[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 2)

2000AD (1977-present)

I read the odd other comic while I was a kid, things like Bullet, Whizzer & Chips, but they were just the odd one here and there when I had a little spare pocket money. Super Spider-Man was my subscription of choice until I picked up issue 2 of 2000AD. I completely missed the first issue, but I was a bit of a fan of the Six Million Dollar Man on TV, and there were these free sticker that you put on yourself to make you look bionic - sorry, "Biotronic" for copyright reasons.

Of course, issue 2 was a bit of a landmark in British comics, as it featured the first appearance of Judge Dredd. I'm sorry to say that a couple of the strips did nothing for me at the time - I wasn't much of a fan of Dan Dare, and the Invasion strip wasn't "sci-fi" enough for me, but I enjoyed Dredd, loved Harlem Heroes and their cool jetpacks, and especially M.A.C.H.1 - the bionic man rip-off.

It was cool and became my regular read replacing Spider-Man (sorry Spidey) for many years.

When Starlord came along as well, I was definitely in my element. I don't think my folks were too unhappy with getting two titles a week instead of one for me, as I was reading at least, but that didn't last long anyway - Starlord only lasted twenty-odd issues before it was merged with 2000AD, bringing with it most of the strips I enjoyed. Ro-Busters was one I really enjoyed, but I seem to remember really liking Timequake as well.

Harlem Heroes became Inferno - a more violent version of the game inspired by Rollerball, and Sam Slade Robo-Hunter started up. But I have really strong memories of some of the 2000AD strips.

The Cursed Earth saga, the Judge Child, and Judge Cal, were all brilliant. I remember the Cursed Earth storyline of Judge Dredd having some marketing tie-in with Matchbox as they produced vehicles for their Adventure 2000 range that became the Killdozer and Landraider in the strip (or vice-versa). I'm sure I've still got my Killdozer somewhere...

The A.B.C. Warriors spinoff from Ro-Busters was a favourite as well, and I think everyone loved Joe Pineapples. And I have a very fond memory of Ace Trucking Co. and their bizarre space-trucking jargon, and the Ballad of Halo Jones.

But my interest was waning, and I kinda gave up on 2000AD, and comics in general for a while, in the mid 80's, selling my collection to Milo from my D&D group (who still has them now as far as I know).

One thing I do particularly remember from my years of reading 2000AD was the Summer Special from 1977. It was a collection of new slightly longer stories if I remember correctly, but something really stood out in that issue.

A double page spread about an upcoming movie called Star Wars. I had no idea what it was but it looked cool. I managed to find someone has written a whole chunk on Star Wars' appearances in 2000AD, including that double page spread, and it's well worth a read. Check it out here.

Which nicely brings me to tomorrow's post...

Stay tuned, stay safe!

[Roll Your Own Life] The Comics That Shaped Me (Part 1)

Over the last couple of weeks I've been challenged to a couple of those Facebook meme things. First it was 20 Albums That Had an Impact on Your Life, then it was D8+3 Tabletop RPGs, and most recently it was 10 TV Shows.

The weird thing is, during these times of crisis and panic when just reading the news can make me come out in a cold sweat, I've found doing these little blog posts every day to be calming, and to get me motivated into actually doing some normal writing every day - when most of the time I'd want to just lay on the floor and pray for everything to go back to normal.

Yesterday was the last day of the most recent challenge - 10 TV Shows That Had an Impact on me, and I didn't want to sink back into an unhealthy routine. So, I'm going to keep going...

With COMICS!

Randomly found a pic of the comic on
the internet. Weird.

I know there may be some of you who read this who only know me from writing tabletop RPGs, but for a long time I wanted to write and draw comics. Just after I left school, Pete decided to form a little comic publishing company called Swampland Comics, and I drew the first issue of Ninja Secretaries from Beyond Dimension X, that was based on Pete's script, and I wrote a drew a standalone comic of one of the characters (loosely based on me) called Drowning In Darkness. It was gloomy, introspective and self-aggrandising tale of a gun-toting vigilante facing a vampiric threat in his hometown.

Looking at it now it's horribly embarrassing, but it did get some interesting reviews and I remember one that called me the "Goth Hergé". I don't know if that's just because of the lead character's hairstyle...

I went to university wanting to specialise in comics, and ended up studying animation. I think the Illustration lecturer wasn't keen on comics at the time - I think he's since come around. After I graduated, I continued my desire to draw comics and, with the help of the Prince's Trust, launched my comic publishing company (Autocratik Press). I published four issues of my ongoing comic, Missing, before it was cancelled by the distributor - not selling enough to keep distributing me.

Missing, the comic I wrote and drew in the late 90's. Feels horribly dated now...

I also published a one-shot for the awesome Matt Brooker (aka D'Israeli) called Consequences, which continued his D'Adventures of I.S.R.A.E.L.I. that ran as Timulo in Deadline. That was particularly awesome, (mostly because I didn't draw it), but that was the entire of my attempt to get into comics...


But behind the scenes, I've been reading comics for years. So many comics. I read comics before I read books, and some of them had a huge impact on my writing and art.

So I thought I'd do another one of those "Things that have had an impact on my life" things but focus on the comics that shaped me. And, after discussing this with Debs, I've decided to do 14 rather than 10, so it's a round two-weeks of this nonsense you have to put up with.

Without further ado...

THE FOURTEEN COMICS THAT SHAPED ME





PART 1

SUPER SPIDER-MAN (AND THE TITANS / WITH THE SUPER-HEROES) (1976-1979)

I have a very distinct memory of Spider-Man. It's very weird. I think Spidey was the first real superhero comic I read, and certainly the first superhero I really got into. The only others I used to read about that time were the annuals I'd been given for Christmas which were usually Superman/Batman double bills.

However, I have a very distinct memory of my dad going to the newsagent to pay his monthly bill for the newspaper deliveries (two a day), and saying to me that I could pick a comic to get every week and we'd add it to the delivery. I picked Spider-Man.

Super Spider-Man was a British reprint of the American comics in a weird format. It was landscape, and had a double page spread from the US comic on each page, so as you read it each open spread contained four of the American comic pages. They were also completely in black and white except for the glossy cover. But, it meant you got a lot more comic and story every week in each issue. It wasn't just Spidey in there - each issue contained a complete issue from Spidey, as well as a complete issue of Thor, Captain America and Doctor Strange. The actual line-up of supporting strips varied from time to time, but I distinctly remember reading those ones.

The centre pages were a super-widescreen style bit of poster art (which I foolishly coloured in with felt tip pens on some issues - my desire to draw comics getting the better of me at that early age).

