Fawlty (Dark) Towers

So they finally made the Dark Tower movie based on Stephen King's epic saga of dimension-jumping gunslingers, lobster people, billy-bumblers, and psychic kids. It fled across the desert, and the Vorpal Podcast followed.

While I'm a fan of Wizard and Glass and the DT graphic novels and the entire premise of the gunslinger, I read the first book back in about 1853 so I don't trust that I remember quite enough about the Gunslinger's early Saga to compare the new movie to all the actual novels. So we called in a Dark Tower Superfan and unofficial Stephen King expert Craig of Eld to help us out. He laid on us the Easter Eggs he found in this movie that should have fans who originally hated it for not being an absolute recreation of the books to reconsider what they were watching, because [SPOILER ALERT] it turns out it is actually a continuation of the Gunslinger storyline, and takes place after the last book! What what whaaaaat? Listen in and find out why!

So brighten up your Shine and load up your forty-five (Ex)caliber revolvers, its time to talk Gunslinger!

http://vorpalpodcast.com/dark-tower

Atomic Blondes

New on the Vorpal Podcast: Atomic Suzy is joined by Comic Book Cory to breakdown this Fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall Spy movie (based on a Graphic Novel) and determine whether the 1980's-themed flick is worth its 99 Luftballoons. Pull out your walkman, light up a cigarette, and splice some microfilm because its time to review ATOMIC BLONDE!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 - Vorpal Podcast

In this episode a rag-tag group of ne'er do-wells come together to talk about the much-anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2! How does it hold up to other Marvel movies? Is baby Groot as adorable as promised? Who the hell are the gold people? We know the answers to none of those questions, and more! But we wildly confabulate none the less, and have a great time doing it. So come on over and give a listen while Cory, Suzy, and JC cut Guardians of the Galaxy down to size!

BONUS: If you love rocketships, space, and sci-fi as much as we do, check out our brand new rocket-paced, rotating-space station boardgame: CHRONOMEGA, created by your podcast hosts at Vorpal Chainsword Games, on Kickstarter now!

Vorpal Podcast - Favorite Movies

On this episode of the Vorpal Podcast, Cory, Suzy, and JC watch each other's favorite movies, and review their co-hosts' terrible taste in film. Its a three-for-one review of some cinema classics!

  Each Co-Host's Favorite Movie:

Cory: Army of Darkness

Suzy: He's Just Not That Into You

JC: The Princess Bride

 

www.vorpalpodcast.com

D&D Nerdcore - Dungeon Brothers

As some of you may know, I have a deep and abiding love for all things Nerdcore Hiphop. I was rambling around on r/nerdcore the other day, and came across a new group that I am really digging on. Dungeon Brothers from Portland. Their rap is focused on D&D. I like them so much I thought I'd suggest to others that they check out their bandcamp and give 'em a listen. I particularly recommend "I See Demons," "Sludge," and "Old Black Magic" if you've only got a few minutes to listen and pass judgement, but the entire record is entertaining if you like phat rhymes about dungeoneering adventure. The "My Apothecary Skit" and following song are also pretty on-target for how Goblin Apothecary's end up working in my games as well!

DUNGEON BROTHERS

How Deck-builders won me over

Now, I'm not a complex man. Like any hot-blooded American I like red meat, cold beer, and boardgames that involve warriors battling it out for gold and glory. But I also like a little complexity to my warriors, and prefer a boardgame where the characters level up over the course of game. So you'd think games like Talisman would always fit the bill perfectly. In Talisman you travel around the map, battle monsters, pick up gold and magic items, gain Strength and Craft, and eventually make your way to the inner circle through the Valley of Fire. There you try and win the Crown of Command so you can rule the land of Talisman under an Iron Fist for the rest of time. What's not to like?

Now Ramond Cameron is a hobbyist who knows how to adventure. 3-D Talisman! Check Ray's stuff out here.

1SMR: Bad Xmas Movies III

The Christmas movie marathon continues! This is turning out to be the longest holiday weekend ever. Here's some more one-sentence movie reviews: Xmas edition...

Elf - An abandoned child is kicked out of his adoptive sweatshop home and sent to live with his distant biological father when its determined that he can't work as quickly or as efficiently as the oppressed native workforce.
[8 bottles of spaghetti syrup out of 10]

Elvish upbringing grants Weapon Proficiency: Snowball and Resistance to Diabetes.

