Character Creation: The Red Star

Waiting on the short ribs to braise, which of course takes a while, so here we are.

The Game: The Red Star Campaign Setting
The Publisher: Green Ronin
Degree of Familiarity: None.
Books Required: The Red Star and d20 Modern, which I have on PDF somewhere

 

I have this book because Michelle edited it, which is why I have a lot of the d20 books I have. I'm sure that the setting is really cool and compelling (it's based on a comic series, and it's been turned into a video game and there were, some years back, rumblings about a movie directed by Josh Trank), but the RPG doesn't really hook me because it starts in with all of the d20 crap and doesn't really get to the meat of the setting until the very end. But needs must.

First thing I need to do is figure out how to make a d20 Modern character, because the Red Star book tells me what's different. I need to start off making ability scores, but I think it might be wise to choose a class first so I have some idea what the hell I'm doing.

Well, the hailer class is pretty cool. It involves telekinesis and machine guns, which is fun. They seem like beefy warrior types, but I don't make those often, so sure, let's do a hailer.

Hailers are typically big dudes, so I'll lean into that and say my guy is over 6'6" and swole. I can probably plunk my ability scores in, then. Hmm. Do I wish to do the standard array thing or chance the rolls? Ah, fuck it, ain't like I'm ever gonna play him. I'll roll it.

I come up with: 7, 12, 13, 18(!), 10, 7. Well, gonna need some dump stats. I want my 18 in STR because I'm just that beefy. I'll put the 13 in DEX, the 12 in CON, the 10 in WIS, and that leaves 7s in INT and CHR. I'm a walking stereotype. My character's name is Ivan, obviously.

I fill in my ability modifiers, and now I get to try and navigate this awful character sheet (it's so busy, and there's not a step-by-step in either book that takes everything on it into account). I get 12 hit points plus my weak-ass CON bonus, so that's 13. I get 6 Action Points. I can fill in my class skills, but of course I still have to put ranks into them (won't take long, I don't get many). I get a bunch of Feats, so I'll write those in (and then I'll get to pick two more). Fill in Saving Throws, fill in Rep Bonus, blabbity-blah. Here we go, Skills.

I can put 4 ranks into class skills, and I only get 20 (because I'm dumb as a bag of hammers), so basically I can put 4 ranks into 5 skills and call it a day. Well, TK, obviously. Intimidate, I guess, although my CHA bonus is for shit. Knowledge (pop culture) just for giggles. Climb because I'll be really good at it, and Spot because it's always a good idea to have some kind of perception-y check you can make.

Now I need two Feats (not feet). I'll take Gunnery (I can fire vehicular weapons without penalty), and Heroic Surge (once a day I can take an extra move or attack action).

And that's really it; I could figure out Wealth and buy shit, but eh, you know how I feel about that. Instead I'll think a little more about Ivan.

Ivan is used to being big, dumb, and dangerous. He grew up on the family farm and he got so big and strong, everyone said he should be a solider. He joined the Red Fleet and had to bust his ass to master telekinesis, but he did it, and became a Hailer.

Ivan isn't much of a reader; he might well have some form of learning disability (which may or may not be a thing that this setting recognizes). He's not exactly stupid, though, but he doesn't learn or retain new information easily. If it's something he's interested in or passionate about - telekinesis, for example, or the rising stars of his favorite music forms - he'll put in the effort. Meanwhile, he's ready for his next assignment. Ivan is someone everyone underestimates. His comrades call him "Ivan the Wall."

And I think that'll do it!

Character Creation: Chi-Chian

I've got some obscure RPGs in my collection, but this one's pretty weird.

The Game: Chi-Chian: The Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: Aetherco, but you pretty much have to get a copy from Amazon or eBay
Degree of Familiarity: None.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Chi-Chian is an RPG based on the comics and webseries of the same name, all created by a dude called Voltaire. He created the character first and everything pretty much spiraled out from there, and that's fine. The setting of the game is bananas - it's very goth and very Japanese (maybe; at least it's written by a guy who's got a thing for Japan). The title character wears a suit made of tiny wriggly worms that can reform themselves into different shapes, the left breast is a telescope while the right is a receiver, and so forth. The Manhattan setting of the game is now a Japanese prefecture after it seceded from the American Union and then there was a war between New York and New Jersey. There are giant bugs, and the different layers of Manhattan (vertical layers) require you to think increasingly nice thoughts in order to ascend, but you can buy a K-buffer that fools that barriers.

It's a lot more nuts than I'm describing, but all I want to do is make a character. You want to experience the bananas, go watch the webseries, it's all on Voltaire's site.

Character creation has 5 easy steps. Step One is, predictably, concept. Oy.

Well, I like the wormtrains. These are literally giant worms that serve as railroads; their interior is a massive cavity that allows for comfortable seating (like I said, bananas). I think I want my character to work with the wormtrains in some way. They don't need conductors as such, because they rely on instinct, so I'll have my character be a wrangler - if a wormtrain jumps its track, my guy, Ozzie, goes out and finds it and tries to lure it back. Ozzie (full name: Ozymandias Welker) is in his early 40s, tall, heavyset, steady and patient. He moved to Manhattan after his wife left him (which might mean he snuck across the border from New Jersey), and put his background in bio-mechanics and growing mealworms for food to use. He never liked eating mealworms, anyway.

I need to describe five emotional moments or memories, so let's do that:

• Marrying his wife, Felicia. It was a small ceremony; neither of them has much in the way of family. The best part was watching her struggle with the veil - not that she was struggling, but just that she looked very human in that moment.
• The day Felicia left him. She'd been distant for some time, and it wasn't exactly a surprise, but they had always worked through the rough patches before. Ozzie sat in his shower for nearly a full hour after he read the note, staring at his feet and the water going down the drain.
• Arriving in Manhattan. Ozzie's an illegal immigrant, but he wanted to disappear and not leave any traces behind in Jersey. He bribed some folks to make it across and wound up in the Delta plane, and eventually got his job.
• The first time he coaxed a wormtrain back onto its track. The wormtrains are strange and mighty creatures, and they nearly destroyed the city once. Ozzie feels a sense of reverence and respect for them, but also some pity, as their lives are wholly the product of human tampering.
• The first time he ascended to Alpha plane, and then went to leave, he was warned that he might not be able to return (that is, his thoughts might not be pure enough). The nature of the world is that everything feeds on something, and humans add social predation on top of that. It's hardly fair to hold people to such a standard. 

So far, so good. Step Two is to spend Chi Points. I get 120 of them. I start out buying up stats; there are 8 of them and they start at 0, but they have to be bought to 1 (so it would have been smarter to start them at one and start players with 112 points, but whatever).

Supposedly 3 is average, and I can't start higher than 5 in a given stat. I think Ozzie needs to have decent Mettle, Health, Virtue, and Charm. Supposing I put all four of those at 4? That would cost me 40 points. If I then wanted to put Willpower and Tech at 3, that'd cost me 12 more (52 spent), and that leaves Brains and Guile. I think 3 Brains, 2 Guile (9 more, for a total of 61 spent). That leaves me 59 points. I don't know if that's good or not, so on we go.

Status is next. Status is pretty complex; there are 7 factors to consider: Sex (I'm not female, so that costs me 0); Race (I'm not Japanese, but I'm not a mixture of races, which is a fucking stupid way to phrase this, but whatever, it costs me 3); K-Seg Plane of Residence (Gamma, I think, which costs 0); Career (I think "important job", so that costs 2); Family (Outcasts; he's an illegal, so that's -2); Reputation (Good, I guess? 3 Chi); and Appearance (Homely, -1 Chi). That's 5 Chi altogether, and gives me an overall Status of -2.