It was just at the awesome era of classic Spider-Man. The art was gorgeous (Gil Kane, John Romita Sr.), and I was stunned at The Night Gwen Stacy Died. I remember the Spider-mobile, the death of the Green Goblin, the Jackal cloning Gwen and Peter, the first appearance of The Punisher. Oh man, that was all great.

The "back up" stories weren't holding back with their punches either. I read The Invaders, saw them dredge Captain America's bullet ridden cowl out of the river, and was completely freaked out by Gene Colan's amazing and spooky art for Doctor Strange.

Just thinking of them makes me want to reread them.

I do have a load of them still, but they're not in great condition (felt tip, remember). I have a weird memory of a strange centrespread poster of weird bird-like aliens invading, riding spacecraft-like bikes... It didn't have anything to do with any comic within the pages, but I remember being fascinated by that image and wondering if they were ever going to appear.

Many, many, many years later, the old nostalgia feeling brought me back to those Spider-Man comics, and when Marvel did the very economical Essential Collections, they started from the first issue reprinting Spider-Man in black and white, just how I remember it, in massive and fairly cheap books the size of phonebooks. The black and white really showed off the awesome art, and reading them again was brilliant and I felt like I was eight years old again.

It's a real shame Marvel stopped doing those Essential Collections. I bought all of the Amazing Spider-Man collections, and the Peter Parker: The Sensational Spider-Man, ones. I even bought the first Doctor Strange collection, and Howard the Duck, but they came to a halt as the reprints got up to the 80's and I guess they wanted you to get the more expensive colour collections.

Loved those comics. But, by 1977 something else came along and I was only allowed one comic per week... SciFi took priority, sorry Spidey...

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 10)

Doctor Who (2005-present (and 1963-1989, 1996))

Time for the final part of my Ten TV Shows that had a massive impact on my life, and chronologically we reach Doctor Who. Sure, I'd watched it prior to this, but it was the revival that had the biggest impact on me, changing my life in a major way.

I'd watched Doctor Who off and on since I was little. My mum was a big fan of Jon Pertwee so would watch anything he was in - including Worzel Gummidge which scared the bejezus out of me as a kid. I mean, he kept taking his head off, and Aunt Sally was a right git to him all the time...

Anyway, as Doctor Who was on in the house, I watched it. My earliest memory is probably that of Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974) which to a very young kid at the time looked awesome. I mean, it had dinosaurs in it. When Pertwee left and the Doctor regenerated into Tom Baker, my mum wasn't so keen. So it didn't go on the TV. Simple as that. I hardly watched any of the classic Baker era, but I remember John, one of "The Eight" (our RPG group) being very into Doctor Who and talking about it. John used to run the old FASA Doctor Who RPG for us, with a different Time Lord (The Collector) - heavily inspired by the scary Hinchcliffe & Holmes era. Was great, felt very Call of Cthulhu at times...

When Logopolis aired in 1981, the final story of Tom Baker, the Radio Times was full of talk of the forthcoming regeneration and that it was going to be something we shouldn't miss. By that time, I was really into my SF, watching anything that was on like that (Space: 1999, Blake's 7, etc.) but I never tried to get back into Doctor Who. But, there was a regeneration on TV, needed to be watched, and the Radio Times said it was a great jumping on point for new viewers.

And so I did - and that's what happened. I started watching Doctor Who properly about then. I watched all of the Peter Davison episodes, and continued into the Colin Baker era. When Bonnie Langford joined as the new companion, I had horrible memories of Just William, and I'm sorry to say that kinda put me off. I regret to say that I stopped watching for a bit. But again, John was there to reassure me and to tell me it was worth watching when this cool new companion joined called Ace, and she was awesome. I remember giving Doctor Who another try for Silver Nemesis (1988), and stuck with it from then onwards. The Seventh Doctor was pretty cool, though I had weird memories of him from Vision On, but this seemed strangely darker and a bit more sinister...

And just as I was getting back into it, it was gone. Cancelled.

John continued to entertain us with his VHS purchases of old Doctor Who serials, and I went off to University and didn't really give it much of a thought.

The TV Movie happened (1996) introducing Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, and I remember watching it when it aired on the BBC mostly out of curiosity than anything else... and again, it kinda faded from TV and from my mind...

I started working at Ottakar's bookstore in 2000, and I was put in charge of the SF/Fantasy section, as the management knew that was an area I was interested in. It wasn't long before I noticed we were constantly asked for Doctor Who Audio by Big Finish, and the BBC Books of the Eighth Doctor sold really well. The fandom was there, and was crying out for more. I ordered in everything I could, even getting in the unofficial DVDs from BBV, The Stranger, The Autons, and so on. We were contacted by a place in London that distributed radio controlled Daleks, and they sold really well.

The top brass at Ottakar's were brilliant. The MD of the company is one of the nicest chaps you could imagine. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was but they decided to install lifesized Daleks in a number of their shops around the country. Big, custom made ones, by a company called This Planet Earth. They had remote controls to make them speak, and I was particularly happy when the black Dalek (I called Salvador) arrived at our shop...

But then things changed. They announced a new series. With Christopher Eccleston as the new Doctor, and Billie Piper as the companion. I read some magazine articles about it, and learned that Russell T Davies was the creative force behind the series, and that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was quite an influence on how the new series was being tackled. Sounded interesting.

I had to give it a go.

It was one of those strange things where I really enjoyed Rose, the first episode of the return, but it wasn't until Dalek (episode six) that it really hit home for me - and then I loved it. There was just something about the chemistry with the characters, the real danger from a single Dalek, and Eccleston's genius and underrated performance as The Doctor - being able to switch from laughing and revelling in the wonder, to dark, brooding and menacing in a second.

Awesome. By the time we got to the massive finale of that series, with the revelation of Bad Wolf that had been cleverly teased throughout the series, and that epic ending. I was sold. Great stuff. But Eccleston was leaving (absolutely gutted) and the Ninth Doctor regenerated into the Tenth, and the popularity of the series continued to grow with David Tennant's enthusiastic grin.

It was about this time, as I was watching the popularity grow both online and in the bookshop, that I had those mind-wandering thoughts that I still have to this day - "Wouldn't it make a great RPG?"

You could see the appeal with the kids. At the bookstore, for years we had that Dalek standing there and the kids saying "Mummy, what's that?" That was gone with the new series, with Daleks back on the screen the kids were coming in to see it. If only you could get kids that keen about roleplaying games again...

It was after Conspiracy X 2.0 came out that I'd spent years working on for Eden Studios, that I received an email completely out of the blue from Chris Birch. We started chatting over emails, and we were discussing how the RPG world needed a popular license that could appeal outside of RPGs to get more people playing. I said, something along the lines of, "Yeah, it would be great to have a roleplaying game of James Bond or Doctor Who that new audiences would like." As it would happen, Chris had worked with BBC licensing in the past with his t-shirt company...

