Dungeon Crawl Classics - I Have It, and I'm Impressed

So, last Friday morning, I was able to acquire my pdf of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG by Goodman Games, courtesy of pre-ordering.  Then I immediately drove away for the greater part of the weekend, leaving the pdf at home on my laptop so as not to upset family by spending Easter with my nose therein.  Afterwards, while I have perused, and read, and read other passages, and re-read some interesting bits, I have yet to sit down and do a cover-to-cover reading, so be warned that my current perspective is not grounded in having all the facts. 

First impressions? 

This is easily the most beautiful RPG book that I have ever had the good luck to peruse.  This is so obviously a labour of love that it is impossible to “flip” through the electronic pages and not imaging Joseph Goodman is by your side, nudging you with his elbow, and saying, “See that?  Like that illustration?  How about that rule?  Huh?”

And I mean that in the best possible way.  The love and enthusiasm with which this product has been produced is prodigious (say that three times fast).

This book is really a lot of fun to browse through.  The artwork is not all perfect, but it is all evocative of the mood being set by the game.  I don’t believe that it is possible to browse through this book without being inspired; in this way it will deserve a spot on my gaming shelf right next to Gary Gygax’s DMG and Goodman Games’ The Dungeon Alphabet.  Can I give higher praise?  I think not.

Second impressions? 

A lot of randomness, which I had expected from the Beta Playtest, but a lot of randomness that is probably very fun to experience at the table.  I had considered the difficulty in creating NPCs, especially spellslingers, in this system because of the level of randomness, but neither NPCs nor monsters need to follow the rules explicitly, which is a major plus.  Otherwise, the “homework factor” of the game would be like that of 3.5, which is not (IMHO) remotely desirable.

I note with great satisfaction that DCC RPG is truly behind its 3pp supporters, advertising not only the Goodman Games forthcoming material, but also material from Brave Halfling Publishing, Purple Sorcerer Games, Chapter 13 Press, Thick Skull Adventures, Lands of Legend Adventure Modules, Land of Phantoms, Crawl! Fanzine, and Fight On!  There are pointers to OSR blogs and forums, as well as other resources.  This is classy as hell, and points out the amount of support that the DCC RPG is already receiving.

And you will need that support, I am thinking, because the rules concerning spells, patrons, and gods all require that, sooner or later, you will want to create new ones.  It seems unlikely that there will be many generic campaigns using this system – the system demands a certain level of unique creativity on the part of the Game Master.

The section on Judge’s Rules could, quite honestly, be longer.  I wouldn’t mind more insight into Goodman’s thinking on how DCC RPG adventures should be structured.  The two adventures from last year’s Free RPG Day module are included, but it would have been nice to have included something new.

The game notes that the characters have no access to the Internet, and that information is rare and untrustworthy.  That is very good – in fact, it recalls something I wrote in my own system:

It should be recalled that knowledge in pre-modern societies (as occur in most RCFG game milieus) is not an exact thing. Although devotees of some branch of knowledge may refer to their branch as a “science”, this does not mean the same thing in most RCFG milieus that it does in our world. In most milieus, the scientific method has not been invented, and there are no true sciences. An RCFG character with Knowledge (Chemistry) should not be considered equivalent to a modern chemist!

On top of this, there is no equivalent to the Internet or the Encyclopaedia Britannica in most RCFG game milieus.   Knowledge is always uncertain, and there are many things that no one knows — unless someone is daring enough to find out, either through exploration or magic.

The Game Master may decide that any Knowledge check is impossible, if she believes that there is no route for the knowledge to get to the character making the check. For example, no Knowledge check can grant a character foreknowledge of an unexplored continent, or of the contents of a particular person’s pockets.

The idea of braving the unknown, of exploring the unexplored, requires as a prerequisite that things can be unknown and unexplored in the first place.  One of the major problems with certain modern systems is the inherent concept that the players should be able to discover just about anything, just by rolling the dice.

