The second episode of Dr Who was indeed better than the first. There are still things that bother me though, i.e. they need a writing checker. Why are there giant fans? Why didn’t the plastic people use their sticky powers all the time, since it was obviously their most effective power (after what I assume were plastic bullets coming out of the mannequins)? Why did the little metal spider greeblie go back to its master just because the Doctor told it to? Was it that poorly programmed?
Stuff like that. Does anyone know why the actor isn’t coming back for a second season?
Oh and I saw the last episode of Babblebar Balabiba last night at Marlo’s. From all the hype I was expecting more but it was still good.
When I walk down the street, I see people going about their daily work, and I consider whether or not I could do that, and if that job is better or worse than my job. Today it was the water delivery guy.
So, if you hear of any job openings at your workplace, you’d tell me right? Oh god, tell me.
The worst is when you’ve spent five minutes poring over the VCR to set the timer, only to find out later when you go to watch it that you’ve put in the wrong time, or the wrong day, or the wrong channel, or the tape runs out, or the tab in the VCR has been punched out, or worse still you’ve put the wrong tape in and you just taped over something else important.
Recently I decided to do a short, episodic D&D campaign based on the D&D cartoon series. As many of you know, the D&D animated television series “was a coproduction of Marvel Comics and TSR, and made in the US during the 1980s. Based on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the show was popular in the US and Brazil, and ran for three seasons. Although aimed at a young audience…the show had distinctive plots, and was quite unique in children’s television for the amount of ethical awareness and empathy displayed to and encouraged in the viewer. It was not unusual for members of the band to lose hope or break down in tears, only to be comforted by others, or reinvigorated through good works. The general premise of the show was that a group of kids were pulled into the “Realm of Dungeons & Dragons” by taking a magical rollercoaster trip at a fairground. Invariably, the children just wanted to get home, but would often take detours to help people…. After arriving in the Realm, the…Dungeon Master appeared, assuming the role of their mentor, and gave them each clothing and magical paraphernalia to suit their abilities.” These abilities and weapons related directly to character “classes” in the D&D roleplaying game.
It debuted “on the 17th of September, 1983 and ran for 27 episodes until December, 1985. In the style of most Western animation the series was nonlinear. There was no clear plot being followed and most episodes ended up where they had begun, having no bearing on any future episodes in the series.” (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons )
My campaign would adapt only a selection of these episodes. Here’s a quick glance at the full episode lineup:
Season One (1983):
Episode 1 – The Night of No Tomorrow – 17th of September, 1983
Episode 2 – Eye of the Beholder
Episode 3 – The Hall of Bones
Episode 4 – Valley of the Unicorns
Episode 5 – In Search of the Dungeon Master
Episode 6 – Beauty and the Bogbeast
Episode 7 – Prison Without Walls
Episode 8 – Servant of Evil
Episode 9 – Quest of the Skeleton Warrior
Episode 10 – The Garden of Zinn
Episode 11 – The Box
Episode 12 – The Lost Children
Episode 13 – P-R-E-S-T-O Spells Disaster
Season Two (1984):
Episode 1 – The Girl Who Dreamed Tomorrow – 15th of September, 1984
Episode 2 – The Treasure of Tardos
Episode 3 – City at the Edge of Midnight
Episode 4 – The Traitor
Episode 5 – Day of the Dungeon Master
Episode 6 – The Last Illusion
Episode 7 – The Dragon’s Graveyard
Episode 8 – Child of the Stargazer
Season Three (1985):
Episode 1 – The Dungeon at the Heart of Dawn – 14th of September, 1985
Episode 2 – The Timelost – 21st of September, 1985
Episode 3 – Odyssey of the 12th Talisman – 28th of September, 1985
Episode 4 – Citadel of Shadow – 12th of October, 1985
Episode 5 – Cave of the Fairy Dragons – 9th of November, 1985
Episode 6 – The Winds of Darkness – 7th of December, 1985 (?)
