Movie #625: The Saint

The Saint is an action-spy movie starring Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valeriy Nikolaev, Alun Armstrong, and Henry Goodman. It's based on a literary character and a TV show starring Roger Moore, kinda, because really the only things that appear in the movie are the name "Simon Templar" and the little dude with a halo as a stickpin. But I've never watched the show, so all I can do is judge the movie on its own merits.

To wit: A young orphan (Adam Taylor), being raised at a monastery in "the Far East", breaks out and leaves, and then years later grows up into a thief and master of disguise (Kilmer) whose alternate identities are all the names of Catholic saints. He uses women as shields and unwitting mules, and is trying to break $50 million to retire on. 

Meanwhile, Russian billionaire-turned-would-be-president Tretiak (Serbedzija) discovers that Emma Russell (Shue) an American scientist working at Oxford has discovered the formula for cold fusion, and hires the Saint to steal it. The Saint (OK, his name is Simon Templar, but he doesn't use it for most of the movie) tracks her down and discovers she's played by Elisabeth Shue, and his trick of learning all about her to seduce backfires when they kinda seduce each other. He steals her formula anyway because Tretiak is happy to kill her if he doesn't (a question: why does Tretiak think that will matter to him? He initially assumes that Simon is trying to get more money out of him), Emma tracks him down in Russia because apparently going to Catholic school makes you an expert in recognizing saints' names, and wacky hijinks ensue as Simon and Emma try to get the hell out of Russia without getting shot by Tretiak's over-eager son Ilya (Nikolaev). In the end, all is well, Simon is still on the run but he has given up much of his money and fallen in love with Emma.

So, I like this movie, but I find it disappointing because it feels pasted together from a lot of different drafts and I can see the glue bubbles. Just as an example, Emma has a weak heart (and holy shit, Shue sells that in her performance), but towards the end of the movie she mentions that she hasn't needed a pill recently. This is a bit, but this particular Chekov's gun never fires. Simon mentions, in a really ham-handed bit of exposition, that you need to performance three miracles to be a saint, so given that, the obvious conclusion is that one miracle is the curing of Emma's heart...but nope. First miracle is that cold fusion works, second is Tretiak getting arrested, and third is Emma saying she loves him, which...none of those are miracles, and even in context they're kind of weaksauce. 

There's evidently a version where Emma dies about three-quarters of the way through the movie and the third act is mainly Simon taking revenge on Tretiak and his son, and like, I'm no fan of fridging women characters like that, but it'd be interesting to see. 

But, like I said, I do like the movie. The cast makes it. Kilmer is enigmatic and slick as Templar, Shue is perfect as Russel, and Serbedzija is quietly evil and enthusiastic as Tretiak (I remember lamenting when we watched this movie that you don't have to be as articulate and clever as Tretiak to become a populist favorite, apparently). I love the chemistry between Shue and Kilmer, and especially the astonished vulnerability that Simon shows their first night together, desperately wanting to abandon his Thomas More persona and just be honest with her. 

It's a fun movie with some missed opportunities and a good cast, so that's a win overall.

My Grade: B-
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Salt

Character Creation: Tianxa

Character time, whoop whoop. 

The Game: Tianxa: Blood Silk & Jade
The Publisher: Vigilance Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, but it's Fate Core and I've got a pretty good handle on that
Books Required: Tianxa and Fate Core

Tianxa invites comparison to Jadepunk, since both are Fate games that take inspiration from kung fu and wuxia media. I think Tianxa comes out better. It's a little clearer about its influences, and it's a lot more well-designed in terms of kung fu and how that works mechanically. Stylistically it reminds me a bit of Feng Shui 2nd Ed. 

Anyway. I'm making a character who is a martial artist and part of the kung fu underground in not-China. I actually already what style of kung fu I want; I'm going to lean into my predilections towards stealth and defense-based fighting. I think I want my character to be a sailor from a distant land, who was discovered on an otherwise empty ship drifting on the ocean. He was clearly too young to be a full member of the crew, maybe a cabin boy or something, but he was an expert sailor and skilled with rope. He caught a ride back to the mainland and took up with a mercenary company heading into the country's interior, and eventually wound up in Jiāngzhōu, at which point the GM or the other players would hook me in. My High Concept, then, is Mysterious Sailor from Another Land. 

Need a Trouble Aspect, and I don't want to tie it to my strange origins. I think instead my character is believed to have killed his master. His master, Silent Pei, also traveled with the mercenary company (let's call them the Long Road Caravan Warriors), and took a shine to my character, especially his skill with rope. He taught him the Ghost Serpent Style, but then when the company got near the city of Bão Jiāng, one morning they found Silent Pei hanging from his neck in a tree. The company blamed my character, but there was no evidence against him and no one could really come up with a motive. They expelled him anyway, and Everyone Knows He Killed His Master. 

I think I want a name before I go further. I'll call him No-Shadow Hai. Hai is slim, quiet, and quixotic. He has black hair, but his skin is notably lighter than a lot of the folks around here. He has light brown eyes and oddly soft hands, considering all his time working with rope. 

Now the Phase Trio. I feel like the Caravan Warriors aren't pleased with him, and I would like an Aspect dealing with his master from his perspective. I'll let his Trouble carry the load of the former, and I'll take I Will Learn the Truth About Pei. 

I've mentioned his skill with ropes a bunch, and I think I'd like to do something with that. I was thinking about a stunt, and I might still do that. But suppose I make it an Aspect, too. A Well-Tied Rope is as Steel, how about. And then I think I want something to kind of highlight his personality a little, too. I Could Explain; Would Anyone Listen? Sounds good.

Skillz! I get the usual Core pyramid, and Tianxa adds a new skill, Chi, which I definitely want. I think, though, that I want to put Stealth at Great. For my two Good, I'll take Fight and Chi. For my three Fair, Athletics, Burglary, and Deceive. And then four Average: Physique, Will, Provoke, and Notice. 

Stunts! Now, I get an extra Refresh, which I'm encourage to use on Kung Fu, which I will. Hai is a student of the Ghost Serpent Style, a student of the late Silent Pei. I get a Form Aspect, which I'll call Silken Viper Form. I get a Technique from either of these substyles, and I can spend Refresh for more. Hmm. I know I want Serpent Strikes First (lets me use Fight instead of Notice for turn order) and I think I'll burn another Refresh for two more Techniques. I'll take Ghost Strikes the Spirit (I get bonuses against enemies with lower Chi than me), and Serpent Bites the Hand (if I defend with style, I can inflict stress immediately, which I picture as Hai catching a strike in his rope and twisting). 

Umm...stunts! I want to take Garrote (inflict Choking consequence if I beat an unaware opponent's Notice with a Stealth action). I take one called Tethered (+2 to Defend with Athletics if I have a rope handy, the idea being I can use it to anchor myself). And, finally, I'll take The Sea's Secrets (+2 to Create an Advantage with Lore if I can frame it as a sailor's yarn). 

And...that's it. I would totally run this game, this is pretty baller. 

Movie #624: Sabrina

Sabrina is is a rom-com-ish kind of thing, and a remake of a 1954 Bogart/Hepburn movie (based on a play by Samuel Taylor), starring Julie Ormond, Harrison Ford, Greg Kinnear, Nancy Marchand, John Wood, Lauren Holly, and Dana Ivey. 