And now, Capabilities. These are skills and powers that I can buy (with my remaining 54 points). Let's see. OK, there are a few I like (they're mostly Skill-related because I don't see Ozzie as having any weird powers), but a lot of the ones I like key off Guile, so I'm gonna spend 3 points to bump that to 3 first. I have 51 points.

I want Scrounge (lets me find stuff in the ruins). That's 3 per level, I'll take 2, that means I've spent 6 (45 remaining). Stealth, always useful, 2 levels costs 6, down to 36. Streetwise, one level costs 5, down to 31. Tongues lets me communicate with other organisms, and I kinda want to be a wormtrain whisperer, so that's 10 points (down to 21).

I need to think about gear and money, too, dammit. I'll spend 5 on a x100 modifier, meaning every point I put in to actual money nets me 100 monies. That takes me to 16. I'll put 10 into money, but I need to spend 500 on an exxo (basically a hazmat suit) right away, so that's down to 500. 6 Chi remaining; I think I'll just dump those into my Chi pool.

Last thing is Tragic Flaws. I have to have at least 2, and my low Status counts (my low Guile would have, too, if I hadn't raised it). So I need one more. "From New Jersey" is actually listed as a social Flaw, so that's pretty much perfect.

And that's it! Ozzie is ready to go worm wranglin'.

Board Game: Pathogenesis

Also, the other night I told Cael to pick a board game to play, and, after being told it had to be something he hadn't played (i.e., not Munchkin), he picked this one:

The Game: Pathogenesis 
The Publisher: WIBAI Games
Players: Me, Al, Michelle, Cael
Time: This game took us nearly three hours, but we were learning it. I think a game in which we weren't constantly re-reading the rules would be closer to an hour

Game Play: Pathogenesis is a deck-builder in which you're all diseases trying to kill the host body. Said body has three tracts (respiratory, tissue, and gastrointestinal), and after you break through a tract's barriers, you can attack it directly. Attacking it requires pathogens, which you can buff with various enzymes and proteins and so on.

A very chipper sort of illness.

The body fights back, however; the immune system throws all kinds of shit at you. The immune system has a deck, and once it runs through, it gets reshuffled, but with more powerful cards in the mix (like t-cells, which will typically annihilate whatever pathogen they attack). When the deck runs out again, game over, the host body fights off the infection.

But, if you manage to remove all the damage tokens from one of the tracts, you win! (That's in a four-player competitive game; you can also play 2-v-2 competitive or some kind of cooperative, but we only played once.)

A growing pathogen

Opinions: It's a deck-builder, so if you don't like those, you won't like this. I personally think the game has a lot of potential, but there is a wrong way to approach it, and that's kinda what we did (to wit, the immune system doesn't kick in until all of the barrier cards are gone from one tract, but we did that too soon rather than taking the time to build up our decks, so we didn't have enough buffs to fight through the immune system once it happened).

The artwork is really cool looking, although most of the cards have medically accurate titles, which means they're hard to say at first. Fortunately there are symbols on the cards that tell you what they do at a glance.

The rulebook could have been clearer on a couple of points; I suspect it's easier to watch the how-to-play videos for the game. I'd like to try it again with a better sense of how the hell it works.

Keep? Yep.

Chill: Escape from the Caves

Yesterday was Chill. In what has become something of a theme for this HQ, the envoys escaped with their lives, but so did the creature they were fighting.

Recall that last time, the envoys were in the Kuna Caves, fighting for their lives against a sasquatch. The beast had already badly wounded Jennifer (she was unconscious, which was handy since her player couldn't make it this time) and BB (who was hanging on through judicious use of the Restorative Art). Beth Anne had blinded all of the envoys with a mis-used flare gun...

Cut to a couple of hours ago. Dylan had gone to his office to grade papers, a move that the other envoys regarded as strange and perhaps a bit dickish. Dylan has in fact spent all day in his office, grading and then working on other things, before finally realizing where he was and checking his phone (which he'd put on silent; also uncharacteristically). Dylan sees that he's got multiple messages from the team, inquiring with various degrees of politeness when he'll be back, and finally telling him they're going into the Kuna Caves to look for the missing family.

Feeling like maybe this is going to get bad, Dylan goes back to his apartment and grabs some hiking gear and his pistol, and then heads out to the caves. He sees that the entrance is closed off, and drives up the road a bit. He finds a deputy in an orange vest, and tells him that he's looking for his friends. The deputy tells him that if they joined the search party, they'll have signed in at the HQ, up the road a few miles.

Dylan starts to head up there, but then remembers that his brother's disappearance felt very much like this, and the road to the check-in takes him in the opposite direction from the caves. He turns around and heads back, and finds the same entrance that the others did. He enters the caves, and sees their markings and glowsticks, and then hears a fwoosh sort of noise and sees a bright red light.

The light, of course, is the flare. The sasquatch bites Jeanie on the shoulder, and she cracks it in the head with her staff, driving it back. Dylan, arriving at the top of the slope, yells to get their attention, and BB hears and, using Feat of Strength, throws Jennifer up to him. Dylan catches her awkwardly, but neither are hurt further.

Meanwhile, the creature paws at Jeanie's staff and it shatters. BB hits it with his bola, tying it up momentarily. Jeanie backs up, and Emily, her vision returning, punches it, also using Feat of Strength. The creature, of course, snaps the cable. Not wanting to fight this thing hand-to-hand, Emily backs off and shoots it.

BB, not having a gun, picks up a rock, runs over, and brains it. He feels something crack, and the sasquatch retreats a bit, as Emily and Beth Anne both unload rock salt at it. It lets out a terrifying screech, and the envoys feel the will to fight leaving them. Emily falls back into protective mode, laying down covering fire for her squad. Beth Anne goes up the rope, followed by Jeanie and BB. Emily is last up, and the sasquatch is nowhere to be seen.

The envoys leave the caves, and load BB and Jennifer into Dylan's car. He drives them to the check-in and gets them medical attention, and tells the authorities there that there was a bear attack. Everyone is taken away to the hospital, and the state troopers go into the caves. The find the bodies of the unfortunate McCarthy family (and many others), and ultimately conclude that one or more bears had gone rogue and were eating people. Said bears, however, are never found.

In a couple of days, after the worst of the injuries have healed, Dylan sits everyone down for a little rap session (Crisis Counselor, you see). Beth Anne notes that she felt really useless - she's good with ghost-related things, but this was purely physical. Emily states that she was right to be concerned about going in unarmed, and she's never doing that again. BB argues the point - the reason they went in under-armed was because something was screwing with their perceptions, and if they can't trust what they see they shouldn't be getting trigger happy. Jeanie tells the story of when she first saw the sasquatch, before she joined SAVE. She doesn't know if it was the same one, but it looked like it.

The envoys talk about their situation, and decide that they aren't going after the sasquatch right now - it's too big an area, there are already cops around, and besides, they have no good base of operations with the ranch compromised. They get Chet and Darnell out, and stay in Boise (some of them have residences there and can put up couch space). They need to figure out what this "xaxog" is and how to kill it, and take the damn ranch back.

That's the next case, however.

Board Game: Ticket to Ride - Heart of Africa

Didn't wind up playing Blades on Monday, so we did board game instead.

The Game: Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa
The Publisher: Days of Wonder
Time: 30 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Amanda, Toasty

Game Play: I've blogged Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride: Europe already, but Heart of Africa has some different rules, so I think it's worth another post (I mean, inasmuch as anything is; what is life, really?). Heart of Africa has the same premise - you're building trains across southern Africa. You get dealt random destination tickets, and if you complete those, you get points.

