Notion – One vs. Many

June 27, 2020March 21, 2021 / jstater / 4 Comments

Here’s an idea I had today while walking the dog. It’s about combat with multiple attackers in RPG fights of the B&T variety.

When a character is facing more than one opponent, they can make a choice on how many of their foes they want to “actively engage” each round. For each foe they actively engage beyond the first, they suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to their attack. Any foe they do not actively engage gets a cumulative +1 bonus to attack the character.

For example: A fighter is facing three goblins. If he decides to actively engage one goblin, he gets to attack that goblin with his normal chances. The other two goblins, because they are not actively engaged, attack with a +2 bonus (+2 because there are two goblins not actively engaged).

If the fighter actively engaged two of the goblins, then he suffers a -1 penalty to his attack that round (-1 because there is one “extra” goblin he is engaging). The one goblin who is not engaged gets a +1 bonus to hit the fighter (+1 because there is one goblin not actively engaged).

If the fighter actively engages all three, the goblins get no bonus to attack, but the fighter suffers a -2 penalty to his attack.

If you use a rule wherein the fighter class can attack multiple opponents, you can still use these penalties, but apply them to each of the fighter’s attacks during a round.

Note – I planned to use an image from Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) where he was fighting several men, but couldn’t find it. I stuck with Cyrano anyways, because he’s my hero.

Daddy-o Appreciation Day

June 21, 2020March 11, 2021 / jstater

Hey all you cats and kittens – just a quick note today in between Father’s Day festivities (my dad and fam was over yesterday, wife’s dad and fam today) to wish all the dads and their loved ones out there a happy day.

In case you have some time today for fine cinema, enjoy this little gem from MST3K (ah, the old Comedy Central days – MST3K, Kids in the Hall) … Daddy-O:

Fun side note – a guy I worked with at the Video Park was friends with Dick Contino’s son. It’s a small world afterall!

For GRIT & VIGOR fans out there, here are some game stats for good old Daddy-O (or just about any other similar character from an old misunderstood-teenager b-movie)

Daddy-O

Grease-Monkey

AL NG, LVL 3, HP 14, AC 12, ATK +1, SV F12 R10 W12

Str 12 Int 11 Wis 13 Dex 16 Con 12 Cha 14

Special: Fearless (+2 save vs. fear), temporarily increase physical ability score (+1 for 3 rd), use wrenches as maces in combat, maximum performance from motor vehicles, +10% to motor vehicle’s top speed, apply combat feats to vehicles, +1 to attack and +1 damage to constructs

Knacks: Communicate, Mechanics, Perform

Skills: Appraise Value (Cars), Drive Car, Endure, Mechanics, Ride Bike, Search

Feats: Fancy Driving, Leadership, Stuntman

Weapons: None

Bar Fights Updated

June 14, 2020March 13, 2021 / jstater / 3 Comments

Bar fight from The Spoilers (1942) – click for source

A few weeks ago I began writing a supplment I had long planned for my GRIT & VIGOR rules concerning the “Old West”. I’d been working on the High Frontier supplement, which covers the retro-future imagined for the late 20th century (now in editing – hopefully ready soon) and was cleaning up the G&V file folders. That led me to opening a few files to see what was in them, which led to doing some organization in an “Old West” word document, which led to .. well, let’s say I’m about 50% finished with writing the supplement now, when I should have been completing other projects (i.e. NOD 36 and Gods & Legends).

One element I needed for the Old West supplement was rules for saloon fights, which I’d written up for generic Old School fantasy games a few years back (2012, to be precise). I hadn’t looked up the old post yet when I got an email mentioning that I’d left something off a table in that article, and would I please update it. Strange coincidence!

So, here are the rules as modified (just slightly) for the Old West supplement. The updated table (the first one) is suitable for the old post and use in fantasy games (or sci-fi games if you want to host a slugfest in the Mos Eisley Cantina).

Saloon Fights

A staple of western movies and television shows, especially those of a less serious nature, is the saloon fight. Sometimes it starts with an insult, or sometimes with an accidental bump, but in no time at all an epic free-for-all slugfest erupts.

Running something like this in a game is difficult because there are so many moving parts. These rules are designed to make it easier.

