Movie Review- The Conjuring

Good horror is hard to find, for every bundle that are produced only a handful could every really be thought of as scary.  Many mass produced horror films are slick looking, with hot young bods just waiting to be skinned and mutilated, but underneath there is nothing really there.  That is how you can tell a good scary movie from slick toss away splattershows (not trying to discredit high volume gore movies, Dead Alive is one of my favorites).  Does it stay with you?  Once your back home from the cinema, when the lights are out does your mind go back to the movie?  Is that thing waiting in your closet, or perhaps just outside your room?  The Conjuring, while not the scariest movie I have ever seen, is through and through quality.
     James Wan, Insidious, Saw, and most recently The Conjuring, is quickly becoming a go to for horror movies that have depth and genuine scares.  These movies tend to linger with you in a way that slick horror movies do.  Wan seems to understand that horror is heavily reliant on mood and tone, and too this he does an excellent job of carving out time in the movie to do the proper promotion.  Yes there are jump scares and some gore but that is not what keeps me from looking
in my closet every time I go to bed.  The movie drips with menace and does an excellent job of creating an unseen horror that is only revealed when the impact is maximized.   Ok, enough gushing here is a basic synopsis.
     The focuses jointly on Ed and Lorraine Warren, famous paranormal investigators, and the Perron family.  The Perron's have just moved into a an old country home that seems to be haunted by some force or another.  As things get more and more out of control and dangerous for the Perrons they seek help from the Warrens in dealing with the malevolent force.  I want to keep the synopsis short because the less you know the better.  I hate when the scares are spoiled for me so I will in turn do you a favor.
     See this movie.  Only a couple, maybe three, good horror movies come to the theater every year and if you are a fan of the genre go out, drop $10, and get the shivers.  Also to all that do not like "traditional" blood soaked horror movies this one is very accessible and light on the gore.  While not a homage to more classic horror movies of the 60's and 70's it brings with it the same spirit of high mood/low gore.

Verdict- 8 out of 10 possessed dolls
Who will like this- Any fan of horror movies (especially those who will take mood over gratuitous displays of violence, those that like thrillers more than horror, and a fans of high tension situations.
Who will not like this- Those that do not want to be scared, people who want to see bucket after bucket of blood poured out on the screen, and those that want quick action and plot development.

Happenings Around the Shop

So it's been a while.  Life has been exceptionally busy with school starting up, a robot and unicorn themed party to plan and execute (turned out great, and look to various parts of the site for pictures of homemade robot heads a little later), and some searing hot temperatures at work that I am pretty sure were being piped in directly from the center of Cthugha.  Things are starting to settle and I am hoping to get more into a more productive rhythm with more posts and updates.  Even with being roasted alive ideas are being formulated and things are still being accomplished, although in a rather haphazard fashion.  Here are some current items and things coming into the shop very soon.

GrandCon-  If you have not bought tickets yet I would suggest doing so if you live anywhere near Grand Rapids Michigan.  From what I know this is going to be a big deal with a plethora of comics, board games, card games, tabletop rpgs, vendors, and (of course) celebrity guests.  The two guys putting this together have done there homework and put a lot of heart and soul into the convention.  We Hate Bards will be there in force running games round the clock.  I myself will be running my Cold Numbers Call of Cthulhu, a Homebrew system called No One Gets Out of Here Alive, and much more that has yet to be set.

New Campaign- Started a new fantasy Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 campaign on Friday nights.  I am the DM so the players can expect plenty of oozes, constructs, undead, insanities, and trips to other dimensions that will make their brains turn to pudding.  It will be a barrel of fun.  In fact one of the characters just ate a part of his "fathers" hand and gained psionic powers, I'm sure there won't be any consequences for that.

King in Yellow- My good friend gave me a copy of The King in Yellow for my birthday.  Quite an old copy too.  I'm a fan of musty tombs and I want to read it soon, though my reading docket is so full right now it may have to be postponed till the fall.

Vampire the Masquerade- Started playing a Vampire campaign on Sunday nights.  So far we are just past the preludes (the backstory of how every character became a vampire) and are in to our first session.  We have a seasoned Vampire Storyteller and I am really getting into the system.  Once I play a bit more I'll come back with a more in depth review.

State of Decay- Trying to find some time to play the Xbox downloadable game State of Decay.  There are some games where you think, "huh, I can't believe they made a game just for me."  Item management, an open world, survival horror gameplay, and scavenging for supplies, what more could a person want from a game.

