Maybe five years ago, I was getting tired of running 3rd edition D-n-D. Lots of work, that one. I was happy to have discovered a new game called Castles and Crusades and was eager to get my players into the new system. To do it, I set up a one-shot excursion into Rappan Athuk, Necromancer Games’ mega-dungeon that promised an encounter with Orcus in its deepest depths.

To introduce the game in the most painless way possible, I set out to make some pre-gen characters for the group. Being a man who loves fantasy art, I started with that. Find a picture, stat it up. Stuck around 6th to 9th level, as I remember and eventually threw in some sci-fi, Popeye, etc. Gonzo.

The play concept was simple. I put about 10 character sheets on the table and let people choose their favorite. I had another 20 or so in reserve. When a character died, they disappeared and were replaced by another, rolled randomly.

Before the group had even made it into the dungeon they had a female thief torn to shreds by gargoyles. Another died in that crypt trap. Deeper in, a psion torched himself and his fellows and sent at least one character to Hades. Another guy got stuck to the … well, I won’t get too much into spoiler territory. Lots of fun, lots of casualties, no tears.

That was Rappan Athuk to me – everything the damned game is supposed to be. And now we’re going to have an expanded version for Swords and Wizardry. Neat!

Over the past few months my wife and I have been watching Dark Shadows, the 1960’s gothic horror soap opera that eventually revolved around Barnabas Collins, a vampire from the coast of Maine. My wife and her friend got into Dark Shadows years ago when they were first released on video cassette and then DVD. I’m a newcomer to the saga, and, given my retro proclivities and love of quality cheese, I’m completely hooked.

For the old school RPG enthusiast, Dark Shadows is a pretty good fit. For starters, it has production values that are on par with our beloved LBB’s. Lines are forgotten, mike booms and cameras sometimes get into shots and impenetrable brick walls often shudder when touched. Re-shooting scenes was an expense the producers were not able or willing to incur, but I’m a firm believer that bad special effects do not ruin good stories. Dark Shadows is a cracking good story.

Most DVD collections ignore the early episodes in favor of the episodes that introduced Barnabas, who became the break-out hit of the series. The story begins with Victoria Winters taking a job as a tutor with the Collins family. The Collins family is suitably Gothic and weird.  The grand dame is Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, who hasn’t left the family home in over a decade – and nobody knows why. Well, nobody except one Jason McGuire, who knows precisely why and is blackmailing Elizabeth as a result. McGuire, as played by Dennis Patrick, is so slimy I found myself dreading his arrival as much as the characters – and praying for his violent downfall as much as his victims as well. Elizabeth’s brother is Roger Collins, an alcoholic single father who was apparently married to a phoenix – i.e. his wife left him and then returned and revealed she was really a mythological creature who catches fire and burns. Weird. Roger’s son is David, a precocious boy (they always are in the 1960’s) who claims that the ghost of Josette Collins still haunts the old house on the estate (she does – for a while, at least, until a new ghost shows up). Elizabeth has a swinging daughter named Carolyn who hates Jason McGuire enough to take up with the world’s goofiest hippy biker just to piss off mom. Jason’s comrade in villainy is one Willy Loomis, who thinks he has discovered that the Collins family jewels are sealed in a crypt on Eagle Hill Cemetery, only to find out that something terrible is hidden within (I’m sure plenty of RPG tomb robbers can relate).

Barnabas, when he finally arrives, proves the maxim that you can’t judge a production by its budget. The storylines with him are often very creepy. His big goal, early on, is to be re-united with Josette, the woman he loved back in 1795. I won’t go into the details, but the storyline is well written and often well played and is disturbing even if you ignore the fact that Barnabas is a vampire. This is something for RPG referees to think about. Don’t let your villains be villains because of the special abilities written next to their names. Make them villainous because of what they do, not because of what they can do.

Eventually, Dr. Julia Hoffman arrives on the scene and adds a new dimension in villainy. She sees curing Barnabas of his vampirism as a way to establish herself as a medical genius, and pursues this with an amoral zeal that eventually catches up to her. Another good template for a villain in RPG’s – the amoral enabler whose agenda complicates the lives of the protagonists.

I highly suggest that folks with a Netflix account or some other way to access the series give it a try. Don’t be put off by the production values – as with the LBB’s, there’s some real treasure buried beneath the modest facade.