(And I am very glad that I linked to this document in a previous blog, because otherwise it would seem very much like I was simply parroting Joe’s wise words herein!)

But there are areas where I find myself at odds with the philosophy of Mr. Goodman.  One of these is the range of area over which a typical campaign should occur.  Making your world “very small” (original emphasis) may be well and good for starting play, but it doesn’t reflect the adventures of Appendix N characters like Conan or Elric.

This leads directly to another question:  Would the “campaign dungeon” model work well with these rules?  The campaign dungeon is a device that allows a campaign world to effectively stay small; there is always more within that area to explore.  But the DCC RPG reads as though it would be best run as a series of quests – and not all of those quests (even those quests described in the rules) seem to fit well within a “very small world” or campaign dungeon model.

Also, some of the quests described in the rules are going to require the GM to do a bit of homework.  When the PCs start looking for the Eldest Sphinx, you can bet that he doesn’t exist within the 100-square mile campaign area suggested!  One of my sandboxing rules, if you will recall, is that you should get at least 2 hours play out of every hour’s prep, and that means that sites should be reusable.  I am not at all sure how many reusable sites the DCC RPG model would have, if taken at face value.

As an aside to this, if you find yourself directed to seek a dryad in the forest to the east, after having been directed to the Portal Under the Stars, and are then perhaps directed to somewhere else by your cleric’s god, after which your wizard’s patron directs you to another place….that seems an awful lot of directions.  I find myself somewhat concerned that the magic system in this game will result in the player characters dancing like puppets on strings.

(Those calling on higher powers should find themselves in uncomfortable positions, IMHO, but they should not always find themselves so.  I prefer that, given options, the players are largely self-directed.  I am wondering what a DCC RPG sandbox would look like, and how it would play, with the materials in the book taken at face value.)

I also find myself ambivalent about the “No more orcs” mantra.  Yes, it is very good to have new and unknown monsters.  But those monsters are new and unknown within the context of a world where there are things that can be known.  In my own game system, I find myself straddling a line where there are common forms of monsters, and monsters can be easily modified, so that it is never certain that Orc A is like Orc B, but most orcs are just orcs.

Joseph Goodman also seems to accept the 3e-era mantra that the encounter is the metric of play, as the XP system is based on the GM gauging how difficult each encounter was for the players.  I don’t subscribe to this idea; IMHO the encounter area is the metric of play, and encounters are not necessarily discrete.  If the orcs from Room 2 hear fighting in Room 1, and come to help their brethren, is that one encounter or two?  If they flee into a third encounter area, and run into the denizens thereof, is that one, two, or three encounters? 

Design is done encounter area by encounter area, but play may not occur according to that design.  And I despise design created to force play to occur in discrete encounter areas.

Likewise, as in my own design, I think that there is a place for PC-controlled magic with predictable results (ala the SRD-based spell systems whose progenitors arise from Gary, Dave, and Jack Vance) and less predictable systems where PCs can gamble for greater effects and greater costs.

Although by no means unique to Appendix N sources, it is nonetheless true that Appendix N contains many “modern man thrust into unusual circumstances” stories within it.   This includes, but is certainly not limited to, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Pellucidar”, “Mars”, and “Venus” series; de Camp & Pratt’s “Harold Shea” series; much of August Derleth and H.P. Lovecraft, and books such as A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage.  It is a missed opportunity not to provide direct support for these sorts of tales, but with the amount of third party support, I will be surprised if this hole remains unplugged for long.

Conclusions

If you can read this book, or even leaf through it, and not want to be a player in a DCC RPG game, then you are no scion of Appendix N fantasy!  This is also a game that begs to be run, although I don’t imagine that it will replace RCFG as my go-to game.  As I said earlier, as an inspirational game I will be reading, and re-reading, this game for years to come. 

I will also say this:  RCFG is designed to meet my own personal needs/desires as a gamer.  DCC RPG comes the closest to making me forego the effort.  As I have the chance to examine more support materials, either I will be using this game to support my own design, or my designs to support it.  Right now, I lean to the former.  That may change.

