Ralphie Saves Flash Gordon

This is little link I found over Christmas and meant to post during Flash Gordon month (let's just say 2011 is Flash Gordon Year!).

Apparently in the film, A Christmas Story, there was a deleted scene of radio show junkie Ralphie listening to a Flash Gordon broadcast and daydreaming a rescue of Flash from Ming the Merciless.

In the scene, Flash is lashed to a "cobra tree" with snakeskin bark while Ming monologues on his imminent doom. The tree is supposed to awaken and devour our hero. A perfect example of injecting a little homebrew "weird" into the story! Ralph arrives with his trusty Red Rider BB gun to save Flash and well...I don't want to ruin it, so head on over to the film's legacy site to find out how it ends. Sadly, the none of the footage survived to present day.
 
If you're ever in Cleveland, you can tour the house used in the film and to see costumes, drawings, and the script.

The Secret History of Spelljammer and a Question

Former TSR game wizard Jeff Grubb has done a another "secret history of" post on his blog, this time about Spelljammer--a game near and dear to his heart--that I think is fascinating. There's a lot to love/learn from his post, but some of the best is the fact that the game was inspired by a single image:

One of the things that I came into the pitch session with was the idea that I wanted to push the envelope on what D&D fantasy was. Yeah, we had done FR and DL, but those had been written down as typical fantasy worlds. Vanilla fantasy. Default fantasy. Background static. Here was a chance to go out on more of a limb and push the envelope. So this was the chance to do D&D in space. I’m sorry – Innnnn Spaaaaaaace!

He goes on to describe that image:

A knight standing on the deck of a ship in space. He doesn’t freeze. He doesn’t blow up. He doesn’t float away. Everything that follows comes out of that one image, which is captured (with more to it as well) on the final cover Jeff Easley did. All what people have called “Grubbian Physics” with its air envelopes and its gravity planes, comes from creating a universe where that image is true.

If that's not the definition of weird science fantasy, I don't know what is. Sure it seems wacky at first, but it led to a whole new way of thinking in the game and opened a really imaginative approach to the genre (which he talks more about in his post).

Fair disclosure: I'm not even a fan of Spelljammer. Always thought it was a little too out there, which is my own fault for not giving it a chance. But I'm willing to admit what a fool I've been! Anyway, I'm just getting to the good part, which is:

For the boxed sets at that time, we had a format – two 96-page books, 4 big color maps, and a bunch of light cardboard sheets. Our task was to fill that space. Sometimes the format worked, sometimes it was less successful. For Spelljammer, we used them to create the ship stat cards and standups. So that worked out pretty well.

A Challenge!
So, here you have a template:

• 1 box, 
• 2 books
• 4 maps
• Some cardboard sheets

Make a game. Take an image--real or imagined--and base an entire game on it. Think what the cover would look like, what the books would cover, and most intriguingly, what do you do with those cardboard sheets?

Using the same items and format, what type of game do you come up with? To the comments my friends!

Far Out Space Fantasy PCs

After a few miniature buying binges, a fever of Rientsian Star Wars inspiration, and multiple, late night viewings of Message From Space on Netflix, my brain spit out a these far-out, space fantasy guys.

It actually all started this past summer when I found an old Star Wars rip off action figure case that I'd been remembering from childhood but never owned until recently:

I know it's terrible, but man, I'm diggin' that artwork! I also wonder how Johnny Quest's dad in the corner got mixed up with those wacky space dudes (is that a wookiee Mama Cass holding a socket wrench?).

Fast forward to present day and I'm hunting down some of the more zany, vintage metal minis from Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and other off-brand sci-fi lines. I've been having fun coming up with bios based on them.

Here's what I've worked up so far:

Scam Zolo

Scam is what happens when Han Solo doesn't go to the Imperial Academy. He's basically a low-life (smuggler, gambler, career criminal) for hire. I'd been wondering about the type of character Greedo might have become had he been on Han's crew, rather than on the business end of a blaster. I imagine he'd be the Steve Buscemi of the galaxy. He's also a  bit of a mutant which is fitting since he's more than a few steps removed from our favorite Corellian captain.

King Tusken

Owing much to the figure's actual size (squarely @ 28mm)  King Tusken lives up to his namesake. I'd like to think that when the raiders need to pick a chieftain, there's some sort of mystical ceremony that transforms him into a dire sand person (wookie sized with actual ram horns). KT travels across the Jundland Wastes and Dune Sea with an entourage of the toughest raiders, acting as a combination of warlord, judge, pimp, and tribal medicine man. He's also the best sharpshooter in the tribes (how do you think he got to be king?) and that bantha blaster he carries is custom made from "salvaged" Imperial tech.

