October Country: It's the Little Things

I'm still consolidating the Secret Antiquities material into the Society of Torch, Pole and Rope. This first appeared on October 23rd, 2010.

Standing on line last night for a haunted house attraction, a discussion arose regarding preferences for horror films. It quickly became obvious that, of our group anyway, the preference was on “less is more.” There were no gore aficionados amongst us. I’ve stated on a previous occasion that my favorite horror film is the original The Haunting because all the heavy scare work is done by your own imagination and not CGI or foam latex appliqués.

This morning, I watched The Grudge for the first time. In doing so, I found myself getting caught up in the minutia of the film: the little things that, when placing myself in the same situation, I found more disturbing than all the creepy dead-eyed children and stray follicles. I thought that things like the dropped phone outside the sister’s apartment or the tiny faces tacked to the closet door were much more disturbing because they merely hint that something is amiss.

I touched a little bit on this topic in The Dungeon Alphabet in my entry for “W is for Weird,” but that intended for fantasy genre. Although the October Country does veer into that terrain, it’s more horror & wonder than sword & sorcery. Time for some new entries of high weirdness and subtle terror. So, with that in mind, here are a dozen little things that would make me pause if my PC came across them during the course of an adventure:

1) A tiny spot of blood on a pristine white yet empty crib.
2) A house where all the phone handsets are missing.
3) A desk with a hundred blood-stained staples driven into its service in a seemingly random pattern.
4) A dark basement where the lights don’t work yet the dryer is running. The appliance is thumping as if off-balance and the sound of something heavy banging around inside it is heard.
5) The sound of a radio playing in the middle of an empty field. It seems to be coming from under the ground.
6) A baby book filled with nothing but small locks of delicate hair.
7) A wedding ring half-buried in the sand below the high tide mark on an empty beach.
8) A length of rope tied to a support and leading into a dark hole under a stretch of broken concrete.
9) A bare tree with a half-dozen old fashioned lanterns swinging from its branches.
10) A set of clothes lying discarded next to a still and seemingly empty swimming pool.
11) An open box of razor blades on an immaculate kitchen counter in a silent house.
12) A swarm of flies buzzing around the entrance to a dark doghouse.

Astropia

I’m not a big fan of what passes for “nerd comedy” when it comes to film and television. Part of my aversion for it lies undoubtedly in being self-conscious about the fact that all too often the arrow hits a little closer to home than I’d like to admit when geeks are portrayed on the screen. However, this is not the sole reason for my distaste. When it comes to comedy, I prefer my humor to have a certain craftsmanship, to take the more difficult road rather than go for the easy laugh. This is seldom the case when nerds, geeks, and gamers show up in a comedic film or TV show. Lazy writers slap some Spock or elf ears on a cardboard character, make him or her socially paralyzed when it comes to human interaction, and expect hilarity to ensue. This is even the case when the people being mocked are the very same audience being targeted. The Big Bang Theory, I’m looking at you.

On the other hand, geek comedy can go too far with their reliance on obscure subject matter, making them completely inaccessible to someone who’s never rolled a d20 or can't tell the difference between a Dalek, a Klingon, and a Wookiee. Anyone who has ever watched something like The Gamers with their non-nerdy, but entirely tolerant other half knows exactly what I’m talking about.

However, every so often you come across a film or TV comedy that manages to walk the fine line between both of these extremes. Last night, I was pleasantly surprised to find one of these rare creatures in the 2007 Icelandic film, Astropia.

Astropia, released in the US as Dorks & Damsels (because apparently no American-born geek would ever see a movie like this unless it mocked them and the hobby they enjoy), is the tale of the beautiful and privileged Hildur who, when her rich and exceedingly blonde boyfriend is sent to prison for tax evasion and embezzlement, must get a job to make ends meet. Desperation forces her to accept a job at Atropia, the neighborhood comic, sci-fi, and games store, where she is immediately immersed into a world she has no understanding of—she’s put in charge of the role-playing games section. Although originally hired to increase business, it’s not too long before Hildur finds a place in this alien world.

While not completely free of the various stereotypes one might predict with such a premise, it’s kinder than most, and Hildur’s co-workers are portrayed with greater depth than could be expected in a similar, lazier production. Gamers and comic buffs will enjoy the name-dropping that occurs in the store (Mark Millar, Grant Morrison, and Monte Cook all get mentioned), and it takes a familiarity with the hobby to fully comprehend Hildur’s faux pas of trying to sell a copy of The World of Darkness to a customer looking for The Book of Vile Darkness.