Ah-ha, but, in this version you also have Terrain cards (which sounds too much like "trains" when you say it, I find). There are three types of Terrain cards, each of which corresponds to three colors of tracks on the board and fall into loose categories (mountains/cliffs, jungle, and desert). Terrain cards are played in front of you, and when you play trains, you can play Terrain cards as well and double your score.

Those are Terrain cards in front of Michelle.

This adds a different level of strategy, since if you have more of a give type of Terrain than the other players, they can't use that type to double their score. Quite by accident, I wound up with four jungle Terrain cards, which effectively shut out anyone using those to double their scores for blue, purple, or green tracks until I used a few of mine.

Opinions: I like the fact that these different maps add some variant rules, too; makes it a different thing than Munchkin, which is basically the same game with some different art. I like this particular variant, but I'm not sure that I like it more than Europe's variants. It is, however, a larger map with few cities, so it's a little easier to see, which is maybe a little easier to visually navigate.

Keep? Sure.

Character Creation: Murders & Acquisitions

SO ANYWAY here's a character.

The Game: Murders & Acquisitions
The Publisher: Nerdburger Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, just read it.
Books Required: Just the one.

So, in all honesty, this is a game that I've thought about picking up a bunch of times, but I have so many games and the central conceit (climb up the corporate ladder plus there's murder) never quite clicked. And after reading the book, it still really doesn't; in my opinion there could have been a little more flavor and the book comes off a little dry. But with all that said, I haven't been able to get this video out of my head:

And it's such perfect inspiration that it made me read the book, and here we are.

So, in watching the video, I kinda want to play the guy that just fucking launches himself over the table at 1:48. Like, he's not a principal in this whole "negotiation" between Older Fella and Balding Fella, but he is ready to go. I like that kind of dedication. I mean, look at this guy:

NOBODY SPEAK, NOBODY GET CHOKED.

OK, so that's my basic concept: An executive assistant who is ready to throw down for his boss. I need to write up a Professional Summary for him, with three adjectives that kinda define him. So I'll say:

"I never lose my grip on my goals because I'm TENACIOUS. I'm READY to jump in and give it my all, and I'm LOYAL to a fault."

Now I do stats n' stuff. I get Wellness (basically health) and Wits (basically mental health) at 3, and they can go to a max of 5. I also get a d4 in all of the available Skills, which are listed on the sheet THANK YOU CRAIG. I get 20 points to boost them; Wits and Wellness cost 2 and Skill die types cost 1 (shades of Savage Worlds here). There's also a simple breakdown I could use:

And I'm fine with that. Although I think I'll drop Wits to 3 and boost Wellness to 5; seems like my guy isn't held together all that well.

SKILLS THEN! For my d10s, I'll take Force Application (look at that jump) and Expectations Management (he's good with other people, up to a point). For my d8s, I'll take Public Speaking (honesty is the best policy!), Bodily Grace (LOOK AT THAT JUMP), and Manual Finesse. For my d6s, I'll take Information Technology, Loss Mitigation, Resource Identification, and Physical Adaptation. That leaves a d4 in Social Equivocation, Systems Management, and Mental Adaptation. Cool.

A few static traits; Speed is 30, Body and Mind are 7 and I start with 3 Synergy.

I get 3 Areas of Expertise; they allow rerolls once per session. I'll take Athletics, Brute Force, and Negotiation.

Finally, I need a name, description, and Employee Objective. Description is done (right up there in the photo). My Objective is: "I want to be indispensable to my boss." As for name, I'll call him Tony Check. He uses "Check" as "affirmative," and that's not an accident, baby.

OK, if I ever run this game, I'm officially making everyone watch that video and pick someone to be their character.

Movie #510: Pale Rider

Pale Rider is a western directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, and also starring Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, and John Russell.

Hull (Moriarty) is the unofficial leader of a small community of gold panners in California, on the verge of getting run out by a ruthless gold magnate Coy LaHood (Dysart). One afternoon a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) stops a bunch of Coy's thugs from beating him up, and the stranger, called "Preacher" since he's wearing a priest's collar, joins the community and stands up to LaHood.

This all comes to a head when LaHood hires the services of a corrupt marshal named Stockburn (Russell) and his six evil deputies (one of whom is Billy Drago, the guy who plays Frank Nitti in Untouchables, but we'll get to the Us eventually). Preacher goes into town, opens a safe deposit box, swaps his priest collar for his guns, and kills them all.

Now, there's a lot more to it: Hull is involved with Sarah (Snodgress), a woman whose husband left her and her teenage daughter (Penny), and Hull's been trying to get her to agree to marry him. Megan, the daughter, is immediately taken with Preacher and tries to pursue him, but then, Sarah is, too, and actually beds Preacher (it's implied, but not shown), who then realizes what a good thing she has in the decent, dependable Hull. Actually, the main arc of the movie belongs to Hull and Sarah, not Preacher - Preacher just kind of comes out of nowhere, does a bunch of cool violence, and then sods off into the mountains on his own. It's implied (but again, never stated) that Preacher is the ghost of a man that Stockburn killed - Stockburn clearly knows him and is terrified to see him, and Preacher has a circle of bullet wounds on his back that matches the wounds he winds up giving Stockburn.

There are a few Eastwood westerns that leave a lot of things unexplained, and I'm fine with that. If Preacher is supposed to be a ghost, I could have done with some hint of the supernatural in the movie ('cause like, he behaves in all ways like a living man, but Eastwood has evidently said in interviews that he's a ghost), but really the movie is fine as a self-contained story about a community getting bullied by some rich asshole.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Pan's Labyrinth

Character Creation: The Strange

Done with the first week of summer clinic, so it feels fitting to do a character. Plus this is the last game on my "maybe I'll run this" list.

The Game: The Strange
The Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Degree of Familiarity: I played Numenera, which runs on the same system, at GenCon, but I haven't played this game yet
Books Required: Just the one.

 
The Strange is a multiple-reality sort of game; the titular Strange is a kind of field surrounding Earth, and it enables folks to travel (or "translate") between different worlds ("recursions"). Since recursions can be formed by fictional leakage, any fictional world might have a representative recursion, and indeed, Oz, Innsmouth, and Wonderland are all listed as recursions (though the three that are most heavily detailed are Earth and two original ones).

I have to say, this is a game that screams "run me". It seems like it has exactly the right kind of support - there's quite enough in the core to make it run, but there are multiple sourcebooks that have exactly what I'd want (to wit, more recursions). I don't know if my players will choose this, but I may need to run it at some point anyway.

Regardless, let's get to it!

The book does something I like; it has a summary of character creation right in the back, which makes it easy to find. Our first step is to Get Prepared, which basically means grab a character sheet. I have one, so that's fine.

Step Two has me Choose Type, Descriptor, and Focus. Characters in The Strange (and, indeed, I think other Cypher system games) are arranged by a "I am an [adjective] [noun] who [verbs]." Now, you don't just pick whatever for these parts of speech - there are discrete lists for each. I also kinda need to figure out which recursion I'm working with, since focus (the verb) changes when you translate (which is not unlike a Promethean changing Refinements, actually).

I think I'd like to make a kind of light-hearted character, and while some of the options for Ruk- or Aerdyn-based characters are dope as hell, I'm gonna start out on Earth. For type, I think I'll go with paradox. Paradoxes are typically spell-caster/ritualist/scientist types, but I like the idea of someone who is wicked smart but applies that to dealing with people.

I therefore start with 8 Might, 8 Speed, and 12 Intellect, plus I get 6 points to throw around. I'll bump Might and Speed to 10 and put the other 2 in Intellect (so, distribute them evenly, which would be the easier way to say that, Matthew).

I'm trained in one area of knowledge or technical expertise; I'm gonna say Psychology. I'm also trained in The Strange (just means I know general shit about it). I'm practiced with Light Weapons, I can do Translation, and then I get two Revisions, which are like special powers. Let's see.