I am very happy with this product.  I am very glad that I preordered it.  It is not my go-to game now, but it has the potential to grow into my go-to game in the future.  At the very least, it certainly is something that I will be using to support and inspire my gaming.

I now need to organize a DCC RPG Barrowmaze game (details will be posted here), and see if the system allows me to run said campaign dungeon in a satisfying way….links and details to be posted here.

Psychic Powers in Doctor Who

In Doctor Who, psionics is the study of psychic powers.  Psychic powers themselves come about through an innate ability to manipulate three special forces which have not been tapped (and, indeed, are largely unknown) to Tech Level 5 science:  artron energy, the lifeforce and fictional energy. 

Artron energy is generated within (or by) the space-time vortex, and is difficult to fully understand even for  a Tech Level 9 civilization.  Creatures that pass through the vortex gather artron energy around them, and artron energy can escape through thin points in space-time where the vortex is closer, as well as actual rifts in the fabric of the universe.  The rift in Cardiff, and the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey, leak artron energy.  Individuals who grow up close to those rifts — or who are strongly exposed to them as children — sometimes develop psychic powers.

The lifeforce is energy generated by all living things, infused with the living down to the molecular level.  The degree to which the lifeforce interacts with a potentially living thing is the difference between being alive or being dead.  Yet, even dead creatures that were once alive maintain reserves of this energy for a long time, or their bodies would collapse into a fine powder.

Fictional energy is a 6th dimensional energy source, which is directly related to probability and creativity.  Fictional energy is not fully understood even at Tech Level 10, except perhaps by creatures such as the Guardians of Time and the Trickster.  All storytelling and imagination utilize fictional energy, but massive uses of fictional energy to create psychic effects usually require very powerful psychics (and can create ionic discharges).

These energy types interact with each other.

The lifeforce and artron energy are entangled (similarly to the way in which quantum particles can be entangled, but with a more widespread and far-reaching implications) but, unlike quantum particles, have properties that can be decoded or programmed by their connections to fictional energy. 

In some cases, primitive creatures devise rituals in order to harness fictional energy to encode, decode, and manipulate these energies.  The science of psionics seeks not only to interpret the purposes of these rituals, but also to understand, harness, and manipulate these energies without the constraints or uneven results of ritual.

As with every type of energy, creatures have evolved to consume artron energy, fictional energy, and even to consume the lifeforce directly, although these creatures are thankfully rare, and usually come from (or have access to) other dimensions or universes.

True artificial intelligence requires a connection to the lifeforce, and allows the intelligence to potentially access psychic powers (as with BOSS and WOTAN). 

At Tech Level 7, it is possible to create materials that can hold or react to the lifeforce and artron energy (even if artron energy is not fully understood), thus enabling the creation of products such as psychic paper and the telepathic pendants of the Arcateen.

Fantasy Heartbreakers & What I'm Working On

Dausuul's Fantasy Game (aptly entitled "Heartbreaker") was announced, and is available for free download here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?2cm04w2ehh9m6ie

If you are interested in Raven Crowking's Fantasy Game, the compiled system-as-it-stands can be downloaded here:  http://www.mediafire.com/?om36l1vc23p7f6d – be aware that the OGL may need to be updated, as there is material that I have added since work on that section.

I have been working on RCFG for what seems like a very long time now, as some of you may be aware.  I have also recently been working on the first persistent campaign setting for RCFG, working on the megadungeon known as the Dungeon of Thule.  I am going to post two encounter areas below, but if you have any intention of playing in this game (online or offline), I would advise you to skip the following.

I am also still eagerly awaiting Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, which, if all goes well, I should have the pre-release pdf of this week or next.  No word on the exact date is yet forthcoming…..I’ll be reviewing the game here.

2.  Hall of the Skull Cairn:  The passage leads into a room, some 30 feet north-to-south and perhaps 50 feet east-to-west, with an archway indicating a passage in the centre of each wall.  The room is dusty, with scraps of bone, rags, and similar debris scattered along the walls and corners.  About 10 feet in front of the western archway is a cairn of heaped skulls – humanoid and animal – that reaches to a height of about 3 feet.  The room is barrel-vaulted to a height of about 15 feet.

