I’m posting this here because of all my blogs, I have the most followers here. I’d like to encourage all of you to take a look at (and if you’re so inclined) to follow my new blog, Overpriced Popcorn: Film Reviews for the Rest of Us . I started this blog because I spend a lot of time complaining about film critics, how arrogant they tend to be and how off the pulse their fingers tend to be, as evidenced by the fact that there’s usually a 15-20% difference in positive reviews between critics and audiences over on Rotten Tomatoes. Given that film critics’ jobs are to educate the public on what’s good and bad, it seems odd to me that critics are so divorced from what the public actually likes. I’m not saying I’m the be-all, end-all solution, but I thought that I should put my money where my mouth is, and make an effort to do a review blog from the perspective of those of us who pay to see movies. I’m aware that the site will probably irk a lot of people in the sci-fi/fantasy...

Just testing a new setup feature. Nothing more to see here.   I know you’re watching me.   Why are you watching me??   Oh…because I asked you to, right.   Well, nothing to see here right now.  Move along!  

http://overpricedpopcorn.blogspot.com/ This one is intended to be a blog of film reviews from the standpoint of those of us who actually pay to see them, rather than the film critic elite--when you go to Rotten Tomatoes, think of this as reviews posted in the "audience" section rather than the "critics" section. I'd appreciate followers--I'm kicking off this weekend with John Carter and The Hunger Games.  I may re-post some older reviews I've done elsewhere as well, such as Freddy v. Jason and Conan.

Many of you will probably be aware that several months ago, Brave Halfling Publishing announced the release of old school gaming boxes, which are simply nice boxes with art by old school luminary artists Erol Otus and Pete Mullen .  I ordered one of these boxes, before the Pete Mullen design was announced.  BHP had some printing issues with the original run, which led to delays in the release of quite some time. John from BHP was excellent with communications through this, and offered either a refund, or a second box at no charge, to make up for the delay.  I opted for a second box, because really, who can't use another box?  So, after what seemed like forever, I got a package in the mail yesterday. Imagine my surprise when not only did I get a second box, but the second box was of the Pete Mullen design!  Bonus! So I thought I'd show you what all fits in one of these boxes, and give you my thoughts. First things first: the photos. I am ...

This post won't be about D&D specifically, but I think it should still be of use to old-school DMs.  It's more of a general philosophical pondering about the art of game mastering.  Bear with me--my thoughts are a bit disjointed today, but I've been thinking about GMing in general lately.  Particularly what I think of as the "Magnum Opus" campaign. I'm not sure if other GMs experience this, but back around the fall of 2002 or so I began running the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, right when it came out. Our group took to the game like fish to water; we were the first group to have a website dedicated to the game.  We were the first group to cut "opening credits sequence" videos that I posted to our website.  We were the first group, when everyone started making credits sequences, to do a full-length music video for the series theme song. In many ways, at the time, we set the standard for BtVS RPG campaign websites. I actually cut soundtrack albums ...

So I'm going to take a break from the AD&D and old school focus of the blog today to get some thoughts down for a new campaign idea I've got. Now I cannot entirely take credit for this, as I'm pretty patently ripping off the core idea from a symphonic goth-metal band called Within Temptation . Within Temptation put out a concept album recently (last year? the year before? uncertain, as I've only recently discovered the band) that carried with it both a comic book limited series and three short films . The album, entitled The Unforgiven, functions as the soundtrack to the comic series, and deals with people who have been returned from death by a mysterious old woman to battle the forces of darkness and punish sinners .  The key is that all of these people had some severe and fatal flaw in life, which is what lead to their deaths--their resurrection is a second chance at redemption. So far as I can tell from the films (I have yet to acquire the full album or get the ...

TERRITORY DEVELOPMENT BY PLAYER CHARACTERS If I have not yet mentioned how much I love this section of the DMG, let me do so now.  I know I've made comments about how much of the advice herein seems very common sense in scope, it's still so incredibly awesome to go back and see how, at the root of rpgs, a Dungeon Master's guide was actually about the art of Dungeon Mastering. What I mean is, in later editions--even as early as second edition--the DMG (or GMG, in other games) tended to be about interpretations of rules, inclusion of additional rules, subsystems, optional rules, rules, rules, and more rules.  While this DMG certainly contains the bulk of the game rules, which were of no concern to players, it also contains real advice on being a DM: advice on how to build, maintain, track, and run your own milieu, or fantasy world. This is  not just a book of hard rules and subsystems, or a book full of paragraph upon paragraph, page upon page, expounding on Rule Zero and...