Our title character and POV, Sabrina Fairchild (Ormond) is the daughter of a chaffeur (Wood) who works for an immensely rich family, the Larrabees. Sabrina has been in love with David Larrabee (Kinnear) since she was a kid, and watches him womanize at the family's lavish parties. David, for his part, isn't a total slimeball, he just falls in and out of love too quickly. His older brother Linus (Ford), however, is the brains and workhorse of the company, and is known to be heartless. 

Sabrina leaves home and lives in Paris for a year, and then returns with some confidence and a haircut and catches David's eye. That's actually a problem, as David is now engaged to Elizabeth Tyson (Holly), whose parents own another huge tech company. Linus sees dollar signs, but then David starts falling for Sabrina, so Linus stabs David in the butt with a champagne flute (well, tricks him into stabbing himself) and romances Sabrina to keep her away long enough for David to forget her. This backfires when Linus discovers he really does have feelings for Sabrina.

It's a cute movie, there's some good, dry, funny dialog, and with a couple of exceptions, the movie takes enough time with even the minor characters that we get a sense of who everyone is and how they fit together. The script has its work cut out for it - Linus is notably older than Sabrina and so having him romance her without coming off as a creep is hard, but the movie gets around that by having him be largely uncomfortable and seemingly aware of that hurdle (plus, as I think about it, he never pursues her in an overtly sexual sense). Likewise, David has to be able to fall for Liz, fall away from Liz, fall for Sabrina, and fall back to Liz but still be likeable, which is a hard ask (fortunately it was 1995 and Greg Kinnear was up to that challenge). 

About the only complaint I have is that towards the end of the movie, Sabrina's father proposes to another of the staff (Elizabeth Franz), and it's out of nowhere. They have a couple of scenes together, and there's obvious care in their relationship, but it still feels jarring. That's a pretty minor issue in the scheme of things, though. It's a rom-com that takes time to establish relationships, including showing us Sabrina as she matures and comes into her own, which avoids some of the issues that such movies can have where the women have no other characteristics than "woman who fixes man". Sabrina does fix Linus, but this is actually called out as part of their arc, and he's the one who recognizes that he needs to change something. 

Anyway, it'd be interesting to see the original, although I understand that makes a lot more of the "OMG the chaffeur's daughter?!" thing, which I think would just annoy me.

My Grade: B
Rewatch Value: Low

Next up: The Saint

Character Creation: Broken Rooms

Oy, gotta get back in this habit. Built a zoo in Subnautica instead of reading RPGs at night, and I only have this one in PDF, which I find harder to read. Anyway.

The Game: Broken Rooms
The Publisher: Greymalkin Designs
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I have no idea if Greymalkin is still in business, but you can apparently still buy their games on DriveThru. Their fantasy game, Desolation, is a lot of fun, FWIW.

So! In Broken Rooms, you play a Nearsider. The Nearside is a collection of 13 parallel realities, one of which is our world, and the others are our world plus a huge-ass catastrophe of some kind. The worlds diverged in August 2002, and are heading towards a Convergence with dire portents in the distant future year of...um...2015. 

(OK, so this is the issue you run into with assigning real dates in a game, but whatever. 2002 seems like only yesterday.)

I have to say, I haven't read more than the initial chapters and getting into chargen, but I really like the setup for the game. There's a lot of science (and "science") in the explanation of Nearsiders, but I happen to know enough neuroanatomy to understand it, so that's cool. Also, each of the very brief descriptions of the various Earths were evocative and elicited an "ooh, that'd be fun" kind of response, so that's a good sign. 

So let's dig into chargen! As is often the case, the first step is Concept. This is a modern-day game (I mean, it's set almost 20 years ago, but 20 years doesn't matter, obviously) so no space pilots or whatever. I think I'd like to make a character who's handier than me (which is not a high bar), so I'll say he's a contractor - does painting, drywall, some electrical, and so forth. He's divorced and his ex has custody of their 5-year-old son, but he sees him when he can (his hours aren't consistent, which is a problem). 

I think that's a solid enough start, so let's move on to step two: milestones. First one is the Personal Divergence Event, something traumatic that happened on August 13 of some year between 2002 and "now" (whatever "now" is). 

That's actually an interesting question. If the game space is 13 years, when's the game set? I don't remember reading that in the earlier chapters, and looking around the book, it seems like the default is that we're in the 2010-2012 range. So that's fine, we'll say that my character experienced his Personal Divergence Event on August 13, 2010, when his wife informed him that she wanted a divorce. 

Looking back, he can see where the cracks in the relationship were, but at the time, he thought things were tense because money was tight. But that day in August, she told him that while she respected him and wanted him to be a good father to their son, she didn't love him and hadn't for a while. 

Next milestone is First Fall, the first time the character slips into another variation, usually in response to a life-threatening situation. Let's say that he took on a job with a lot more complex electrical work than he was qualified to handle it, was in no way in the right headspace, and wound up electrocuting himself. He felt the pain as the electricity coursed through him, and then the next thing he knew, he was standing on the rim of a crater. The crater was about 100 yards across, as best he could eyeball it, and there was no one else around - just a darkened sky and devastation. He wandered around for a while calling out for help, and saw someone approaching in the distance, but as the man grew closer he could see that he was carrying a baseball bat with nails in it. He ran, and slipped, and then woke up back at the house he'd been working, hair smoking and hands burned. 

The last milestone is Recruitment, so this is how the character gets educated in what's really going on. There are organizations that work within the Nearside for various reasons, one of which is the Regency Group. I think we'll say that one of their reps approached my character in a bar (he was supposed to see his son that evening, but he was working on a job he couldn't afford to lose and the homeowner was late letting him in, which threw off his schedule) and explained what was really going on.

I think my character is largely confused about all this. He doesn't see how journeying to other realities is going to be helpful, to them or him (since most of those realities are utterly hosed anyway), but the Regency guys insist that he can be useful, and they pay. He's kind of latched onto the idea that this might help one of the "apocalypses" not happen to his Earth, even though that's not really accurate. 

So next we do MPHA, which stands for Motivation, Personality, History, and Appearance. Starting off with Motivation, I think what motivates my character is to make a better world for his son, and to try and win his ex's love back. 

Personality: The character has a profound sense of being way out of his depth. This is science fiction and dimensional travel, and it all feels very surreal and dangerous. He manages it by telling his son stories of his travels in the Nearside, presented as tall tales, and that helps to contextualize. He also tries to volunteer for missions that let him use his skills as a carpenter, electrician, etc.

History: I've actually done a bunch of this, but to flesh out: His parents were lower-middle class folks, and he took some courses in community college as well as learning the smattering of handyman skills he did from his father and his pals. His parents both died within a few years of each other (cancer and heart attack), and his wife and his son were the only family he had left locally (he has three sisters, but they've all moved away). His wife encouraged him to go back to college since he was actually good at business management, but she stopped encouraging that about a year before the divorce. 

Appearance: He's in his early 30s, muscular but developing a bit of a beer gut now. He's kept his hair (brown) and he has a dazzling smile that he's paid a lot of money for. He still wears his wedding ring. He favors jeans, work boots, and paint-stained shirts and sweatshirts. 

Cool, step four! Attributes. Only three, Body, Mind, and Soul, but what's interesting is that Body covers physical senses, rather than Mind (which is usually how this division works in RPGs). I like that. Anyway, I think for my character's purposes, Mind (which is mentioned as being the Attribute of choice for technical skill) makes the most sense as Primary, so let's go Mind-Body-Soul for prioritization (5, 4, and 3 dice, respectively). 