The Conjuring- I must see this movie.  Good horror is such a scarce commodity.    

Punktown- The Punktown rpg should be ramping up for distribution sometime in August or a little later.  There are taking there time putting the map together and making sure the quality is there.  I can't wait to get my hands on it.  When I acquire it I'll give a full review and probably start a long term campaign in the setting.    

I have way more percolating under the surface, like always, but nothing concrete enough to put on the shelves as of yet.  Soon though...very soon.

How to keep it going

I find myself asking this question over and over again when I run horror rpgs; how can inject some longevity into this?  Anyone who has played or ran something horror themed, especially Call of Cthulhu, knows all too well that the characters are two steps away from being a smear on the floor.  Chaosium scenarios for Call of Cthulhu are legendary for their lethality.  Spoiler alert, doing anything in any Call of Cthulhu scenario will get your character killed and or insane.  Players have some pretty strong responses to gaming like this, myself I'm a glutton for punishment and love to watch my characters go insane and or die gruesomely.  Usually the player adopt a hopeless attitude, go cracknugget and kill the party (I'm looking at you Ben, aka Mr. Shazam!), or just have their characters simply give up, go home, and refuse to get involved anymore.
     So what is to be done?  It's fine to crush the party into a fine paste in a one shot scenario but what about a year long Call of Cthulhu game?  Players will get sick and tired of dying and stop showing up.  In my pondering a few ideas have popped out of the ether.
     Take it slow and think long term.  Build up the suspense slowly and dish out information slow and steady.  The players should not be going from gunfight to gunfight but from library to library.  This though can get boring fast if something is not done to alleviate the boredom factor, or the cracknugget factor to be more specific.  Props and handouts work well for this, gives the players something to focus on.  If done correctly the mystery will take precedent, which makes for a lot less lethality.
     If your going to kill someone make sure it isn't someone important.  This means if things are going to get messy bring around some fodder for the monster to kill.  This is the trope of every monster movie, you are only invested in one perhaps two characters, the rest are there just to get eaten/stabbed/crushed/gutted/etc.  When the characters go to the haunted mansion, bring some expendable friends along.  Use this sparingly though otherwise it will turn from horror to comedy.  You do not want your characters rounding up innocent people every time they go investigate a cult down at the abandoned Masonic Temple.  A spin on this is to create a beloved NPC, really flesh him out good and have him become a trusted member of the group.  Wait till the players are emotionally invested, then kill him.  Do not do this too often otherwise the players will become hopeless pretty fast.
     Horror games are foremost games of atmosphere.  This can best be described as a sense of unease.  For longer games keep jump scares and horrifying moments spaced out.  Fill in the gaps with long stretches of "there just isn't something right...I can't put my finger on it...but......something."  The players should know that something is wrong but will not know what to do about it or what it is, or if it is even real.  Call for random spot hidden checks with clues that lead to know where.  Make it like the characters are being followed, or are they, is it just paranoia?  The bellhop of the hotel has very sharp canine features, and did he just scratch himself like a dog would?  Keep the players on their toes and only let them keep their balance for short stretches of time.
     Keep your players interests in firearms to a minimum.  Guns kill people very quickly.  4d6 damage from a shotgun blast and I have how many Hit Points, Ten you say, doesn't look good.  Guns are bad and they will kill your PC's quicker than anything.
     Switch to a different system.  I'm saying this mainly to those associated with Call of Cthulhu and are in need of something with a built in buffer towards PC deaths.  There are plenty of other systems out there that are a bit less lethal.

• Kult- Gnostic Horror.  This system offers in depth character creation and a built in world mythology that can rival the Cthulhu Mythos in scope.  The combat is deadly, perhaps even more so than Call of Cthulhu, but it gives the players Hero Points which can turn grievous wounds into mere scratches.  It's not much, but it can turn a lethal scenario into one of survivability.
• Eclipse Phase- Transhuman Horror- I have never played this system but have only heard good things.  Plus if your character gets juiced you can just download your backup into a new body.  No muss or fuss, but sometimes there are worse things than death.
• Hero's of Horror- This is a supplement released for Dungeons and Dragons 3.0/3.5.  It explains how to incorporate horror elements into a traditional fantasy world.  Great resource.
• White Wolf- They have a multitude of horror/dark fantasy games, Vampire the Masquerade being its most popular.  Their World of Darkness core rulebook is a good place to go if you want to play mortals in a world swimming with monsters.

