Movie #690: Shrek

Shrek is, of course, an animated comedy starring Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, John Lithgow, and Eddie Murphy.

The titular Shrek (Myers) is an ogre who just wants to live in his swamp and eat his rather slimy delicacies, but then a whole horde of fairytale creatures shows up, having been evicted from their own digs by the diminutive and order-obsessed Lord Farquad (Lithgow). Shrek goes to confront him, taking along a talking donkey (Murphy) as a guide/sidekick (guidekick?), but Farquad makes the ogre a deal - go fetch Princess Fiona (Diaz), who has been locked in a tower and is guarded by a dragon, and Farquad will get rid of the creatures and give Shrek his swamp free and clear.

What follows is a quest not only to rescue Fiona from the dragon, but for Shrek to open up and admit that he actually does need company and maybe even love, even as the he (very rightly) points out that other people panic upon seeing an ogre. And of course Donkey falls for the Dragon, Fiona becomes an ogre, all is right with the world.

Weird little movie, this. It's the first winner of the Animated Feature Oscar, it was nominated for Adapted Screenplay, and it premiered at Cannes in 2001. It's a movie about an ogre who farts hard enough to kill fish. Odd? Yeah, but audiences really responded to the somewhat darker humor, the soundtrack including some oddball choices (I remember seeing it in theaters and thinking "ooh, an Eels song, either 'My Beloved Monster' or 'Beautiful Freak', would be perfect and lo and behold), and the spins on the typical Disneyfied fairy tales. The voice cast is on point, and it would be interesting to see the alternate universe version where Chris Farley survived to complete the movie. 

It's remarkable how iconically Millennial the movie has become (that is to say, it's become a whole meme), summed up, IMO, by Shrek kicking open his outhouse door as "All Star" starts up. A lot of moments in the movie have become recognizable or even cliche (the use of "Hallelujah" in movies wasn't really a thing pre-Shrek), and the animation and the story hold up just fine, even 20 years later. 

The sequels, well...we'll see.

My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: High

Next up: Shrek 2

Character Creation: Ironclaw

Continuing our theme of "let's get it over with!"

The Game: Ironclaw
The Publisher: Sanguine Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, I think? I have the "Omnibus Edition" from some bundle or other

I shouldn't be down on Ironclaw, it's just the game screams "furry" to me and I'm not really into that scene. But the game looks perfectly playable; it's a fantasy game with a rich political setting and all. There's just nothing about it that hooks me, not the anthropomorphic animal PCs, not the aforementioned setting, and looking back on it now I can't even remember the system. But let's make a character and see if I just need a second look.

We start off doing Traits. I get a d4, three d6s, and two d8s to put into Body, Speed, Mind, Will, Species, and Career. I'll apparently be able to change these later, though. Feels like we should really start deciding Career and Species, since those are so intrinsic to concept, but whatevers, I don't really have an idea. I guess I'll take the book's advice and put a d8 into Career (the thinking being that that's what you'll be rolling most often), and I'll put the other d8 into Mind, 'cause I feel like making a smart character. Maybe an owl. 

I'll put the d6s into Body, Species, and Will, and that leaves a d4 in Speed. I'm smart, but slow. 

Moving on! Species! There's a list, actually. Let's see. No owl, alas. How about a goat? Goats are stubborn and kind of misanthropic, but I can lean towards "gruff and curmudgeon" more than "people suck, wah".

Ooh, Increased Trait: Will. I could go back and rearrange my stats a little. Nah, I'll bump Will to a d8 and go on my merry way.

Career is next. Kinda want to do something magical, but that lets me lean in to my "old goat on the hill" thing. Let's be a Thaumaturge. 

Next I pick a Personality, which is just a descriptor that I can include with certain rolls. I think "Gruff" is nicely on the nose. 

Normally my GM (sorry, "Host") would tell me where the game is set and I'd get Local Knowledge for that area, but it's just me so I'll skip that. 

Skills! I get 13 "Marks" to put in Skills. Each Mark gives me a die boost (d4-d6-d8), and I can't go more than 3 Marks in a given Skill. 

Well, I think I'll put two into Supernatural, since I'm a Thaumaturge. I'll put one each in Academics and Brawling. Why is there a Digging Skill? Weird. I'll put one in Endurance, one in Melee Combat, one in Observation, two in Presence. Searching, sure. I'll put one in Throwing, too. That's 11, I've got 2 left. I'll go back and put a second Mark in Brawling and Academics. 

Gifts! I get three Gifts. There's a huge list. Let's see. Ooh, I like Clear-Headed. I can shake off mental influence or just being confused in battle. I'll take Fast-Climber (sure-footed as a goat!), and I'll take Haggling (he doesn't much like people but he likes paying them even less). 

Cool. Fill in the numbers for skills, that's easy. Now we need a name. There's a list, and I like the named "Calixto." Call him "Lix," please, not "Cal." 

And now we need a personal motto. "Leave me the hell alone" is cute, but it's unpleasant at the table. Let's say Lix' motto is "Be first good company to yourself." 

And then a Starting Goal, something that would get me on the road to adventure. I'll say his immediate goal is "Relax at the pub with a pint and a book." Yes, doesn't seem adventurous, but c'mon. If you don't want adventure you stay home, not go to a pub.

Now I fill in the battle array, which is mostly just writing in numbers and regretting my low Speed die. 

Lix isn't an old goat, but he kinda looks like he should be. His pelt is grey and his eyes are yellow and he walks with a kind of shuffle - not quite a limp, and he can climb quickly, but he doesn't move fast. Lix is a Thautmaturge but folks say he missed his calling as a merchant. People who know Lix well point out that being a merchant would require much more social contact than Lix has any patience for. 

That'll do it! Made my six in August, yay me.

Slipstream: The Queen is Dead?!

Back in the Slipstream! Here's last time.

Our heroes explain their plan (such as it is) to King Prognosh. They're intending to bust into the secret lab, kill the Primals there, and find an antidote to the Death Dust and save Simba. Prognosh accepts this, and provides the heroes with two Borooshan guides to take them to the lab. 

The guides lead the heroes into the Labyrinth Caverns. It takes hours and the heroes are almost immediately lost. They eventually enter a cavern, and a squad of Primals appears!

"Ha!" snarls the captain. "Just where Prognosh said they'd be! His loyalty will be rewarded!" The Primal troops draw their weapons and attack, and the guides, too, join the fight against the characters!

Unfortunately, the guides chose Zeenia as their target. Abbas, keeping his head, yells at Zeenia, "Don't turn them to goop!" Zeenia, unfortunately, is hard of hearing, and acknowledges what she thinks is Abbas' direction by striking the guides with her tentacle blades and, well, turning them to goop. The Primal captain slips up behind Iris and attaches magnetic clamps to her wrist, but she is a Daikini Valkyrie and can fight perfectly well with her hands bound. She sweeps the Primals in front of her and drops them, and Zeenia and Abbas make quick work of the rest.

But now they're stuck in the Labyrinth Caves with no way out. Iris searches the body of the Primal captain and finds a key to the clamps, as well as a small map leading them to the lab. They travel through the caves for another four hours, and eventually reach the lab, a small complex that seems suspiciously unguarded. They enter, trying to remain stealthy, but it doesn't work.

They're confronted by another squad of Primals and...Queen Anathraxa!? The Queen is just as beautiful as the stories say, but somehow she doesn't have the presence that the heroes thought she would. No matter. She activates a rocket belt and hovers over the battlefield, and instructs the Primals to take Abbas alive, make sure to salvage Zeenia's weapons, and kill the Valkyrie. 

Abbas leaps into the air, bounces off a Primal and claws at the Queen, but fails to find purchase. He lands near her, and she drops to the ground and squares off against him...bare handed. She orders the Primal soldiers back; "I'll handle this one myself!"

The Primal captain fires a ray gun at Iris, and she fires back. The other Primals spread out and some charge, only to be met with whirling death (that is, Zeenia). She carves a bloody swathe through the Primals as Abbas trades blows with the Queen and Iris takes to the sky, tackling a Primal. The fight looks like it's going all right!

But then the Queen draws a ray gun, smirks, and fires - not at Abbas, but at a small canister near Iris. It explodes, burying the Valkyrie under rubble. Abbas roars in rage and charges the Queen, but she deftly moves out of his way, deflects his strike, and cracks him in the back of the neck with the butt of her gun. He falls unconscious, and now it's just Zeenia, a Primal soldier, the Primal captain, and Queen Anathraxa. 

But Zeenia isn't about to give up. The Queen sits down on Abbas' body and starts stroking his mane while the captain squares off against Zeenia. The fight doesn't go his way at first, but then he tells the soldier something and the soldier scampers out, returning a moment later with a really big rifle. The captain steps back and shoots Zeenia, blowing out part of her goop. Zeenia realizes that she can't take another blast like that.

