits? Not in the least. Did I need to know that the FF received their powers by being blasted by cosmic rays before I read their battles with Doc Doom? Not really. They were good, Doom was bad. Simple.

I bring this up because of the Solomon Kane movie and the upcoming Conan flick and their need to tell the origin of both characters.

Does knowing if full detail a character's 'origin' enhance the character's story?

At times, yes and at times no.

Sometimes it's better not knowing, leaving it a bit of a mystery.

Superheroes almost beg for an origin story, it's part of the genres mythos. We've seen it in most hero movies. So I can let that go most of the time. But remember Tim Burton's first Bat-man movie? Bat-man good, Joker bad, Bat-man kicks Joker's ass. Bat-man's origin (thus motivation) was woven into the story with flash-backs and character connections. Sure, it was part of the story but it wasn't the centerpiece of the move. I think that worked great.

Now, why can't something like that be done with Howard's characters? Where the origin takes a back seat to the story. I'm not saying eliminate the 'origin' and motivation altogether, but weave it into the story. Let these characters be a bit ambiguous to the audience. Let the audience decide on their own if these 'heroes' are good or evil or something in-between.

Take for example Sergio Leone's 'Man with No Name' spaghetti western trilogy staring Clint Eastwood (For A Fistful of Dollars, For A Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly). Now what side of the 'law' is he on? Who knows and who cares. He's a bad-ass with his own moral code. Now who does that sound like? Maybe a couple of Howard's characters perhaps?

Did we need to know that Eastwood's Man with no Name had a troubled childhood or that his parent's were killed by bandits and since then he's had a mad-on? No, and we don't care. He's just a guy in the world living by his own code and us as the audience either has to travel with him or not.

I think a take on Howard's characters can lift a thing or two from these films mentioned above.

The 60's and 70's were a much different time. The anti-hero was all the rage. The law was just as crooked as the 'bad-guys'. These days, the lines between good and bad are more 'clearly defined', at least in most media but that is just an illusion. George Bush's "you're either with us or against us" philosophy defined the beginning of this century but on either side of that line is both good and bad. And who's to judge? This thin line is where our heroes lie, Solomon Kane, Conan, The Man With No Name.

I know Hollywood is scared chicken-shit to take any chances and to leave the audience with any ambiguity of where a 'hero' stands these days; case in point, Han Solo from the 70's as opposed to the 90's Han Solo. But these ambiguous anti-heroes are iconic as who they are.

The Man With No Name, 1970's Han Solo; these are our heroes and these are very Howardesque characters.
I don't need their origins, leave that a bit of a mystery. I just need them to kick some ass on both sides of the law and take what they can get because we know that who ever they kill most likely deserved it.

Sometimes it's better not knowing everything.

The Eternal Debate of Armor Class

2011-06-29T14:00:00.002-07:00

Fairly safe for work...

Solomon Kane and WTF Hollywood? A Rant.

2011-06-29T08:20:00.007-07:00

With the help of some dark magic and a sacrifice or two I was finally able watch the entire Solomon Kane movie.

For those of you in the states who haven't seen it, rest assured I won't give anything away.

I'll only say that it was a pretty great flick and there were parts that Howard fans would be more than happy with.

Michael Bassett did a great job taking the material seriously and James Purefoy played the role of Kane with passion and dedication. They really did nail the screen presence of the character. Purefoy is staring in the upcoming Ironclad, btw)

Again, that's all I'll say about the film itself. You won't be disappointed.

What I am disappointed in, though, is the brainless, gutless drecks that represent the film distribution industry in Hollywood CA.

Why this film was never picked up and distributed to theaters or at least to video is beyond my comprehension. Considering the incredible amount of super-crap they release and re-release time and time again, I find it insulting to Bassett, Purefoy, and Howard himself that they couldn't toss us a tasty morsel in Solomon Kane.

Is it because of the violence?
Sure, it's brutal (a plus for any Swords and Sorcerery movie) but it's no more violent that most things on screen or on TV. Oh, maybe there weren't enough guns, I don't know?

Is it because some Christians would be upset?
Well, they get upset about almost anything these days, but a Puritian that kicks ass? How can you go wrong?

Is it because Adam Sandler isn't in it not being funny?
I'll let you answer that on your own.

Is it because you guys are threatened what it might do to your precious Conan the Barbarian release?
The suits might be nervous about that but Kane would have built up an anticipation to the Conan movie. Sure, comparisons would have been made, especially in the budget department, but come on guys, show some balls!

Is it because the general movie going audience is too dim-witted to take a chance on something they haven't seen before and prefer to watch sequel after sequel of the same story over and over?
Um..actually that's quite possible.