Unlike The Gamers and other films marketed solely to the niche audience, Astropia is not all geek humor. Hildur’s relationship with her standoffish nephew gives the film some pathos, while her boyfriend’s attempts to acclimate to prison life (Note to self: Although cigarettes may be prison currency, the Icelandic equivalent of Virginia Slims have limited value in lock-up) and his ultimate Shawshank Redemption-inspired attempt to escape provide laughs that cross audience boundaries. The film’s final climax where the lines between fantasy and reality blur is satisfying enough and mixes a Leroy Jenkins joke with the dangers of second-hand smoke.

While not a comedic masterpiece destined to survive the ages, Astropia is a pleasant enough diversion, one that can be shared by gaming geeks and their straight-laced friends and family with equal enjoyment. Most satisfying of all, from a gamer perspective, is that the role-playing group Hildur joins, while not completely free of cheap shots, is closer to the reality than most other depictions I’ve seen. There’s not a pair of elf-ears in sight…at least until the DM starts the adventure, anyway. 

Early Conan the Barbarian Review

Marcus Nispel's new "Conan The Barbarian" is the film equivalent of having someone punch you in the face for two straight hours while someone screams in your ear.

Warning: there be spoilers in the review.

You John Carter Fans Are Smoking Dope

So all morning long I'm seeing that everyone in the OSR is having a geek fit over this new John Carter movie. I haven't been following the buzz on it, but after all the OMG!!! posts, I decided to track down the trailer and see it myself.

You all are going to spend your hard-earned cash on this tripe? Bah!

Flying Casual

I am so in the mood to play D6 Star Wars right at this moment. Ah, to relive those last pleasant memories before I completely fell out of love with Star Wars...

OK, back to work.

Dream Casting and Sacred Cows

Now that At the Mountains of Madness is reportedly dead, it won’t be too long before the Hollywood McNugget machine starts looking for their next franchise with a built-in fan base to exploit. I’m honestly glad that Mountains met its demise. While del Toro is a fan of Lovecraft and has the chops to pull off a Mythos film, I remain skeptical that At the Mountains of Madness needs to see a big screen treatment—especially one featuring Tom Cruise. If I want Antarctic horror, I’ll watch The Thing.

Although it’s been popular to say that Hollywood is creatively bankrupt, recent trends do more to support this statement than dismiss it. In tough economic times, the movie industry is looking for sure bets, which often means doing sequels, reboots, or developing properties that have an audience already attached, such as comic books and popular fiction. This is, for fans, often more curse than blessing.

Back during my own time in the Hollywood salt mines, I was involved with a project to develop Michael Moorcock’s Elric saga for a TV miniseries. In retrospect, I’m relieved that that project never saw the light of day. And although Elric, like other properties, is one which constantly drifts through Hollywood in various stages of production, I think the world can grind along without the need to see the White Wolf battling CGI monsters. I’d actually prefer an Elric rock opera before a big screen blockbuster. Nevertheless, the possibility of an Elric movie remains a constant threat.

This speculation led to some intriguing ruminations on my part, mostly because I’m currently revisiting Moorcock’s creation. Taking a page from Grognardia’s Open Friday and Cyclopeatron’s recent revelation that blog readers prefer posts they can say “Me too!” to, I present these two conundrums to my loyal readers: “What genre series/stories would you like to NEVER see adapted into film?” and “If you had to see a movie based on a story or character you didn’t want adapted, who would you accept in that role?”

For the last question, I’ll break the laws of time and space and allow you to choose any actor, person, or personality, living or dead. For example, if I had to see an Elric film, I would love it to star Iggy Pop circa 1975 as the White Wolf.

As for adapted stories, my own answers are both Elric and the Fahfrd and Mouser tales. I can’t even speculate on who I would like to see take on the latter roles in a worst case scenario as I’ve already created the perfect version of the Twain in my own head and no living actor could compete with my own creation.

How about you?

Radioactive Theatre: Cherry 2000

Another selection from the dead PA movie website. This time around it's the Melanie Griffith/Sam Treadwell vehicle, Cherry 2000 (1988). Enjoy!

Cast: David Andrews (Sam Treadwell), Melanie Griffith (E. Johnson), Tim Thomerson (Lester), Pamela Gidley (Cherry 2000)

Setting: 2017. A time when humanity has apparently become stupid and has forgotten how to manufacture certain high-tech equipment.

Violent Mutants Present: No

Plot: When Sam Treadwell’s robotic wife short-circuits, he journeys to lawless Zone Seven in search of the Robotic Graveyard. Assisted by a rough wasteland tracker, he seeks to find a new body for his beloved sex-toy, but a bandit leader has other plans for Cherry 2000’s personality chip.

Rating: 2 Nukes


With a title that sounds like a soft-core porn film, you can hardly watch Cherry 2000 expecting a great film. I first saw this film on Cinemax during my post-adolescent years and remembered it as being a somewhat entertaining film. Then again, I thought Hell Come to Frogtown was pretty good when I saw it in college (Warning: Watching certain films under chemical enhancement can color you perceptions of reality).