The Primal rushes in to attack her, but can't strike a blow, and the captain fires again but only manages to vaporize his own dude. Zeenia closes to keep him from shooting again, and strikes with her blades, felling him.

But now it's just Zeenia and the Queen. They square off, Queen Anathraxa fighting barehanded until Zeenia manages to draw blood. Then she gets angry and uses her long sword. As skilled as the Queen is, Zeenia is better, and before long both combatants are exhausted, wounded, and barely able to fight. 

Zeenia taunts the Queen, demanding to know where her fiance is, but the Queen doesn't seem to know what she's talking about. She strikes, but misses, and Zeenia counterattacks, slamming her blade through the Queen's stomach. Her helmet falls away and Zeenia spies a "7" tattooed on her forehead, and then she disintegrates. 

Zeenia slumps to the floor, and then wakes up Abbas. "Did I get her?" he rasps. "Yeah," replies Zeenia, "you did. But it wasn't her, it was a clone." 

Together, they unbury Iris. They're all injured, and they're lost in the Labyrinth caves. And who knows what else this secret lab holds?

Movie #689: Short Circuit

Short Circuit is an 80s comedy about a wacky robot that comes to life. It stars Steve Guttenberg, Ally Sheedy, Fisher Stevens, Austin Pendleton, G.W Bailey, and Tim Blaney. 

During a demonstration of some new combat robots (each equipped with a magical laser), one of the robots, called Number 5 (voiced by Blaney) is struck by lightning and gains sentience. It then goes on a journey of self-discovery and a quest for "input", meeting up with a local woman named Stephanie (Sheedy) who sells snacks out of a truck and cares for a multitude of animals that she really has no business looking after, including a raven, a raccoon, a freaking skunk, and a horde of kittens (I mean, she could look after kittens, there's just too many). 

Number 5, however, is pursued by the representatives of the company that made him, in the persons of his creator Newton (Guttenberg), the company's president Howard (Pendleton), fellow scientist and racist caricature Ben (Stevens, we'll get to him), and highly intense and angry security chief Skroeder (Bailey). In the end, Number 5 convinces Newton of his sentience and he and Stephanie take the robot off to Montana to hide, while all the bad guys think they blew the robot up. 

Short Circuit is a Gen X staple, if not a favorite, and like many such movies it's interesting watching it through the lens of current reality. A few things stand out: If these robots are meant to be impervious to hostile terrain, why is Number 5 able to disable one with a handful of mud? If Skroeder is such a fucking Luddite, why does he work in a robotics lab? If Stephanie has half a functioning brain, why does she not recognize what is obviously a robot and think it's an alien? 

But really, the only two questions that matter are: What the fuck was Fisher Stevens doing, and who exactly is the movie aimed at? Let's consider each question.

Fisher Stevens plays Ben Jabituya. Based on his accent, he's probably meant to be Indian (Stevens is a Jewish man from Chicago). His accent rates about a 9.5 on the Apu-mometer, and his dialog consists either of mangled American idioms ("With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?") or really strangely graphic and inappropriate stuff ("I am sporting an enormous woody!"). And the real tragedy is, Stevens clearly has some comic chops because on the occasion he gets a line that's just a joke, rather than sex-cringe or racism-cringe, he has a quiet, subtle delivery and good comic timing, but the good lines get lost amid the...other stuff.

Which brings us to the second question - who is this movie for? The humor involving Number 5 is very child-friendly. It's Number 5 learning human stuff, rattling off synonyms and clumsily knocking stuff over, and then when he finds his feet (er, treads) making a lot of pop culture references. I remember watching this movie as a kid and the parts where Number 5 uses his laser to disable Stephanie's dickbag ex-boyfriend (Brian McNamara) were some of the best bits. But then what is the really sexist stuff in aid of? If it's a kid's movie, why is Ben saying "her pants are blazing for you!" If it's a raunchy or raunch-adjacent comedy, why is Number 5 yelling "we be jammin'!" I don't know, it's all just very perplexing.

All in all, it would be a cute and somewhat nostalgic movie, but you basically have to ignore most of Fisher Stevens.

My Grade: B-
Rewatch value: Medium

Next up: Shrek

Pugmire: Snu?

("Snu?" is the onomatopoeic representation of a dog cocking its head to the side when it's confused by something. Now you know! Here's last time.)

Our doggies are around the city of Pugmire. Dire Newfoundland and Boomer Pitbull are sharpening weapons at the storehouse. Peppa Pappillon is there, too, but she's serving food to the poor out of the storehouse's kitchen. Gelert Sausagedog is out amongst the people, taking the pulse of the city, and Petunia Pibble is at the Royal Pioneer's Guild, reading histories. 

Peppa notices that the cats coming in for food are looking stressed and nervous. She sits with her friend Kadjit Brikovy and asks what's happening, and Kadjit informs her that a local cat, one Fliss von Korat, was found murdered north of the Gray Souk a couple of days ago. Kadjit did not see the body himself, but heard that there were strange marks and burns on it. Anyway, it has everyone a little on edge. 

Sausagedog, likewise, notes that the cats of Riverwall are a little jump. He knows where to go to find cat gossip - Mr. Meow's Grooming. He goes in and asks for a heroic coif, and any info that Meow has, and learns about Fliss' murder as well. He also learns that Fliss was recently doing a job for some "fancy runner dog" in Southgate somewhere, but Meow doesn't know more than that.

The characters meet up at the storehouse and decide that this murder most foul bears more investigation. They go to where the body was found, and discover that it's down an alley with a number of one-room apartments, including the one that Fliss stayed in. Dire opens the door and snoops around a bit, and sees that there's no sign of disturbance - Fliss never made it in the door. Boomer, likewise, notes a lack of blood in the alley, indicating that Fliss probably wasn't stabbed. Peppa sees notches in the wood roof of the building and has Dire lift her up. She finds long scratch marks with irregular scorching, and flecks of metal. She tracks it back over the roof, but doesn't find any claw marks or footprints, just the long, cable-like marks. Very curious. Petunia sniffs around and smells magic - not much, just residual, but enough to confirm that magic was in some way involved in Fliss' death. 

Sausagedog knocks on a door and asks about Fliss, and is directed to an apartment across the way, belonging to a black cat named Middy. Middy informs Sausagedog that he, Fliss, and a number of other cats and dogs were hired to transport crates and other things from a home in Northgate to the famous Pause Four Resort in Southgate. 

Sausagedog has heard of the resort - it's not prohibitively expensive, but it's not exactly cheap. Dogs go there for relaxation and grooming. Middy tells him that the new owner, Talina Poodle, was moving in and they were taking her stuff into storerooms under the direction of Pumly McNab, her majordomo. The resort consists of a small building, but then limestone caverns beneath, and they were carting stuff down into subterranean storerooms. While they were down there, Fliss cocked his head as though he heard something, and then walked into a dead end and scratched at the wall. He snapped out of it just a minute later and Middy had been meaning to ask him about it, but that night Middy went out for a drink and Fliss went home, and that was the last anyone saw him alive. 

Gelert relays this to the others and Peppa mentions that she knows a shepherd named Balina Poodle, maybe Talina's sister? The dogs split up. Sausagedog and Peppa go to Northgate to talk to Balina, while Petunia goes to the Riverwall guardhouse to ask her cousin Peter if she can see Fliss' body. Dire and Boomer, left alone (unwise) with no real direction, decide to go to the resort and snoop around. 

They go by way of the Souk in Southgate, and Dire steals a couple of trinkets from a merchant (Boomer stays back to avoid getting busted if things go bad, but the merchant completely misses that Dire was palming stuff). They arrive at the resort and are enthusiastically greeted. Boomer says that they're interested in possibly booking an appointment, but could they have a tour? The receptionist summons a dog named Blum Yorkshire, who shows them around the place. During the course of the tour, they meet Pumly McNab, the manager, and Boomer, recognizing the name, asks about Fliss.

Pumly is cooperative, and appropriately concerned upon hearing about Fliss' death. He confirms that Fliss worked there for a few days, and agrees to show them where he was stacking goods. He takes Dire and Boomer down the steps into one of the lower caverns, and they see the dead end that Sausagedog was referring to. Dire immediately finds a seam - false wall. There's no opening mechanism, though. He punches the wall hoping to show McNab that it's a fake, but fails to break it. He does show him the seam, though, and McNab asks them to leave, as he needs to inform Ms. Poodle of all this.

Speaking of Poodles, Peppa and Sausagedog go to a temple in Northgate and talk with Balina. She is indeed Talina's twin sister, and while Balina devoted her life to the teachings of Man, Talina is more interested in comfort, money, and social standing. She recently bought the Pause Four resort and moved in. Peppa asks if Balina could put in a word, but Balina says that her word isn't going to be much help. They're not exactly estranged, but they don't talk much. 

