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Art of the Genre: The Art of the DM

Art of the Genre: The Art of the DM

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Me at right, Murph in middle, and my personal DM Mark to left, circa 1990 as we prepare for a Shadowrun adventure.
Me at right, Murph in middle, and my personal DM Mark to left, circa 1990 as we prepare for a Shadowrun adventure.

Yes, it’s true, I’m posting a day late on my Art of the Genre blog, but hey, when you’ve been the Gamemaster for six straight days of 14 hour gaming, I think even the great John O’Neill can cut me a little slack. I’m mean, this is my vacation after all, so I think having anything, even this odd article, to post should show how much I love my readers!

Still, it was kind of tough, amid all the chaos of gaming, to settle in on a subject for this week’s AtoG. However, the more I sat around the gaming table, the more I began to understand the Art of being a Gamemaster and how that translates into something cool.

I mean, I’ve been doing this since I was a tween… well actually before the word tween even existed. Even early on I would sit at a table, screens before me, and paint pictures with words that are vivid enough to keep my friends coming back for more. And when I say coming back for more, I mean really, truly, coming back, no matter from where, for more story spinning than I’ve the right to foist on you here.

I’ve gamed with the same group of friends since middle school, and it’s not like we all live three minutes from one another. Nope, we are now stretched from Maryland to California, but one week a year, we make a sojourn back to the Midwest to roll dice like we did when we were twelve.
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Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Battleship

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Battleship

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battleship-teaser-posterYou sunk my interest.

And so The Avengers gets another week at #1. Welcome to the Billion Dollar Club. Have a seat next to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and watch that The Dark Knight doesn’t try to steal your popcorn.

The question burning my mind as I left the theater after watching Battleship was: “Why ‘Fortunate Son’?” At the close of two hours of a rah-rah, fist pumping, pro-military glamor parade, why play one of most famous and angriest protest songs ever over a montage of alien ships getting smithereen’d? Did no one involved in the movie listen to the lyrics? “Some folks are born made to wave the flag / Oh, they’re Red, White and Blue. / And when the band plays ‘Hail to Chief’ / Oh, they point the cannon at you.” Maybe the music supervisor thought, “Oh, hell ya! People love Creedence Clearwater Revival. Let’s crank it up!” Perhaps director Peter Berg was trying to allay blame for the film, screaming “It ain’t me! It ain’t me!” Or maybe Berg filled his Navy vs. Aliens blow-em-up flick with a subversive anti-military/industrial complex message that I failed to find on my radar.

However, I will never know for certain, because there’s no way I will ever watch Battleship a second time. This is the essential Stupid Summer Movie, a Michael Bay film without Michael Bay’s obsession with disaster porn that at least gives his junk a crazy edge. If you thought the idea of adapting a strategy guessing game was a poor choice for a blockbuster movie, you were right: stick a red peg on your upper tactical screen.

Maybe the “Fortunate Sons” are the film’s heroes, who have the luck of going up against an expeditionary force of the stupidest extraterrestrials since Mac and Me. These heavily armed dreadnoughts fly twenty light years to reach Earth, but immediately smash their most crucial vessel into a satellite (they were drinking, I assume). Later, the aliens suffer defeat from the insurmountable force of senior citizens, a tourist attraction, a paraplegic, a supermodel driving a Jeep, and a tech-geek with heavy luggage.

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Kickstarter Alert: New Fire, an Aztec-inspired RPG

Kickstarter Alert: New Fire, an Aztec-inspired RPG

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Kwaytlachtli of the Screaming One Warrior House
Kwaytlachtli of the Screaming One Warrior House

With 10 days left to go, I’d like to make everyone aware of the upcoming game New Fire, currently being funded through a successful but so far fairly low-key Kickstarter campaign. Most readers of the blog are probably familiar with Kickstarter through Scott Taylor’s great posts on the subject. New Fire has their game fully designed, but is seeking Kickstarter support in order to fund professional-level artwork for the product.

They’ve hit their $3,000 goal and their $6,000 stretch goal, so they’ll be releasing full-color versions of their core rulebook and are currently in the process of getting together a second stretch goal. At low levels, you can purchase a PDF copy of the book, but at higher backing levels there are hardcopy books available, as well as T-shirts, and even some design a Landmark or village for the campaign setting. (The backer goal to help design a god is, unfortunately, sold out.)

I spoke with the game’s creator, Jason Caminsky, and after the conversation was even more excited about the prospect of this game. There are three things which really make it stand out for me.