The main goal I'm attempting is to keep the death rate down while still maintaining the "fun" aspects of the game.  Fun being a rather loose word for barricading the door so the unspeakable thing will not get in and eat everyone.  If anyone else has some suggestions I would like to there them, post them up in the comments.  And when all else fails just have your players bring extra character sheets.                    
    

Movie Review- V/H/S 2

Short films are a medium which receives little love or attention from mainstream audiences.  Shorts seems to have peeked out during the mid 80's to early nineties with anthologies like Creepshow or Amazing Stories.  Recently though there has been resurgence in anthology film making, especially in the horror genre.  At  a local horror film festival the shorts features are the only thing that I will not miss.  For myself the horror genre is a perfect avenue for short feature films; a little introduction, some buildup, a couple of scares or creepy moments, and end.  If the short was bad it's ok, because another one is following up quickly to wash out the bad taste.  If it was good that only heightens the scares and anticipation of the next short.  Which is why when I heard a while back about V/H/S I was exceptionally excited.  I watched it and was very impressed.  The shorts were cleaver, scary, bloody, and entertaining.  Some were better than others but on a whole the vehicle delivered what it needed to.  Fast forward a year and another anthology has been released titled V/H/S 2.  

     I tried to keep the anticipation low for this movie.  I did not want to over hype it till it could not deliver the goods.  I couldn't help myself and began readings some reviews, and they were unabashedly gushing over it. I was hooked in.  Though after watching it I'm not sure how to come down about it.  It was not a bad movie by any means and they did "ramp" things up for the sequel, but I'm not sure that was the best approach.  The movie definitely has a harder edge and is much more bloody.  The amount of times someone puts a gun to their head and pulls the trigger seemed almost like a running gag after while.  It had the same clever feel to it as the original but the gore gets in the way.  Why I am no prude when it comes to onscreen violence and gore but with all things you have to walk a fine line before it becomes too much and ceases to have shock value anymore.  While trying to be edgy and upping the gore the film becomes exactly the opposite.  The segments which had the least gore proved to be the ones I enjoyed the best; the first and last segments.

     To give a quick no spoiler account of the film; the first section is about a man who gets an eye implant, but the implant starts to glitch giving him strange glimpses of people who may be dead.  The second is different spin on the zombie tale.  The third has to do with a cult and the sinister dealings they are involved in.  I mean they are a cult after all.  The last segment is a alien abduction tale.  All the segments are woven together in a story of two private eyes looking for a missing kid and stumbling upon the tapes, of the features, at his house.  

       The movie overall was uneven and tried to hard with slop buckets full of gore which was detrimental to the scares and unease it was trying to create.

Verdict- 5 out of 10 Fatal Head Wounds
Who will like this- Horror and short fans, people who like something on the different side other than mass produced horror movies starting young hot bods, and lovers of gore.
Who will not like this- Those who are sensitive to gore need not apply, those who want in depth characters and long arcing stories, and those who obviously do not want to be scared.

Forbidden Knowledge- The Unspeakable Oath

Anyone being heavily involved in Call of Cthulhu back in the good old days remembers a magazine called The Unspeakable Oath.  The magazine was like nothing out there at the time, the content was solid and edgy and perfect for the system it used.  The magazine went defunct a while back, but due to a pact with some indescribable being the Oath is back!  They have all ready put out a number of issues and every single one of them is a keeper's trove of resources including tombs, scenarios, informative articles, reviews, and more.  The  writing is top notch and all the hard hitters of the Cthulhu gaming world are there including Scott Tynes and Shane Ivey.  These are not mere read and toss magazines, these are more akin to finely published materials one would see from a sourcebook.  Anyone looking to run Call of Cthulhu, or any horror themed rpg, should take a look.  They have a website where you can take a look at their musty worm ridden tombs.  To take the Oath head on over to Arc Dream to get a hard copy or RPG Now for a digital copy, for those who dislike the sheer heft of musty old books.   

The Book of Cthulhu II

Lovecraft and the Mythos he created are a hot commodity these days.  There is a never ending production based on his work, which varies wildley from good, to bad, and to use a Lovecraftian term, too unspeakable to mention.  The problem is most are played to be jokey, with no respect for what Lovecraft envisioned for his stories.  Chibi Cthulhu, c'mon.  Ross E. Lockhart, the editor of the The Book of Cthulhu 2, is an obvious devotee of Lovecraft and the tales he chose for the book represent a diverse slice of how to use the Mythos to tell a good story.