A Christmas Story - The classic movie that taught children everywhere the dangers of licking cold flagpoles and the value of a reliable firearm.
[9 eyes shot out of 10]

Ralphie was right to be terrified of the all-knowing and all-powerful Mall Santa Claus.

Love Actually - Sheriff Rick Grimes falls in love with his best friend's fiance and Professor Snape wants to cheat on his wife with a younger woman; in this British rom-com that's somehow considered a great date movie.
[4 washed-up rockers out of 10]

We can't save the people of Alexandria, but we can save...our Love.

1SMR: Bad Xmas Movies II

Its the official week of the Magic Baby Solstice, and that means more Xmas movies! Here's some more 1-sentence movie reviews (1SMR) for Xmas movies we watched this week.

Die Hard II: Die Harder - More explosions, meaner bad guys, porcelain guns, snowmobile chases, icicle-stabbings, and actual snow; this Die Hard is far superior over the original Die Hard as a Christmas movie, though no one will admit it because it lacks a Hans Gruber.
[9 Glock 7's (which costs more than you make in a month!) out of 10]

Way more Christmasy than any party at Nakatomi Plaza.

Gremlins - Watch a supernaturally cute creature cause the deaths of dozens of people and destroy an entire town on Christmas, only to safely go back home and not be held accountable in any way.
[7 Barbie RC Car Jumps out of 10]

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds...tee hee hee!

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation - Chevy Chase and Randy Quaid teach us the true meaning of Christmas, which involves kidnapping rich people so you can yell at them just because you failed to properly budget your finances.
[8 full sh*ters out of 10]

Hey, when its full, its full!

One-Sentence Movie Reviews: Bad Xmas movies

Yes I saw Star Wars. No I will not spoil it for you in any way, and not talking about a movie at all is the only way to ensure you don't spoil something.

But then there are other movies that you totally can spoil, because they're pieces of crap. And Christmas movies usually have a special level of crap-titude they can attain, because of the expectation that they always have to end in giant nauseating family get-togethers where everyone loves everyone else, or other such garbage.

Well, Mrs. Chainsword and I have a tradition where we watch a bunch of good Christmas movies on the weekend before and during Christmas, and have a great time getting drunk on spiked apple cider and eggnog while watching Die Hard, Gremlins, Elf, Scrooged, Christmas Story, and Christmas Vacation. However, last night we decided to try out a few other Christmas movies we haven't seen to see if they had what it takes to be added to the list.

Here's the Vorpal Chainsword's "One (run-on) sentence review" of these Christmas movies (all available on Netflix):

A Very Murray Christmas - A (Netflix Original) "Christmas show"-within-a-"Christmas show" where a crotchety Bill Murray laments about the irony of hating Christmas while having to put on a Christmas show, when a bunch of his actor-friends show up to spontaneously and burst into Christmas songs to cheer him up; bask in the glory of writers obviously patting themselves on the back for using the overused premise: "We're pretending to put on a show but we're actually putting on a show! Look at how clever we are!"  
[4 Bah-Humbugs out of 10.]

Writers: "Then we'll get George Clooney to show up, everyone loves George Clooney!"

Christmas with the Kranks - Watch Tim Allen's completely reasonable attempt to skip Christmas one year to save money backfire and cause his overbearing and judgmental neighbors to shame him and terrorize his wife for not participating in their money-grabbing pagan rituals, and eventually end up guilt-tripping him into having a last-minute Christmas party; please note that you're clearly expected to cheer for the witch-hunting neighbors.
[2 Bah-Humbugs out of 10]
 

The true meaning of Christmas is to just acquiesce to everyone else's demands. Ho. Ho. Ho.

Bad Santa - A accurate and enjoyable reality documentary which follows Billy Bob Thorton around during the Holidays.
[10 Bah-Humbugs out of 10]

Definitely added to the Best Christmas Movies list.

