Talking About Dust Devils by Matt Snyder

I got a copy of the recent Indie Bundle from the Bundle of Holding. As I've waded through them, a couple of games have popped out at me. One of them was Dust Devils from Matt Snyder. As someone who grew up in the 70s and 80s, I do love Western movies. Between my father having been a fan of them from when he was a kid (back in the movie serial days), and the surge of Spaghetti Westerns during my formative years, escaping an interest in them would have been hard. This is why Dust Devils caught my eye.

A Jon Hodgson cover didn't hurt with catching my eye. With all of the complaining about D&D covers right now in gaming circles, I would like to think that this evocative cover is something that we can all agree upon.

For me, Dust Devils comes across as a reworking of the "Devil And The Bluesman" trope, redone for the Western genre. And, really, it fits well. But there's not a huge amount of difference between the early cowboy music and the Blues, they approached a lot of the same topics coming at them from different angles of entry. The difference is that the  Devil chasing down your Dust Devils character is metaphorical. Or is it? One of the nice things about gaming is that things can be as literal, or as metaphorical as you want. With the game as written, the Devil represents those things about your character's personality or psyche that drives them to do the bad things that they do. This is at the heart of good story telling, having a difficulty that your character has to overcome. Too many games want to make it easy on characters, but I think that the mark of a hero is someone who knows their shortcomings, realizes that they may be too much for them, but still struggles against them. They might not always win, but that doesn't make them less heroic for the trying. This is a valuable life lesson that years of Marvel Comics has taught.

I do think that there is a danger in overwriting the past exploits of the character, between the Devil and the Past of the character. My idea of a character is that is should be allowed to breathe in the current, during play, and that there can be a tendency to throttle that with too much back story from some players. Having a lot of big things in the past can undermine the play of the present, so for me this would be something to watch out for during character creation.

Now, this game isn't going to be for everyone. I'm really not interested in the whole "is it an RPG" territory. It is a storygame and it is one of those games where everyone shares control of the growth and direction of the story. Some people don't like that. A lot of the stuff in the section on conflicts is fairly standard RPG stuff, however, and most gamers (regardless of the types of games that they play) should be able to understand the underlying logic of how things work. The character creation and resolution systems do remind me a bit of the old Hubris Games' Story Engine (now published by Precis Intermedia). The explanation of Devils and how they are used in play remind me a bit about that game, but I could be wrong and it could be an old-fashioned case of parallel development. The main difference is that Dust Devils uses playing cards for it's determination.

Having an explanation of the different poker hands is "handy," because I know a lot of gamers who have never played poker...and having a table to point them towards would be much easier than having to explain it to them. It would even make a handy cheat sheet at the table.

I also like the fact that in Dust Devils stories have an end to them. As I get older, I become lest interested in games that last for years and years, or have no ending in sight. I am becoming more interested in stories with a beginning, middle and (hopefully) an end. Or at least some semblance of these things.

The game also has a lot of good advice for players and narrators. You get a good idea of what you are supposed to be doing with this game. That is something that I like. You also get some interesting worked examples of how to play this game in non-Western situations. Of course one of those examples is about samurai. That's another good thing.

Overall reading Dust Devils did what I think that a good game should do. It made me want to play it. I'm not sure when or how I will get a chance, but this is definitely on my gaming to-do list now.

Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. Partners With Dynamite Entertainment On Mars

I can say that I didn't see this coming. Considering that not long ago the Burroughs estate was saying that Dynamite's comics were "pornography." Good for Dynamite, but I think that these characters shouldn't be controlled by some company that has nothing to do with the creator. Our copyright laws were created with Public Domain for a reason.

Here's the press release from Dynamite:


(May 19th, 2014 - Tarzana, CA & Mt. Laurel, NJ) - Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., the company founded by the author to protect and maintain his literary creations, and one of the comics industry's leaders, Publisher Dynamite Entertainment, announced today a comprehensive agreement that will see the return of Burroughs' original "John Carter: Warlord of Mars" to the pages of comic books, comic strips and graphic novels.  The agreement allows for the world-wide publication of the John Carter universe as well as "Lord of the Jungle" and ERB's library of archival material.