     The book itself tops in at 421 pages with a total of 24 stories that range from a couple pages to longer novelettes.  The direction the various authors take in exploring the Mythos are diverse; we have traditional Lovecraftian stories complete with fainting scholarly protagonists, a far future sci-fi story where the space travel is done inside giant living organisms, a noir fiction with a hard-boild detective at the height of WWII, an action packed tale set in the Delata Green universe, and the list goes on.  This is not just the bookish scholar wandering around the Miskatonic Valley, although we do have some of that, here we have variety of not only tone but scenery as well.  Each author brings the quality as well, there is no leftover shoggoth slush to be found here.

     The cover for the paperback edition displays "Tales isnspired by H.P. Lovecraft," and each author takes that seriously.  Sure there is some fun to be had, the story set in The Laundry universe comes to mind, but each author pays his dues to Lovecraft.  There is no Chibi Cthulhu or Plush Hastur to be found.  Story elements that Lovecraft often employed are here a well, the unavoidable curse, the forgotten and dangerous tombs of forbidden knowledge, the bad endings of protagonists, the insanity, and of course, the fainting.  The authors, as Lovecraft himself did and encouraged others to do, borrow various aspects of his work to craft  some good stories.  Lovecraft would approve.

Who will like this: Any fan of Lovecraft, Horror story lovers, anyone who can't help but love a fainting protagonist.

Who will not like this: Romance fans (although there is a rather racy story buried in the middle), short story haters, people who just do not "get" Lovecraft.

Solid book, high quality stories, diverse application of the Mythos.  8 out of 10 forbidden tombs.

           

Darkwood- Alpha Demo

Found this game a little while ago and it looks to be promising.  It appeals to my hard core early gaming days of leaving the Nintendo on for days so I could beat the 7th dungeon in Legend of Zelda.  If survival horror  sparks an interest you can check out the website here.    

Book Review: John Dies at the End by David Wong

You need to read this book.  This is not a want, this is a need.  Not convinced yet, well inject yourself with a dose of an inter-dimensional super drug and read on.  John Dies at the End is novel written by David Wong, [Blu-ray] the psuedonyme of Jason Pargin and the lead editor of Cracked.com.  If you have visited the web site then you know a little bit of the craziness behind the cover.  Minor Spoilers Ahead

     The story revolves around two twenty something go know-where slackers, John and David, whom are living in an undisclosed town somewhere in the Midwest.  The story begins when the pair meet a Jamaican man at a show they are performing at, to which David nicknames him “the Floating Jamaican,” due to his apparent ability to levitate.  Things quickly escalate, or devolve, depending on the how one interprets it.  Both John and David, John by choice and David by accident, are exposed to Soy Sauce.  Soy Sauce is the slang term for a drug that causes some exceptionally strange effects including trandimensional communication, levitation, foreknowledge, the ability to see things that the human mind was not meant to, etc, etc.  The stuff's abilities are similar to hooking the entire internet up to your brain and trying to process it all at once.  So to say that Soy Sauces effects are unpredictable and chaotic is an understatement.  With the help of the Sauce our “hero’s” attempt to stop an interdimensional conspiracy bent on the domination of earth.  I do not want to spoil too much and to be honest it would be an undertaking just to put the gonzo plot to a concise summary.

     The tone of the novel varies widely from splaterpunk horror, to gross out humor, to deep reflective character building, to gonzo weirdness, to existential horror.  A normal story mashing all those parts together produces a mess, an ambitious mess, but still a mess.  John Dies at the End though produces almost seamlessly a coherent whole out of all the parts with only what I can assume is black magic.  I found myself intensely reading with a growing sense of dread on one page and then the next having to place the book down, literally, because I was laughing so hard.  This book does it all, and does it well.

     Lovecraft’s influence here is unmistakable but it turns the narrative on its head.  Instead of a well read, exceptionally brilliant, occult antiquarian facing off against unspeakable horrors we get the opposite.  We get John duct taping a Bible to a baseball bat to use as a weapon and the pair feeding a dog a Testamint, breath mints with scripture on them, to see if the dog is ok.  Mind you, the dog was levitating at the time and then promptly exploded in tiny dog giblets.  The pair are winging it hoping to get by with whatever “knowledge” they have accumulated, which is not a doctorate in Occult Studies with a thesis focusing on the Necronomicon.  This is a reflection you and me facing off against the horrors of an uncaring universe and completely making a mess of things.

   I cannot recommend this book more highly, oh and the pair go to another dimension that they call “Shit Narnia.”  What more can be said.

