October Challenge: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (2008)

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (2008)

I might be stretching the definition of "movie" here, but at just about 2 hours I challenge you to find something more frightening than the Vashta Nerada aka "The Shadows that Melt Flesh".

We have mysterious deaths, a monster that hides in the shadows that can strip your flesh bare in seconds AND then use your bones and space suit as a means to walk around.  This is the scariest monster in the Doctor Who universe.  Daleks, aim for the eyestalk. Sontaran, back of the neck.  Cybermen, gold in their chest plate.  Vashta Nerada, just run.

Doctor: "Almost every species in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark, but they’re wrong, because it’s not irrational. It’s Vashta Nerada."

All against the man that monsters have nightmares about;
The Doctor.  When they come after him this is the exchange.

Doctor: Don't play games with me! You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand! I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the Universe. Look me up.
The monsters move  back.

This is a pitch perfect horror episode and no one comes out of it scarred.  I think this quote near the end sums it up.

Donna: How about you, are you alright?
The Doctor: Oh, I'm always all right.
Donna: Is "All right" special time-lord code for... not really all right at all?
The Doctor: Why?
Donna Noble: Because I'm alright too.

Plus not only did this give us one of the scariest monsters for a show known to send kids hiding behind the sofa. It also gave us River Song who might be one of the most interesting characters in the history of Doctor Who.

"When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it'll never end. But however hard you try you can't run forever. Everybody knows that everybody dies and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark if he ever for one moment, accepts it. Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call everybody lives."
- River Song.

Tally: Watched 4, New 3

What are you watching?

Read more »

October Challenge: Ginger Snaps (2000)

Ginger Snaps (2000)

The best thing about cable during Halloween is all of the horror movies you can find.  I remember hearing about this one when it was out and then promptly forgot about it.  No fault of the movie, just me.

The relationship between emergent female sexual  urges and horror/monsters is old ground here at the Other Side.  This though is the first time I have tackled the link between it and the werewolf myths.  We will see later how this plays out in "Jack and Diane", but tonight we have Ginger.

Ginger and her sister Brigette are the weird girls in school. Obsessed with death, dying and all that fun stuff and ignoring the in crowd when they can.  That is till something not-quite a dog bites Ginger.

There is serious Buffy the Vampire Slayer vibe about this flick.  Came out right around the same time to be honest, so that is no surprise.

The movie was not was I was suspecting and the ending was a surprise.
I enjoyed it to be honest, I am not a big fan of werewolf movies in general.  The leads were great and I am going to look for them in other movies to see if they are as good as this in all flicks.

Tally: Watched 3, New 3

What are you watching?

Read more »

Baker Street Justice Society 1899

A very, very cool piece from Paul Hanley.


The Baker Street Justice Society by *PaulHanley on deviantART

Featuring some of my favorite characters from Doctor Who in Victorian times.
This upcoming Christmas we will get another Victorian tale and a new companion, and much to my delight, Vastra and Jenny are back.

Of course I have stated Madame Vastra and Jenny for both Ghosts of Albion and Doctor Who. I really should do some more.  Sherlock Holmes is certain on my to do list.  Jago and Litefoot might also be a lot of fun to do as well.

Maybe a Doctor Who Victorian Age Source book is in order!

Read more »

Primeval RPG

Primeval is the latest game from the fine folks at Cubicle 7, the same that gave us the excellent Doctor Who RPG.


There is an absolute ton to like about this game.  First, things first, yes. It is the same system as C7's fantastic Doctor Who game.  That end and of itself is enough to merit it a good review.  The system is simple and gets out of the way to allow you to just play the game they way you like.  Secondly let's talk about the art and layout.  Plenty of stills from the series, but the layout is still top notch and the text is easy to read.

So what is Primeval? Well if you have not watched the series in England (or on BBC America here State-side) then you are missing out on some fun.  Basic premise: Anomalies in Time are opening up allowing all sorts of creatures from the past and the future to walk through, whether it is a Dodo or gigangantic Giga-Rex. The team at the Anomaly Research Center have to deal with it.  Which means of course now YOU have to deal with it.  Of course maybe your cast is not with the ARC, instead you could be independent.  Frankly I can't wait to run a game with an investigate news team seeking out anomalies to get them on the news or net.