The first thing to determine is the size of the brawl. If you do not know how many brawlers are present, you can roll dice and consult the table below:

D6	Fight Size	Combatants	Hit Points
1	Kerfuffle	6 to 10	3d6
2-3	Dust-up	11 to 20	6d6
4-5	Donnybrook	21 to 30	9d6
6	Slugfest	31+	12d6

Hit Points in the table above refers to the total hit points of the crowd of combatants. When the crowd’s hit points are reduced to zero, the saloon fight is over because all the non-PC combatants have either fled, are unconscious or are otherwise unable to fight.

While the fight is still happening, characters can choose one of the following actions each round:

Fight: Character jumps into the fight with feet and fists flying – he’ll take all comers

Flee: Character tries to scramble out of the fight

Hide: Character hides under a table or behind the bar

Loot: Character wades through the fight picking pockets or stealing drinks

Seek: Character wades through the fight looking for a specific target; the target could be a person or an item

The VM rolls 1d10 and checks the matrix below, cross-referencing the roll with each character’s stated action. Any time a character suffers damage, they must pass a Fortitude saving throw with a penalty equal to the damage suffered to avoid being either stunned for 1d3 rounds or knocked unconscious for 1d10 minutes. There is a 50% chance of either. A stunned character is considered to have chosen “Hide” as his action each round he is stunned.

D10	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Fight	N	F	F	B	A	A	A	A	A	A
Flee	N	N	N	F	F	F	M	M	M	M
Hide	N	N	N	N	N	N	F	F	B	A
Loot	N	N	N	F	F	B	A	L	L	L
Seek	N	N	F	F	B	A	A	A	R	R

The letter codes are as follows:

A is for “Attacked”: The character is attacked by other combatants, and can attack them back. Roll 1d6:

1	AC 10, ATK +0, DMG 1d2
2	AC 11, ATK +1, DMG 1d2+1
3	AC 12, ATK +2, DMG 1d2+1
4	AC 13, ATK +3, DMG 1d2+2
5	AC 14, ATK +4, DMG 1d2+2
6	Attacked by two combatants, roll 1d4 to determine each attacker’s stats. If both attackers attack successfully, the PC must make a Reflex saving throw or be lifted and thrown. Roll 1d6 for the effect:

Lifted and Thrown Sub-Table

1-2	Slid down the bar for additional 1d6 points of damage and knocked prone
3-4	Thrown out door and into street for 1d6 points of damage and knocked prone
5	Thrown out window and into street for 2d4 points of damage and knocked prone
6	Thrown off balcony or stairs onto a table, suffering 2d6 points of damage and knocked prone; if this doesn’t make sense, re-roll

B is for “Bystander”: The character catches sight of an innocent (or not) bystander

1-2	Child hiding from the fight; good characters must attempt to save them by fleeing
3-4	Saloon girl motions you to a door; you must “Seek” to get there, and once inside consult the Saloon Girl sub-table below
5-6	A damsel faints, roll under Dexterity to catch her for 100 XP; you now fight with a -2 penalty to hit

Saloon Girl Sub-Table

1-2	Quit the fight and do some wooing and cooing (50% chance of being slipped a Mickey or simply being pick pocketed, 10% chance you are hunted down by a jealous lover afterwards) – either way, you earn XP per a 3 HD monster you dog!
3-4	Suckered into an ambush, roll as per “A” above, but roll 1d3+3, and you don’t get to hit back
5-6	Punched by the girl/guy (AC 10, attack at +1, 1d2 points of damage) – this is a surprise attack, so you don’t get to hit back

F is or “Flying Debris”: The character is struck by flying debris; boxers can attempt a Reflex saving throw to avoid it, but all others roll 1d6:

1-3	Hit by bottle for 1d3 points of damage; Fortitude save or knocked unconscious
4-5	Hit by chair for 1d6 points of damage; Fortitude save or knocked unconscious
6	Hit by a flying body for 2d4 points of damage; Fortitude save or knocked unconscious; if a compatriot was thrown this round, you were hit by them

L is for “Looting”: The character acquires some loot – roll 1d6:

1	Acquire a single mug of beer or a shot of whiskey
2-3	Pick pocket check to acquire 50¢ or its equivalent
4	Pick pocket check to acquire $1 or its equivalent
5	Pick pocket check to acquire $10 or its equivalent
6	Pick pocket check to acquire a treasure map or some other plot device; only use this once!