Who will like this:  Anyone who is fan of Lovcraftian stories, anyone who ever laughed at a video of someone being kicked in the crotch, general horror fans, and those that enjoy a truly surreal crazy literature.

Who will not like this: People who want more traditional New York Times bestsellers, pompous jerks who say they do not read books they read literature, and anyone with a sensitive gag reflex.            

Bethesda's New Survival Horror Game Preview

I really hope this game turns out. I havn't enjoyed a horror game since Dead Space.

Movie Review: My Amityville Horror

     The film, The Amityville Horror is a pillar of the genre.  It had what we dismiss in today’s overused terms as “based on a true story” legitimacy.  The book the movie was based upon, The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson , was the documentation and retelling of the Lutz families encounter with a paranormal force/forces at 112 Ocean Avenue, Amityville.  The family’s controversial claims made headlines, a franchise of movies, and a plethora of books.  A new documentary, My Amityville Horror, aims to put a different spin on the tale.  While some of the content is disturbing with a supernatural bent this is not a horror movie in the traditional sense.  There are no jump scares, psychos with masks, or dramatic music that pauses at just the right moment; all the tropes of the genre are absent.  The horror as with the title is a very personal one, that of Daniel Lutz and his relationship with his family and his past. 
Warning Spoilers Ahead: 

     While listening to Daniel talk about his experiences at 112 Ocean Avenue some things are obviously apparent.  He firmly believes everything that he says with utter certainty and has no patience with anyone who doubts his claims.  Years of being defined by Amityville and having to defend his record of events has developed a hyper-defensiveness of his narrative.  However, there is a desperation that cries out to be heard, to commiserate with, to have a full understanding of Daniels trauma.  A trauma that runs deeper than the short time spent at the Amityville house: one that is familial in nature.

     Daniel hates his stepfather George, and has since he met him.  The normal psychology of a new father figure and the resentment that follows was magnified by the apparent paranormal events of the house.  Daniels descriptions of events are tinged with fear, anger, and resentment over George, whom he blames for what happened, even the paranormal occurrences.  That though is only the beginning of Daniels traumatic experiences.  George used the incident to transform his family into a living breathing extension of the events.  The family transformed into “that Amityville Horror family,” and Daniel into “the Amityville Horror kid.”  George drags his family around the world to support the movie and book, even leaving Daniel behind for long stretches.  At one point Daniel talks about the many exorcisms he was put through while left in the care of priests; a traumatizing experience that he also blames his step-father for.   Everything in one way or another spirals back upon the relationship between George and himself.

     The documentary is fascinating, even though most of the time it is a camera pointed at Daniel while he explains his experiences.  When Daniel is on camera, the scenes are imposing, rife with menace and fear, which lend to his credibility.  Whatever the story really is, hoax or reality, Daniels dysfunction is real and debilitating to him.  The only glaring flaw is that the film is too short, just under ninety minutes, and this only begins to scratch the surface.  After the movie credits rolled, I was hungry for more and wanted to sit down with Daniel and have him explain his story all over to me.  There is so much information here and like any good ghost story the line between what is real, fabrication, hoax, and misinterpretation becomes blurred.  Nevertheless, it is not the supernatural that corrupts and harms us in the long term, but our relationships between our fellow human beings.    

Verdict: 7/10 Arrows in a Bard

Who would like this- Fans of documentaries, ghost stories, small independent character driven movies, and anyone interested in the Amityville Horror story.

Who will not like this- Horror fans who want buckets of blood and an abundance of scares or those wanting a fast-paced film.  

Book Review: Already Dead by Charlie Huston

 Vampires have been done to death, or undeath to be specific, and readers have become tired of the genre and moved elsewhere.  At the beginning of the craze in 2005, a mere two months after Stephanie Myers published Twilight, Chalie Huston put out Already Dead.  The novel is a different spin on vampirism, gone are the traditional themes of vampirism as a monstrous curse or the modern take of vampires as the misunderstood brooding anti-heroes.  Huston puts a Noir spin into things making vampirism and vampires into the true underworld of society. 

     The story centers on a Vampire, called Vampyres in the book, Joe Pitt who lives in modern day Manhattan.  The islands vampyres are controlled by different clans, the most powerful being the Coalition; ultraconservative and wanting to keep vampyres in the shadows.  Another is The Society, the “left” of the vampyre world, who wants eventually to tell the world about them.  Joe has ties the clans and works as an independent fixer for them to do their dirty jobs.  This keeps his supply of blood nice and fresh so the Vyrus, an actual virus that causes vampirism in the books, does not cause Joe to lose control and chew someone’s throat out.  Which is what will happen if the Vyrus does not get fresh blood every now and again, and why Joe takes a job with the Coalition to hunt down a Shambler (aka zombie).  As with the Noir genre, things are never that simple and soon Joe is over his head in trouble.

