Fantasy Flight Games to Publish Warhammer Fantasy Board Game

Over the past couple of years, Fantasy Flight Games used their game publishing agreement with Games Workshop to revise and republish a number of classic Games Workshop board games from the late 80s. Among these classics are Fury of Dracula, Warrior Knights, and Talisman. Old editions of these games were grabbing onerously high prices on eBay and preventing new gamers from discovering these gems and it has been a blessing that Fantasy Flight Games has brought them back into the marketplace. Some of us are still hoping that Fantasy Flight Games will release a new edition of Space Hulk or Warhammer Quest, though we're not holding our breath as Doom and Descent are pretty good replacements for those hard to find gems.

Following up on the success of these reprints, Fantasy Flight Games will be releasing an original board game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy line of products. The game, entitled Chaos in the Old World, puts players in the role of one of four gods of chaos who are descending upon the world in order to remake it as they would see fit.



As Fantasy Flight Games' website describes it:

Chaos in the Old World makes you a god. Each god’s distinctive powers and legion of followers grant you unique strengths and diabolical abilities with which to corrupt and enslave the Old World. Khorne, the Blood God, the Skulltaker, lusts for death and battle. Nurgle, the Plaguelord, the Father of Corruption, luxuriates in filth and disease. Tzeentch, the Changer of Ways, the Great Conspirator, plots the fate of the universe. Slaanesh, the Prince of Pleasure and Pain, the Lord of Temptations, lures even the most steadfast to his six deadly seductions. Yet, as you and your fellow powers of Chaos seek domination by corruption and conquest, you must vie not only against each other, but also against the desperate denizens of the Old World who fight to banish you back to the maelstrom of the Realm of Chaos."

The description implies that the players compete not only against one another, but against the mechanics of the game itself. As in Reiner Knizia's Lord of the Rings -- also published by Fantasy Flight Games -- this can be a rewarding play experience. I eagerly await seeing how Eric M. Lang applies his excellent card game development skills to a competitive board game. The hardest part, other than the waiting, will be choosing between the "six deadly seductions" and the Blood God.

The games first print run will also include two cards that will interact with the Warhammer Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The Signet of the Cursed Company lets you wander the battlefields of the Warhammer Online MMO as a fearsome skeletal warrior. The Call to WAR will instantly teleport you to your capital city.

Movies Christian Loves, But Shouldn't #1: Vision Quest

A couple of weeks ago, Nancy Rommelmann -- who put this interesting piece on a question of journalistic ethics up Tuesday -- had a post on her blog asking her readers to post links to songs they should hate, but find immensely enjoyable. Naturally, this prompted me to post a Rick Roll in the comments section. I did this for three reasons. For the fun of it, because the post was essentially begging me to, and because it genuinely is a song that always gets me to do the embarrassing "sway the arms while driving" dance. Her post also prompted me to check out the new Tinted Windows "supergroup" CD, which I have found I enjoy in that Oneders kind of way. Tinted Windows is fronted by Taylor Hanson, of Hanson fame, so I should despise them -- but I find my mp3 player playing a disproportionate number of songs from the album.

Needless to say, Rommelmann's post reminded me of one of the two songs that I truly cannot turn away from -- John Waite's Change -- and the film that contains the scene that always jumps to the forefront of my mind when I hear the song.

Excuse me, I'll be right back. I have to work out before I finish this post.

Click the second link in the above paragraph to watch the scene while I jump rope for two minutes.

Whew...back.

Now that you have clicked the last link, you know that John Waite's Change reminds me of the film Vision Quest. If someone were to describe the plot of the film to me in order to see if I would be interested in watching it with them, they'd have to wake me up a couple of seconds after they began their synopsis. The story is the typical coming of age high school male story that usually leaves me cold. Very rarely do they touch upon anything I find meaningful. I usually find the protagonists alien and the world they come from foreign.

Take White Water Summer, starring Sean Astin, as an example. I'm supposed to sympathize with Astin's character, and the fact that I like the actor should make this easy, but I never have. I see Astin's "city kid forced to endure the tyranny of a psychopathic camping enthusiast" as a lying cheating wuss. I always root for Kevin Bacon, who plays the mentally unstable youth counselor. Astin's character just needs to suck it up. And don't even get me going on how The Karate Kid's Daniel-san deserves every Karate kick to the gut he gets after he lied about knowing the martial arts. If you lie to be cool, you'd better be willing to face the consequences -- even if they mean your leg gets swept.