Ooh, Premonition sounds good. I can learn random facts about people or enemies. I think I'll take Shatter - lets me make a small object within a short range explode. It's kinda offensive (as in, can be used offensively), but definitely requires some strategy.

There's a random table that lets me develop a connection to the world, and you all (ha) know how much I love random lifepathy kind of stuff, so here goes! I made a lot of money in digital currency, but then lost everything in a crash, and I'm determined to build my nest egg up again. I can live with that, I guess. I think that it was probably something Strange-related that caused the crash.

Now I need a Descriptor. I kinda like Sharp-Eyed - it's a little off from what I was initially thinking, but I like the idea that the sudden introduction of weirdness that came from the crash made him a little more shrewd. I'm trained in initiative and perception, and I can Find the Flaw (which dovetails nicely with my Premonition).

And now, focus. I already know I want "Entertains." That means that I'm trained in all social interactions except intimidation and coercion, and when I'm around when my pals are resting they recovery more points, which is cool.

Next I Fill in my Stat Pools, easy enough, they didn't change.

Fill in Edge Stats, no problem, that's predetermined by type. Might 0, Speed 0, Intellect 1.

Next step wants me to note any special abilities, but I did that already.

OK, breaking out of steps now, because basically there's just two more that are relevant. I'd get cyphers, if the GM wants me to have any, but I have no GM so I'll assume I get one. I'll take a stim - I can chug a small bottle of liquid and I get a bonus on the next action I take.

And then it's just roleplaying stuff! We'll say my character's name is Howard Gross. Howard isn't a programmer, he's trained in psychology and human behavior, and used that and a partnership with someone who was trained in computers to develop something cool in digital currency. It all should have worked perfectly - and it did - and then it all fell apart when something Strange happened.

His partner vanished, and Howard never really stopped looking for her. He eventually came across the Estate (Earth-based organization that deals with Strange stuff) and got recruited.

Howard is in his 50s, but looks younger. Black/greying hair, smooth face, stern brown eyes but an easy laugh. He's a bit resentful that he's just learning about all this stuff now...but then, maybe if he translates somewhere else, he can come back younger? Who knows?

And I think that's it!

Movie #509: The Pagemaster

The Pagemaster is a mostly-animated movie starring Macaulay Culkin, Christopher Lloyd, Frank Welker, Whoopi Goldberg, Patrick Stewart, Ed Begley Jr., and Leonard Nimoy. It's kind of a mess.

Richard (Culkin) is a little boy who's afraid of everything and knows the stats on where accidents happens, but not enough to know that if 8% of accidents involve ladders and 3% involve trees, that doesn't mean if you're up a tree on a ladder you have an 11% chance of having an accident. He winds up biking to a store at his father's (Begley Jr.) insistence, gets caught in a storm, and winds up in a fucking magnificent library run by Mr. Dewey (Lloyd).

Richard slips and falls and winds up a cartoon, and goes on an adventure through the genres of Adventure, Fantasy, and Horror, accompanied by personifications of those genres as fat books (voiced by Stewart, Goldberg, and Welker, respectively). He eventually defeats a dragon and goes home with the books in the real world, and is now brave.

OK. So, what I find sad about this movie is that it's got some potential, but it's a hot mess. For one thing, the central thrust of the movie seems like it should be "reading is a good thing," but that doesn't really link up with Richard's arc, which is not just that he's a coward but that he's so wrapped up in statistics that he doesn't like to try anything. But it seems like someone who knows all these stats read them somewhere (this is 1994, it's not like he read them on Wiki), and Richard comes off like a nerdy, bookish kid.

And then, there's the weird-ass portrayal of the genres. Horror is dumb and cowardly, Fantasy is sassy and Whoopi, and Adventure is a pirate caricature. There's nothing in any of the characters that actually addresses these genres, how they differ, or why they're cool, just a bunch of weak book puns. Likewise, there's some rivalry between them, but it's never given any depth other than Fantasy and Adventure snarking at each other. The decision to make Horror a dimwitted character, too, who just wants a happy ending doesn't make any damn sense.

I dunno. There are very occasional moments of cleverness, but even they're more like "oh, that could have been clever in the hands of a better screenwriter". Mostly I think this was an excuse to cash in on the Culkin fever spawned by Home Alone.

My Grade: F
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT

Next up: Pale Rider

All Flesh Must be Eaten: Lights, etc.

Yesterday, people got eaten by zombies, as is normal. Here's last session.

The characters are at Dr. Stephens' house. Lucille takes Stephens' car and heads out for her aunt's house north of the city to get things ready for the girls and make sure that everything's OK. The others take a moment and reconnoiter.

Mia and Daisy look through Dr. Stephens' occult library, looking for some details on how this all started and, more importantly, whether or not there was a way to stop it. They learned that the original intent of the ritual was "eternal life" - basically stealing the life from one person to add it to the occultist's. Something went horribly wrong, though, and the result was the zombie rise. Since that reaction was an aberration, though, it wasn't something that was addressed in the books. Destroying the zombies was simple enough - break the red thread on their spines. But stopping all the zombies didn't seem to be possible, and all of the zombies seemed capable of spreading the condition quickly.

Heather loots the house, stealing money, food, liquor, and Dr. Stephens' revolver. Patricia moves the bodies of the zombies that the group into the panic room and shuts the door as best she can.

They regroup to talk about their next move, and then hear something outside - sounds like someone stepping on a car hood. They look out and see someone standing on the bus hood, who then jumps off and hides behind the bus. Heather and Daisy head out, and Patricia and Mia follow cautiously. They hear Kyle's voice - "Heather."

Heather isn't fooled. She's lost everything except her sister, and she's pissed. She calls out to Kyle, trying to get him to show himself...but then two more zombies drop on the girls from the roof. One is dressed in a security guard uniform, the other is naked but has a Y-shaped scar on its chest.

Mia swings the sorority paddle and misses the zombie, but nearly smacks Daisy in the head (she's quick enough to dodge, fortunately). Heather smacks one in the head with a fireplace poker and keeps it at arm's length. She puts the revolver up against its neck and pulls the trigger, but hits an empty chamber. It pulls herself free and tackles her, biting her chest. Meanwhile, the other zombie tackles Mia.

Daisy calls down holy fire and incinerates the zombie on her sister, but misses the one on Mia. The zombie tears Mia's throat out, and pulls her heart out of her chest. The last thing Mia sees is Heather shooting the zombie in the back of the neck, destroying it.

The girls are safe, but devastated, especially Patricia. She drags Mia's body into the house and sets the place on fire, and the girls get in the bus and head out. Heather notices very quickly that they seem to have a flat, but she's not interested in stopping. Patricia mourns, and reveals that she was in love with Mia.

The girls take route 9 up into the forest and the bus sputters and dies. Heather mixes up a couple of Molotovs with the liquor they stole from Stephens' house, and they discuss their options. They're at least 20 miles from Lucille's aunt's house, and they have this feeling that there are zombies around.

As if in answer to this thought, the CB crackles to life. "Heather." Heather thinks it's Kyle at first, but then she recognizes her father's voice. There's a tap at the bus door, and they turn to see Officer Bitcherman, radio in hand, standing there.

They argue a bit about who should shoot this particular zombie; Patricia finally agrees to do it. They look back, but he's gone. They open the door and step out, and a zombie in fatigues jumps at Heather from the side. She hits him with with a Molotov and lights him up, and he tackles Patricia and bites her. She falls, burning and bleeding. Kyle appears and bites Heather on the shoulder, and Bitcherman rolls out from under the bus, pulls Daisy's legs out from under her, and bites into her legs.