     This is the vampire novel you hand someone to read who has a bad taste of overproduced vampire literature in his or her mouth.  The Noir genre is on full display here and any one of these characters could have walked off a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett novel.  Joe Pitt is a no nonsense tough guy in the traditional sense.  He has his own code of ethics and walks his own path, even if that gets him in trouble with the clans and his girlfriend Evie.  There are no good guys in the series, everyone has secrets, dark pasts, and blood on their hands.  The book is the first in a series of five, each successive expanding on the history and world that Joe Pitt inhabits. 

Verdict: 8/10 Dead Bards

Who Would Like This: A fan of vampire stories, pulpy noir tales, urban fantasy, or thrillers.  I would hand this book to someone if they said they did not like silly stories about vampires.           

Who Would Not Like This: Readers who want romance, trashy or otherwise, in their vampire tales.  There is simply not much to be found between the pages.

Forbidden Knowledge

Delta Green is a Modern Day campaign setting for Call of Cthulhu whereby the investigators take on the role of government agents, unauthorized government agents, trying to stem the tide of the Mythos.  Since the players actions are “off the books” they cannot just store any old jar of proto-shoggoth in a sanctioned facility.  This is where the Green Boxes come in.  A Green Box is a location where previous Agents of Delta Green stored things.  This could be anything from mythos artifacts, to weapons, to tradecraft items, or anything else that the previous occupants left behind.  It is a grab bag of crazy.  To keep with the randomness of what a location might hold the Delta Green community made an online Green Box generator, which Isak Strom recently reactivated.  Just enter how many of each category and quicker than you can lose 1d6+1 sanity there is a list of random items.  This generator can easily be adapted to almost any modern setting that needs weird and strange items. 

Check out the Green Box Generator here   

Review: Thought Forms by Jeffrey Thomas

            Ray, a man who is living in the house of his brutally murdered parents, is being menaced by mysterious figures.    His cousin Paul is working nights at a plastics factory that becomes a fight for survival, as a monster stalks him and a group of workers.  These two storylines alternate between chapters and build to a violent and deadly climax for the both of them. 

The Good:

·        The Atmosphere- Thomas keeps the mood claustrophobic and filled with menace.  It is unspoken but there is a darkness creeping out of every place the characters are not currently experiencing; behind every unopened door evil and violence awaits.

·        Slow Burn- The book takes its time getting where it has too, which complements the atmosphere of menace.

The Bad:

·        Typesetting- Some problems with page layout that moves sentences around to accommodate the page.  Not major but breaks up the flow of paragraphs. 

·        Slow Burn- A lot of what happens is the characters ruminations and inner monolog.  There is little action to be had until the last hundred pages and even then only in the last fifty do things really take off and the blood starts to be spilled.

·        Characters- The two main characters fall somewhat flat.  Both stories are lacking dialog, while in line with the main theme (No Spoilers), makes the protagonists feel underdeveloped and conceived in a vacuum.      

The Verdict:

·        Who should buy this: Fans of Thomas work will want to add this to their collection.  Anyone who enjoys a slow story that is more focused on the inner lives of its characters.

·        Who should let this sit on the shelf: Those who like action and quick story progression and fans of epic large-scale stories and larger than life protagonists.

·        My Opinion: Thomas’s work is an acquired taste and this book is at the far end of that spectrum.  Start elsewhere, the short story collection Punktown is a first stop, and then move into this book.  Most will find this book slow moving and hard to get invested in. 

Total Score: 2 out of Five Shoggoths 

Horror Gaming 101

Pulling the Rug

Everything is going great, all the pieces are where they should be, what you see is what you get; that is until the facade crumbles away.  Pulling the rug out from under a group can be a devastating way to end, with a bang, or begin, to set the mood, of a campaign.  Any number of other terms can describe such a device but the most recognizable is from movies and called The Twist.  The Ring, The Six Sense, Psycho, Identity all pull the rug out from under the viewer in the last moments, thus changing the way the viewer understands the previous 90 minutes.  The Sixth Sense is movie about ghosts and a boy who can see them.  The twist happens when the character, and the audience, finds out that he is a ghost.  The rug goes tight and viewers end up on the ground.  Let us examine how to achieve this using our dear departed Grandmother Mrs. Brown.

