The Stranger, Barbarian, The Guns of Navarone, Bullets or Ballots, The Verdict, Everything Everywhere All At Once, East of Eden, The Grave of Fireflies, Licorice Pizza, Doctor Zhivago, The Wages of Fear (1953), Hotel Rwanda, Flee, The Handmaiden, Mississippi Burning, Your Name, Minari, The Banshees of Inisherin
2020 Texas Gladiators, Captive Women, Deluge (1933), Tides (The Colony), Appleseed Alpha, Beyond the Time Barrier, Black Crab, Teenage Caveman (1958), Stryker (1983), Raiders of the Sun, Mother/Android, Virus (1980),
In post-apocalyptic Texas, green-faced baddies (possibly mutants?) ravage a group of churchies, killing and raping. A group of Rangers (*not* gladiators) take their sweet time in killing the baddies, and only manage to save one survivor, the beautiful platinum-blonde-haird Maida. The Ranger named Catch Dog sexually assaults her, but the other Rangers find and exile him for breaking their zero tolerance policy. Years later, Maida and the bearded Ranger hook up and have a daughter, living and working in a refinery of some kind. Catch Dog has joined a group of fascistic Nazi-men in brown uniforms and they assault the refinery, killing and violating both women and boys. Bearded dad is forced to watch Maida violated, and then Maida is widowed and sold as a slave. The other rangers win her back in a biker/Western bar in a game of Russian roulette, and eventually conscript a group of white guys in redface, going up against the nazis superior technology with bows and arrows.
After the gratuitous sexual assault and racism, the worst offender is the editing. I regret watching this.
Tropes: Cocking weapons for no reason; bikers drive around enemies rather than fight them; shooting people who are already dead; indigenous people help white folk against their own interests; bringing out effective weapon only after sending waves of soldiers die; battle garb prominently displays breasts
After WWIII in the ruins of New York, our two heroes Deunan and cyborg Briareos are forced to work for a cyborg gangster in order to pay off a debt. They try to abandon the gangster and find the legendary city of Olympus. They rescue a cyborg Olson and a young girl who are from Olympus and being hunted by two *more* bad cyborgs, who believe the girl is the key to activating a doomsday weapon.
Tropes: Everywhere is armored except boobs; Gearhead/scientist is ‘a bit off’; character must sacrifice self to save the group; enemies unite against common foe;
Season 16, 1978, 4 episodes… Second story in the Key to Time story arc.
If you’re wondering about Tom’s lip it’s because he was bitten by a Jack Russell terrier.
The Doctor and Time Lady Romana arrive on the planet Calufrax and are surprised to find the docile society placated by the prosperity gifted by the bombastic, murder-hungry Captain. Turns out the planet is not Calufrax, but a shell planet Zanak enveloping Calufrax, destroying the latter in a planet-wide mining process. After that’s done, the Captain would move on to ‘process’ planet Earth, were it not for the Doctor and help from the psychic Mentiads.
Some really interesting ideas here, and it’s written by Douglas Adams! He even uses his catchphrase “I’ll never be cruel to a [insert noun] again!” The bombastic Captain is 110% ridiculous with his assassin robot laser parrot. There are some interesting twists and I was hoping for a clever ending but it all just winds up with technobabble nonsense that is a very unsatisfying ending to a story with a lot of potential.
It’s my goal to draw 26 monsters from the original D&D Monster Manual, each with a 20 minute time limit. I have recorded my twitch livestream which you can find here: https://www.twitch.tv/torenatkinson
Hey, betcha didn’t know I have a Patreon? Support the stuff you love! https://www.patreon.com/torenatkinson
It’s my goal to draw 26 monsters from the original D&D Monster Manual, each with a 20 minute time limit. I have recorded my twitch livestream which you can find here:Â https://www.twitch.tv/torenatkinson
Hey, betcha didn’t know I have a Patreon? Support the stuff you love! https://www.patreon.com/torenatkinson
In which I learn the British pronounce catacombs ‘catacoombs.’
This story introduces the new companion Romana, a recently graduated Time Lord, and the White Guardian, who sends the Doctor on a season long quest to find the 6 hidden segments of the Key to Time, which are disguised as other objects. In this case the key segment is disguised as a hunk of the rare and powerful element jethrik in a museum on the planet Ribos. The Doctor, K9 and Romana have to compete with a pair of other thieves who are likewise trying to break into the museum. The lead thief, Garron is also trying to swindle an exiled tyrant to buy the planet itself. It all leads to a deadly game of cat and mouse in the catacombs with a fanged lizard-like monster and a melodramatic witch.
