Here we go again.
— Anthony Daniels (@ADaniels3PO) February 10, 2016
Star Wars 8 started filming
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Rey, Jedi Knight
Awesome Rey by Albert Urmanov pic.twitter.com/0k2p5C1G86
— Force Cult (@ForceCult) February 8, 2016
Getting my cartoons on
Yeah, so I have started watching cartoons again. It must have been at leat 30 years since I last watched cartoons on my own, but now that I am developing a healthy new Star Wars obsession to replace my Dragonlance obsession, I have been watching Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels.
The Clone wars has been around for a while, and throughout the past couple of years my oldest son and I have been watching snippets on Youtube. He seems to have lost interest a little bit, but when the series became accessible on Netflix, I jumped on it like white on rice. We are definitly watching cartoons here, but it is pretty interesting to see some of the missions that occur before Revenge of the Sith. It surprised me a little bit that there were actually some pretty good story twists. I am a big fan of Ashoka Tano, who is not in the movies. However, she seems to play an important role in exploring Anakin Skywalker and what leads him to become a Sith. I think her character is so strong that she pretty easily step out of Anakin’s shadow and become a fully fledged character in her own right. Some people must agree since she return in Star Wars: Rebels.
Having finished the Clone Wars, I am now watching Star Wars: Rebels. Apparently this show has about one third of the budget Clone Wars had, it is a solid storyline and well worth watching. We get to explore a lot of the things that happen between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, which fits very well into the overall storyarch. Both shows fill in some of the gaps, which is what I had hoped Dragonlance would do to the same extent. as it is, we get a really good feeling of how the galaxy far far away was ran during the Empire’s heyday. It also seems to be tying the prequels and the original trilogy together in a meaningful manner. As for the new trilogy, there is also some tie ins as far as I can tell. If you check out some of the promotions for seson 2, Ezra Bridger holds a very familiar looking lightsaber in one of the shots. Pretty cool. Maybe we will even get a hint or two about Snoke if we’re lucky.
Losing my touch
So, I joined a gaming session before Christmas. It was a group of guys I have played with before but not the guys I started playing with. We started this group over ten yeras ago but we have been on a hiatus for quite a while. I’m guessing five years.
So anyway, we start up again in Mystara as always, playing D&D 3.5 and all of a sudden I realize I have forgotten how saving throws work. I have issues calculating my AC and for the love of me, I can’t figure out how I calculate damage. After rummaging through Player’s Handbook I manage to figure these very basic things out. It’s funnt how I have been wanting to play again and when I finally get the opportunity, the rules have slipped my mind.
As it turns out, the session was not good. The usual suspects have created drow elves, because they get a lot of bonuses to their stats. They don’t even bother coming up with a name for their characters. Afterwards, the geniuses complain about the lack of hack and slash in the game. Apparently there are too many riddles and stuff. No magical items in sight and no +4 swords either. These guys didn’t even use character sheets and dice, they had found some softaware to handle that.
This is far from what I like about Roleplaying games. As it is, we have another session coming up at the end of the month, but I am not holding my breath. I think this will be the last time I break out the dice and my gaming days will finally be over and done with. I started playing at the age of twelve, which is 29 years ago, so maybe it is time to finally put away the dice and the character sheet.
The Force Awakens
So, Star Wars is quickly becoming my substitue for Dragonlance. It’s almost like quitting smoking but drinking a lot more coffee. A lot less dangerous of course.
There are a lot of reviews online, so I am not going to rehash something someone as written much better than I ever could. However, I will say that I like the movie quiet a bit. It seems somewhat different when compared to George Lucas’s version. There’s a lot less animation compared to what they din in the prequels, which were quite ubiquitous. In my opinion it makes the movie feel grittier and more personable, but it also leaves me with a feeling of things being over and done with. The old Start Wars feeling is replaced with the new Start Wars feeeling, and that will take a little getting used to I think.
Anyway, really good movie, I highly recommend it.
Gotham
Highly recommended
Gaming again
So I was playing a good old fashioned game of D&D the other week, and boy was I in for a surprise. I couldn’t remember the dang rules. I was seriously scanning through Player’s handbook for saving throws, rules on armor class and so on. It made think that perhaps I am finally done as a gamer. I was not that into the game play, and I felt somewhat annoyed with the other characters. Turns out that two of the are drow elves (on Mystara!) and the players only chose to this race in order to get the racial benefits.
Furthermore, these guys complained that there was too much story and not enough hack and slash! That is not really the kind of role playing I am into, so I am not too hopeful about the future. Be that as it may, I have agreed with the dungeon master that we will kill my fighter dwarf in a most violent manner, and I will create a new character, most likely a priest. I have never really played a priest so I am somewhat excited to make this character. All I need to do is find a good angle on this guy.
Getting warmed up for Star Wars 7
Almost game time
Link
In about four hours I will be seated at a large table with a cup of coffee and a character sheet. Yes, I am playing my first round of D&D in what must be five years.
I have played with this group before, however, there’s a new guy joining us, which is pretty cool. We tend to play the same characters every time, so I expect that I will have to make another dwarf fighter. Even if that’s the case, I think it’s a small sacrifice to get to play again.
Wish me luck.
Rocking the Star Wars fetish
I have often wondered why Dragonlance died here on the blog. From a business perspective one could be excused for believing that the world of Dragonlance would be a perfect platform for expanding into several different areas such as toys, movies and so on. Now, I am not going to go into a long discourse about this subject here, however, I will point to the Star Wars franchise as a blue print for how this could be done.
I am definitely getting my Star Wars on these days. I am reading the Thrawn trilogy, and I spend time scouring the internet for news about the The Force Awakens. There are many interesting aspects of the way Disney approaches the rejuvenation of Start Wars that are similar to the way especially Marvel but also DC has managed their story lines. I wonder if there are lessons in here that might have worked for Dragonlance?