The Façade
This is the set up and prep work; you have to have a rug before you can pull it out from under someone.  This part can be tricky because the GM has to feed information to the players without it seeming forced or important.  Take Grandma Brown; the needed façade is one of a charitable, down to earth, and sweet woman who loves her family especially her grandkids.  To dump the former sentence into the players lap is a mistake.  Show rather than tell about her qualities.  If Charitable, the players see her volunteering at a local soup kitchen for the poor.  Down to earth, then every Christmas she sends all her family members hand knit items like scarves, sweaters, and socks.  A sweet woman, for as long as the player can remember he has received a call and a cake delivered on his birthday.  The point is, do not let the players know that there is anything special about Grandma; she is just another NPC providing flavor to the constructed world.  If the players think something is up about Grandma, find a way to deflect their inquiry or distract them with a red herring.  If the situation gets too close to revealing Grandma she can offer them some homemade cookies, her specialty, with a secret nasty surprise.            

The Tragedy or Climax
The next step is to put the capstone on the Grandma facade.  This is some dramatic scene or set of scenes that plays to strengthen the ongoing deception, the grab of the rug before the pull.  A tragedy works well for this.  For Grandma this is a sudden death.  On her way to the corner store a masked man approached and shot her nineteen times with a fully Automatic Ak-47.  The police ask one of the players to identify the body.  It is Grandma, and she is dead, what a senseless tragedy.  Let the gunman be the straw man villain.  As the Players look left offer them up something from the right.  One of the players finds a small key, somewhere campaign appropriate, to a safe deposit box at the local bank.  This lead in has to be innocuous and devoid of any malice.  Eventually they will check the box, and inside is a key ring, lots of ornate strange jewelry, and a deed to a building somewhere in town.  This building is where the players will have their world upended.  

The Quick Yank
The last phase is the reveal of what is actually true and the demolishing of the entire façade.  Rapid unveiling of the truth works best. The Information pushed upon the Players in rapid succession causes a disorienting effect.  They should at a gut level feel unnerved before the logical side of their brains can put all the pieces together.   For Grandma this is the basement room of her mysterious building.  It is good to occasionally   give the Players a small taste right before the big reveal.  They will  sense something is not right but will not be able to figure out what, before it is too late.  The building itself is easy enough to enter, simple lock on the front door, but the door to the basement has seven different high quality locks.  Seven Locks will seem a bit excessive, or is it?  Once the Players descend, it is time to pull, and pull hard.  Down in the basement the Players find a multitude of insanity, violence, and depravity:  “A stone altar in the middle of the room with a freshly sacrificed young boy, the grooves on the altar run down to thirteen cups that lie at its base, there are 13 stone chairs surrounding the altar, the body is fresh, and Grandmas name is carved into one of the chairs.”  What the players had believed  turned out to be wrong, and they are now left to pick up the pieces and deal with what they have seen.  Things will never be the same again.  

The Aftermath
The Players should react, if done well, with open mouths and the inability to form a proper course of action for a least a couple of minutes.  A good Twist though asks more questions than it answers.  It is obvious that Grandma was into some sick despicable stuff, but what about all that other information:

• What about that guy who shot her, was he really a hero?
• Grandma’s name was on one of the chairs, but what about the other 12?
• Who was the victim on the Altar?
• How long has she been doing this?
• What about all those ornate jewels we found?

These unanswered questions are a great resource for a GM to use for further adventures.  

Some Forbidden Knowledge

The Internet has been down recently, but fear not, my window to the world is back!  Got some more articles coming along soon, but in the meantime to celebrate the return of the Internet it is time for some Forbidden Knowledge.

The Forbidden Knowledge of today comes from the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast.  Each week the hosts Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer discuss a story by the master of weird himself H.P. Lovecraft.  The tone shifts from academic discussion to witty banter, which makes for an entertaining listen.  Each Podcast is about thirty minutes with some of the longer stories taking more than one episode.  The quality of audio here is high with top-notch voice talents and editing work.  All of the older shows are free to download with newer ones are on a pay subscription bases.  Along with the Podcast there are some full readings of famous Lovecraft stories like The Call of Cthulhu and From Beyond.  There is no guarantee that listening will not summon a Dimensional Shambler.           

The King of Props

When it comes to game mastering a horror setting campaign nothing makes or breaks the game quite like atmosphere. It is very difficult for your players to truly enjoy the horror aspect when the lights are bright, the tv is going in the next room, kids are running around being unruly.