On a failed pick pockets roll, you are instead attacked – see “A” above.

M is for “Move”: The character moves 1d10 feet to-wards his chosen exit.

N is for “Nothing”: Nothing happens to you this round, nor do you get to do anything

R is for “Reach Target”: Character reaches the target they were looking for!

Break It Up!

Each round of the saloon fight there is a 5% chance that the town sheriff and his deputies (or deputized citizens) shows up to break things up. The number of deputies depends on the size of the town – use your best judgment – but they are armed with pistols and are willing to use them to restore order.

Combatants, including the player characters, are arrested unless they find a way to sneak out. If the sheriff is on his way, there is a 50% chance that some old coot yells “Sheriff’s coming!” the round before to give the combatants a chance to flee.

Bringing a Gun to a Fist Fight

Pulling a knife or gun during a fist fight is a cowardly and low-down act, and results in you being avoided by other combatants for the duration and suffering a -4 penalty to reactions in this town in the future.

Death and Dismemberment

Saloon fights should not result in PC death, because death just is not the point of these things. At 0 hit points, a character is knocked out and awakens in jail.

Buried Treasure

June 7, 2020March 13, 2021 / jstater

In my youth, I thought he really did speak in word bubbles

Folks who regularly read my blog will recall my “timely reviews” of old games. I love old games (which reminds me – review of the Six Million Dollar Man coming soon), sometimes for the nostalgia, sometimes for the design, and sometimes for the discovery value. When it comes to buying old games, there are two different kinds of discovery.

The first, of course, is discovering a new system and new ideas about how to simulate whatever the game is trying to simulate. Even simple games meant for children can have clever ideas in them. The old game I just recently bought does not offer that kind of discovery, because it’s a game I used to own. Well, sorta.

Our old logo was a rip from the NFL Vikings – this is the new one

Back in 9th grade, in which I was technically a freshman at Valley High School (Valley Vikings Rule!), but was still being taught at Cannon Junior High (it was how they did things back then), there was a small corps of gamers (meaning role-playing gamers … everyone played video games back then, so they didn’t get a special designation) at the school, and we all knew each other. I remember a friend named Irfan who carried a briefcase to school so he could screen from the teacher that he was reading the AD&D Monster Manual in class – very smart guy, as well, got way better grades than me – so it was that sort of group.

At some point, a new kid in school discovered that I ran D&D games, and he wondered if I would run a game for him. The kid in question was new to town – I got the feeling that he moved around alot – so he didn’t have any friends in school. He lived close to the school, so I went over to his house one day to see the game he wanted me to run. It was something new.

It turned out to be the Marvel Superheroes RPG. Well, it also turned out that he had a big box full of old Playboys, which is another story, but this MSH game and the Secret Wars module he wanted me to run was the point of the visit and it was intriguing. Beyond the Spider-Man bits on the Electric Company, the Super Friends and Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, I knew nothing about comic books. I had a few war comics, but that was it. This was all very new to me.

The kid lent me the Secret Wars booklet, and I had my first introduction to the likes of Storm (in her 80’s punk phase, which is still my favorite) and a host of other characters. It got me interested in comic books, and I remember the next time we were at a 7-Eleven I convinced my dad to buy me a comic book – a slugfest between the Avengers and the Hulk, so it had tons of characters in it, and it made me a comic book fan. The same way D&D got me into reading the Lord of the Rings, the Marvel Superheroes game got me into comic books. I do everything back-assward!

My first ish – Hulk #316

Naturally, along with reading comic books, I also got my own copy of the game – the advanced version! The kid in question moved away before I could even give him back the Secret Wars booklet, so I had that for years in my own advanced game set. Some time in the late 1990’s I gave virtually all my RPG stuff away to some friends. When I got back into gaming later, it turned out they had kept most of it, and I got it back … but not the Marvel game. Somebody claimed that beauty.

Recently, my daughter, who digs the movies and has an interest in the comics, found out about the game and wanted to play it, so I went looking for a copy and … WOW! I made a huge mistake giving that sucker away – copies are so expensive these days! Fortunately, last week I found a copy of the basic game at a reasonable price and snapped it up. It arrived yesterday, and this is where the buried treasure comes in.