Volcan Voxx

What if Darth Vader had Boba Fett's job? Volcan is an intergalactic badass of few words (much like Darth and Boba) but he's parlayed his cosmic Sith-like intuition and lifelong battle-hardened attitude into being truly worthy of "the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy". Cursed with having to wear a breathing apparatus after a job-gone-wrong, Voxx pursues his quarry with vicious vigor--as if each of them were payback for his terrible deformities. Speaking of which, this fig came without a left hand. I'm still deciding if that's backstory worthy, or if I should give him a second weapon like a screw-on bionic hand or interchangeable weapons like Trapjaw.

Xarth Raiden

I've often been amused with Kenner's gaffe in the 80s when they confused Lucasfilm's notes for 4-LOM and Zuckuss (and who hasn't really?) and swapped their names on the action figure cardbacks. Basically, Xarth is a recasting of Vader using both bounty hunters. He's an insectoid, alien, warlock, more cold and calculating than the Sith Lord ever was. His environment suit is a hefty upgrade over the "prison" Anakin Skywalker endured. Xarth's threads are customized cyborg implants with all manner of sensors to amplify his inherited insect abilities and learned psionic talents.
 
Apologies for the craptastic photos, but you get the idea.

I had a weird thought when I woke up this morning...

So if the old school Romulan's were driving one of these around:

...wouldn't you expect them to look a little more like this?

Just sayin'.

Tangents, Dodges, and Sideways Sojourns for SciFi Settings (d6)

Here's a few adventure hooks--or curveballs, rather--that you can throw into your games for those times player character complacency and carelessness crests and the GM seizes the moment.

1. A found device, weapon, or spaceship awakens to send a signal to mated piece with which it intends to combine. If successful, this process will dramatically alter the object's properties/abilities. Examples include: a spaceship that combines with other technology and takes on new functions; a ring that combines with its twin to give the wearer new-found superpowers--or terrible curse; or your last trip to the starship repair shop included a few "upgrades" only your mechanic knew about, like your ship is actually part of a giant super robot. Or, ya know, it could just be your everyday alien cube seeking its long lost key to unlock a dimensional gate to who-knows where/when in the spacetime pony show.

2. Speaking of inter-dimensional superdickery, the heroes begin inexplicably popping back and forth between locations (local, intergalactic, or otherwise) at inopportune moments by a dimensional portal, disguised as an everyday object. Involuntary teleportation runs unchecked until they figure out what the item is and how to deactivate it. Or worse, how to appease it--as it's actually a sentient lifeform and it's not happy!).

3. Speaking of self-aware, seemingly innocuous space objects--take a natural object in space and bring it to life! An asteroid that's perturbed by an infection of parasitic Earthmen trying to colonize it's backside; a tennis ball-sized, loudmouth of blackhole with an insatiable appetite for densely-packed matter and bad puns; a well-meaning quasar just dying to reveal the secrets of the universe to anyone who will listen, but unintentionally annihilates anything (Chris-Farley-style) in it's output path (Augh! So sorry! Did I blast you just then? I'm such an IDIOT!); or maybe it's fickle photon particles that guide heroes when they need light down a darkened tunnel or concentrate into a laser when they're too close to discovering the ancient crystal that powers them.

4. Mushrooms! Worked in D&D--they're the ultimate psychedelic/weird plot device. Why not make an entire planet of fungus that hates people? Make them glow in the dark and really smelly, per standard cliches. But perhaps space spores piloted by small blue aliens are invading all civilized planets and planting giant mushrooms that churn out billowing toxins to de-terraform your homeworld into something more habitable for themselves.

5. Check your looks in a mirror universe. The heroes find themselves in a world where an enormous, gentle Cthuloid overlord is caretaker to his fanatical human "children" who want to kill everybody who doesn't "love him" (that'd be you and your buddies). Perhaps Emperor Palpatine's efforts to establish the first Galactic Republic are in desperate need of your assistance when a band of imperialist Jedi swine make for a coup d'etat. Or the Atlanteans rise to share their enormous kelp crop only to find to surface dwellers are launching an invasion force and start by drilling into the seabed (don't scoff, it could happen!).  

6. And then there's the everyday, ho-hum, conventional weirdness: the frog plague is really raining hypnotoads; the latest mutagenic radiation/biologic agent is spread by computer virus or hilarious viral YouTube video (don't ask me how that works--it's sci-fi!); or the fabric of Vulcan society breaks down and they launch a massive, psychic, holy war on all inhabited worlds with greater efficiency and devastation than the Borg. Oh, and Yoda is their president. And when 900 years old Vulcans turn--they all look exactly like him. (Seriously, it makes a lot of sense doesn't it?).

There's some ideas. Now go and be fruitful and multiply your rolls by a factor of 4. I'm exhausted and going to bed!