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New Treasures: Shadow Blizzard by Alexey Pehov

New Treasures: Shadow Blizzard by Alexey Pehov

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shadow-blizzard2I tend to avoid fantasy trilogies until the third book is published, for the same reason that I don’t date musicians under 30. Because I’m married. Duh.

Man, that didn’t make any sense. I blame these stupid cold medications. My head feels four feet in diameter, and my thoughts seem to take… longer… to travel from one side to the other. I wish Alice were here to make me soup and send me to bed, but on Friday she left to take our son Tim to music camp in… um… I forget. Some state that has music camps.

You know what I need? A really good fantasy I can curl up with until I feel better. And now that Shadow Prowler, the third book in Alexey Pehov’s epic The Chronicles of Siala, has arrived I can do just that. Shadow Prowler is the sequel to Shadow Prowler and Shadow Chaser. Here’s what Matthew David Surridge said about the first volume in Black Gate 15:

Pehov has written a fantasy trilogy, with elves and orcs and dwarves and wizards and a quest… this first book, at least, feels fundamentally like a game of Dungeons and Dragons. The story is even structured around the exploration of an ancient burial ground, Hrad Spein, the Palaces of Bone, filled with traps, magic, and the undead… there is an enjoyable buzz of plot going on in the book. In fact, once you get over the echoes of Tolkien, in the form of the ancient artifact, the quest story, the elves and dwarves and the setting, you notice that the actual structure of the book is closer to Harry Harrison’s The Stainless Steel Rat: a thief tells the story of how he is captured by the good guys, and made to work for them.

Ancient burial grounds, traps, magic, the undead, and a reluctant thief. Yup, that could get me through this cold. Here’s the plot summary for the third volume, just for comparison:

Shadow Harold’s quest is almost at an end: he and his companions have fought long and hard to make their way to the tomb Hrad Spein, in search of the magic horn that is their only hope to defeating The Nameless One. The journey was perilous, and many in their company did not survive. Together, however, they have come further than anyone else ever has — but their struggle isn’t over just yet…

Wow. Three books, and they’re still in the same dungeon? Holy cats, that does sound like an epic game of D&D. If that’s not enough to sell you, here’s the cool book trailer.

Shadow Blizzard is 462 pages in hardcover. It was published on April 24th by Tor, and has a $26.99 cover price. It was translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield.

Ernie Chan (1940-2012): A Legend Passes

Ernie Chan (1940-2012): A Legend Passes

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savagae-sword-of-conan-erniechanEarlier this evening I heard the sad news that one of comics’ great legends, Ernie Chan, has passed away. Ernie was set to appear at the BigWow Comicfest in San Jose this weekend, so his death comes as a real surprise to those of us who expected to see him there.

I wanted to post a tribute in the form of my favorite Chan images. You can see that tribute right here. Some of these he painted, some he penciled and inked, and some he only inked — but Ernie’s inks were some of the most powerful in the world of comics.

When I was a kid I couldn’t get enough of Conan the Barbarian and its black-and-white companion magazine The Savage Sword of Conan. But I was incredibly picky about the art in my comics — if the art didn’t blow me away, I wouldn’t buy the comic. Plus, I had the seriously limited budget of a child, so I had to be impressed by the art or I left the book sitting on the rack.

Whenever I found a Conan book that was drawn (or inked) by Ernie Chan, my money hit the counter immediately.

Rest in peace, Ernie. You will be missed…

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Two – “Freeland”

Blogging Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon, Part Two – “Freeland”

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9665211flash-gordon-volume-2“Freeland” was the second installment of Austin Briggs’ Flash Gordon daily comic strip serial for King Features Syndicate. Originally published between February 24 and August 21, 1941, “Freeland” was the second story in the daily companion to Alex Raymond’s celebrated Sunday strip. It is the second of two Briggs strips available in a reprint collection from Kitchen Sink Press.

“Freeland” gets underway with the ship bearing our motley crew making its way toward the Promised Land free from Ming. Flash and Dale set out in a rocketship to scout for a safe harbor and encounter a hostile tribe of what appear to be Native Americans.

Once more, Austin Briggs demonstrates his version of Mongo is more attuned to contemporary American experience or American history than the prehistoric or Medieval Europe model chosen by Alex Raymond. Briggs may also be borrowing a page from Edgar Rice Burroughs (one of Raymond’s primary inspirations) in transplanting Native Americans to another world.

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Goth Chick News: Pass Me a Prom Dress and Some Pig Blood

Goth Chick News: Pass Me a Prom Dress and Some Pig Blood

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image0022There’s just no point in continuing to harp on this whole remake / reboot craze that Hollywood seems to be suffering from the last few years.

