#RPGaDAY2024 - DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: Marvellous Miniature

 We're down to the last few prompts now, and unfortunately this is another one that isn't too relevant to me - I don't really use miniatures, but there have been a few recently that have really stood out as being incredibly tempting.

The ones that really leap out are all from Crooked Dice Game Design Studio - they do some really cool minis that are heavily influenced by some great genre movies and TV series from my past. One that really got me far to overexcited was when they announced their "Alien Invaders" range of humanoid aliens (that may secretly be lizards if you know what I mean) and their iconic red jumpsuits. I have fond memories of playing West End Games' 'Price of Freedom' RPG only with the Soviet forces switched out for the same lizard-like humanoid aliens.

So when they showed off the range of minis that included this little beauty...

.... oooooooooh. How cool. And it's not a bad price either at £30. Considering it's in scale with their little characters. 

The other one is this little beauty... They do one of the flying thingies (which I won't name) as well as the tanks...  Flippin' gorgeous. I'd want some cool glowing paint for it though...

#RPGaDay2022 - Day 3: When were you first introduced to RPGs?

 Day Three of #RPGaDay2022 and the question is 'When were you first introduced to RPGs'? 

Hopefully this prompt will inspire everyone to share how they got into tabletop gaming. For me, it was early 1980s. Must have been about 1983, because I remember I was going over to a friend's house on a Saturday afternoon where we'd work on the ZX Spectrum, trying to program a lightcycles game based on Tron. I say we, but in actual fact, I wasn't great at programming. I used Sinclair BASIC okay, but 'Crud' as he was known (though he didn't like being called Crud, sorry) was a far better programmer than me, and could use all that machine code stuff that just baffled me. So Saturday afternoons were him tapping away on the squishy Spectrum keyboard, and I sat there reading old issues of Computer and Video Games magazine. 

Anyway, one Saturday I went over, expecting an afternoon of lightcycles - instead, Crud took me off to another house - JR's - where I'd never been before, to be introduced to the wonders of Traveller.

I had no idea what was really going on, but JR and Crud (and I think Pete was there, maybe) guided me through the wonders of character creation (and hoping I didn't get my character killed in the process) and we started playing. 

I was hooked, and they foolishly mentioned off-hand that there was an AD&D or Runequest game the following day... and that was that. Four or five games a week for the next three or four years at least...

And that was that!

How about you? How did you start?

[Roll Your Own Life] The Books That Hooked Me (Part 10)

READY PLAYER ONE - ERNEST CLINE

The final entry in my ten books that have had a massive impact on me, and another one I came to rather late. I know lots of people who had read and loved Ready Player One but it wasn't until the film came out that I felt the need to satisfy my curiosity.

It was a weird one - there was that awful marketing campaign with the poster with Wade's leg being ridiculously long, and the 80's movie tie-in posters that were parodies of things like Back to the Future and The Lost Boys, but echoing at the back of my head was the constant voice saying "didn't people I know love this book?"

I was curious, but was no longer working in the book industry so I did what anyone did and I got the free sample 20-odd pages as a download on iBooks, just so I could check out the style and whether I'd like it.

It was great, but there was something weirdly familiar about it.

The film came out, and it was just as the local cinemas were having this realisation that attendance was down - no one wanted to pay £15-20 a ticket, and in order to get bums on seats they dropped all their prices to £5. Debs was at work, and I had a day off, so I paid my £5 and saw it one afternoon shortly after it came out.

I really enjoyed it. Far more than I thought I would. So much so, I told Debs about it and we went to see it together the following week.

The movie came out just before my birthday, and Debs always struggles to think of what to get me - and I really don't want or need anything. But that year I asked her to get the me book so I could finish reading beyond the sample, and see how it differed from the movie.

Didn't take long to finish the book, really enjoyed it (though I could see The Shining sequence working better for the movie than the repeating the whole of Wargames line for line...

But the thing that really stood out was the writing. Over the years, I've read so many books that have inspired me to write, and a few that have really heavily influenced my style. I mentioned my write like Chuck Palahniuk phase, that followed my write like Stephen King phase. But when I finally started writing for myself, especially for the NaNoWriMo novel I did, and the start of its sequel, I felt I stopped trying to sound like other writers and just be me... and that's what Ready Player One sounded like in my head as I read it.