Patricia throws off her zombie and gets to her feet, healing herself. Kyle bites into Heather's neck and nearly pulls out her throat, but she survives, barely. Patricia smashes the zombie attacking her with a Mag-light, and Daisy incinerates her father. Heather shoots Kyle point-blank in the neck, severing his threads, and Daisy slices the other one's neck open with her knife.

Patricia heals Heather as best she can, but all three of them are injured to one degree or another, and they're stuck in the woods. Next time, we'll see how all this ends.

Movie #508: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim is an action movie directed by Guillermo del Toro and starring Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Goram, and Ron Perlman (obviously).

Monsters start emerging from the Pacific Ocean and smashing coastal cities, and while the world's militaries manage to kill the first few, they quickly realize that they can't keep up. They build Jaegers, giant mechs piloted by two people who must be "drift compatible" (that is, they can share the "neural load" of mentally piloting the Jaeger). Jaeger pilots - rangers - become rock stars and all goes well for a while, until the kaiju start getting bigger and politicians, idiots now as always, decide that building walls is going to solve all their problems.

Our heroes are Raleigh Beckett (Hunnam), a ranger who lost his brother in a fight with a kaiju and dropped off the grid to do construction; Stacker Pentecost (Elba), a former ranger and current war marshall running the dying Jaeger program; and Mako Mori (Kikuchi), a girl orphaned by a kaiju and raised by Pentecost.

Look, the movie is about giant robots punching giant monsters, but del Toro, in his usual style, makes the movie good by making the characters interesting, keeping the stakes high, and not letting anything devolve into stupid jokes. The performances are good - Hunnam is pretty bland as Beckett, but the movie focuses just as much on Mako and Pentecost, and so he serves as a decent foil for them. Likewise, the movie isn't really about coaxing him back into active duty because he's the only one who can save us; Pentecost pretty much tells him he's dead either way, so would he rather die fighting or not?

Charlie Day and Burn Goram play scientists working on studying the kaiju and their real nature, and they're the ones who really save the day by providing crucial information. Ron Perlman has a fun cameo as a kaiju harvester and dealer. The dialog is absurd ("Gipsy Danger is analog. She's nuclear." ...what?), but again, as a movie about monsters fighting robots, it's high art.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: The Pagemaster

Board Game: Settlers of Catan

Can't believe we hadn't gotten around to playing this before.

The Game: Settlers of Catan
The Publisher: Catan
Time: 60 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Megan, and Jenn

Game Play: This is the "wood for sheep" game. You start off with a hexagon full of smaller hexagons, each of which has a number on it. Every turn, a player rolls the dice, and if a given number comes up, any player that has a settlement bordering a given type of hex gets resource cards (wood, sheep, bricks, ore, wheat).

An as-yet empty hexagon.

 Players can then use resources to buy roads, settlements, cities (which involve upgrading a settlement), or development cards. More settlements means more resources, so a lot of the game is figuring out where to build to maximize your resource gain. However...

That little grey dude is the robber. Roll a 7, and the robber moves, which allows the player to steal a resource from another player, but also he robs anyone with more than seven cards of half their resources. There is, therefore, no advantage in hoarding, because someone will roll a 7 sooner rather than later (it's the most probable roll on 2d6, after all).

The game goes until someone gets 10 points on their turn (settlements and cities give you points, as do certain development cards).

Opinions: It's easy to see why this game because such a huge screaming deal; it's easy to play but it's got some depth of strategy and it's colorful and fun to move stuff around. Plus, there's a human/psychological element in the trading (since you can trade resources as much as you want). The only complaint I have about the game is that it's not quick, so it's not something you can just pull out to play whenever.

Keep? Yep.

Blue Rose: Tea with Masked Intruders

Last session here. On we go!

The characters are asleep at the Market Inn. Whirlpool and Dobbin are upstairs in the room they've rented, while Arlen and Kisha have fallen asleep by the fire in the common room. Dobbin wakes with a start and sees three people wearing black and with scarves around their faces going through the characters' belongings.

She sits upright and screams "Thieves!" One of the thieves leaps into the air and kicks Dobbin in the head, but it's a glancing blow. Whirlpool gets out of bed and reaches for his trident, before realizing that he doesn't have it (the guard took the characters' weapons). He charges the thief that kicked Dobbin and knocks her back, and Pansy, really pulling her weight, runs over and tackles the thief.

Downstairs, Arlen hears Dobbin and wakes Kisha. Kisha runs up the stairs and meets a fourth thief on the landing, who tries to kick her down the stairs and fails. She squares off against him, and he asks "Where's the mask?"

Arlen, meanwhile, goes and pounds on the door to Magni's room (he's the innkeeper). He responds, and Arlen goes and blocks the front door.

Upstairs, the other two thieves try ineffectually to kick Pansy off of their compatriot. The thief leaps to her feet and pulls a dagger from her belt, slicing Whirlpool across the chest, but doing minimal damage - it even seems to Whirlpool like she pulled her blow a little.

Dobbin blocks the door and the thief asks where the mask is, and Dobbin tells her that it's safe from people like her. This seems to confuse her, and she says "You don't have it?" Dobbin confirms that they don't, and the thief tells her to move. Dobbin refuses, and the thief draws her dagger back as if to throw it at Pansy.

Dobbin calls her bluff: "You wouldn't hurt a defenseless animal!" The thief sighs and sheathes her dagger, and Whirlpool deftly steals it. Downstairs, an alarm bell rings.

Arlen, hearing the bell, goes and looks in on Kisha, and sees her fighting the dude on the stairs. Arlen casts a spell and immobilizes the guy handily.

In the room, the female thief removes her hood and mask, displaying long auburn hair. She tells Dobbin and Whirlpool that she'll talk to the Finest (who are on their way), and her two compatriots sneak out the window and away. They go out into the hall (and have Arlen free her other comrade), and then go downstairs to meet the guards.

When they see her, one of them says "Oh, Bresla! What are you doing here?" The "thief" is the sister of Bescek, the man that was murdered on the character's boat yesterday. She gives them a half-assed explanation (which is apparently all they need), and they leave. She sits down with the characters by the fire, and Magni stomps back to bed.

Dobbin expresses her condolences for Bescek, and Bresla reveals what she was doing here - the mask was stolen from the judiciary building earlier tonight. She assumed the characters had done it and was trying to get it back before they did something terrible with it. But they clearly didn't steal it; she tells them that Jocen, the man who interrogated them yesterday, is likely to be by in the morning. There was apparently something dropped at the judiciary that implicated them, some kind of coin. Kisha assumes that it was the coin that she gave to the priest of Felisar, but like, she gave that to the priest of Felisar.

Arlen relates Bescek's dying words ("Bresla, one of three"). The characters had initially assumed that Bresla was one of the three, but perhaps it was a message for her? The only "three" that Bresla can think of are the three head instructors at the Warrior's Rest academy - perhaps one of them is corrupted, a Shadow Dancer?

Bresla can't investigate that - the lead is too flimsy and she's not objective about her former teachers anyway. She agrees to look into the theft of the mask more thoroughly, but asks the characters to look into the instructors as much as they can. If they can get more proof, she'll have something to report to her superiors. The three instructors are: Duallin, who specializes in fencing and knife-fighting; Vistul, who specializes in archery and throwing; and Memne, who specializes in staff-fighting and body control magic.

Bresla leaves, and Dobbin just stays up because it's gonna be bread-baking time soon. Whirlpool goes back to sleep. Later that morning, Kisha goes out wandering (first to the academy, then to the temple of Felisar). Jocen and a couple of Finest arrive at the inn and question Dobbin, Whirlpool, and Arlen about the mask, their whereabouts the day before, and their travels, but seems satisfied with the results. He catches up with Kisha at the temple, too, but the priest there confirms Kisha's story - she gave him the coin yesterday so it could be destroyed, and he set it down for a moment, but then it vanished. Jocen notes that it seems like someone tried to implicate Kisha in the theft of the mask, and in general doesn't seem like he's suspicious, but the dude is hard to read.