As I perused the contents, I found some old character sheets filled out by the previous owners. The first one was for Wolverine, but the next was for an original hero created using the game rules. I love that kind of find. It made me wonder who the old owner of the set was … and a few pages more, I found out. It turns out that the owner not only filled out the application for the RPG Association but never sent it in (me to), but also weote a letter asking some questions about how Wolverine’s powers worked, also never sent, with his name and address on it.

It was fun reading the letter, because it reminded me of myself back in the day – a wide-eyed geek trying to wrap his head around these games and things that were so new to me. Going back in time like this is nice. The times really weren’t any simpler then than now for adults, but my life was much simpler as a kid. I miss the people I’ve loved and have lost – friends and relatives – and although I cannot get them back, looking through old games and books and photographs sparks cherished memories of them and makes me happy … a bittersweet happiness, but happiness just the same.

Now, I present a forgotten superhero of the 1980’s, discovered in a beat-up old game box and created by a person whose name I will not reveal (but who I think I found with a search on LinkedIn) … Spazmo Joe! Maybe his creator will come across this, and it will bring back some happy times. I sure hope so!

SPAZMO JOE … of SHIELD!

Fighting: Excellent
Agility: Remarkable
Strength: Remarkable
Endurance: Amazing
Reason: Excellent
Intuition: Remarkable
Psyche: Good

Health: 130
Karma: 30

Known Powers: Extra attacks, Weather control (Amazing)

Talents: First aid, law enforcement, guns, special weapons, martial arts

Special Devices: Plasma gun, 30-cal machine gun, mandarin armor (at least, I think it says mandarin)

And yeah … there was art!

Is that a SHIELD-regulation haircut?

‘Nuff Said!

The McNod Group

May 25, 2020March 14, 2021 / jstater

Hey all you cats and kittens … just writing a grab bag today because hey, sometimes you can’t focus … especially not on the last nice week of weather Vegas will see until October!

I’ll be covering things today like they did on the McLaughlin Group, hence the stupid post title.

ISSUE ONE – Slipgate Chokepoint

Andrew Walter has a Kickstarter running for a pen & pencil re-creation of a 90’s era first-person shooter video game. If those games make you all goose-pimply, then check it out. The product is a supplement to the Stay Frosty RPG, and aims to turn the action in that game up a notch – faster and more deadly. Give it a look see, ladies and gentlement. There are still 22 days left on the campaign, so plenty of time to get in on the ground floor.

ISSUE TWO – MEMORIAL DAY

Another Memorial Day rolls around, and unfortunately we have even more American warriors to remember in 2020. My grandfather served in World War II as a doctor in a field hospital set up to take care of the survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. He didn’t tell stories about it, because I imagine the things he saw he didn’t want the rest of us to struggle with. A great-uncle of mine was a Seabee. I remember him talking about how eerie it was to be on an island, thick with jungle, and know that there were Japanese soldiers out there, just beyond the lights, watching.

I also have a couple uncles who served in the Korean War, one in the US Army, the other the Marine Corps. My father served in the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. What I’m saying is that I’ve been lucky enough to know many people who served their country, and I’m sure many of you readers have as well. If you don’t know anyone who served, I’d say get out there and get to know one – it enriches your perspectives about a great many things. There aren’t many World War II veterans left, nor veterans of the Korean War. It’s hard to believe that the Vietnam Veterans are now as old as the WW2 vets were when I was a little kid. I’m not saying you should try to drag war stories out of people – those tales can be very painful. I’m just saying it’s very worthwhile to get to know people who have survived the experience of war. And honor them, because they need the love.

ISSUE THREE – THINK SMALL

I suppose there are some readers out there who aren’t mired in Great Depression-era unemployment as a result of lockdowns from COVID-19 – count yourselves lucky. My own state of Nevada has hit 28% unemployment, the highest in the country and double what we had during the Great Recession. Folks, it’s tough out there, and especially for small businesses. If you have the ability to do so, throw as much of your business as possible their way. The giant megacorps will suffer, but not nearly as much, and frankly, if half the McDonalds or Starbucks had to close, there would still be lots of McDonalds and Starbucks … though I’d hate to see their employees lose their jobs.

