Let Slip The Dogs Of War (Part I)

In which I discuss in detail the games I ran at Cauldron 2025, spoiling secrets and providing insights into the cracked mind of a geezer DM....

FRIDAY BLOCK I: Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame

Friday Block I was billed as a “Temple of Doom/Sidekick:” a short gaming session (only three hours in length compared to the other, four-hour time slots) designed to ease people in as they arrived for the con. People were given time to check in, find their rooms, gather their bedding (we made our own beds), and snack and coffee-up prior to the session, which ran from 4pm to 7pm (at which time dinner would be served). Quickly dressing my bed (deducing…correctly…that I’d be in no shape to do so at the end of the night), I discovered that my room had been stuffed full of Americans, many of whom I knew by reputation (and voice) from the internet, but whom I’d never met. Great guys, all around. Gus has a tremendous mustache of which I am tremendously jealous.

Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame is not a “Becker” original; it is, rather, a tactical exercise Anthony Huso designed and wrote as an introduction to his players when he first re-booted his AD&D campaign some ten or so years ago. He details this on his blog: as a campaign starter, he had his players create new, 1st level PCs, but then RAN them through a high mid-level adventure using EVIL pre-gens of his own design, sacking a temple of goodness. Following the scenario, he returned the players their original character sheets and kicked off the campaign proper with the PCs dealing with the aftermath of the destructive raid.

It's a fine idea; quite clever, in my opinion. The adventure itself (the map and his game notes) are freely available on his blog, and I decided to run the thing at Cauldron…something different, something fast, something that I knew had already been play-tested by one of the modern masters of the AD&D craft. Easy-peasy.

Unfortunately, Huso long ago lost the character sheets for the pre-gens, and I was forced to recreate them (best as I could) from the notes he provided. This was the bulk of my prep, made more than a bit challenging by his use of three evil NPC classes (the anti-paladin, the necromancer, and the witch) from Dragon Magazine. I am familiar with these, but I’m not particularly enthused by their implementation or execution in the mag. As such, I altered the classes rather drastically from how they appear. Here’s what I brought to the tournament:

• Caul, Flayer of Men: 8th level “Anti-Paladin:” abilities taken from Hackmaster…basically as a paladin except with reversed abilities (cause wounds instead of heal, befriend undead instead of turning, protection from good instead of evil, etc.).
• Vessvka Vith, Drow “Witch:” female Dark Elf cleric/magic-user of 6th/6th level.
• Tergomant Glim: 7th level cleric and a monster of a man (18 STR, 6’1”, 270#; wields a footman’s mace with one hand).
• Ergonin Hews: 6th level half-orc fighter, wielding double-fisted hand axes. Agile for an orc (Dex 17).
• Nicodemus Plath: 7th level half-elf assassin, based loosely on my son’s main PC of the same type.
• Sable Croft: 7th level human fighter; exceptional strength (though less than Caul) with a magic bardiche. More beef.
• Vlaimir Sush: 5th level Necromancer; totally unchanged from the Dragon mag entry and given a scythe for a weapon because evil necromancers with two-handed scythes are the height of coolness, even if the class kind of sucks.
• Barthax Brunst: 6th level dwarven fighter/thief. NOT one of Huso’s originals (he only lists seven characters, probably because he only had seven players). I wanted more PCs in the party because Huso throws psionic couatls, silver dragons, clay golems, and magic-user/monks at people (he’s a bad, bad man). Also, the fighter/thief built in some skill redundancy for the party.

For the adventure itself, I reformatted and (partially) rewrote what Huso had done. Anthony, God love him, has a penchant for writing the purplest of prose…he is an actual author, after all…but I needed things terse and punchy, both to match my personal style as well as the three hour widow with which I was working.

Likewise, I had to remove the various “Huso-isms” throughout the text: monks getting DEX bonuses to AC, or bonuses from wearing “silk armor,” anything that appeared to come from the UA, nutty magical “eye traps” that had multiple effects and would be a bear to adjudicate without a battle map (something I don’t use). Huso loves nothing better than a protracted siege battle a la The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun, but I didn’t plan on forcing the PCs to charge in guns ablaze. Why would they, when so many of their party members were more powerful in subtler ways? 

Besides, the adventure was plenty deadly as is.

Oh, yes…I also removed encounters #29-#33 and their associated sections of the map (too long, mostly empty, and redundant) and axed some of the other weird, none-too-normal weirdness (room #27 is simply empty and I switched the "Starfire Neonate" for a more Golden Child-like "Celestial Being").

[everyone knows the old Eddie Murphy “Golden Child” movie, right? The adventure gives off quite a bit of that vibe anyway]

Thing is, Huso made a divine being in need of slaying, but then gave it immunity to weapons of less than +3 while only arming his pre-gens with +2 weapons (come on, Anthony!); as such, capture/kidnapping had to be on the table, unless I really wanted to spend time re-stocking the dungeon (but, then, that would have made the adventure more drawn out as PCs would have to search for items to use to destroy the child and yadda-yadda-yadda. No).

Interested people who want my pre-gens and the re-tooled/formatted adventure I used at Cauldron can download them HERE and HERE, respectively. In play, I changed/improvised the last paragraph of the “START” to explain their mission: find and destroy…or capture…the “Celestial Child” (with no more information given as to what exactly a “Celestial Child” is).

So how did it actually go? Great! The players decided NOT to charge into the dungeon, but scouted ahead with their assassin instead, who was able to completely surprise and recon the couatl and monks in room #1 and report back without sounding the alarm. Using silence to first neutralize the spell-casting ability of all within the chamber, the PCs then charged into battle and put paid to the initial guardians without sounding the alarm. Pretty good start.

In the great hall, however, they were forced to decide on a course of action…and had trouble doing so. Eventually they decided to just start “opening doors” and seeing what was behind them, which led to them alerting the four clerics in room #7, the bulk of whom would sell their lives while the other two retreated through the many redoubts of the map to alert the temple proper. The players pursued, but the need to unlock doors (and getting hit by fire glyphs, etc.) slowed them down. They managed to NOT activate the clay golems in chamber 14, found the secret door, and the corridor that led to the trapdoor in area #6 (wherein resides a silver dragon). However, before going through that they waited for Chomy (playing the necromancer), who had been gathering dead monks and clerics to make maximum use of his one animate zombie spell. The party waited below while they sent a pair of their “undead soldiers” up the ladder to scout around.

And then watched as the zombies were vaporized with fire.

By this time (of course) the bell had started sounding in the grand hall, the temple was on alert, and minions were rallying to their battle positions, as they had been trained to do. The party knew that time was of the essence, but they were still trying to compose a battle plan of their own, arguing the virtues of one form of action or another.

While they were doing that, the trapdoor opened above and the magic-user launched a fireball into the narrow corridor below. So much for the necromancer and his zombies.

The PCs returned fire…perhaps Nicodemus with his poisoned darts and/or Barthax with his crossbow…slaying the magic-user. The group then decided to posse to head up the ladder and not wait around anymore. Of course, they saw the dragon, as well as the other magic-user (with a wand of lightning). Much hilarity ensued as more PCs were cooked but, in the end, they slew both and made their way to the battle royale with THE TWILIGHT PRINCESS herself. Much fun, but the forces of evil eventually triumphed (I think Marcellia was felled with a hold person spell, a common theme of the con...), and the remaining survivors (which I believe only included Caul, Tergomant, and Vessvka), made their way to the Child, who was fairly obvious considering the lilac skin, single blue eye, and enormous halo of light. All good: they removed the child, the temple started to shudder, and everyone headed for the exits (including the surviving defenders of the temple).

A good, solid game and just a few minutes over our three-hour time slot…we still made it to dinner with plenty of time to spare. 

*****

FRIDAY BLOCK II (Friday Night): the Battle Emridy Meadows. 

As I described in my prior post, I played in Settembrini's Chainmail game…at least until I could no longer physically stand without the risk of collapse. I bowed out around midnight and hit the hay at roughly 12:30am. I was then awakened at 6:45am by several successive members of the American contingent marching through my room to use the shower (the one bathroom being located nearest to my bed). The person occupying the cot next to me slept like the dead and snored like a chainsaw (so loudly that individuals from two doors down commented on it)…fortunately, for me he was a bit of a “white noise generator” and actually led to a fairly restful repose.

