The War Lord (1965)

I watched a movie this weekend called "The War Lord", starring Charlton Heston, from 1965.  I remember having seen it once 20-30 years ago and wanting to see it again.  It wasn't available on domestic DVD lately, and wasn't available on Netflix when I had that.   But, they played it on Encore Action recently and I TiVoed it.

It was a historical fiction piece, Charlton was a Norman knight in the 11th century, sent by his duke to defend a tower in the swamp country in Brittany.   When he arrives he fights off a raid by Frisians (first cousins to Vikings more or less).   His midget-clown captures the Frisian chief's son, but doesn't tell Charlton his rank.   Charlton, his brother, and their flunkies take over the tower and meet the peasant scum.  At first all is cool, then Charlton falls in love with the pig girl.   He also finds out that the peasants practice druidic paganism at night after the church services.   He then uses the old pagan custom of "rite of the master" to claim the pig woman for the night, on the night of her wedding.  The peasants are willing to put up with this, but the Christian priest and Charlton's brother are both outraged. 

Then, Charlton and the pig girl decide they are in love and he doesn't give her back to her husband in the morning.   The peasants are outraged.   Also, Charlton's brother abuses the midget-clown and enrages him.

Up to this point it had been pretty unbearable.  A lot of hair-pulling and flagrant mopery.   I had hoped the action would start up soon and it did.   The midget-clown convinces the peasants to send word the Frisians that the Normans had the chief's son as a slave in the tower.   An alliance of peasants and Frisians show up and beseige the tower.

I can't adequately describe how uncool the action was in the tower seige.   I've seen a lot of historcial action movies from the 60's that were pretty good (Spartacus, the Vikings, and El Cid to name a few).  But this was just dull.   I think more than anything it was the music.   The music actually made the action duller than it would have otherwise been.

Well, it ended up Charlton's brother riding away and bringing back help to raise the siege.  But, he acts like a total dick-hole and Charlton stabs him to death.   He then gives the Frisian boy back to his father, but then pig girl's husband stabs Charlton, who rides off into the sunset presumably to a slow death.

I now know why they rarely show this film and there hasn't been a huge demand for its release on DVD.   Lame, weak.

Beavis and Butt-head are back

I saw the new episode of Beavis and Butt-head from Thursday.   I must say it was pretty darn good.  It means I do now have to watch MTV once in a while, but other than that, all is right with the world.

I've got my tickets

I've got my tickets for "Cinematic Titanic"---seats D2, D4 for me and my brother.   All is right with the world.

Finally, back to the Badlands

I'm happy to see James fixing on building his monastery deep in the Badlands, as a challenge to Bastardville.    That was sort of what I had hoped would have happened ages ago.

I was a bit surprised as to just how little action has gone on inside Bastardville.   I think we've only had one session where people have poked around inside the town.   Since there were several lucrative dungeons nearby, I'd expected that people would have used it for a base more often.  But, I guess the taxes and fees were too high (not that I'd expected you guys to have paid them all in full each visit).

I suppose the whole paladin-warlock-lynchmob blow up got that all off course.

In any case, I'm interested to see a ramp up with Lucius Bastardo in the near future.

New Henchmen ideas

I've been thinking about making a few unique henchmen for the henchmen deck.   More like Earl of the Mountains, that would throw some more spice into the mix.

One example is "Mighty Stan, the Wheelbarrow Man" who's schtick is he has a decent strength, and a reasonably large pile of hit points (say 20 or so) but all he wants to do is push around a wheelbarrow full of gear in dangerous dungeons for money.

I've noticed that the Alchemists never seem to go over when they pop up in the deck.  No one seems to want to set up the lab and have the follow through to collect potions for analysis and recipes.

Nigel's tool kit

One of the interesting things about early D&D is the lack of a skills system.   Since there is no skill system, when you want to try something, you have to describe exactly what you are doing, and more importantly the tools or instruments with which you are attempting it.  In the earliest version of D&D there weren't any Thieves, so every attempt to disarm or detect a trap had to be described.  

I think this makes things much more interesting for several reasons.  First, for the more dramatically minded it makes for a more imaginative scene ("I use my 10 foot pole to gently left the cover of the box", as opposed to "I roll to remove traps").  Second, it makes every mundane item you carry around a possible lead or key to moving the adventure along.

In the last 2 adventures, I've loved being able to rummage through Nigel's professional tool kit.  I've used cigars to avoid a giant weasel,  chamulga oil to remove slime, acid to weaken a glass sphere, oil to burn a troll (hardly orginal, I'll concede), and crowbars and prybars for a host of reasons (mainly for the minions to do various things).   I kind of wished I had had some rakes and shovels, but what can you do?

Is it Astrology?

I just don't get it.

It's just like random luck.

I just don't understand Blogger Comments.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I can't seem to see any pattern to it.

The Cruelty of the Young

I was thinking about the early days of my gaming life.  I was around 16 or 17, and we were playing a game of Third Reich in the old basement.   The guy who was playing France rolled over and surrendered to Germany almsot immediately (just like in real life), he continued playing as the Vichy puppet government in the south of France (just like in real life).  The allied players were furious with him, and started calling him Vichy Sous for the rest of the game.