TV dramas always waste your time, Movie dramas rarely do

I like stories. I think everyone likes stories. The more stories you've heard, the more rounded and interesting of a person you become when encountering new things. To put it another way, a person that's read Aesop's Fables,  Grimm's Fairy-tales, and Dr. Seuss is going to be more interesting to talk to than a person who's only ever read Bernstein Bears books over and over. (Spoiler alert: All the BB stories are the same --> The cubs made a mess and don't want to clean it up. But they should, because of reasons. End of lesson).

There's no one right way to obtain stories. D&D players like to collectively create them sometimes, which is a practice I wholeheartedly endorse. But as adults, the primary way we get new stories to put in our brain-pans is by watching dramas on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or Cable (is Cable still a thing?). However, recently I've come to realize that there are far too many drama shows I'm being told to watch, and everybody has a list of favorite shows that they say: "Hey man, you absolutely must watch this show! You'd love it!"

Say Breaking Bad one more time, motherf#$%r. Say it. I dare you.

Wil Wheaton's new RPG show: Titansgrave

As most of you know, Wil Wheaton is the host of the extremely well-crafted online boardgaming show, Tabletop. On Tabletop he plays boardgames with other famous nerd-types and it gets edited down into a manageable chunk that's conducive to online viewing. Plus they put in graphics and stuff in there in post-production to help explain the rules. Its a good show, especially if you want to learn the rules to a complex boardgame they feature before you play it yourself for the first time.

Today Wil Wheaton released the first episode of his new RPG show on Geek and Sundry, Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana. Now, the title of that campaign drips with RPG adventure, so kudos on that right off the bat. However, I'm nervous about how this show will eventually play out. I've watched a few 'Twitch'-style RPG game session-shows in the past (where everything is recorded and you just watch 2 straight hours of nerds playing D&D), and I feel like they don't present RPGs in the best light. Because, to be honest, watching other people play an RPG usually isn't that fun after a while, unless something really special is going on in that moment in the game, and it makes RPG games look boring (even though they most certainly aren't when you're playing them!) Because RPGs are by their nature very slow events for bystanders. Boardgames are also generally slow events, but the show TableTop is successful because the editors cut out all the slow bits, leaving just the good stuff for us to watch. But can the same be done with an RPG? Can you edit out the boring stuff that happens during an RPG session and yet still be able to impart the storyline completely?

Setting for the Vorpal Chainsword Chronicles

As some of you know, I recently started a Sword & Sorcery 5th edition D&D campaign with my local crew. Thing is, as a fancy-pants weekly business-traveling responsible sad adult I can't seem to get enough productive creativity-time these days to actually flesh out a solid campaign world. One that is internally-consistent and that would allow the players the ability to sandbox-explore like they deserve. I mean, I can type up blogposts in hotel rooms easily enough, but I can't as easily sit back and fully-immerse myself into the fantastic worlds of the mind and create fantasy realms as much as I could in my youth.

Dramatization: Me circa 1988.

So far its just been a city and a dungeon I've had to design/build, which is fine for 1st and 2nd level characters, but I feel like it would be better if I could describe the landscape in a more detailed fashion, without having to build it all myself. Basically what I need is a campaign world template that I can place my own individual dungeons and such on top of if I want, or that the players can explore on their own. It needs to be a good fantasy setting, but not one that's full of elves and hobbits and whatnot. It can't be the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, or anything normal. It needs to be something post-apocalyptic, and yet full of alien magic.,,

Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead - Netflix Movie Reviews

So I recently saw that Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead was available on Netflix. For this movie I knew I needed assistance to get through it, as the original Dead Snow was, while an interesting idea, not that good at all (kind of like Iron Sky). So I invited a couple of buds over and we fired up Dead Snow 2.

Was it any good? ...No.

So was it worth watching? ...Yes!

See what fun we're having?

Wizards (1977) - Review

A while back during some of my semi-bored internet surfing looking for stuff similar to the animated Heavy Metal movie (we all revisit that phase every once and a while), I came across talk about a movie that was 'inspired' and 'is the original' in the line of fantasy post-apocalyptic animated movies. This move was referred to as 'Wizards' by Ralph Bakshi, and a number of anonymous gamers and rpg-folks felt that it was a seminal film of that genre.