Still, when little independently run businesses give up the ghost, they’re gone forever. In the last couple weeks we’ve gotten back out to Cash 4 Chaos, the punk/rock shop we dig – got a VHS copy of Ladyhawke we watched last night and a some bitchin’ shirts for my daughter and me. We hit our favorite antique mall on Saturday, all masked up, and then ordered dinner from our favorite mexican restaurant, Casa Don Juan, which re-opened this weekend. We’ve been hitting as many of our favorite spots as we can, including the awesome Omelet House 50’s Diner we’ve patronized for the last 25 years – it’s run by some really beautiful folks. It sounds like Zia Records is open again, so I’m itching to visit them, and to get back out to Boulder City and all their great restaurants and shosp. Remember, these folks are really hurting, and they need your help to stay open, so please consider throwing your coin their way.

ISSUE FOUR – LADYHAWKE ON VHS

Since I brought it up – how great is Ladyhawke? It’s such a cozy movie in many ways – up close and personal, not grand and overbearing like so many modern flicks. It’s not a perfect film by any means, but Broderick is great (and I wonder if this movie had any effect on him getting Ferris Bueller), Michelle Pfeiffer is wonderful and so lovely and Rutger Hauer just loosk perfect on that black charger, hawk on his arm, zweihander by his side. The curse of the lovers is tragic, keeping them apart, and I dig the ending, whereby it becomes more a “man vs. self” story than “man vs. man”. If you haven’t watched the film, give it a shot. The uber 80’s soundtrack lends the movie an air of weirdness, but if you grew up on that sound, it’s just nostalgic gravy.

Like I mentioned above, since I got a couple working VCR’s last year we’ve been enjoying grabbing some favorite movies on VHS. In the last month, we’ve done some old school viewings of Ladyhawke, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Legend (which I’d never seen straight through) and the three Star Wars films (there are only three of them, you know … Return of the Jedi was the last one they made … just leave me to my illusions) before that Lucas guy messed with them.

Watching the movies on VHS is partly nostagia, since I grew up not only watching those things, but working in the World’s Largest Video Store (and meeting my future wife there). The picture below is of the music video section at my store, the Video Park – it was a rereation of the Beetle’s Yellow Submarine. We had a real haunted house for the horror movies, a circus tent for the kid’s movies, and a brothel for the adult films. We also had some really awesome bosses in Dale & Lisa Clark and Harold Vosko. I notice that in the left-hand corner of the picture below you can just see a bit of the sports section, which looked like the Thomas & Mack center. God, I miss that job!

I also like VHS tapes because DVDs sort of piss me off. Too much nonsense before you get to the film, and too little control over what button you can press and when. A VHS tape is simple and friendly – put it in, hit play, maybe fast forward through some previews if you’re not in the mood – and you watch your movie.

Just remember – be kind, rewind!

ISSUE FIVE – DANCING TURKEYS

To end on a happy note, here is a video of Jimmy the Turkey dancing from the Kyle The Rooster channel. Stay strong folks, and try to keep that glint in your eye and grin on your kisser.

More game related fun coming soon!

Hex Map Redesign

May 10, 2020March 13, 2021 / jstater / 3 Comments

I spent most of Mother’s Day 2020 celebrating my wife, the mother of my daughter, who is just plain awesome. My best friend in the world and the best thing that ever happened to me!

But while I was waiting for her to get ready to go out and celebrate the re-opening of one of favorite shops in Vegas, I had time to play around with a new way of doing my hex maps. I thought I’d provide a sneak preview to what I’d currently call a rought draft.

I’ve been using Hexographer for about a decade now to produce my hex maps, and I really like it. The maps it creates look great, but they do present a few small problems for me. First, I just recently switched to using a new computer, and last night had to do some digging to find my license key. If I hadn’t found it, I might have been in a sticky situation, so bringing the map creation completely “in house” would be safer for me, and give me more control over my product.

The second problem is that the hex maps I have been creating do not reproduce well in the PDF format. I’ve done just about everything I can think of to improve them, but I just cannot get them to look right. That’s why I provide the hex maps as downloads on the site … but if the site ever went away, the maps would go with it, and that wouldn’t be good at all. In addition, having the maps more at hand for GM’s would be a big bonus. I really want to include the maps in the books.

The final problem has to do with the format of numbered hexes. When you are looking at a map, you can see right away where cities, towns and villages are located, but you cannot see where all of the other enounters are located. As a GM, you have to reference every hex the party travels through to see if there is something in it, which is a pain in the rear and makes it really easy to miss something.