Petunia goes to the guardhouse and asks her cousin about the body. Dead cats, unfortunately, aren't big priorities to the dogs of Pugmire, so there hasn't been much investigation. On the other paw, no one has a problem with Petunia having a look. She finds no stab wounds or slashes, and is unable to determine what exactly caused death, but does find abrasions that look like the were caused by rope, and scorched fur to boot. She examines his clothes and finds the same marks. It looks like something wrapped him up and squeezed him. She smells magic on his body, and suspects that the Unseen might be in play here.

The characters meet up again and Boomer and Dire confess their activities. The characters call Bivi Affenpinscher, their trustee, to join them, and Bivi points out that despite their suspicions, they haven't seen anything to really make them suspicious of McNab in any really sinister way. They ask if the Guild can advance them plastic to stay at the resort so they can investigate, and Bivi says he'll ask Fiona Corgi, but advises them to talk to McNab and see if he'd be willing to just let them poke around. He also advises someone a little more responsible than Boomer or Dire go along; Peppa agrees.

Peppa and Boomer go to speak to McNab, and he is quite deferential to an acolyte. He says he'll be happy to accompany the ground down to the false wall, but asks that they come back in the morning so that he can clear his day for them.

The Pioneers get some rest...all except Dire. He goes to the Gray Souk to fence the stuff he stole, bringing it to One-Eyed Moby, a cat of his acquaintance. He gets a few plastic for his trouble, but then hears the distinctive twang of a bowstring and ducks. An arrow bearing the unmistakable fletching of his old boss, Luigi Husky, the head of the Riverwall Underworld, slams into Moby's table. Dire grabs the arrow and takes to the rooftops, looking for the archer, but they're long gone. Apparently Dire's theft of Luigi's special dagger hasn't been forgiven...

The next day, the dogs reconvene and Dire explains his problems with the Underworld. The others are concerned, not least because Dire seems convinced that Luigi will not stop until one of them is dead. Peppa points out that Dire doesn't have to face this danger alone - they aren't going to abandon him. But in any case, they have something more immediate. 

They head to the resort and McNab leads them down to the false wall. Dire pops it out of place with his sword, and beyond it is a hole leading down into darkness. On the far wall is a series of numbers, under which the words "LAND ON YOUR FEET" are carved, along with two paw prints. 

The characters realize that this must be a code, and Petunia and Sausagedog set to unraveling it. Dire points out that the paw prints aren't the same - in fact, one is from a cat. The dogs go through a number of different possibilities for breaking the code before Petunia realizes that it's a book code, and they need a common text to break it. And what text does every dog know? The Tenets of Man. 

The Tenets allow them to break the first half of the code, which reads "HOLD THE DORR ON HAND," but the second half doesn't work. Peppa realizes that it might key off of the Precepts of Mau, the cat equivalent to the Tenets, and indeed, using those as a key, the second half reads "PASS THE THRESHOLD SWIFTY." 

Meanwhile, the dogs also investigate the hole. Dire tosses a rock down, and judging from how long it takes to hit bottom, there's no way they have enough rope. Peppa casts Sacred Flame on another rock and they drop it down, but the light goes out abruptly. Petunia sniffs the hole and smells magic - apparently there's a point at which someone dispels magic. A "threshold," Dire notes. Petunia also remembers from her studies of Pioneer history that there are mentions of a dog named Dorr. 

Armed with this knowledge, they head back to the surface, and McNab says he'll keep the area clear so that no one gets hurt. The dogs head to the Guild and send a message to Bivi to meet them there. Bivi tells them that he remembers stories of Dorr Poodle - he was not only a Pioneer, but one of the originals, right around the time of the War of Dogs and Cats. Bivi and Petunia hit the books and learn that Dorr was known to travel and adventure with a cat named Swifty von Rex, and both of them were accomplished magic users. Petunia guess that because of the wording "hold the dorr on hand," there might be an item associated with him that they need to "pass the threshold." She discovers that Dorr made a Ring of Floating, not an uncommon masterwork, that he was very protective of. It wasn't given to the Pioneers upon his death, but passed down in his family, and is now in the possession of his great-great-granddaughter, Talina Poodle.

The dogs feel that this can't be a coincidence, but they'll need to get that ring if they're going to solve this mystery. Next time...a heist? 

Chill: Standing in a Circle

Today was a "recover from the shitshow of last time" sort of session. 

The envoys go back to the ranch, carrying with them three dead men, one injured vampire-henchman, and one injured victim. Emily and Jordan back the SUV up to the incinerators and load the bodies in. Emily strips off her bloody clothes and tosses them in as well, and then slumps back and contemplates what's happened. 

Meanwhile, BB and Jennifer take Aaron (the aforementioned henchman) to the silo and tie him to a chair. He's not cooperative, however, and calls out BB for killing Fredo. BB, however, points out that this happened because the band was in the process of killing a dude. Aaron dismissively refers to him as a "goat," but clearly knows that he's human. If Aaron is under the influence of the Unknown, it's not obvious. 

Dylan helps Darnell get the victim into a bed and Darnell checks him over. He reports that the guy seems to have lost a lot of blood through no obvious wound (no surprise there), and that he'll wake up with a hell of a hangover and needing a big breakfast, but otherwise he should be OK. Dylan explains what happened and Darnell blanches a bit. He's just become an accessory to a number of crimes.

Samantha contemplates who from her former career as an FBI agent might be able to help her out. She settles on calling James Stephenson, a former colleague that knew she was able to get hunches that panned out, but uses the Premonition discipline instead of actually calling him. She confesses everything to him over the call and tells him that this all happened because she was hunting a vampire with her friends from a worldwide secret organization that has "special abilities." James relates exactly how crazy that all sounds and tells her that he can't help her - even if he was closer, that would involve him committing a bunch of felonies. His advice is to get a lawyer and turn herself in. Samantha does, and the next day the ranch is swarming with cops, everyone's getting arrested...

...back in "now," the premonition ends and Samantha decides against calling James. It's just not going to help. 

The envoys convene and talk through some of what they've experienced, reducing some trauma, while Darnell treats their wounds. Jordan smears mint and garlic over the windows and doors, and then goes out to the silo with BB and Samantha to talk to Aaron. 

Aaron is unrepentant, however. He tells them that Ti Papa is not going to come looking for him - he's never been a priority for him. He tells them that every year on March 20, they perform a sacrifice to Legba, and go "through the gate." They gain youth and strength out of the deal, but isn't sure what happens if it's not performed correctly. When he sees Samantha, he identifies her as "Mabel's granddaughter," and says that after she interviewed Ti Papa, he recognized her and became somewhat obsessed with her. He says that the song that Ti Papa wrote - "Bad Night in the Quarter" - was written about Mabel ("huh, grandma got around," mutters Samantha). 

Jordan uses Mental Shield on Aaron, hoping to break any lingering influence on him, but all it does is make him sweat and get nauseated. She wards the room, too, and that makes it worse, but he's still very much him - the Unknown has it hooks in. He doubles over and then grabs his chair and tries to fling it at Jordan, but BB tackles him and Jordan arm locks him and throws him into a wall. She tells him that they're going to keep him here and see if the Unknown leaves him, and he agrees (but only because he really doesn't have a choice). 

Dylan checks the victim's wallet, and sees that he's a local named Henry Elizalde. Henry has a hotel keycard from the same place the band is staying, but it's worn and old, so he's probably staff rather than a guest. Dylan wakes him up and asks what he remembers, and he remembers almost everything - Aaron and Fredo waylaid him and threw him in the trunk. Dylan tells him to go back to sleep, and he'll call Henry wife; Henry says he has to be at work in the morning. He's got no sick time left.

The envoys try to think this through some more, but Darnell points out that they're all exhausted. The envoys set their alarms for sunrise - about four hours - and get some much needed sleep. Samantha, though, calls upon her Prescient Dream discipline...

She dreams she's in the French Quarter in New Orleans, dressed in the fashions of the 1970s. She sees Ti Papa playing guitar on a corner, but people aren't throwing money into his guitar case, they're slashing their arms and bleeding into it. She listens to the music a minute, and he looks at her expectantly, but she pulls out a handful of mint leaves and chews them. He recoils and misses a note, and then she walks in a circle around him. He tries to follow her, but gets dizzy and stumbles out into the street, whereupon he bursts into flames and his head falls off. 

Morning arrives and the envoys rise and get some breakfast. Emily and Jennifer take breakfast to Aaron, but he doesn't get up from the bed (he does answer them, though, so at least he's not dead). Jordan talks to Henry and convinces him not to tell the authorities what happened - things like this tend to escalate, after all. She tells him that the band won't be bothering him, but he should stay away from their suite today. She and Emily give him a lift back to the hotel.