The initiative comes on the heels of the reacquisition of comic book rights by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. that had been held by Walt Disney Pictures and its Marvel Entertainment subsidiary, as well as a recent legal settlement with Dynamite that cleared the way for Dynamite to introduce key characters and plot elements from the John Carter backstory that were, until now, absent from recent comic book interpretations.

"It was important to us that we reacquire the comic book and comic strip rights from Marvel Entertainment so we could reintroduce them in the market place.  We're excited to see the exploits of Edgar Rice Burroughs' first science fiction adventure hero brought to life in their fullness by the passionate creative talents assembled by the folks at Dynamite," said James Sullos, President of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. "They're true fans - and it shows on every page and in every idea they've shared with us.  Now fans everywhere will be able to appreciate the original adventure stories that later spawned Flash Gordon, Superman, Star Wars and Avatar."

"Working together with Jim and the team at ERB, we will be taking the worlds of John Carter and The Lord of the Jungle publishing initiatives to a new level.  There's a rich history, and an incredible amount of archival material in the ERB library, and we're looking forward to bringing it to the fans around the world.  This is the beginning of a great relationship." states Nick Barrucci, CEO and Publisher of Dynamite Entertainment. "I can't express how happy and excited everyone at Dynamite is to be working hand in hand with everyone at ERB, Inc".

John Carter debuted in 1912 as the lead character in Edgar Rice Burroughs' first novel, serialized as Under the Moons of Mars in the pulp magazine, The All-Story, and later published as a complete novel retitled A Princess of Mars.  The character excited the imagination of readers and quickly imprinted onto the public psyche. As many literary and popular culture scholars attest, John Carter served as the template for a litany of adventure heroes to follow, from Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Superman to the Jedi knights of Star Wars fame and most recently, Avatar.

In planning for a late 2014 relaunch, Dynamite Entertainment confirmed that the new comic book series will be titled John Carter: Warlord of Mars.  Dynamite will also republish other John Carter assets, going back as far as the early 1940s comic strips by John Coleman Burroughs, the son of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  
In a related development, new John Carter: Warlord of Mars "adventure strip" episodes will make their online debut in early summer as part of the Edgar Rice Burroughs Digital Comic Strip Service at www.edgarriceburroughs.com/comics.  Written by the legendary Roy Thomas, with art by Pegaso (Rodolfo Perez Garcia) of Mexico City, this series will invite readers to accompany John Carter and his compatriots on exciting adventures that delve into the rich, storied history of Barsoom (as the inhabitants of Mars refer to their planet).  As with the other nine series featured on the site, including Tarzan and Carson of Venus, the first four episodes of John Carter: Warlord of Mars will be viewable at no charge.

About Dynamite Entertainment
Dynamite was founded in 2004 and is home to several best-selling comic book titles and properties, including The Boys, The Shadow, Vampirella, Bionic Man, A Game of Thrones, and more. Dynamite owns and controls an extensive library with over 3,000 characters (which includes the Harris Comics and Chaos Comics properties), such as Vampirella, Pantha, Evil Ernie, Smiley the Psychotic Button, Chastity, Purgatori, and Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt. In addition to their critically-acclaimed titles and bestselling comics, Dynamite works with some of the most high profile creators in comics and entertainment, including Kevin Smith, Alex Ross, Neil Gaiman, Andy Diggle, John Cassaday, Garth Ennis, Jae Lee, Marc Guggenheim, Mike Carey, Jim Krueger, Greg Pak, Brett Matthews, Matt Wagner, Gail Simone, Steve Niles, James Robinson, and a host of up-and-coming new talent. Dynamite is consistently ranked in the upper tiers of comic book publishers and several of their titles - including Alex Ross and Jim Krueger's Project Superpowers - have debuted in the Top Ten lists produced by Diamond Comics Distributors. In 2005, Diamond awarded the company a GEM award for Best New Publisher and another GEM in 2006 for Comics Publisher of the Year (under 5%) and again in 2011. The company has also been nominated for and won several industry awards, including the prestigious Harvey and Eisner Awards.

About Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc.
Founded in 1923 by Edgar Rice Burroughs himself, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. holds numerous trademarks and the rights to all literary works of the author still protected by copyright. The company has overseen every adaptation of his literary works in publishing, film, television, theatrical stage productions, licensing and merchandising.  The company is still a very active enterprise and manages and licenses the vast archive of Mr. Burroughs' literary works, fictional characters and corresponding artworks that have grown for over a century.  The company continues to be owned by the Burroughs' family and remains headquartered in Tarzana, California, the town named after the Tarzana Ranch Mr. Burroughs purchased there in 1918 which led to the town's future development.  For more information, please visit EdgarRiceBurroughs.com.

Crowdfunding - Help A Blogger Get To GenCon

If you look to the top right side of this blog you'll see a link to a Fundrazr campaign page. The idea for this is to help fund my going to Gen Con this year (along with other incidental expenses of the blog, like our podcast hosting). Air fare isn't cheap, travelling from the South to the Midwest, particularly when there's a convention going on.

For over 10 years now, the Dorkland! blog has provided news, information and free gaming content without ads or any sort of monetization of the blog. I have also been unemployed for a while now, making these things even more difficult. I know, some will say that being unemployed is a good reason to not go to GenCon, but it makes for a great opportunity for blogging and for freelancing. In addition, as a writer for Bleeding Cool now, I can bring a much wider audience to the new games, news and happenings at GenCon. However, that takes money.

If you have enjoyed any of the free gaming content that I have put up over the years, or if you have received useful information or news over the years, please consider putting some money into the Fundrazor campaign jar. The sooner that the money is raised, the sooner I can stop talking about it here and around the internet.

There are some perks to the campaign, for gamers and publishers who wish to donate a little more money. If you're a publisher, you can get sponsorship of a blog post here at the blog or you can sponsor an episode of the Geeky Voices Carry podcast. What does this mean, exactly? Well, with the podcast it means that we mention your company and/or product at the beginning and end of an episode of our podcast. We will also mention weblinks. It would be something to the effect of "This episode of Geeky Voices Carry is brought to you by..." Sort of like the old soap operas. Sponsorship of a blog post would mean a footer to the post with a reasonably sized image and a link to your site, or perhaps your OneBookShelf pages. Both of these are open for negotiation. Sponsorship mentions will also be included on the YouTube page for the live recording and in the podcast's description. Further details can be worked out, if you want to contact me via the blog.

For gamers, getting one of the perks means that I will run a game for you at GenCon using one of the systems that I have blogged about (either Fate Accelerated or Swords & Wizardry) for you and up to four of your friends.  For the Fate Accelerated game, you can pick one of the mini-settings that I have written about on the blog, while the Swords & Wizardry game will be up to me. It could be a classic adventure reworked for Swords & Wizardry, or it could be something new just for this game. In either case there will also be pictures taken and a blog post made about the game.

I know that gamers like to help out, it isn't something that I am as good about asking for, but I would appreciate any help that I can get. If you can, also please consider spreading this request around the internet. I can use all the help that I can get.

Thanks in advance!

Summer Game Convention Returns to Milwaukee

Nexus Game Fair Event Registration Begins May 12th, 8:00pm CST

MILWAUKEE, WI – This Sunday is Mother’s Day and Nexus Game Fair is encouraging everyone to spend the day showing their love, respect and appreciation for all mothers. But on Monday, May 12th, Nexus wants you back thinking about summer convention gaming, and to be ready for the start of Event Registration!

Nexus Game Fair has over 400 individual events on their schedule, with a great variety of events spanning across the entire show. From role-playing games to miniatures and collectible card games to board games, there is certain to be something for everyone to enjoy. All events at Nexus are free, once you have registered for a badge, and there will even be tournaments for Magic the Gathering and Netrunner that offer great prizes!

