Hugo Weaving and The Red Skull

Captain America wasn’t one of my favorite Marvel characters, but for a time in the 80’s and early 90’s I was a regular reader. You could not deny his importance. Captain America was the one dude in the superhero community that all the other Marvel Characters trusted to open up to. From Spider-Man bemoaning his Aunt May’s latest heart attack, to The Black Widow complaining about that not-so-fresh feeling, Captain A was your go-to guy. His inspiring words got them back up n’ at ‘em.

In continuity, Cap was really the first superhero in the Marvel Universe (if you don’t count various wild west heroes). He fought through World War 2, and up till modern times has been the pinnacle of human perfection. His sparring partner, German bellhop turned Hitlerian super soldier named The Red Skull, came to modern times with him to continue the eternal dance.

In the media Cap never got a fair shake. He had a horrible TV pilot (he was a surfer dude, if I recall) back in the day, and in 1990 he finally got the big screen treatment. Despite a great back-up cast, including Ronny “Total Recall” Cox, Ned “Squeal like a pig!” Beatty, and Darrin “Kolchak” Mcgavin, it was a real stinker. Matt Salinger as Cap was uninspired casting. Plus they made the Red Skull an Italian. Huh? Wha? Was that even necessary? Was one of the producers German or something? Chalk that up to one of the most head scratching changes in comic to film history (making the 5’2” Wolverine a skinny 6’1” guy is a close second).

Now we are getting a new Cap film, one based in the new Marvel cinematic universe. The movie trailer footage looks great, with Cap in his WW2 natural environment. Cap is in the Nazi killing business, and brother, business is a’ boomin’! Iron Man set a high bar for this new generation of movie heroes, and both Thor and the upcoming Avengers film are going to at least be feasts for fanboy eyes (but hopefully better stories and continuity than the last Wolverine and X-Men films).

Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull is a no-brainer, and from the pic above you can see they are going the right direction for him. Since childhood I dreamed of comic book movies that didn’t suck and at least half-assed tried to get it right. For a fanboy of any age, this is looking like a good time to be alive if you love these iconic ink and paint characters.

Comedy Team Alignments

Just for fun, and to get distance from my last fairly heavy post (and also it’s a game night), here’s the Muppet alignment chart. Do you agree with them?

What about some other comedy classic teams?

Three Stooges:

Moe: Lawful/Neutral – clearly Moe believes in order from chaos. He’s willing to strike out with righteous anger at the first sign of nonsense. He still wallows in his own greed and selfishness from time to time.

Larry: Neutral – Larry seems to be caught in the middle philosophically. He often finds great amusement in the antics of Curly, but also has only a certain amount of patience for it. He will generally just try to stay out of Moe’s way to avoid a stray tolchok or eye poke. He’s happy to let Curly take the brunt of it. Ultimately, he finds that both law and chaos have a place in the universe.

Curly: Chaotic/Neutral – almost a force of nature, the Bald One surely means no harm in his chaos. But freedom of will, and to destroy pricey furnishings, shall be the whole of the law.

The Marx Bros.

Groucho: Chaotic/Good – Groucho often attains a place of leadership, but he finds he cannot help but fall into the madness that his brothers share. The joke is everything, but in the end Groucho has a kind heart and is helpful to those in need. When the chips are down he can step up and lead the masses from the valley of true evil.

Chico: Chaotic/Neutral – Concerned only with his own needs (first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the women). A fast buck and a hard fuck are the meat and potatoes of this scammer.

Harpo: Chatoic/Evil – lewd and rapacious, Harpo would knock you out and rape your wife and daughters if given half a chance. He gives in entirely to his base needs and instincts. No one who crosses his path is safe. Bar your doors!

The Rat Pack

Frank: lawful/neutral – although a party god and user of mind altering substances, Frank rules his kingdom with clearly lawful tactics. He calls the shots, and serves as the brain of the brain trust.