The envoys call Annie Crawford, a former envoy who acts as lawyer to the ranch and the envoys. They explain everything, and she informs them that this is pretty grim. If the police can tie them to the human remains in the incinerator, they're screwed - that's multiple counts of murder and a bunch of other charges. Without that, the police might be able to prove that the envoys were at the scene of a crime, but there are no bodies at the park, and Ti Papa is unlikely to testify. Aaron and Jacob (the other band member, the one that fled) is another matter. She advises that BB and Emily may want to leave the country for a while since they have citizenship in other nations, and advises the envoys to get rid of everything physical connecting them to the crime, including the ashes in the incinerator, now. Also, they might want to find Jacob and find out what he's doing.

BB, a former bounty hunter, has tracked down people on the run before. He and Jennifer visit the bus station, but no dice. They decide to check the airport, but Jennifer uses her Familiar Face discipline to walk in unnoticed. She finds Jacob sleeping at a gate; a boarding pass in his pocket says he's leaving for New Orleans later this afternoon. She wakes him up and, after calming him down, employs her Telepathic Empathy discipline to help interview him.

Jacob says that the band was always very honest about Ti Papa being a vampire and the "goat sacrifice" that was going to take place on the 20th, but he never really believed either one until last night. When the envoys showed up and starting shooting he panicked and ran. Now he's just trying to go home and forget all of this, and Jennifer supports this. He says that Ti Papa will absolutely do the last show by himself - he's done solo shows plenty of times. He doesn't know the particulars of the ritual, but does know it has to be performed on that date every year. 

The envoys get back together and discuss their options. Ti Papa is obviously not the sort of vampire that burns in sunlight, but he's probably more dangerous at night. Emily suggests letting him go - if he leaves town, that's pressure off the envoys, and they can inform SAVE about him. He won't get far.

The other envoys decide this isn't good enough; that's not what SAVE does. They decide they are going to confront him and hopefully kill him. The question of how is a little fuzzier. They scout the area around the hotel and the theater (it's only a 3-minute walk between them), and find a car park catty-corner from the theater. They decide to send him a note: "My granddaughter wants your autograph. Meet in the car park, lower level, before your dinner. -Mabel." 

They get some yellow caution tape and mark off the stairwells and elevators in the car park, hoping to keep civilians away. They get fresh mint, garlic, salt, and wooden stakes ("no point in bringing guns," Jordan points out). It's not a perfect plan, but it's the best one they have. 

Character Creation: Mutant City Blues 2nd Ed

On the other hand, here's a game I've been really jazzed to read and chargen for.

The Game: Mutant City Blues 2nd Edition
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this edition, but I ran 1st ed for a while and I'm pretty conversant with Gumshoe
Books Required: Just the one

In Mutant City Blues, you're playing a superpowered cop. It's not, however, a four-color setting where you're a cop. Instead, the superpowers are more grounded in reality (I said "more"; you can still throw trucks sometimes). 10 years ago, a lot of people got very ill, and then some time later a small percentage of the people who got "ghost flu" also got superpowers. 

(Incidentally, MCB is one of the many creative properties that takes on a new light after living through a pandemic, but I digress.)

A lot of people with powers just kind of go about their lives. Some people use them for monetary gain in athletics or entertainment or whatever, and some people use them in crime, but not in a Doc Ock kind of way. And some folks who are cops got powers, and some powered folks became cops, and the ones who stand out sometimes get promoted to HCIU (Heightened Crimes Investigative Unit), a show pony program with wide latitude to investigate crimes that involve super-powered people. 

All in all it's a good setup. I like the narrow focus of super-powers. Sure, it's more restrictive than a lot of supers games, but this is more an investigation game with a public framework for powers than, strictly speaking, a supers RPG. And the changes that have made in this edition look promising, too. Oh, and also, there's some attention paid to playing as private investigators instead of actual cops, 'cause y'know, ACAB.

SO ANYWAY let's do this. I don't mind making a cop character, so I'm gonna follow standard chargen. 

First thing I do is pick a template, reflecting what sort of cop I was before gaining powers and/or joining HCIU. I think I'm gonna go for Cold Case; the idea of applying new science (including super-power science) to cases that weren't able to get closed previous is appealing. I'll say his name is Otto Sherman. Otto has a background in archiving and digital reconstruction (I dunno, sounds like a thing). He became a cop after being talked into it by his best friend (who also works for the department; if I were playing Otto I'd probably try and make that a PC), and while he feels like he's a little smarter and better educated than a lot of his coworkers, throwing super-powers into the mix has everyone off their pins, and that's actually kind of refreshing. New territory!

So anyway, that means I get Data Retrieval, Evidence Collection, Forensic Accounting, Forensic Anthropology, History, Law, Research, and Photography as investigative skills (this edition does away with having ratings in these; you either have 'em or you don't). 

And then over under General Abilities, I get Composure 5, Driving 2, Health 3, Infiltration 2, Mechanics 4, Medic 2, Preparedness 4, Sense Trouble 2, Shooting 2, Surveillance 2. 

And then I get more points to throw around. I get 30 more General points, but Investigative are based on how many players in the group. Let's assume 5 regular players, so I get 2 more abilities. I'll take...Community Relations (part of cold case is redoing interviews, after all) and Document Analysis (archivist!)

And then General points. I'll put 3 into Athletics (always good to have some). I'll bump Composure to 8 and Health to 5 (that's 38 spent out of 60). I'll put 5 into Filch, why not. I'll put Infiltration up to 5, Preparedness up to 7, and I'll take Scuffling at 3. Where am I at...52 out of 60 is 8 more. OK, I'll bump up Surveillance to 10 and make that the General Ability my dude is really good at. 

And now the really fun stuff: Powers! I start with 30 points. If I'm buying a power, it costs 4 and then however many points I want to put into it. I have to stick to the Quade Diagram, meaning, if I want more powers I have to buy them in a sequence or pay points to skip one. Also there are GRFs (Genetic Risk Factors) that crop up around certain powers, and they function differently depending on whether we're playing Safe or Gritty. I prefer Gritty, so I'll use those rules.

When I did my 1st Ed character I rolled randomly for my starting power, but eh, I think I'll pick. I want Otto to...ooh, let's start with Phase. That allows him to walk through things, and to turn intangible and avoid getting hit or stabbed or shot (useful!). That costs 4 points, plus I want enough points to use it a couple of times, so I'll bump my score to 9. I've spent 12 points. 

Phase connects to Touch and Disintegration; I think I'll go for the former. Touch is an Investigative power on a solid line, so I don't have to pay to get there. I just pay 1 for the power, since it's Investigative. 13 spent, 17 to go. 

Touch leads to Reduce Temperature (cold case, get it?). Had to do a little math because the system is that you make a check with a difficulty of 1 for every -5 degrees Celsius you're causing (and I have no intuitive sense of that), but actually that makes reducing local temp below freezing very much possible. I'll pay 4 points for the power and put another 9 points in, for a total of 26 spent, 4 to go. 

Hmm. I think I need to reduce something, actually, because either way I go on the tree I need more points than I have. I'll drop Reduce Temp to 8 and drop Phase to 6 (ugh), but that lets me pay 4 for Ice Blast and have still have 5 points to pump in, for a score of 6. I have a decent Ice Blast or two in me. 

And that's all the numbers-related stuff. Just need to flesh out Otto a little more.

So Otto got moved to cold cases as soon as he could. He's OK with people in a kind of theoretical sense and he likes people just fine, but he doesn't have the same interrogation chops as other cops. He does, however, fit better into academic and upper-middle class scenarios than a lot of them do, so that makes him useful. 

Otto is of German-American extraction and has light brown hair (starting to thin, but it's not critical yet!) and blue eyes. He's in shape, perhaps a little doughy but he tries to stay healthy. He carries a gun but his marksmanship is pretty weak; he's much more likely to throw ice pellets than shoot somebody. 

Subplot-wise, I think there's a lawyer for the state AG that is taking a real hard line at any R18 powers used by HCIU officers, and Otto has Phase. Said AG, Victor Wilkins, has a hair up his butt about R18 for some reason and Otto managed to rub him the wrong way.

Also, Otto just went through an unpleasant divorce. The emotional aspects of it are bad, but the financials are worse - Otto has a lot of student debt and his ex has a lot of credit card debt. 

Finally, there's a cold case that Otto had to let go when he moved to HCIU. The case involved a young man who went missing 30 years ago; the only evidence that was found was a smear of blood and a pinky, both of which have been identified as belonging to the victim. The kid's mother, Angie Cress, calls Otto sometimes when she's very drunk and Otto listens. He's tried to explain that it's not his case anymore (no powered individuals = no Otto), but she doesn't want to hear that and honestly Otto hasn't really let it go. 

That'll do it!

Movie #688: Shoot 'em Up

Shoot 'em Up is...well, exactly that. It's a bonkers action movie starring Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, Paul Giamatti, Stephen McHattie, and Greg Bryk.