The characters in this story are great across the board, including the doom-yelling witch and an elderly hobo who was a would-be scientist exiled for heresy. Quite a fun watch for the acting and dialogue.
Shimmering, mind-reading, non-corporeal aliens are too powerful for the Time Lords to thwart, so The Doctor has to trick everyone by becoming Time Lord President and de-activating the forcefield that protects Gallifrey. Only then will the mysterious Vardans reveal their true form – white dudes in jumpsuits. The Doctor institutes a ‘time lock’ which nullifies the Vardans in some hand-wavey fashion, but the lack of forcefield allows the warlike Sontarans to invade Gallifrey, with the full force of maybe four or five of them. The Doctor leads them on a merry chase through the bowels of the TARDIS and then shoots them with a space gun.
Overall a pretty embarrassing story that’s tough to slog through, punctuated with a few gags from Tom Baker.
The last story with Leela, I will miss her feisty penchant for knifing people.
Communicate often with your players. Do this both as a group and one-on-one. Converse with them, not to them. Tell them what your expectations are of your players and ask what they expect out of their DM. If you see conflicts, address them. Understand that what works for some of your players may not work for others, and you may have to make some hard choices to play the game you want to play. But above all – communicate.
TOREN’S TIP: You are the game referee, but you are not your player’s conflict mediator outside of the game. Set healthy boundaries. Seth Skorkowsky has an excellent video on his channel about this.
2. People these days talk a lot about ‘Session Zero’ – this is basically a subset of point 1. It could be in person or it could be virtual, or even just an email. It’s a communication of what the tone, gaming style, rules restrictions, setting, and everything else about your game will be, including what you will allow and what you won’t allow. This happens before the first adventuring session and it’s a great time to find out what your players are comfortable with (remembering that many of your friends have deep traumas that you might now know about including sexual assault, death of close relatives at young age, etc.).
Is alcohol allowed at the table? How about cell phones? Will characters level up via XP or milestones? What’s the balance between crunchy combat and roleplay-heavy social encounters?
TOREN’S TIP: Ask each character to have a connection or bond to any 1 or 2 other player characters (the fighter and I escaped the slave mines together; I follow the cleric’s god and look to her for advice; the druid is my adopted sister!)
There are lots of articles and youtube videos about what you should cover in a session zero. Here is a good one:
3. Watch your Group Size. It’s legendarily difficult to find a good, stable gaming group (congrats if you have one) and there are different philosophies as to the perfect size. You can absolutely have a game with 1 player and 1 DM. Typically the magic number is 4 players and 1 DM. With smaller groups, you risk having to cancel the entire session if 1 or 2 players has to cancel, whereas if you have a larger group of 5 or more, the danger becomes when everyone shows up and you get very little done in the session because there is more time used up between players’ turns. It really depends the reliability of your players so all I can say is good luck!
4a. Set reasonable standards for yourself. Everyone wants to be the greatest DM/GM in the world, and many feel like podcasters and youtuber like Matt Mercer are the gold standard to aspire to. Keep in mind these are professional actors and what you are watching are performances for a medium, rather than a casual gaming group of friends. Look to them for inspiration and ideas, but remember you will never be Matt Mercer, and you shouldn’t. Just be a good you.
4b. Don’t burn yourself out! I find preparing for my RPG sessions very therapeutic, but manage your expectations. The players will inevitably thwart or avoid many of your lovingly crafted encounters, so just try to roll with it (pun). Also, find a balance for how often you play. Most people try to have a weekly game, but if that seems to be too much for you, adjust the schedule. See if anyone in your group is interested in running a separate game (even a different system) and you can alternate weeks as a GM and a player. Also, consider the idea of a co-DM, if you have a friend that you have a good relationship to work with, having two DMs can ‘share the load’ as Samwise Gamgee once said.
5. Is Everyone Having Fun? If they are, then you are doing it right! This might be the most important tip, perhaps tied with #1. And if you are not having fun. Ask yourself why and what you might want to change.
D&D, Mork Borg and Ruin Nation Sessions Played: 17
Number of #torentries: 62
Number of pomellos eaten: 7
Movies watched for the first time: 150
Movies I watched that rated 8+ out of 10: 
Post-apocalyptic movies watched and REVIEWED ON MY BLOG: 12
Doctor Who episodes watched and REVIEWED ON MY BLOG: 30 
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