After several months of hinting and some false starts, Justus Productions would like to announce our latest project. Jeff and I have been talking about something like this for a while. Back in 2006 to 2009, I wrote for a web site called gamingreport.com, and later for Scrye magazine after their publisher bought the web…
Author: Ron McClung
Level 7 [Escape]
You awaken on the cement floor, naked and covered in goo, surrounded by huge tanks with other humans. You see that you have fallen out of a similar tank, conduits and wires dangling. You are in some kind of experimental facility, dark and strange, and all you know to do is ESCAPE!
Thus is the basic premise of Level 7. It has the feel of other games similar to it with some interesting twists. It is a heavy thematic game with interesting mechanics. One to four players can play a character who must escape from the Subterra Bravo facility while dodging armed guards and alien clones.
B-Movie Inspiration: 70s Italian Cheese (1977-1978)
Alfonso Brescia, Italian director and movie maker, churned out 4 movies between 1977 and 1978. I have seen two of them and these films could easily be connected directly as sequels. Both have similar sets, costuming, and themes, and some actors are in both films. They are also equally as bad. So bad that I felt they disserved to be lumped together in one article.
All four films in the series are Italian low budget films that were put out to capitalize on the Star Wars craze. They have all the great elements of a sci-fi B movie Star Wars rip-off – space ships, rogue pilots, robots, aliens and disco music. These two films were shot basically back to back, obviously.
Movie Inspiration: Planet Hulk
I saw Planet Hulk the other day and am finding as I watch many of the Marvel and DC animated movies, there are some really cool ideas you can draw from for a sci-fi RPG. The best idea I got our of Planet Hulk was the Spikes. For most of the movie, you are told…
B-Movie Inspirations: It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)
When I first started this idea of watching B-movies as inspirations for GMing, I knew there were bad movies that I would get nothing out of or at least struggle with. Well, this movie is one of them, I suppose, but not because it is bad. It! is a story that has since been told in many ways, some better and others not so much. It has much of the 1950s sci-fi trappings of low budget filming while at the same time had some interesting aspects to it as well.
Fortress America Board Game (2012)
Few games bring about more emotional reaction than Fortress America, in my experience. It has come to epitomize the American style of board game. You either love it or you hate it. There are very few who are in-between those extremes about this game. This game has a lot of history for me and for others in the gaming community. And that history has brought out these reactions. I own and have played the original for years and have thoroughly enjoyed it, so my history with it is already fairly positive.
B-movie Inspirations: Forbidden World (1982)
In his over 50 years of film making, Roger Corman has to be one of the best sources for an RPG game master for inspiration. Any good GM that is also a B-movie fan should know who he is and have seen at least one of his movies. Forbidden World is not one of his best but it has some entertainment value as well as inspiration in it.
Conspiracy Rules (Dark Conspiracy III)
Old school rises up again in a new release by 3Hombres Games. Dark Conspiracy is an old game once published in 1991 by the now defunct Game Designers’ Workshop, and has floated around in different hands since GDW’s demise in 1996. A second edition was published which updated the rules and a few adventures were published by it slowly died after that. A couple of fans worked hard to revive it and after some difficulties, the 3rd edition was put out in PDF form. The results of their labor is now available on DriveThruRPG.
Blood Moon Expansion for Talisman 4th Ed. Rev.
When Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) took over the Talisman license back in 2008, I was more than excited. Being a fan of the game since the 1990s, I was really looking forward to seeing how FFG can improve the game. 2008 was the first year I got to go to GenCon and while there I talked to some of the writers of the game. I was really encouraged by their vision.
Since then, they have done what FFG does a lot – put out expansion after expansion. Not satisfied with just reprinting the classic expansions (of which they have done a few), they have put out a few small box expansions, some of which have some very original and innovative ideas. Talisman: The Blood Moon is one of those small box expansions that has some fairly innovative ideas; however they had already done something similar with Talisman: The Reaper. Blood Moon uses similar rules introduced in The Reaper expansion with a few new additional aspects mixed in.
SCARAB 2013 – Columbia, SC
SCARAB is something that is taking the gaming community by storm in the Carolinas. Del Collins and his team have put on a gaming con in Columbia, SC for the past 3 years. With a clear vision, solid staff and good leadership, SCARAB has developed a solid foundation that is going to do nothing but grow and flourish over the next several years. However, SCARAB is more than just the con. SCARAB is actually the organization behind the con as well as dozens of game days throughout the year, throughout South Carolina and northern Georgia. So the SCARAB Convention is just one facet of what they do for the gaming community but it’s the culmination of all their efforts the previous year.