I finally dragged myself out of bed around 7:30, as much to use the bathroom myself (which I had to go down four flights and leave the building to do, given the person occupying the shower), and headed for breakfast.

*****

SATURDAY BLOCK I: Rivers of Blood, Death, and Glory. 

I will talk about this in a separate post.

*****

SATURDAY BLOCK II: Caul’s Dark Citadel

The afternoon session, after lunch, and this time I would be doing a “Becker Original.” Ever since seeing WotC’s use of “the D&D kids” (from the 1981 D&D cartoon) as “content” for their new 5E 2024 books (and on the cover of their Stormwreck Isle starter set), I’ve wanted to write my own adventure that featured these characters. And for Cauldron, I decided that I would use them in a sequel adventure to Huso’s Silver Temple of Transcendent Flame.

My plan was to make the adventure more of a stealth/infiltration in contrast to the Caul's destructive raid to showcase different styles of play. The PCs would be tasked with the recovery of the Celestial Child’s remains: a mercy mission fitting their 'good guy' ethos, as opposed to a task of vengeance. I figured the PCs could return the ashes (or whatever) to the Silver Temple, where the surviving monks would use the power of "transcendent flame" (or whatever) to raise it from the dead. This was my idea for quite a while, even after I realized it was a long shot that Caul and his buddies would actually figure out a way to kill the Child.

And yet, that wasn’t my main problem. The main problem was the actual adventure site, i.e. the map. I needed a stronghold for Caul...and while it couldn’t be too large, it still had to feel like an “epic evil fortress.” Or, at least, weird. Or both. But with a capped number of encounters.

*sigh*  Let me explain.

In a convention time block...even a four hour one (which is long enough that you need to give the players at least a break, in my opinion)...there’s a limit to how many encounters they can get through. An excellent example is the tournament scenario found in Dave “Zeb” Cook’s module I1: Dwellers of the Forbidden City. The scenario is a linear gauntlet: each encounter area needs to be bypassed, one after another. There are no branching decision points, no side treks, no work arounds. You have ten encounter areas…TEN…and that’s it. I’ve run this scenario countless times over the years, but the last two times were for Cauldron 2023, one in playtest (at home) and once at the convention itself, and both times with strict attention paid to the time limit. And in BOTH instances, I found it impossible for the players involved to navigate the entire length within the time frame…NINE encounters was the most anyone ever got through in four hours.

Dwellers is pretty dastardly, and it’s a good example for study: you have two large, “set piece” encounters. You have two “tricky” encounters that can be avoided through cleverness. You have one “trick/trap” room, you have two “small” encounters that should be resolved quickly, and you have one “medium” encounter that would normally be okay, but due to its position (at the end of the adventure), the party will be low on resources like hit points and spells and so it will PLAY harder than it might otherwise play. The last two encounters are (effectively) “empty” locations with nothing there except possible time wasting by the party. Generally speaking, a good overall formula…but, again, still too long for the time slot (it runs about 15-20 minutes over four hours, and I run the thing like a machine).

And anyway, this is supposed to be a fortress…a CASTLE, not a linear gauntlet. Dwellers works because of the scenario itself…you are burrowing through a mountain following a tunnel into the heart of the forbidden city. But I wanted something that could be explored with branches and loops and whatnot…an environment for exploration in other words. Where and how to even begin. So, I started thinking about what Caul’s castle would like like…something gifted to him by Dark Patrons (of course) since he was only 8th level and not stout enough to build his own. As such, it could be as twisted and fantastic as I wanted. And, of course, it would need ways to sneak in (because, duh, stealth mission, not “Avengers Assemble” frontal assault). So probably through a cistern or catacomb or something.

IN FACT, my original idea was to simply re-purpose the Pax Tharkas mission from DL1…even using the map from that module. How easy! (mmm…now that I’m remembering I was ALSO planning on using warped version of the DL heroes as the pre-gens before I finally decided on the D&D Kids). But after looking over Pax Tharkas, I realized that it was really, really crappy. I needed something else.

Eventually, after bouncing off several different ideas (including a Harold Lamb description of the Hashashin's lair..and having my daughter draw me a castle map), I finally decided on something I could live with: the castle from the Jim Henson film, The Dark Crystal. It had everything I needed…a way in through the tunnels beneath (in addition to a front gate), a crazy-ass interior, vivid rooms/chambers (from the film), verticality, etc., etc. A place for Caul to set his throne, a lab for Caul’s evil wizard to do apothecary stuff, a “temple room” (the crystal chamber) for the witch to perform her dark rites, etc. Now all I needed was a MAP of the place…and I found THIS on-line:

Look at that thing, ain’t it a beauty? Except of course, it’s got the cutaway floor plan that doesn’t work for me and actually making the thing make sense was going to require a whole bunch of scribbling and erasing and scribbling on my part.

SO…I procrastinated. I detailed the actual encounter areas, numbered at 15. 'Hey! 15 is more than nine,' you say…heck, it’s more than ten! Yes, but this is not a "linear gauntlet." I wrote the thing in such a way that there were some nine-ish encounter areas for the PCs to surpass to both A) reach the Child’s destination (which would be determined by the results in the earlier “Silver Temple” adventure), and B) escape the dungeon. Because…stealth, right? We don’t need to confront Caul and his minions (though, if you do, it's frosting…). In addition, I threw in a bunch of slave areas (people for 'good guys' to rescue) because, of course there are slaves (like the podlings in the movie) AND...because I wanted to go “full Henson”...I also stocked in all the DC’s “Garthim” (giant black crabs…same stats as the MM) as Caul’s mutated guardian minions. Chef’s kiss.

HOW’D IT GO? Well, I'd hoped to get some of the same players from my Friday, Silver Temple adventure (continuity), but no such luck. Sign-up sheets filled FAST. And "Best DM" winner Grutzi…who had contacted me before the con and left this session open specifically to play this adventure at my table was unable to get a spot! Crap. I had only seven pre-gens (my other games were all 8+) because, of course, there aren’t all that many “D&D kids.”

[no, there was no “Uni the Unicorn;” my characters are a decade older and Uni has long since left ‘em to join a herd or something. The seventh pre-gen PC was a grown up version of Varla the Illusionist, a minor character introduced as a love interest for Presto in an episode I believe is called The Last Illusion. Yeah…an illusionist girlfriend. Suck it, Hank!]

Adult Varla

But at the last second, I decided that I was being stupid and I just went and grabbed Grutz and told him: get one of his own pre-gens and join the party. We went with eight and he brought a cleric, which was a welcome addition...although I had converted the older “Sheila” into a (dual-classed) thief/cleric to ensure the party sported some divine power. Now they had more.

ANYway...despite finishing the maps only two days before I hopped a plane and not getting a chance to play-test the thing…it played surprisingly well! The players decided to climb the castle (forgot to put rope on their equipment list…whoops!) and enter through the highest tower, working their way DOWN rather than UP. Which was fine…that, too, was a way I'd coded my encounters for the con. Their first encounter was with the assassin Nicodemus Plath, contemplating his life choices in the lookout. They got into a scrap with him and should have been poisoned five ways to Sunday, but my die rolls were pretty horrendous, and they beat the snot out of him. I had him surrender and then they got to tie him up and do some "role-playing" as they interrogated him about the layout of the place. “Well, it’s kind of hard to describe...”

Thing is, my map was all wonky with “non-Euclidean geometry:” due to me trying to crib together a vertical map into something horizontal I just ended up using no corners (nor even many straight lines), just a lot of “bendy,” wrap-around tunnels and a great many stairwells and changes of elevation. It worked well to make the whole expedition confusing, frustrating, and painful for the characters, as the slaves they encountered had only partial information and even then could only say, “Well, it’s kind of hard to describe…” Much hilarity.