Over coming these obstacles is fairly standard for many groups. Most players have day to day lives that don't exactly stop when they step into the fantasy realm. Simply dimming the lights, or maybe using things like candles or flashlights, and getting those kids a sitter will go a long way for running a perfect horror scenario. 

So now that the atmosphere has been turned towards the dark, and you start some preferably creepy background music, however your players still are not getting into the game as much as you want. 

Most people running a game don't consider going beyond the simple stuff. I for one was of the same mind, never going beyond the normal expectations of your players, and simply going for good content. This all changed one day when my co-author Cris starting bringing props into his Cthulhu madness. 

Cris's campaigns went from creepy to absolutely horrifying. One of the most recent delve's into Cris's madness came in the form of a small metal box. The story went that we found a box of a man and as Cris began to describe the box, low and behold he removed an actual box from his bag. The box, wrapped in "bloody" bandages, contained several artifacts including an actual map, scribbled all over in nonsense numbers, a cassette tape, and several other items. The tape had various number sequences overlapping, or coming from multiple sources. This was the precipice for the campaign which heavily involved cryptography, and running from cultists. 

The props Cris brings will draw any player into the campaign, provide for the players a tangible attachment to the fantasy that can easily push the horror element over the edge. As the horror element in the story increases the props add the realism that allows the player to understand and act more in line with how their character would act. This level of immersion really makes for a successful campaign. Unfortunately for Cris, as players we have all become to expect this level of immersion and probably wouldn't settle for anything less. 

So what's something extra you have seen from your game masters?  Leave a comment and let us know, and don't forget to subscribe and share us with your friends.

Punktown

A city where humans rub shoulders with scores of alien races; a future where high technology is pervasive and often destructive; and underneath the surface dangerous,  otherworldly Mythos entities lie in wait for a time when they can be free again to bring annihilation.  Welcome to Jeffrey Thomas’s insane off-world future of Punktown.

What is Punktown?  Paxton,  Punktown to its inhabitants, is a human colony on a distant planet.   The city is teeming with alien life and cultures that often clash usually ending in bloodshed, or whatever the alien race has for blood.  Technology of the setting is highly advanced and teleportation, cloning, ray guns, and body implants are commonplace.  However, this is not Star Trek.  The technological marvels corrupt, destroy, and emotionally degrade the users.  What does it feel like to live in such a city?  Take one part detective noir mystery, one part Phillip K. Dick nightmare, two parts Cthulhu Mythos, and add a dash of violent crime and urban decay in equal measure, shake until frothy, then consume.    The stories Thomas writes in the Punktown universe are dark, dangerous, and often lethal for the protagonists: the perfect setting for a Call of Cthulhu campaign.  If one wished to get a feel for the setting there are two free stories of Mr. Thomas available free online:

The Library of Sorrows- http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/library.htm

The Hate Machines- http://infinityplus.co.uk/stories/hatemachines.htm

 The Mythos veterans at Miskatonic River Press, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, have put together a source book set in this setting due out this August.  The Sourcebook will use the Chaosium BRP Roleplaying system most widely used for Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying.  The lineup of material planned is quite extensive

·         An extensive list and statistics for the Aliens, Technology, Mutations, Drugs, and Weaponry       

·         An in-depth map of the city (A first of its kind)

·         Two all new Punktown stories written by Jeffrey Thomas

·         Multiple Pre-written scenarios with artwork and maps

               

The real gem of this endeavor is Thomas himself taking a role in the creative process.  He has actively promoted the kickstarter, participated in multiple online Q and A sessions involving the setting, and actively partnered with Miskatonic to make sure the vision of his fictional city is accurate.  It is as if H. P. Lovecraft is overseeing the creation of the original Call of Cthulhu RPG to make sure they got the Deep Ones just right.     

So crack open a Zub beer, watch your back, and roll those sanity checks!

For further inquiry, visit the fine people at Miskatonic River Press: http://www.miskatonicriverpress.com/. 

Be sure to check out Jeffrey Thomas Punktown Homepage:

http://punktalk.punktowner.com/ 

For digital and Hardbound Punktown literature check out his Amazon authors page http://www.amazon.com/Jeffrey-Thomas/e/B000APMJZ4/ref=la_B000APMJZ4_rf_p_n_feature_browse-b_2?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_82%3AB000APMJZ4%2Cp_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011&bbn=283155&ie=UTF8&qid=1358210133&rnid=618072011