Saturday, April 02, 2005

FRANK'S GEEKDOM SATURDAY PART II
Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game.

For those of you who don't know, and I'm guessing that is all but two of you that I know reads this blog, there is a brand of Fantasy Roleplaying Game out there called Palladium.
Palladium is the brain child of Keven Siembieda, and was developed back in the early eighties during the boom period for Roleplaying games.
His idea was to found an rpg company that would use the same game mechanics system for every product.
This had not been the trend up to that point, and until GURPS and the recent d20 system.
He promised this in fact.
Palladium is the company that produces such classics as the insanely diverse and over whelming Rifts.
The modern horror game Beyond Supernatural.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... yeah, don't laugh, it was based off the original comics which were not for kids. The game was cool... cheesy but cool, and was not kiddy, like the come, and have become.
And a game that Erica want to play when she was up her Logan; Ninjas and Superspies.
There are a schlew of others, all of them using the same system.
Rift's, Palladium's mother ship, is so flexible in it's setting that you can use any character from any other setting with in it.

I have a problem with Palladium, admittedly two problems.
First; the game mechanics aren't as straight forward as they could be, I could go into the gritty details of it, but I don't want you to bore you.
It's, well, cumbersome in a way, not all of it, just combat.
It's not impossible to learn, it just isn't a straight forward elegant system like WestEndGames d6 system or the raved about d20 system.
Second; well, to be honest the lay out of the books leaves alot to be desired.
It's as if the layout designers and the editor and writers tried, but just didn't succeed in execution.
They are either close to being reasonably put together, as in the case of Palladium's FRPG, or a ramble of confusion, like the version of the Rift's rule book I have.

Palladium's Fantasy game and setting is intriguing and rich.
And the magic system, and magic classes (jobs) is one of the most interesting and rich to be found.
The setting itself is set on a single continent dominated by men in the south, and a strange race of wolf humanoid creatures called wolfen.
Elfs and dwarfs exsist, but they are fading races, both of them are part of human society, their empires decimated by a war between them thousands of years ago.
Kobolds aren't your classic dnd kobolds, which I find fresh, neither are the goblins and hobgoblins.

The magic system, if there is one reason to play the game it is for the magic system.
I'm not a fan of magic in rpgs.
Generally magic tends to dominate and over power the games settings, but make no sense in the context of the worlds because the worlds themselves are low tech and weith all the magic, you'd figure that they'd have a bit more innovation than they have.
Pallidium solves this by setting up the fact that the most powerful magics have either been lost, or completely destroyed.
Magic items are difficult to make and expensive, there are only a handful of characters that can make them called Alchemist, who are versed in the three major types of sorcery.
The three types: Wizards, who mostly cast spells through verbal incantations.
Diabolist, who create magical wards and symbols that unleash the powerful magic with in them.
And lastly, Summoners, socerors that are versed in summoning beings from other realms, and creating circles of command and protection.
Each of the three are unique in their scope.
There are other magic using classes, but are classes that are given their powers, not research,
they are Warlock, Witch, Druid, and Priest.

Overall I've finally found myself keen on a Palladium setting I'm going to seek out some more of the books (I got the FRPG book at the book store) for this setting.
I will pull some ideas from it, and perhaps in the future, run a campaign or two in it.

Until then...later.

(sorry, if this doesn't make as much sense as I'd like. I had a sudden bout of fatigue hit me right in the middle of this, there may be some edits later.)

FRANK'S GEEKDOM SATURDAY PART I
SIN CITY

Well, Just got in from the film, and I must first admit I knew only a fraction about it going in.
I knew that it was based off a Frank Miller's graphic novel. I had seen some of the Batman stuff he had done a long while ago, so I had an idea of what to expect. Sort of.
I knew it was in black in white.
And I knew that Kevin Smith call's it today's "Pulp Fiction" and in a way he is right, it's more pulp fiction than Pulp Fiction was.
For those of you who disdain graphic novels, perhaps you should stop reading my geekdom blogs, for the rest of you... well, Sin City is... awesome.

Surreal would perhaps be a better word.
Beautiful.
Imagined.
Horrifically violent.
Funny.
Yeah those words sum it up nicely.
The images, characters and situations are just outside of reality.
The film itself is black and white with snatches of color.
Brilliant color.
Brilliant black and white.
The characters are impossible both in their endurance and inhumanity.
One thing to note, this film isn't straight forward on plot, it's several stories involving the denizen and the locales of this place, smacking a little of the way Tarantino likes to arrange his movies.
Characters do show up in other tales, but the overall glue keeping the stories emboldened to one another is the Rourke family, and hookers.
They are a family of corrupt, powerful, and incredibly depraved individuals that have a lot of sway in Sin City.
The hookers, are well, hookers.
Beautiful, vivacious, sultry, incredibly frightening and dangerous.
They run their own business and are not women to be trifled with.
One of the stories moves away from the aRourke family and just deals with them, and their sense of justice, and the fragility of the world they live in.
The anti-hero's are men who murder and torture all in the name of justice.
Some of them are insane; Micky Rourke's character Marv, for instance.
Some of them are noble; like Bruce Willis' Hartigan.