However, the players were determined to kill Caul, Divine Child or not. One of the players, Dillon, was a self-professed Huso fan and knew all about Caul and really wanted to off the guy (Dillon was very enthusiastic about everything, actually…I think he was having a pretty good time as his first Cauldron…). They figured out where Caul’s throne room was and hatched some cockamamie plan to disguise themselves as a Drow (Diana wearing the witch’s clothes from a ransacked bedroom) and a slave (Varla using change self) with an invisible Sheila in tow to backstab the guy or some such. Caul wasn’t buying it of course…everyone in his castle was cleared by him and he knew there wasn’t any other Drows or “new cultists,” and also knew that slaves weren’t allowed in the throne room (other than his chained up scribe), so he dispatched his cadre of gnolls to round up the obvious imposters.

Fighting ensued; damage was done, Bobby stunned the hell out of everyone with a thunderclap (including his own people), but Sheila got off a hold person on Caul and the party carried the day to much fanfare. They found Caul’s hidden treasure vault, trapped with a necrophidius (credit to ChatGPT for that idea), but still: no Divine Child.

“We’ve got to find that temple with the witch…maybe we need to keep going lower.” But the party really did not want to end up in the catacombs…they had a sneaking suspicion that would be a BAD IDEA (and they were right because...you know...Garthim). But a little lower they went and ended up in the slave pens and fought and killed an ogre with a big old whip (not as dangerous as it could have been) and then said “AHA! Let’s cast speak with dead on the ogre and see if he can tell us where we find the Child!” Okay, cleric, you get two questions:

“Where’s the Divine Child, dead guy?” With the witch…

“How do we get to the temple?” Well, it’s kind of hard to describe…

Hahaha…no, just kidding. He told them go up the stairs to the main hall and take a right. How hard is that?!

They found the temple, the child, and the her cultist acolytes worshipping a stone obelisk, roughly shaped like a spider, that floated above a red glowing pit (Dark Crystal, right?). Eric was dressed in Caul’s armor, Varla was doing her illusion thing and they got close enough to the witch to trap her INSIDE Erik’s “dome of force” (that his magic shield could project 1/day), while the others blasted the cultists and Diana grabbed the Child and ran like hell (as a 6th level monk she was uber-fast) up to the top tower where she could feather fall off. Pretty sure Shiela ran behind her as backup.

Well, that wasn’t so hard…what the--?! As the GIANT MUTANT CRABS in the shadowed alcoves came out to attack. More combat but they won the day, the witch surrendered, and the party made her divest herself of all her gear and commanded her to return to the UnderDark, never to return.

All with minutes to spare before the dinner bell. Good stuff.

[to be continued...]

A moment of unbridled joy...

Mystery Dice Goblin

Sometimes people ask me to review their products. Sometimes they send me their products. My time is limited and my bandwidth for a lot of these things is...even more limited.

Mystery Dice Goblin is a group that sells dice and dice accessories (bags, etc.). Like all gaming nerds, I've purchased plenty of such things over the years, to the point that I'm a bit jaded: if I'm going to buy a dice bag or box, it better be some sort of hand-crafted, artistic nonsense, and better be in a price point that doesn't make me feel like an idiot (or is just so cool that I can't live without it). Usually, I'm a "pass" on most such things.

And dice? I have enough dice. 

But they sent me some of their signature product: their "mystery dice" bag: a small, resealable bag with a full set of seven dice. They sent me three such bags, which my kids and I quickly divided up.

And what do you know...the gimmick works! It's kind of cool to rip open a mystery bag and 'oo' and 'ah' over the dice inside. All three of the sets were different, with gemlike finishes and inset, colored numbers. Of the three sets, two of them were nice enough that they might have been worth purchasing even had they been visible (sadly, my set was not to my taste...but two out of three ain't bad).

Pic is from their web site...

As a stocking stuffer, or birthday party gift bag or similar, these are great little packets for handing out to kids (or adults) who are into geeky dice games. And the price is good: a six pack of mystery bags is only $40, which is cheaper than a standard $8-10 box. And, as said, the gimmick's fun. Like ripping into a Cracker Jack box to get the prize. Dig it.

All right: Friday commercial done.

In other news: disappointing Seahawks game last night, but we've watched a lot of disappointing Seahawks-Niners match-ups the last couple years. Two dwarf teams in a row (Giants, too)...and dwarves are rough for orks. Especially when the dwarves are GOOD (which is the case with San Francisco, injuries or not). *sigh*

Watched The Spine of Night the other day. Not bad. But not great. The story felt very post-apocalyptic up until the end when it gets all mythical, fallen gods, and blah-blah-blah. Would have preferred fallen space men in a 50th century Earth, but oh well (AND, if one is looking for inspiration for a PA, warring city-state campaign world, the first hour or so is pretty groovy). Some of the (still) art was great. Some of the animation was pretty...mm..."pedestrian."  In other words, the movie was a mixed bag and uneven. However, for what is (basically) a 90 minute film that would have been par for Heavy Metal magazine, it wasn't terrible. 

And...this ain't the greatest blog post. But it's Friday and I'm busy. Later gators!

Hard Stuff

Happy (belated) Easter! Got through Triduum with flying colors, though Easter Vigil went long this year and not much sleep. Whatever. Sunday was a glorious, sunny day...quite enjoyable.

Also nice to drink beer again.

; )

The wife and daughter are out of town this week...flew down to Mexico to visit the fam, so Diego and I are "batchin it." Played Space Hulk for the first time Sunday afternoon. Lost horribly. Game is a lot harder than it looks. Hopefully we'll be playing some Axis & Allies and things will go better. Hopefully...we'll see. 

[D&D is probably on the agenda, but Sofia being out of town puts a bit of a crimp in things...she doesn't want us playing without her. Maybe some side adventures]

Watched Secrets of Blackmoor tonight...finally. Fascinating documentary.  Recommended. Wish there was video of Arneson GMing. For that matter, wish there were videos of Gygax. Just for context. You hear great things from their players. Would like to see them in action.

Afterwards, watched an episode and a half of a "celebrity lifestream D&D" series. It was terrible. And depressing. Even more depressing because it featured Deborah Woll (who I've praised before) and Marc Bernadin (who I haven't, but who I respect immensely). Just...terrible. But professional actors need to work and earn...I get it. Just sad they they're playing shit D&D. Sad.

So sad.

Since it's Easter, and I'm joyful, I won't say anymore about it...or 5E. Maybe later. When I'm feeling ornery. Like I was the other day.

Speaking of which: asked my son what HE would like to see in a "How to DM book," i.e. what would he find helpful in such a book. He told me the following (in this order):

1. Explanation of how morale works in AD&D.
2. Explanations of encumbrance (specifically, how encumbrance, armor and movement...particularly wilderness movement...interact and work within the game).
3. How to write an adventure, ESPECIALLY a "low level" adventure. 

All good topics, none of which were discussed in that book I referenced the other day.

[to be clear, I did not provide him with any context other than "I'm thinking about writing a book explaining how to DM; what would you hope/expect to read in its pages?"]

Anyway...it's late and I need to sleep. More later.

Return of the Jedi

Last night my family watched Return of the Jedi (AKA Star Wars, Episode VI). This was not our first time.

I was cooking dinner tonight...grilling, in fact (no rain...for a change)...and had briefly considered posting pix of how I make Paraguayan chimichurri and baked mandioca. Eh. Another time. My grill is on its last legs (at least the charcoal pan), and in need of a replacement (probably in the Spring). The film I just threw on as "background noise" while putting stuff together...although the movie I started streaming was Rogue One. It was my daughter that switched it to RotJ.

My daughter (Sofia) is nine years old. Because she is my daughter, she's already seen these films...multiple times. However, this is not the same with her classmates. Oh, some have seen the movies...her friend Posey, and most (all?) of the boys. But not her best friend (Milana), and another friend...Maddie...has only seen the original trilogy, and only over the last three weeks. 

They, of course, love it.

Still Good

So they've been playing a lot of "Star Wars" at recess. Acting out the movies. Pretending to be the heroes or the villains or the stormtroopers, etc. This is why she wanted to watch Jedi...they've been self-performing the films sequentially and only just gotten up to "Jabba's palace." Sofia says they know most of the lines (well, she does anyway), but she just wanted to 'go over it.' The film had only just started as my wife and son got home from soccer practice (her turn driving tonight), and Diego exclaimed "Hey! I want to watch!" So we did.