Nexus Game Fair has an impressive list of industry special guests attending, who will be hosting panels and special events throughout the show. The complete list includes:

• Jolly Blackburn (Knights of the Dinner Table)
• Mike Carr (Dawn Patrol)
• Chris Clark (Inner City Games Designs)
• Dave “Zeb” Cook (Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition)
• Jeff Easley (Staff Artist, TSR, Inc.)
• Todd Fisher (Revolution & Empire)
• Matt Forbeck (Deadlands)
• Kenneth Hite (Trail of Cthulhu)
• Tim Kask (Dragon Magazine)
• Dave Kenzer (Hackmaster)
• James Lowder (Author, Prince of Lies)
• Matt McElroy (Drive Thru RPG)
• Frank Mentzer (Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set)
• Merle Rasmussen (Top Secret)
• Lester Smith (Dark Conspiracy)
• Monica Valentinelli (Firefly RPG)
• James M. Ward (Gamma World)
• Rob Wieland (Line Developer, Firefly RPG)
• Skip Williams (Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition)

Nexus Game Fair will be hosting a massive board games library, which consists of nearly 1,100 unique titles. The library, free to attendees, is being provided and run by the Milwaukee Company of Gamers (MilCoG), an association of gamers located throughout Wisconsin and northern Illinois.

“We’re excited to bring summer convention gaming back to Milwaukee,” says Event Manager Harold Johnson, the former director of Gen Con in Milwaukee. “It’s been 12 years since Gen Con left the city and Milwaukee is eager to become a summer destination for gamers once again.”

Nexus Game Fair runs Thursday, June 19th, through Sunday, June 22nd. A 4-day badge for the convention is $45, and the convention hotel, the Clarion Hotel & Conference Center, is offering a special rate of $99 per night for show attendees. Only a few rooms remain, so be sure to make your reservation soon!

For more information and to register for the show, please visit http://www.nexusgamefair.com.

The Secrets Behind The Naming Of The Fantasy Trip RPG

One of the cool things about being a blogger is that you get to take part in interesting conversations, and when you ask odd questions of people they take you seriously. Yesterday, over at Google+ James Maliszewski asked if anyone knew how the early Steve Jackson game The Fantasy Trip got named (I would link to the discussion, but it was a private one, so you'll have to settle for this). The conversation ensued, and no one really knew, but there was a lot of speculation about it having to do with drugs. I figured the easy thing to do was ask the man himself. A few emails and hours later, and a response from Steve Jackson was in my email inbox.

You know how hard it is to come up with an interesting and original fantasy game name now? It was hard even back then.

I don't know whose idea that name was; all I remember of the discussion was that everyone agreed that it would not be two alliterative words separated by "and."  I'm sure it was not intended as a drug reference.

[W]hile I have always been good with the name, I'm pretty sure it was not my own idea - it just doesn't "sound" like me.

So there we have it. The complete answer is unfortunately lost, but enough is still remembered to be useful. Will that stop some from still asserting that the title was a drug reference? Probably not.

The Thundering Skies Saga Press Release

“Thundering Skies Saga” Marks Major Turning Point in “Shaintar – Change the Game” Initiative


Toney, Alabama, US - April 21, 2014 – The Shaintar: Justice and Life globally shared tabletop RPG campaign takes the next big step in the stated effort to “Change the Game” with a new, campaign-wide event called The Thundering Skies Saga.


“When we launched this last year,” says Shaintar creator and Evil Beagle Games publisher, Sean Patrick Fannon, “we set out to change how everyone sees the concept of a truly shared – living, if you will – roleplaying game campaign. We've been working hard for months now to put all the pieces into play, and now we can point at something huge, something transformative, and something that is truly working to show we're succeeding.”


Shaintar, an epic high fantasy setting for the exceedingly popular Savage Worlds rules system, is supported by a core web presence (shaintar.com), where content created by Sean and by all the participants in the Justice and Life experience is shared openly and equally as canonical content. As well, all of the Shaintar campaigns are live in their own section on the award-winning Obsidian Portal campaign management site.


