Gen Con: What I'm Looking Forward To Most, part 3

Part 3 of the series...

Castle Ravenloft.

Wil Wheaton will be there, speaking and selling chapbooks of gaming stories. As a fellow member of the "video game/D&D/BBS/Star Wars figures generation", I enjoy reading what he has to say. I'm sorry, J. and G.!

FFG has a Space Hulk co-op/solitaire card game on the way. Looks like fun!

Alderac has a new version of the alternate history World War II game Dust: Tactics that looks like a hybrid board/miniatures game. I'm also interested in their Cadwallon boardgame City of Thieves.

The Cubicle 7 booth will have a wide variety of titles, including the acclaimed ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying. I'm curious about it because Steve Kenson, the "mastermind" behind Mutants & Masterminds, also worked on this. I'm hoping they will also have a copy of Barbarians of Lemuria for me to read through.

Green Ronin will have DC Adventures and some unspecified surprises for their 10th anniversary.

There are at least a dozen more. I'm sure there will be plenty of surprising discoveries to be found. I love finding something great that I wasn't expecting.

Gen Con: What I'm Looking Forward To Most, part 2

Part 2 of my look at new games and other favorites at Gen Con:

Volume 2 of Open Game Table: The Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs should be available at the show through Studio2 Publishing.

Two books of advice on playing and gamemastering that I've been thinking about picking up for a while: Graham Walmsley's Play Unsafe, and John Wick's Play Dirty.

Tabletop Adventures will have the print edition of the "White Box" Swords & Wizardry rules, and limited print copies of the One Page Dungeon Codex.

Chimera Hobby Shop -- this is the booth that has boxes of dirt-cheap CCGs, discounted miniatures, and row after row of RPG books at 50% off cover.

More tomorrow!

Gen Con: What I'm Looking Forward To Most

Gen Con begins this Thursday...technically -- the unofficial festivities have spilled over into Wednesday in recent years. For me, Gen Con begins Friday morning, when our caravan pulls into town. Really, though, the Gen Con season starts when the buzz for new products begins, when guests and events are announced, and the anticipation starts to build. Two months ago, maybe? I'm already in the Gen Con state of mind.

The title of this post might be misleading. What I look forward to most is the camaraderie, the fun, the shared stories and the shared history. Gen Con is the place where the members of Geek Nation can assemble and wave their freak flag high, for four days at least.

The shared history is particularly important for me. It's a continuous living connection to the past of our strange and wondrous hobby. Stop in and watch the Gen Con Auction for a history lesson, not only from viewing the vintage items but listening to the matching stories from the auctioneers.

More Gen Con nostalgia later. This posting is really about what games, products, and general silliness I'm most looking forward to this year. I was inspired by Zach Houghton's Gen Con vendor previews over on RPGBlog2, which helped me look at the company sites for several interesting new products, along with my notekeeping and bookmarking for the past few weeks as the announcements and previews filtered out. Another important resource is the 2010 Exhibitor Website Directory over at Livingdice.com.

First of all, Eden Studios will be at the show. Buffy, Angel, zombies... go to their booth and buy stuff!

Fireside Games will have scratch-and-dent copies of their popular co-op boardgame Castle Panic for only $20.

The main book I'm looking for this year is Shadow, Sword & Spell from Rogue Games. From what I've read about it (A Primer, interview), it appears to be a new perspective take on old-school pulp fantasy. By "pulp", I mean The Big Three of Weird Tales: Howard, Lovecraft, and Smith. This might be the rules I've been looking for to run a Conan RPG.

When you walk the the length of the dealers' room twice and then drag your backpack to the next game, you're going to be thirsty. Grab a Rootjack, the pirate energy drink. It prevents scurvy!

And after walking all day, hit the Geeky Clean booth for soap with a d20 inside.

Speakin' o' pirates, matey... Scotty's Alehouse is having a Pirate Gatherin' on Saturday night. I've never been there, but from what I've read this year it sounds like they are getting into the spirit of the con as much or more than even The Ram. While supplies last, Scotty's is handing out one of four commemorative dice with the purchase of a gaming-themed entree. Freeport Sea Biscuits and Gravy?!

So much for the silliness. Tomorrow I'll write more about the books and products I believe will be the highlights of the show for me.

Friday Links

One awesomely-cool website: http://www.scifiairshow.com/

...and three super-creepy robot videos:

BigDog New Improved 2008 Version

LittleDog at MIT

Boston Dynamics BigDog Fort Benning Report, Feb. 2009

Free RPG Day 2010 this Saturday

A quick reminder that this Saturday is Free RPG Day, an industry-wide event for local game stores to get players to stop in -- hopefully new players, or regulars playing a new game.