Skills! This game has a kind of elaborate Skill system, but so far I like it. Basically Skills are broad, but within every Skill is a number of Concentrations, and after chargen you can only improve Concentrations, not Skills. This step has sub-steps, so let's see how this works.

OK, I get three Skills at Familiar, which should be kind of my baseline. This is easy, I want Technical, Tradecrafts, and Higher Learning. Cool. 

So, now I have 13 points ("13" is a very big thing in this game). I can spend 3 to bump another Unfamiliar Skill to Familiar, or 1 point to bump up a Concentration, but no higher than Professional. Hmm. I've never regretted taking Athletics in an RPG and I've established that my guy is fit, so I'll blow 3 and do that. Any others? Nah, I think with others I can just take Concentrations. 10 points left to do so, indeed, and I can't get better than 2 steps from the base Skill (meaning that if I have a Skill at Familiar, the best I can do is Professional). So I want:

Business (Higher Learning): Trained (1 pt)
Persuasion (Interpersonal): Trained (2 pt)
Spanish (Languages): Familiar (1 pt)
Search (Perception): Familiar (1 pt)
Electrical Systems (Technical): Trained (1 pt)
Masonry (Tradecrafts): Trained (1 pt)
Carpentry (Tradecrafts): Trained (1 pt)
Cars (Transportation): Familiar (1 pt)

Cool, that was much easier than I was thinking. On we got to Nearsider Abilities. I start with a Distance of 2 (which has to do with how much I've become, well, distant from others since beginning my travels). My Depth is 3, and seems to be the Attribute used to do magic-like stuff. My maximum Momentum is 4 (twice my Distance). And I get a Prime Meridian and an associated Prime Quality; this is reality-altering stuff, and tends to be a point of identity for Nearsiders. 

Ooh, Juicing or Mending? Juicing lets me mess with electricity, Mending lets me fix stuff. Both are in-concept. I think Mending aligns more closely with my motivation, so let's do that. For the Prime Quality, I take Patch (I get a bonus to fix stuff, as opposed to fixing people). 

Step Seven, Qualities. These are pretty straightforward; they're positive, negative, or double-edged (potentially both), and there's a list, but they're easy to make up. I get two positive and one negative, but if I want to take more, I can, I just have to take them in pairs. Oh, and then I can take one double-edged. 

Well, I think I do actually want to take a double-edged. I'll call it "I Meant What I Said." If he says he'll do something, he'll do it. His problem comes when two things conflict, because he tends to pick the one that will make money (that's programming from his father, not a love of capitalism).

Positive Qualities, then. Well, he's a Quick Learner; he picks up on new principles easily and you only have to show him how to do something once. He's also Easy to Talk To, which is part of what makes him a good dad (when he's able to be there). 

But on the negative side, he's got Divided Loyalties. He wants to be a helper to the Regency Group, but his first priority is always going to be his son. 

And finally, I think, step eight is Other Details. I...think that's just damage tracks, so I fill in some slashies and dotties and I'm good. Oh, wait, I need a name! Let's call him Stuart Rodgers. I don't feel like he needs a super-flashy name.

Brief aside, and I admit this gripe may not be valid because I haven't read the whole book, but I feel like the chargen section needs a once-over. First off, there's a running example (yay!) but it only goes as far as Skills (boo), which means we don't get to see how the Nearsider stuff looks in context. To wit: Do I get a Concentration in Mending? Book doesn't say, and the example characters aren't starting characters so I don't know. It feels like I should have Mending at Familiar, but eh? Also, there are some mistakes and inconsistencies involving points and totals and so on. 

Anyway, all of that said, it's a pretty cool-looking game and I might have to run it at some point. 

Cairn: Worm Debt

Today was Cairn! The rabbit hole of research for today was earthworms, which got me thinking about How to Eat Fried Worms, which is a book I read quite a few times as a kid. Anyway, here's last time.

It's autumn in Cairn, and Snootabur Shadowbough is working in her worm farm. A mole approaches her and introduces himself as Meester Snufflestar, and asks for her help. He says that he'd like to invite her and the other "Traveling Knights" to dinner-breakfast tonight, where he'll explain his terrible problem. Snootabur agrees, and goes to find the others. 

She finds Ratatosk Longberry scampering around gathering nuts and so on for winter, and explains the issue to him. He's happy to help, but does note that he didn't know they were knights ("Is that a thing you can be without knowing it?"). Snootabur asks him to tell Russelet Leatherwind, while she goes to find Rumdiggle Sunsong. 

That evening at dusk, the four of them meet up at Meester's house. He invites them in (and has to widen the doorway for Rumdiggle), and serves them dinner-breakfast. Snootabur notes that he's not serving them worms; all of the food he has he obtained at the market, which is odd, given that he's also a worm rancher. In fact, he has a below-ground worm ranch, enclosed in wooden planks that he painstakingly buried. 

When dinner is done, Meester tells them the awful truth - someone stole all his worms, and all the worm cocoons. Someone dug up into his ranch and rustled them all. The characters figure that he's worried about food supply for winter, but it's actually much worse than that. Meester is in worm-debt - he's promised worms to a variety of people, and if he can't deliver, he's in trouble. He brings them into the tunnels below and shows them the scene of the crime, and Snootabur jumps down and sniffs around. Right away, she realizes something is very wrong - she smells metal. 

Ratatosk notes that someone cut into the ranch from below using a metal saw, took all the worms and all the cocoons, and skedaddled. Meester says that whoever it was collapsed the tunnel behind them and he couldn't follow it. Snootabur notes that whoever made this hole was big - about as a big as Rumdiggle. Rummy thinks about who else is her size (that is, also has trouble with doorways). Groundhogs, beavers, some weasels, badgers...

They ask Meester who he owes worms, and he lists off three names: Ripark, the owner of the Root; Bogglesworth, a mole; and Moriarty Sprit, who just fills Meester with dread. Russelet knows of Moriarty and Ripark. Ripark accepts payment in silver only, which is a little sketchy. Moriarty is a weasel-like animal (he's not a weasel, but whatever he is, he's the only one in Cairn) who lost an eye in a fight. He has a badger henchman named Knuckles, and they hang out at the Root tavern. 

The characters figure that someone might have stolen Meester's worms in order to force him to put up his ranch to cover his debts, and Moriarty is looking pretty good for that. They decide to go to the Root and check things out. 

They enter (after Russelet listens at the door to make sure they don't get jumped), and everyone turns and stares at them. The clientele is mostly rats, moles, a groundhog who looks a bit worse for the wear, and in a corner, Moriarty and Knuckles. Ripark gives the a snarly looking, and Ratatosk whispers to Rummy to start singing. She does, but Ripark throws a dishtowel at her head and tells her to shush, come in and drink if they want to.

The characters take a table and Ratatosk goes up to the bar to get a drink. Ripark gives him a mushroom juice and asks for payment. Ratatosk doesn't have any silver, and Ripark tells him that he'll start a "tab", but that he can trade something to Moriarty for silver if he wants. Ratatosk sips the stuff - it's musty and fermented, and arouses the alchemist's curiosity. He starts talking to Ripark about the fermentation process and how it works, and finds that Ripark reluctantly gets into the conversation. Ripark even suggests that Ratatosk bring him some mushrooms from above-ground to cover his tab. 