Thus, the new design:

My idea is to include with each hex crawl an overview map without hexes to give the GM a general overview of the region being described. This map is then subdivided into smaller sub-maps. The sub-maps look like the one above. Descriptions of the settlements and numbered encounter areas would be located after the sub-map in the hex crawl.

Each sub-map is labeled A, B, C, D, etc., to allow encounters on one sub-map to be referenced in the encounters for another sub-map, something like [A3] or [F4], rather than the current [0122].

I won’t use this new style on the next hex crawl – that map is already created in Hexographer. They will probably premiere in the next crawl, and in the compilation books I’m hoping to start publishing in 2021 under the title The Nodian Cosmography. These will collect the old hex crawls, starting with the Wyvern Coast and Nabu – and the city-states of Ophir and Ibis – published in the first issues of NOD. The new books will update the hex crawls to the 2nd edition Blood & Treasure rules, fix errors, and include some new material where appropriate.

Abbeys and Armorials

May 2, 2020March 7, 2021 / jstater / 2 Comments

Hey all – just a quick tidbit today. Work has been hectic and I’ve been writing a bunch and playing with heraldry for the upcoming halfling hexcrawl – fun, but boy am I tired.

Anyhow – I was working on making simple schematics of a halfling abbey (or klaster) and cathedral (or kotella). As alluded to in an earlier post on the halfling saints, I am doing a faux-medical Catholic church vibe for the halflings, but using a mother goddess and her “kitchen saints”. The design, though, is pretty much the same – I copied these from Canterbury Cathedral and … well, I don’t remember the name of the abbey. I figured these might come in handy for other folks looking for a simple representation – just ignore the stuff about pantries and holy kitchens – it’s a halfling thing – and sub in a more traditional altar and such.

Halfling Abbey

Halfling Cathedral

They’re both a bit crude, but they’re good enough for now.

And just for the heck of it – here are some sneak previews of halfling heraldry I’m working on for the hex crawl.

Bagno

Grumsk

Jabilka

City of Jablona

Mark of Kamostya

Kopek

Malthy

Misha

City of Mook

Notska

City of Nunc

Rumzi

Yore

Zelenia

Just an FYI – I built all of these in Excel. So help me, it’s the best graphics program in the world for non-graphic artists.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

April 19, 2020March 13, 2021 / jstater / 3 Comments

Hey folks! I missed the last couple weekends because, frankly, I’ve been busy as a one-armed paperhanger lately. I work in economic research in commercial real estate, so you can imagine that the business closures over the last few weeks have made for a very interesting (to use a very nice word) business environment. We don’t have much economic data to plow through yet, but I’ve been writing numerous articles for my people to help them better understand the situation. As a result, I needed a couple weekends away from writing.

But now I’m back … with a pretty easy post to write. Today, I’m going to direct your attention to a few old shows I’ve found episodes of on Youtube. You might already have seen them, but they were new to me, and I found them fun. This isn’t a RPG post per se, but half the challenge in running RPGs is finding new sources of inspiration – hopefully this post will give you some ideas you can use, especially for modern games.

Sapphire & Steel

A British sci-fi show that ran from 1979-1982, I can only say that the vibe of the show is a little bit X-Files and a little bit Doctor Who … and that that description is completely worthless in describing this show. It’s really it’s own animal. The show stars David McCallum and Joanna Lumley, and the concept is sort of bizarre. They are agents, who might actually be personified elements, sent to contain weird distortions of time that are trying to force themselves into the normal time stream. I love that they are very circumspect, at least in the first series, of explaining just what the heck is going on, but the show is creepy and wonderful and McCallum and Lumley are excellent in it. I dug the show so much that I hit Zia Records and ordered the complete series. By the by – if you’re looking for cool stuff, sometimes pre-owned, I suggest Zia. I absolutely love going to their stores and browsing, but right now their online ordering is all I can do.