It's interesting, watching my kids re-watch these films...films that were so much a part of MY childhood (I saw all the original films in the theater...multiple times). Sofia is...mm...about where I was at her age as far as understanding goes, but interesting to see her amazement at non-CGI special f/x. My son is much more developed and mature for his age and eyes things with the critical eyes of a film critic and seasoned campaigner (a lot of pseudo-military stuff in these SW films and my boy is all about the war games and military history). 

BUT...just astounding how well they hold up as entertaining films for kids. I do not approve of, nor appreciate, all the the things my kids find "awesome"...a lot of their pop music, for example, or some of the kids shows they dig, or many of their book choices (I can't stand those "Wimpy Kid Books" and they both eat those up). But here's something that we all connect on.

It is also interesting that the 9 year olds are SO into this...perhaps this is the "sweet spot" for those movies? I believe Diego was about the same age when he started his "D&D Club" at school, mainly to run a Star Wars RPG of his own devising (based on the B/X chassis...natch). That club has since gone defunct, but the kids who enjoyed it are still playing D&D (albeit with different groups outside of school). But...Star Wars (and, specifically, the original trilogy) were a unifying factor. 

Sofia last night (during the opening scene in the new Death Star): "Darth Vader is the BEST!" He's pretty good all right, probably my favorite "supervillain" of all time. Religious zealot, scarred cyborg, rage-filled brute...plus, James Earl Jones. Just...menacing. Shiny helmet. Black cape. Featureless mask. It's all delightful. Jedi may be the worst of the first three films, but turning Vader into the hero at the end was a stroke of genius (although I prefer the original cut of the climactic scene which has NO inserted Vader dialogue during the crescendo of the film's score...why make the scene weaker, Lucas? Jeez).

Ok. I'll stop. 

[by the way, while Sofia has a huge appreciation for DV, I know that her favorite Star Wars character of all time...from all the films...is still Darth Maul. She will tell you the same, if asked. She prefers the Rebels for our Star Wars Legion games, but I'm guessing that'll change as soon as she sees a Maul model on the shelf]

Why am I talking about this? Partly to grease the ol' 'blogging wheels' (a little rusty lately). But also because it's (very slightly) pertinent to a project I want to talk about. NOT a Star Wars project, but...perhaps..."SW adjacent?" That might be accurate.

First, though, I need to get back to that whole 'procedural gameplay' thing I mentioned earlier. We'll get to it.

Barbie

But first, this:

Had the chance to see the beautiful, delightful Barbie movie last night; as I mentioned, mi suegra is in town, which gave the wife and I a chance to go out. Originally, we’d planned to watch Oppenheimer, but it was at a bad time for the theater we wanted to attend, so Barbie got the nod.

Just fantastic. Maybe the best new film I’ve seen in (literally) 20 years.

I’m not sure what I expected: something like Legally Blonde (a film I dislike…sorry, Reese), or the Brady Bunch (a film I *do* get a kick out of), or some giant toy commercial. The previews made it look a bit like Will Ferrel’s Elf movie, and there are some traces of that, at least in the beginning.

"Love Letter;" get it?

In fact it’s none of those things. And what starts off as an entertaining, funny romp quickly ramps up around the halfway mark to something far more. The film is nothing less than a giant love letter to women, to men, and (especially) to Barbie and to anyone who has ever played with and/or wondered what the hell is the appeal of this doll that’s hung around sixty-some years.

Incredibly well-written and directed, superbly acted, and featuring gorgeous visuals, the Barbie film had me laughing out loud multiple times, crying multiple times, and clapping my hands at various parts. It is dipped, nay drenched in irony and yet is so un-ironic and kind-hearted…like Barbie herself, there’s not a mean bone in it.

It’s a movie that helps renew my faith in humanity…or, at least, my faith in Hollywood’s capability to make a great motion picture.

My family recently watched the Barbie Dreamhouse Challenge…a fun little TV series to stream Saturday mornings on the couch after a family breakfast. Prior to that, I had no idea the sheer scope and range of appeal of Barbie, and only a cursory idea of its impact…perhaps because I never had Barbie (or Ken) dolls as a kid. My own children, of course, do…at least since my daughter turned age 3 or 4…and BOTH my kids have engaged in hours of imaginative play with the toys, sometimes in conjunction with a parent (me, a lot), but just as often by themselves. They’ve acquired quite a collection, and include many Barbie-sized superhero dolls in their various adventures and family dramas (there is an extensive network of blood and legal relations between our toys, not to mention histories and backstories). 

Both my kids want to see the new movie, and while some of the nuance and humor will be lost on them, there’s nothing terribly awful in the PG-13 film that I’d object to them viewing. Quite the contrary, actually.

And I wouldn’t mind watching it again myself.

; )

Batman

Hey! Must be the money!

["Ride wit me" playing in the background as I start to type this post. Followed quickly by another incredibly insipid song, "Butterfly" by the stupid stupid band Crazy Town. Only difference...far as I can see...is that Nelly was nominated for a Grammy for God-knows-what reason]

*sigh* Don't mind me. It's been a long day. And a long week. And a long month.

I decided, a few days ago, that it was time to introduce the kids to the various Batman movies. Of course, they know who Batman is...in addition to numerous animated shows, Lego films, and comic books, they've seen many of the old Adam West sitcom episodes (and the 1966 movie starring the same actor). But for [reasons] we've just never gotten around to watching the later films, not the first series kicked off by Tim Burton in '89, nor the Chris Nolan series from the early 2000's, nor any of DC's rather sorry attempts to create something like the Marvel Cinematic 'verse.

Which, considering A) the kids have seen nearly every Marvel film ever made (multiple times), and B) have long proclaimed Batman as one of their favorite superheroes of all time...well, it felt like it was time to fire up Ye Old On-Demand streaming service and get to watching.

Now, a couple+ of preamble thoughts for folks.

1. I've never been what you call a "big" Batman fan. Despite having owned and read comics and toys and (does anyone remember these?) colorforms of the Caped Crusader since I was a wee lad of 3 or so, he was never very high on my list. Captain America, the Hulk, and Spider-Man certainly outrank him. Within the DC universe he'd definitely come in somewhere below Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman (heck, I owned more Blue Devil comics as a teen than I ever owned of Batman titles). He was just never one of my favorites, okay?
2. Having said that, I've seen many of the various Batman films over the years. Well, I watched the first Michael Keaton one, and I've seen all the Chris Nolan films (multiple times). And I have seen Batman vs. Superman and rather enjoyed it (right up until the ending with Wonder Woman and Doomsday making trashy fan-service appearances)...Affleck may be my favorite Bruce Wayne of all time. 
3. As an adult I do enjoy a LOT about the Batman concept...though I probably still prefer Batgirl.

So, after running through the trailers for all the various Batman films, the kids decided that the first (1989) one with Jack Nicholson and Alec Baldwin's ex-wife (sorry...hold on. Kim Basinger. Jeez, my memory).  It was...pretty good. Some of it is really good. Not, unfortunately, most of the Keaton bits...he brings too much comedic sensibility to the role, something that doesn't fit very well with [my perception of] Batman. But I rather love all the other members of the cast, and their performances.

And here's the other thing I quite liked about the film: it wonderfully captures a near picture-perfect look at the starting career of a 1st level superhero in Heroes Unlimited. Of course, I'm talking an early edition of HU, not that bloated "2E" version. Burton's Batman could easily be a 1st level Hardware character from HU Revised (you need the Revised edition for its rules on building super-vehicles) splitting the character's budget between his car, flimsy "bat-jet," and computer-filled lair.

Grapple gun? Check.

Which I love (duh) as it gives me great ideas for the types of encounters, story, and staging one would do for such a character/game.

A day or two after this, we sat down to watch Batman Returns, the kids having thoroughly bought in to the project. Having never before seen the film, I was quite taken aback by how strange and surreal the thing is...far more of a Tim Burton film, I suppose, but quite dark and strange for a superhero film...especially a pop icon superhero like Batman. 