Vision Quest is the tale of Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) who decides to attempt an impossible task. He decides to leave his wrestling weight class, where he is likely the best wrestler in Washington state, to go down two weight classes and wrestle an inhuman wrestling machine named Shute. Shute is so inhuman that his workout regimen includes carrying a massive log on his back while he walks up and down every step of a college football stadium. It is a boring and predictable plot that we've seen done better in the classic Breaking Away where the actions of the protagonist speak for the frustrations of an entire socio-economic sub-culture. Swain isn't a proxy for the frustrations of blue collar Americans who have watched their hopes and dreams disappear as the economy has made the trades of their parents -- and what their future might have been -- obsolete. Swain's character lacks that depth, so I should hate the film.

But I don't. I own the DVD, and whenever Vision Quest is on cable I am compelled to watch. In the case of Vision Quest, it isn't the story that keeps me coming back, it is the characters. Louden Swain was one of the first characters I saw that seemed like a real person to me. When he talked about why he did one thing or another, it made sense and Matthew Modine's performance captured the sense of confusion I felt throughout my teen years.

Then there's Linda Fiorentino. I'd like to take a moment to thank the movies of the '80s for bringing Linda Fiorentino to the big screen. Her performances in Vision Quest and Gotcha! are two of the sexiest performances I have ever seen in film. The 14 year-old boy I was when I saw this movie quickly learned how powerful teenage hormones can be, and he had Linda Fiorentino to thank. This isn't to say that Fiorentino's performance is all "beauty" and no substance, it is the enigmatic depth of her character that makes her so appealing. Here is a women who simultaneously displays interest and disdain, certainty and confusion, naiveté and experience. She's quite a character, and leaves a lasting impression on any viewer.

Even the films minor characters leave lasting impressions. From Daphne Zuniga's performance as the plucky young editor of the school newspaper to Michael Schoeffling's performance as Kuch, one gets a sense of having met real people when the film has ended. When I saw Gross Anatomy years later, it was easy to imagine that the Matthew Modine and Daphne Zuniga characters were the same people from Vision Quest four years later. It should be noted that Zuniga's cute and quirky performance in this film so impressed the 14 year-old me that it is she who I have had a crush on ever since and not Linda Fiorentino. Yes, Fiorentino is a sexual force on the screen, but Zuniga is who I wanted to date.

Even though I should hate it, I can think of far worse things to do with 90 minutes than watch Vision Quest.

Beowulf: Prince of the Geats, Popular Medievalism, and You

Cinerati friend, and Medieval Scholar, Professor Richard Scott Nokes of Troy University (the other Trojans) has post today where he discusses an editorial dilemma faced by a scholarly publication when they were deciding how to publish his paper "Beowulf: Prince of the Geats, Nazis, and Odinists." His article touches upon why the study of popular medievalism is a vital component of any serious scholarship regarding Medieval literature. His paper begins with a discussion of how important Beowulf -- the poem -- has been to various groups for the purposes of national identity, and posits that scholars (and I'm reading a little into Dr. Nokes' words here) need to be able to look at their valued literary artifacts from outside the ivory tower and take seriously popular uses, and misuses, of their beloved tomes.

Professor Nokes' discussion of the moral dilemma the publication faced, and the paper itelf, are worth your time. Stop over and give them a read.

Speaking of worthy reads/plays, here is a glimpse at some of the items Cinerati thinks belong in everyone's "popular medieval" library/game room.

Fantasy Flight Games' Beowulf: The Legend, is an excellent game that mechanically attempts to emulate the rhythm of an epic poem.

I have always enjoyed the TSR Minigames SAGA and VIKING GODS. It should be noted that if you choose to play the Aesir in VIKING GODS, your chances for victory are very slim. The game is very fun, but you must go in with the proper sense of doom. Hela is no ally to the Aesir in this game.

I also enjoy RAGNAROK by SPI, a game that was originally published in an issue of Ares magazine. The Aesir aren't nearly as doomed in the game, so you don't need to be as fatalistic when you begin play.

Over the past two years, White Wolf Publishing released their excellent Scion role playing game. In the game, the players assume the roles of the descendants of ancient gods who have been at war with the Titans for millenia. While the premise of gods versus titans leaps straight from Greek mythology, the game assumes that many pantheons are participating in the same struggle. Naturally, the Giants and other monstrosities from Norse legend fit perfectly within this paradigm and the players can play the Scion's of Thor, Odin, Tyr, or even Loki. The game was originally planned to be three books, which contained a campaign where the players progress from Hero to Demi-God to one of the Gods in the struggle against the Titans.