“Thundering Skies represents a next step for this idea, as does the newly-launched shared Calendar of Events on the Shaintar site. Now all the Game Masters, across the globe – and we have people on more than one continent involved here – are implementing the campaign-wide event, with the weather changes and the scenario elements active in every game. As well, we're running official events at three conventions; the first set already happened at ConGlomeration in Louisville, the next one is at ConCoction in Cleveland at the end of May, and the finale happens at AndoCon in Atlanta in June.”


Sean maintains that this is still just the tip of the iceberg. “I have so many incredible volunteers worldwide, and the fans are really driving this. We're not huge, and that's OK. That may come in time, but for now, we have a ton of people all helping to change the way gaming can happen at the table, online, and at conventions around the world as one truly shared experience, where each character's story and each GM's campaign has real and canonical significance to the official, published setting.”


Sean Patrick Fannon is the sole creator-owner of the Shaintar property; he shares the Evil Beagle Games DBA with Carinn Seabolt, and DriveThruRPG is the sole distributor of their products.

Out Of Office Message

Just a quick notice that I will be away from April 23rd until April 26th. If you have pressing new, contact +Josh Thompson through his G+ profile or his Twitter account @JoshakaPlacide. Anything that isn't pressing/breaking news, or already in the pipeline, we will get to you next week.

Thanks!

RPG Campaigns: Beginnings And Endings

Two of the hardest things for an RPG campaign are the beginning and the ending. Like a popular television show that has lost its spark, a campaign will sometimes just limp along lifelessly until people just stop showing up and it dies a lingering death. Letting go of a campaign is a hard thing, but sometimes...just sometimes, it has to be done.

One thing that I have come to terms with as a GM in the last few years is the idea that the open ended, potentially endless role-playing campaign isn't something that I am much interested in being involved with any more. I like the idea of a campaign that has a beginning, middle and endpoint to it. I think that it can make for more interesting campaign stories and character development. I know that this isn't the standard for how a lot of people campaign, but I think it is one of those things that puts a bar to the entry into the hobby. Meeting 5-8 hours weekly for an indefinite amount of time just isn't feasible for many people these days.

Pasts, Personas & Prophecies Kickstarter

If what you're looking for is an RPG with a rules light system then you might be interested in Sly Fox Games' new RPG: Pasts, Personas & Prophecies that has a Kickstarter currently running (and with just under two weeks left to go).

What's Pasts, Personas & Prophecies (AKA P3) about? Well, it seems to be focused on a story driven game experience with quick character creation and rules designed to flow with play. It also seems to be fairly light on the setting. From the art it seems to be focused on fantasy, with one of the touted features being a very flexible and creative magic system. One other feature is the 'prophecy' system which allows a character to undergo a 'semi-random' story arc that is rolled up, chosen, and created by the group (or, at least a few people within the group at a time). These prophecies can have a positive or negative effect on the character, though. Just hope you don't lose all your money.

Speaking of money, (segue!) how much would all this prophecy and rules light gaming cost? To get your reader on the PDF will set you back US$20. And a physical copy at US$30-33 (free shipping within US, US$12 additional outside), that also includes the PDF. Basically, if you want the book you likely want the physical copy (unless you live outside the US). There are a variety of other rewards up for grabs, too, like creating characters or NPCs, or joining in a game with the developer, Hunter Fox.

Now for the burning question: how is the project's Kickstarter? For the most part, not bad. The layout is nice, there are plenty of images, videos and information about the game (you do need to go through all of it to get the full picture, though). For the things that I didn't quite like we can start with the main Kickstarter video. This video is quite long, the 'background' music is a bit too loud and distracting, and the attempted humor, while I did get what he was going for, might be a bit of a turn-off for some potential backers. There really is a decent bit of information in that video, but it would have been much better if it were a little more serious, straightforward and short. Another part that I didn't quite care for were some of the pledge tiers -- there are several that seem rather pointless and just thrown-in for the sake of more tiers. Also, the price of the PDFs being so close to the physical copy is  a bit of a turn-off from the PDFs -- if it was cheaper it might draw in more impulse pledges. Lastly, while I did like the amount of information it was too spread out and required too much time to go through it all to get a solid grasp on what the game is about. And, really, a game being light on rules or mechanics, with fast, flowing combat and creative magic is not something all that uncommon or unusual these days -- this project really needs to show how it does those things, why its different from the rest and present this information succinctly.