Deeno: Neutral – a basic sycophantic drone, to please Frank he at least pretends to be a drunk, plays the part of the king’s patsy, even going so far as to take part in the constant skewering of the king’s fool. To keep his place as second in the pecking order, Deeno does what he feels he must to maintain his status quo.

Sammy: Lawful/Good – the king’s fool wants nothing more than to perform and bring happiness to the attending court. He wants to make people smile, even if he must force his own smile in the wake of abuse and derision from his king and the king’s royal knight.

Radio Rivendell

I’ve always loved having music going for my games. Whether it’s some soundtracks or just the classical music station on, I think it adds to the atmosphere and mood and can be very inspirational. And as we all know, gaming is one half mental masturbation and one half inspiration (or some compound mixture thereabouts). The few games I’ve sat down as a player in where the DM was against having at least some soft music on where generally sucky. Nothing worse than a quiet room and a boring, uninspiring Game Master.

The ambiance of the infamous Star Wars group I ran a few games for the other year was dominated by yapping, barking (and smelly) mutts and was seriously lacking in much needed music. The host(“ess”) would not even let me at least put on the soundtrack to my beloved Knights of the Old Republic video game to try and get the juices flowing (although I am sure she would have loved to have had the horrible prequels on TV in the background).

It may not be possible in every gaming situation to have good music going, but for our regular sessions at Andy’s house we have always appreciated some background mood. I used some video game soundtracks and other stuff, but that was a little limited. And Andy horned-in on the music with some much hyped computer set lists to play (which sometimes included some inappropriate stuff like Butthole Surfers). But we have really settled on Radio Rivendell going on his computer for our ambient sounds.

Radio Rivendell is an internet radio station created in Sweden and devoted to tunes for gaming. Streaming live 24/7, they play a great variety of orchestral, Irish music, neofolk, dark ambient, and video game soundtrack tracks (and hopefully in the future some tunes from me and the boys in the Bruno Band; we’re going to send in some samples that might make good tavern tunes). The music goes great with fantasy gaming, but I can see it working for my upcoming Knights of the Old Republic games pretty handily.

The first night we tried it was during some heavy underworld evil city combat, and the music playing was dark and dramatic and could not be more appropriate. Sure, it doesn’t always match the action, but it is always good.

Check it out and get a little music going to enhance your games.

Symbol: Insanity

In last week’s Night Below session, you could tell things had gotten really high level. The party continued the assault on the Kuo Toa Priest King’s palace, and took on the king (a 12th level fighter/cleric), the last Illithid in the city (as far as the players knew), a couple of the kings 10th level fighter guards (complete with good armor and magical great swords), and a handful of 5th level “whips” (fighter/thieves). The main temple of Blipdoolpoolp might have been a better strategy, in that the destruction of the statue in that place would reduce all Kuo Toa priests in power, including the king. But the decision was settled on to take on the palace because the Illithid there bore the Crown of Derro Domination. And they managed to get their hands on it, in addition to fairly handily take care of the royal guards and the king.

A really high level spell was encountered in the king’s chamber, a Symbol of Insanity that the king inscribed upon the floor of the center of the room to hopefully catching any foolish enough to charge right in. Well, Vaidno the Bard was so foolish (actually, a pretty brave character who comes off these days more like an acrobatic fighter), and he tripped up the symbol.

What a powerful spell this is. See, the king had the spell per the module, and I hadn’t really studied on it significantly. So when it was set off and I looked up the save, it said “special.” The Symbol spells have a variety of affects, but it turns out in the case of this one there is no save. On the spot I could not really figure it out, and we even looked in the DM guide. The only indication of save is in the Confusion spell that you are directed to for rolling on a table for affect (run away, fight your friends, etc). That spell gives a save -2. Anyway, not wanting to burn the player with a permanent spell that only a Wish or Heal spell will cure (ironically, it was a player complaint that kept Terry from running two characters some time back, depriving the party of high level hobbit cleric Kayla, who was the only character that could provide a Heal spell), I decided to give that save as per confusion. “Surviveno” made the save, as usual.