The incredibly rare pitch document we sent to the BBC
The introduction chapter, explanation of the products
and the rules, printed in full colour. I think there are
about 20 of these in existence.

"But we'd need a publisher to do this with," I said...

"I know a new company that may be up for it." Chris had the contacts, and strangely, one of the names that came up with Angus Abranson who I knew from those days in the Camarilla.

One thing lead to another, and soon (with the help of Fred Hicks doing some amazing graphic design layout) we were pitching to the BBC knowing we didn't stand a snowball in hell's chance of getting anywhere...

We all went in, suited up, ready to be laughed out of the door, but instead they were really nice. They listened, they were interested, but there was a snag. In my briefcase I'd brought along the Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG as an example of a licensed RPG and the format we'd hoped to produce. But the BBC explained, it's basically a book and there may be some issue with the licensing agreement with BBC Books...

Luckily, I also had in my briefcase a copy of the boxed Xena and Hercules RPG complete with dice and extra bits. If we went for a boxed set, that would remove that issue straight away - and once things were rolling we could resolved the books issue further down the line.

It all felt really positive, and we couldn't believe we'd even got that far... but didn't think we'd get any further.

But, it did! And after financial negotiations were sorted (I wasn't in on that bit), the deal was done and in 2007 at Dragonmeet, we announced the game.

(L to R) Me, Dominic McDowall, Chris Birch, Angus Abranson, and Fred Hicks at Dragonmeet 2007
announcing the Doctor Who RPG "Adventures in Time and Space"

And the rest, as they say is history...

Or is it?

Well, the weird thing about Doctor Who, it just kept having an impact on my life...

Meeting Nicola Bryant,
Yes, a little star-struck...

Ottakar's was bought out by HMV (who owned the bookchain Waterstones at the time) in 2006 and I really wanted to get out of there. There were now two branches of Waterstones in the city, and I felt one of them was bound to go. They stopped ordering the cool weird SF merchandise we sold and concentrated on the books. And then, the BBC closed all their shops. At that time I was constantly checking out the Doctor Who forums, especially Outpost Gallifrey, and spotted an advert on there for management for a new shop in my city that wanted to specialise in Doctor Who, and other film and TV merchandise. As I was unsure about the future of the bookshop at the time, I applied, and (again, thanks to Doctor Who) moved to work there (and have done ever since).

At the shop, thanks to the boss' connections with a number of the actors in Doctor Who, I've met a whole host of them (and have a lot of the DVDs signed by them). I've met Tom Baker multiple times and he's a genuinely lovely chap, though you have to be on the ball mentally to keep up with him! I've also met Colin Baker a few times - again, a really lovely chap. In addition to that, I've met Sylvester McCoy, Nicholas Courtney (Brigadier!), Peter Purves, Sophie Aldred, Deborah Watling, Katy Manning, Nicola Bryant, Gareth David-Lloyd, Kai Owen, and loads more.

In the end, Doctor Who has probably had the biggest impact on my life. Weird, huh?

-

Well, that's the last of the Ten TV Shows that had an impact on my life. I mentioned on my Facebook page that I'm finding this a great motivational tool to get up and write - to clear the cobwebs and push all the worries and fears of the current situation aside - before I settle down to do some real game writing. I asked what I should do next, to keep the tempo going, and general consensus is to just keep going with all of the other media.

Not sure whether to go for comics, movies or books next... tune in tomorrow to find out!

Until then, stay safe.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 9)

LOST (2004-2010)

Oh boy. Here we go. Number 9 (chronologically) of the Ten TV Shows that had a massive impact on me. This is going to be a tough one to write.

Let's get this out of the way - I started watching LOST because of another TV series that I absolutely loved - ALIAS. It was kinda like Buffy with spies, and it was great. Jennifer Garner was super-cool, kicking evil spies in the proverbials, and it was epic. I loved it. When J.J. Abrams announced another series he'd been working on, I thought I'd give it a go, even though there was little known about it - just that it was about a planecrash on a desert island.

There was talk of the pilot episode being one of the most expensive things on TV, and that it was going to be something seriously special I knew I had to tune in.

The pilot episode was seriously epic and a great bit of TV. It perfectly introduced the characters with a glimpse into their backstories - punctuated by the trademark LOST *whoosh* - and then, just when you're wondering what caused the plane crash of Oceanic Flight 815, the trees shake, and the strange starts seriously happening with the arrival of the smoke monster.

Weird stuff keeps happening, and over the series we see more and more of the flashbacks - each episode focusing on a character, until we discover the hatch...

By this time I was hooked. When season two introduced the weird underground bunker, and the numbers, and the computer terminal... talk about absorbing it all. I took it all in, checked out the websites for Oceanic, and the Bad Twin novel, and scoured the forums for theories. Yes, I became a bit obsessed.

Despite the fans starting to wane with the Others storyline, I stuck with it. And then the season four revelation of moving the island. I loved it.

I was engrossed. I was there with the Lost Experience ARG, joining in with the search for Rachel Blake, uncovering the Hanso Foundation, piecing together the clues.

It was great. Season five split the timelines, with some of the characters trapped on the island, some timetravel to the 70's, and then season six starts flash-sideways to an alternate timeline where the plane didn't crash. It was great. I wanted to know more. There were theories, and J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof denied them all, saying it was all planned, and none of the theories were right...

The series was coming to an end, everything was going to be revealed, and Sky did a simultaneous broadcast with the States at a ridiculous hour (5am) in the morning. Yes, I got up early to watch it...

And...

I was gutted.

I haven't been that disappointed with entertainment since The Phantom Menace. But the weird thing is, I was working at the cinema when Episode I came out, and after that initial disappointment I watched The Phantom Menace a dozen times and grew to love it. It's my favourite of the prequel trilogy! I know, shocking.

However, I haven't experienced that LOST finale again.

Debs still loves Kate and Sawyer as characters and a few years ago she asked for LOST for a Christmas or Birthday. So I bought the complete series on bluray, and we started watching it again. It looks glorious still, but I don't think we got any further with our rewatch beyond the first disk. Maybe it was that feeling of disappointment tainting it for me.

I really should give it another go.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 8)

Firefly (2002)

On a list of Ten TV Shows that had a massive impact on my life, you knew it was only a matter of time before Firefly came up. Rather like when I was completely and utterly obsessed with The X-Files, I followed everything the writers/producers did - Harsh Realm, Millennium, Space: Above and Beyond, etc. Then I became completely obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I checked out anything that Joss Whedon did. Dollhouse was awesome, Angel was obvious as it was a spinoff from Buffy, and then they announced this weird space-western and I had to give it a try...

