Work in Progress for Halloween 2014

Last year for my kindergarten's Halloween party, I made myself a Ghostbuster costume, while my son went in a store-bought Black Spider-Man costume.

This year, he's got the DIY bug, and wants me to create a costume for him.  So for the past couple of weekends, we've been working with scrap cardboard, hot glue, and tape to build a basis.  Then, this evening I stopped by the "dollar" store and picked up a few things to add to the design.  For 2000 won each, I got a black plastic jump rope, an LED flashlight, and some novelty sunglasses.  Turns out the LED is too heavy, so I'll have to go back and get a smaller one.  But so far, the costume is shaping up well.

Here are some pics:

The basic helmet/mask and shoulder pads.

The dollar store purchases.

 Sunglass lenses in the eye sockets.

Cut up jump rope for dreadlocks.

Yep, my boy wants to be a Predator for Halloween.

While it may not look like much yet, I think it'll look pretty good when I get done with it.  And I've still got plenty of time to work on it.  Here are the pics from last year.

I like to keep this handy [click, click] for close encounters (March Madness Day 26)

26 What RPG based on an IP did you enjoy most? Give details.

Hmm, probably d20 Conan or d6 Star Wars. Assuming we're talking about RPGs based on IP BEFORE they were RPGs. Marvel Supers is fun, too. I guess if I had to pick, it would be the Conan game, but it's also pretty much D&D with no magic, and this is the Non-D&D blog challenge, so...

What RPG based on an IP have I never played but would like to try? That's a better question for me.

For a few years, I got the “Mail Order Hobby Shop”, TSR's mail order catalog (at least I assume it came from TSR's brick-and-mortar storefront, since it was from Lake Geneva and D&D and other TSR games were heavily featured). My brother and I would go through it, Killing Machine and my cousin Ben as well, from time to time, and we'd make wish-lists that for the most part never got fulfilled.

Listed in there was an Aliens RPG, based of course on the movie. Space marines versus xenomorphs sounded to us like a great way to spend some RPG time. Since we never had the actual licensed game, we made due with Star Frontiers. Our intrepid space explorers had several instances where we met up with a company of colonial marines (with the same names as the movie characters, even if they'd died the time before...which, just like in the movie, they usually did – although usually not in the same manner as they died in the movie) and trounce a nest of Giger xenomorphs.

Later, in my d20 days with the Ebisu group, as I mentioned, I used Michael Tresca's free PDF resources for Aliens, Predator and Terminator along with d20 Modern and Future to run an Aliens/Predator game. I've mentioned that before.

Despite all that, I'm still curious if the original licensed Aliens RPG was any good. Some day, maybe I'll get my hands on a copy, either digitally or in print, and find out.

In a world... (March Madness Day 20)

20 Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?

Published or homebrew? And non-D&D (because really, the most fun we had back in the day was with the Known World of the Expert Set/Isle of Dread, and more recently, I've had some good times with various other D&D worlds, including our sorta stalled out Vaults of Ur game).

Let me think of what non-D&D campaign settings I can think of that got more than just a session or two of play (sorry, WEG Star Wars, as much as I love original trilogy SW, I never got to play it much).

The Frontier Sector – Star Frontiers

Marvel (616?) Universe – Marvel Superheroes RPG

Gamma Terra – Gamma World

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – TMNT and Other Strangeness

Prequel Star Wars – d20 Star Wars RPG

Not sure if it has a name, but the dystopic future of Trinity RPG

Arkham, Mass. and environs – Call of Cthulhu

Aliens/Predator-verse – d20 Future

and tons of D&D settings (homebrew and canned) or settings that never saw play beyond one or two sessions (and actually I'm trying hard to remember if the Marvel game actually got that far or not...)

If I had to pick, though, it would be Gamma Terra. From my first introduction to it through the Endless Quest book Light on Quest's Mountain to our early 90's game with the old BECMI group, to my more recent games with the Busan Board Game Group, it's always consistently provided a strange, funny and dangerous place to adventure.