Zodiac

Another British show, Zodiac ran in 1974, and thankfully has nothing to do with the Zodiac Killer. This show stars Anouska Hempel as an astrologist who helps her paramour, a detective inspector played by Anton Rodgers, solve crimes. It’s not a bad mystery show, really, though it’s more in the vein of the shows, like Columbo, that showed you who the villain was at the beginning, rather than letting you figure it out along with the detective. I dig it because it comes from that mid- to late-70s period when things like UFO’s, astrology, psychic powers and big foot gained a weird legitimacy in popular culture – not as elements of speculation, but as things that were on the cusp of being made matters of fact. If you’re my age, you probably remember watching In Search Of, with Leonard Nimoy (I don’t mean watching the show WITH Leonard Nimoy, whic would have been great fun, but rather … oh never mind). In Search Of was dedicated to pushing pseudo-science over the goal line into the realm of main steam science, and I really love that old vibe. Zodiac does the same, and I’ve had fun watching a few episodes.

Burke’s Law

A wonderfully weird show from 1963-1966. I’ve only seen the early episodes, which follow Captain Amos Burke (Gene Barry) of LAPD homocide and his lieutentant and sergeant solving murders. The twist is that Burke is a millionaire – I think he inherited it – who shows up at the crime scene in a chauffeur-driven silver Rolls Royce, and that the suspects are all pretty eccentric, not unlike the Emma Peel-era episodes of The Avengers. I also love that they re-use actors from episode to episode in different rolls, kind of like using a troupe of favorites. It’s a weird show filled with crazy characters, beautiful women and tangled cases that are fun to solve along with Burke. On a side note, one episode has Barbara Eden in essentially a genie costume showing off her belly button. Apparently just a few years later that was going to be a problem for prime time TV.

So there you go folks. If you were running low on things to watch, now you have some new old shows to check out. Up next, I present some stats on a few heroes of myth and legend – a little preview of my Gods & Heroes book. Have fun!

Back in My Day: HBO

March 28, 2020March 14, 2021 / jstater / 3 Comments

Today I start a new series of reminisces about the times I grew up in. Because folks … they’re getting to be the “olden days”. There’s about as much time between now and those golden 1980’s in which I grew up as there was between the 1980’s and World War II when the ’80s were new. It’s a funny thing, the way things change slowly, gradually, so that you don’t even realize it until those changes pile up and you find yourself in a whole new world.

Our entry today is HBO – The Wonder of its Age (for boys who weren’t supposed to be watching it at our age!)

Before we get to HBO, though, I’d like to let folks know that Pen & Paper Baseball is now up for download on DriveThruRPG.com … and free to make up for the lack of Opening Day this year. It will stay free until the baseball season starts – so Play Ball!

Home Box Office! Movies at home … but newer than the movies of the week you got on normal TV … AND NO COMMERCIALS! You see, the awesome thing about cable TV was that since you had to pay for it, there were never going to be commercials! Can you believe it? Probably not, given how many damn commercials there are on cable TV now. That promise sure didn’t last very long.

Now, my family were never early adopters of new technologies. Be patient, let them produce better products at lower prices, and then jump in. I didn’t have HBO in my house as a kid, but my friend next door did. In fact, he was the only one of my circle who had it, so many an afternoon were spent at his house. He also had an Atari, so we’d waste some hours playing Pitfall and Pac-Man, and then catch a movie or two. Pretty sweet deal.

There are three movies in particular that I remember from those days, which I share with you now in no particular order …

1. Ice Pirates (1984)

This was one of those films we probably shouldn’t have been watching back then. I was 12 when it came out, so maybe 13 when it was on HBO. It stars Robert Urich, and the movie is about … well, ice pirates. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen it since I was a kid, so all I remember is that water is super valuable in the future, and there’s all this fighting over a big hunk of ice floating in space. Oh, and there was a joke about them being turned into eunuchs. Heck, it was mildly dirty and involved space ships, so it was a hit with my crowd. Honestly, I’m going to guess the movie is a LOT funnier when you’re 13 years old.

2. The Big Red One (1980)

Holy crap did we watch this movie a bunch. I was the World War II freak in my circle, and dragged the rest along with me into playing army. We all had plastic M-16s and grenades and would play war in the neighborhood like crazy. We even fought some kids who lived on the other side of the street once (and won!). They were led by another kid named Matt, and since he was big and we were as sensitive as you would expect as elementary school kids, he was known as Fat Matt. I was just Matt.

Anyhow, the movie follows the 1st Infantry Division in World War II, from North Africa, through Italy and into Germany. It stars Lee Marvin, who is just plain cool, and you even have some early post-Star Wars work by Mark Hammill. I don’t remember now, but I’m sure it freaked us out to see him be something other than Luke Skywalker.