The success of the Scion title led White Wolf to publish a companion, with more pantheons, and an alternate campaign book entitled Ragnarök. We here at Cinerati cannot wait to play in a Ragnarök game. Ever since hearing tales of our friend Roger Frederick's modern day Ragnarök campaign in the early 90s/late 80s (it used the GURPS Supers system), we have been on the lookout for a well constructed offering that approached the quality hinted at by Roger's players. Sadly, Roger wasn't a part of the writing of this project, but it is an excellent read.

As an aside, I have always wondered if the Völuspá was operating at the behest of Odin in order to fool the giants into thinking they would eventually win in their struggle against the Aesir and Vanir. By giving them a "prophecy" where the trickster betrays the gods in favor of the giants, Odin delays the war and increases the tenants of Valhalla. It would be a grand trick indeed if the Völuspá were a lie.

Thanks George Lucas, Because 10 Years Ago You Killed My Childhood Forever

Marc Bernardin reminds me why today is a sad day for Gen X.

When I was really young, I used to spend the night at my grandparents house every Saturday night. It was a magical time. Like most kids who visit their grandparents, my time with Oma and Opa was spent reading, picnicking, washing cars, getting to sleep in to ridiculous hours on Sunday, and experiencing the love of one's elders -- which included a very different set of social norms from life with my parents. My Opa was a retired career Sergeant Major in the Army who had served in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. And when my Opa returned home to the United States after his tour with the US Occupation forces in Europe, he brought my Oma from Germany to our fair shores.

For the most part, my Oma and Opa were serious people. After dinner, we always watched the news and Oma and Opa were always interested in my opinions on the issues of the day. This was true when I was 14 and it was true when I was 7.

But the times with Oma and Opa weren't always so serious. Some of my favorite times were when my very serious Opa would, almost at random, tease my Oma with some sarcastic remark or jibe. His giggle was infectious and watching Oma go from red with anger at being criticized to laughing out loud and poking Opa when she realized it was only a jibe, is one of my fondest sets of memories from childhood.

The other time things weren't too serious at Oma and Opa's was late Saturday evenings. My Opa would stay up with me and watch the old Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials on some UHF bandwidth local station. I hadn't seen anything like them, and I was immediately addicted. Opa also introduced me to the glorious films of Ray Harryhausen. So in the summer of 1977 when STAR WARS was released in the theater, I had the perfect background of experience having spent a good part of 1976 and early 1977 watching the old serials with Opa. The movie captured the feel of those classic tales perfectly, and even borrowed some scenes. I dare anyone to watch the Flash Gordon serials without experiencing moments of "déjà cinema". I was 6 years old and STAR WARS was a joy to see in the theater. I watched it over 20 times in the theaters -- I am certain that is a conservative estimate. The serials fostered my love of narrative storytelling, but STAR WARS cemented my love for movies.

This is a love that continues to this day, but a part of the childhood wonder I brought to every movie I watched died ten years ago today. You see...on that day ten years ago, George Lucas released STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE. The movie was the single largest pop culture disappointment I have ever experienced. It was worse that when DC killed Superman and broke Batman's back. It was a worse disappointment than the Joel Schumacher Batman movies (though not a worse movie than those movies).

THE PHANTOM MENACE wasn't that bad of a movie, all things considered, but it did lack one thing that the original had in spades. The new movie lacked "heart." It didn't contain the same sense of wonder that inspired the first films, it seemed more workmanlike than inspired. The original series of films has a number of flaws, narratively and cinematically. For example, ust how long does it take for the Sarlacc to digest you? But the original films had an aura of enchantment that the franchise has failed to recapture as it has become more about continuing STAR WARS and less about sharing the wonder of a tradition of Space Opera tales.

Since THE PHANTOM MENACE, my movie viewing has become a little more cynical and I don't go in expecting to feel enchanted anymore. Sometimes a film can make me feel slightly enchanged, STAR TREK and QUANTUM OF SOLACE come close, but I no longer watch previews expecting that they even come close to representing the wonder (or lack thereof) that a particular film will offer.

Don't even get me going on how much I think WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE will suck.