The Frontier Sector would have to come in second just from sheer numbers of sessions played within it.

Gentlemen, behold: The Future! (March Madness Day 10)

10 What science fiction RPG have you enjoyed most? Give details.

If you've been reading my blog posts this month, or my blog regularly for any length of time, you'll know the answer to this is Star Frontiers. The rules are just simple enough, the setting just evocative enough, that I was able to use it to run all sorts of sci fi themed adventures as a youth. Even now, I've still got designs to eventually run both a straight-up game in the Frontier Sector battling Sathar and exploring strange new worlds, and also a game set in the post-Judgment Day Terminator universe using a slightly modified version of the game (only human PCs, modified weapons/equipment list, otherwise the same).

I've never played Traveller in any form. Never played Twilight 2000, although I now have it on .pdf. Never played the Aliens RPG, although I sure wanted it in the late 80's.  Some day... There are probably lots of other classic sci fi games I've never played and just don't remember, or have never heard of.

What other sci fi games have I played?

WEG Star Wars – Killing Machine and I played one or two sessions of this. I liked it, but D&D and Star Frontiers were easier to run, and I tended to DM/GM anyway. This was KM's game.

d20 Future – the supplement to d20 Modern was well done, a good toolbox book that catered to a fairly wide range of gaming styles. I ran a kick-ass Aliens/Predator game with this for the Ebisu group.

Star Wars d20 – we played a bit of this with the Toyama group over Yahoo Voice Messenger IIRC right after I'd moved to Yamanashi. It was fun, but a bit clunky for Star Wars style gaming.

Trinity – White Wolf's low-powered supers in space game. Fun, evocative, and my only experience besides rolling up a character for the Street Fighter RPG with the White Wolf Storyteller system.

Stars Without Number – free OSR game, basically Basic D&D with lasers and robots. I like it a lot, obviously.

What I'm thinking about:

Some day, after Chanbara is published, Flying Swordsmen is revised, and Presidents of the Apocalypse is released, I'd like to work on a retro-future style RPG, probably titled "Rockets vs. Saucers" since in lots of old 40's~60's sci fi the humans flew rocket ships and the aliens had flying saucers.  Ray guns, heat beams, jet packs, bubble helmets, shiny suits, all that jazz.  I'm thinking it will be class/level based, but in a twist there will be no "Fighter" class.  Everyone will be equally bad-ass (or equally piss poor, depending on if you're a half full or half empty type) at combat.  Classes would be based around exploration of planets, space flight, science, and contact/communication/socialization.

Movie Review: Prometheus

It's gonna be hard to do a spoiler free review of Prometheus, but I'll give it a try.  As a stand-alone sci-fi horror/action movie, it's not bad.  As a tie-in to the Alien films, it's got a lot of cool stuff to think about.  And that second point makes it hard to avoid spoilers, but for the sake of the people who haven't seen it, I'll try.  I may come back and discuss the implications it has on the Alien movies later.

And again, since I get lots of Google search results for "curse words" in any movie I review, there were VERY FEW.  The one time the F-word got used, it was garbled by static.  Not a lot of swearing in general.  It has some fairly intense and grotesque scenes though, so I wouldn't advise bringing kids under 13 to see it.

Now, on to the movie.  We've got what basically amounts to a combination of the Ancient Astronauts crank theory with the Gilgamesh myth here.  Of course, the overall themes of the Alien movies are present - female lead who finds her strength when tested by alien adversity, a primal fear of rape/parenthood imposed by alien gestation, evil corporation with shadowy reasons for wanting to get their hands on alien stuff, and of course the Pinocchio/Frankenstein theme of androids gone wrong.

The story was pretty good.  It didn't feel quite as tight as it could have been.  There were a few places where the characters' motivations weren't clear or were contradictory to their previous actions.  But the story holds together, and again as part of the larger Alien (and Predator?) franchise, there's a lot of good stuff here.

Special effects were good (saw it in 2D), but a few times things looked a bit too CGI.  Don't want to spoil too much, but there's a Cthuloid horror in the movie that looked really good in one scene, and kinda crappy in another.