It's Hearth Day, so everyone kind of takes a day of rest, stays at the inn, and relaxes. The next day is Sun Day, and the characters head out, first to the market so that the blacksmith can work on Whirlpool's cestus, and Kisha can buy some fancy clothes (that cover her amulet), and then the party heads to the academy.

Character Creation: Summerland 2nd Ed

On we go, reading games and makin' characters!

The Game: Summerland 2nd Ed
The Publisher: Fire Ruby Studios
Degree of Familiarity: None. I made a character for the first edition, that's as far as it's gone
Books Required: Just the one.

 

About the only thing that's changed in the second edition is the system, which is a pretty big change, all in all. The setting is the same - one night, a forest sprang up all over the world, destroying cities and ending civilization. Most people are susceptible to "the Call," a nigh-irresistible urge to walk into the woods. The PCs in the game are "Drifters," people who are too broken to be allowed to stay in communities permanently, but, because of their trauma, are resistant to the Call.

This is definitely the sort of game that requires the right group, and I do wonder if it has the right system now, but that's the kind of the thing you play to figure out. The imagery of the game - the Sea of Leaves, the Call, and so forth - is evocative as hell, and I love the artwork. I think I'm gonna pitch it to my group to see if they want to try it.

As such, let's make a character. First thing we'd do normally is decide on themes and tone, but it's just me, so screw that. I need to start by picturing my character in my head (basically I start with concept, adoy).

Hmm. The book points out that Drifters can be anybody - they aren't action heroes or soldiers necessarily, they're just people who, for whatever reason, are resistant to the Call. It seems to me that something beyond just trauma would be necessary, because like, if trees magically destroyed the world, wouldn't just about everybody have some trauma?

But on the other hand, the game posits that the point of all this is to re-integrate with a community, so maybe the PCs are just Drifters who haven't done that yet. Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I need a character.

Let's say my character is young. Summerland doesn't say how long it's been since the Event (I had "eight years" in my head, but I think that was some other RPG; I've read so damn many lately), but let's assume it's been a few years, and my character was a mid-teen when it happened. So now he's 20, he's a Drifter, wandering between communities and never really assimilating. He's thin - his metabolism is still amped and he never gets enough to eat. His hair is long, dirty, and brown. He's got peach fuzz all over his face, but it never quite manages to be a "beard." The helix of his left ear is half gone (wolf bite).

Personality-wise, I think he's edgy and slightly paranoid. He's used to people not wanting him around, so that's the assumption he starts from. He's actually really lonely and desperate for company, but getting that would require opening up. His name is Dan Foster. He was in high school when the Event happened, and lost his parents and brothers to the Call within the next few months.

And now, Attributes (this game works on the same system as In Flames, by the same author). I get 10D to divide among the four Attributes (Might, Agility, Wit, and Charm). Everything needs at least 1D, but I can also break a D down into 3 "pips," meaning an Attribute might have a rating of 3D+1, f'rex.

Well, I'm thinking Wit and Agility are Dan's better Attributes; he's too skinny and hungry to have much Might and he's too jumpy to have much Charm. Let's say his Charm is 1D+2, his Wit is 3D+1, his Agility is 3D and his Might is 2D.

Now each Attribute gets a tag. They can be positive or negative, but they all have basically the same game effect; they boost my rolls when they apply. I'll put "malnourished" under Might and "jumpy" under Charm. I'll put "quick reflexes" under Agility and "gamer" under Wit (Dan was an avid video gamer and is good at assimilating a lot of information from his surroundings quickly).

And now, Skills. I have all of the skills in the game at a level equal to the controlling Attribute, and then I get 7D more to throw around. I think there's also a penalty for using a skill untrained, so like, I can use Agility skills I don't put D into, but I'm just getting by on raw ability, not training.

OK, I'll put a D into Brawling, 1D+2 into Stealth, the other +1 into Rifle, +1 into History and Bureaucracy, 1D+1 into Tech, 1D into Survival, and 1D into Streetwise. I could have put something into specializations, but eh.

Ugh. There are some static defense traits, but they're not on the damn sheet. No bueno.

Anyway, Perks and Complications. Perks you need to spend Skill points on, and I didn't save any, so never mind that. Complications give you character points which I guess matter in play. I don't like the examples much, though - "low social class" doesn't make a lot of sense in a post-apocalypse, does it? And "crazy," well, that's just a bit problematic. So nothing there.

Now I need to think about Trauma for Dan. I don't need to define it entirely, because it comes out in play, but I do want to tie it back to my family. I'll say that Dan "hasn't been back to his house since the Event."

My Trauma starts at 5 (8-Wit), and my Stress starts at 8 ([Wit+Charm]x2, ignoring pips). If my stress hits zero, I crack, but if my Trauma hits 0, I can join a community and find a home.

Finally, gear. I get three points to spend on Gear. I'll say I have a package of no-doze pills, a rifle with a pocketful of shells, and a pair of binoculars. The pills and the binoculars he got from his house after the Event. The rifle he took from his neighbor.

And I think that's it!

Movie #507: Over the Hedge

Over the Hedge is an animated movie based on a comic strip starring Bruce Willis, Gary Shandling, Wanda Sykes, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, William Shatner, Avril Lavigne, Allison Janney, Nick Nolte, Thomas Hayden Church, and Steve Carrell.

Lovable scamp raccoon RJ (Willis) succumbs to his base nature and steals a bunch of stored junk food from Vincent (Nolte), a huge black bear. Vincent gives him a week to replace it, one way or another, and RJ chances upon a group of disparate animals led by Verne the tortoise (Shandling), who have a) recently awoken from hibernation and b) discovered that most of their woods has become a suburb that reminds me a lot of parts of Strongsville, OH. He immediately cons them into stealing food from the humans for him, but winds up learning a valuable lesson about trust and family, and the uses of caffeinated squirrels.

That's a very terse summary, but the movie isn't all that complex. You can see the beats of the movie coming - RJ's ultimate betrayal of the group and then his regret, Verne's frustration leading to a confrontation with RJ and then the rest of the group, the bear, the exterminator (Church) and the over-zealous HOA president (Janney) getting their comeuppance.

The devil's in the details, though. The cast is pretty fantastic. Steve Carrell is fun as Hammy, the hyperactive squirrel, who, like Fry and Twitchy before him, gain Quicksilver-like superspeed when he ingests too much caffeine (this movie predates X-Men: Days of Future Past by almost a decade, but if it didn't I'm sure we'd have had a Ben Folds cover of "Time in a Bottle" played during Hammy's superspeed scene). Whoever had the idea of casting William Shatner as Ozzie, the overacting, scene-chewing opossum, was a goddamn genius. Avril Lavigne isn't anything special as his daughter, Heather, but the interplay between them is nice.

Most of the jokes land, and it's not so crammed full of references to other properties that it feels dated after, what, 13 years (jesus). I thought having the big scary dog that chases the animals just wanting to play ("PLAY PLAY PLAY") was a nice touch, too.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Pacific Rim

Character Creation: Yggdrasill

Two Viking-themed games very close together. Not deliberate, just that this game was on my "let's read this and maybe pitch it to the group what needs a new game."

The Game: Yggdrasill
The Publisher: Cubicle 7
Degree of Familiarity: None. I've read it and the system looks pretty intuitive.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Obviously the lore for this game is pretty similar to Fate of the Norns, but the setting is pretty different, as that game is set during Ragnorak and this one is set during the 4th to 6th centuries (there's some "realism," but the game freely admits it samples ideas from different eras, and then there's the fact that in the game, shit like magic and gods exist, which throws a wrench into any claim of realism. I don't play RPGs for realism anyway).