But it wasn't just for the rest of the game, it was, well, effectively forever.   We called the kid "Viche" for the remainder of the existance of the high school game group.   I imagine some of the group don't remember his actual name to this day, and just remember him as "Viche".

Well, there you go.

Bless you Alice

I was watching the "Music Choice" Stations on the cable, and on the rock station it had a song by Alice Cooper.   According to the title card, the song is brand new, 2011.

Wel,, the name of the song is "Bite Off Your Face", and all I can say is:

Bless you, Alice Cooper.

Posting Comments

For some reason, posting comments is a bit buggy.   Jason e-mailed me and said he couldn't get it to work posting as a "Name."  I had had trouble at one point this summer, but got it straightened out.

I tried again tonight, and at first it wouldn't work for me either, but then I got it to work, and after a series of tests, found it was working again.

So, my advice, is, if you intend to make a long comment, write it on another file first and then plan to paste it in.   Try a few times if it doesn't work the first time.

Warehouse 13

This summer I watched the current season of the SyFy original series "Warehouse 13."  I must admit that I really like the premise as guide to magic items for a fantasy campaign.  Each "artifact" in the series is a different magic item, each one unlike any others.   The magic items aren't created on purpose, but become magical spontaneous, linked to their famous owners.   So, one artifact might be Gallileo's telescope, another might be the binoculars from the Enola Gay.   Each one has a unique power, but also some "downside".

Behind the Screen: Session 19

It's been a while, but I did want to comment on Session 19.   I do really like having the Hackmaster monstrer books.  The variety of monsters are really useful.  I wanted a lawful undead that did something frightening, but didn't drain levels.  The possession power of the Haunt was great and I found it in a flash.  

I also wanted to test out the Summoner class in action.   In a narrow room, the Old Ones summoners made a decent fight of it, calling up a ton of summoned creatures.   Although, as a DM, I could have just given the bad guys tons of underlings.    I'd like to have seen a example on the PC's side.

And now a word from Andrew

Andrew has been working on a re-boot of our old Knights of Orion campaign for Savage Worlds, as the game that will follow our current D&D campaign.   He's asked me to post his pitch for the game, and so here it is:

In my spare time I've been writing a sequel to the Knights of Orion
game. For those of you who don't know about or don't remember the
original campaign you can find more information here:

http://www.lordsofhack.com/orion/

Here's my pitch for the new game:


The Kings of Orion

In the past, the Kingdom of Orion was an interstellar government
ruling over 1000 star systems in the Orion Galaxy. The government was
overseen by a single king, elected out of members of a royal line by a
representative assembly and serving for life. Each world maintained
its own separate planetary government and defense force while
providing tribute in the form of personnel and resources to the royal
government.

The kingdom was founded when the galaxy was in the grips of a
devastating interplanetary war against a “race” of robotic marauders
bent on destroying all organic life known only as "The Machines". For
over 500 years, the Kingdom of Orion oversaw the protection of member
worlds from outside threat and normalized trade relations between
worlds. All that changed when the Kingdom was plunged into civil war
after the abolition and execution of the Knightly order of Orion in
486 and the death of King Lothar VIII in Royal Year 505.

Several men with power took deadly steps to be named the next king.
After several initial quick and bloody conflicts, the kingdom was
shattered. Interstellar trade and travel ground to a halt in fear of
being destroyed for crossing an unknowable border or doing business
with the wrong people. Piracy became commonplace as warships were
called on to defend borders rather than police shipping lanes.
Communications between worlds dried up, and those without the means to
travel through interstellar space had to make due with whatever
resources they could muster on whatever rock they were on. The
kingdom’s worlds were divided up as each planet pledged their support
behind one of the main warlords. These five men are the new Kings of
Orion.

Now, it has been three decades of an uneasy armistice as the kings
re-arm themselves for the next round of interstellar war. A few men
have retaken the noble mantle of the Knights of Orion in hopes of
healing a shattered kingdom and protecting it from forces from outside
threatening to consume the kingdom whole. Are these heroes deserving
of their title, or are they just the useless dirtbags they seem to be?

New Reviews

I've been distracted with actually working for a living again this last month, but I'm getting back to blogging again.

Two Quick Reviews:

TERRA NOVA:   more properly Terra No-Way.   My god.   You create a show with freaking dinosaurs in it, and then make the major conflict be lame-O family drama and "It's hard to be the stupid chief" stuff.  Then every body does really stupid things, like seek out of the camp into dinosaur jungles for a swim.  And then, in 2 hours, you have maybe 5 minutes of actual dinosaurs.     Suck-tastic.

MORLOCKS:  a SyFy original movie, but somehow still better than Terra Nova.  The stupid romances and conspiracy stuff was pretty stupid.  You knew who was going to die as soon as that person appears.  Yet still, it was somehow better than Terra Nova.   It did deliver on the main promise of the movie, however, there were lots and lots of Morlocks.   It sucked, but it was still better than Terra Nova.