Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8411086" data-attributes="member: 27780">Polyhedron Issue 72: June 1992part 3/5The Living Galaxy: Roger gives us another column that is basically just a long list of references. It may take a long time to build up that degree of knowledge, but once you have, you can churn this kind of thing out in your sleep. If you're going to do a sci-fi story set on a single world, what kind of plots do you run, and how do you keep them interesting? If you can't go to the aliens, then why not bring the aliens to you, with a good old invasion scenario. Wars between countries can drag on for years, one involving planets could easily take thousands even if one side is clearly superior simply due to the ground you have to cover and time it takes to build up or completely subjugate/exterminate a population. Whole generations can be born and die in the process, gaining or losing ground and making new technological leaps in the search for an edge. Similarly, a planetwide disaster can set the population back centuries even if all the knowledge isn't lost, as well as creating plenty of ruins filled with valuable stuff that can't be made anymore, as should be familiar from D&D settings. Unlike in a fantasy setting, a problem will rarely be solved in a single stroke by a single hero finding or creating a particularly powerful macguffin. Anyway, lots and lots of examples, both RPG & literary. Have fun tracking them down to see what you can learn from each of them. Into the Dark: James decides to give superheroics a spin as this month's theme. There's a genre that has had it's ups and downs over the decades, but the overall trajectory has been upwards, both in terms of special effects, and the creators taking what they're producing seriously instead of churned out drek for kids. Even at the time of writing this, he can safely say that the early 90's are a substantial improvement on the 80's in that respect. Let's hope it continues to be the case, and we won't hit a wall in that progression anytime soon. Spy Smasher is a 12 part serial from 1942, where the titular hero defends the USA from german infiltrators. Consumed as a movie, the need to have cliffhangers precisely every 15 minutes gets a little tedious, but it still holds up better than most things from that era. Might be worth checking out to see how far we've come.Batman may have started the current superhero renaissance, but James still has plenty of criticism for it. It's more a joker film than a batman one, giving the villain more screentime and making them more interesting than the hero. There's clear conflict in the writing between people trying to make something dark & modern and people who preferred the 60's camp, and there's continuity errors as a result of heavy cutting for time. All problems that will appear again in DC films, but I somehow don't see a director's cut of this surfacing 30 years later like the Snyder cut. Darkman is clearly derivative of Batman, but James finds it hangs together better, with Peyton Westlake's dealing with his scarification and need to avoid the light to maintain his disguises far more interesting than Bruce Wayne's rich kid with parental issues angst. Sam Raimi pulls off some typically gonzo camera setups, and both hero & villain chew the scenery quite effectively. Just don't bother with the direct to video sequels, which have neither the budget or the charm. The Punisher sees Dolph Lundgren do his best second-rate ahnold as Frank Castle. The kind of superhero movie that seems embarrassed by it's comic book origins, and the lead never wears the iconic costume, with a bit of yellow peril racism to top things off. It's not surprising the modern MCU version never even did ironic callbacks to this. Blind Fury is essentially Daredevil with the serial numbers filed off, a blind martial artist who fights crime, only without the lawyering parts and catholic guilt. It's not actually that bad, and gives James hope that they might be able to pull off a genuinely good adaption in the future without breaking the bank on special effects. Well, it's a long wait with several false starts, but I think we got there in the end.</blockquote>

Verification