The movie jumps right the hell in as our hero Smith (Owen), while sitting at a bus stop, sees a terrified and very pregnant woman (Ramona Pringle) shuffling down the street pursued by thugs. Smith, who exudes "dark and brooding loner", intervenes, kills the woman's assailants while delivering her baby and severing the umbilical cord with a pistol shot. So that's the kind of movie we're in, just in case anyone was unclear. 

From there, we hop from one action set piece scored with awesome rock songs ("Joker & the Thief", "Ace of Spades", "If You Want Blood") to another, as Smith tries first to offload the baby (oh, right, the mother gets shot in the head, of course) and then to protect him. He recruits an acquaintance named Donna (Bellucci), a sex worker who is presently lactating (her own child was stillborn) to help him, and the two of them unravel the conspiracy of why the US government is running a baby farm over a heavy metal bar, and who is trying to kill those babies. The explanation is just as over the top as the rest of the movie. 

And yet...Shoot 'em Up isn't dumb. It isn't smart, either, but it's very clear about what it is, and there's an interesting sensibility about its attitude towards gun. Smith is basically a superhero whose power is to use guns and marksmanship in ridiculous ways, but he hates doing it (really he hates just about everything) because his family was murdered in a random shooting. The underlying plot of the movie concerns gun control and there's a lot of talk about guns as a substitute for actual power or masculinity, as well as a lot of jokes and puns about guns as related to sex and dongs. The underlying point here seems to be "sure, guns are awesome and exciting, but they fucking kill people." 

Oh, and: Paul Giamatti plays Hertz, the freelance operative and former FBI profiler tracking Smith and trying to resolve this whole mess on behalf of arch-villainous gun manufacturer Hammerson (McHattie). Hertz never exactly becomes sympathetic, but he appears just as human as anyone else in this movie, which is to say he has a story and a perspective and even a kind of moral code. 

The movie is, of course, absurdly violent, and it starts with Smith smashing a carrot (that's his other superpower, producing very large carrots from nowhere) through the back of a dude's throat and saying "eat your vegetables." It manages to keep the energy up, though, which is impressive. I often think that the sequel (there isn't gonna be a sequel) should start with Donna and Smith consulting an audiologist about the kiddo's hearing, though.

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium-high

Next up: Short Circuit

Atlantis: Ew, Giant Bug!

I think I like having characters fight giant bugs because my players don't tend to find them cute. Anyway. It's been a million years since I ran a game. Here's last time.

Our heroes take some time to help extinguish fires in the village of Nehebu, and then everyone sleeps. The next couple of days, the heroes rest and recuperate (since they kinda got their faces kicked in), and the villagers argue amongst themselves about whether to stay here on the plains, or go back into the foothills and rebuild their town of Edfu. The village is pretty evenly split, and Eithne offers to go with some of them to check out the ruins. Imani accompanies them as well, while Akala and Thanos stay behind. 

They climb up to the village and look around. Eithne points out how the buildings here could be shored up and fixed, while Imani notes that the lightning stone in the center of the village remains strong and retells the tale of their battle with the Impundulu. The villagers seem excited by all this, but then they hear a scream.

Imani and Eithne rush over and see a huge millipede-like creature with a young boy in its mandibles. It's trying to escape into a crevice in the mountain, but Eithne casts a spell and collapses the cave before it can escape. The creature starts building up an electric charge and Imani responds with a charge of her own - she rams her horns at the thing. It unleashes lightning and wounds both of them, as well as several of the villagers. 

 

Eithne throws fire at it and Imani strikes with her mong, and the creature tries to flee. Imani gives in to her bloodlust and hurls a spear at its back, and it starts to build a charge again. Eithne casts a ward around it to contain the lightning, and Imani charges up the mountain and impales it on her horns, and brings the head back down.

The boy, though, isn't breathing. Eithne manages to revive him slightly, but he needs medical attention...

Speaking of that, down in the village, Akala is taking some notes when a villager approaches and asks if she'd like some healing attention. Akala realizes quickly that the woman is an Ahl-at-Rab, the Ophidian they were supposed to find and kill for the Lightning Birds, but Akala is caught off-guard by the fact that she's not trying to hide herself. She introduces herself as Nsia, and when Akala asks after her origins, she explains that she was a slave in a camp south of here, but escaped and fled to Nehebu. Akala refuses healing (she appreciates the thought but doesn't trust snakes) and goes to find Thanos.

Thanos is helping to rebuild some of the destroyed buildings. Akala explains what happens, and Thanos, too, is skeptical, but does admit that Nsia seemed to be up front. About then, the others return, Imani bounding into the village carrying the boy, yelling for a medic.

Nsia, in fact, emerges and looks at the boy, and then pulls a small, bound hawk from her robes and snaps its neck. The boy sits up, fully healed, and Imani presents him with the head of the creature that nearly ate him. He screams and runs for his mother, and Imani acknowledges that she really should have anticipated that. 

The characters get together and compare notes, and Imani explains something very strange. The creature that attacked is called an Inkanyamba, and they're not exactly uncommon in Gondwana, but they aren't found in this kind of terrain. They live near lakes and rivers and swamps. They decide that in the morning, Imani and Thanos will go back up the mountain and check out the area to see if there are any more.

The next day, they do indeed ascend the foothills and after some light labor moving rocks out of the way, Imani confirms that there are no other such creatures about. The one they killed was an adult, though, meaning it was at least a few years old. It couldn't have grown up here - did someone summon it? Thanos calls upon his magic and looks around, and doesn't sense any summoning magic, but does sense divine intervention. Shango again? They doubt it - Shango is about as subtle as a kick to the head, he's more likely to just set you on fire. No, this is the work of a subtler god...Set.

They return to the village and talk to Nsia, and ask about the rumors that her species worship Set. She explains that there's a thin line between worship and simple reverent acknowledgement, and it's unwise to make an enemy out of a god that has a personal interest. They ask if she personally worships Set, and she says that as a former slave, there certainly have been nights where she'd pray to anyone to get her out of that hell (Thanos and Eithne, both former slaves, agree). However, she still says her prayers every day, and there are some gods she feels some devotion to and some that she just doesn't want to leave out.

The heroes are satisfied with this, but they still aren't sure where this bug came from. Eithne and Akala call on Nsia later (she offered Eithne some salve for her burns), and Nsia applies it. It's pleasantly numbing and tingly, but neither of them fully trust the Ophidian. Akala takes some of the goop and applies it to a small lizard...and the poor thing seizes up and dies. (Eithne quickly wipes the rest off.)

The characters decide to get the village elders together and present what they've found. They bring the head of the Inkanyamba and Thanos casts a spell to bring some consciousness back to it, and horribly they find it can talk and be understood. They ask who summoned it, and it replies "Set." They ask if that means someone acted on Set's behalf, but it just says that Set did it. Does that mean Set is here in the village? 

The creature confirms that he was. Would they like to talk to him? 

The characters give a resounding "NO" that offer. The creature doesn't indicate that Nsia had anything to do with it, but when they explain the affair with the lizard, Amenemhet (one of the elders) goes pale. He's talked with Nsia lately about, if not outright worship of Set, then acknowledgement and homage. 

The elders seem to realize that Nsia may have been trying to introduce worship of the dark serpent god. They decide to tell the village in the morning that they'll all be moving back into the foothills and reclaiming Edfu. They tell the characters that they can stay as long as they want, and the heroes say that they'll probably stay only until their wounds are healed. They have much more to do, after all.

Character Creation: SPLINTER

Sometimes it's "really excited about this game," sometimes it's "ugh, well, at least it'll get the green dot off the book." Guess which today is!

The Game: SPLINTER
The Publisher: End Transmission Games, now defunct
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Mercifully, just the one

Reading this book, the phrase "dog's breakfast" leapt to mind, and I had to google it to find out if I was correctly interpreting the meaning of the phrase. Turns out the dictionary defines it as "a confused mess or mixture," so I was spot-on. 

Actually, as long as we're talking slang phrases, here's another one that's relevant: "Kill your darlings." This is advice often given to creative types (or at least to writers; I don't know if it's given to other creatives but I'm sure the principle applies), and it basically means "don't get so hung up on the one particular thing you're excited about that you keep it in even if it doesn't make sense anymore." And man, I've had to kill my share of darlings in my life, and it often hurts. But I've also stubbornly clung to darlings and they've gone into print, with the result that the end product is much weaker than it would have been otherwise.

SPLINTER (I have no idea why it's in all caps; the spine of the book has periods between the letters but as far as I can tell it's not an acronym) is dog's breakfast of darlings that should have been killed. The up-front, visible pitch of the game is that you're controlling a Player who is, in turn, controlling an Avatar in the Game (unnecessary capitalization Abounds). Said Game is a huge virtual reality kind of thing, except that if you die in Canada the Game you die for real, and the Game is used as a combination prison system/debtor's jail/entertainment of the bread and circus variety in this corporation-controlled, dystopian future. And if that was actually the game, that would have been fine. That's a perfectly cromulent game premise. There's a lot of meat there. Meat, however, is just one part of the dog's breakfast. 