Now, I had never seen this movie. And as a person with a high level of self-importance and good amount of know-it-all-ism, I felt a bit of shame at that realization. I decided I needed to rectify that situation in case I'm ever at a party with Frank Mentzer and Joss Whedon and they randomly strike up a conversation about how they both love this mysterious 'fantasy-animation-origin' film I'm hearing about and I need a way to cut myself into their conversation. So I searched for an online version with Netflix and Amazon, but had no luck. Finally I just decided to take a chance and ordered the blu-ray of it, figuring it probably deserves a place next to Heavy Metal and Fire and Ice in my blu-ray collection if its so important.

So, how was it? ...Well, I watched the whole thing, so that's something I guess.

Vikingdom: The Blood Eclipse - Bad Netflix Movie Reviews

Okay, I already know you haven't watched "Vikingdom: The Blood Eclipse" yet, so I won't go into a lot of boring critiques on specific points of the movie. What I will do is tell you this right up front: This movie is WAAAAAY better than its rating on Netflix would have you believe.

I'm serious. Its good. I mean, its not Lord of the Rings or anything, but you can tell these folks tried their hardest to make an action-adventure fantasy movie for people like us.

 

Now, I realize it only has 1-1/2 Stars on Netflix, but you know who rates movies on Netflix nowadays? Everyone. And have you been outside and seen Everyone lately? Everyone can be really stupid, so their collective opinions on things can often be really off. This is one of those cases. This movie was clearly made with you and I in mind: the proud... the few... the Nerdcore!

Z Nation - Bad Netflix Movie Reviews

Netflix has released a lot of stuff into the interwebs recently, and I would be amiss if I didn't let you know about at least a little bit of the good along with all the bad. And in this case, the subject has kind of a 'so-bad-its-good' vibe to it so I think it still fits the theme. The show I'm talking about is the show Z Nation from the Syfy channel (now on Netlfix). A Walking Dead-style zombie apolocalypse show made by The Asylum, the creators of none other than the Sharknado movies. So I decide to watch it and am thinking: "Of course this show is going to be awful, right? As a guy who loves The Walking Dead, I can't wait to see some crappy-looking zombies get smashed in this B-level spin-off and make fun of it."
 

Wait, no, holy crap! Its actually good! How is that even possible?

I, Frankenstein - Bad Netflix Movie Reviews

In this second decade of the 2000 ADs I've come to look forward to those special events that happen a few times a year. An event that promises new discoveries and relationship-building opportunities. That event is, of course, when Netflix has a bunch of new horror movie releases I can watch and haughtily judge from my couch as if I knew anything about making movies.

Today I will be reviewing the barely anticipated action movie starring Aaron Eckhart: I, Frankenstein. I know you see it there at the top of your giant Netflix crawl and are wondering, "Is it any good? Its got that guy from Thank You For Smoking, and he's pretty good. So regardless of its really weird box cover art its probably pretty good, right?"

Well, take it from a complete stranger: Is the movie any good?

No. No it is not.

Fireball Island

Normally I'd consider a blogpost about Xmas presents pretty pretentious and generally overdone. Might as well log onto Facebook if I want to see boring posts about what dumb stuff people got for Xmas. However in this case the Xmas present I received from the honorable Mrs. Chainsword is both within theme of this blog and pretty amazing.

She actually obtained for me a copy of the extremely rare Milton Bradley boardgame:

Fireball Island!

So why is this game so incredible and important? I'm glad you asked! A detailed analysis of the awesomeness of Fireball Island follows...

Nerds in Vegas

Las Vegas. The mere mention of the city will summon half-grins and bro-tacular high-fives from most of your muggle coworkers. Its a name that is synonymous with drinking too many oversized daiquiris and losing all your gold pieces. But there is a more interesting and rewarding Vegas behind the fist-bumps, penny slots, and poorly told lies about meeting up with strippers. A Vegas for the comic book collector, the Renaissance Faire enthusiast, and the D&D player. What I'm talking about is...

Nerd Vegas!

 

Tron 2.0 on Steam!

It finally happened! An excellent old-school PC game (a game you've likely never heard of) just got released on Steam and is now playable on all computers. This is one of my favorite PC games of all time, and I group it on my mental PC gaming mantle alongside Baulder's Gate, Thief, and Fallout. It is the only first-person action RPG that actually brings the Grid to life. That game is Tron 2.0.