True that the lack of innovation is depressing and the originals are almost always better, but you can probably think of at least one movie that you’d be interested to see in the light of a new generation of special effects.

So with that firmly in mind, let’s dust off the formalwear, order some carnations, drop by that slaughter house on the outskirts of town and once again, take Carrie White to the prom.

If you recall, the original Carrie of 1976 had Sissy Spacek in the waif-like, telekinetic, bullying-victim lead role, while Piper Laurie played her nutso, religious fanatic Mommy-dearest, Margaret.

Margaret White is, in many ways, the center of the horror classic and undoubtedly one of the most disturbing characters ever seen on screen. Associating sex and puberty with shame and sin, Mrs. White turned her tortured daughter’s home into another place of torment instead of a sanctuary.

Spitting out lines like, “They’re all gonna’ laugh at you,” and “I can see your dirty pillows,” Laurie created a psycho movie mom that would make you want to spend the holidays with Joan Crawford.

Now four-time Oscar nominee Julianne Moore will attempt to top Laurie’s Oscar-nominated performance; she has signed on to play Margaret White in the upcoming Carrie remake.

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Art of the Genre: The Art of Pokémon

Art of the Genre: The Art of Pokémon

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Pokemon Study Hall by Hinoraito, and boy there are a bunch of characters in it!
Pokemon Study Hall by Hinoraito, and boy there are a bunch of characters in it!
I never wanted to watch Pokémon. It’s a phenomena that came WAY after I was too old for it, and in essence was driven by collectable card games ala Magic the Gathering which I stayed well away from at all costs.

Sure, I knew Pikachu as it’s pretty hard to be alive in this world without knowing the electric-type mouse Pokémon as well as his constant companion of Ash Ketchum. But truly, that’s as far as it went.

Then came 2006 when my son was born and I named him Ashur, which of course would get shortened to Ash at convenience as he grew. Did that name have anything to do with Pokémon? Nope, although there was a bit of Evil Dead in there to be honest, but for the most part it just fit. Three days before my Ash arrived, his cousin Iris was born. Again, nothing odd about that occurrence at the time, and yet these days I think about the event as I watch Pokémon: Black and White and scratch my head because the two main characters of that version… Ash and Iris.

Yes, I watch Pokémon with my son. It can be rather addicting, as any quest cartoon can, each adventure building on the next as Ash continues on his journey to be a Pokémon Master. My son loves it, collects plush Pokémon, and studies his Pokémon: Black and White handbook like it’s the gospel.

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Goth Chick Crypt Notes: First Official Clip from Prometheus Dropped Today

Goth Chick Crypt Notes: First Official Clip from Prometheus Dropped Today

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Prometheus has landed.

Or at least the first official clip has.

Today Fox unleashed a never-before-seen bit of the upcoming Aliens prequel and we here at Goth Chick News are so excited we very nearly opened a Facebook account.

Well, not really. But you get the idea.

In the minute-long sequence featuring Idris Elba landing his impressive looking spaceship on a planet that definitely is not Earth, we’re treated to a few hints as to the origins of our species.

Less than 3 weeks to go… Can you stand the wait?

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Dark Shadows

Black Gate Goes to the Summer Movies: Dark Shadows

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dark-shadows-posterDark Shadows is the first victim of The Avengers. Next up is Battleship.

Contrary to the horrified reactions to the trailer, the state of Tim Burton’s creative career, and Warner Bros. willful promotional ignorance of the movie, Dark Shadows is not a massive disaster. It’s merely a dull flick that suffers from the most standard of bad-movie flaws: an uninteresting story. A few flashes of something better appear — although it is hard to determine what that something was — but this latest attempt to revive the 1966–71 Gothic daytime soap opera seems to drift in clouds of weed, lazily resorting to some broad yet humorless gags while forgetting that it has multiple plot strands that require attention. The film’s slogan really should’ve been: “We were going to make a compelling story for Dark Shadows, but instead we got high.”

Dark Shadows also isn’t much of a comedy; the reviled trailer sells the film as outrageous culture-clash humor, but these kind of jokes make up only about a third of the film. The rest of it consists of stilted scenes of characters sitting down and talking about what isn’t happening in the rest of the movie.

At least there’s a great soundtrack, a surprisingly smooth meld of one of Danny Elfman’s better scores in recent memory with pleasing early ‘70s pop and rock. Another plus is a production design that feels more natural and sensuously subdued than what Tim Burton usually produces. If Burton was consciously experimenting with an understated Gothic décor and a more realistic vision of the 1970s than people expect of him, I applaud him for it. It works, and it’s one of the few aspects of Dark Shadows that does.

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