Russelet goes over to the corner and challenges Moriarty to a game of darts, loser covers the winner's tab. Moriarty agrees, and Russelet manages to successful hustle him. Mostly, though, this is a ruse to get him away from the door at the back of the Root, and Snootabur uses that distraction to sneak through and head downstairs. 

The basement is big enough to house worms, but all it's got is the mushroom brewing apparatus. Snoot looks around and finds a tunnel at the back of the room. She sticks her head in and tries to sniff what's below, but one of the fermenting batches gives off a moist blast of stink, and she crawls into the tunnel just to get away from it. She explores the tunnels and hears a voice say "who goes there?", but rather than answer she fires a sleep arrow at it. She winds up knocking out a mole; he'll have a limp later, but he'll be OK. She doesn't recognize him, so she keeps looking.

Back in the Root, a possum walks in and stumbles up to the bar. He asks for a drink, and Ripark tells him to settle his tab. He says that he will soon, and Ripark gives him a bitteroot ale, but says that's all he's getting. The possum spots Rummy and sidles over to her, introducing himself as Jellin. He sits with Rummy and chats her up (Rummy is pretty much oblivious to his intentions), and eventually Russelet comes back over. He's trying to keep focus on this side of the room so that no one notices Snoot is missing, and talks with Moriarty about silver and why it's valuable, but all he manages to do is annoy him until he calls Knuckles over to tell Russelet to piss off. 

The characters leave, and stand outside talking a moment before Jellin exits and spots them. They ask about tunnels and the basement, and he reveals that there's an entrance to "the Underground" down there. The Underground is a series of tunnels beneath Cairn, mostly maintained and created by moles, but some of them are bigger tunnels that could accommodate folks like him or Rummy. Rummy asks to see them, and of course Jellin is down for that. 

He leads them to an entrance and shows them into the Underground, but they don't get very far before Snoot pops out. She tells the others that they should head back and go to the Cider Mill Inn, and Rummy invites Jellin to meet them there later. 

At the Inn, which is bright and warm and has good food that doesn't taste musty, the characters sit down and begin to share what they've learned, as Ratatosk asks Alyere Loregood about her fermentation process.

Next time, we'll see if they can catch the no-good rustlers.

Board Game: Ticket to Ride Nederland

All aboard, choo-choo.

The Game: Ticket to Ride: Nederland
The Publisher: Days of Wonder
Time: 30ish minutes
Players: Me, Michelle, Kai, Cael

Seems premature to put the train on the track before it's finished, but what do I know.

Game Play: Much like Heart of Africa and Asia, Nederland is an expansion that uses the trains and cards from the base Ticket to Ride game and includes its own map, this time (as you may have guessed) of the Netherlands and related areas. And like those other games, it includes a few variant rules to keep everyone on their toes. 

Cael punching out cardboard tokens

 

In this case, most of the tracks on the map are double-tracks, which is nothing new in itself, but the twist is this: When you put down trains, you pay a small fee in coins (that'd be the tokens Cael's punching out in the picture up there). If you're the first one to use that track, you pay the bank. If someone else has already done it, you pay them. At the end of the game, whoever has the most money remaining gets a huge point bonus. 

The board, trainless

Opinions: I love Ticket to Ride, but I wasn't as enthused about this variant. The point totals for the destination tickets are considerably higher than in the other versions, and I'm not entirely sure why. The game rules do mention that this variant doesn't reward procrastination, which is true (I played using my usual style of trying to build up the cards I need, and I came in dead last, so). Playing to conserve your tokens would be a sound strategy, although playing to force other players to give you tokens maybe isn't, since you can't ever make more back than you spent. 

The biggest problem with the game, though, was the damn font on the board. Us being ugly Americans, we didn't know a lot of the city names, didn't know how to pronounce them, and couldn't read the font, particularly not upside down. This makes sussing out where your destination tickets are meant to go very difficult, and honestly it was a big enough frustration for me to consider not keeping the game. 

 

At the end of the day, the variant rules are interesting, and I think I'd like to give it another go, but it's definitely my least favorite variant. 

Keep? For now.

Chill: More Bugz

"Stinging insects" seem to be a theme lately. How strange. Anyway, here's Wonderwall last session.

August 1st, 2019, and envoy Willa Lane pulls whoever's handy at the ranch together. The crew includes: Jordan Ramsey, Samantha Layson, Blake Wheeler, Jennifer Joyce, and a new envoy, Father Will Anderson, on his first case. Willa explains that last year (August 2018), a woman named Karen Welch was murdered in a very nice residential in west Boise. Her body was discovered in the morning; she'd been out at night walking her dog and was stabbed in the throat. The murder was extremely out of step for the area, and so Willa popped out to have a look, but she didn't get there until the following Monday (8/6/18) and couldn't summon Karen's spirit. She did feel a touch of Unknown near where Karen was killed, but wasn't able to figure anything else out at the time.

But now, a year later, someone had carved the words "BUCK HEAD" into the wall of Pioneer Elementary - right down the road from where Karen Welch was found. Willa admits that all of this is pretty tenuous, but she did sense an Unknown presence, so this might be worth looking into. The others agree, and head out to the neighborhood.

The elementary school has staff, but not students, and so the envoys walking around don't look out of place. They find the graffiti (and a custodian considering whether he needs a sandblaster or can get away with painting over it). Jordan examines the wall and sees that the words are scratched into the concrete. She asks the custodian (Del) if he knows how it was done, and he says he found a branch saw, broken in half, nearby. He actually still has it - he pitched it, since it was broken. The envoys examine it and note that the words "GEM CREST" are written on the handle in faded Sharpie.

Samantha uses Postcognition on the wall and sees a broad-shouldered figure with a big, lumpy, misshapen head scratch the words into the wall. The saw breaks midway through the "H", and he tosses the handle, picks up the blade, and continues, showing no sign of pain and no blood. He then walks south, away from the school and towards Cottonwood Park.

Blake and Father Will are in said park, talking about SAVE procedure and looking for clues. Blake doesn't find any prints up by the school, but does note security cameras. Father Will chats with Del and asks to look at the footage, and Del, having been reminded that those cameras exist (they were just put in last year), brings Father Will into the school. They look at last night's footage together and see a big guy with a weird looking head walk up and scratch the wall, but about the time the saw breaks, the camera goes out. Del checks the system and realizes that the power died about then, and didn't come back for another hour (around sunup). 

The envoys reconvene and pool what they've learned so far, and Blake remembers that there's a kennel nearby called "Gem Crest." They walk over and find a fence-off dog run with a shed, but the shed's door has been smashed in. An employee walks out and greets them, and they chat a bit. The employee, Nicholas, tells them that he got here this morning to find the door smashed in. He isn't even sure if anything's missing; he's been wrangling dogs all morning. A few of the dogs are sound asleep in the run, and Nicholas mentions that they were stung by bees or wasps or something.

Willa, at this point, remembers that she was stung by a hornet last year when she was investigating the Welch murder. Coincidence? Maybe, but it requires a look. Jordan examines the dogs who were stung, and their wounds do indeed look like hornet stings. She also senses the Unknown on them, however (the dogs are knocked out with Benadryl, so they can't answer questions. Also, they're dogs). 