The presentation of the violence is incredibly surreal and pulled out of reality.
The horror of the situtations only really strikes you if you think about it.
Fortunantly the movie itself doesn't give you the time to do that.
Sin City delivers incredible visiuals, and some good performances, but the dialogue at times is stilted and at times incredibly cliched.
Which, for me, only added to the wholeness of the film.
Personally, if this is the new film nior, I'm hooked.
I've always been a big fan of the genre, but i've not seen a film like this one, at least presented in this way.

I urge you to go out and see it: if you're a fan of graphic novels, well it's like one come to life, if your a fan of beautiful cinema, well this one delivers.
Be forewarned though it has insanely depraved violence; A couple walked out in the scene revealing a meat locker with trophies on the wall that were all too grisly.
Thoug watching Frodo (Elijah Wood as Kevin) get chopped up then eaten by a dog was well worth the money I paid for the movie.
(Who's the ring bearer now bitch?!)

Friday, April 01, 2005

So, my weeks has been... well, it's left something to be desired.
My fridge is dead.
It sits in my living room now, there's a problem with the carpet underneath it too, and I can't get in touch with the apartment manager, or the building owner to do anything about it.
I'm getting a little pissed.

I'm stressed about the read through.
I keep alot of material in different files and email accounts, and I've been putting them together and doing alot of rewrite... well Wednesday (cursed day) I lost one. It was saved it in a risky file medium and I had not had the opportunity to save it too an email account, computer froze... bye-bye to 13 unformatted pages.
Formatted they would have been about 16 pages.
Yeah I was pissed.
Things are better now. I should be finished with the play by mid-evening, and I have, for the most part, all the parts covered.

Finishing mid-evening will be great, because it will allow me too....
Geek out with Sin City.
I'm stoked to see it. I've read and heard a little bit about it, but it takes a graphic novel, and makes it film noir.
Well, I like graphic novels, movies, and film noir happens to be one of my favorite genres of film, so I'm keen on seeing it.
Tom?

Tomorrow's geekdom will be extra long. I plan on doing a review for Sin City (yes, I'm that intent on seeing it), and talking a little about Paladium FRPG. For those of you who are mildly interested... well tune in tomorrow.

More at another time.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

It is a bleak gray out.
Small flakes of white rush to the ground in anticipation of their melting.
And here I sit, time sharing my staring between the computer screen and the white flakes.
I'm in a vile mood: not enough sleep, snow falling, a desire to be someplace else, these all contribute.
It's Wednesday.
Of all the days of the week I hate Wednesday the most.
Why, because it's the middle of the week, and because of it's spelling.
Look at it, all smug in itself, a D and an N sitting side by side.
And causing us to pronounce a sound that makes absolutely no sense.
No one know's how to pronounce it correctly, oh you'll hear people claim they know how to pronounce it correctly... but the don't, not really.
Travel the country, talk to people about that horrible W day.
The day one, and only, day of the week that isn't pronounced how it's spelled, and you'll get as many different pronounciations as the people you meet.
OH CURSED UNPRONOUNCABLE DAY!

I'm better, I'm calm now.
Just had to get that out of my system.
Well, I lied I'm still in a vile mood.
There's alot more than that listed above that contributes... but I will leave you wondering for a fleeting moment what those things might be.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

So it's snowing.
Yeah, that's right, snowing.
It's nothing serious, but it is annoying.
I'm upset about it, incredibly upset.
All you people who want to look at the bright side of things, well you're going to have to wait until the sun comes out.
Fitzlephisch is still coming along.
I've got to do alot of rewriting still yet, the plot lines aren't all lined up with each other, and some of the characters need readjusted.
Much editing and re-writing of dialogue, mostly in the second act, though the first act needs a bit of tweeking too.
I'm still rather amazed that I managed to pull enough dementia from my mind to come up with a full length script, in fact I'm going to trim it as I go, get rid of things that might be needless, or ad nosium repeating of material.
If I can get the script so it is at least acceptable, I might just tackle a dramatic script.
I have to be honest comedy is much more difficult than I anticipated, I'm not sure if it's even funny.
I'm trying to avoid cliches, and bits, though some have remained in the script.
Can't resist, though I have at least tried and made them tie in.
Hopefully the read through will give me a laugh (that's why I write comedic scripts), because I might be to close to the script now to know what's funny.
I did get a laugh from a bit I read yesterday, I'll save it for later.

I hope the weather is nice whereever you are at, I'll talk with all of you later.

Monday, March 28, 2005

Well, I suppose I should apologize to all the folks who read Geekdom Saturday's, so Tom, I'm sorry I didn't write it.
Life just got too busy this week and I didn't have the time I normally do.
But, things have settled down.
I'll be sure to write an extra long Geekdom Blog this Saturday.

The show's are over and I am ready to breath a sigh of relief for a break.
Saturday's final performance of Last Tuesday went very well.
Which is great to say the least.
I'm relieved and sad it's over.
I've been stressed about that show for such a length of time I don't really know for sure what to do.
So i'm going to do what I need to do and finalize the script for Fitzlephisch.
I hope I can get it to work right.

Weekend has come and gone.
I got to see Joel and Deanne, Dogboy, and Cousin Bud, not to mentiong Nigel and a few others that I just met.
It's always good to see Joel and Deanne, I love those guys.
And Dogboy, and Bud... damn those guys are funny.

Sadly I am here, and work calls the rest of the week.