Behind the Screen: Session 23--The Perfect Sandbox Session

In many ways Session 23 from last Sunday was the ideal of a Sandbox session.   The Griffons coming to the Badlands was the result of a random event card from the beginning of the previous session.   Bosco Smokey just happened to drop by and mention them.  The players put aside the treasure map for a griffon hunt, mostly because they didn't want the Bastardville guys to get what they wanted.  Then their decisions were made based on the Badlands map and the places they went were not created just to fill some dramatic necessity, they were organic to the setting.   Tower Graf didn't end up having anything to do with the griffons, but the hobgoblin battle was still cool and mildly profitable.   Finally, the D&D DMG and MM are so useful in providing wilderness encounters and treasures, there is such a richness and depth for sandbox play in those books.

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?