Like many games, you have basic Attributes.  In this case six of them that are ranked 1 to 6.  These are all point buys, so choose wisely. You also have skills, whit general skills and areas of expertise.  You could be great with Technology, but your specialty is Computer Hacking or Surveillance Systems.  These are also ranked 1 to 6.

The basic rule is Attribute + Skill + 2d6 vs. some Target number.   Simple as it can get really.

You also have various Good and Bad traits that can be bought.  Sometimes these add to your roll, but could subtract from others. These help define who you are.

You character is then topped off with Story Points, which can be used in play.

After all the character creation rules we get a nice bit on Group Creation where you can also buy some Group Traits.

This is followed by the official cast stats including the human adversaries.  We also get some tips on playing ARC-related games.  This is followed by something completely different and we given tips on how to play a "Dinosaur Hunter" style game.  So two campaign models for the price of one.

We get into the basic rules section, including combat and chases.   You spend a lot of time running away from things in Primeval.  There is a nice overview of gadgets and equipment.

Next up descriptions of the various epochs of time.
And the Monsters.  The Monsters of course are the real treat of this book.  Plenty of examples are given and advice on how to create your own beastie from the past, or future.

A Gamemastering section is included on how to run the games. Followed by chapters on Adventures and Conspiracies.

A look into the Future is up next.  Primeval tends to focus mostly on Dinos, I think because Dinosaurs are cool.  But the creatures from the future are also very interesting.

Primeval is a fantastic game that should give a creative GM many, many sessions of adventure.  While there is certain emphasis on dinos coming in from the anomalies, there is no reason to limit it to that.  What about Neanderthals? or worse a victim of the Black Plague wanders into modern London?  The possibilities are endless really.

Now of course I have to mention that the game is compatible with Doctor Who.  It opens up an exponentially growing amount of stories when the two games are combined.  The game becomes worth it for the dinos alone for Doctor Who, or the creatures in Who for Primeval.  Honestly there is no way to go wrong here.

Interestingly enough my original playtest for Doctor Who was called "The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois".  The premise was that there was a Time Beacon in Inverness, IL (which is next door to my town) that malfunctioned and pulled in characters from all over time.  They had to get into the Tower (which looked like a Light House) and fix it.
That playtest would have worked just as well for Primeval.  In fact I might even run it again one day.

If you are a fan of the Doctor Who then get this.

Read more »

White Dwarf Wednesday #21

Miss me?  Sorry for the delay last week.  This has been a busy time at work and I have been taking it home with me at night to do instead of this.
Let's get down to business. 

Issue #21 is from Oct/Nov 1980 and it is off to a good start with some cool late 70s/early 80s wizard art.  A lone star focused through gems reveals a fighter in battle.  If it were redone today the gem would be d20 shaped.

We have an ad for Ariel games which in a bit of neat synchronicity features a game reviewed earlier today by James at Grognardia, The Mystic Wood.  This and four other pages of ads follow.

The editorial is another "Ripped from todays blog roll" on whether or not the Vancian magic system is outdated.  Interesting really.  This is 1980, not 2012 and the D&DNext playtest discussion.  Though maybe they should read this editorial.  Not that the offered solution, the power point system in RuneQuest, is much more modern today, but it bears thinking about.
There is also a note about their production artist, Robert Owens, who was killed in a crash.  

Andrew Finch gives us a new D&D class based on The Chronicle of Thomas Covenant.  "Lore of the Land" features the Lore Lords.  They are an uber spell casting class that can combine their spell casting levels to cast more powerful spells and increasing the fighting ability of others.  Something like a hyper-bard. Also detailed are Rhadmaerl, or a new type of magic user based on the Lore of Stone and the Hirebrand or Lillianrill, magic uses based on the Lore of Wood. And finally the Bloodgurd, a type of fighter.  If you are a fan of the novels then these might be fine, but as character classes they look a little over powered, with the exception of the Bloodguard.

Roger E. Moore gives us a bit on Merchants.  Including what they do and an NPC class for them. Very much an example of the early days when every profession had to be detailed as a class.

Open Box review Azhanti High Lightning, one of the classic classics of Travleler. Andy Slack gives it 8/10, James gives it a little bit more detail.  Roger Sandell reviews Intruder from Task Force Games, giving it a 6/10. He states it is a "good idea, but needs improvement".   John Lambshed reviews another Task Force Games entry, Valkenburg Castle.  This one fares better at 8/10.

