Looking For Group

I’ve mentioned in a couple of posts that I’ve got a D&D game going. Recently, one of our players had to drop out due to an out of game conflict, and we’ve elected to put out an open call to add a player to our group. Our big concern is finding someone who gets along with all of us and the way we play and adds some fun to our game. I figured, those of you reading this here probably already have a sense of my style, at least, so if anyone here would be interested in playing D&D with the big man, well, this connection may lead to us being more likely to find people that mesh with what we’ve got going on.

Anyways, if anyone’s up for joining a D&D game, what I’m running is a sort of post-apocalyptic dark fantasy based on the likes of Kingdom Death: Monster and Berserk, although if you’re familiar with Kingdom Death: Monster, my habit of ripping off that game when I run out of ideas is probably going to be irritating to you. I try to have a good focus on the story and really try to make the world seem very full and alive, although as a post-apocalyptic thing it’s not all that full or alive at all. But yeah. I try to be big on the details. Long form storytelling, good mix of combat and challenge encounters, and consistent and vibrant details are things I try to prioritize, at least. The players do a really good job of getting in character and acting things out as appropriate, and really prioritize that over gamesmanship or tactical soundness. It used to be I had a hard time getting all of them in the same place for the big battles, as they all had their own separate priorities and ways of reacting to new stimulus that would often lead to them splitting and hunting things down differently. It made the fights more difficult, but it’s been beautiful from a storytelling perspective. Party also has a habit of completing their objectives, but not exactly doing the stuff they need to get them done well, so you’d probably have to be both flexible with character interactions and combat situations and very patient with suboptimal or outright bad outcomes to get the most out of this. But hey, maybe you’ll be a good influence on them. They could probably really use that.

We have games in English on Roll20 with voice chat over Discord. We’re open to new players, and this is the group I learned to play with in the first place, so I know they’re good at that. That said, this is midway through a long-form campaign, and you’d be starting at level 8, so you’d essentially be getting thrown into the deep end of the D&D pool. Games take place Sundays, currently around 3:30 MST. You can use your favorite time zone converter to figure out what time that is for you. However, given that some of our players are in countries that have Daylight Savings and some aren’t, we do occassionally have to fudge the time by an hour or so, so if you’ve got the schedule flexibility to do that, that’d be optimal. Games usually last for about three hours.

If you’d be interested in giving it a shot, you can find more information in this LFG post, and can submit yourself as a potential addition to our group in the topic there. We’re all getting input into who we end up bringing on so although I love you all, I’m not going to be able to promise anything myself. However, if you do know me from here and end up putting something in, let me know directly so I can give things in context for them when we’re talking things out. Either way, I’ll see you all in the new year.

Project G: Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

Alternative Title: The One with the Big Dumb Godzilla Dropkick

Godzilla vs. Megalon.  Here’s a particularly notable one.  And I imagine a rather love it or hate it affair.

So the backstory of Godzilla vs. Megalon is that once upon a time, some kid won a design-us-a-monster! contest with Toho, drawing a giant robot suit with a lot of similarities to Ultraman and Mazinger Z for use in a future monster movie.  Toho then made this design even more like Ultraman, to the point it didn’t really resemble the original contest design at all anymore.  And then they tried to put a movie together around it.  Hey, you know what’s really cool?  Ultraman.  That’s really cool.  Maybe we should make a movie like Ultraman.  

So you know what the problem is with making something that’s just like something else that’s really cool except your thing isn’t actually that cool?  You end up making something that’s just not as good as the original.  So this movie kind of kicked around for a while, with nobody really believing that the not-Ultraman was a strong enough character to carry the film, until producer Tomoyuki Tanaka came upon it and had the same thought I often think in the middle of bad movies, church services, and particularly average sessions of coitus: “This would be better with Godzilla in it.”

This wound up being the genius stroke that saved the project.  And at least two of my relationships.  But at this point, the producers just looked at each other, and decided that the film with all its troubled history had spent long enough in pre-production that it was time to move it right to shooting.  So what if they don’t even have a script yet!  They’ll figure something out.  And Tanaka had already raided his couch cushions for the spare change used for All Monsters Attacks’ budget, then the back seat of his car for the change for Godzilla vs. Hedorah, and they probably weren’t going to be able to get away with making a film so cheap to make its production actually created stacks of yen from thin air again like they did with Godzilla vs. Gigan.  So this time, they gave it a big massive budget, but it’s all in Imagibucks, the currency of Pretend Land.  And the exchange rate for that with the real world is really low.  

Once again, Jun Fukuda’s at the helm, who’s had kind of a spotty track record with Godzilla.  We’ve got a film where all they had to go on were storyboards and Fukuda literally had to create the script while they were filming and two of the four monsters in it were stapled onto the plot after the fact.  They’ve probably got more of a budget than they did for Godzilla vs. Gigan, but not by much.  And they’re needing to get through production incredibly quickly.  So, what do they do?  

You know how when big actors get roped into projects they know are going to be bad, they start hamming it up all over the place?  They figure if they have to make something that will be ill-remembered, they’re at least going to have a lot of goofy fun with it?  That’s what we get here.  A lot of Godzilla’s movie output has at least a bit of the dumb factor to it.  That’s one of the things I love about it.  And Godzilla vs. Megalon is the film that embraces that factor most whole-heartedly.  You shall see.  Oh, you shall see.  