See, the "game" isn't a game, it's actually a pocket dimension and the other beings in the game (the NPCs) are sentient beings, so you don't so much "jack in" as "portal in." There's magic (sorry, "magick"), there's a bunch of races to choose from for your Avatar, there's a different dice system depending on whether you're in or out of the Game. All of the races have three forms to shift between that given them different capabilities. SPLINTER wants to be Dark City, in some ways (using magick in some contexts is even called "Tuning"), but Edge of Midnight did this so much better, probably because it stayed focused. 

Anyway, this is an out of print game from an out of business company, so who cares, really. It was just a little tedious to read. Let's make a Player. (Oh, and the game is just way too pleased with itself for having you, the player, make a Player, not a character.)

First thing to do is choose whether I'm a Professional (genetically engineered and raised to be a Player) or an Amateur (someone who, through political dissidence, bad luck, or being a criminal, has wound up in the Game). I think I'd rather be an Amateur, because the people from District One are assholes, generally.

Fucking hell. The sheet has "player name," "avatar name," and just... "name." Anyone who has ever played an RPG is going to write their name under "player name." And, just as a little extra wankery, the game tells the reader that if this is your first RPG, go play another one first. I suspect that's meant to imply that this is some kinda next-level game, but next-level games do interesting things with narrative control or game mechanics, and this kinda doesn't. 

Anyway. As an Amateur, I get 14 points to split between the four Player Attributes, min 1, max 6. Strength, Speed, Wits, Will. Hmm. There's a bit in the book that mentions that people will sometimes deliberately get arrested for petty crime so that they can get into the Game and, perchance, escape their crummy life. That leads to them dying, because the Game is rigged, but people do it anyway (and see, that is a compelling aspect of the game). So I'll say my guy was down on his luck, wanted to see the bright lights of the city or whatever, and had a bunch of dubious theories about how the deaths in the Game aren't real and they can just shuffle you into a new Avatar, but he didn't have the upbringing or connections to be a Pro, so he started sticking up liquor stores until he got busted, and now here he is! 

So obviously Wits isn't his strong point, so let's put that at 1. Will can be a little higher (it's a ballsy plan, it's just stupid), so let's say 5. Seven points left, so 3 in Strength and 4 in Speed, how 'bout. 

Fill in the bonuses, based on the chart, sure 'nuff. Derived Attributes! Health is Strength x 6, or 18 in my case. Defense is the average of Speed and (uh-oh) Wits. Fortunately we round up, so it's 3. Initiative is equal to Speed + 1d6. 

Skills! Reportedly I get more Skills for being an Amateur, the idea being that they've had more exposure to life and aren't quite so specialized. And...lol. I get Wits x 5 points for Skills. This'll be quick. 

Skills...ugh. I really wish I had the PDF of this game so I could screenshot this paragraph. "Music isn't a skill. Guitar is." It goes on like that for a full paragraph. All right, fine, so Skills are specialized. I feel like my guy knows how to use a gun on a very limited basis, so I'll take "Pistol-sized Weapons" (oh, that's the other thing, there's no list of Skills that you have to adhere to except for combat skills, which you do have to choose off the list for some reason, but they're in a paragraph with a bunch of other examples). I'll take it at Trained, which only costs one of my precious 5 points. What else?

"Driving (land vehicle)." OK, so I can drive a car and a tractor? Fuck me. How about just "Driving (car)." I feel like some kind of "knows the mean streets" Skill would be appropriate here. "Streetwise" is probably too general, but you know what? I don't care. Actually, no, I'll take Unarmed Combat, Stealth, and Intimidate and call it a day.

As an Amateur, I start with nothing but a prison jumpsuit, so that's cool, I don't have to shop. Hey, that's all Walton Goggins had in Predators and he lasted most of the way through the movie. 

My guy's name is Ramon Vidal. He's in his 20s, lean and fit, sleeve tats of varying quality, all know-it-all swagger. Moving on to Avatar!

So, first thing is to choose a bloodline. Hmm. My favorite are the Vryx (goat-demon people), so I'll go with that. Next step is to choose a sect, I'm told that Avatars don't really know about sects when they first port into the game, so I'll skip that. 

Avatar stats! These are rolled, 2d6 each. Just a moment. 7, 5, 4, 11, 10, 7. 

Oh, and, I have negative modifiers to a couple of stats from my bloodline, meaning I have to put something high enough in those categories that I don't go negative. Fucking hell. OK, I take a -3 Vitality in my "Beast" form (a scuttly goat-demon). I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Stats are: Vitality, Might, Celerity (there's a word I haven't seen in a while), Omniscience, Brilliance, and Conviction. As a Vryx, I get bonuses to Celerity and Omniscience, but penalties to Conviction and Vitality. 

OK, well, how about I put 10 into Vitality, keeping me at a respectable 7 even in Beast form. I'll put my 4 into Omniscience (keeping with my "Ramon is not terribly bright") motif, meaning he's got a 5 across the board. Will is his best stat as a human, so I'll put my 11 into Conviction, leaving me 10 in all forms. Brilliance gets a 5, and that leaves the 7s in Might and Celerity. Fill in the bonuses...well, it's number of dice, here, but whatever. 

Derived traits! Life Point is (Vitality x Strength), or 27/24/21. Evasion Factor is Celerity/3, or 2. That's too low (I say that because there's a whole sidebar devoted to explaining why EF is so important, and I'd say it's bad game design to have a stat that can be determined randomly be so critical in play, but the funny thing is that based on the sidebar, they knew that!). 

Avatar Reaction is the number of dice you'd roll for Omniscience (5, for Ramon) plus Speed. 

Starting Harmonics. These are magic(k) things, and I get 3 levels (Wits + Brilliance/2, rounded down). I have to look at the chapter on these, so I'll finish the other derived stuff first. 

Gnosis (hey, another White Wolf term I haven't seen in a while!) is equal to Will, so 5. I have Tuning Points equal to (Gnosis x Conviction), so that's cool, I can Tune like a motherfucker. Bonus damage is half Might, rounded down, so 2 in all forms. 

Fuck me, more Skills. OK. Oh, man, the formula for getting starting Avatar Skill points (inexplicably called "talent points") is bananas. (Brilliance (in man-shape) x 2) + Wits + (50 - the sum of all six man-shape Avatar Attributes). Oh, look, a feeble attempt at balance. 

Anyway, for me that's 10 + 1 + (50 - 43), or 18. Here, there's a set list. (Actually, this kinda makes sense if we're becoming part of a big game program - you can only do stuff that the game is programmed for. Unless of course it's a pocket dimension in which case wtf.) Avatar skills have direct scores, rather than buying levels of training, because consistency? LOL. THIS IS A DOG'S BREAKFAST. 

Moving on. Let's Skill thusly:

Athletics 5
Deceit 1
Intimidate 2
Melee Combat 3
Ranged Combat 2
Stealth 2
Unarmed Combat 3

And lo! I have found Harmonics! I have three levels to spend. I can take levels in Camouflage, Lock-Lash, Hoarder's Luck, and Cut-Throat. 

Well, I'll take the first level in Camouflage; lets me put my back to a wall and blend in. Seems useful. And then I'll take the first level in Lock-Lash (I can pick locks with my nasty-ass tongue) and Hoarder's Luck (I have a better chance of finding treasure). Oh, and hey, I get a +1 to Evasion Factor in two of my forms! Not the right place to put that info!

I guess my Avatar needs a name, though there's no step in chargen telling me to come up with one (I only say that because there's a lot of attention paid to how much you remember going from Avatar to Player and back, which in a more focused game would call identity into question). I'll say his Avatar is called Buer, after one of the demons of The Lesser Key of Solomon. (I picked him because he has goat legs.) 

That'll do it! Off, off, green dot!

Character Creation: 3Deep

It looks playable...but so what? 

The Game: 3Deep
The Publisher: Parts Per Million
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

There's a lot about this game I don't understand, and that's always a good indicator to take a step back and think about why. 3Deep is a perfectly playable "roll 2d6, add some stats, try to hit an 8" sort of system, and it actually manages to stay quick and light but still be a fairly complete-looking game. 

But...I don't see it doing anything in particular. It has a big section on solo play, which I'm seeing a lot these days and I simply do not get. And if I were going to play an RPG by myself, why wouldn't I go for something like The Beast that has a more specific focus and narrative? As it is, 3Deep has no setting, so I'm to be my own GM and my own game writer? 

Like I said, I don't understand, which probably means it just ain't for me, and that's fine. Still gonna make a character. Also, there doesn't seem to be a character sheet, grumble grumble.