[and which led me to research the strange development history of every single Batman film. Fascinating, though quite a deep rabbit hole to tumble into]

Also it's a bit...mm...tedious? I fell asleep during the movie (a lot of long days lately, did I mention...?) and so will probably need to go back and re-watch the ending. But this film, too, struck me less as a coherent story, and more of a series of images, scenes, and situations designed to provoke emotional responses...which is fine (some films do that), but I guess it's not my preference.

However, Batman Returns still feels like someone's Heroes Unlimited game...probably more so, due to its overall weird disjointedness. Watching it felt like Burton was the young GM who, fresh off a successful romp in HU with his one buddy (Keaton, playing the bat-themed hardware character) brings in a second, NEW player (Michelle Pfeiffer) and tries to find a way to integrate her cat-themed anarchist into the ongoing campaign. It's still low-level, high-competence gameplay of the HU variety...no world vaporizing Thanos on the horizon, no Kryptonian mothership crashing into New York, just a weird penguin-themed villain teaming up with smash-able stooges with guns...with the usual, expected results.

Yeah, "expected." It's a tad strange to watch Batman casually murdering folks in these movies (as compared to the comic character or the later Nolan films), but casual murder of mooks and villains is par for the course in your average Heroes Unlimited game. Well, in my experience...probably there are GMs out there who have seen more Principled (in the HU alignment sense) behavior from their PCs. 

It's just tough when hand grenades retail for $60 a pop.

Anyway. The busy-ness continues (it's taken me some three days to find the time to write this up). Another multi-game soccer tournament going on this afternoon on the other side of Lake Washington. The stress of life events has been...getting to me, a bit, I guess. If the dog gets me up at 2am, I can find it difficult to get back to sleep, especially if I start to dwell on all the stuff I've got going on. Which sucks. I might have to get back on the regular coffee. Musings about Batman and (especially) Heroes Unlimited is a welcome distraction from everything.  Might have to get a game going, in the near future. Stuff like these old movies are fairly inspirational.

One last interesting (to me, anyway) thought. When the 1989 Batman (Burton) film premiered, I was 16 years old, and definitely NOT a Batman fan. I think I might have still been collecting Silver Surfer comics at the time(?)...a bit more "cosmic" in scope in terms of conflict. I had been exposed to the Heroes Unlimited game by this point (friends in high school), but they were running something far more high powered with the Revised rules in combo with Transdimensional TMNT. Those guys (they were all guys...my gaming with females ended at middle school and didn't start up again till university), were BIG into comic books in general and Batman in particular (I'm sure they saw all those movies, while I tapped out after the first). And, yet, they never ran anything "street level" in their games...instead they added as much "twink" as they could, even creating a list of "mega-powers" when HU's major powers weren't deemed beefy enough. Thinking back, it really makes me wonder what the appeal Palladium held for them, at all. Crunchy character building? Granular move-by-move combat? Bullet calibers and grenades?

Weird. They never did want to play Rifts and ridiculed that game soundly (unlike myself). 

All right. That's enough for now. Time to wake the family.

Not D&D

So I've now managed to watch the new D&D film twice; it's available for free on one of the many streaming services my cable company gives me.

[oh horrors! People cry...JB you have so little time for ANYthing, why would you waste it watching the same movie TWICE, let alone THAT one? Well, folks, the fact is my family watches too much television as it is...usually starting around "dinner time" and then only ending at "bedtime;" because of our daily schedule of activities it amounts to about 2+ hours every week night. So for me to throw on the film in the background while cooking is no big deal (TV's going to be on anyway) so long as no one complains about what I'm watching (and they didn't...in this case)]

I am going to pen my thoughts on the thing. There will (probably) be SPOILERS.

You may think, from the title of my post, that I didn't like Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. That would be incorrect. It isn't stellar, mind-blowing cinema, but it's likable enough: breezy, lightly entertaining fantasy fare. A good, on-the-couch-with-popcorn movie (which is how I viewed it the first evening). My family, including my wife, enjoyed it quite a bit.

Despite liking it, however, I'm rather astounded at the reviews the thing has received. 93% popcorn rating? 90% Rotten Tomatoes?! Wha-wha-what? Really? I mean, it's about on par with one of those Ant-Man films and none of those have cracked the high 80s. Heck, it wasn't much of a cut above the latest Shazam! film, and that thing was under 50%.

Thing is, despite better (and more likable) actors, tighter directing, updated special effects, and delightful music score, I found a lot of the film quite similar to the original (rightly panned) D&D movie. A lot of parallels. That's not an attempted 'put down;' I just find it...interesting.

Okay, let me list a few of the things I quite liked about the film:

• The actors, their approach to the film, and the chemistry was all quite good.
• Some fun little "D&Disms" were nice to see: all the traditional PC races (minus...elves?) make an appearance. Seeing black dragons, intellect devourers, and owlbears in a live-action  film is fun. Some iconic spell use (Bigby's hand spells, Evard's black tentacles, timestop, etc.) is neat and showcases some of the unique aspects of D&D versus the usual fantasy drama.
• Immensely enjoyed some of the traditional class portrayals. The paladin was great (love the idea that he "smells" evil). The half-elf sorcerer was quite a good example of a low-level magic-user. Dug the bard flashbacks when he was wearing some sort of plate armor (perhaps in his days as a fighter?). And the fighter lady (Holga? I really can't remember any of their names) was highly reminiscent of my friend's long-running character, except she used a talking sword and preferred her potatoes mashed. Oh, and she didn't have a thing for halflings.
• I quite liked the tiefling character! At least, I didn't hate it. But I'm sure many 5E aficionados will say "that's not a tiefling!" and perhaps that's why it appealed to me. The small horns, prehensile tail, and shapeshifting druid thing all gave the character a very fairy tale fey vibe that I quite liked (as opposed to the edgy half-demon warlock with fire abilities and sexy high charisma). No, she was cute and bumpkin-y ("guileless") and a good stand-in for the 'Tolkien elf' which I'm, frankly, quite sick of.
• Even though I'm not a fan of the Forgotten Realms, I quite liked that the film was set in an actual D&D campaign setting with recognizable names, places, and lore. It may be a stupid setting (sorry to the folks who love FR), but at least it's a nod to the extensive IP of the game.

Aaaand,,,that's about it. But I assure you that's a LOT of what made the thing enjoyable (or interesting) for me to watch. Oh and, sure, it also had some funny bits.

Here's what I disliked:

Despite the use of D&D tropes and recognizable game elements, the movie was very much NOT D&D. So much not D&D. It actually fought against itself in this regard (are these treasure seeking rogues or altruistic heroes?) which, for me, made the whole thing a bit of a muddle writing/story-wise. 

But the world doesn't even FUNCTION like a D&D world:

• Where the hell are the clerics? They are mentioned once in the beginning (wrt their inability to heal the bard's dead wife) and then never make an appearance. There's no healing magic at all (not that it's needed; see below), but boy you'd think some undead turning ability would be pretty handy fighting all the undead foes. No clerical ANYthing, even from the "divine" character types that DO appear (druid, paladin).
• This is not how magic works. Or maybe it does in 5E. No spell books? No memorization? No interruption of spell-casting? Because that battle with the red wizard at the end should have been pretty one-sided with all the shucking and jiving she was required to do. And the bard has...no magic? Even in 5E, that's not a thing.
• This is not what combat looks like in D&D. Now, I LIKED that the fighter girl could smack five or six dudes for every one attack of the bard (which is clearly something different than the 1E version, despite what I wrote above). But the way the group tended to stand back and let one character have their spotlight melee moment is NOT D&D (the paladin versus the assassin clan was probably the most egregious example). Points for avoiding and running away from some fights (like with the dragon), but generally there wasn't enough slaying and slaughter for a typical D&D game. Oh, except for castle soldiers: boy, for a group who prided themselves on not harming (killing) anyone in their heists, they sure beat the living shit out of a bunch of Neverwinter guardsmen who were just kind of doing their job. Oh, and the slingshot? I hate the slingshot.
• What's with the inter-species romance? I guess that's just played for laughs, but there's a lot of iffy-ness in the human-halfling thing. Like, I can buy that Holga and her ex- fell in love and that it was a unique situation...but now he's with another human? And in a later scene Holga is eyeing up another halfling? While I understand that people have their kinks, that's an awkward fetish thang to throw into the film. The tiefling/half-elf is far more believable (especially with the tiefling standing in for a wood elf), considering that there's at least a nod to the different cultural backgrounds (urban versus fey). Ah, well. 
• I hate 5E. There's a lot of 5Eisms..."attuning" magic items, for example...that just sets my teeth on edge. And is that how druid shapeshifting works in 5E? Just change at will, as often as you like, into any creature including fantastical ones (like owlbears)? Why not shift into a dragon and burn the place down? Sorcerers and "wild magic?" Oh sweet Baby Jesus. Do bards not carry weapons? Do "Harpers" not learn how to play a harp. *sigh*

