Tag: dungeons & dragons

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Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness Movie Review

Dungeons & Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness is the D&D Players Movie.  The movie producers no longer cared about pleasing the masses and focused on their core audience. After all, after the failure first & second movies who else was there to appeal too? This movie is not in any way connected to it’s predecessors (aside from the number). And that is something to celebrate, the fact that someone must have said “It’s Dungeon’s and Dragons! Just make the movie like the game.” And it is. So if you play D&D you’ll probably be super into it Book of Vile Darkness.  However, those who don’t are less likely to appreciate the fan service and more likely to notice the low budget!

Book of Vile Darkness review (1)

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Pg 83: Parental Guidance

This Week in Epic Fail: Martin continues his story with parental guidance from Tinuvielle.

Creator’s Commentary: You can find an uncensored version of this page here.

I’m a real fan of the unreliable narrator. Not only does it allow for great comedy it also allows me to tell Dungeons and Dragons stories without ‘spoiling’ the scenario for anyone. Sure, you may find some things familiar but they aren’t going to help your characters against those great big Demons!

Incidentally I do try to keep the comic PG because whilst I personally don’t have a problem with nudity I respect that others do.

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Blog D&D Funny/Cool

Siri runs a Dungeons & Dragons game

Okay this is hilarious and I had to share it. What happens when Siri runs a D&D game? It turns out Siri is the worst GM ever!

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Blog D&D Funny/Cool

New Baldur’s Gate Sequel? Raise Dead!

There has been a great deal of excitement on the rumor-mill concerning a new Baldur’s Gate Website that has popped up at www.baldursgate.com and whether this heralds the release of a new Baldur’s Gate game. At the moment the website shows a ‘teaser’ with the Baldur’s Gate Skull emblem, character portraits tiling the background and the Baldur’s Gate theme playing in the background making our geeky hearts swell with nostalgia. Aside from this there is only the quote:

“The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny, chaos will be sown by their passage.”

So sayeth the wise Alaundo.

The tiled character portraits fairly standard layout which gaming companies use as teasers for sequels – harking back to the games past. So should we get excited yet?

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Blog Webcomic Interviews Webcomics

Phineus: Magician for Hire Interview – Part 1

Barry Linck creator of the webcomic Phineus: Magician for Hire takes the hot seat…

Q1: What is ‘Phineus: Magician For Hire’ about?

A1: Phineus is a fantasy/horror/sci fi comic, published on the web, about a paranormal investigations team.

Phin and Sara Beam make up the Beam Agency. The married couple solve all manners of supernatural problems, from vampires and werewolves, to evil garden gnomes, zombies, Elder Things and evil sentient eyeballs bent on world domination.

Phineus is a wizard. A magic Adept, who can cast spells and do magic. Sara is a gun-toting, butt-kicking archeologist and former superhero. Together they protect the world from all the things that go bump in the night.

Q2: Phineus and Sara may be married but they seem like they’re from different world – How did these two get together?

A2: Well, they are from very different worlds, but the same as well.

In the Phineus universe, certain people are what I call “Freak Magnets”. Certain people are genetically destined to run into the paranormal or supernatural. These two are Freak Magnets.

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Blog Movie Reviews Movies/Film

Movie Review: Mazes & Monsters

This is a 1980’s made-for-tv movie and fulfills all the expectations that come with that description, namely poor quality scripting, acting and special effects. It stars a young Tom Hanks and notably contains footage of the World Trade Center. Based on the novel by the same name Mazes & Monsters is interesting mainly because of it’s social context. During it’s heyday role-play gaming was a much maligned hobby purported to be a form of satanism and blaimed for criminal activities, mental illness and suicides. Players were persecuted, ostricised and anti-D&D groups established to try and ban the game. It’s hard to imagine nowadays that a harmless game of make-believe could provoke such a reaction, but these attitudes were widespread and some still persist to this day. I remember as late as the 1990’s being forbidden from buying a D&D book because it was ‘Devil-worship.’

mazes and monsters - Tom Hanks goes bat shit crazy!

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Blog Movie Reviews

Movie Review: The Gamers 2 – Dorkness Rising

A Sequel to The Gamers, Dorkness Rising is even better, like the first with all it’s rough edges smoothed off. From the first few seconds Dorkness Rising gleams with professionalism – it’s still an Indie production, for sure, but Dead Gentleman Productions have teamed up with Epic Level Entertainment to produce something to easily rival a cinematic release.

Still from The Gamers 2 - Dorkness Rising, Flyyn's 2nd death

Dorkness Rising uses the same style of storytelling established in the first, switching between in-game and out-of-game perspectives to great comic effect, but this time with a different group of gamers. The plot is entirely separate from it’s predecessor so there is no requirement to watch The Gamers first. A couple of characters recur: Lodge, played by Nathan Rice, is now the DM and originally played Newmoon. Mark (the Red) also makes a cameo appearance. (Hooray!)

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Blog Movie Reviews

Movie Review: The Gamers

The Gamers is an Independently produced comedy by Dead Gentleman Productions, and focuses on a group of student role-play gamers (I can confidently say they are playing Dungeons & Dragons – I recognise the books). It fully embraces the concept of this being a game and interchanges between the game-world and the real-world, which adds much of its humour. The Gamers succeeds in accurately showing what the experience of gaming is like: to the outside viewer just a bunch of nerds sitting around a table, but once you enter that imaginative world you see it is much more, and a ton of fun!

Role-players sitting around a table from the movie The Gamers

The Movie is very much carried by its humour, the plot itself isn’t very robust being a basic defeat the villain, rescue the Princess cliché but nonetheless serves as a good vehicle. Likewise the characters are very stereotypical but that’s okay because it’s what the movie is making fun of.

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Blog Movie Reviews

Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons 2 – Wrath of the Dragon God

After the atrocity of Dungeons & Dragons the Movie it’s doubtful whether any sequel ever had lower expectations than this. Fortunately things could only get better. Wrath of the Dragon God could not be more different from its predecessor, and it’s gratifying to see criticism being used constructively.

Mages casting spells

Set in Ismer a century on the city is unrecognisable, but Damodar, the blue-lipped henchman (minus the blue lips) and only recurring character (played by Bruce Payne), plans to destroy it. It seems Jeremy Irons cursed him with undeath (justification for blue lips if ever I heard one) so Damodar, seeking revenge, locks him in a room with the first movie playing on a continual loop recovers the magical Orb of Thingamabob to awaken the sleeping Dragon God.

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Dungeons & Dragons is a Piece of Cake

Dungeons & Dragons is a piece of cake so long as the Dragon you’re slaying is made out of cake then an ordinary kitchen knife will do the job!

But, seriously, when Mike’s Amazing Cakes created this Birthday Cake of a Red Dragon clutching a D20 they created a work of art. And that’s a battle map it’s sitting on, by Jove! Y’know I think if someone brought this to one of our gaming sessions we’d have to do a special dungeon-run versus an Ancient Red. There you go guys, if you’re getting fed up* with the current campaign and fancy a big challenge to gain heaps of XP and go up that next level – you know what to do!
Red Dragon CakeYou can find more pictures of this beautiful monstrosity on FLICKR including it’s death and devourment. But this is not the only D&D themed cake made for, and in some cases by, rabid fans. Oh dear me, no. You might even say the best is yet to come!

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