Was it wrong to not go by the book and mess up this character, effectvly taking him out of the game for the final session of the campaign? Well, I wasn’t sure of the spell, and basically decided it was better to decide in favor of the character in case there was some addendum to this spell that we later would find, after Vaidno had already ran screaming into the Underdark or was dispatched by the others for attacking them.

In all honest, I know we are dealing with high level spells, and some of them can just mess you up, saving throw or not. But a spell that a character would just step on and be really messed up with no kind of save seems kind of bogus to me. The character could easily have missed his save and been jacked-up anyway. It seems much more exciting to make a save of some kind. A freaking fighting chance.

Anyway, I’m going to have to take the time to better understand these higher level mess-you-up spells for the next session for sure, so I can decide in advance if I want to nerf them or not.

Love and the Monster Manual

Look at it now, and the first edition of the Monster Manual doesn’t look like much on the outside. Looking at it as an adult, it seems like a 12 year old painted the cover in elementary school art class.

But as a kid in the late 70’s, it was a wonder to behold. After having only the little brown books and various cheapie Judges Guild items, the bold colors of the MM cover really hit you over the head. And showing monsters above and underground told you almost all you needed to know about D&D; fighting beasties in the wilderness and in the dungeon.

And all those monster inside; boy, I must have poured through that book day and night for a year after getting it. For future fanboys like me, the MM was the first gateway drug to Greek Mythos. Hydra, Gorgons, hippogriffs, and all that lot right out of Bulfinch’s. And leave us not mention the Tolkien based stuff, including no less than three types of hobbit!

Man, that first copy of the MM got a lot of use, and still does. I still get a chill looking at the artwork, especially the Trampier stuff.

And one night years later, as a confused and sensitive mid-teen, the Monster Manual got me through my first real hard night. After a brutal dumping by a girlfriend at a Sci Fi con near LAX, I went home that Sunday night and was heartbroken. I could not sleep and had no idea how I would make it through the night.

I had a project in mind before that, which was doing the old Tunnels and Trolls classic Monsters! Monsters! But for 1st edition AD&D. So I broke out the MM and a notebook, and started to work out how each and every intelligent creature in the book could be used as a player character. Assigning of classes and class combinations, bonus and minus to stat blocks, and abilities gained through level progression. To this day it is the most work I have ever done on gaming material in a single sitting. And eventually I got to run that game. One player ran a young Frost Giant, another a Carnivorous ape, and things like that. They took a village apart that session, and the atrocities committed were horrendous. Half that party died when they tried to attack an actual walled city. The hail of arrows put an end to their madness.

And a happy ending too. Me and my ex-girlfriend reconnected for a time not long after that lonely night. There is always hope, but you just gotta get through the pain so you can feel good again. Thanks to the Monster Manual, I got through that dark night of the soul and came out smiling on the other end. Thanks, MM! I’m not sure my heart even has nerve endings anymore, but it’s nice to know you are there if I ever had to stay up all night again simmering in my own juices.

Dark Shadows

Since I got Netflix awhile back, I’ve been catching up on some of my favorite childhood shows that are available on the instant play feature. So on some nights since the holidays I’ve been watching a lot of The Rockford Files and Kolchak:The Night Stalker.

But with me having Tegel Manor on the mind a lot in the last few months, and possibly doing a sort of sequel to that great module for my OD&D games, I remember that unique soap opera from the 60’s called Dark Shadows.

Dark Shadows’ original show story bible had no supernatural elements, despite being mostly set in a spooky old mansion on the New England coast. Besides the unusual setting, Dark Shadows featured the typical romantic and dramatic subplots of the usual daytime soap opera. Some six months into its run the show introduced the supernatural by having characters encounter ghosts. But when flagging ratings threatened to end the series, the character of Barnabas Collins was introduced. A polite and unflappable man who claimed to be a lost cousin of the Collins family living in the Collinswood mansion, Barnabas was actually a 200 year old vampire, released from a local tomb by a trouble making drifter.