Letters deals with important issues like alignment and why does a lantern burn for 24 hours but the same flask of oil thrown lasts only a round.

Up nest is another complete mini-game Survival by Bob McWilliams. Seems simple and quick to play.

Treasure chest is upping their game this issue with a bunch (15) new spells.

Fiend Factory gets a huge makeover this issue.  For starters the layout is better and the monsters are all grouped by a theme. In this case wilderness monsters for characters of 5th to 7th level.
The font used to write the monsters' names is now a plain one, not the stylized art font unique to every monster.  Monstermarks are still included.  The monsters themselves also seem to have been taking up a notch in terms of design.  The jokey monsters are gone, replaced with real threats. This issue gives us The Brothers of the Pine (undead full of magical pine sap), Chthon (a living rock), Enslaver (a small pool of mercury that controls others), Micemen (the results of Brownie/Orc crossbreeding), Dragon Warriors (created from the teeth of dragons), Grey Sqaargs (a race of evil automata) and a Cyclops.

Starbase, the Traveller feature, continues with a mini "situation" for Traveller.  We would call these an Encounter today.

S. Hartley presents the Tomb of the Maharaja, an AD&D mini-module for 6-10 3rd and 4th level characters.  It is a nice little dungeon crawl that could be completed in one night.

Up next are some ads, including this one from Games Workshop that really got my attention.

Remember when I said at the start of this that anything British was automatically cool in my teenaged mind.
Here is a better scan of the Doctor Who board game that I mentioned last time.

With issues 20 and 21 we see a shift in WD to a more mature gaming magazine.  The jokey monsters and classes are going away and focus on other games, like Traveller, is keeping the focus more of serious gaming material.

Let's see if this trend continues.

Links
Some links to other White Dwarf retrospective reviews

An older RPG Net thread that goes issue by issue
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?405199-In-which-I-read-White-Dwarf-from-issue-1

A newer EN World one that reviews 10 issues at a time to get a better perspective on the overall trends.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/325009-white-dwarf-first-100-issues-read-through-review.html

And other Magazine retrospectives:

Grognardia takes us back to the future every Tuesday with his Ares retrospectives.

Land of Nod does Dragon by Dragon every Sunday.

Read more »

Willow and Tara: Doctor Who Adventures in Time & Space

I think it is an obvious conclusion, but if Willow and Tara had been characters during Russel T. Davies run of Doctor Who, they would have fared far, far better than they did on some other show.  Heck even under Steven  "Tipping the Scales" Moffat they would have been better off.

But that is the fantastic thing about RPGs.  They let us go places and do things we otherwise never could.

So what you have Willow and Tara been like as companions to the Doctor?

Willow, the Doctor, Tara and the Dodecahedron (my clock-face d12)

Well let's take them back a bit to when they were younger, maybe when Tara first showed up on the show.  Given that it is tempting then to use my WitchCraft RPG stats as a point of origin.  But there is an issue with that.  There is no magic really in the Doctor Who universe.  There are plenty of things that look like it and there are psychic abilities, but nothing like the magic I typically have the girls doing.  So for completeness sake I am going to look at stats I did about the same time the 10th Doctor was doing his thing. Something like my Fudge, Chill or Mutants and Masterminds stats. So maybe instead I'll go with their ages then.

So here is an idea.  Play up Willow's tech back ground a lot more.  She becomes, what is known in the game is a Boffin. Some one that can argue with the Doctor on tech and science. Sort of like what River Song can do now or how Romana was.   Tara is still shy and quiet, but she has a very good reason, she is psychic.  Like scary psychic. Makes for some great plots and gives me something weird and alien to work with, maybe even giving her some Carrionite ancestry.

I like it.