Blake and Father Will examine the shed. It's pretty much trashed, but Father Will notes that it looks like whoever did it was looking for a specific item - and indeed, there's a pegboard with a bunch of gardening tools. They also find a couple of hornets buzzing around, as well as a few dead ones. Blake picks up the dead ones to take with him, and Samantha, meanwhile, uses Postcognition again on one of the doggos. She sees the dogs let into the run and then sniffing around the shed, at which point one of them yelps in pain, followed by two more. Nicholas keeps the others away and blocks off the shed door with a puppy gate, but gets stung himself as well.

The envoys talk with Nicholas a bit, and ask about the Welch murder. Nicholas heard about it - her widower actually boarded their dog here after Welch died - but doesn't know anything the envoys haven't heard already. Jordan shows him the broken branch saw and tells him about the school, but "BUCK HEAD" doesn't mean anything to him, either. He goes a little green at the thought that his saw might have been used as a murder weapon, though. The envoys mention the power outage, and Nicholas says that that happens around here. Sometimes the power just goes out, you learn to live with it.

The envoys head back to the ranch to regroup a bit. Jennifer does a bit of digging into the power outages, and learns that, discounting normal outages during storms and whatnot, there have been six localized outages, always in the first week of August: 2003, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2015, and 2018. All but 2011 and 2018 were on the 1st of August, and the one last year was on the 3rd - the night Karen Welch died. 

Samantha calls a friend at the FBI, looking for other, similar crimes, and learns that the area actually hasn't seen a murder other than Welch's in years. However, her buddy notes, it's not the first garden-tool related killing. In August 1999, a custodian/caretaker named Roman Buchanan, working for the West Ada school district, decapitated himself with his own chainsaw (he was cutting down a dead tree, the saw got caught, he pulled and it hit him in the neck). Samantha thanks him and does some quick digging into Roman, and learns that he worked for the district for decades and was survived by his wife. She mentions all this to the group, and Jordan brings up the fact that, given his surname, he might have been nicknamed "Buck."

Jennifer gets to work and digs up more detailed info. They learn that Roman also ran a tree removal gig on the side and hired former West Ada students when he could. They also learn that the kids at Pioneer called him "Mr. Buck." 

With this lead, the characters head back across town (except for Jennifer, who stays to research, and Father Will, who goes to chat with some folks in his parish). Blake, Samantha, and Jordan head first to an exterminator nearby the school and ask about the hornets. The exterminator tells them that these are ground hornets, and that they're not typically active this late in the season, although the summers have been hotter later, so who knows. She also mentions that every year, there are folks who get stung and call exterminators to find nests. These bugs make nests in animal dens or close to the ground, and they have enough venom to injure or kill people with enough stings (but they're not usually that aggressive). 

From there, they head to the local PD and talk to Detective Jackson, who worked Karen Welch's case. From him, they learn that she was stabbed once in the jugular notch and bled out in seconds, but no one found her body until the next morning. They also learn about Mr. Buck (whom Jackson knew from when he went to school at Pioneer), and that his head was never found, which makes everyone kind of wince. Jordan shows him the branch saw and he has a tech look at it, but there's no blood on it (interesting, since the big dude grabbed it by the blade). Finally, Jackson mentions that the power outages around here - the weird ones in early August - cause all electronics to die, even battery-powered ones. He actually called the CIA about it once, but didn't get very far.

Father Will, meanwhile, learns something interesting. Karen Welch wasn't Catholic, so the folks in the diocese don't know her, but in talking about her murder and the area, someone mentions the sad case of one Milton Hodges. Milton was a cop, and was found dead near the elementary school back in August 2011. He had been stung to death by hornets.

Next time, the envoys will try putting all this together.

Movie #623: Hellraiser

Hellraiser is an 80s horror movie written and directed by Clive Barker and starring Ashley Laurence, Clare Higgins, Andrew Robinson, Sean Chapman, Oliver Smith, and Doug Bradley. 

Jaded sensualist and all-around creep Frank Cotton (Chapman) buys a puzzle box in Morocco, solves it in his decaying family home in...um...America somewhere, definitely not England...and winds up getting torn apart by fishhooks. Some time later, his brother Larry (Robinson) and Larry's wife Julia (Higgins) take possession of the house. The marriage seems strained, and we quickly learn that's because Julia and Frank were having enthusiastic sex sometime in the past, and Julia is still pretty obsessed. Larry, for his part, seems a decent guy and is just trying to get on with their life. 

Through a series of wacky, bloody, mishaps, Frank is summoned back from hell as a monster (now played by Smith), and Julia goes about procuring more blood for him by seducing guys and murdering them in the attic. Larry's daughter Kirsty (Laurence) witnesses this, winds up stealing the puzzle box and fleeing, and solving it, summoning the Cenobites (led by Pinhead, played by Doug Bradley here and for the next seven movies) and eventually sending Frank back to hell. 

Watching Hellraiser again, I can totally see the telltale marks of a movie directed by someone who knows storytelling but not filmmaking. What's on screen is important and explicit, but I do come away thinking that I'm not entirely sure what's going on (felt the same way after Nightbreed, as I think about it). I do enjoy that it's not really the Cenobites who are the antagonists, here. Sure, they're monsters from Hell, but they only show up when you invite them, and they were at least willing to consider not taking Kirsty to Hell even after she solved the box, so that was polite of them, even if they later decided she had to go, too. 

But it's things like the mysterious bug-eating vagrant (Frank Baker) stalking Kirsty and then grabbing the box and turning into a big old skeletal demon...like, what? What are we supposed to take away from that? I'm sure if you've read the novella it makes more sense, but books are for nerds, and knowing what to cut and what to simplify is a big part of changing a story's format from page to screen. 

With all of that said, it's a fun horror movie. Small cast, tight focus, obviously a labor of love for Barker. 80s as hell, especially the Gozer-like hairdo that Julia's rocking. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Sabrina

Atlantis: Bugs Go Squish

Into a strange new world, a world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery! Except the announcer kinda said it "sor-cer-ray" which I always found weird. 

Pictured: Sorceray.

Anyway, here's last time.

Three of the heroes are on a ship, the Agony, heading across the Red Sea into Joktan. Eithne, already in Joktan, stands on the shore watching the swarm of horrific bugs closing in. She conjures up fire and hurls it at the bugs, frying a bunch of them, but the swarm closes in. Imani lights a torch and lays out with it, burning more scarabs. Akala tries to catch a bunch with a cloth, but misses the little bastards. Eithne, realizing that the bugs are now too close to the ship to safely burn, calls up a wind and blows them off the ship. Thanos summons up punishing red sand to suck the life out of them...but the swarm is still there, despite being depleted.

Imani spurs the sailors to get the ship moving faster, while Akala takes to the sky and calls in reinforcements - there are seagulls near the shore, and they love eating bugs. They snap up some of the scarabs, but then the swarm closes around one of the birds and reduces it to scraps in seconds, to Akala's horror. 

Eithne calls up a wind to drive the ship on, and it finally lands. The passengers disembark and greet Eithne (and thank her for her assistance); Akala and Eithne get the feeling they've met before. (They have, but it's been a good 13 years.) They don't really have time to figure that out, though, before the scarabs return.