Some highlights this year include the 40K Deathwatch RPG quickstart adventure, a Cthulhu scenario from Goodman Games, the quickstart for Prime Directive (the Star Fleet Battles RPG), and a Dark Sun 4e module.

You can find participating retailers here. Go to your local shop and try something new!

Keyboards for Rock Band 3

After the teasing hint at the end of the Green Day Rock Band demo, there has been wild speculation about the possibility of a keyboard added to Rock Band 3. Now with the story (video) in USA Today this morning, it's official.

This is great, exciting news. The new gameplay elements are neat, but the keyboard opens up the possibility for songs by The Doors ("Break on Through" is in the demo video), Journey, Boston, Billy Preston, Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby (OK, maybe I'm dreaming here) and other synthesizer/organ/piano-heavy rock. How about Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression"? Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets"? Van Halen's "Jump"? (a song that could do for RB3 what "You Really Got Me" did for Guitar Hero)

Eventually, Harmonix needs to review some past content and update it for the keyboard controller, such as Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time" from RB1.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of 80's synth-pop like this:

The end of The Cimmerian

At the end of May, an announcement was made that The Cimmerian blog would be coming to an end on June 11th. This coincides with the Robert E. Howard Days celebration in Cross Plains, Texas this weekend.

For several years now, The Cimmerian Blog has been the main informational site for Howard fans, and so much more. As the subtitle says, a website for "...the best in heroic fantasy, horror and historical adventure." From 2004 to 2008, The Cimmerian was the premier fanzine pro-zine in the Howard community. The blog was a great companion to it, and when the print edition ceased publication the blog continued the tradition.

You can read two good (short) histories of TC and its place in Howard fandom at the Two-Gun Raconteur blog and at the REH United Press Association blog.

Besides the high level of quality inherent in the articles posted there, what I'll miss most is having just one place to go for news. It appears that the articles will be archived at the website of the editor, so past articles won't completely disappear. Any new articles from the team of contributors will be spread among a half-dozen blogs and forums.

I'm also disappointed that I never picked up any print issues of TC. Yet another reason to purchase collectibles and rarities when you have the chance...

'Empire' at 30

Last Friday, May 21st, was the 30th anniversary of the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back. There have been several tributes posted in various places, including this look at a first draft of the script.

Last week Mrs. Kaiju and I had discussed that we should watch Empire sometime over the weekend to mark the occasion. We spun the disc on Sunday night. I'm sure everyone in our generation remembers what it was like to see Empire for the first time, with that surprise double cliffhanger ending. We were very pleased at how well the movie holds up after all these years. It makes the problems with the prequels that much more irritating.

I recommend that you check out this link to the trailer for the original 1950 version of the film. Thanks to Viking Moose and others at Urkobold for being the first place that I saw this.

Favorite Music Friday: "Every Breath You Take"

In this edition of "Favorite Music Friday", I want to spotlight one of the great songs of the '80s. This is a song that I wanted to talk about eventually, but the subject came up recently. Two weeks ago, in fact, when we were talking about The Police before the LV game.

I have many favorites, whether it's music, or books, or movies, but I haven't made the conscious decision to list any of them in order, as a "top ten" or "best of", or sort them out in that way. There are usually so many greats to choose from that it's difficult for me to narrow it down. At some point I'll post about my favorite movie, The Maltese Falcon, but that list gets scattered after #1.

One that I'm sure of: "Every Breath You Take" is my choice for the Best Pop Song of All Time.

I know, it's a song about a stalker. Sting himself has said that it's "very sinister and ugly". I understand that. However, musically, it's beautiful. The video is elegant in its simplicity.

Having said that, I actually like my runner-up choice better: "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic". The only reason "Every Breath You Take" edges it out is because it was a bigger commercial hit.

As a film buff, I love that it's obviously shot using film. There's speckles and pops, and a film tear at 0:15 seconds into the video:

At the first listen, it's deceptively simple. In the video the band does a silly dance in the recording studio. But when you really listen (headphones, not earbuds), there's a great deal going on in the song -- the layers, the changes. What I mentioned before, about the music telling a story, is found here. It really brings up a host of emotions for me.

I wanted to include the "official" MTV versions of these videos, but their player is very jerky and stops to re-buffer. Here are the links; you may have better luck:

http://www.mtv.com/videos/the-police/18169/every-breath-you-take.jhtml#artist=1143

http://www.mtv.com/videos/the-police/9671/every-little-thing-she-does-is-magic.jhtml#artist=1143

Frank Frazetta, RIP

One of those things that you expect, sooner or later, especially after his recent bouts of illnesses. But when it happens, it's still a shock and a loss.