Books Every Gamer Should Own: Rick Swan's The Complete Guide to Roleplaying Games

In November of 1990, the world of role playing games was still largely a mystery to the majority of mass culture. Most people "knew," thanks to the culture wars, that D&D was devil worship and it made you go crazy like Tom Hanks in "that" made for TV movie. There had been some products released in the 1980s that attempted to convey to the lay person what role playing games were about and what some of the best role playing games were. These products did a good job of introducing the concepts, systems, and assumptions underlying role playing games as a hobby. They also provided great information to those who wanted a better understanding of these games than the evening news was providing them -- sadly not enough people read these books and some of the misconceptions regarding rpgs linger into the modern day.

While the concept of what role playing games are was a mystery to the majority of the public, the vast array of products available and whether they were of good quality or not was largely a mystery to the majority of gamers. Unless you subscribed to THE SPACE GAMER, WHITE DWARF (before it became all Warhammer all the time), THE DRAGON, or some other gaming magazine -- most of which were fairly obscure and weren't available at your local bookstore (THE DRAGON being the exception) -- you had no source for thoughtful and accurate reviews. Since the creation of the role playing game hobby, circa 1973 with the publication of D&D, literally hundreds of new games -- in a wide variety of genre -- had been published. Some were still in print, others had come into print and faded away. Unless you had a phenomenal hobby store in your local community you were likely unaware of the majority of these games.



Into this product rich and information scarce environment arrived a perfect catalog for the role playing aficionado, Rick Swan's The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games. Even if the "complete" in the title was a bit of an exaggeration, there were many games excluded from the book, the volume is was an invaluable resource for the gamer who wanted to know what was available in 1990 and whether it was any good or not. The fact that the book is topical today is a testimony to the insightful reviews provided by Rick Swan. The majority of the reviews are "true reviews" and not merely product recommendations. This is because the reviews don't merely provide a recommendation pro or con a particular product, they also give a glimpse into the history and mechanics of the game. One can determine whether a particular review is a "true review" or a mere product recommendation by asking themselves one simple question about the review, "does this review add value to the 'art' in addition to evaluating a particular product or work?" In the case of games, a "true review" would include meaningful discussion regarding game design -- from either a mechanical or narrative perspective. Many of the reviews in Rick Swan's book meet this criterion.

This isn't to say that I agree with every review, I don't, but it is to say that the vast majority of the reviews in this book are a worthy read for gamers of any generation.

An example of an argument that Swan presents in the book that has shaped the way I view my hobby (how often can you say a review has shaped the way you view a particular medium?) is this section of his review of the Dungeons and Dragons Game -- in this case the Red Box Basic Set and not AD&D:

Purists grumble that D&D isn't just simple, but simple-minded. The rigid character classes give players little freedom in customizing their PCs, and advancement by levels is arbitrary and unrealistic. The magic system and combat rules are illogical, Armor Classes represent the chance of being hit rather than offering protection from damage, experience points are meaningless and abstract, the adventures are juvenile... you get the idea.

These grouches completely miss the point. Complaining that Dungeons and Dragons is an unrealistic RPG is like saying that chess is an inaccurate wargame. We aren't talking about delving into the social structure of medieval Europe here, we're talking about tossing fireballs at lizard men and swiping gold pieces from ogres. Dungeons and Dragons provides a streamlined, easily mastered set of rules that emphasizes action and adventure. And as a bonus, it's an excellent introduction to the entire hobby.

This is only a small section of Swan's review of the D&D game, which he gives 3 1/2 stars out of 4, but within these two paragraphs you can begin to see an underlying philosophy of what role playing game design should focus on. In this case, the argument is that it is perfectly appropriate for a game to focus on fun at the expense of realism -- an argument that Gary Gygax often made in THE DRAGON while defending his creation. Amazingly, many of the criticisms launched at Basic D&D can be heard in the criticisms many people are making of the newest edition of D&D (4th Edition). It is often said that the game is overly simple, for MMORPG obsessed teens, for those too stupid to understand the complex rules of 3.5, and a score of other statements that echo the sentiments that Swan so easily pushes to the side. Like the Basic Set, 4e is an excellent introduction to the entire hobby.

As I wrote earlier, Swan's review of D&D is one of the things that helped shape my appreciation for the gaming hobby and helped me form my underlying philosophy. My philosophy is simple, the system should serve the intention -- an adaptation of form follows function. But in the case of my gaming philosophy, ornament isn't necessarily a crime -- ornament can be the purpose; and in the case of games the narrative "fluff" can be said to be the ornamentation surrounding the mechanical design. The ends of gaming is "fun" and though that word can have many definitions, it is the goal of the game designer (and the DM and players in interactive role playing games) to play toward the goal of fun. Needless to say, fun trumps verisimilitude at every turn in my gaming philosophy. I'm not a purist. I like elements of chance introduced into my games. But then again, much to the dismay of Adolf Loos, I adore art nouveau.