Willow Rosenberg (circa 2006)

Story Points: 12

Attributes
Awareness 2
Coordination 2
Ingenuity 6
Presence 3
Resolve 4
Strength 2

Skills
Athletics 1
Convince 1
Craft 2
Fighting 1
Knowledge 4
Marksman 0
Medicine 2
Science 4
Subterfuge 0
Survival 1
Technology 4
Transport 1

Traits
Ambidextrous (not in the book, but in my reality), Attractive, Boffin, Photographic Memory, Technically Adept, Insatiable Curiosity

Equipment
Laptop, Smart Phone (PDA Phone)

Home Tech Level: 5

Nationality: American
Profession: Software Engineer
Education: B.S. in Computer Science, 2003 University of California, Magna Cum Laude


Tara Maclay (circa 2006)

Story Points: 10 (2 points used)

Attributes
Awareness 4
Coordination 2
Ingenuity 4
Presence 2
Resolve 3
Strength 3

Skills
Athletics 1
Convince 0
Craft 1
Fighting 1
Knowledge 3
Marksman 0
Medicine 1
Science 2
Subterfuge 1
Survival 1
Technology 2
Transport 1

Traits
Attractive, Animal Friendship, Empathic, Psychic, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Code of Conduct, Eccentric

Equipment
Cellphone

Home Tech Level: 5

Nationality: American
Profession: Part time QMHP.
Education: B.A. in Art History, 2003 University of Southern California, Cum Laude,
M.A. in Psychology, Counseling emphasis, 2005 University of Southern California.

Looks good to me.  Now to see if they will ever run into Vastra and Jenny.

Read more »

D is for Doctor Who

One of my favorite TV shows ever is Doctor Who.
I discovered it back in the 80s on PBS and was hooked.  Of course my dream was always to have a Doctor Who RPG.  There was a Doctor Who by FASA, and I liked it, but I never got a chance to play it much.

Well 2005 rolls around and we got a new Doctor Who on TV! Yeah! and A few years later we also got a new Doctor Who RPG! Double Yeah!  And I got to play-test it!!

And I know I am not the only one excited about it.  Doctor Who related posts are some of my most viewed.

Well there is a new version out and I wanted to let you all know about it.


Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space is a great and worthy game to bear the name of the highly acclaimed "restart" of the Doctor Who series.

Using a simple 2d6 + attribute + stat + mod, roll over target number system, DW:AiTaS though goes beyond what is typically since in RPGs. Talking and Running are preferable to fighting, just like in the show and there many ways to measure success.

The system is really, really simple. In fact once you get the hang of it it "disappears" much like Unisystem does.

The system is similar to Unisystem and even GURPs, but not as "crunchy". This is a game of normal humans and the occasional alien battling foes that out match them, out gun them and out "tech" them. You are going to need to be very clever or lucky (or both!). While this could have fell into the Call of Cthulhu end of the spectrum on hero survival, heroes are expected to survive and even win.

There are two versions of this game out.  The Original or 10th Doctor version and the new 11th Doctor version.

For the 11th Doctor edition what do have?  Well the trade dress and artwork is all from the 11th Doctor/Moffat era.   But if that were all then there would not be much need to buy this.  There is an easy to use "Read This First" file, all the important stuff in two pages.  There are characters from the Matt Smith run, so The Doctor, River, Amy and Rory. All the new monsters (and the old faves) like the Atraxi, Cybermen, New Paradigm Daleks, and the Silurians. In fact there is quite a bit of "new stuff" that feel this is much more of an update than a simple re-edit and design.

Note: If you have the 10th Doctor version then C7 has the files you need for free.

Now the game is supposed to be played with 2 6-sided dice (2d6 in RPG parlance), but I have this cool 12 sided die with clock faces instead of numbers that is so perfect for Doctor Who that I can't not use it!  Plus as many Who fans know, the d12 is important to Who history.

I have done some character write-ups for Doctor Who: AiTaS, check them out.

• Madame Vastra and Jenny: Everyone's favorite katana wielding, Victorian lesbian Silurian/Humans consulting detectives/warriors for hire.
• And Count Dracula
• And something special later on today!

Dave Chapman did a fantastic job with this game. Not just the writing, but the whole concept.  I love it. I only wish *I* had been the one to do it!

Read more »

Vastra and Jenny

Been thinking some more about Vastra and Jenny.

I did some posts back when "A Good Man Goes to War" first aired.
Introduction and Ghosts of Albion stats.
Doctor Who RPG stats

I have found some very cool links recently that expand their story more.
Vastra and Jenny

I have a Ghosts of Albion game coming up and I'd love to work them in somehow.  Just not sure how to do that yet.  Especially since the idea I have in mind is already dangerously close to "The Hungry Earth" except I am basing it of of a real riot that happened in London in 1846.

Read more »