The cairn was a territorial marker for the Skull Heap goblins, which inhabited this section of the dungeon long ago.  The skulls are mostly those of goblins, dire rats, and the like, although a few are very small humanoid skulls (from mites), and there are one or two human skulls as well.  The skulls are ancient – most have been here for decades or centuries.  If the cairn is disturbed in any way, it will be reformed 1d6 days later, when no one is about, by the goblin spirits who still inhabit this area. 

If, however, the skulls are destroyed or taken away, the goblin spirits become angry, and 1d6 days later creatures passing anywhere in Areas 2 to 40 will begin to hear the almost inaudible muttering of goblin voices, which will grow louder over the next 1d6 weeks.  Eventually, the first goblin spirit incorporates and places the first fresh skull (a fully intact head, use the Wandering Monster chart to see what type) to build a new cairn.  Thereafter, groups of 2d6 goblin spirits will be encountered as Wandering Monsters (1 in 6 chance; if not, use the normal chart), working at severing heads until the cairn is rebuilt.  This will continue until all cairns (Areas 2, 41, and 85) are restored, the undead goblin witch doctor in Area 29 is destroyed, or the goblin spirits are exorcised or slain.  There is a potential pool of 123 goblin spirits.

During this period, the whole area becomes attuned to the Necromantic spell source, at first faintly, and then strongly.  When the muttering is heard, spells cast from the Necromantic spell source are cast at +1 Caster Level.  When the goblin spirits are able to manifest, these spells are cast at +2 Caster Levels, and can be cast using the ambient necromantic energy (not using the sorcerer’s spell slots).  These effects end when the cairns are rebuilt, or when the undead are otherwise removed.

Goblin Spirit (Small Undead):  Mv 20 ft.; AC 14; Init +2; HD 1d6; Att 1 short sword (1d6); SA None; SD Semi-corporeal (can turn incorporeal to flee or manifest to start encounter), silver or magic weapons to hit; SQ darkvision 60 ft., powerless in daylight; SV (Fort –2, Perc +0, Prow –2, Reas –1, Refl +2, Will +0); ML 10; XP 18 + 1/hp.  Skills:  Intimidate +4, Stealth +10, Theft +4.

123 goblin spirits:  Hp:  2, 6, 1, 5, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 2; 3, 6, 3, 2, 1, 2, 6, 4, 5, 4; 5, 6, 1, 2, 4, 1, 6, 6, 4, 4; 6, 5, 3, 2, 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, 1; 4, 5, 2, 6, 6, 6, 3, 6, 4, 5; 6, 5, 3, 2, 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, 1; 5, 2, 5, 1, 3, 2, 5, 4, 5, 2; 2, 5, 2, 6, 6, 3, 3, 1, 3, 5; 3, 2, 3, 1, 6, 1, 6, 5, 1, 5; 5, 4, 1, 1, 6, 6, 2, 6, 2, 4;  5, 1, 5, 3, 3, 6, 1, 1, 4, 3; 2, 1, 1, 5, 6, 1, 2, 5, 6, 3; 6, 4, 5.

51.  Temple of Osiris:  Inner Fane:  Mildly attuned to Celestial (+1 CL) and Eldritch Horror (+2 CL) Spell Sources.

This area is 15 feet high, the ceiling upheld by thick pillars that march in three rows, along the walls and along the centre of the area.  These pillars were carved as though they were living trees, but they seem twisted and fungal somehow.  Thick webs are strewn between the pillars, along the walls, in the corners, and along the ceiling.  The walls appear to be tiled with green, blue, and yellow tiles, but some sheen of iridescent colours seems to be growing across it, like a thin layer of slime.