One thing that did bother me was a "James and the Giant Peach" moment.  Giant disk-shaped thing rolling toward characters.  They run away from it along its path instead of running to the side.  One falls, then rolls over twice and is out of the thing's path.  Sorry for that one spoiler, but by the time it happens you kinda know that this character isn't going to die from being smooshed. 

Something I really dig was the design aesthetic.  The inside of the Prometheus was reminiscent of the Nostromo and the Sulaco.  Of course the "Engineers'" ship looked like the Space Jockey's ship, since it was the same type of ship (pretty sure that's not a spoiler, since it's in the trailers). 

And similar to The Avengers, the bit that I assume is an after credits "Easter egg" was edited to be before the credits here in Korea.  If you're watching it anywhere else, stay through the credits. 

Overall, this was a decent sci-fi movie, and a decent addition to the Alien universe.  Not the greatest sci-fi movie I've ever seen, but better than many I've seen.  And yeah, I've kinda got an urge to run or play in an RPG in the Alien/Predator universe again now...

V is for...um...V

No, I'm not suddenly jumping on the A-Z Blogger Challenge.  As Jesse Ventura once said, "I ain't got time to bleed."  Just funny that my blog roll is reading lots of other people's "V" posts, and here I am posting about V.

My wife and I watched the first two episodes of season 1 of the new V series last night.  We both loved the original mini-series as kids, and a few years ago we found both the original and "The Final Battle" DVDs for sale at a local shop in Japan and picked them up and re-watched them.  Good times.

So far, the new version is looking good.  It's just similar enough to be familiar, but different enough to be its own thing.  And I'm liking the 'reptoid masters' conspiracy theory link they seem to be doing with it. 

Why RPGs DON'T Suck

No matter how good or bad any individual game's rules, supplements, modules, published settings or the like may be, if you think RPGs suck you're probably part of the problem (no, I'm not providing a link to Mr. Sheppard's blog, you've likely seen it already, and if you haven't you aren't missing much).

What's right about RPGs?

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibits D-O (pictorial)

With all the potential AWESOME out there, who cares if something is not 'creative' to some douche on the internet with a few RPG publishing credits?

What to get...

My parents sent me a gift card from Amazon.com for my birthday.  Now I've gotta decide what to buy.

In my Wish List, I've got a few books I'd like to pick up, but which one to get?

Northern Hero Legends by Otto Jiriczek, apparently a POD facimile of an out of print, now public domain book that I can't find anywhere for a free download (the original German might be available, but I don't speak or read German).

Tros of Samothrace by Talbot Mundy, some Appendix N goodness.

The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt, some Star Frontiers recommended reading goodness (and apparently the inspiration for displacer beasts and the Alien).

There are a few other things I also wouldn't mind getting, but those are the top three.

Movie Review: Predators

Predators was one of the big summer movies this year that I was really looking forward to, but it's the one I didn't get to see in the theaters.  Our baby-sitter, my mother-in-law, was in Australia at the time the movie hit Korea, so we missed it.

Finally saw it last night thanks to VoD.  My wife and I watched it after our son was in bed.

All in all, I really liked it.  It took the Predator concept in a new, if not exactly novel, direction.  The story was well-paced, had some interesting characters, and some cool deaths (which is why we go see this kind of movie, really).

The only thing that really bugged me was that one tired old Hollywood cliche reared its ugly head.

Who's the first guy to die?  The Mexican.  Second?  The black guy.  Third, the other black guy.  At least the Japanese guy survived until after the Russian and convict bit the dust.  Yeah, it was noticeable. 

I mean, come on!  Even the original Predator had Jesse Ventura biting it first, and the two black guys later on.  Predator 2 had the black guy survive!

Other than that quibble, it sure beats "Alien vs. Predator" (haven't seen AvP2...not sure I want to...). 

Kinda late to the party on this one, so I'll keep it short.  I think the above is about all I need to say about this movie.

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100% Pure Awesome

Is it just me, or is this guy brilliant?