All right, enough with the negativity. I said (a long time ago, maybe on someone else's blog) that the way to make a "successful D&D film" would be to create a GOOD FILM that had aspects relatable to D&D in it. I also opined that it would be pretty damn impossible to make a film that truly replicates gameplay because what makes the game great is NOT (generally speaking) anything that translates to a cinematic, story-telling art form. Judging by its success (there is talk of a spin-off series), this may be the best movie makers can do with such a tricky subject. I confess that I'm honestly surprised at how favorable and effective the formula worked...but I suppose it's the same formula that worked for Marvel.

Finally: it was a lot of fun to see the OG D&D gang (from the cartoon) make an appearance in the otherwise stupid labyrinth scene...so much so that I found myself wishing the movie was about them, rather than the story at hand. And as the rest of the film unwound its reel, this was a persistent thought that wouldn't quite dislodge itself from my brain: what a missed opportunity! What a fantastic idea!

Because if you do just want to make a light-weight fantasy movie, with magic and wonder and the tropes of D&D, you could do a lot worse than drawing inspiration from that cartoon. Heck, what's a D&D movie without a Dungeon Master? What could more firmly stamp a film with a D&D moniker than to have the appearance of a DM? Besides which Venger is a deeper, more interesting and nuanced antagonist than ANY of the "bad guys" in the existing D&D films. Yes, that includes Hugh Grant's character...fight me on that if you will. Plus, you still get hand-wringing sentimentality, self-doubt, impassioned speeches, humorous pratfalls...basically all the same stuff that (I guess) makes Honor Among Thieves a hit movie.

And it would be far more similar to D&D.

Live-Action D&D Television

[was going to write something about copyright law, fair use, and game "licenses," but everyone's sick of that stuff, right? Maybe next week...]

So...we watch a lot of TV at my house.

Too much, I'm sure...at least by the standards of a guy who spent several years (in his twenties) not even owning a television, and not missing it one bit. But the wife enjoys it, the kids enjoy it, and it's a (lazy) way to all spend time together as a family...huddled around the video altar for an hour or two every evening. 

The current slate of programming isn't all that great...Wednesday was the last decent series we finished which, for me, was kind of a "light" (or kid-friendly) version of Sabrina. Yellowstone is what the wife likes to watch after the kids go to bed and it's...fine. It's just the same old 'powerful family drama' thing again (see Sopranos, House of the Dragon, Empire, Billions, etc., etc.), just in a different setting.

[I will say that the Kayce character is the most 'Montana' of all the characters written for the series...his attitude, physicality, manner of speaking, way of thinking is very much like any one of my uncles. They don't wear cowboy hats in Missoula, though...I'm guessing that's more of a Bozeman/Wyoming thing]

Current shows watched with the kids are multiple. Ghosts is pretty funny, and while some of the humor is too risque for my children, most of that is pretty over their heads. The latest install of The Mysterious Benedict Society has, I think, ended(?) and it kind of went out with a whimper instead of a bang, though that show has some of the most likable kids in television. National Treasure (based on the Disney film franchise) is...ugh...I'm not a fan. The main character is pretty cool/interesting but all her friends are SO DUMB and the plot is so contrived and filled with coincidence it's like reading a BAD Nancy Drew story (though IS there such a thing as a 'bad Nancy Drew' story...?). I find myself cringing a lot. Some of the Mesoamerican stuff is good...and some of it shows the writers could stand to do a little more research. Yeah...but the kids really dig it (it's a Disney show).

Then there's Willow...or as we like to call it: "D&D the Series." We just started this one last week or so (after rewatching the 1988 film) and, as of last night, we're all caught up with the series (I think the season finale is tonight, but we probably won't watch it till tomorrow). 

Oh, boy...where to start?

George Lucas originally conceived of the idea for Willow circa 1972...long before D&D was a pop culture phenomenon. His idea was to create a kids' fantasy film that (as with Star Wars) incorporated a plethora of tropes from myth and folklore: fairies, brownies, witches, knights, trolls, etc. The idea was always to have a little person as the lead (original title: The Munchkins) as a literal interpretation of the small guy going off into the big world of adventure. Lucas met Warwick Davis when doing Return of the Jedi (the actor's first role...he played Wicket the ewok) who would become a staple figure in later SW films. In 1987 Davis was offered the role of Willow; he was 17 at the time.

Having had a chance to rewatch the film twice now in the last year (coincidentally we showed Willow to the kids over the summer, before we were even aware the series was going to be a thing), I'd call it cute, light-hearted fare, typical of the late-80s and a cut above most kids' fantasy films not involving Tim Burton or Jim Henson. In fact, it might have been the LAST (halfway-)decent live-action film featuring swords and sorcery until the 2000s. 

[when was Legend done? 1985? Yeah, same with Ladyhawke. Highlander, Labyrinth, and Big Trouble in Little China were all 1986; The Princess Bride was '87. After that, there's nothing worth mentioning till Jackson's LotR (2001). Maybe the 13th Warrior in '99? Not much magic in it, though. I LIKE Erik the Viking, but that's more parody and snark than earnest fantasy]

SO...fast foward to the new Willow which is, yet again, another example of Hollywood nostalgia-mining IP from decades past to appeal to the hearts (and wallets) of aging geezers like myself. 

TV's Best Beard

It's...okay. The casting is pretty good. Warrick Davis, veteran actor, is a highlight; so is Amar Chadha-Patel (whose physical appearance will henceforth be the basis for ALL future D&D characters of Yours Truly, regardless of class). Tony Revolori is (surprisingly) growing on me. Elle Bamber and Ruby Cruz seem...fine, I guess (as actors), but their characters (especially "Kit") are written in a way that I find extremely obnoxious and grating. 

*sigh* I'm just not into teenage angst...and it is (for me) incredibly unbelievable given the circumstances in which the characters find themselves. They're just one step removed from "I miss my cell phone!"

Erin Kellyman seems to have already been typecast (after watching her in Solo and Falcon/Winter Soldier) and her emotional range seems...short. I can't tell if she's limited by the writing or her ability; probably a bit of both. But mainly her character ("Jade") is just...boring.

[I also hate Jade's sword; every time I see it on screen I just think of how unbalanced it looks and how many fingers she'd lose trying to wield it. Like, ALL her fingers]

The bit parts and cameos, however, are stellar: Joanne Whalley, Hannah Waddingham (!), Christian Slater (!!), Kevin Pollack, and Julian Glover all make the most of their brief appearances in the show. Adwoah Aboah, too, isn't half-bad, especially considering (I think) that this is her first on-screen acting role (?!). Every time some random human character appears on-screen with more than a few lines of dialogue/action, it's generally a much needed shot-in-the-arm for the series.

The show, Willow, is D&D. But not the good kind of D&D.

"I was once a paladin..."
(yeah, back before
your alignment change)

It was my (non-gamer) wife who first pointed this out to us: "This is just like Dungeons & Dragons!" You have the adventuring party composed of a pretty standard lineup (a couple fighters, a couple spell-casters, a thief, etc) going on an adventure, fighting monsters, looking for treasure, delving dungeons, finding secret doors, facing traps and obstacles, etc.  The classes and tropes are easily recognizable. First level adventurers off on their first real adventure.

But this isn't father's (or geezer blog writer's) D&D. This is D&D with DRAMA, where every character has a "secret past" (backstory!) or closeted skeleton or SOMEthing that is going to get worked out 'on-screen' over the course of the series. 