So what is it? Please tell me, 'cause I really want to know.
Cause it's a decent movie and has an audience and kids will rent it and think it's cool and who knows, maybe influence one of them to get creative.

So lets see what you deem release worthy for the month of June, shall we?

The Warriors Way
Nice! But why this and not Kane?

Season of the Witch
Really? Nicolas Kane?

Unknown
Another Liam Neeson straight to video killing rampage flick. Okay, whatever.

Big Mammas: Like Father, Like Son
Just shoot me now!

Just Go With It
OMFG! Sandler AND Aniston??? Someone better have gotten fired for that one.

Sanctum
Hell, if you want to pay $30 million to watch James Cameron masturbate, I'll save you some cash!

Drive Angry
I'm....speechless.....

I'd go on but it's too depressing.
So what is it Hollywood? What's the flippin' deal? I'd really like to know 'cause I'm just starting to think you guys are just too high to do your job.

To Bassett and Purefoy I give you kudos!

To Hollywood I give a kick to the nutz!

And for you Warlock readers who got to the bottom of this ranting post your reward is 20% off any Lulu order through Thursday June 30 by using the word: SUNSHINE305

Grids vs. Hexes

2011-06-28T09:06:00.007-07:00

I don't know when 'official" D&D went from hexes to grids, I wasn't really a part of the transition. Grids have always been a part of the game I suppose, maybe because of the graph paper mapping thing, but when D&D evolved into more of a tactical combat game than a game of exploration and abstract combat one would think hexes would be the way to go.

Apparently some folks in charge didn't think that.

I do know that Avalon Hill's early war game Tactics II (1958) used a grid map. By the early 1960's they began using Hexes for the basis of their war game maps. Their game Outdoor Survival used a hex map and that map later was used by Dave Arneson for his early D&D RPG games. From there the hex map worked it's way into the RPG hobby ie. Judes Guild and various wilderness maps from TSR, Traveler, and pretty much every war-game etc . (though the B2 adventure Keep on the Borderlands had it's wilderness laid out in a grid).

Now when I was younger and saw the D&D game for the first time and saw sheets and maps based on hexes, it added to the mysterious allure of the game. Again, D&D (Holmes basic) was nothing I've ever seen before. Along with 'role-playing' and funny dice, there were minis and hex maps. Talk about opening doors to your imagination!

So why did a game, which evolved into more of a tactical combat game devolve back to a grid format?

Everything I've seen come out from WOTC 4th ed (even 3.5) is printed with a grid. Sounds backwards to me. If the 'constant distance of a hex map is desirable for games in which the measurement of movement is a factor' why use a square grid? By comparison, a square grid give you different distances from the center points of adjacent and diagonal squares. If I recall, somewhere in some version of D&D special rules were created for diagonal movement within a grid. Why write an extra rule and complicate an already complicated game system when you really don't have to. WOTC (and other games) just print their square 'grid' over their battle maps so why not just print hexes? Do players even still map those gaming sessions or do they just throw down a battle map?

I'll never understand that decision path so if somebody knows, please share it with me.

When I began making my gaming table, I had planned on going with a grid. But the more I thought of it, the more I felt that going with a grid was just counter-intuitive. So I went with a hex board...and I'm glad I did. I'll always prefer hexes of grids.

So hexes or grids? Which is your preference?

Gene Colan: 1926 - 2011

2011-06-24T07:59:00.016-07:00

Another great illustrator has passed on.

Gene Colan, who brought a heavy noir style to superhero comics has passed away last night at the age of 84. Through his career he has worked for both Marvel and DC on some of their iconic characters most notably Daredevil in the mid and late 60's, Iron-man and Bat-man and Marvel's Tomb of Dracula among others. Bringing a sense of intense drama and realism through his penciled art to the four color medium he raised the bar of sequential storytelling.

His influence and artwork will live on.

Gene Colan's virtual studio

Gaming Table: Phase 1

2011-06-21T12:45:00.002-07:00

I love many of the custom gaming table that folks have made: +3 Gaming Table

Recently, our gaming group went from a standard sitting around a large table with pencil and paper to a more casual lounging around a coffee table with pencil and paper. I needed to rework the space in the guest house (currently my man-cave) so we ended up with the coffee table. I don't think it's a favorite accommodation but we've made due.

My long-term plan is to eventually get back to the standard table which I have been planning to customize as a gaming table.

So this past weekend, for the first phase of this project, I've reworked the coffee table into what would eventually be the stepped top to the main game table.

I started with a pretty nice garbage-picked coffee table (a major score!) and painted the tabletop black.

I created some 11 X 17 white on dark gray hex sheets and purchased some decoupage glue.

