Monday, August 29, 2011

The Wand of Orca


 The Wand of Orca
This black and white wand summons a Killer Whale once per day. In an aquatic environment the whale will now fight alongside the summoner for ten minutes before disappearing. In a non-aquatic environment, the killer whale plummets out of the sky a terminal velocity and does a lot of Damage when it lands on the intended target.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

This is what I call the Muppet Show

OKGO does the Muppet Show theme. Not really all the kean on the music except for when they get funky around the 2min mark. I do however think the video is amazing and the part where the Muppets are muppeteering the band is wonderfully sureal (plus Fozzie's look of concentration is priceless) and it is filled with a lot of great visual gags and one liners.

Kids in the Hall Saturday

But first .... the whores!
because this became something of a rallying cry whenever the PCs went to town.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

The Archaeological Discoveries of Prof. Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.

This limited edtion piece of awesome was on sale HERE.
Unfortunately, it was already sold out by the time I found it.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Faintheart

A very sweet and funny film about Larpers.

Once Upon a Time ... Man

This was one of my favourite shows growing up.

I may have been a weird kid.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Pondering what I am Pondering.

So the question on my mind of late has been; why bother to write a brand new RPG anyway?

By that I mean, why not just fit my ideas around one of the many excellent systems that already exists, rather than try to launch something entirely new and may not ever appeal to anyone else but me?

I have been following with great interest and have given serious thought to embracing the OSR movement, writing for Labyrinth Lord, Castles and Crusades, or even just busting open my old Red Box and going from there. Then I have to be honest and admit that while I love rolling-it Old Skool, when it comes to writing I much prefer a sinmple, cohesive system rather than the 'different dice mechanic for every rule' approach.
So why not start my own D6 Renaissance, or even a TWERPS Revival Association. Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.

I could even tinker with the Omnisystem, but to me that is forever bound to Talislanta, and thus, pretty much sacred. BTW, one of these days remind me to get into how Talislanta was directly responsible for 3D&D.
If I had to choose a system to work with, my choice would probably have to be RISUS, which is distilled awesome.

There was a time when I had found a game and thought; this was it, this was going to be the only game for me. Everthing thing I did forthwith, was going to be based on THIS ONE game. I also had a night job at the time and was watching a lot of pirated anime. That game was BESM. I quickly created a world called the ‘Moonlit Empire’ and ran my players through a couple of good to satisfactory adventures (gotta dig up those world notes one of these days).

Then with every successive book and supplement that “a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_Order>GoO released, the disillusionment grew. I railed in the forums and even sent letters to the company to get it back, get it back! This had been a pure and useful system, what where you doing to it?! Cock Fighting Seizure Monsters? Obscure licences to shows I barely recognized? Where was the frackin’ basic Fantasy Supplement? Finally, I gave up and sold all my books on ebay a few years before GoO finally imploded.

BESM aside, with all these great systems available, why break new ground? There are thousands of unplayed and abandoned homebrew systems out there littering the dead pages of the intraweb. Do I really want to add one more?

Frankly, yes. My time to write is limited and if I am going to do this at all, I might as well play in my own sandbox; play by no one else’s rules or restrictions. Do I care if anyone else ever plays the game as is? Not really. If someone ends up plays one of the adventures using a different set of rules, or even just gets a good idea, or a laugh out of something I put out there, I’ll consider it worthwhile.

If anyone is interested in starting up a TWERPS revival movement, leave a comment!

Kids in the Hall Saturday

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The Golden Shackle

I could go on for a few pages describing everything that was wrong with "Cowboys and Aliens" but I think it was summed up in the title sequence when the names of FIVE scriptwriters appear. For any film this is a certain guarantee of studio interference resulting in a disjointed, cliché riddled plot. Despite the interesting initial concept there is nothing new here, but the performances of Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and the always nice to see Clancy Brown might make for a worthwhile renter or a slow night on Netflix.

My major peeve is that Hollywood needs a new Alien. In the fifties and sixties we had mindless alien monsters or big headed super races or even humanoids with green blood. Now all we seem to get are piss pour Giger variations with a lot of slime effects to cover up the bad CGI. Nor can anyone give these things an ounce of credit; despite processing superior weapons, advanced technology including (I'm
assuming) an FTL drive, a penchant for genocide and the personal outlook that we are nothing more than insects, the first time the aliens are threatened they all charge out and attack like a gaggle of rabid wolverines, but with slightly less strategy.

Anyway, on the drive home my wife made a comment along the lines of "at first I thought at the bracelet made him like the Silver Surfer. He went first and picked out the victims." See how a simple twist could have made things a whole lot better? It certainly beats my idea that they we're just here to mutilate the cattle.