The bug-swarm swoops in faster than anyone knew they could move and attacks Thanos and the other former slaves. They rip chunks of flesh from them, and Thanos collapses. Imani takes a swig of booze from Masamba's flask and spits it through the torch, burning a bunch of the bugs, while Akala launches into a fiery speech about how the evil bastards in Khemit are still trying to recapture them. Eithne casts a spell, creating a dome of light around them to keep out the bugs...but she's only able to keep it up a few minutes.

Akala bandages Thanos, and the heroes look around at the bugs. Akala notes that they have the same symbol on their backs as the slaves have branded on their faces, and she wonders if she could cut or burn the brands away. Eithne mentions that she tried, but was unable to reshape their flesh. Thanos tries to call up the red sands again and kill the bugs, but has lost too much blood. He suggests that he and Eithne combine their powers, and they create a fiery sandstorm. Thanos curses Set and all the things that crawl on the earth, and the flames rise higher, burning the bugs to cinders (Thanos and the other slaves whom the scarabs bit feel the pain of their flesh burning away - horribly, the flesh chunks the scarabs took were still alive). The fire recedes, and the sand around them has been rendered red and black in the shape of serpents. Set may have heard them.

The character prepare to move on, but Imani asks for Eithne's help in finding the "prophecy sands" that the Mercenary Queen wanted. Akala actually senses the magic nearby, and so the characters wind up following her into the desert (Eithne notes that she is, again, following an owl). Akala stops at a seemingly nondescript patch of sand, and Eithne changes into a digging mouse and tunnels into the ground...and finds an urn. 

With the others' help, she digs it up. Inside is black sand that feels magical. Imani considers just taking a few handfuls, but Thanos opines that she found it, she should keep it. Masamba notes that other folks besides Queen Nyavinghi would pay for this stuff, and Imani agrees.

Everyone decides that they need rest, so they make camp for the night. We shall see what the morrow brings!

Character Creation: Corporia

KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.

We dance when e'er we're able.

The Game: Corporia
The Publisher: Brabblemark Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Despite the rather uninformative title, Corporia is kind of a cool concept. You're playing folks protecting the inhabitants of The City from evil. No, not The Tick and his friends, it's just called The City because the exact geography isn't important. But it's not too far off a supers game, I guess, because you're playing members of the Knightswatch, a group of monster-hunters protecting their fellow man. You don't have to play a reincarnated member of the Knights of the Round Table, but like, why in the world wouldn't you?

I am, therefore, going to do exactly that, and the knight I would like to reincarnate is one of the lesser known ones: Melion. In brief, Melion swore never to marry a woman who had loved another man first, married a princess of Ireland, she turned him into a wolf so he could hunt down a delicious stag, and she fucked off with his squire, leaving him stuck as a wolf until Arthur and his other kaniggits rocked up and got things sorted out. 

Other than "reincarnated Melion," I don't know what I want to do with this character, so let's just start the process and see what shakes loose. 

This character sheet has very small type and if I were actually going to run this I'd have Michelle make a fillable version. Anyway. First thing is I can choose an archetype. I can't pick two "special" ones, and I know I want Knight-Errant as a special, so I have to combine with a "standard" archetype. Hmm. Runner or Suit? Different aspects of "wolf" in either. I guess I'll lean into my inner James Spader (in Wolf) and go for Suit. 

Reading a bit more, it doesn't look like archetypes do much except give a jumping-off point, which is fine. Let's consider background and so on. 

Before awakening, Melion was a corporate fixer, a negotiator, and the fellow who smoothed things over and talked people out of lawyering up. He joked that he was a "pre-lawyer," so he majored in Pre-Law. Once he awakened, I think he actually wound up pretty confused. He has memories of Melion as a wolf, but also as a knight. He remembers the betrayal of his wife, but through modern eyes, his desire for a woman who had never loved another man was kind of ridiculous anyway. Pre-awakening, his name was Julius Bowman. Nowadays, he prefers to go by Melion, but just with other Knightswatch folks.

OK, not a bad start. I now get to pick personality traits, three public and one private. Public traits are facets of the character that are obvious from interacting with him, while private traits are traits he keeps to himself. Oh, and I can take an extra private trait for a +1 to general assets during chargen, so I may do that. 

Well, what's obvious about Melion? I think that he's Unfailingly Polite, both by pre-awakening training and knightly inclination. He's Resourceful and Creative, so those can be the other two publics. As for private, I want him to be torn between the two halves of his nature (knight and wolf). I'll take Always Hungry as a private trait, and also Loves Selfishly. 

Cool, now what? I choose "core competency." This is basically a measure of how supernatural I want to be (more supernatural siphons points away from normal stuff). I'll be Gifted, in the middle, as seems to be thematic for Melion. That gives me 12 in Core Values, 18 in Skills, 10 in General Assets (+1 for my second private trait, actually, so 11) and 5 in Supernatural Assets. 

Starting with Core Values, I get 12 points to spread around, nothing lower than 1 or higher than 4, and there are 6 of them. What I don't seem to have is any kind of scale; if I spread them evenly, what does that mean? Am I average or do I suck? 

Well, let's reverse engineer from the base system. When you do a thing, you roll 2d6 and add the higher of the two to a Core Value + Skill total. Average target number is 7, meaning if I had 2s in my Core Value and Skill, I'd need to roll a 3 or more on one die to higher that target, which gives me better than 50/50 odds. OK, so even a 1 isn't necessarily crap, it just means I'm not likely to hit higher diffs. 

Oh, wait, looking ahead, there aren't any magical assets that I want or can actually take, because knights don't do magic. Which is fucking stupid, because the Arthurian legends are full of weird-ass magic (though you could argue that Melion didn't actually use magic, since he turned into a wolf with a magic ring). Anyway, I think that means I won't be Gifted, I'll be Touched, which changes my totals to 14 Core Values, 20 Skills, 10 (11, really) general assets and a big fat nada in supernatural assets. 

Geez. OK, then, moving on. Six Core Values, 14 points, I'll put 2 into everything but Magic, which I'll leave at 1 (11 points spent). The other three I'll put into Strength, Deftness, and Wits, I suppose. 

Skills! I have 20 points, and no Skills can be more than 1 point higher than its controlling CV. So I want Fisticuffs and Getting Medieval (side note: I am really tired of that joke). I need Business, Crime, Influence, and Instinct. Do I need any Knowledge of Science Skills? I don't think I do. Let's arrange points thusly:

Fisticuffs 4
Getting Medieval 4
Business 3
Crime 3
Influence 4
Instinct 4

That's 20. Glorious. 

Assets! I get 11 points. Ooh, and I get Fortitude for free. Master of Red Tape is only 1 for me, so I'll do that. I'll spend 3 on Street Fighter (extra damage because I fight dirty), Prudent (wolf's ears and eyes), and Lady Luck (because a re-roll is never a bad thing).

I get Flux Points equal to the sum of Knowledge, Wit, and Magic, which is 6. I get REPP (social capital, basically) equal to Wit x 6, which is 18. And then I get stuff. What stuff would I like? I get a pistol (which Melion isn't terribly comfortable with), an "additional weapon," armor, an eyephone, and an augment. 

Well, for my additional weapon, I want a com/bat (an extendable baton). Slicing people up with a bladed weapon just seems gauche to Melion. For armor, I'll take suit weave (minimal armor, but I look good). For my augment, I'll take silkskin (subdermal armor that gives me additional protection from bullets). 