I was but an infant during the show’s original run, but as a kid I discovered the it through reruns on UHF, and loved it. Flash forward to the 90’s, I had another chance to see a couple of episodes, and was bored as hell. But inspired to check it out again now, I’ve watched several of the first Barnabas episodes and I’m loving it.

For one thing, the frequent stock footage of Collinswood outside at night and day looks just like the outline of Tegel Manor! And the interiors of Collinswood and the dilapidated old house next door practically screams “Tegel!” Even Barnabas’ speech early on describing the creation of Collinswood from local lumber and imported stone seems to be a description of the building of the great house of Tegel. This is super inspiring stuff for Tegel adventuring.

Many scenes so far also take place at the ramshackle but cozy seaside tavern The Blue Whale. The bar has its own sort of haunting moodiness, but that is broken up by the constant Beatnik music in the background and the surprisingly lovely 60’s chicks, both featured actresses and background extras, enjoying their cocktails the way the 60’s folk seemed to love to do.

The episodes are only 20 minutes long, and last night I actually watched around four of them back to back for mood as I was working on my Tegel Manor material. This is going to be a stormy weekend in Southern California, so I plan to watch a lot of DS. I understand that in upcoming episodes there will be homage’s to werewolves, Frankenstein, and even Rider’s “She.” Time travel, parallel universes, and “The Levianthans,” old dark gods in the HP Lovecraft mold, are going to be featured as well.

If you’ve never seen Dark Shadows, do yourself a favor and check it out. Just be sure to start with the first Barnabas episodes. Otherwise you are just watching a soap opera set in and old house. Yawn.

Note: Tim Burton is working on a Dark Shadows film this very minute, with Johnny Depp as Barnabas. I really don’t want to see a campy, Cirque De Soliel trannyfest that Burton might make of it, and I am tired as hell of Johnny Depp. The one saving grace is apparently Depp has been a fan of the show since childhood, so hopefully that will add something special to his portrayal of the iconic vampire.

Verisimilitude, Dude

OK, I’ll admit that although I was always an excellent reader, “Verisimilitude” is a word I was fairly unfamiliar with until my return to gaming the other year. I’m pretty sure I read James at Grognardia using the word first in relation to gaming, and I’ve been using it ever since. A big word I have used for a long time in relation to gaming is “Gravitas.” I’ve known that big word for at least a decade (but my source was dubious; I think Howard Stern and his crew were goofing on a sound bite of Keiffer Sutherland saying that was his favorite word. I then looked it up). I’ll say something that sounds profound such as “I like my game world to have a certain amount of gravitas.”

But verisimilitude is what I say now. Me like that big world. The big “V” word is sort of philosophical in nature, so it can be expressed to mean a variety of related things. Officially, it is a philosophical concept that denotes amounts of truth or degrees of error. Articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory.

In games terms, it’s about doing what you can for your game world to feel real in terms of it’s own qualities. Back in the day all you could say (unless you were an encyclopedia of big brain words like Gary Gygax seemed to be) was “I want my game to be realistic” followed by boos and jeers from your gaming fellows who chided sarcastically (in the Comic Book Guys voice) “It’s a fantasy game man. Fantasy isn’t supposed to be realistic.”

Bullshit. If you just want to have your world be no more than a tavern, a supply shop, and a dungeon, or you are just playing the original Chainmail wargame, then fine. That is sort of how I approach my White Box games. But even then, I cannot help but want things to feel as real as possible, even in a dungeon as mythic underworld. Just go all wacky baccy like Arduin Grimoire or The City State of The Invincible Overlord, then you are getting closer to a fantasy world like Alice’s Wonderland, or The Beatles Pepperland. Cool fantasy worlds, but not one’s I want to seriously run a character in.

I know it is all ultimately silly fantasy. But to make my world feel like it has a little weight to it for a non-existent thing, I like to have a little versimilitude-itude. See that? I took a big word and the word “attitude” and made my own cool word. You can use it if ye like.