I next began gluing down the hex sheets. It was a little tricky lining the hexes up properly but after some careful patience things were starting to come along nicely. The trickiest part was that the printer had slight variations in the gray. I think if I were to do this again I may just buy a roll of hex paper from somewhere (but I'm such a cheap-ass).

I've got six sheets glued down and only three more to go!

Next, I trimmed the edges to give it a clean border.

A few coats of glue and some shellac later, I was ready to role.

Of course I tested the table out with some minis and Jenga block walls, and idea that I got from Jim over at Carjacked Seraphim.

When character sheets, beer and snacks and minis are all scattered about the same playing surface it gets quite cluttered. I want to separate the playing area from the 'snack' area of the game table. When I eventually move the above top to the actual game table, it will be raised up (see illustration below). The Hex table platform will not be permanently attached to the main table so it can be removed for other gaming purposes.
I'll keep you posted when I get to Phase 2!

Really? Conan Rocks Out?

2011-06-20T08:29:00.009-07:00

I don't know why they insist on filling the Conan the Barbarian movie previews with heavy guitar licks. Are guitar licks the cue for awesome bloody action (check out the Red-bar trailer at Crom)? Perhaps you can say this is the Danzig influence? Say what you will about the '82 John Milius version but his choice of composer Basil Poledouris was spot on for any Conan/Kull soundtrack.

But I think I know why the film-makers are leaning in the direction of cliched 'heavy metal' muscle-bound barbarian tunes. It's because Conan once fronted a band...
Yes, that's right, we can blame Stan Lee and John Romita for this ha-ha funny that has directly influenced the music choice for the new Conan movie.

But Conan and the Barbarians were just part of a larger recording project, there were many famous folks that have kept their musical talents 'hidden' for these many years. Don't be shy, come on out and let the world dance to your music!
Hulk on drums? Sure. Power-man on Bass? I can see that. But Captain America on tambourine? What the hell, he's not Davy Jones he's an American legend!

And what is the product of all this 'untapped' talent? Why it's Spider-man: Rock Reflections of a Super-hero!

Listen at your own risk!

And just for a bonus for listening to the entire track, get yourself a vintage Conan 7-11 cup by none other than Barry Winsor Smith, no less!

My First Comics...

2011-06-17T09:00:00.010-07:00

Over at Steve Does Comics he posted about the first comic he remembers reading. Of course that got me thinking about the first comics that I had. I don't remember actually 'reading' them but I flipped through them constantly. This was back when we could buy comics from actual corner news-stands in Chicago for 20 cents! Either my mom or grandma would buy my brother and I a comic each. I was around 6 at the time and these first issues left quite an impression on me. I still have most of these comics to this day too. Ah, the memories they bring back....
Bat-man, Joker and a killer shark in a tank that Bat-man kills with his bare hands. Awesome! Nothing like the television show.
A little Romita Spider-man action with Medusa no less! The coolest thing about this issue is Norman Osbourn has a flashback pulling off Spidey's mask. I was like "WTF is that all about!!??" It took me 20 years to find out.
Typical crazy Superman storys. I was impressed by the art even back then.
A lesser hero but a fun comic with a fantastic cover. They don't make covers like this one any more.

My first introduction to Jack Kirby. Still one of my favorite comic covers of all time.

Another Spidey tale. I was starting to wonder what was up with the Osbourn's hair styles! And who the heck was this Gwen Stacy??

The most colorful array of heroes I ever laid eyes upon. The Vision became one of my favorites. Nobody knew who the heck I was talking about!

And finally....

This one appeared a bit later but I always consider it part of that original handful. Very thankful I had this one. Crazy flippin' stories and BWS art!

Session XXXIV: Zenopus, Party Of Doom?

2011-06-16T09:15:00.004-07:00

So after a long break we've continued kind of a side quest in our Swords & Wizardry campaign. Our split party of lost and doomed adventurers weren't so doomed after all. Well, they did run into some pretty rough giant ants lead by a troll but with some luck and skill they survivied to begin making they're comeback. I'll be the first to say, however, they're not out of the woods yet! I'll get to all that in just a moment.

When you get back behind the screen after a long break you gotta shake the rust off but it doesn't take long to get back into the swing of things. And as usual, nothing goes according to what you have planned, not that I 'planned' anything specific but the players, as usual, went their own way.

So.....

Session XXXIV: Zenopus, Party Of Doom?

Skwanky Furrytoe the Halfling, Maudlin the dwarf fighter, Slick Vinny the magician and Gnarly Brunderbrush the druid (along with his two Mushroom-men and Tuk the owl) were sitting in the misty cavern of the blue lava mourning the apparent death of their long time companion Tibag. having followed the halfling through a mystic portal and realizing they were lost somewhere beneath the tower of Zenopus, they were determined to find a way out soon as their supplies were running low. They decided to trace-back their steps and look through some of the cave openings that they had passed earlier.