Firefly is a weird one. In the UK at least it was aired in the right order! SyFy Channel in the UK aired it if I remember correctly, and actually started with the proper pilot - Serenity. It was good, felt like it had potential but we weren't completely blown away. It did a great job of introducing the characters, the verse, and the theme of the series - find a crew, find a job, keep flying.

We kept watching, and by the time Episode 4 aired, Shindig, we were kinda hooked. That episode was great - it had really hit its stride, and then... BAM, Episode 6 Our Mrs Reynolds... and we realised the work of genius that Firefly really is. And the series just gets better and better from there - Jaynestown is a work of comedy gold, Out of Gas is brilliant storytelling giving you the backstory of the crew and the ship, and...

Well, you don't need me to list the awesomeness that is Firefly.

We loved the series. Bought the DVD, and did like any good Browncoat did - we spread the word. "What do you mean you haven't watched Firefly?" and we loaned them the DVD.

This went on many, many times, bringing new converts to the series - that was until one of our new converts (thank you Derek!) liked the series so much he went to a convention and got our DVD cover signed by a lot of the cast.

After that, we had to buy the series on bluray and that became the "loaner" as we continued trying to spread the word.

Our DVD cover - signatures continue onto the back.
We have the whole cast on there except
Sean Maher (Simon Tam) - one day!!
Thanks to Maz for getting Adam Baldwin
and Gina Torres to sign it last year!

I remember when I worked at Ottakar's we managed to get a load of promotional material for the movie Serenity, and I plastered the SF section of the bookstore to promote the series and the forthcoming movie. We even had those little rubber wristbands with "You Can't Take The Sky From Me" written on them.

When Serenity came out, hoping to continue the series after its unfortunate and premature cancellation after just fourteen episodes, we were there at the first showing at the cinema. What an emotional ride that was! But, it remains the only time we've gone to the cinema, come out of the screen, and bought tickets to go straight back in again to rewatch it.

Serenity came out in 2005, the same year as Revenge of the Sith, which (for me) is my least favourite Star Wars movie - I'm going to get a lot of flak for saying that, but I struggle to sit through Revenge of the Sith and I love Star Wars. But for me there was no comparison. Serenity was awesome. It was basically season two of Firefly condensed and missing the horrible rapey storyline that was planned. (Jesus, Joss... what were you thinking? Seriously... about a lot of things...)

Firefly is still one of those series that I'll happily rewatch any time it's on TV, and is still fantastic. Part of me hopes for a continuation one day, if they can get the cast they need back together (and Nathan Fillion isn't too busy with the awesome TV series The Rookie - seriously, that's well worth watching), although part of me worries about ruining the memory of something so damn brilliant.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 7)

Farscape (1999-2004 (including The Peacekeeper Wars))

Number 7, chronologically, of my ten series that had a massive impact on me, is another one I came to a little late. Don't get me wrong, I watch SF series all the time, and there was a real shortage of them for a long while, but when Farscape first aired in the UK in November 1999 all the promotion was on the fact that the Henson Company was behind it. Frell, the review in The Guardian had the headline "Muppets in Space", and that was a big problem. The other was the BBC2 6:30pm timeslot where the BBC always shoved its genre shows - Buffy included. It was edited (though not enough, there were complaints apparently) and tucked away at a time when I really didn't get chance to watch it.

I tried the first episode, but it was tea-time, and I guess I wasn't paying much attention and it slipped away under my radar for a while. But I remember a friend of ours, Mark, saying "Why aren't you watching Farscape?" and I honestly didn't have an answer. "You should watch it, it's amazing."

The BBC was still on its first season, and I thought I'd give it another go to see what I'd been missing. If Mark said it was good, I had better give it a try. The episode that week was Hidden Memory (S1ep20) when lead guy was being tortured for information and the other characters infiltrate a base to rescue him. And I had no idea who was who, but it was frelling awesome.

He was right. Why wasn't I watching Farscape?

My Farscape DVDs... oooh, time for a rewatch!

So, I started buying the DVDs. They brought them out in weird sets of two disks with four episodes, and I had the chance to start catching up on what I had been missing.

And I was missing out on loads.

I'm sure you know the story now, John Crichton experiments in his little spaceship "Farscape One" on the edges of Earth's atmosphere and ends up being catapulted across the galaxy through a wormhole and getting picked up by a living prison ship, Moya, and the bunch of escaped prisoners on board.

It's the usual "person from Earth ends up somewhere new in space" that you'd expect, along with a very Blake's 7 take on escaped prisoners stealing a ship and escaping a militaristic force of leather clad humans (sorry, Sebaceans) called Peacekeepers (who act a bit like Blake's 7's Federation). The Peacekeepers hunt them, and Crichton for the information about wormholes in his head, and they go on many adventures...

Only it goes to really, really bizarre extremes. Evil bondage-Vader "Scorpius" implants a version of himself into Crichton's head (who Crichton nicknames Harvey after the imaginary rabbit), Crichton is cloned - a work of genius that allows the sexual tension to be resolved between Crichton and Aeryn, and get reset without the Moonlighting problem. They reverse the "Stranger in a Strange Land" of Crichton being surrounded by aliens in space, by bringing the crew to Earth to warn them of the imminent arrival of hostile forces. There's even a weird animated bit where Crichton imagines himself in WB style cartoons.

The cast changes slightly and characters come and go, but there are no bad characters (Crais probably being my least favourite) and the villains are great. Henson's practical effects for the aliens mean it hasn't aged badly (sorry, looking at you Babylon 5. I love you, but the CGI does look dated now).

And, like all good things, it came to a very abrupt end at the season four finale. And what a season ending. As Crichton and Aeryn agree to get married, they are shot by an alien craft and collapse into little cubes that fall apart...

Frell. That ending punched you right in the mivonks.

Luckily, we were saved from being left there by a two part miniseries "The Peacekeeper Wars" which wrapped everything up and resolved all of the storylines (just about) in another emotional and gut-wrenching three hours.

It was awesome. Loved it, and I can't believe I wasn't on board right from the start.

When season three came out on DVD they did some brilliant limited collectors sets - each came with prints, and cool extra things like an IASA watch, comm badge, and more. I think it's one of the few times I had things on preorder at my local HMV as I didn't want to miss out on them.

When they announced a Farscape RPG I was right there when they needed playtesters. But alas, it was just as everything was D20, and there were some major omissions (I remember pointing out that Luxan injuries needed to be hit or squeezed until the blood runs clear). There was a weird moment when all the playtesting stopped abruptly and then a few months later it came out. Gorgeous book, lovely graphic design, the fixes we pointed out were done, but I wasn't a big fan of D20 so it's kinda just sat on my shelf ever since (much like the complete collection of the D20 Stargate SG-1 RPG). Shame...