We saw the news late Monday night that Frank Frazetta had passed away earlier that day from a stroke. He had a history of strokes and had been in poor health the past few years, particularly with the death of his wife Ellie last year.

I'm glad that his children resolved their differences last month -- deciding to work together to promote their father's work and legacy -- after the unpleasantness between them following Ellie's passing.

This isn't meant to be an obit -- there are plenty of official stories out on the 'net, written better that I could do it -- at the Washington Post, Deadline, the LA Times and the New York Times. But I would be remiss if I didn't say a few words about an artist who has had such a profound effect on my own imagination and ideas about art in general.

I can't pinpoint exactly my first encounter with Frazetta's work. I've always been a big fan of fantasy and science fiction, for as long as I can remember. I do have the memory of seeing the Lancer (and later Ace) Conan and Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks with Frazetta covers in bookstores, especially the prominent display in the Waldenbooks upstairs at Scottsdale Mall. I also remember seeing samples from, and the ads for, the Ballantine Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta books in Starlog Magazine in the early '80s.

Later, after more time and reading, I learned more about his extent of his work -- not just cover paintings but pencil drawings, ink work, comic book art, movie posters and album covers... on and on.

What I think makes his work so powerful and popular is how dynamic it is, how much is going on in that snapshot of time. In some works, we see the moment before something happens. In others, it's the aftermath. But in all of them, there's the quality and artistry -- visceral, raw energy, in every brushstroke or line of ink. Pure magic.

More DVD News

More recent news:

Sony will release the Blu-ray edition of Jason and the Argonauts, the 1963 epic from stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen, on July 6th. Jason is probably his best work, where he's at the top of his game. An interview with Harryhausen by genre director John Landis is included from the DVD, and additionally the Harryhausen Legacy featurette will be on the Blu-ray.

The trailer commentary site Trailers From Hell has released a DVD of their best trailer videos. Speaking of John Landis, he provides commentary on four of the trailers.

Next week, the original Gamera will be released on DVD. This will be the first unedited, subtitled release of the film in the U.S.

The Criterion Collection has a free channel of their films on Hulu.com. They released the first six Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman films on Hulu in February, and last month twelve more were posted, including the rare 14th film, Zatoichi's Pilgrimage, as yet unreleased on DVD.

Hammer DVD and merchandise news

There was much news this past week on the pop culture front. Most of the items I read about deserve their own posts (and I'll increase my posting count that way!).

Two of the really exciting items concern Hammer Studios. Titan Books has already released two new books about the history of the studio, and their merchandise unit has signed a deal to release Hammer-related items including t-shirts, starting later this year.

Even better, thanks to Synapse Films we'll soon be getting the remainder of the Karnstein Trilogy on DVD.

Fangoria Magazine is reporting that Synapse has picked up the rights to several Hammer titles -- Vampire Circus, Twins of Evil, Hands of the Ripper, and the 13-episode TV series Hammer House of Horror. House will be available in a DVD boxed set, and new high-definition transfers of the films will be released on DVD and possibly Blu-ray.

Twins of Evil completes the Karnstein Trilogy on DVD, with the previous releases of Lust for a Vampire by Anchor Bay, and The Vampire Lovers (print restoration article, possibly NSFW) in MGM's Midnite Movies series. Vampire Circus is a title that has been sought-after for years on DVD, and is considered a "fourth" movie in the Trilogy.

I'll update the R1 Hammer DVD list when actual release dates are officially announced. While we're waiting for that, check out my other Hammer posts and take a look at the site for the terrific fanzine Little Shoppe of Horrors. The articles in LSoH are excellent but the Bruce Timm covers are a great bonus.

More Lulu discount codes

Two more discount codes for Lulu are circulating right now. Use coupon code LULUMAIL305 at checkout and receive $3.99 towards your final shipping cost. This amount is the US mail cost for a single book order. The expiration date listed in the email notice is midnight on May 1st.

The second code is SHOWERS (April showers, May flowers?), which gives you 10% off your total purchase. This one may only be good until April 30th.

See my posting here about book and game suggestions from Lulu.

"So, tell us, Baron..."

"...of the time you crossed the Thames without the assistance of a bridge, ship, boat, or balloon..."

One of the ideas/goals/plans that has been in the back of my mind for a while (in this case, since the first edition of the game was published), has been to get some people together to play The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

A group of like-minded, gregarious and lively goobers get together for a grand and hearty meal, then as after-dinner drinks are dispensed, settling in for fun storytelling and challenges in the outrageous tradition of the Baron himself.