The walls are cool and slimy to the touch.  Any creature touching the slime begins to glow softly at night with a strange, iridescent hue, after 1d6 days.  At this time, the character must attempt a Fort or Will save (DC 20).  If the save succeeds, the glow fades over the course of another 1d6 days.  Otherwise, the glow is permanent, and the character suffers a random mutation that manifests during the next 2d12 days, with a +20 on the roll.  Repeated exposure causes repeated effects, and each repeat causes the roll to be made at an additional +5.  If the slime is actually tasted, the roll has an additional +10, and there is no save.  If taken from here, the slime dwindles and disappears over the course of 1d8 hours.

Because of the webs (which do not burn), movement here is at half speed, and creatures cannot run or charge.

Within this area lurk eight spiders of Leng, man-sized spiders that can pretend to be human by wearing yellow robes that conceal their features, with four legs acting like “legs” and four acting as “arms”, each “arm” or “leg” being in fact two legs.  They can speak with thin reedy voices, and know all languages.  Indeed, these spiders are fed information from the Akashic record, and have Knowledge +20 in all things.  They also, therefore, know specific things about characters, their families, their fears, their hopes, and their weaknesses.  They claim to be temple priests of Yog Sutehkis, and will answer many questions and promise many things to avoid allow characters near Area 52.  When not pretending to be human, they can climb in this area at full speed.

Spider of Leng (Medium Aberration [Eldritch Horror]):  Mv 30 ft, Climb 20 ft; AC 15; Init +4; HD 4d8+4; hp 20, 18, 20, 12, 29, 20, 15, 24; Att 1 bite (1d6); SA poison (Fort DC 20, 2d6 damage for 2d6 rounds), webs (entangle DC 25); SQ darkvision 60 ft.; SV (Fort +4, Perc +12, Prow +4, Reas +12, Refl +8, Will +12); ML 9; XP 235 +1/hp (255, 253, 255, 247, 264, 255, 250, 259).  Skills:  Climb +10, Knowledge (All) +20, Stealth +10.

Dragonsfoot Down?

The forums at Dragonsfoot seems to have gone down overnight, so I am obviously extending a grace period for my Barrowmaze play-by-post.

Speedy recovery, gents!

Barrowmaze PbP

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=55308

Having just picked up Barrowmaze and read it in a cursory fashion, I thought it would be fun to run as a rather leisurely pbp.  If you are interested, the link is above.  No number of players is too many, I should think, but if there are fewer than four people interested, I'll probably give it a pass.

When my advanced pdf of Goodman Games DCC RPG arrives in my email, I'll be happy to set up another Barrowmaze group under that ruleset.

RC

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

Well, my interest in the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG peaked when they set up a sweet pre-ordering deal.

Last summer, I went to Dueling Grounds in Toronto for Free RPG Day, and picked up the DCC RPG starter module.  Sweet.  There were not many stores doing Free RPG Day in the area (DG is the only one I know of), so I wanted to support them.  I bought some product there, and I placed my pre-order through them.

As a result, I will be running a DCC RPG event at Dueling Grounds on this year's Free RPG Day.  If time permits, I am planning on running two events for this system.  I will post more details here as they become available!

John Carter of Mars

If you don’t want spoilers, or don’t want to read my rambling about movies, skip it.  Because this post is going to contain spoilers.  And it is going to ramble.  You have been warned!

I had been burned by so many bad Batman films that, when Batman Begins hit the theatre, I decided to wait for the DVD.  It wasn’t until the context of Dark Knight that I really began to kick myself for that decision.  I simply wasn’t ready to accept another Batman film at the time for what it was.

Leaping on the bandwagon for John Carter seems to consist of jumping upon it with both feet and the benefits of Mars’ reduced gravity to kick it in the guts.  I won’t be doing that here.  Overall, I was pleased by John Carter.  I will have a few complaints, though, so bear with me.

My first impression is that we are treated to a full story, which is thankfully becoming more common again as time goes on, thanks in large part (I think) to the success of film projects like Lord of the Rings.  A full story is appreciated from this quarter, at least.  I think those in the “too much exposition” crowd have become used to the Hollywood shorthand-instead-of-story, and there is still a very active trade in this sort of film making.