Because the STORY by itself (um, something-something about saving the world) isn't COMPELLING (or compelling enough) by itself. No. We need to resolve our unrequited love and deal with our murdered siblings and find out about our secret family members and blah, blah, blah.

Hey, remember the original film? Remember the backstory for Madmartigan? Or Sorsha? Or the titular Willow himself? Remember the film explaining why this farmer was interested in becoming a sorcerer? Or how he learned to be conjurer of cheap tricks? Or why his neighbors didn't like him despite him (apparently) being a normal hardworking family man with a decent farm, a doting wife, happy little children? Remember where he received his unbounded courage and tenacity and moral compass? 

No? Oh, yeah: because there wasn't any. Neither was there for ANY of the characters. You have a character, you have a situation (the plot of the film) and GO. Is Sorsha trying to work out mother-daughter issues with evil queen Bavmorda, some rivalry with General Kael, or moon over some lost lover or other? Perhaps. If she is (and that's all certainly possible for the actor to keep in the back of her mind) it isn't played out on the screen...it is simply background motivation that directs the character's actions.

Here (in the series) we have all this...um..."stuff," that is constantly being dragged out and examined and being discussed and worked on. And I suppose that if the series was about one featured character or protagonist that would be okay. But it's not about a single character...it's an ensemble cast, with six or seven (depending on whether or not you count the brother/prince) main figures, all of whom are (more-or-less) on the same team. 

So...this need to share spotlight time (and film minutes) on their various mental and emotional turmoils just feels like...I don't know...some sort of narcissism.

[which, you know, is kind of emblematic of late edition D&D ain't it?]

That and the anachronisms inherent in the show. Not just the dialogue which (again) sounds like typical teenage petulance and smack talk but the damn music. No need for a sweeping, epic score transporting us to a fantasy world like, say, Game of Thrones or Rings of Power or...heck...the original film Willow on which the series is based. Crimson & Clover? Enter Sandman? Good Vibrations?!

Um...okay. So this is a teen fantasy show that would have been at home on the CW ten years ago. Except with a bigger budget.

"Dude, JB is as big a curmudgeon about his fantasy television shows as he is about his D&D! Hey, Old Man, there's more than one 'right way' to create elf-magic-fiction content!" Sure, yep, absolutely. But, watching Willow would be a lot less jarring, less cringe-worthy experience if expectations weren't set based on the very IP the showrunners decided to mine.

[heck, I'm not even dinging the show for sometimes poor pacing and occasional crap editing. Well, I wasn't till now]

"JB, that Willow movie was 35 years ago! Expectations have changed about YA fantasy! Why do you think D&D had to evolve?!"

Mm-hmm. Indeed. Welcome to fantasy in 2023.

Now, I realize that I am hopelessly behind the times when it comes to modern (well, post-modern) sensibilities, but for me...geezer that I am...adventure fantasy is about something like escapism from the petty squabbles and dramas of daily life. Take the character "Kit" for example and her quest to find her father (which seems far more important to her than her initial quest to find her brother)...I'd say there's more than a few people out there who have had their fathers exit their lives in some fashion, and hardly ever is it for some 'heroic' reason. It might be inoperable cancer or a sudden heart attack that leaves a kid half-orphaned at the age of 12 (as happened to my buddy, Matt) . It might be the guy walking out on the family with no warning (as happened to my brother and I). Hell, I know two different guys (John and Ben) who BOTH had their fathers leave their mothers for some hippy-dippy commune before either was born. 

This kind of thing happens. Worse things happen with parents. I knew a guy who had a real problem with his mother because she sold his younger sister to a couple guys in order to finance her crack habit. There's some fucked up shit in this world...lots of reasons to want to escape reality for an hour or two on a regular basis. Do I need to have a fantasy setting, with magic and monsters, in order to deep dive the emotional wreck of human relationships? Isn't there therapy for that? Support groups to join? Books to read? 

How about a subplot related to the story at hand: for example, Kit has been trained to be a warrior/knight type but pretty obviously has been pretty sheltered up until the events of the story...how about dealing with the emotional baggage that comes with murdering sentient beings for the first time in her life.  She's having a semi-polite conversation with some hairy trolls one moment, and then whetting her blade in their lifeblood the next. And everything is still like "Oh no big deal. How can I get my romantic interest to not still be mad at me?" 

But, okay, maybe we want to de-emphasize the emotional consequences of murder and bloodletting in this "fun adventure fantasy." How about dealing with the issues of duty versus love with regard to her betrothal to a political ally who happens to be on the same adventure with her as with her lover. Instead, she pretty much ignores the man she's supposed to marry, as opposed to A) trying to get to know him, or B) arranging for some fatal "accident" that will remove an unwanted complication from her life. You know?

[can you tell I'm not a big fan of the writing?]

This is adolescent, narcissistic D&D. We are on an adventure, killing monsters, surviving dangers, and working on our (young adult) emotional baggage. We don't have to particularly get along or cooperate to survive because, you know, "plot immunity." Not a lot of fear or real stress, except for the stress of meeting expectations ("Will I ever learn magic? Jeez I was happier just baking muffins!"). This isn't swords & sorcery...it's High School Musical with Ren-Fair costumes and less singing. 

*sigh* I know...I'm an ass. My family's enjoying the show, and the thing has some stylish touches that are entertaining (really dig on the bits of psychedelia scattered about the series, as well as the occasional steampunk flourishes). But, for the most part, its style without substance. The substance of the show is...for my taste...rather bland. Not "vanilla" (pains have been taken to make the show very NON-vanilla in fantasy terms). But bland. 

Ah, well. One episode (I think) to go. We'll see if the finale changes my mind.

Cocaine Bear

Um...

Dragons & Hoards

This could probably have been entitled "Fantasy Economics (p.3)" but I thought the subject deserved a catchier title. 'Cause today we're talking dragons.

While it's easy to grasp how treasure might be mined, minted, and circulated in coin form (and thus acquired by adventurers) a more pressing/nagging question for some folks is certainly 'why do monsters hoard treasure?' While ancient tombs guarded by undead Midas-types are self-explanatory (reasons why they're un-looted remain unclear), what's less obvious may be the desire by living folk...the orcs and goblins and giants and whatnot...to acquire chests full of the local human currency. Surely they're not a part of the local economy, right? You don't find hobgoblins drinking at the tavern or shopping for knives at the local farmer's market, do you?

[well, you could, of course. The DragonLance books have occupying soldiers (including hobgoblins and draconians) interacting with the locals, buying food and drink, harassing the barmaids, etc. But injecting this kind of symbiotic relationship with sentient humanoids into one's campaign might make the players feel more like murderers than they already do!]

The mistake here is in assuming that the monsters have no economy of their own. Okay, slimes and golems and owlbears (probably) don't...but the sentient races most certainly have something. These are tool-using societies. They build, they manufacture, they eat food, they wear textiles, they have a language for communicating with each other. And remember what coinage is: an easy, portable medium of exchange for goods and services. Coins are certainly useful and practical for ANY sentient species, both within their own community and with other communities...at least those communities that aren't as xenophobic (and murderous) as your average human town or village.

[remember that bit in Tolkien about some goblins/orcs having alliances with dwarves? Forget "racial animosity" for a moment and consider that two subterranean species are most likely to simply be fighting...when they ARE fighting...over the same prime territory/resources/food supply. Kind of like real life humans]

Dragons, however, are a different matter.

Even mind flayers have societies (though probably not one you want to visit). Dragons, on the other hand, are solitary creatures, only occasionally being found with a mate or clutch of young. And yet dragons are renowned for their treasure hoards...in fact, it is the promised acquisition of vast wealth that can entice foolhardy adventurers to brave certain death in a dragon's lair.

[I mean, except for the grossly stupid 5E version of the game, with its empty-handed dragons]

But WHY do dragons have hoards filled with thousands upon thousands of coins? That is the question. Because it's a fairy tale trope? Because they collect shiny stuff like a magpie? Because they just want to deprive humans of their precious wealth?