In honour of this gem of an idea,

Gameraid: Adventure Seed
The Golden Shackle

Either by coincidence or on a mission to find one of the missing persons, the party finds them in a region beset by a rash of mysterious disappearances. One night in a small village a thin, half starved and filthy stranger appears, obviously insane and rambling about the horrors he has seen and how everyone should flee before 'they come for you'. The man is wearing a strange golden shackle around his wrist and when a gang of local toughs try to take it off, the weak and pathetic man proceeds to beat the hell out of them.

That night, the village erupts in screams and confusion as something stalks through village, abducting people and dragging them off into the night. The party meanwhile, finds themselves battling for their lives against something they can't quite see in the dark. The next morning the man with the shackle has disappeared, but the party finds him stumbling through the wilderness, weeping and begging the party to kill him before he is forced to do it again…

There are a number of ways one could go with this… my choice would be to roll d6 twice and combine!
1-The huge pirate ship that was spotted off the coast.
2-A nearby mine was recently closed down after they broke into a massive underground cavern filled with strange ruins.
3-A man in a metal mask calling himself Prophet of the Black Circle has been going around preaching about the end of the world.
4-After a night of falling stars, strange lights have been seen in the skies over the cliffs.
5-In a nearby village that has been almost completely wiped out, one of the few survivors tells of the strange alchemist that they drove out of town for performing unspeakable experiments on stolen livestock.
6-Scholars or rangers may notice that the moon was full when the attacks first began. It is now time for the moon to wax, but instead it remains full and every night the unnatural howls coming from the deep woods are getting louder.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

The Wheel of Wonder


The Wheel of Wonder is a device made of waterproofed leather that can be used by adventurers to cross waterways or traverse a straight hallway at twice walking speed. Many have also been enchanted allowing them to float in the air, or to cross lava or acid.

The wheel can be stored in a pack, but requires one hour to inflate by lungpower along, or a half hour with a set of bellows. It is also extremely susceptible to puncture and will retain its usefulness for only one minute before entangling the rider and starting to sink, or plummet depending in the situation.

Value: 100Ł, 3Ł per patch kit.

Kids in the Hall Saturdays!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

What would Jabba Do?


Over the past several months I've been selling off most of my Star Wars toys. Mostly Power of the Force stuff mixed in with a fair amount of Episode 1 and 2 stuff (I had completely had it by 3). Now, I don't like what happened to Star Wars any more than most guys my age, but I do have my laserdisc copies of the Original and Untouched trilogy and a lot of great memories. In honor of those, I've held on to a few original figs, plus a POTF collection of Original Trilogy characters plus a Millenium Falcon and my AT-AT, who's name is Rusty.

Everything else went through a series of yard sales, kijiji adds and a few weeks renting a table at a local flea-market which actually turned out to be a lot of fun. Its a good way to get rid of stuff quickly, but you are able to sell stuff at a higher price than people want to pay at yard sales and you sell to a much a broader group of people.

I liked selling to the kids the best. They have some genuine affection for the Prequals and we always gave them a break in the price. The best moments were with a young autistic girl about the age of twelve, who liked to come by our table and tell me all about the adventures she had with her toys. She also had a weird and awesome thing for Jabba the Hutt (unfortunately we'd sold the couple of Jabbas we'd had, but we did get her an Oola and a few other Jabba's palace figs) which lead to her suddenly spouting off these words of wisdom that Ipersonally will never forget, "What would Jabba do in this situation?"

Several months later, we were down to Anakin and Sebulba's podracers, which went as a set to a buyer off Kijiji and a probe droid which I was thinking about keeping until I got a fair price, until all that was left was a set of three Vulture Droids on a stand (very swooshable), and a battle droid on STAP still in box. We also had some Farscape figs still mint-on-card and a few other things ready to go, so last night we decieded to hauled it down to Ye Olde Comic Book Shoppe to see what we could get for the lot.

Store credit being worth more, we traded it all in for a 25th Anniversary Optimus Prime and oh fantabulous day, a Ray Stanz and Winston Zeddemore to complete our Ghostbusters set! While the wife carefully freed Optimus from his box (she's the Transformers nut), I pulled the Ecto-1 out of its box, dusted everybody off and posed them for a reunion photo. These guys are going in the display case, baby!

Friday, August 5, 2011

Toymasters


'Nuff said.

Terry Gilliam in 1974


A 1974 clip from something called, Bob Godfrey's 'Do-It-Yourself Animation Show'. Apparently in 1974, networks were doing shows like this. Today, we get Jersey Shore and the pitiful display that was once the glory known as Shark Week.

Still, I am a huge Monty Python fan and an even bigger Gilliam fan. Seeing this clip over at Cartoon Brew made my week!

Monday, August 1, 2011

The Fez of the Pharoh, Part 1

After the usual technical difficulties and scheduling mix ups, we got everyone skyped in and ready to begin our very first Ghostbusters International Game, tentatively called,

"We are on the threshold of establishing the indispensable defense science of the next decade: professional paranormal investigations and eliminations. The franchise rights alone will make us rich beyond our wildest dreams." Dr. Peter Venkman

The year is 1985. Crippled and cash-strapped by lawsuits and insurance claims, the Ghostbusters have placed an ad in the back of Rolling Stone magazine looking for potential investors interested in opening Ghostbusters International (GBI) franchises. One particularly depressing New Year's party in Ottawa Canada, in a small apartment with a haunted carpet, a group of friends decide to respond.