Ho well. I still love Farscape, and started a rewatch about a year ago (that I haven't finished yet). May have to go back to it!

Frell, if you loved Guardians of the Galaxy and haven't seen Farscape, you seriously need to check it out...

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 6)

Spaced (1999-2001)

Okay, so this is a bit of a different one. Most of the series I've picked so far have been genre shows - dramas, SF, weird, and similar. This is the only out-and-out pure comedy series that's on my list. But it is certainly one that had a massive impact on my life, and inspired and influenced me in a huge way.

Spaced was one of those series that just didn't appeal to me from the adverts. I had the same problem with Misfits - Misfits is a brilliant Channel 4 series about a bunch of ASBOs doing community service who get struck by lightning in a freak storm and gain superpowers. And it's flippin' amazing. But the adverts made it look like a bunch of annoying people and I seriously didn't want to sit through a whole hour of them on my TV. But I was convinced by the owner of my local comic shop that it was brilliant, and he wasn't wrong. The adverts for the series did nothing for me.

Spaced was the same. I wasn't really into comedy series, and the few adverts I saw didn't convince me to even give it a go. Sorry Channel 4.

After the first series was airing, a friend of ours from the local video store (thank you again, Jason) who knew us pretty well told us we should watch the series. Why? "Because it's a series about YOU!" he said.

A bit confused, we took the advice on board and tried it with the episode "Battles" (S1ep4).

You see, at the time I was at home most of the time trying to launch my own business drawing and publishing comics, helping out every now and then at the aforementioned local comic shop. I lived with my future-wife who worked a day-job in graphic design, who really wanted to be a writer. I drew comics, she wrote. We watched movies, TV series, played video games, shouted at Tomb Raider, played Resident Evil until I dreamed of zombies, and both of us felt like our lives were on hold...

Spaced is about about Tim Bisley (Simon Pegg) who really wanted to get his comics published, while working every so often at the local comic shop (Fantasy Bazaar), who lived with Daisy Steiner (Jessica Stevenson) pretending to be a couple to rent a flat in London. Daisy really wanted to be a writer, but they watched TV, played video games, shouted at Tomb Raider, played Resident Evil until Tim dreams of zombies, and both of them feel like their lives are... wait...

Jason was right. The series was us.

We watched the DVD of series one in a day, and loved series two when it aired. We've followed the works of Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson since, and the series has been a massive influence on me.

Heck, back when I foolishly decided I wanted to get into youtube comedy and formed a creative group with some friends from work, we made a six part comedy series that was so ridiculously geeky, and so filled with references, that we included a Homage-o-meter as a PDF download - much like the DVD extra where the series pointed out all the geeky references as you watched.

The webseries we made was even reviewed in SFX who called it "the new Spaced". Personally, I couldn't think of a better compliment.

The webseries thing kinda fell apart for me, and we parted ways (creative differences), but I did get to briefly meet Edgar Wright many years later at a press preview of his movie The World's End, and we chatted about The Sisters of Mercy. I spent most of the time trying not to fall to my knees and do the Wayne's World "We're Not Worthy!" thing...

Spaced is still brilliant, and I never get bored of it. It's one of those series I can quote at apt times, and remains one of my faves.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 5)

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

While most of the planet has the TV series Friends, the series you can always rewatch over and over again and never get bored of it, for me it's Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

The original movie came out just when we were in our peak vampire-fandom (1992), when we were playing the Vampire: The Masquerade RPG, and had just seen the gloriously over-the-top Bram Stoker's Dracula. Then along comes this sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek movie of a cheerleader being told they are the Slayer - one girl in the whole world chosen to stop the vampires. The movie was fun, Rutger Hauer and Paul Reubens kinda stole the whole thing, but we enjoyed it loads...

But, it wasn't what what Joss Whedon, the writer, had in mind. Given the opportunity to continue the story for television, Buffy The Vampire Slayer lived again. Properly turning expectations of a horror movie on their heads, it was about empowerment, and the horror that is high-school amplified to be actual horror. You struggle at school, and want to be part of a group - what if that group are actually possessed by hyena spirits and eat people? You feel completely ignored and feel like you're invisible - what if you actually became invisible? And by season two, the real horror of sleeping with your boyfriend only for him to act like a completely different person the morning after - what if your boyfriend lost their soul?

I could go on, but you know the story and what it's about. When the series first started in the UK (Jan 1998 I think, on Sky) we remembered the movie and thought we'd give it a go. I remember I really enjoyed it, but wasn't completely blown away, but there was something about the dialogue that hooked you in.  As the weeks progressed, and the characters developed, you grew to love all of them.

The first season was a midseason replacement so only twelve episodes, and Buffy really got into its stride with season two and some of the big two-parters. Halloween (S2e6) was the point where my wife was completely sold on the series, and we became hardcore fans. We bought the VHS sets, the DVDs, the action figures, the books, the t-shirts, and engrossed ourselves in Slayer-lore.

We faithfully followed Angel as he span off at the end of season three to his own series (season three is still probably my favourite, with the introduction of the evil mayor, and the slayer-gone-bad, Faith). We worshipped at the church of Joss Whedon, and loved every minute. (Hmmm. Yes, I know, don't worry... I'm aware...)

By the time season five was airing, I remember seeing an advert for the season finale on Sky which showed [spoilers] Buffy's grave and I was outraged that they could spoil things like this. I hurriedly turned the channels over every time the advert appeared on TV to protect Debs from the spoiler, and she remained spoiler-free right until the moment Buffy dove off the construction tower at the end of The Gift.

I have a distinct memory of walking home one evening discussing with Debs how a Buffy The Vampire Slayer RPG would work - we came up with how the Merits/Qualities and Flaws/Drawbacks would work, and how you could create the "scooby gang"... then a couple of months later I got this email from Eden Studios saying they were starting work on the very same thing. I jumped on board, playtesting, working as assistant editor, and writing sections for the supplements. I was in my element. I remember the last thing I was doing for the line was watching episodes over and over again to work out floor plans for significant locations in Sunnydale - The Bronze, Buffy's house, Angel's mansion, etc - for the Welcome to Sunnydale supplement that never saw light of day. *sigh*

Buffy continued to be a bit of an obsession for us - we bought signed photos of most of the cast on Ebay, and our previous house had them all framed and hung on the walls (Buffy series ones in the living room, Angel series ones in the dining room).

Buffy had a knack of pulling off some standout special episodes. Hush in season four (almost completely silent as The Gentlemen steal everyone's voices) and The Body in season five (the traumatising and horribly realistic sense of loss when Buffy's mother dies - an episode completely devoid of music).

