300: The Movie

I discovered a great action movie coming out this year, based upon the Frank Miller comic of the same name, which is a mythic re-telling of the actions of Leonidas king of Sparta and his 300 strong bodyguard at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

Gerard Butler, who stars as King Leonidas, states, “It’s almost like somebody who was there and witnessed the battle went to sleep and dreamed the whole thing again because a lot of it is very representational … a lot of it exists in the imagination, so it allows us to take it so much further. It’s an incredible story, which has been an inspiration to so many people throughout history, but it’s not a documentary. It is a fantastic story full of passion and politics and brutality and so many more things, existing in this hyper-real, beautiful, emotional world.”

It does seem to have lots of gore and a bit of sex, but reports so far seem to indicate that the highly stylised nature of the action scenes makes it acceptable. It always stood out as one of the more interesting moments in history when I was at school - it was the first example I saw of men defining heroism by what they tried to do, rather than what they actually achieved.

Watch the trailer for yourself:

Seeing the style of the art for the movie reminded me of another great poster which Chris Achilleos created for another take on the Battle of Thermopylae:

“Madness? This is Sparta!”

Michael Crichton - State of Fear

Michael Crichton's latest book deals with the hype of global warming and mines it for an interesting storyline. Care of HarperCollins, here is a preview of the novel:

Tomb of Horrors: Revisited

The Tomb of Horrors is a venerable old lady of adventure modules, the grande dame of horror-themed 'no one gets out alive' adventures, as Wikipedia puts it:

The Tomb of Horrors is infamous among players of the game as a "killer dungeon," filled with all manner of extremely deadly traps and monsters that are capable of easily wiping out high-level parties of player characters. Indeed, some players consider Tomb of Horrors to be "unfair"; many of the traps within largely ignore game mechanics and story logic in their operation.

I got to delve into this pit of dead PCs with my gaming buddies this weekend. We were playing good old 'Advanced" Dungeons and Dragons, the ruleset that was for so long king of the castle, until it was toppled by the (now) ever-present d20 System that lies behind D&D 3rd Edition (or '3e' for short).


Personally the weird mix of Egyptian-themed tomb that should not be opened and typical AD&D dungeon crawl makes this a deliciously scary adventure to play. Getting to do it with my suitably paranoid gaming group made it all the more fun - especially as two of us had read the module at some point (>2 years ago).


It helped that we had player characters that were at the upper end of the recommended level range (14) and in fact far beyond the 'typical' strength of such characters (too many late nights playing find-the-artifact or other examples of extreme-adventuring. We've survived the first level through judicious use of Limited Wish, some well applied thieving skills and disposable gargoyles (thanks to a Ring of Gargoyles). Now I'm really looking forward to getting back into it and cleaning up the next level!

Roleplaying Groups/Cons in Sydney

To clear up my browser tabs here is a brief list of some of the roleplaying conventions and groups in Sydney, Australia:

SydCon
Only con I ever roleplayed at, won an award ...

MacquarieCon
Good con, great location, had fun wargaming ...

UNSW Gameplayers
I used to belong to these guys when I was at uni ...



RPGA Asia-Pacific
The 'official' roleplayers group - IMO does not carry much weight compared to local groups ...

GenCon Oz
Not due to happen until 2008 - but if it is as big as the North American one, then it will be HUGE!!!

Necronomicon
I've only ever played CCGs at this event, was good fun though ...

Le Parkour

I investigated free running today, something I knew was in the early scenes from Casino Royale. It looks like an exciting sport, but also something with practical applications either in my own life, or that of a (more active) character. That led me to the Wikipedia Parkour page which explained the difference between parkour and free running.

Parkour, the name of the discipline, was thought of by Herbert Kuonde, — a friend of David Belle's, but not a practitioner — and it derives from "parcours du combattant", the military obstacle course of the French marines. Kuonde took the word "parcours", replaced the "c" with a "k" to suggest aggressiveness, and removed the silent "s" as it opposed parkour's philosophy about efficiency.

Traceur is the substantive derived from the verb "tracer". Traceur normally means "to trace", or "to draw", but also translates as "going fast".

There is an Australian Parkour Association, so I might have to attend a few beginner training sessions to experience it myself. Although I will certainly have to a) get fitter, and b) get my joints and back stronger if it's to be truly enjoyable.

I've added some Parkour clips below to demonstrate how it works.

BBC ad using parkour:


Aussie parkour traceurs:


UPDATE: There is an active online community for Australian traceurs as well.

Six words to tell a story in ...

Wired set a group of well known writers a challenge, could they tell a story in six words or less?

I've reproduced a few of my favourites:

Computer, did we bring batteries? Computer?
- Eileen Gunn

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so.
- Joss Whedon

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
- Alan Moore

Epitaph: Foolish humans, never escaped Earth.
- Vernor Vinge

Lie detector eyeglasses perfected: Civilization collapses.
- Richard Powers

K.I.A. Baghdad, Aged 18 - Closed Casket
- Richard K. Morgan

Dinosaurs return. Want their oil back.
- David Brin

Deadline postponed. Five words enough...?
- David Brin

Please, this is everything, I swear.
- Orson Scott Card

Finally, he had no more words.
- Gregory Maguire

Leia: "Baby's yours." Luke: "Bad news…"
- Steven Meretzky

They also created some interesting graphics to go with these micro-stories:

The DM of the Rings

Shamus Young had created a most excellent comic interpretation of how a 'normal' D&D party would tackle the Lord of the Rings. If you've ever played D&D (or any of its many siblings) then this is sure to cause you to lose it, so do not read this whilst drinking, eating or in a place where loss of composure could be seriously embarrassing (like work).


In the words of the creator of this misadventure:

Lord of the Rings is more or less the foundation of modern D&D. The latter rose from the former, although the two are now so estranged that to reunite them would be an act of savage madness. Imagine a gaggle of modern hack-n-slash roleplayers who had somehow never been exposed to the original Tolkien mythos, and then imagine taking those players and trying to introduce them to Tolkien via a D&D campaign.

That sums up the comic nicely, and explains why I kept having flasbacks to the various times when I tried to get my hack-n-slash friends interested in my latest campaign, based on {insert seriously good scifi/fantasy novel, film or comic name here}.