Well, since the game lacks a setting - even a sample setting - I asked for an inspiration song and my boy Toasty came through with:

That's "History Repeating" by The Megas. There's a very "I am the chosen one" feel to the song, and also perhaps some time travel or something? Anyway, 3Deep can, supposedly, do sci-fi, so let's assume we're in a hyperkinetic, very neon future with some time shenanigans going on (I've also been playing Deathloop of late, so that's on my mind, too). 

First thing, I generate stats. I can do this randomly or with points, and I'm fine with random. One of the options is to roll 3d6 and drop the lowest, and there are five stats: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Logic, and Empathy, or StrEndAglLogEmp for short. 

Rolling, I get 9, 8, 9, 7, and 11. What an aggressively mediocre character. Well, I like to specialize. Let's assign the stats thusly:

Str 11
End 9
Agl 8
Log 7
Emp 9

Skills! I get to pick 7. Those get a +1. Very simple. I'll take:

Athletic
Awareness
Combat
Science/Analytic
Urban
Weapon (melee)
Weapon (energy) - this setting definitely has blasters

Cultural background! As in, what kind of environment was I raised in? Urban, probably, but let's have a look. Yep, Urban. That gives me a bonus in General Knowledge, Urban, and Technical/Trade. Cool. 

Race/Species is human, so that doesn't give me anything.

Everything else is details and backstory. So!

Otha Fellows was one of 23 passengers on the Green Loop Train that derailed and slipped through a temporal anomaly. 23 - X (where "X" is the number of PCs in the group) experienced a weird temporal madness - they see too much time, they're unstuck from their "now", and seem to be following orders from some unseen force. Also, if you kill them, they return within 24 hours. Otha and the other X passengers, however, managed to stay grounded in the "now," and returned to their lives without so much as a lost hour. 

Problem is, the Unstuck are hunting them down. Otha and the other folks aren't sure why, but Otha, himself a former Border Marine (he did his required one tour and bugged, thanks anyway, folks - love the neon too much to be a peon!), realized quickly that they Unstuck might lack training but they make up for it with, y'know, immortality. Now it's a matter of figuring out what's going on, while it's still going!

Otha's father is a physicist working on a quantum something-or-other (Otha's eyes glaze over when Dad talks shop), and his sister is part of his research team. So far Otha's been afraid to involve them, because he doesn't want the Unstuck coming after them, but it's too big an advantage to ignore for long. 

(I suspect that Otha is about to find out that his dad, or maybe his sister, had something to do with the crash, but that's not backstory.)

Name: Otha Fellows
Str 11
End 9
Agl 8
Log 7
Emp 9

Skills:
Athletic +1
Awareness +1
Combat +1
General Knowledge +1
Science/Analytic +1
Technical/Trade +1
Urban +2
Weapon (melee) +1
Weapon (energy) +1

Movie #687: Shocker

Shocker is a really, really bad slasher/ghost horror movie directed by Wes Craven in his "this sucks" period (aka the 90s) and starring Mitch Pileggi, Peter Berg, Michael Murphy, Richard Brooks, Camille Cooper, Ted Raimi, and Sam Scarber.

The town of [somewhere], Ohio is being terrorized by the least subtle serial killer ever. He parks in front of his victims' houses with a beat-up old van that basically screams "serial killer" on it, with his name plastered on the side, batters down the doors and kills whole families with a knife. The police are baffled by this diabolical mastermind, but fortunately Jonathan Parker (Berg) gets a concussion running into a goalpost at football practice and winds up having prescient dreams. He dreams the deaths of his family (ooh, bummer) and tells his father, the police lieutenant (Murphy) the details, including the killer's name: Horace Pinker (Pileggi). 

So anyway, they track Horace down, he escapes (killing four more cops because, again, these people are idiots - I gotta say that I know shows like CSI paint an unrealistic picture of law enforcement, but at least on those shows the cops do simple things like call for backup), and winds up killing Jonathan's girlfriend Allison (Cooper) out of revenge. And then he's caught and executed, apparently the next day, but who knows.

An aside: I remember seeing the trailer for this movie years ago, and thinking that it looked like a pretty standard popcorn slasher flick - guy gets executed, ghost is electrical, hunts people through electricity for revenge. And yeah, that happens, kind of, but Horace doesn't get executed until the end of Act One, and by then we've already seen him kill a bunch of people, imply that he's Jonathan's birth father (a subplot that goes nowhere), kill a bunch more people, kill the hero's girlfriend ("fridge" might be the more appropriate verb)...it's just a hot mess.

So then he's dead and he can possess people and use their bodies to kill, except he can also possess electrical devices, except he's repelled by the power of true love (as explained, badly, by the ghost of Allison, who shows up as a phantom ex machina). Jonathan recruits his coach (Scarber) and poor little Ted Raimi and his buddy Rhino (Brooks, who is better than this movie deserves on every level and should have played Jonathan) to help him find the MacGuffin that can repel Pinker and then throw the power and UUUGGGGHHHHH.

Suffice to say that Ghost in the Machine, which up until now was kind of my gold standard for "crappy 90s ghost/slasher movie", just got knocked out of the box. Ghost in the Machine is terrible, but at least it's somewhat tight, at least the killer isn't a cartoon character (sometimes literally!), and at least the lead characters are somewhat distinct.

My Grade: F
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT

Next up: Shoot 'em Up

Character Creation: Zweihänder

So, in deciding which games to do in August, I thought hey, let's do the first and last on my list. Last is this one, first I'll probably do tomorrow.

The Game: Zweihänder: Grim & Perilous
The Publisher: Grim & Perilous Studios
Degree of Familiarity: None, though the system seems oddly familiar
Books Required: For chargen, all you need is the Player's Guide, which is all I have, so that's fine

Zweihänder is an interesting case. It's "grim & perilous" fantasy, and I hear the words "retroclone" and "OSR" being bandied about when discussing it. What I remember, though, is the author coming on to various forums back when the game was first released (2017ish) and making an utter ass of himself, aggressively promoting the game and popping into every "I need a game that..." thread and suggesting it. 

The actual core book is on the order of 700 pages, and I don't have that, but the Player's Guide was included in some bundle or other that I bought and that's all you need to make a character, so here we are. I read through said PG and discovered a couple of things. First, I don't think the game is a great fit for me personally - it's meant to be really high lethality fantasy and it's pretty grim, and I dunno, if I want that I might choose to play Shadow of the Demon Lord. But with that said, the other thing I realized was that if I ever did run this game, it wouldn't take much to get the system down.

It's a percentile system, roll low (so far, so good), but if you roll doubles and succeed, it's a critical success, whereas if you roll doubles and fail, it's a critical failure (hang on...). Also, players have a "Fortune Pool" that they can spend points from in order to gain various benefits, but those points then become part of a Misfortune Pool that the GM can use. There are also a bunch of things that don't happen in Chill, but like I said, parts of this system sound pretty familiar. 

Anywhichway, chargen is largely random, including stats, and I'm not crazy about random stat generation but I do very much like random backstory generation because it presents an interesting creative challenge. So let's DO THIS THING. 

Ahem. 

The chargen section tells us, first of all, that our characters are meant to be average people changed by the world around them, and I can get behind that as a thesis. Step One is just to confirm that we're at the "Basic" tier, so OK then.

Step Two is Primary Attributes. I'm get 3d10 + 25 for each of them, in order. So:

Combat 38
Brawn 40
Agility 47
Perception 50
Intelligence 45
Willpower 34
Fellowship 48

I have to say, "Fellowship" is a cool title for the social stat. Not bad stats, all told. I can, however, swap any two or boost any one to 42%, so I think I'll jack Combat up, since that seems like it'd be important. My Attribute Bonus in each one is 1/10 of the score, round off, so CB 4, BB 4, AB 4, PB 5, IB 4, WB 3, FB 4.

Step Three: Sex & Ancestry. I get to choose sex, so I'll be male, and then we move on to Ancestry. Humans are the default, though I can play various other types if I wish. There's a table that includes all of them, but they're all weighted the same (so I'd have, for example, a 10% chance of being human). Ah, what the heck. A roll of 34 gives me "elf." Sure, I'll be an elf. 

Elves in this game don't bear a lot of resemblance to Tolkein/standard fantasy elves. Sure, they're long-lived and kind of fey, but they're arrogant and hot-tempered, too. I get a bonus to three Bonuses and a penalty to three others. Specifically, I get the bonus to Agility, Perception, and Intelligence, but the penalty to Brawn, Fellowship, and Willpower (ugh, that Willpower Bonus sucks). 

I get a randomly rolled Ancestral Trait: A Warrior's Tattoo! Sounds badass. Let's check.

Not entirely sure what the "Punishing Quality" means in practice, but it sounds dope. Moving on! Step Four is Archetype and Profession. Archetype is a broad category that then gives a range of possible Professions, but it's all random so let's get to it! 