We heard there was a musical episode coming up in season six and - not being a fan of musicals - I was a little worried. But we had nothing to fret about - Once More With Feeling is still the best gimmick musical episode of a TV series ever. Amazing TV.


And then, at the end of season seven, it was all over. Sarah Michelle Gellar had decided it was time to call it a day, and the series came to a natural, perfect end. The forces of evil were at their strongest, with Caleb (played by Nathan Fillion) as a twisted priest communicating with the First Evil, unleashing powerful uber-vampires on Sunnydale. Potential Slayers were summoned, and evil was defeated in a brilliant and moving conclusion. Possibly one of the most satisfying endings to a series I'd become obsessed with.

Angel continued for another year, bringing fan-favourite Spike over from his Buffy tenure, but that was cancelled at the end of season five, and the world was without the Buffyverse once more.

Sure, it continued in comics, and again in comics, and has been sort of rebooted again in comics, and there is talk of a new Buffy series - a new slayer, new stories, but acknowledging the original - and thankfully not a reboot.

And after Joss Whedon's fall, I still love Buffy. As I said at the start, it is a series that I'll just watch over and over again, and if an episode is on TV I'll leave it on in the background while I work. It's perfect company.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 4)

The X-Files (1993-2002, 2016-2018)

Number 4 chronologically in my "Ten TV Shows that had an impact on my life" brings us from one FBI agent, investigating the strange and unnatural in a town called Twin Peaks, to two FBI agents venturing around the States to track down the paranormal.

The X-Files

Oh my god did I love this series. From watching the pilot episode in September 1994 (nobody had Sky so I had to wait for the BBC2 showing almost a year after the US), I was instantly engaged. It was as close to Twin Peaks as I could get without it actually being Twin Peaks. Heck, one of the leads, David Duchovny, was even in Twin Peaks (as DEA Agent Dennis/Denise Bryson).

It had UFO abductions, lost time, weird goings on in small towns, and conspiracies.

It's like they read my mind for a series that would appeal to me.

I bought the books, taped the episodes off the TV, bought the VHS releases in their weird plastic evidence boxes and the limited series sets, bought the books, the action figures, the magazines, and then the DVDs (twice), the collectable card game, the video games...

I loved The X-Files. So very much. I stuck with it, after David Duchovny left (for large chunks of the series) and they replaced Mulder and Scully with Doggett and Reyes. I watched the Lone Gunmen spin off, Millennium and Harsh Realm (as there ties to the X-Files behind the scenes).

I was there at the midnight screenings of Fight the Future and I Want To Believe.

Of course, it was my love of The X-Files that introduced me to the tabletop game (thanks Jason), Conspiracy X, which lead to me working on the game for two years, converting it to Unisystem.

When the announced its return I was cautiously optimistic. It had been a long time, and I think Philes everywhere were worried that they'd ruin it...

Series 10 happened, with some good episodes, and the biggest shark jump in the finale since The X-Files episode in season 9 called "Jump the Shark". So badly received was that series ending that Series 11 tried to ret-con the whole thing, hoping to fix what they'd done. Series 11 was better, though again the non-mythology episodes were the best...

And then, as quickly as it returned, with two seasons that didn't amount to a full season of the original run, The X-Files were decommissioned again. The filing cabinet was closed again, possibly for good.

I hope, now that Disney owns , they bring it back - with two new FBI Agents, finding Mulder's files, and continuing the investigations. New team, with the odd cameo here and there to remind you it's a continuation, and not a reboot.

If anyone from Disney wants to chat about my ideas, you know where to find me.

No reason for this pic on the blog, but always nice to see more Scully.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 3)

Twin Peaks (1990-1991, 2017)

Number 3 (chronologically) in my "Ten 10 Shows That Shaped Me" is probably my favourite TV series of all time. One that has had a massive impact on me, and continues to be an inspiration and influence on me to this day.

Twin Peaks.

After I'd left school and had started work at the archaeology unit, I spent my weekends watching a lot of movies. The local video stores had very cheap rentals, and I remember most weekends were spent with seven or eight movies out for a weekend of intense movie watching. I'd watch everything, from action, to horror, to detective movies, to arthouse. When something new came in, I'd give it a go.

I'd already experienced the wonders of David Lynch, having watched Eraserhead, Dune, and the amazing Blue Velvet, so when a fairly non-descript video surfaced at the video store for a weird little movie called Twin Peaks, and the back cover said it was "from the director of Blue Velvet" I thought I'd give it a go.

It was cool, and very strange. Like a soap opera with a murder mystery, but the camera seemed to linger too long on some scenes - especially the scenes of emotional grief - that it started to make you feel strangely uncomfortable.

Just when you're feeling confused at this town of characters, along comes FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the Kyle MacLachlan that I'd recognised from Dune and Blue Velvet. This weirdly perky FBI agent, with an interest in the trees and coffee, with his almost Dudley Do-Right naiveté, really appealed to me.

And the weird just kept coming. The killer Bob, Mike the one-armed man, and weird goings on in the basement. I was kinda entranced and confused. But it came to a logical conclusion with this weird killer meeting his end. And then, there was an extra bit. A strange red room - the dead girl, Laura Palmer, was there. A small dancing man. All filmed backwards.

What the hell?

Months went by, and the Radio Times features Twin Peaks on the cover announcing that the cult US TV series was coming to the UK. Wait. There's a TV series? Of that weird movie I watched ages ago?

Well, that makes a lot more sense. Or does it?

Tuesday, 23rd October 1990, and BBC2 airs the 90min first episode of Twin Peaks. I'd seen it before with that movie, but the weirdness at the end, and the resolution to Bob was gone. I recorded it on my VHS machine, and eagerly awaited the next episode.

The following week, the story unfolded. But it wouldn't be until the week after that the strange scene in the red room appeared. By this time I was absolutely hooked.

I love movies and TV series where I don't know what's going to happen. While I can enjoy most things, if I can't see what's coming and it really takes me by surprise, I enjoy it so much more. And that's how it was with Twin Peaks. Every week I had no idea where it was going to go. My desire to be the cocky-charmer that David Addison was in Moonlighting had long been forgotten. Now, all I wanted to be was Dale Cooper. He was smart, inquisitive, and had an upstanding set of morals. What a legend.

I really was obsessed at this point. I bought the book (The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer) for clues to what was going on. I bought the awesome soundtrack. And by the time season two was airing, with its mind-blowing feature length opening episode, with the arrival of the Giant (or should that be, "The Fireman"?)... I was loving every second.