John Carter does suffer a bit from two current Hollywood trends:  (1) everything must be bigger and badder, and (2) the reluctant hero.  

As to the second, John Carter as Edgar Rice Burroughs envisioned him is anything but a reluctant hero.  I understand the attraction of a Bilbo or a Frodo, who has adventure thrust on them without necessarily seeking it, but the ERB heroes tend to be more empowered than that.  This film shifts empowerment to Deja Thoris in a way that works, but I feel that the same could have been accomplished without making John Carter reluctant to get involved.

As to the first, there is actually very little of it in John Carter.  The white apes are larger than I remembered them from the novels, but not by much, while the banths seemed smaller.  Of course, the banths are dead, while the white apes are alive when introduced.

What to do with the therns?  In the original work, they were the priesthood of Barsoom, feeding off the dying carcass of the planet like yellow-wigged parasites.  The relationship between the therns and John Carter’s arrival on Barsoom isn’t from the novels, but it works as an extrapolation…including the idea that the therns are preparing their control of Jassoon to feed off when Barsoom is at last truly a dead world.  They are definitely “bigger and badder” than they were in the novels, where the greatest resistance to their overthrow is social and political.

Exactly what motivates the therns in this movie is unclear, and that is an unfortunate flaw.  But I do like the idea of the therns as a series enemy, and it seems likely that we shall see them again in Gods of Mars.  I did like the use of the therns to make the frame story from the novel (involving Edgar Rice Burroughs being made the guardian of John Carter’s remains) a larger part of the overall story.  In a continuing film series, the therns could also then be tied into the invasion from Jupiter that marks ERB’s last work on the John Carter series, and could be tied as well into a series about ERB’s moon adventures.

The green Barsoomians (the Tharks and Warhoon) are very well realized in this film.  The locking of tusks in challenge was well done.  The four arms are used with body language that pairs arm motions both as above-and-below sets, and right-and-left sets, depending upon context.   Likewise, the white apes, the calot (Woola) and the thoats.  Willem Dafoe, as Tars Tarkas, is nigh perfect.

I had expected to dislike the red Barsoomians, because they looked rather like normal Earth-types on the trailers.  However, when viewing the film, there is a definite red cast to their skin and their blood is as blue as that of the green Barsoomians.  I would have liked to have mention of their being oviparous in the film, including perhaps sight of the egg that would hatch into Cathoris.  I found the red Barsoomians well cast, with special note to Deja Thoris and Kantos Kan, who are, of course, important to the series as a whole.  Kantos Kan seems to be a model ERB hero in this film, demonstrating a sense of humour, a willingness to accept whatever comes, and a clear head every time he is on screen.

(Note:  There is a lot more skin in the ERB novels – both male and female – than in the film.  If the film followed the Martian clothing fashions of ERB, it would have received an R rating for sure!  There is also a good bit of gender stereotyping and gender role inequality in the novels that is quietly removed from the film, where de-sexualized female warriors stand side-by-side with de-sexualized male warriors.  Not so the original novels, which are, frankly, overtly sexist by modern standards.  The vast majority of ERB’s work dealt with relations between men and women from a very sexist viewpoint, and the unnaturalness of clothing was also a common theme.)

The action was good, particularly the scene where John Carter slaughters a great mound of the Warhoon.  The scene brought to mind Robert E. Howard’s Conan, as a direct literary descendent of the Edgar Rice Burroughs heroes (REH’s novel Amulric is very much a cross between John Carter and ERB’s Pellucidar novels).  The scene where John Carter hides by leaping up to a ledge area was reminiscent of ERB’s other great hero, Tarzan of the Apes.

There are people who mistakenly believe John Carter to rip off Star Wars, with its jed, banths, and padwars, but ERB’s novel, A Princess of Mars, was first published in 1917.  Star Wars is derivative of John Carter, not the other way around.  I applaud Disney for not changing things so that the link between ERB’s Barsoom novels and Lucasfilm’s Star Wars franchise becomes obscured.  Here’s a hint:  If the John Carter series continues, we may yet encounter a sith!