So! I need to start off with a concept. There are a number of archetypes to choose from, which are basically character classes. I kinda feel like steering away from magic for a change, and I sort of feel like making a professional warrior ignores some of the slice of life that makes this game interesting, so I'ma make a farmer.

(As an aside, this is weird. The book says there are six archetypes, but I only count 5.)

In any case, I think my farmer is a herder. The book talks about herding reindeer, and that sounds interesting, so I'll do that. There's a list of "privileged skills," but I don't see any mechanical effect to those; they're just what's encouraged. (As always, an example of chargen would be helpful folks.) Oh, wait, now I see it - privileged skills cost less. Oy.

Anyway, we'll say my guy is named Sigurd Bardsson. I want to say he's got a homestead situated in the woods, but I want to do a little more with chargen before I make that decision.

Step two is Fate. Every character has three Runes that influence their destiny. I choose the runes randomly: Uruz, Nauthr, and Tiwaz. These each have to be either positive or negative; some of them have only one aspect, while others have both. They also have meanings that I can incorporate into my concept and history.

Well, Uruz, in its positive aspect, means that I don't get sick and have a strong constitution. Appropriate for a guy staying out in the middle of goddamn nowhere. Nauthr has only a negative aspect, and it means poverty, suffering, and torment - at some point in life I'm gonna get the shaft. I think it's tempting to say that Sigurd was banished from his former home. Tiwaz, the last one, is the rune of law. In the positive aspect it means you don't get arbitrarily fucked by the system, while in the negative you pretty much can't help but run afoul of the law. I think I'll take it as a positive, which would indicate that the banishment was righteous.

Step three is Characteristics. I get 19 points to split up between the nine of them, min 1, max 4. Let's see.

Well, I want high Vigor and Tenacity (going along with my iron constitution). Strength probably ought to be decent, too. Intellect, Charisma, and Communication can be lower. If I put 2 in everything, though, that only leaves me one extra point to play with. I'll leave Intellect and Charisma at 1, and put Communication at 2. That gives me 15 more points. I'll put Strength, Agility, Perception, and Instinct at 2, Tenacity at 3, and Vigor at 4. That means my Body is 8, my Mind is 6 and my Souls is 5.

Step four is Gifts & Weaknesses. I get one Gift for free, and I can take another if I take a weakness. I'll take Woodsman as a Gift, and looking at Weaknesses...oh, look, Outlaw. Perfect. I'll take that, which gives me another Gift, so I'll take...hmm, there's a few I like. I think I'll take Mountaineer and really lean into the "man of the land" thing.

Step five has five different sub-steps, but it's really all derived traits, so I do all that math and there we go.

Step 6 is Skills. I get 35 points to throw around, privileged skills are 1 for 1, anything else costs 2 points. Max is 7.

So, let's do this:

Craft (Ropemaking) 4
Drive 5
Knowledge (Agriculture/Herding) 5
Polearms 5

That's 19 of my points into privileged skills, meaning I have 14 left. I'll 6 into Climbing (for a score of 3), and then 2 each into Athletics, Herbalism, Stealth, and Ranged Weapons.

Step seven is "Determine Actions," but like, I get 1 primary action and 3 secondary. Not real sure where to write that, actually.

Step eight is Furor. I get 4 (it's a formula).

Step nine is Feats and Spells. I ain't got no spells, but feats are a thing. I get 12 points, but they have levels, so I need to look at this.

I'll take No Safe Place (lets me shoot an arrow through weak cover); seems appropriate for hunting. I'll take Body Feint for a bit of defense, and I'll take Unseat (knock a motherfucker off his horse). That's all of them, because they cost 3 per level and that's two level 1s and a level 2.

Step 10 is equipment and money. I get a weapon, so I'll take a bow (I'm better with a polearm, but figure that this guy uses the bow more). I'd get some money, too, but eh, you know how I feel about shopping.

Step 11 (jesus) is the "finishing touches" kind of thing. Sigurd was banished from his native land for the crime of murder. The circumstances were murky - he claims he was acting in self defense, but there were no witnesses. In the end, the thing decided that to split the difference between execution and freedom and just banish him, on the understanding that he'll be killed if he returns. Since then, Sigurd has lived in isolation in the woods on the side of a mountain, living off the land and sometimes selling goods from reindeer in town for the things that he can't grow or hunt. What would it take to get him off the mountain? Not much, surprisingly. Sigurd is fastidious in following the law, and if he were asked by a noble or a jarl to do a job, he'd do it, no questions asked.

Sigurd is a big guy, over 6 feet tall and thick. He has dark hair and keeps it braided and as clean as he can. He wears a bow whenever he's out walking, and has an old poleax in his house somewhere.

Sounds good!

Movie #506: Outbreak

Outbreak is a medical thriller starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Cuba Gooding Jr., Donald Sutherland, Patrick Dempsy, Zakes Mokae, and Dale Dye.

As I mentioned some time ago, this movie is basically the 90s version of Contagion. There's a hemorraghic fever called ebola motaba, it kills in a few days, it starts off in Zaire as a biological weapon (?), winds up in the US because of a series of stupid decisions, and there's Sam "Doomsayer" Daniels (Hoffman), a doctor with USAMRIID, trying like crazy to contain it and cure it.

Daniels is a maverick; his superior General Ford (Freeman) and his superior General McClintock (Sutherland) know Daniels as someone who doesn't always stay in line. His ex-wife Robbie (Russo) has just taken a new job at the CDC, so there's lots of drama there. The new disease soon infects a small town in California, requiring a military quarantine. It also very quickly infects Casey (Spacey), Daniels' friend and colleague, and then Robbie. Drama.

The back half of the movie ramps up the action as Daniels and his new med tech Salt (Gooding Jr.) have to zoom around in a helicopter finding the host animal that has antibodies for the disease and avoiding McClintock's attempts to kill him, and then they have to stop a bomber plane coming to firebomb the town to contain the disease. In the end, of course, Ford has McClintock arrested, Daniels and Robbie get back together, Casey dies (?), and the disease is cured. All is well.

So, I can't help but compare this movie to Contagion, as I mentioned, and not just because they're sold together. Contagion is a very sober, realistic look at what a deadly pandemic would look like. Outbreak is a thriller, which means that the pace has to be ramped up, which means the disease can't just be a nasty strain of the flu and kill one in five, it has to be a disease that kills you by liquefying your organs and it has to kill fucking everyone. Likewise, the drama in the movie can't just be about the disease and how the general public reacts and what lengths people go to in order to protect their own, there has to be a plotline about it being a biological weapon (which, if we're being honest, doesn't really go anywhere and is only there to motivate Sutherland's character to be a complete jackass). Even the plotline about the relationship between Russo and Hoffman isn't really necessary, and frankly Hoffman's character kinda comes off as a bit of a bully in places.

With all of that said, I like this movie. The first half, in particular, is taut and creepy in places, and the depiction of the the USAMRIID labs has some great establishing shots with no dialog at all. Likewise, the cast is stellar and completely sells the movie. It's not as well scripted or as disturbing as Contagion, but it's kinda more watchable.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Over the Hedge

Board Game: Marvel Codenames

Not gonna forget to do this, this time.

The Game: Marvel Code Names
The Publisher: Czech Games
Players: Me, Megan, Gus, Michelle
Time: 10 minutes a round or so

Game Play: It's pretty much the same as the standard edition; you put the cards in a grid, and the "Directors" can see which cards correspond to which team. They try to give their teammate(s) clues by saying a code word and a number, meaning "[number] cards relate to [word]."