By the time I was back in education and on my BTEC, and one of the major projects was to create something graphically to explain something. Most people went for something normal like, how to fold a paper aeroplane. Me? Hell, no. I went for a massive graphic to try to explain who's who in Twin Peaks.

My BTEC project trying to map the relationships in Twin Peaks

Anyway, season 2 faltered a little when the studios insisted that Laura Palmer's killer should be revealed. David Lynch and Mark Frost's vision was more looking at the effect a young girl's death would have on a small town, and the revelations of her secret life - the moment they revealed and resolved the murder the series lost its way a little.

It quickly tried to bring in a new villain in the shape of Windom Earle, who has come to enact revenge upon Dale Cooper, while building up the weird mythology of the Black and White Lodges. I still loved it, and was gripped to the very last, agonising cliffhanger - "How's Annie?"

Oh my god. So good...

But that was it. It was over. I remained obsessed. I still wanted more, but there was little besides reading issues of Wrapped in Plastic and analysing (and over-analysing) the episodes over and over again.

There was the movie - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) which offered little resolution short of a weird dream sequence line - "The good Dale is in the Lodge and cannot leave". However, it introduced some new excellent characters - FBI Special Agents Chester Desmond and Sam Stanley - who I'd love to see more of. Instead of a sequel we were given the FBI's investigation into the Teresa Banks murder, in Deer Meadow, Washington, prior to the Twin Peaks series, and the events that lead up to Laura Palmer's murder. It was dark, horrific, and even more unsettling than the series. But it didn't do brilliantly in the box office, and Twin Peaks was, as Lynch said, "dead as a doornail."

I still loved the series, rewatched it a couple of times, and always wanted more.

Then, on the 3rd October 2014... over twenty years after Twin Peaks ended... David Lynch and Mark Frost simultaneously tweeted: "Dear Twitter Friends: That gum you like is going to come back in style! #damngoodcoffee"

Twin Peaks was back. Eighteen hours of what would become known as Twin Peaks: The Return. A direct continuation, set in the present day, looking at what has happened to the characters in the years that have passed and hopefully answering the questions that had bugged fans like me for years.

What we actually got was one 18-hour movie split into sections, punctuated by cool musical performances at the Roadhouse bar (including Nine Inch Nails, how could it go wrong). The agent Cooper we loved was gone, split into two - Dougie Jones, a child-like and confused replica inhabiting the life and body of a gambling and philandering insurance agent, and Mr C, the evil doppelgänger of agent Cooper.

There were strange moments that even the hardened Peaks fans would find weird, and then there was Episode 8. David Lynch does arthouse cinema on TV. After progressing the story a little, with Mr C almost meeting his end, we have the aforementioned performance by Nine Inch Nails, and then a flashback to the first atomic bomb test, unleashing the seed of Bob onto the world - ten minutes of weird flashing images, experimental film, and madness. After that, we have a weird black and white sequence of dirty people attacking a radio station, and the inhabitants of the White Lodge seeding Laura Palmer's existence with a strange frog-bug-thing.

The whole thing is beautiful, horrific, mesmerising, and above all, free. Every time I doubt what I'm doing. Every time I think "No one will like this, why should I bother" I think of Episode 8 of The Return. Did David Lynch think "Maybe this is too weird, I should make this more commercial"? No. He went with what he wanted to make.

By the end of The Return we'd had a sort-of reset of the Twin Peaks story, with a potential for going off and doing something new, with slightly different / alternate versions of the characters.

It's genius, but ends with another cliff hanger that has you wonder not only "What Year is this?" but also if we'll ever get a resolution/continuation.

I just hope I don't have to wait another 25 years to find out.

Stay Safe, have pie.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 2)

Moonlighting (1985 - 1989)

The second of my "10 TV shows that had an impact on me" is probably one that may surprise you. Expecting a whole load of SF/Fantasy series and along comes Moonlighting. As I mentioned last post, I watched a whole lot of TV. Just about anything I could absorb. While I was avidly watching series like "V", Doctor Who (especially the 5th Doctor), MacGyver, Street Hawk, Miami Vice, and the like, there was one series I thought I'd check out because I liked quirky detective series and the adverts made it look like it was going to be something special.

Turns out it was.

Moonlighting was really the first TV series I became super-obsessed with. I bought the soundtrack, taped the episodes on VHS, hunted out the songs in the massive catalogue of tunes David Addison referred to from my dad's collection of Atlantic soul classics, got the stonewash trenchcoat because Addison had one. Hell, there was just something about it. It was fast paced, quick dialogue, funny, dramatic, with a great couple of leads. Bruce Willis was what I wanted to be when I grew up (ironically, I now have a haircut like he has now) and Cybill Shepherd was cool, witty, and attractive (and usually filmed in soft focus for added effect), and took absolutely no BS.

But, on top of the funny crime solving drama that has become commonplace these days on TV (with things like Bones, Castle, Lucifer, etc.) it was radical TV. It broke the rules, it broke convention, and it broke the fourth wall. Before Deadpool or even Lovejoy had even considered turning to the camera and talking to the audience, Moonlighting did it often. It even started episodes with "cold opens" with David & Maddie (strangely, in character, not as Willis / Shepherd) sitting on the office desk talking to the audience about the upcoming episode.


Then it really broke convention with strange episodes. Two that always stand out is "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice" with its extended (and gorgeously shot) black and white sequences, and intros that feature the last screen appearance of the legendary Orson Welles (telling you that your television wasn't faulty, it's supposed to be in black and white).

And "Atomic Shakespeare" where the cast do their version of the Taming of the Shrew. I always remember Addison (as Petruchio) entering the scene on a white horse, wearing RayBans (both he, and the horse) - and the horse has a BMW symbol on its side (as Addison always drove a BMW).

It was nuts, gorgeous to look at, and frequently you'd pan back and see the camera crew - and it was all intentional. It was just revolutionary at the time, and I loved every minute of it. Of course, once the sexual tension between David and Maddie was resolved in the middle of Season 3, and Cybill Shepherd's time on screen was reduced as she was off having children, and Bruce Willis' career was taking off after Die Hard... the focus of the series slipped more and more towards Agnes DiPesto and Herbert Viola, until it was finally cancelled in its fifth year.

Of course, even then it couldn't end without a fourth-wall breaking episode of David and Maddie running through the studios as the Blue Moon Detective Agency set was being dismantled, trying to stop the series' end.

Loved it. Awesome TV.

[Roll Your Own Life] The TV That Shaped Me (Part 1)

I was nearing the end of my "Games That Shaped Me" series of blog posts, looking at tabletop roleplaying games that had a massive impact on my life, when I was tagged in another one of these things on Facebook by T R Knight - who you'll remember from joining in #RPGaDAY a couple of years ago. Anyway, T R Knight tagged me with a similar thing but it was supposed to be ten images of vintage TV series that you loved, with no explanations or reason - just TV shows you loved.