To evoke the correct atmosphere, I like to imagine the setting as a fine wood-paneled banquet room, around a heavy wood table, lit by candelabras or oil lamps. Cheers!

Wizards of the Coast embraces their heritage

Many product announcements came out of last week's GAMA Trade Show. The ones that I'm most excited about were from, surprisingly, Wizards of the Coast. Based on some of their products announced for this year I think they're starting to understand the hook of nostalgia and the surging OSR movement.

September sees the release of another D&D 4th ed. starter set, but this one looks like a clone of the iconic '80s "Red Box" Basic Set. If this turns out the way I imagine, I'm all over it.

Castle Ravenloft, a co-op adventure board game, is out for Gen Con. They should have done this long ago.

Gamma World returns in a series of books using the 4e rules. I didn't think I would see that again.

XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery

At last year's Gen Con, while wandering the Exhibit Hall, I walked by the Hickmans' booth where XDM was being offered for sale. I had read a little about it, not much, although the impression I had was that it was a book about playing RPGs -- d20/OGL specifically -- in some sort of "extreme" way, with lots of action, stunts, and phat lootz.

Fast forward to last Wednesday, when I was checking the new reviews on rpg.net. One of the day's reviews was this review of XDM, focusing on the rules system. I hadn't thought much about the book or read anything else about it since Gen Con, but I was struck by the tag line for the review: "The best thing to happen to RPGs since the 20 sided die. Seriously." With such a bold statement, I just had to read what it was about.

The book itself does appear to be more about tips and tricks to use with your game. The rules system included, the subject of this particular review, is very simple. The player tells the GM what he or she wants to do, the GM determines a target number based on the difficulty of the action and the character's skill, and the player rolls the dice. It seems to be akin to indie-style rules-light games of high-trust shared narrative control, such as Wushu. The magic system works the same way -- Describe the effect, calculate a target number, and roll.

Seems like a lot of fun, and a style similar to the games our group has been playing lately. I was intrigued by the review, and now I'm curious to read the book itself.

Favorite Music Friday: "Come Dancing"

This is a special Sunday edition of "Favorite Music Friday." I had planned to spotlight this song eventually, but I was reminded of it last night.

"Come Dancing" is among my favorite songs of the 80s, and my favorite song by The Kinks.

Even though there is a touch of sad nostalgia in it, which could be read as a corresponding "loss of innocence", I don't see it as sad and melancholy. Overall there's a feeling of optimism in the song; looking back at past good times, but also a celebration of those days and the present, from the organ notes at the beginning to the brass section that cranks up near the end. I love the sound of an organ and brass instruments in rock songs.

Being a fan of all things British, too, I love this look at a slice of post-war life in England. The song takes on added meaning when you find out that there was a ballroom dancing competition show on the BBC named "Come Dancing" -- I didn't know until now.

When Mrs. Kaiju and I were at Borders yesterday, I flipped though an new book by the Onion A/V Club titled Inventory, a book of pop-culture lists. I was pleased to see that they recognized "Come Dancing" in their list of "Songs That Work As Short Stories". This will be a topic I come back to, but I love songs that tell a story, whether that's literally through the lyrics, or sonically when the actual music takes you on a journey.

Conan The Destroyer: A Re-Appraisal

(One of those draft posts I've been meaning to publish for months...)

Several months ago, I had the chance to watch Conan the Destroyer again for the first time in quite a while. For years this film had the reputation of being "The D&D Movie". The title fits -- a motley group of adventurers are brought together for an epic journey...under false pretenses and with a stinging betrayal.

I know, I know, it's not Shakespeare. It's not even proper Howard, but it's fun. And it's all we had in 1984.

Even though it's less about Howard's Conan than even the first movie, there are still many things to like about it. Roy Thomas's involvement with the original story lead to the comic-book feel of the movie, even if he was disappointed with the final product. I'm not sure what to make of Richard Fleischer's work on the movie. He directed such great films as Tora! Tora! Tora!, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Soylent Green. I think more of the blame should go to the script.

One of my biggest disappointments with the movie is the score. Surprisingly, because the composer, Basil Poledouris, created one of the all-time best motion picture scores for the first Conan film. Some of those same cues are reused here, and the new music is rather pedestrian.