The big different here is that the cards have pictures (I mean, they have words on the back, but the pictures are more interesting), so it requires, or at least rewards, a bit of knowledge of who these characters are. Fortunately, we live in a world in which a lot of comic book characters have been translated into big screen counterparts, so they're not as obscure as they might otherwise be.

Otherwise, it's just a themed Code Names game.

Gus and Megan search for commonality.

 Opinions: I actually like the original game better. Don't get me wrong, I love superheroes, but making the game themed just narrows the potential clues a little too much. I would like to play it with more people, though, and see what that does.

Keep? Sure.

Blades in the Dark: Sneak Thievery

Last time's here, this time's...here. Weird.

The crew has agreed to take on the task of stealing a cut glass chalice from a noble/rich dude called Rolan Wott. We open with his swanky-ass party already in progress. One-Eye is dressed up and therefore looks noveau-riche, Copper is her bodyguard, Cage is in cover as an occultist, and Siren is there as entertainment. The scoundrels have arranged with Lord Penderyn and a glass-cutter to make a facsimile; it won't pass close inspection and it's got no magical properties, but it looks the part.

One-Eye tries to find out a little about Wott's collections, but she kinda comes off as a bit of a rube. She does learn that the really good stuff is kept upstairs and Wott normally invites a few people up later in the evening. They decide to use Siren's performance as cover, and when she starts singing, One-Eye and Cage sneak upstairs with Copper acting as lookout.

They find the chalice in a glass case with an arcane lock. Cage opens it, but as he's sliding open the glass door he spots a copper wire - a secondary alarm. One-Eye, fortunately, has her tools with her and disarms it, and they swap out the chalice for the fake one and re-arm the alarms.

Meanwhile, though, Siren is singing, and she's chosen the song that she's had in her head since getting Kotar...in her head. Cage notices that the chalice is reverberating in tune with the song.

Cage, Copper, and One-Eye sneak back downstairs and leave the party quietly. Wott himself approaches Siren and asks where she heard the song. She lies and says it was just something she heard on the street. Wott asks her to come upstairs and see his more interesting artifacts; Siren wisely declines and leaves. Wott, however, notes that she performs at the Veil...so maybe he'll see her there.

The crew heads into Charterhall and delivers the chalice to Lord Penderyn (Madame Tesslyn is also in attendance). They tell Siren to pick it up, and Penderyn says that he doesn't think that will harm her, but what he's trying to do is get Kotar out of her head. Siren picks up the chalice and drinks from it (it's empty, but that doesn't seem to matter). Tesslyn pulls a cloth away from the desk to reveal the Eye, Heart, Hand, and Tongue of Kotar.

Meanwhile, in her own mindscape, Siren hears the voice of Kotar thanking her for her hospitality and promising that he'll try and make sure the process of him exiting her head doesn't kill her (and if it does, he's sorry). She feels a burning sensation in her eye, tongue, chest, and hand, and then a sense of peace...but then Kotar slams back into her.

In the office, the pieces of Kotar hover for a moment, and then drop, and Siren collapses. Copper and One-Eye pick her up, and Penderyn muses that perhaps they need a body for Kotar to inhabit. Cage asks whether the crew is going to be hired to help find such a vessel, and Penderyn says he doesn't know - it'll depend on the particulars. Maybe a hull? But then they'd need someone who could meld flesh and sparkcraft (Copper immediately points to One-Eye, who admits that she could do it, but it wouldn't be cheap).

Penderyn points out that Kotar may be the only hope of saving the city from Seterra, so it's really in the crew's best interests to help them out. In any case, though, yes, the crew would be paid for such. He gives them some money and they head back to the hideout.

They get back to the lair and find a bunch of ghosts hanging around. The ghosts all mob Siren, chanting "sing to us." She puts on a spirit bane and they wander off, but that's a little disquieting in any case.

The job was pretty quiet, but One-Eye winds up bragging while high and gets them a little Heat anyway. Over the next few days, Siren completes her work on a Doskovol Youth Center, lowering the crew's Wanted Level a bit, and Cage starts working on advancing in the Path of Echoes. One-Eye works with the Unseen to shift focus away from Widdershins. The crew as a whole, though, decides that this "a demon is coming to flood Doskovol" thing is a bigger deal than they thought, so they decide to follow a lead they got some time back - the rumor that Lord Strangford is into demon-worship. That's for next time.

Character Creation: Shadow of the Demon Lord

This might wind up being the game that replaces Night's Black Agents, depending on what my players think (Michelle and I pulled a bunch of games off the shelf as potentials, but I've rejected a couple of them already for a variety of reasons). Let's do a character!

The Game: Shadow of the Demon Lord
The Publisher: Schwalb Entertainment
Degree of Familiarity: Never played it, but I've read through it and it's a lot more intuitive than a lot of fantasy games
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Shadow of the Demon Lord is a fantasy game, but it embraces the visceral side of horror. It's got some shock and some terror, but it isn't afraid to go for the gross-out, too, and there's a place for that. Also, while the ancestry options include fantasy staples like dwarves and elves, they aren't Tolkein, and I appreciate that.

Character creation starts at level 0, and then when you hit level 1 you choose a path. You can just make level one characters, too, but I'm gonna make a novice character because that's where I'd start my players.

My first step is to choose an Ancestry. I think I want to make a changeling. Changelings here are something like fetches in Changeling: The Lost; they look like bundles of sticks in their natural form, but they can steal the form of another humanoid being. The book says that they typically use the names of the people they impersonate, but otherwise they use simple nicknames, so I'm gonna call my changeling "Crackle." It's the noise that a bundle of sticks makes if you squeeze it, and also if you burn it.

I fill in my Attributes (Strength 9, everything else 10) and my derived traits. Now, there are a few random tables here, so I can choose or I can roll. I may do a little of each. My true age is between 26-40, so I'll say I'm 35, why not. My (current) apparent gender is male. I'm presently wearing the form of a human (40 years old, short, and completely average in appearance).

On the background, I rolled a 10, which means I "earned a living working in my profession," which compared to some of the options is kinda bland. But I think I'll keep it, and try to get an interesting profession.

Ooh, my quirk is that I speak in whispers. I can handle that. Means that crackling sound is the loudest thing I can manage. I take on the forms of others for profit and to gain access, which to me suggests I don't keep anyone's form for long. I can get behind that.

So now, professions. I start with two and I can pick 'em or roll 'em. I'm going to take Criminal: Spy as one, and then roll for the other. The dice give me Academic: Nature, which I can roll with. I'm made of twigs, after all. A roll on the wealth table says I'm getting by, so I make enough to cover expenses. That means I have a simple weapon (I'll take a dagger), basic clothing, a backpack, a week of rations, a waterskin, a tinderbox, a couple of torches, and 6 coppers.

Now, this is fun. I get a roll on the Interesting Things table. I have a tiny inert mechanical spider. How cool.

Beyond that, I just have to think about roleplaying stuff. I'll say that Crackle doesn't take any pleasure in stealing other people's forms, and he's never done what some changelings do and kill the person he's imitating. He normally just stays in a given form long enough to do a job - steal their money, learn their secrets to sell, and so forth. He's in this particular body still because this guy is so nicely nondescript, and he finds it useful not to reveal his ancestry unless he has to (people are justifiably suspicious of changelings). Crackle spent a few months trapped in the body of a wizard's apprentice some time back, and learned enough about the flora and fauna of the world to earn some money with that knowledge. When the spell wore off and he was able to assume his true form, he high-tailed it out of that place. Wizards give him the screaming heebie-jeebies.

I think that's it! I could, if I wished, lower an Attribute and raise another, but eh. I think if I were going to take a novice path with Crackle it'd either be Rogue or Magician.