The film opens with some nation performing some underground nuclear tests, which creates earthquakes that can be felt on Monster Island.  Supposedly far away from its epicenter.  Some time later, we get a nice little family playing at a lake in Japan.  Baby Rider, played by the same actor who was Ok Kid in Godzilla vs. Hedorah but is explicitly not the same character for that little bit of confusion, is playing on a little pedal boat thing in the lake while his older brother and older brother’s, uh, ‘friend’ enjoy a nice picnic.  So, these guys.  I don’t think it’s done deliberately, because this movie came out in the 1970s, which was not a time period where people were very open to these types of relationships, and is from Japan, which was not a place where people were very open to these types of relationships.  So, even though these are two men that seem incredibly close to each other, seem to be out for a rather intimate personal experience at the start of the film, and both seem to take a father-like relationship to the young boy in their charge, I’m not going to call the relationship what it obviously seems to be, because it was probably not intended on the part of the creators.  Let’s just say they’re very Happy.

So, they’re all doing their thing when an earthquake hits.  The Happy Pair call Baby Rider back to shore, so earthquake lake stuff doesn’t end up doing whatever to him.  But then a whirlpool appears in the lake!  And it starts draining!  And Baby Rider starts getting sucked in!  But luckily, the Happy Pair brought their grappling hook to the picnic.  You know, as is traditional.  So they grapple hook Baby Rider in, and watch as the lake drains completely into a new crack underneath.  Then they’re like ‘huh, that was weird.’ and then they go home, to the Happy Scientist’s lab.  

Early Impressions on Yakuza: Like a Dragon

If you’ve been reading this blog, you probably know by now that I’m a big Yakuza mark.  Love the games.  I love the deep social conspiracies, I love the badass manly drama, I love the big dumb crazy sidequests, I love the action, I love the tone shifts, I love the gameplay, I love the world, etc.  A new Yakuza game came out a few weeks ago.  And it reflects a big shift for the series.  So much so that the localized version completely removes the sequel number from the title, opting to be released as Yakuza: Like a Dragon rather than having it a proper Ryu ga Gotoku 7 as it’s called in Japan.  Yakuza 6 provided a soft end to the saga of Kazuma Kiryu, meaning this game introduces a new lead character for the series and with it a whole new story thread.  And the gameplay’s been changed up so significantly it’s not even in the same genre as the rest of the series anymore.  

Well, with such a monumental step for one of my favorite series, I felt it only right that I give my esteemed judgement on how well they did.  Because who else understands and appreciates this series more deeply than I do?  Nobody I know, that’s for sure.  My word on this is pretty much the bottom line.  I play through these games pretty slow, though, take my time, explore every inch of it until I am satisfied, so if you want the full review, that’s going to be a while off.  But here’s my impressions of this new Yakuza not-7 from my playtime so far.  

With Kazuma Kiryu out of the main event picture, Yakuza: Like a Dragon has us in the shoes of new series protagonist Ichiban Kasuga and his hair.  I like Kasuga.  Not so much his hair.  For the most part, the Yakuza series has been really reliably good with the characterization, writing, and design of their player characters, and Ichiban Kasuga is no different.  He’s got a heart of gold and an ass of dumb, and he’s very outgoing, kind, and earnest, and seems not to let setbacks bring him down.  He’s a very likeable character, and with the depth and development they gave him, particularly in the early stages, it’s clear how a lot of facets of his personality developed.  Kasuga doesn’t always make the most sensible decisions, but I found myself really understanding him and his thought process in the decisions he was choosing to make, which is something that’s really not easy to establish with a fictional character.  And for as charmingly dumb as he is, Kasuga has a great gift for insight, and it’s a really common plot factor wherein someone is acting brusque and off-putting in an attempt to hide their intentions but he’s able to understand what’s really going on with them.  

 With the developers seemingly intending Kasuga to take Kiryu’s place as the game lead for future titles, it’s really interesting both how many parallels he has to Kiryu as well as the very clear ways they approach things differently.  The basic backstory is the same for both men.  In order to protect someone they considered family, they took the blame for a murder they didn’t commit and spent long years in prison, only to find out on release that the person they sacrificed huge chunks of their lives for changed drastically in the time they were gone and now act very much against the values and yakuza family they once held dear.  Both believe very strongly in the romantic ideal of the yakuza, and that forms the basis of a plot-long struggle against the reality that these are organized criminal who do horrible things to innocent people for personal gain.  Kiryu’s back is tattooed with a dragon, while Kasuga is emblazoned with a dragonfish.  Both model themselves after father figures who are in deep with yakuza leadership, and admire the high ethics and nobility they display in their roles.  Their backstories are very similar.  Yet their approaches from there are very different.  Kiryu, through his building of alliances and his just being harder than everyone else was very effective as a yakuza.  Kasuga was a horrible yakuza, being too nice to earn much.  Kiryu was very well-respected before his fall from grace and infamous and reviled afterwards.  Kasuga was unpopular among his fellow yakuza beforehand, and utterly forgotten afterwards.  Kiryu was stoic and reserved.  Kasuga is expressive and a giant dork.  Kiryu’s largely self made, whereas Kasuga relies on the assistance of others.  Kiryu made things go right by having a highly developed moral code and being strong enough to crush whatever goes against it.  Kasuga, at least so far, makes things go right by using his background to understand others and taking bold action to bring them around to his point of view.  Kiryu was laser-focused, whereas Kasuga rolls with changes and takes a more short-term mindset. It’s starting out with the basics of a similar story, but their divergent personalities end up making them approach it in very different ways.