Now, we dug the movie because it was a war movie, but also because it provided something that young fellas in those days were often in search of … bare boobs. Pre-internet, finding bare breasts was no easy task for a curious kid. In this movie, there is a split second – and I mean split second – of bare boobs that we could not believe we had seen when we first watched it. Super forbidden … and guaranteed to make the movie an instant classic for a bunch of 10 to 12 year old boys.

3. The Cannonball Run (1981)

Man, do I love this movie. Loved it when I was a kid, and I love it still. My daughter is a big fan as well. What more can you ask for in a film? Fast cars, beautiful women, Burt Reynolds, Dom Delouise, James Bond, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr and Jackie Chan! This was another movie that we knew we probably shouldn’t have been watching at our age, but there it was. I can still remember sitting in my friend’s living room, watching the movie while prepared to get scarce if his parents came home. I also remember us turning aerosol cans and lighters into makeshift flame throwers … God knows how we survived childhood. In our defense, we pretty quickly realized that playing was fire was a bad idea and cut it out. Even we weren’t that stupid. We did discover, though, that if you sprayed a fly with Lysol its wings would crystallize in mid-flight and it would fall from the sky.

So there’s a walk down memory lane from a kid who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, and then grew up some more in the 90’s, and then had a kid and grew up a lot more in the 2000’s.

I’m getting back to watching Charlie’s Angels and making hopping John … and Emergency is on at 3! … but if you have some favorite HBO memories from back in the day, go ahead and share them in the comments, and stay safe out there Nodians!

A Quick Dispatch from the Pandemic

March 21, 2020 / jstater / 3 Comments

Howdy folks – just a quick note today, since I’ve been pretty busy setting up work-from-home and not thinking a bunch about gaming stuff.

My wife and I did a jaunt to the nearby Sprouts grocery store to pick up a few things, and boy was it a normal, boring shopping trip. The place wasn’t super crowded, but there were plenty of shoppers, and everybody was calm. There were a few shelves picked over – mostly of staples and at the meat counter – but we got what were were after without too much trouble. If you’re having trouble finding things at the larger chains, you might check out smaller chains or shops, assuming they’re open.

Folks were eating at the Sonic (in their cars – they had removed the outdoor seating) when we went through the drive-thru for some fountain Cokes, and the roads weren’t empty. Looks like people in Vegas are getting through this pretty well. Now, during the week I’ve been driving into my office to get things done – most of the people who work near me are working from home (you didn’t have to ask them twice), so I’m pretty much all by my lonesome there. As a confirmed introvert, I’ve been training for this situation my entire life!

The morning commute to work has been reminiscent of what it was like 20 years ago. I have worked for the same company in the same general place for 25 years, so I have a basis for comparison on such things. Since the resorts on the Strip are shut down for the moment, and visitation is at a minimum, the central core of the city is pretty quiet. It’s weird, but not super-weird – it looked pretty similar the week or so after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I hope this little missive finds people safe, reasonably happy, and not panicking. Spend some time with your family – we had a rousing game of Dungeon! the other night, which I lost pretty soundly. I recently found an intact copy of the one I used to own – love those graphics so dang much – and I’m really looking forward to the similar game being produced by Sean Aaberg in his Dungeon Degenerates line. My daughter is spending some of her lost Spring Break (she and her friends were going to go to Disneyland – her first trip like that without the parents) sewing on of his weird patches on my denim jacket. Actually a good patch for the times:

We’re doing some comfort-viewing of TV shows and movies we like (and what would the world do without cute/funny animal videos right now?), getting some reading done (just finished Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler and Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis by Michael Ward – both good books), and I’m still working on my own projects. Now’s a good time to renew ties with friends and family, and if there’s a brick-and-mortar store or restaurant that you dig, but cannot visit, think about getting a gift card from for a later date. A good measure of a person or a people is how they behave in tough times, so be kind, supportive and generally groovy to one another, folks, and we’ll hopefully emerge on the other side relatively intact!

I’ll leave folks with a bad movie that would have been better if you had replaced all the “real” people with characters from Robert E Howard’s Conan stories. Ann Blythe sure was pretty – such an interesting face.