If you are interested in Pasts, Personas & Prophecies be sure to check out its Kickstarter page and/or Sly Fox Games' website.

Dorkland Interview -- The Dangers of Daggermore with Hal Burdick

The Dangers of Daggermore Kickstarter is in its final stretch with just a few days left to go. Hal Burdick, the man behind the project, took some time to sit down with us here at Dorkland! for a short interview on the film, Kickstarter and RPGs.

Dorkland!: How has the Kickstarter project been for you and what, particularly, have you learned from this experience that you feel might help in future projects?

Hal Burdick: I’m reasonably happy with this Kickstarter project. The gaming community is a great one. The community has a lot of passion, a lot of loyalty, and is willing to support new projects. I once read that 33% of all funded Kickstarter projects were game related. I’m just happy that this community was willing to support the making of The Dangers of Daggermore, which is game inspired, but not really a game project.

DL: What kind of setup are you using to film The Dangers of Daggermore?

HB: Kersey Valley Spooky Woods is a haunted attraction near Greensboro, NC. The sets there are ideal for shooting The Dangers of Daggermore. Much of the haunted attraction features dungeon corridors, sewers, and dark alleyways. If they only had a tavern with a sign hanging outside reading “The Affable Adventurer,” it would be a one stop shop for shooting the entire webseries. 

DL: What types of special effects and props will be used, if any? Also, what's your personal favorite special effect or prop and why?

HB: Victoria Singleton has made some great costumes as you can see in the test footage. We got our cool looking weapons from Medieval Collectibles. Joh Harp is the art director of Spooky Woods and does special effects for us. He’s done the special effects for movies like Bombshell Bloodbath; so the effects will have a horror movie feel as well as a fantasy feel with elf’s ears and the regenerating troll monster we plan on having the adventurers fight.

DL: What are the inspirations behind The Dangers of Daggermore? Any particular RPG settings?

HB: Jon Carpenter’s The Thing was a film I ran a few adventurers about in my younger days. The Thing is a doppleganger in that movie, but it had a lot of features of a regenerating troll as well. There’s a classic scene where a head separates itself from its body,  pulls itself along by its tongue, sprouts its own legs, and starts walking across the floor like a spider. Sounds close enough to a regenerating troll to me. We’re paying homage to that with the monster the adventurers fight in the pilot.

As for setting, I have a gaming website called World of Atlas which features my home world that I game mastered for 20 years. Daggermore is set on this world. The key feature of the world is that Atlas is a real being holding up the world on his mountain. The campaign started with characters that lived on his mountain who then ventured out on a mission to save the world from Chaos who had come to destroy both Atlas and the world he held up. I’m thinking of making the world open source and OGL so that anyone can create adventures for it. I know I am frustrated by the fact that all the great adventures my friends created for our gaming group upon Greyhawk can’t be published by us or played by anyone else. 

The website also features tools for those who can’t play as much D&D as they’d like anymore due to real life intrusions.  Though I love Skyrim and Lord of the Rings Online, I also love the freedom that adventuring in an unbounded RPG setting gives you. The goal for the site is to create a never ending need for new adventure modules.  I don’t need another gaming system – that’s a solved problem. I want more adventures so that I can create characters that tell their own story through the adventures they have.

DL: Why have such a focus on RPGs and their tropes -- why not focus on fantasy, in-general?

HB: A fantasy film is like sex.  When it’s good, it’s really good.  When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.  I pretty much watch any fantasy film I can get my hands on.  The stuff from Arrowstorm Entertainment, Dead Gentleman productions, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Sword and The Sorcerer, Soloman Kane, Game of Thrones -- The Guild even counts at some level.  There can’t be too many.