It was suppose to be a joke…

The night began with character creation and signing the mountain of paperwork supplied on behalf of the GBI by Louis Tully CPA. On hand were:

-Dr. Dirk Mantooth Paranormal investigator
-Dr. Elias Spectre / Astrophysicist and ladies man
-Amanda Jones / Archeology student and owner of the possessed carpet
-Hammer Jones / Her well meaning, if somewhat dim witted brother
-Melly Winston /Paramedic and resident skeptic

After the drive to New York city in their white, GMC van (soon to be named Ecto-A), they receive some preliminary training, sign a lot of releases and insurance forms and are about to head back to Ottawa when one night when the other Ghostbusters are out, there is a phonecall from a reporter by the name of Elaine Jackson, asking for the Ghostbusters' help. If they are the only ones around, they will have to do.

The next evening, the team heads out in plainclothes to the reporter's hotel room only to find it locked and no one answering. After first ascertaining that the hallway carpet is not haunted, the team breaks into an adjacent room. In the alley below, they see a K-Car with two black men and one white, speeding away. The window to the reporter's room is wide open and easily accessible by the fire escape. Mantooth climbs across to the open window while Spectre and Hammer go down to the alley and Amanda and Melly keep watch.

In the alley, Spectre discovered a crushed, black fez next to a garbage can. In the room above, Mantooth is sickened by the scene of horror that greets him. A woman, presumed to be Ms. Jackson, has been brutally mutilated. Her entrails have been pulled out and blood covered the walls. The look of horror on her face suggests she was alive and awake when it occurred. Calling for Melly, the seasoned paramedic discovers a rune carved into her forehead. PKE readings are faint, but definitely present.

After a cursory investigation the police seem uninterested, stating that they had a dozen or so of these murders over the past few years and that, suspecting cult activity, they had turned the matter over to a professor at NYU. They also let the team take a folder of newspaper clipping written containing articles by Ms. Jackson since they are from a tabloid called 'Lurid Tales' and could not possibly contain anything important.

Returning to the firehall, the team pours over their clues. Ms.Jackson had extensively covered, 'The Carter Expedition', a mysterious trip organized by rich, gadabout Richard Carter to deepest, darkest Africa. No one really knows why they went, or what they were looking for, but the story got interesting with the entire expedition, containing six wealthy British and American explorers and scholars, disappeared. Bodies were soon discovered in the jungles of Kenya and shortly thereafter, some local bandits were hanged. To most that seemed the end of it, but Ms. Kennedy's hand scrawled notes in the margins seemed to indicate that it was not the whole story.

Further research discovered a link between the black fez and the symbol carved onto Ms. Kennedy's forehead. Both linked to something called, 'The Bloody Tongue', a gruesome death cult that originated in Africa.

The next day, they went to the university where they spoke to Professor Mel Lemmings, a specialist on tribal cults. She confirmed the Team's findings and said that she suspected the cult has been operating in the city for a number of years now. She also said that she believed that the cult was much more widespread than most, existing in different forms in China, Africa and Australia, though as yet she had no concrete proof. Then she pointed them to a store in Harlem called, 'The JuJu Boutique', which she tough was the headquarters of the Bloody Tongue in NYC.

Returning to the firehouse to suit up and grab their proton packs, the team headed out to Harlem where they found a narrow alleyway that opened up into a filth covered courtyard. The only doorway leads into the JuJu Boutique.

Hammer notices what he first assumes to be a homeless person pulls himself out of a pile of refuse. The hobo shuffles towards Melly and grabs her by the shirt. At this point, more hobos emerge and the team quickly realizes that they weren't homeless, but the walking dead.

The battle was my first experience running the rules-lite d6 version and I had to improve pretty quickly, but it turned out to be a fun and gruesome affair with lots of missed shots hitting piles of rotting garbage, and the zombies exploding in a rain of guts and goo when had taken enough proton hits. Hammer actually engaged one in fisticuffs and knocked its head clear off, which continued to bite at his ankles until he booted it into a nearby dumpster.

Their first official battle as Ghostbusters ending in gorey victory, they girdled their loins and walked towards the door to the JuJu Boutique… but not before scooping up the zombie head from the dumpster

They are gonna call him Harry the Head.

Careful readers may have noticed what adventure I'm running here. If you slightly lower the seriousness of a Chuthulu Adventure and slightly raise the seriousness of a Ghostbusters adventure, (which isn't hard in either case) they meet pretty easily. I find the GBI game as written plays more like the cartoons anyway and it was always my intention to aim for the slightly grittier feel of the first movie.