In the series, there were six children. Hank was the oldest and was the begrudging leader of the group. Dungeon Master gave him a magic bow and called him “Ranger.” The bow shot bolts of energy that could not only do damage, but also be used for pretty much anything a cartoon writer could come up with, including fireworks, a rope and a trampoline!
Sheila the Thief was given a cloak that, when the hood was up, turned its wearer invisible (and sometimes – but not always – intangible). Sheila was the big sister of Bobby.
Bobby, Sheila’s little brother, was the youngest of the group. His ‘class’ was Barbarian and he was given a magical club that knocked down buildings, produced small earthquakes, and generally smashed things. Bobby was very protective of his sister and even more so of his girlfriend, Uni (see below).
Eric was a bratty, obnoxious, spoiled kid who said “Gimme a break” a lot. He was a coward and a whiner, and incidentally probably the most realistic character! He always injected the “modern” zeitgeist into the otherwise fantastical realm. He was voiced by Donnie Most (of Happy Days fame) and his class was (ironically) Cavalier. Dungeon Master gave him a magic shield that seemed like a bit of a ripoff but it did keep the group from being blasted into oblivion or crushed by an avalanche.
Presto, the nerdy “magician” was given a magic hat out of which he could prestidigitate all manner of things, from an aircraft carrier to a cow, although nine times out of ten the ‘spells’ would backfire or produce something entertainingly useless.
Diana the acrobat (a non-standard class that I think appeared in Dragon magazine or in Unearthed Arcana) was given a versatile ‘javelin’ that was actually more a staff. She used the javelin to vault over all manner of things, and the one time it broke she just put it back together as if it were no big thing.
Other characters included Uni the girlish Unicorn – the token cutesy animal sidekick found in cartoons around the time (Gleek, Slimer, Snarf, etc). Uni bleated like a goat and had an strange relationship with Bobby.
None of these above characters appear in my campaign. I allowed my players to make up characters using the traditional 3.5 edition D&D rules, with a few alterations which I’ll describe below. However, other characters appeared (or will appear) faithfully as from the series:
Vengers sister
Dungeon Master was a little gnomish, Yoda-like character whose hobbies included speaking in riddles and disappearing right before combat broke out. DM served as the group’s mentor and tormentor, as it was pretty obvious that the kids had been transported to Hell and their punishment was coming ju-u-u-u-ust within reach of the exit every episode.
Venger was the “force of evil” in the world, and he also had a Darth Vader/Obi-Wan thing going on between him and DM. He rides a “nightmare” – a bat-winged demon horse from the Monster Manual, and has a little spy shadow demon servitor.
Tiamat, the invincible and super-nasty five-headed dragon, was purportedly the only thing that Venger was afraid of (though I think he also had a fear of success). She pops up throughout the series at random times in random places just for kicks, or so it seems.
Next I’ll be explaining my basic approach to adapting the series and going through the characters my players came up with.
1. Post a list of 10 TV fandoms/shows and comics you follow (current or cancelled!)
2. Have your friends list guess your favourite CHARACTER from each show
3. When guessed bold the line and write a sentence explaining why.
4. Post in your own blog.
1. Dungeons & Dragons cartoon
2. Superfriends
3. Ripping Friends
4. Home Movies Coach McGuirk because he’s the worst soccer coach in the world. Jason is a very close second, and they’re voiced by the same guy.
5. Justice League Red Tornado! For obvious reasons.
6. Star Trek TOS Spock or Kirk or Bele or the guy who designed the M5 are all acceptable.
7. Star Wars IG-88. I mean just look at him!
8. Simpsons
9. Batman Mr Freeze is coooool. He’s not a typical supervillain (at least not as portrayed in the animated series – plus he’s voiced by Michael Ansara).
10. Spaceship Zero
When I was young, it wasn’t “cool” to be in love. Certainly not to show it. Love was for suckers after all. Love was what they sold us on TV. And anyway, falling in love always lead to heartbreak, so it wasn’t worth it, and anyone who was in love was weak! Therefore, showing affection in public, especially to your friends, was an embarrassment. It simply wasn’t done.