And I do believe that's it! Sad that I wasn't able to do something more overtly werewolf-y, but I like that Melion is a corporate hunter and Knight Errant. There's an element of menace to him sometimes, but he's usually on guard and seemingly very friendly. I think I can see Paul Dano playing him. 

Predation: Kevin Gets a New Collar

Rar, chirp, coo, go the dinosaurs. Here's last time.

Tallahassee and Dakota go into the city of Kelaino, their dinosaurs close behind. Tallahassee is from Kelaino, and so is used to the big city, with people and their dinosaurs and shops and so forth everywhere, but Dakota is pretty awestruck by it all. They head to the Market District to get some lunch, and pass by a trio of venators (local police force) and their trained venaraptors. Dakota stops to marvel at how well the little buggers are trained, and asks to feed one. They're on duty, though. Sebie snaps at one, but Dakota calls her off quickly before anyone gets hurt or arrested. 

Outside, Omaha and Buffalo hang around playing cards (Omaha wins) and "guess the plant" (Buffalo wins). Betty, Omaha's albertosaurus, wanders off and finds a tiny T rex giving children rides on her long, long tail. Betty is sociable and happy to meet another tyrannosaur, and Omaha and Buffalo catch up and survey the situation. Buffalo notes that the t-rex is an adult, but a dwarf (it's only about 6 feet tall), and well cared-for but not a companion. Omaha winds up talking to an adult who's hanging out keeping an eye on the t-rex, and tells Omaha that her name is "Sue the T-Rex 2," and she's kind of an unofficial mascot of the city. They get to chatting, and the man (Ferris) says that he used to be an active-duty venator, but then his venaraptor disappeared one night and he didn't want to get another one. He asks where Omaha is from, she tells him she mostly lives out in the wilds, and he tells her if she wants to spend some time in Kelaino, now's a good time - it might get politically messy soon. One of the folks on the city council, Vernon Maldonado, has announced his retirement, and the some of the potential replacements...aren't great. 

Meanwhile, inside, Dakota and Tallahassee head to the Enta Lab and ask to be let in. She name-drops Dr. Alatus Chang, the head of the genetics lab, because she knows that Chang is completely disorganized. Indeed, the guards argue a little and then let her in to give Chang her "data", but insist that Kevin and Sebie get shock collars. Tallahassee tries to argue, but the guards aren't having it, so they clap the collars on (with some difficulty, because Kevin is not interested) and then head into the facility. 

Tallahassee worked here as an intern for a while, so she knows where to go. They head up to level 3 and into the lab of one Dr. Shane Carlson, an aeternologist with an affinity for cybernetics, much like Tallahassee. Carlson isn't exactly happy to see her, but is interested in the chips she found. He plugs them into one of his machines and notes the same thing Tallahassee did - they look like first-gen SATI tech, but they're too new. One chip, the one from the dead troopers' heads, has some kind of protection and won't let Carlson access the data. The other chip, the one that was in the dead troopers' hands, gets his attention. "It's a key," he says.

"To what?" asks Tallahassee. 

"Everything. Every door in Enta, Dota, and Salmon Center." 

The characters digest this (and Sebie manages to remove her collar and give it back to Dakota), and then the lights go out momentarily. They come back, and the PA instructs everyone to go to their offices - the building is on lockdown. Tallahassee quickly takes the collar off Sebie as the characters hear the tromp of boots coming down the hall. SATI soldiers with guns enter, telling everyone to raise their hands. Kevin, finally in his element, leaps at one and the fight is on.

The guards try in vain to collar Kevin, but he goes full cat-in-a-bathtub and throws one dude into another dude. Sebie sneaks up behind another and savages him, and Tallahassee uses her cyber expertise to shut a couple of them down temporarily. Dakota shoots one, and the characters look like they're holding their own, but they realize that there are probably more guards on the way. Tallahassee forces Carlson to tell her another way out, and he tells her that supplies get brought in through tunnels off the basement level. Dakota and Tallahassee mount up and flee to the elevator, but Sebie is shot on the way and her leg badly burned. They do make the elevator, though, and with the key-chip, bypass the security, head to the basement, and find a tunnel leading outside the city wall.

They meet up with the others and explain what happened (and Buffalo tends to Sebie's wounds). They decide to head out of town a bit and rest, and then maybe use the key-chip to go back in and free the dinosaurs in the SATI buildings, maybe figure out what Buffalo's mom is up to with this mysterious egg? Buffalo finds a safe place to rest, but on the way there, Omaha and Tallahassee notice a bug circling them and making a weird noise. Tallahassee tries to short it out (since it's obviously not entirely biological), but it doesn't work and the bug flies back. She warns them that they may have been noticed...

Movie #622: Happy Death Day

Happy Death Day is a horror/comedy starring Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Charles Aitken, Rob Mello, Rachel Matthews, and Jason Bayle. 

Tree (Rothe) wakes up in an unfamiliar dorm room on her birthday and quickly takes her walk of shame back to her sorority house. The day progresses pretty much normally for her - exchange quips with her frenemy Danielle (Matthews); acts snarky and unpleasant to her roommate Lori (Modine), who's even made her a cupcake for her birthday (which she promptly bins, because carbs); snogs her married professor (Aitken); skips lunch with her dad (Bayle); goes to a frat party...but on the way there, she's murdered by a lunatic in a baby mask. 

And then she wakes up, same dorm room, same good-natured fellow Carter (Broussard) there to offer her aspirin. The day progresses as it did before, but she avoids death by taking a different route to the party...until she actually gets there, and the lunatic kills her again. 

And then she wakes up, same dorm room...and on and on. 

So, the movie is basically Groundhog Day but with horror. What's interesting to me is how everything in the movie feels like a pretty straightforward slasher/thriller, except for the time loop. Tree gets weaker every time she "dies", so she doesn't have the same kind of time that Phil did in Groundhog Day, but otherwise the movie hits a lot of the same beats, including being a redemption story for Tree. It turns out her birthday is significant because she shared a birthday with her mother, who died some years back, and she's coped with that pain by becoming mean and shallow. As the movie progresses she improves that, but by itself it's not enough to end the loop - that requires stopping her own murder, which isn't as simple as it sounds.

This is another horror movie that I was initially jazzed about, and then cooled when I found out it was PG-13. I'm starting to rethink my stance on that, though, because the lack of gore doesn't really hurt the movie much. The cast is solid. Rothe sells Tree's frustration and fear as the plot unfolds, and Broussard plays nicely off her as a genuinely good guy (he took her home when she was drunk to make sure she didn't get hurt, although Tree initially assumes there was sex involved). I think that the web of relationships that Tree's involved in is handled a little clumsily, mostly in service to giving her moments to use her knowledge of the day and improving moral outlook to change things, but that's a minor niggle. 

I'm interested to see the sequel, though, because it looks like it leans a little harder into the weirdness of the time loop.

My Grade: B
Rewatch  Value: High

Next up: Hellraiser

Character Creation: Battle for Oz

Off to see the wizard!

The Game: Battle for Oz
The Publisher: Pirate Press LLC
Degree of Familiarity: Never played this game, but it's Savage Worlds, which I know
Books Required: I think just the one, but maybe Savage Worlds core, too

It's all in the title, really: It's Oz, things have gone to shit as an evil wizard has taken over the Emerald City, there are undead Pumpkin-heads and clockwork soldiers romping about, and you're a plucky revolutionary ready to stand up and, well, battle for Oz. 