It is this love of "form follows fun," that also points to the review where I most disagree with Mr. Swan. He is unkind to the classic Pacesetter game Chill. According to Swan Chill is:

a horror game for the easily frightened...While most of Chill's vampires, werewolves, and other B-movie refugees wouldn't scare a ten-year-old, they're appropriate to the modest ambitions of the game...Though it's been out of print for years, Chill remains as popular as ever on the convention circuit. I'm not sure why...Chill is too shallow for extended campaigns and lacks the depth to please anyone but the most undemanding of players.

I guess for Mr. Swan it's okay for a fantasy game to be about throwing fireballs at lizard men, but it isn't okay for a horror game to be based on the Universal Classic Horrors or the glorious Hammer films. Mr. Swan, it seems, is only satisfied by the deeply nihilistic horror of the Lovecraftian kind exemplified by Call of Cthulhu where life is meaningless. Too bad, Chill has some wonderful fodder for the Game Master well versed in the classic horror tale who wants his players to be ghost hunters like the Winchester Brothers rather than gibbering lunatics who have seen what man was not meant to know. I have always been struck by how an individual can defend the simple gateway game on one hand, but then dismiss another because it isn't high art. And that criticism can apply to any number of critics.

Disagreements aside, the book is a wonderful and necessary edition to any gamer's library.

Why the Internet is Better than Malls for Your Shopping Needs

The last thing one would expect to find on a pop culture site that features posts about comic books, video games, role playing games, and movies is a post about an advertisement for an online fashion retailer. Well, this is such a post. The ad starts predictably with two women interested in the same article of fashion, then escalates to violence, only to reveal that the malls have been overcome with flesh eating zombies.

Okay, that last bit might be an exaggeration, but when you consider the lack of blood loss when the one woman rips off the other woman's arm it isn't that much of an exaggeration.

Apparently, people who shop at malls are zombies ergo smart people order their fashion online from the safety of their bunkers.

Hat Tip Tulkinghorn and Andrew Sullivan.

Jody Drew Me a Custom Troll for Trollhalla

One of the advantages to having a multi-talented wife is that when you ask if she might have the time to draw a troll dressed like Sherlock Holmes for you to submit as a profile picture on a website -- you get one with lightning speed.

I have recently joined the Trollhalla community. Trollhalla is a website created by Ken St. Andre, the author of Tunnels and Trolls (the second published fantasy role playing game), as a place where supporters of the Tunnels and Trolls game can come together and chat while simultaneously supporting the game they love. As many of you know, though I am a huge fan of the King Kong of mass market role playing games, I am also a very big supporter of smaller press and independent game designers.

I have always thought that much of the most innovative developments in gaming come from the smaller companies. In fact, one of the reasons I like the King Kong of the industry so much is that each edition of that game has responded to innovations in the gaming industry -- either by altering mechanics or hiring people who were innovative designers for smaller companies. The most recent giant behemoth shows influences from a number of my favorite games -- Feng Shui, Savage Worlds, and The Burning Wheel among them -- and I eagerly await seeing how the next "mutation" of D&D incorporates current developments like the "how to run mystery scenarios" systems of the excellent Gumshoe system.

But my support for smaller companies is not the only reason I am surprised that it took me over 25 years to find this group -- they subscribed to a fanzine by Ken before the internet. No, I should have found this group much earlier because when I was younger Tunnels and Trolls was the game I played more than any other. There was probably a time when I had nearly memorized all the encounters in The Arena of Khazan, and my 3x5 library of gladiator npcs for that adventure easily numbered in the hundreds.

When I was young, as today, I liked playing fantasy rpgs with friends. But I also liked playing baseball, playing soccer, wrestling, dating, and I had a part-time job. Marathon gaming sessions with friends were something one could only really do during winter and summer breaks. Tunnels and Trolls solo adventures were something I could do right after I finished my homework and they were a lot more entertaining than a lot of prime time television.

So here's to T&T and Trollhalla, stop by if you want to chat with some people who are enthusiastic about a very fun game.

Now to email Ken to see how I can submit the image.