Archetype roll: Warrior. Well, at least I'm consistent. My Profession is...Pugilist. (But then I ain't expecting you to know the explanation of that word, HOG BOY! SNORT SNORT!)

Actually, you know, I'm starting to see Sergei Polunin's character in the 2017 Murder on the Orient Express as an inspiration, but I'll keep that in my back pocket for now, since there's more randomness to come. 

Step Five is Secondary Attribute. My base Peril Threshold is my WB (ugh) + 3, which is 5. My Damage Threshold is my BB (which is now 3) plus a bonus from armor, but I don't know if I have armor or not, so I'll wait on that. Encumbrance is BB + 3 (6), and Initiative is 3 + PB (9). Nice.

Step Six is Background, and here we're back to rolling shit. Season of birth is kinda like astrological sign, I think. My elf was born in (roll)...summer. And now I get to roll on the "dooming" table to see how I'm foretold to die, which I have to say is a nice way to bring across what kind of setting we're in. My dooming is "respect power, for it does not respect you." Spooky.

Roll for Age Group, and we get Young. That works. No Distinguishing Marks to roll. Tan complexion, husky build; 6'4" and 222 lbs. Pretty big for an elf. Sienna hair (had to google what that would look like), amber eyes. Lots of earth tones, here. Cultured Upbringing; that inspiration is working pretty well. Now how about Social Class? Aristocrat, perfect! I can pick a Drawback or roll for one, but I see Choleric Temperament and that's pretty on point.

Step Seven is Hand of Fate, but that really means "you get one Fate Point, or two if you took a Drawback," so that was easy.

Step Eight is Alignment. I have an Order and a Chaos alignment, and it's really about the balance between them. Sure, that's as good a system for this as any. Roll them bones, and we get Impiety and Heresy. That's...a wrinkle for this character, and I kinda like it. 

And now we need a name. There aren't really any naming conventions, other than "don't be silly," which I can get behind. Let's check the random elf name generator...Orym Waesjyre. I like it. 

And now we get 1000 Reward Points, that we need to spend on Skills & Talents & shit like that. Whee buddy! 

OK, so this isn't dissimilar to SotDL in some ways; as you increase in Tier, you can move between Professions and refine them. So first off, I have to spend 100 of my 1000 points and buy into the Pugilist Profession, which gives me the Mortal Combat! trait.

Cool. And now I have 900 more points that I can spend to buy these things:

Man, this chart is formatted strangely. What it means is that I can buy those Skill Ranks, Bonus Advances, or Talents for 100 Reward Points each. I was kind of hoping for a little more customizability, honestly, but that's cool, let's see here. I pay 50 points, not 100, for Skill Ranks in Fellowship Skills (due to my Cultured Upbringing), which would include Rumor and Guile. So it's very much in my interest to buy those, since it's CHEEP like the budgie. 

I feel like I ought to raise my WB, my FB, and probably my BB, so that's another 300. 500 more to go. Let's look at those Talents?

Uh, yesplz. 400 points left. 

Back to Skills; I feel like I should take Athletics and Intimidate. Ooh, definitely Coordination. 100 more. Well, Toughness makes sense. That's 1000! 

So, figuring in my bonuses and stuff, I can redo my derived traits (this is why they should be done at the end of chargen, la-di-da-di). That's really it, other than gear. I could go through trappings and stuff, but honestly I'm ready for lunch and I think I've got a pretty good sense of Orym.

Specifically: Orym was raised in a very snooty household. Dad was a military officer, but was well past the point in his career where he had to be a warrior. Orym grew up big and strong, bulky for an elf, and initially intended to become a priest. 

His family's death brought that to an abrupt end. Some enemy of his father's (here's a good spot to tie things in to another PC or the ongoing plot, GM) stomped in while Orym was away at whatever passes for seminary in this setting, killed his parents, and burned the place. Orym still has some money, but he's largely rejected his family's influence, not because he has anything against them, but because if he accepts help from the upper crust then he goes back to a life of being pampered. And deep down, Orym feels like he doesn't deserve that, not while he was away playing pretend while his home burned.

I picture Orym's fighting style wavering between balletic and graceful and being utterly brutal rage, depending on who he's fighting and why. I think I'd want him to progress towards either an assassin-style profession or maybe come back to the church. 

That'll do it! Still don't know if I'd want to run this, but chargen was fun. 

Movie #686: The Shining

The Shining is a 1980 horror movie based on the book by Stephen King, directed by Stanley Kubrick, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, and Joe Turkel. I know, tell me something I don't know already.

Jack Torrence (Nicholson) takes a job as the winter caretaker of the only hotel in Colorado without a ski season, the Overlook. He brings his wife Wendy (Duvall) and their young son Danny (Lloyd), with the intent of writing a book while he's stuck in the hotel for five solid months. Of course, the Overlook has seen its share of crazy over the years, including the murder-suicide of the Grady family, Grady being the former caretaker. But Jack isn't worried.

Shit, as they say, gets fucky. Danny is psychic and can see ghosts, or perhaps the echoes of past events. Jack starts to go crazy and gets cranky and violent, eventually grabbing an ax and going after his family, but only succeeding in killing the hapless hotel cook, Dick Hallorann (Crothers), whom Danny psychically summons to help. In the end, Wendy and Danny escape and Jack freezes to death, but apparently has been here since 1921?!

The Shining has had a great deal of analysis by people smarter and better qualified than me. Personally, if I knew nothing else about the story and hadn't read the book, I'd assume that Jack gets assimilated into the hotel, becoming part of its history - effectively, retroactively "always having been here." Kubrick evidently felt that Jack was a new incarnation of whoever was in the photo, but I don't think that really comes across. Honestly, one of the reasons I like this movie so much is that so much goes unexplained - the Overlook is a Thing That Should Not Be, and the story is pretty Lovecraftian in that it's a (relatively) normal man coming into contact with forces far beyond his ability to understand them, and being consumed by them. 

I try not to let behind the scenes knowledge of the people involved in movies color my perceptions of it (that way lies madness of the "so-and-so did this, I read it on Twitter, so now I can never watch him in a movie again because he's PROBLEMATIC" sort), but I know that Kubrick terrorized Duvall during the making of this movie to get the performance he did. Feel about that whatever way you like (it's interesting to watch the BTS video that Kubrick's daughter made and see Duvall very gingerly saying that Kubrick is fucking douchenozzle without, y'know, actually saying that and tanking her career), but I think it kinda sucks that she went through all that and then got nominated for a Razzie award for her trouble. 

The Shining is a classic horror movie and as such you can see its influence in a lot of other properties; Michelle and I watched the first season of American Horror Story recently (I know, late to the party) and there's definitely some Overlook influence in the murder house. It doesn't have the rewatch value of some other contemporaneous movies (Kubrick, man - didn't make what you'd call fast-paced movies), but it definitely has the sense of place that a good haunted house story needs. 

My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Low

Character Creation: Showdown

August! Chargen! Here we go!

The Game: Showdown
The Publisher: Dark Omen Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Showdown is a two-player game in which you and a friend portray two people fighting to the death. The specifics are left to the players, but the meat of the game is going through flashbacks about their relationship and how everything got to this point. There are dice and cards (there's a special deck, but you can use a normal one, it looks like). 

It's not a million miles from One Shot, and probably pretty close to A Single Moment and/or Reflections. I like the game, the text is easy to follow, I just don't tend to be interested in two-player RPGs, but that's just me.

ANYWHO. First thing me and my hypothetical other player would do is decide on setting and genre and style. And I think it'd be fun to do a low-fantasy, thieves/assassins guild kind of thing. Like, the final battle isn't a full-on metal-on-metal swordfight, it's the two of us sneaking around a warehouse (or whatever) trying to get the drop on the other. That sounds fun.

So the first thing I do is come up with some general ideas and concept. I think my guy isn't a killer, he's a thief and a saboteur (and as such has probably been responsible for deaths), but he's not the "stab 'em in the throat" sort of guy. At least he think he's not (a lot of this game is changing your qualities and learning the truth about yourself). I'll say his name is Willet.

The next thing I do is come up with details. These are things that would be obvious upon meeting the character or that would be introduced quickly in the movie version. Will has a young face. He has a long scar across his throat, and as a consequence of that wound, a strained voice. Finally, he wears a short leather jacket covered in scratches and marks. 

Next up, I need a weapon that Willet will use to kill his opponent (or at least try). I picture him having twin boot knives. 

And then, Qualities. These are things that aren't obvious when looking at the character, and that are reflective of how Willet sees himself. They will also all change during a game. 

I know I want my first one to be not a killer. Following that theme, I'll say Willet thinks he's an honorable thief. Just to set myself up for crushing disappointment, Willet also thinks he is respected by the criminal class and unknown to the nobility. 

And that's it, cats n' kittens. Willet is ready to kill or die!