(Side note: A lot of SW RPGs seem to cast the PCs in the role of revolutionary against a powerful force controlled by a singular foe, yeah? Maybe just the ones I've read? But I've read a bunch. Anyway...)

So! The backstory of Oz explained here seems pretty similar to the one in Adventures in Oz, which makes me think both are taken from the books, which is fine. 

I choose a race, first off, but it may actually behoove me to think about concept a little, because there are some professions and so on that are race-exclusive. I know I want to take an Arcane Background of some kind, both because using magic (or something) in this setting would be cool, and because it's been better than 2 years since I've made a Savage Worlds character that had one. 

Ooh, OK. There's a race called the Niave. They're "dark faeries," very reclusive and mysterious, but some of them do venture beyond their native lands and mingle with other folks. I can get behind playing a mysterious wanderer, though I'm more likely to play him like Jet Li in Forbidden Kingdom than a grizzly, growly dude. That also sets me up to be a Scar Mage, binding spells into the scars on my body. Means I need to put Spirit higher. What else does being Niave get me? I get a +2 to Common Knowledge checks, I get low light vision, and I'm Arrogant. Well, blah. I'm sure I could spin that in some way other than "snotty" if I were playing this dude.

Right, so that's race, then. Traits! I get the usual 5 points for stats, but I do get a +1 bump in Spirit for being Niave. So, I think I would like to min-max a bit. I'll put 3 points into Spirit, giving me a d12, and for the other 2 I'll put one each into Agility and Smarts. 

Skills! Now, I get 15 points, but a) there are a bunch of new Skills (most of which are Knowledge, fortunately) and b) because the Arcane Background I want models itself on Super Powers, every "power" is a separate Skill. I'll get one at d6 for free, but if I want to raise it I'll need to do so from these points, which means I need to pick the damn thing. Well, let's say I save 2 points for my spell, giving me 13 to throw around. 

I want Shooting, Stealth, and Fighting at d6. That's 6 right there. I want Ancient Pre-Evain, too, and I'd like to take it at d8, but that'd cost extra. I'll just take it at d6, I guess. Notice d6, yep. Intimidation? Sure. Actually I'll jack the other 3 points there. 

Hindrances! Do I wish to have more? I SURELY DO. There's a Minor called Scar, which is automatically given to Scar Mages. Does that mean I get a point for it? Let's assume I do.

Oh, wait, this is weird. There are Archetypes, which give you a suite of points spent, and Scar is included in that. But I don't wanna take an Archetype, I think. Do I have to? What's the benefit? Hang on.

OK, I got it. Picking an Archetype is an optional way to make a character, and pretty much replaces chargen. As I'm not doing that, I don't need to take Scar, and I don't think I will, since my dude only has one so far. But what shall I take? Scar was the only new one in the Oz book. 

Well, I think I want Overconfident and Stubborn. My Niave believes that he's out here in Oz for a very special mission, it's important for his people and really all people, so if you want to come along, cool, but just know that the mission is the focus. (Side note: This kind of character is really hard to pull off unless the GM is on board and the player isn't going to be a dick about it.) I shall also take Vow, which would be specific to the mission. I think fulfilling the Vow might be something that I'd want to determine in play or let the GM have some input on, but in my Niave's case it might be a mission of espionage or sabotage. 

Right, that gives me 4 "points" to throw around. Two goes to Arcane Background: Scar Mage right off the bat. I'll spent the other two on d4s in Taunt and Investigation.

Ooh, gotta pick me power. I think I'll take Illusion. Now, Scar Magic trappings deal with nature, but in a twisted kind of Burton-esque kind of way. When my guy casts his Illusion spell, he cups his hands together (his palms are both heavily scarred) and blows out. A jumble of little floating motes of light appears and then arranges itself quickly into the illusion. Cool! And I have that spell at d10.

Money would be the last thing (other than derived traits). I get 500 "Ozzies" (money), so I'll spend 250 on a bow and 15 on a leather jerkin. 

Now I just need a name and description! My Niave is on the short side for his people. He has black hair that he tends to cut shorter than most dark fairies (he doesn't like when it tickles his cheeks). He smiles a lot, but the smiles are cold and kind of impatient. Likewise, he's quick with a joke, but there often seems to be an air of unspoken "you idiot" about him. He's not a patient or warm person, but he's not actually cruel, either, and if you start telling stories around a fire, a lot of times he'll illustrate them with illusions. He's definitely the sort of character who would wander off on his own when the other folks aren't looking, though. He doesn't use his name in the Niave language among outsiders, but he goes by Mias when in Oz. 

That'll do it!

Movie #621: Escape Room

Escape Room is a horror movie starring Taylor Russell, Deborah Ann Woll, Logan Miller, Jay Ellis, Nik Dodani, and Tyler Labine.

Six people received puzzle boxes, apparently sent from people they know and trust, which, when solved, reveal an entry to an escape room called "Minos." The prize for escaping is $10,000, which entices the folks who don't otherwise have much incentive. Of the six, though, we only see three grappling with the box - high-powered financier Jason (Ellis), traumatized and shy college genius Zoey (Russell), and drunk grocery store worker Ben (Miller). The other three, a trucker named Mike (Labine), an Army vet named Amanda (Woll), and an escape room-obsessed geek named Danny (Dodani) we don't see until everyone shows up at Minos.

It becomes immediately apparent that this escape room plays for keep; everyone survives the first room and Danny fulfills his role of bringing the non-geeks up to speed on how escape rooms work before he drowns in the second room. It becomes very clear that the players need to work together to survive, but also clear (at least to the audience) that everyone here is damaged, not just Zoey and Amanda. It comes out that what they all have in common is that they're all sole survivors - Zoey was in a plane crash that killed her mother, Ben killed his friends driving drunk, and so on. The masters behind Minos, who just want to watch people struggle for their lives and bet on the result, have nearly limitless wealth and power, and they just want to see if "luck" is a factor. 

(Ben neatly points out that people who get lured into torture rooms and murdered aren't terribly "lucky" on the face of it, in one of a couple of lines that I really enjoy. The other one, spoken by the Games Master (Yorick van Wagenigen) is "In the Kentucky Derby, do you think the horse gets a prize?")

I liked this movie a lot more than I expected to, partially because of the attention to detail. Each of the character not only has a room tailored to their particular trauma (not that any of them really figure that out), but there are a million little clues around to make the characters think of their trauma and, presumably, heighten their instinct for survival. It takes a second viewing to get a lot of these moments, and the production design is nicely intricate. The premise is pretty ridiculous on the face of it (people betting on the survival of a group of strangers? Sure, OK. The amazingly elaborate and lightning-fast responses of Minos? That's a bit much), but the movie stops just story of making it all seem supernatural. 

The setup for the movie invites comparisons to Cube, and Escape Room follows a lot of the same beats. Where Cube plays on the futility and unknowable nature of the cube, though, Escape Room doesn't have the same kind of thematic weight. There are some good performances (I love Tyler Labine and Deborah Ann Woll in particular, although it took me forever to place Woll the first time I saw this movie), and like I said, the set design is fantastic, but despite Zoey's talk about observation and quantum mechanics, there's not really an overarching point other than "rich people with too much time on their hands are evil," which of course is true. 

That said, it's an entertaining movie and it's a PG-13 rated horror movie that works, which is difficult. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Happy Death Day