The film can be fun, especially if you go into it with no expectations (a trend which Hollywood seems to encourage). It’s hardly Mad Max, but keep an eye open for some familiar faces and learn to roll with the ridiculous.

The plot involves uptight, mid-management stooge Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), a man who loses his wife/sex-toy Cherry 2000 (Pamela Gidley) to an electrical accident involving a wet kitchen floor and some over-active hormones. When he learns he cannot get a new body to reinstall Cherry’s personality chip and “resurrect” his beloved robot, he journeys to the lawless zones in search of a replacement. Along the way, he teams up with a hard-as-nails tracker named E. Johnson (Melanie Griffith) and runs afoul of a wasteland despot named Lester (Tim Thomerson). I won’t ruin the ending, but I’m sure you can figure it out on your own.

If there’s any reason to rent this film, it’s Tim Thomerson. Many folks will recognize Thomerson from the Trancers series, Dollman, and about a hundred other B-movies. Thomerson can be hysterical as Lester. He rules his band of wasteland outlaws as a cross between a maniacal despot and a 1960’s sit-com dad. Dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and white fedora, Lester entertains his troops and unwitting guests in a potluck barbecue setting. His hideout looks like post-apocalyptic swingers' resort. Thomerson is just too much fun to watch.

Griffith, while being baby-doll cute, is just not believable as the hardened wasteland tracker. Her breathy, little girl voice counteracts any of her attempts to get the audience to accept her as a tough and rowdy desert rat. Andrews’ role as Treadwell almost makes you think that the movie might have been better if another actor played the lovesick corporate pawn. Maybe Steve Guttenberg, perhaps? Two other actors in this film deserve brief recognition. The first is Brion James (Bladerunner, Steel Dawn) as another tracker who Treadwell attempts to recruit. James is always fun to watch. If I were ever going to make a movie involving wrestling, James would be on my A-list to play the film’s heavy. The second actor is…Lawrence Fishburne. Yes, Cherry 2000 is pre-Othello. Keep an eye out for Fishburne’s brief appearance. First one to spot him is Lord of the Wasteland for the night.

Cherry 2000 Pros:

1) E. Johnson’s Ford. They don’t make cars like that anymore. Even if you’re not a gear-head, you’ll still want one for yourself.
2) Tim Thomerson. Tim Thomerson. Tim Thomerson.

Cons:

1) As Joe Bob Briggs would say, “Gratuitous Rocket Launcher Fu”. Not only does every other bandit seem to have one, but they all went to the Imperial Stormtrooper Training Academy and Firing Range to learn how to aim them.
2) The dramatic crossing the river scene. We’re supposed to believe that she does this EVERY time she wants to cross the friggin’ river?

Snake + Gator = Dog

I'll be at a game tonight while this is airing, but you can bet your last Swatch and Hypercolor T-shirt that this is being DVR'd. The challenge is figuring out who I should root for: Long Islander Deborah "Debbie" Gibson or "I did a Playboy spread" Tiffany? If only they had figured out a way to work Amy Fisher in...

If I had some New Coke to wash down this cheese, it'd be the perfect 80's flashback.

So What’s Next?

Now that the Stonehell Supplement Two is out the door and working as intended (and I again thank you for your patience in the early hours of the day when things were amiss), it’s time to look at the last item on my “To Do” list for 2010.

Some folks remember that way back in June, I had a moment of inspiration and a new book idea exploded from out of nowhere. Several people kindly stepped forward to assist me on that project and I’ve gotten most of their contributed elements now. All that remains is some of the maps and for me to finish writing the damned thing. The draft is about half-way done and still needs some heavy beating with blunt objects to form it into the shape I want, but this is going to be my final project for 2010 and I expect to be putting all my energies into this one. It wants to be a bigger book than I initially imagined and I’m currently torn between giving it a little freedom and reining it in hard. In either case, I think some people will enjoy it while others maybe not so much. That’s why I’m doing it in-house rather than shopping around to see if some publisher has interest. If it face-plants on release, the suck stops here.

Without going too much into a book that’s still under construction, I’m going to be shooting for more of a high fantasy feel with this one instead of the grittier pulp vibe that’s been the backbone of the OSR. My design goal is, stated loosely, “What if Dragonlance was done more as a sandbox for starting characters instead of a railroad that led to the Big World-Ending Evil?” Now you see why I say some will like it and others will loathe it. I’ve got some ideas I think are nifty to bolt onto the Basic D&D/Labyrinth Lord framework without turning it completely into another beast, but it will ultimately be you folks who determine if I did it right or not.