Happily I grew out of that, though it took a little time. Tinessa also gave me some wisdom while we were dating. She said something to the effect of ‘if somebody gags at or is sickened by or otherwise doesn’t like public displays of affection, that’s his problem,’ and she was right. Obviously I’m not talking about pulling your pants off at a dinner party. Although….
I’ve always been a romantic (and even as a nihilist, I’ve been a romantic nihilist) so I don’t feel like I’m going back on anything now in saying that love is, in fact, good. Just like pineapple, it tastes good, and it’s good for you. And it grows on trees. And there’s nothing wrong with celebrating it. I’ve certainly had times when I scoffed at love – especially when I’m bitter over a recent breakup, and that’s natural, to some extent. But I think it’s selling oneself short to adopt a “holding hands and kissing should be kept behind closed doors” attitude as a general modus vivendi.
It’s true, love has made fools of us all. But that’s nothing to be ashamed of. I only regret that I had such a difficult time embracing it.
Selling books is like a game, okay? There are rules. And you better learn those rules because it’s no game!
There are forums up at rpg.net that are literally filled with thousands of nerds of every variety. I usually don’t visit the forums because it’s overwhelming and I don’t have the time. But over the weekend, because of a new project I’m working on, I revisited the forums. While I was there I did a quick vanity search on Spaceship Zero and found a thread about TPKs (Total Party Kills for the uninitiated, in which no player character survives an encounter. This happens with John Dawes more than any other GM I know, but that’s a different story). Gamers were trading their stories about TPKs and one person added a post that made me smile.
“My SPACESHIP ZERO game… an incident with a shrink ray and a nearsighted robot lead to a total party kill.”
Anyway, my weekend was one of drawing, and walking downtown to Elfsar, and playing D&D. As a DM, running your players in a town is a lot harder than running them through a dungeon, so take note, future DMs. It was a good weekend, and I’ll miss it when it’s gone.
My work week was…I guess I would say better than usual, despite the fact that I have a cold. In one sense I could legitimately call in sick to work. This actually only led to me working the last 3 days of the week instead of my usual first 3. This week was inventory week at Brainghost Hooks, which meant a lot of empty, unfocussed pep talks from our boss (that’s fine) and lunches provided (that’s good!) and all of the upstairs office staff coming down for a 2 day taste of slogging away in what I affectionately call “The Pit.” Hopefully now the people upstairs will take pity on my charming, charismatic self and whisk me away from a fate worse than death.
On Friday there was a huge lull at the end of the day because we finished the first (of two, possibly three, recounts) earlier than expected, and we couldn’t start the next recount until the computer processed some information. This left we troglodytes idly sitting on our hands and basking in the glowers of our ‘superiors’ in doing so. Even the joyful revelation of finally getting 9 bucks an hour doing nothing wasn’t enough to staunch the boredom, however, so I put pen to packing paper and started drawing. One of the guys in receiving (P) asked me if I’d draw him, so I made an attempt. It ended up resembling what he might look like if a computer program projected he’d look like 10 years later, but P was very pleased with it nonetheless. One of his buddies however, kept saying throughout the drawing process “that doesn’t look like him!” and when it was finally done and in P’s hand, the dolt snatched the paper from P and ran down the warehouse like a bully in grade 10. I didn’t care about the drawing (and his criticisms about my drawing ability rolled off my back because a) I agreed with him to some extent and b) his opinion means s.d.a. to me) but I felt bad for poor P who said to him “why are you being so stupid?” But P got the drawing back and thanked me, and that was nice. While I was doing the drawing I became the center of attention, which is at once loathesome and embarrassing and exciting. I always try to shrug off that kind of attention, and sometimes it even bothers me, both of which are unfortunate because the artists who make the most money know how to draw (haha) attention, milk it, and spin it to further their careers, whereas I just want to make a living without too much of a fuss.
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