Despite its flaws as a whole, there are so many things to like about the movie. During this last viewing, I made some notes on the bits that I love, and the classic fantasy tropes that are used through the film:

• A thief counting his coins
• Soldiers "sneaking" up on our hero
• A leaping backstab
• Conan punches-out a horse, Mongo-style
• A sorceress-queen who hires our hero for a quest
• A fortress-city on a mountain
• Evil-looking warlocks reading golden tablets
• "Dagoth, the Dreaming God"
• The Scrolls of Skelos
• A prophecy of a virgin sacrifice
• The threat of death/treachery
• Rows of giant statues
• The Queen's Guard following behind
• Cannibal tribesmen
• Decapitations
• Gladiator pit fights
• A crystal castle on a misty mountain lake
• A wizard transforms into a bird of smoke
• An impenetrable door with the only entrance being underwater
• An enormous spiral stone staircase (this and the underwater entrance are my favorite scenes in the movie)
• A hall of mirrors
• "Out!!"
• A sword fight on horseback
• An ancient tomb in the desert (this entire sequence is another great scene)
• Akiro nonchalantly lighting a torch with magic
• Zula afraid of...a rat
• Some really brutal swordplay against hordes of bad guys
• A magical wizard duel
• A secret entrance to the city behind a waterfall (my second favorite scene)
• An arcane magical ritual
• Sneaking in to stop the ritual
• A giant Cthulhu Mythos beast (designed by Carlo Rambaldi, who won Oscars for E.T, Alien, and King Kong)
• Conan tearing the magic artifact horn out of the monster's head and throwing it away with a priceless superstitious look
• The new queen handing out rewards to the group

Behind my GM screen

After the Freeport game last week, I cleaned up the table a bit and took some photos of my area. I was inspired by this great post on Gnome Stew from two weeks ago, and I thought I would take some time to point out how I set up my own gaming tools. I fell into the routine of setting up this way after the first few sessions. It helps me feel prepared by having everything in its place.

Going from left to right:

• The big stack of sourcebooks (more on that later).
• A small dry-erase board. Useful for quick maps, sketches, or combat stats.
• The stack of initiative cards.
• My hand-drawn map of the Southern Ocean (nice quality version coming soon...).
• A folder with my NPC name/place lists, fan-produced True20 cheat sheets and panels for the Narrator's Screen of Doom.
• A clock.
• A pile for the players: printed copies of the rulebook and various Companions, player cheat sheets, and the Pocket Player's Guide.
• My planning notebook: a graph-paper-lined legal pad where I write all of the prep for upcoming sessions. You would also find my version of the triad sheet for the session in here.
• A fistful of d20s.
• My session notebook: a yellow lined legal pad where I record the events of the current session. I also record combat information and any other during-the-session notes here.

On the table proper is my Chessex mat, minis-scale ship plans, scratch pads and pencils. Not seen in this picture is my MP3 player and portable speaker, both strapped under the table, randomly shuffling pirate-themed soundtrack music.

You'll notice that, despite the title of this post, there isn't a GM screen on the table. I've been running screenless for some time -- possibly since the zombie/Cthulhu game in 2000? -- after seeing how it has worked for Edige. I've found that, for me, a screen creates an artificial psychological barrier between me and the other players. I love the idea of a screen, and I like having all the necessary charts in one easy-to-use place. I don't want to create the illusion of secrecy, or the impression of GM tyranny that a screen implied in the days of D&D Past. If I use one now, it would be off to one side and not directly in front of me.

The big stack of Freeport sourcebooks... not including Broadsides! and Corsair.

Odd uses for the Trek Original Series font

Typography is an important component of written communication, yet sometimes underrated by the public at large. The content of the message is paramount, of course, but the right font can add so much.

Conversely, a poor choice of font can disrupt the intention of the message, either conveying an impression other than intended or worse, laughter and ridicule -- the over-use and misuse of Comic Sans, for example.

Some fonts are iconic. These fonts are so tied to their original or most well-known use that if one of these typefaces is used for another purpose, the effect is jarring. We wonder why it is being used for this purpose, why did someone choose this font and not another.

For me (and I'd assume many others), the typeface used for the titles of the original Star Trek TV show fit in that iconic category. The oblique tilt, the swoop of certain parts of letters, and the futuristic vibe are very strong. There doesn't appear to have been a name given to it at the time, and it wasn't seen elsewhere until years later when an official licensed font pack for PCs was released. Numerous share/freeware imitations have also appeared.

For whatever reason, in the past year I've seen many examples of the Original Series font popping up, particularly in the publishing world. I'm not sure why. I don't believe it has to do with the new movie; perhaps there's a feeling among graphic designers that it no longer holds that iconic status with new media consumers.

Here are a few examples. They just don't seem right to me.