That said the ones that have focused on RPGs have either been funny and campy or pretty mediocre.  The three Dungeons and Dragons films had potential and good moments in each, but none of them brought out the paranoid claustrophobic fear that I think adventuring in a dungeon would bring.  The best movie for this is actually an offbeat horror film called The Descent.  It’s about a group of female spelunkers that encounter ghouls in the uncharted caves they were exploring.  Good stuff.  They just needed to be in armor, leathers, or robes covered in moons and stars complete with a pointy floppy hat.

DL: What will fans of RPGs find particularly interesting in The Dangers of Daggermore?

HB: Hopefully, the old school tradition of it. My first gaming experience happened when there was little more than Space Invaders in the video arcades. The drip of water from ceilings, the listening at a wooden door set in the wall of a long stone corridor, the anticipation of the monster growling behind it, all stimulated distinct images in my mind as I played. Now, I’m just trying to recreate my mind’s eye for others to partake in the same experience that so captivated my imagination in those early days.

DL: What will there be in the film for film buffs, especially if they have little to no experience with RPGs?

HB: The Dangers of Daggermore is not intended for art-house aficionados, nor as a primer for learning how to play the game. Our intended audience is gamers and lovers of fantasy and horror films. We’re using the conventions of the genres to bring the game to life. Intense situations, misdirection, lightning quick decision making, and monsters that threaten more than just your life. As I tell the others, this is not a film looking to bring the character side out of D&D; this is a film looking to bring the D&D out of the characters. 

DL: Why choose the Knight, Elf and Wizard?

HB: Partially, it’s due to the acting talent available. Gabrielle Boni makes a great elf, Brandon McClean makes a noble knight (though he could have been a bard), and James Filanowski is an actual magician. 

The script was written with these archetypes as the names of the character to highlight the fact that this is a film about exploring a dungeon more than about the characters themselves. That said, the actors have found depth to their characters, motivations for entering such a dangerous place, and ways to incorporate these backgrounds into the actions they take in the face of danger.

There is a little vagueness to these character concepts as well, which enables flexibility to how we tell the story, given the budget we’re able to shoot with. Is Knight a paladin or a fighter? Is Elf a ranger/rogue/ or arcane archer? How high a level is wizard, a prestidigitator or a mage?

DL: Why have a dungeon instead of another typical (or atypical) RPG location?

HB: Lord of the Rings, Eragon, and Conan the Barbarian have all done wilderness adventures well.  Peter Jackson did large underground spaces like Moria or Goblin Town, well. They haven’t done dungeons.  None of the three Dungeons and Dragons movies have done a dungeon either. What do those guys have against dungeons?  I mean, it’s in the title of their movie!

In addition to The Descent, I think Indiana Jones films were good for bringing out aspects of delving into a dungeon. The Well of Souls is the place the characters seek in Daggermore and the name is a nod to Raiders. I bet Spielberg would have loved D&D growing up.

My favorite part of ET when I first saw it was the guys gaming at the kitchen table and ordering pizza. No joke. Spielberg deftly brought out the essence of playing D&D in such a brief scene.  Boy, I wish he’d just go full bore one last time on a D&D film. I’d camp out for that one.

DL: Combat encounters are common in RPGs but so are social encounters. What kind of social aspects, if any, will there be in the film?

HB: The gathering of the party is an interesting aspect of the film. Wizard needs a team to enter Daggermore with him, he’d never survive alone, but none would be foolhardy enough to join him unless they had reasons to enter the dungeon themselves. If we are fortunate enough to expand the film to a webseries then those mysteries will be revealed and the social interactions between the characters will deepen.

DL: Lastly, what is your favorite aspect of The Dangers of Daggermore -- at any stage of the project -- and why? What do you feel really makes this film stand out?

HB: Though it may take a nerd, a geek, or a dork to realize it, dungeons are cool!!!

We here at Dorkland would like to thank Hal for his time and wish him the best with The Dangers of Daggermore. If you would like to know more about the project (or would like to show it some support) be sure to check out its Kickstarter page -- in its last few days!