It read like something I would write. Not just for its obsession with the 80s, but the language just felt like someone (Ernest Cline) was tapping into the way I thought and wrote. Really weird...

I read Armada, his follow-up book which is heavily influenced by the classic 80's movie The Last Starfighter. Probably owes as much to that movie as Ready Player One owes to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Tron.

But if anyone wants to know what my fiction writing style is, without actually reading any of my work, just check out Ready Player One and you'll get a good idea. It's quite uncanny.
--

That's it. Final blogpost about media for a bit. The dayjob looms ever closer, as the lockdown is easing (far too early if you ask me).

I'll post as often as I can, but until the next time, stay safe and look after each other.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Movies That Made Me (Part 4)

TRON (1982)

Ah, another one of my absolute faves. I love TRON. So much, I'm going to use capitals every time. TRON.

Disney was experimenting with some cool movies in the early 80s. The Black Hole (technically 70s, but I didn't get to see it until early 1980), Dragonslayer, and the wonder that was TRON. At a time when every waking moment that wasn't at school or playing tabletop roleplaying games, it was all about video games. Living in a seaside town meant we had easy access to a handful of arcades where we spent far too long playing all the classics - Galaxian, Defender, Tempest, Battle Zone... you know the score. And then we had access to our home Atari VCS systems, and then the ZX Spectrum.

Video games was where it was at. So when they announced this movie where the lead character goes into a video game, I was totally there.

TRON was unlike anything we'd seen before. Short of some little video shorts to show off what computer graphics could do at the time, this was all new. I know a lot of it isn't even CGI, it was carefully and painstakingly created with backlighting, negative shooting, rotoscoping, and merging it with matte painting. But it looked amazing. And, like most of the audience, I was in complete awe at the lightcycle sequence and the escape from the game grid.

Add to that the amazing Wendy Carlos soundtrack, and a great and nerdy plot - programmer wanting to prove that a big corporation had stolen his games - I was in my element. Somewhere I have the soundtrack on vinyl, and a weird LP called "The Story of TRON" where the soundtrack is narrated over with sound effects.

I remember going to the cinema to see TRON four times before they finally stopped showing it. I may have been a little obsessed.

We spent a lot of time trying to replicate the world of TRON. I remember most of us had a go at programming some form of lightcycle game on the Spectrum. I even started working out how TRON would work as a tabletop RPG, but didn't get very far.

TRON's still a big influence on me, and that whole 'escaping to a virtual and alternate world' is a major part of the RPGs I write today.

When TRON Legacy (2010) was announced, I was there like a shot. Even went to the strange preview that happened at the cinema where they showed fifteen minutes of the movie to get you excited for it. Like I could be any more excited for it. Jumped on that viral bandwagon, visited FlynnLives.com, did the puzzles and games, got my ENCOM staff badge. I was in my element.

The movie itself did not disappoint, and the 3D effects being only used for the world inside the computer was brilliant. Almost like The Wizard of Oz's use of colour.  If anything TRON Legacy is even more of an influence on the RPG I'm working on at the moment. Okay, so the de-aged Jeff Bridges was a little weird for the non-computer world version, but Disney were just getting to grips with the new tech that would de-age Marvel stars in future movies.

The TV series that bridges the gap between the two - TRON Uprising - was awesome. Super-stylised character design by Robert Valley are amazing. Just brilliant.

Still hope that one day Disney come to their senses and green-light a third movie, or a Disney+ series...

A World of Infinite Possibilities

I had this moment of revelation over the Christmas holidays, and it was all about Disney. Playing Disney Infinity 2.0 with the lovely wifey, I was struck by how similar the skill trees for the characters, gaining extra "feats" when they "levelled up", looked to the skill trees for the Fantasy Flight Star Wars RPGs... in fact, like most RPGs that use skill trees dating right back to the first one I can think of, which was the old Games Workshop UK reprint of Paranoia.

It got me thinking of the reverse too... how a tabletop RPG based on Disney as a whole could work, with supplements that would allow you to play in all of the Disney properties, from Frozen and Brave, to Pirates of the Caribbean, to Tron, to Marvel and even Star Wars...

I made a video talking about my theories... please watch, share and comment!!

Until next time, stay multi-classy!!