Skyline - A Review

Saturday night I found myself in a popcorn-selling establishment that also shows movies and as I am known to, I purchased a ticket for one of the newest films out this week. To my everlasting regret, I chose Skyline. Now, you may have thought this movie had something to do with Cincinnati's famous chili, but you'd be wrong. I wish I'd gotten twenty dollars worth of piping hot chili and poured it into my eyes instead of watching this cinematic bowel movement. I would have fonder memories of that experience.

Now, I'm a fan of The Brothers' Strause work on such fine films as Constantine and 300, but in their previous efforts, they had no say as to the script or acting direction. The producers of Skyline must have done some very bad things with some very young boys and had the good Brothers get photos to gain access to the director's chair. 

If you took an illiterate 14 year old game master, gave him the Rifts core book and a copy of Call of Cthulhu (the short story) and told him to run an alien invasion game based on those two books, loaded him up with mescaline and a brain tumor, you'd have a better story-telling experience than the one the Strauses delivered for 10 million dollars. Unfortunately, it seems to have paid for itself in the opening weekend, so we'll probably see another one next year.

Back in the saddle, yet again.

I'm not yet doing another podcast, yes I podfaded. But I am using this area for some of my personal thoughts, game notes and other ephemera.

Just a little longer, folks.....

I know it's been seven months with no activity, but I'm still here. I'll be putting together a new podcast, and I'm working on finding some direction for this blog. It may end up just as some kind of personal journal, but I'm going to start posting more regularly.

Please Stand By.....

I'm hanging on by a thread, but it's a strong thread. I'm going through a rough patch lately, but I'm coming through the other side. I'll be back with another post in a few days, I just have to get all my notes together. 

RIP Dave Arneson

I have been a gamer since my eleventh summer, and the first game I played was D&D, of course. Along with Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson created that game we all love so much, and he has passed away today from cancer. A release on the Escapist can be found here
I can say nothing that has not already been said for the man, so I will merely join the chorus that is currently sending him on his way.

The Terror by Dan Simmons

I sometimes find inspiration in the oddest places. This time it was in the pet food aisle in Wal-Mart. I was looking for cat food when I saw a paperback novel among the cat toys. When I picked it up, the name caught my eye: The Terror. I'm not one for impulse purchases, but after turning to a random page and reading about a British Petty Officer's narrow escape from a creature of supernatural origin, I was hooked.
Dan Simmons does what few authors I've read have been able to do; he has woven a tale of grim survival against an elusive beast out of the yarn of the real-life 1845 Franklin expedition to find the northwest passage. If you're not familiar, the Franklin Expedition was a British exploratory mission into the arctic that was lost, with only a few bodies ever being found despite four rescue missions. Simmons takes the historic record, the sparse facts that are known about what happened to the mission, and infuses supernatural terror into the story , all without breaking verisimilitude. Simmons makes the reader feel the cold, the starvation, and the desperation those men must have felt after two years frozen in the arctic ice, with provisions running low and a monster stalking just outside the hulls of their ships.
The gamemaster may use this book to run his own historic horror in the generic system of his choosing, and Chaosium has a published adventure(Walker in the Wastes) that features the expedition as a plot point. I personally want to use the Chaosium Basic Roleplay to run this story as a campaign for my regular group. Simmons story reeks of Call of Cthulhu(in a good way), and I can't see a better game to model it in.

The Types of Players

It's that time again. Time for some of my inane ramblings.
You know That Guy? The one that takes everything too seriously? Not seriously enough? Well look around. If you don't know him, you may well be him.
First, we have The Over-Strategizer;
He's the fellow that feels no remorse in dragging a game to halt under the pretense of showing how much he knows about the rules. He'll take thirty minutes figuring out the best location from which to spring an ambush, and tell every other player where to place their pieces.
How about The Uber-Roleplayer?
This fellow takes every opportunity to take center-stage. He's the loudest, brashest, bravest(stupidest), character in the team. He'll try to kill the king and make off with his daughter in the same scene. His character will monologue with the best evil wizard or super-genius.
My favorite ; The Rules Lawyer.
This fine fellow knows the rules better than you. He just does. And he knows the best way to play the game. If you don't play his way, you're WRONG, end of point. He's read every post on every forum having anything to do with the game and has the inside track on new rules before they hit the shelves. He's joined every organized play club and has spent many weekends playing with 'The Big Dogs'
Our last specimen - The Slacker.
This guy may be a friend of the GM, or a boyfriend of another player, but for some reason he's always around. He doesn't have a firm handle on the rules, he's always late, he bums food and drink off other players, and he won't stick around to help clean up. He cares not for party balance, strategic gamism or narrative flow, he just wants to roll some dice and play a game.

These points have been made before, and many a blogger will make them again, but my point to this is that these stereotypes, and others like them irritate us not because they get in the way of any preferred playstyle, but mostly because they reflect facets of all of our personalities. We hate most that which resembles us most, but we can also learn from those reactions.