The film Flight of Dragons (loosely based on Dickson's The Dragon and the George) suggests dragons covet gold to act as "fireproof bedding" on which to lay. I'm not buying it. Lizards and snakes suffer little discomfort sleeping on hard rock (they prefer it, in fact, as it helps warm their cold blood on a sunny day)...and, anyway, dirt is softer than metal and just as fireproof. Plus, dragon breath is extremely destructive...certainly hot enough to melt gold (in the case of red dragons). Besides, D&D dragons aren't exclusively fire-breathers and is a gold bed really going to help against acid saliva? How about electricity?

Let's start with biology.

The first thing everyone should understand is that dragons need to eat. However, they appear reptilian, which would generally means a slower metabolism. Large snakes (like boa constrictors) can go three to four weeks without eating. Crocodiles can go months (though they generally eat every other week). Komodo dragons eat only one meal per month.

So dragons probably don't need to eat all that often...which is a good thing because, being large creatures, they're going to need to consume large amounts of food when they finally tuck in. A snake will eat 15-20% of its body weight; Komodo dragons can eat as much as 80% of their body weight in a single day. Crocodiles and alligators generally eat as much as their prey supply allows (they'll just keep eating), but they can get by on 5% of their body weight every couple weeks and they're just fine. For me, I'm inclined to go the Komodo route (with long periods of sleeping/dormancy) in order to prevent the countryside from becoming too devastated.

Well, then how much does a dragon weigh? An excellent question, and one without an easy answer. Lots of editions of D&D provide numbers on length for the various dragon types, and some even give out wingspans (I think it's 2E that notes span as approximately the same as length), but there isn't any hard weight measurements...unless you go by 3E's size charts which are, frankly, preposterous. Dragons have to be able to fly, after all, and so weight in relation to wings becomes incredibly important.

Here's a good article on wing loading, applicable to both animals and aircraft. Wing load is expressed as a ratio of mass (in kg) to wing surface area (in square meters), and with regard to birds (who don't benefit from jet propulsion) the practical limit for flight is about 25:1 (some particularly ungainly gliders, like the albatross, might exceed this a bit). That is to say if the mass exceeds 25kg to the square meter of wing surface area, it ain't getting off the ground (hello kiwi!). As such, clocking a "colossal" red dragon at 12+ tons (per the 3E MM)...well, it ain't happening.

I spent the good part of the other day estimating mass based on comparable reptiles and various sizes of wings to arrive at sensible conclusions. In the end, I ended up going with ratios provided by the greatest dragon ever to grace celluloid: Vermithrax Pejorative from the film Dragonslayer. Created by Hal Barwood and Matthew Robbins, the idea behind Vermithrax was to make the creature as frightening as possible while still making it fairly realistic and practical. The scale they decided on was a 40' length (which is more or less the scale of a D&D dragon) with a wingspan of 90' which, based on images I calculate to have a rough surface area of 107 meters square plus change. Given a scaled up Komodo for weight (something in the range of about 3 tons...Vermithrax is skinnier/tapered after all, and female to boot) gives us a wing load ratio right at the edge of the 25:1 mark...enough to get Vermithrax off the ground where she can soar on the air currents.

With these figures in mind and using the same proportions (in conjunction with the length measurements provided in the Monster Manual), I came up with the following average weights for various dragons (and, thus, the amount of food they need to consume):

• White: 1,620# (1,296# per month)
• Black: 2,531# (2,025# per month)
• Green: 3,645# (2,916# per month)
• Blue: 4,961# (3,968# per month)
• Red: 6,480# (5,184# per month)

There are better pix of
her wings...I just like this one.

These figures are ROUGH estimates, and don't take into account the vast range that can occur between size and age categories (not to mention dragons of different sexes...in the reptile kingdom males are generally 15-25% larger than females). However, it gives me an idea of what such a creature might be eating based on its natural habitat. 

[for example, a white dragon would do well with large seals or the odd polar bear, whereas a red dragon will need two or three cows, and a black dragon would be constantly eating whatever it can find in the swamp...much like a croc. Blue dragons would find it impossible to survive in a desert climate, unless eating some sort of fantasy critter (bulettes? small purple worms?)...in my own world, I'm more inclined to make them island dwellers and have 'em hunt pilot whale and similar aquatic mammals]

"But, JB...what does this have to do with a dragon's lust for treasure?"

Right...back to the point! This concept of dragons and their hoards are based on fairy tales, going all the way back to Fafnir, if not earlier. But fairy tales are stories and self-contained. They entertain us, perhaps impart a moral lesson, and then they're done...folks live 'happily ever after' or (like Beowulf) they don't. 

But with advanced gaming, we are engaging with the campaign world, living in it and experiencing the thing. The treasure of a dragon (for treasure they must have, it is part of what makes a dragon a dragon and part of the raison d'etre of adventurers braving their lairs) must make some sense. Certainly the size of the hoard being comparable to the dragon's age and might is sensible...it takes time to accumulate wealth, and dragons are long lived. But what about the HOW and WHY? Dragon claws aren't really designed for subtle manipulation, like picking up and counting coins. And while I can understand the odd magic item or piece of jewelry being the remains of would-be slayers that found their way into the dragon's den, surely those dead adventurers weren't carrying hundreds (or thousands) of pounds of coin on them...they went seeking death with EMPTY sacks, not ones already bursting.

It seems clear to me that for a creature that doesn't mine, and doesn't manufacture (or mint) that the best explanation for the treasure hoard is that it is TRIBUTE...tribute paid by lesser beings, bribes (in a way), to prevent the dragon from destroying villages and consuming both citizens and livestock. Of course, dragons don't go on shopping sprees, so the tribute simply accumulates over time (the hoard grows larger and larger) but dragons are an intelligent species...even the stupidest having an intelligence of 8 or 9...so they must have a reason for wanting and accepting such offerings:

1. Being an intelligent species, they understand the value of treasure and the size of their hoard is a matter of prestige and pride. A larger hoard symbolizes more power, thus a "better," stronger, smarter dragon. Dragons don't appear to have a society (though they might, just one invisible to the average human) but hoard comparisons could be used to determine rank and status among their own kind.
2. Size and composition of hoard would certainly be a factor in determining the suitability of a mate. D&D dragons are found in mated pairs, suggesting a form of monogamy or "mating for life." Not only does a dragon's hoard describe a better (more powerful) partner, but the joining of two dragons requires one to leave its hoard behind (they have no way to transport it!), so the dominant of the two must have a hoard of sufficient size for the both of them.
3. Dragons, as stated, need to eat...a lot!...even though (like reptiles) they can experience long periods of dormancy. While human-sized prey is hardly a snack for any size dragon (and a halfling isn't even a mouthful), a party of humans, plus their mounts and pack animals, might prove enough food that they can go without leaving their lair (thus conserving energy) for a longer period of time. A treasure hoard is thus an enticement for "intelligent" (i.e. foolhardy) prey to come to them. 
4. Finally, D&D dragons are portrayed as "cowardly" because of the rules for subduing dragons; however, this just shows their intelligence and sense of self-preservation. While dragons are loathe to relinquish any of their treasure (because a diminished hoard size is detrimental to the motives already listed) bribing powerful individuals is better than dying. Should a party prove too strong for an individual dragon, the hoard can be used to "buy off" the invaders. Being an intelligent being with a lifespan measured in centuries, dragons can afford to take the "long view;" better for a young dragon to seek greener pastures, establishing a new lair and beginning (again) the acquisition of tribute. Thus, the hoard also represents a bit of a "safety net," though some particularly old and curmudgeonly dragons might find it worth dying for ('I ain't moving!').

And so we have yet another reason that monsters will have a desire to accumulate treasure: living in wilderness areas inhabited by dragons, such creatures (goblins, trolls, ogres, etc.) will need all the money they can mine, borrow, or steal just to keep the dragons from devouring their villages. Human towns...what with their curtain walls and towers, armored knights and wizards...are too dangerous (or too much of a pain in the ass) for the average dragon to bother with. But out in the wilderness...in the swamps or mountains or jungle or arctic regions...a dragon can get by, hunting large game and reaping the rewards of subservient, fearful lesser beings who also make their homes far from the murderous humans and their allies.

Makes perfect sense to me.

; )