In the original novels, John Carter was immortal, having been apparently the same age as long as he could remember, with a memory that stretched back centuries.  The quest for immortality was of interest to ERB (he made Tarzan immortal twice), probably stemming from Edwin Lester Arnold’s 1891 novel, Phra the Phoenician. 

In the film, “Uncle Jack” remembers dandling a then young-adult “Ned” Burroughs on his knee (although John Carter seems to be less than 20 years older than Edgar), and he spends 10 years trying to find a way back to Mars without seeming to age in doing so.  Likewise, he appears to be the same age when he had a family in Virginia.  So there are tantalizing hints that the film John Carter may be as immortal as the novel John Carter.

Overall, I found that John Carter stayed true to the spirit of ERB’s Barsoom, even if it did not cleave to the sexist stereotypes of the era it was written in.  The film extrapolates well from the novel series, and sets up the therns well for a sequel (presumably Gods of Mars) wherein we will see John Carter as a truer ERB-type hero, committed to action from the first frame of the movie.

The visuals were very impressive, particularly the CGI work on the Tharks, Warhoon, and other Martian creatures.  The appearance changes of the Therns were very effective.  The screenplay was obviously written by folks who not only knew the original works, but who loved them.  There is quite a bit of “What can we extrapolate from this?” but very little of “Let’s make this, but make it BIGGER, BETTER, and DIFFERENT!!!!” that damages so many film translations. 

I felt that John Carter was worthy of both the time and cost to see it on the big screen.  Contrast this to the Lord of the Rings films, each of which I needed to see twice – once to grit my teeth and grimace through what had been done to the novels, and a second time to watch it for what it was, knowing how it was changed.

I give it a solid 7 out of 10, and would be more than happy to see Gods of Mars if and when it comes out.  I would love a Tarzan, Pellucidar, or Carson of Venus series that was as true to its source material, while being updated to modern sensibilities (just, please, don’t make Tarzan a reluctant hero!).

The Edgar Rice Burroughs novels intertwine in ways that would make these potentially all one big franchise – Tarzan, after all, went to Pellucidar, and there may be hints in Tarzan: The Lost Adventure (finished by Joe Lansdale) that the cave led not again to Pellucidar, but would allow John Carter-like transit to Barsoom.  Could what T:TLA describes as a praying mantis-like creature from Pellucidar actually have been a green Barsoomian from Mars?  Based on the way other ERB novels refer to each other, I believe that might have been what ERB had been planning.  Tarzan would have been the third earthman ERB had sent to Mars.

I feel that this movie is destined to be considered a classic of the genre in years to come.  John Carter isn’t a perfect film by any means.  Neither is Batman Begins.  But, when Gods of Mars hits the big screen, I am guessing that a few people will be kicking themselves for not having seen John Carter in the theatre when they had the chance.  This is a very enjoyable film for what it is.

Megadungeon Inspirational Links

Are you interested in creating a megadungeon for your campaign world?

Here are some links that I found, which may be of use to you:

http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/2009/08/megadungeon-design-and-philosophy-part.html  (This is a series of posts, with links to the next of the series at the bottom.  All of the posts in the series are worth reading.)

http://carterscartopia.blogspot.com/2011/02/megadungeon-design-philosophical.html

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=8720

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?p=504466 (If you follow no other link, I would encourage you to read through this thread.  It is excellent!)

https://panzerleader.wordpress.com/tabletop-tableaux/ (A number of interesting articles related to megadungeons and 4e.  Worth a look.)

http://www.philotomy.com/#creating_dungeon (Philotomy’s musings are well worth the read!)

http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21819 (Links to additional resources.)

Some Resoundingly Good Advice for WotC

http://www.chubbyfunster.com/blog/2012/01/11/my-advice-for-wizards-of-the-coast/

Glad to point out something of interest.