Backtracking up a cave they entered a small cavern, inside of which were two very hungry mules. Gnarly tried to give them some food but the starving and terrorized mules attempted to kick and bite him. But the Druid was persistent and was eventually able to calm the beasts down and fed them (thus, Gnarly became know as the ass-whisperer). The beasts had two chests tied to their back inside of which were additional supplies; torches, water, bedrolls, etc. (I kid you not, the lucky lot found a stash of supplies).

With a bit more confidence, they continued on exploring another large cavern with the giant eyeballs embedded in the floor. But instead of finding an exit they only found a troll herding a number of giant ants. When the troll saw the party enter the cavern, he maliciously threw one of his javelins at the eyeball closest to the party causing it to explode damaging our fearless explorers. The ants changed the party and a battle ensued while the Troll continued to hurl javelins.

It was looking pretty grim for our adventurers, especially the dwarf, but with the help of Vinny's magic they prevailed and then set upon the Troll which was another tough conflict. Tag-teaming, they defeated the Troll and before he rose again he was consumed with fire.

Licking their wounds they thought it best to rest and recover. Heading back to the cave with the mules the party held up for a rest, taking turns as watch.

The time passed slowly but on Gnarly's watch he heard some whispering and a bit of torch-light coming from outside the cave. Gnarly sent Tuk the owl out to investigate. Through Tuk's eyes, Gnarly was able to see a large party of pirates coming through the cave approaching their refuge.

Waking his wounded companions they readied themselves but as the pirates approached Gnarly parleyed with them. After a few tense moments tensions defused and the pirates were invited in to rest as well.

It turned out that the party of pirates, lead by One-eyed Jones (who actually still has both eyes) and Henry, had also gotten lost by passing through the very same portal that Skwanky and the others traveled through. Some of their group died by exploding eyeballs and going insane staring into them. The pirates also believed Gnarly and the others were working for the 'Dark Mistress' and were part of the collective larger plot, who along with the pirates and their mysterious Captain, threatened Caladan and Lord Osric. It was agreed upon that they would all work together to escape the dungeons.

After everyone rested the entire party (including two mushroom-men and nine pirates) made their way back into the cavern where they had fought the troll and his ants. Sending Tuk ahead to scout a couple of the exit openings, Gnarly saw another cavern filled with the eyeballs and something else. Something that resembled a giant sphincter (seriously) was on the floor of the cavern in the far corner.

Agreeing it best not to tangle with a room full of eyeballs and a giant sphincter they preceded down an alternative passage. They soon found themselves in a large man-made chamber with five stone sarcophagi! No more eyeballs!

The pirates, excited that they found some possible treasure began to open the first sarcophagus which turned out to be empty. But upon opening the second one they all backed away fearfully as inside the second sarcophagus was a skeleton wearing a golden crown and dressed in colorful robes and waving it's arms around - a lich!

With the 'lich' waving it's arms around from within it's resting place, Skwanky and the others cautiously approached and began to bash it's bones. Within moments it was dead. Scared and confused as to what the heck it really was they felt it best to leave the rest of the sarcophagi alone and move on. It was around this time that Slick Vinny charmed One-eyed Jones to help keep control over the unruly but fearful pirates.

Sending Tuk ahead once more, Gnarly relayed that ahead was another large chamber with a number of exits but was inhabited by a large number of humanoids; some sleeping and some standing watch.

What this needed was a grand plan!

It was decided that they all would sneak up and surprise these creatures. Using Tuk, the owl would drop a flask of oil upon the sleeping victims while Skwanky and a pirate, both turned invisible by Vinny, would sneak into the chamber and position themselves near the watch-guards. The rest would charge in, throwing torches and slinging spells once the creatures were alerted.

Sounded good.

Execution: Skwanky and the pirate positioned themselves while Tuk flew into the chamber. The guards, however, were alerted to the flight of the owl and began to sound an alarm but it was too late. Vinny burst into the chamber casting light! With a bloodlust the pirates burst into the chamber flinging torches at the waking Bug-bears covered in oil, the invisible Skwanky and pirate hacking away at the guards. A massive melee ensued between the party allied with the pirates and a room full of surprised Bug-bears. Soon it was over with most of the bug-bears dead (though one, lit aflame with farie-fire fled down a hallway).

The Pirates began to loot the bodies and the party began to search the chamber....

It was a great session and I enjoyed getting back into my Swords & Wizardry campaign even for just a little bit. We'll continue these side-sessions until the fate of these companions is determined.