Well, I was getting close to finishing the Games posts, and I was finding the daily blogging thing quite therapeutic in these trying and crazy times, so I thought I'd take the initial "TV Shows" prompt and run with it...

So, Ten TV Series that had an impact on my life. I'm going to do it in chronological order again (hopefully) and - bear in mind I watch(ed) an awful lot of TV - there will be some omissions... I've thought long and hard about these, but you may be surprised at my choices.

Here we go with number one of ten!

Sapphire and Steel (1979 - 1982)

As the earliest of the TV shows that had a major impact, I guess I should set up this point, and you'll see why I started watching this to begin with.

Most of the TV I watched in my dim and distant youth, short of the cool cartoons like Space Sentinels, Battle of the Planets, and so on, was the kinda thing my mum liked. She watched Doctor Who (mostly because she liked Jon Pertwee, and stopped watching it when Tom Baker took over), introduced me to The Man From UNCLE (because she knew I liked the James Bond movies) and The New Avengers. I watched science fiction series, mostly because I was obsessed with Star Wars, but I was happy watching most stuff - The Professionals, Man From Atlantis, Gemini Man, Invisible Man, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Mysteries, Fantastic Journey, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, Logan's Run... Heck, I'd watch everything.

Then came Sapphire and Steel. I guess it could be called ITV's answer to Doctor Who. Two elemental time agents dispatched to deal with temporal irregularities where time itself would break through and things would go horribly wrong. It had Joanna Lumley in it (from The New Avengers) and David McCallum (I'd seen in The Invisible Man and The Man from UNCLE) - all series I used to watch. A science fiction series with those leads? Heck yes.

That first episode had me hooked. Adventure One (as it's known now) started with a couple of kids in a farm house whose parents had vanished through a crack in time after reciting the old nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o' Roses". By the end of that first episode, when Sapphire's eyes were glowing blue, and they were reciting the rhyme backwards to prevent the crack opening again, I was glued to the TV.

Later serials were just as creepy. Adventure Two featured Sapphire's eyes going black, and an abandoned railway station and the ghosts of WWI soldiers. But Adventure Four turned up the creep factor even more with a strange faceless man, and weird things happening in old photographs.

The series came to an untimely end with Adventure Six, with Transient Beings trapping Sapphire and Steel in a motorway service station for eternity. It's a shame it finished there - apparently another series was planned, but both Lumley and McCallum had decided to call it quits.

We rewatched Sapphire and Steel a few years ago and it's still creepy and cool to this day. Sure it's a bit old and ropey in places, but it was genuinely cool and very different. It was certainly very different for its time.

Sapphire and Steel made a come back with Big Finish's audio dramas, with David Warner and Susannah Harker taking over the roles, and there have been a few planned revivals that fizzled out over the last few years.

Personally, I'd love to see a revival with Alice Eve and John Simm taking over the roles.

I remember a friend of ours had written a Sapphire and Steel tabletop roleplaying game using the Marvel Superheroes RPG as a base (the old TSR one), and even wrote to the series' creator P J Hammond to get his permission (which he got!), but nothing really came of it. I mean, it's a perfect idea for an RPG - characters playing different elements (as we also saw Silver and Lead in the TV series) with different abilities being sent to strange locations to stop temporal irregularities. It'd be great!

Until tomorrow, stay safe.

[Roll Your Own Life] The Games That Shaped Me (Part 7)

Tales From The Loop - Fria Ligan (2017)

The final entry on my "Games That Shaped Me" little blog series is the most recent one too. I've tried to make it as chronological as possible, and this is definitely the game that has had a big impact on me. You're probably already familiar with the game set in the 1980s where a mysterious company has built a CERN-like particle accelerator style facility known as The Loop. It's the 80s you remember, kids on bikes, walkmans, VHS-tapes, skateboards and so on. But it's "the 80s that never was", so the world is the same, but there are robots, anti-grav vehicles, and weird science experiments that have unleashed dinosaurs and portals onto the rural landscape.

Based on the amazing paintings and art book of Simon Stålenhag, the art alone was to sell the game to me, but then the reviews started appearing and it was obvious that the game was something special.

Why did it have such an impact?

I grew up playing tabletop games in my teens, and so you could kinda call me an old-school gamer. I was used to pages and pages of rules, options, systems, and intricate details of how combat or car chases or crazy science works. Combat turns, rounds, initiative and the like...

Then along comes this game. This simple, beautiful game.

I mean, Character Creation is 16 pages. And 8 of those are full page descriptions of the Archetypes.

The whole game system is on 12 pages. And these are heavily illustrated with the gorgeous art.

Okay, I don't want to name and shame anyone so I'll pick a game I designed. The Doctor Who RPG, in its most recent incarnation (12th Doctor) has 46 pages of character creation, and 51 pages of rules. And I thought when I was working on Doctor Who that it was rules light, and I think it was for the time! I guess it is when you compare it to something like 5e D&D with 154 pages of character creation (just in the Player's Handbook). 

I read Tales from the Loop and thought "I need to rethink my life choices!" 

Okay, so Loop has a great system, but sometimes actually succeeding at a task is hard (nothing like rolling nine D6 and not getting a single success) but that's helped with the way you can push a roll, use your Pride, or take a condition to succeed. And you're playing children. So battling a security robot with a stick, a water pistol and a flashlight is going to be tough. 

It has certainly shaken up my game design. I guess at my age I can't be bothered to read pages upon pages of rules. I want it to be simple, quick, and not take me out of the story, while still influencing the narrative. Something I hope the Doctor Who RPG does anyway.

Looking at the rules for WILD I've been working on, the simplicity of Tales From The Loop (and to come extent Blades In The Dark) have certainly made me consider what you need to detail. At the moment, the complete rules for WILD run to about 10 pages. While it's a far cry from the awesome games that are being produced on a single page (I don't think I can ever be smart enough to do that), I feel this is a step in the right direction for me. 

We played Tales from the Loop for ages last year and it lead to some really cool and quite tense gaming - something I haven't encountered since those old Kult games. We took a break for some Aegean and Scum & Villainy, but have recently returned to Tales From The Loop - this time set in the late 80's ready to progress into its sequel game, Things From The Flood - where the Loop has closed after something bad has happened, and weird creatures are emerging from the floodwaters. Awesome

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Well, that's the last of my seven Games That Shaped Me entries. I've just been challenged to do something similar with TV Series, which is going to be really difficult considering the amount of TV I've absorbed over the years...

Stay tuned...

Stay Safe...

Stay Home!