I’m going to take a day or two of “creative palette cleaning” by scrubbing my brain with sci-fi, but then it’s back to high fantasy. I’m hoping that the book will be out in time for the holidays or to at least take advantage of the money you get for returning that crappy gift from Aunt Sheila. If you’ve already contributed art to the book, have no fear—the project is moving forward and you haven’t been forgotten. I’ll be contacting those folks again in a few weeks as I get closer to the finish line. I’ll likely be looking for someone to help slash the book to ribbons with an editorial pen since it’s too big and I’m too close to the material to do so myself.

A new Radiation Theatre will be up tomorrow, but here’s a short recommendation for another film. If you’re running or will be running a Metamorphosis Alpha game, I’d suggest checking out Pandorum. This is especially true if you’re starting the game using the alternate “We’re All Clones” beginning or are going for a darker, nastier feel to the campaign instead of wild and zany. The film is not high cinema, but it does feature folks running around an adrift spaceship while being chased by weird, murderous creatures without a clue of what went wrong. No robots, unfortunately.

Radioactive Theatre: The Blood of Heroes

To occasionally prove that the entertainment industry isn’t completely creatively bankrupt, someone proposes that the mixing of two or more genres into a never before seen mashup is precisely what today’s jaded audience is clamoring for. This can lead into strange territory. Some of these mixes look bizarre on paper—“science fiction plus haunted house” or” buddy comedy meets zombie movie”—yet the results (Alien, Shaun of the Dead) speak for themselves. Other mashups aren’t quite so successful—"Cop Rock", for instance—but at least somebody gave it a go.

Amongst the weird bedfellows these genre mashups have produced, none is quite as weird as our next installment of Radioactive Theatre, The Blood of Heroes. This film is the only entry in the genre of “post-apocalyptic sports drama,” although I suspect its inspirational pedigree can be traced to such fare as Rollerball or Knightriders. Whatever its creative font, it does seem to have more in common with something you hallucinated during a particularly nasty case of the flu than actual cinema. Luckily for us, this is not the case. It does exist and even features genre film favorite, “Root beer” Hauer.

Here is the obligatory spoiler warning, but I bet you can guess how it ends simply by knowing it’s a sport drama film. Continue to read at your own risk.

The thumbnail synopsis: In the years after Armageddon, mankind sorely misses football (of either variety) and decides to make do with what’s on hand. Being that this is after the apocalypse, what's on hand is an endless supply of dog skulls, spikes, and surplus sports padding. Thus "The Game" is born. Consisting of two teams trying to stick said dog skull on the other side’s spike, "The Game" is the only diversion available in a world so backward that full grown armoires are considered to be reasonable replacements for backpacks. "The Game" is popular from the Nine Cities—underground metropolises where the rich dine of Komodo dragon—to the outlying “dog towns” that apparently meet the apocalypse’s need for dead bamboo.

Against this evocative canvas we meet Sallow (Hauer), a disgraced professional “jugger” (or player of The Game--hate the Game, not the player, baby) that’s been banished to the dog towns for his youthful indiscretions with one of the nobles of the Nine Cities’ wife. He travels from town to town taking on the local teams with his assortment of bush league juggers (which include Vincent Philip D’Onofrio fresh off his success in Full Metal Jacket). In one of these towns lives Kidda (a young Joan Chen, seen here just before her move to the quiet town of Twin Peaks). Kidda dreams of being a professional jugger, living the high life as a “qwik” (the speedy bastard whose job it is to put the skull on spike) in the Nine Cities. When Sallow and his band come to Kidda’s town, she plays for the home team and brutally decimates Sallow’s qwik, ensuring a place on his team when they split town.

What follows is the usual sports montage of Kidda earning her place on Sallow’s team and watching them take on all comers in the dog towns of the post-apocalyptic future (which looks unsurprisingly like Australia—go figure). Eventually, Kidda and Young Gar (D’Onofrio) grow tired of playing in the bush league and convince Sallow to take the team to the Nine Cities so that they can prove their competitive worth and live the luxurious life of pro juggers. After some hemming and hawing, the team does just that—with predictable results (it is a sports drama after all).

The Blood of Heroes is not high cinema by any means. In fact, when you break it down into its component parts, it’s not even good cinema. The sports drama plot is a by-the-numbers story, one you’ve seen a hundred times before. The post-apocalyptic elements are limited to sandy backdrops, ragged clothing, and the usual rusty and battered props all such films are required to have. Nevertheless, the film somehow manages to become more than a sum of its parts, combining two so-so examples of genres to become an entertaining and somewhat guilty diversion. Hauer, D’Onofrio, and Chen bring workman-like performances to the material, which is better than most apocalyptic fare from this era can claim credit for having, but one can see nobody was mistaking this for capital-A “Art.”

The movie’s most mysterious legacy is that it has an odd effect on certain personalities. Some people, after watching this movie for the first, fifth, or five hundredth time, get the overwhelming urge to actually play “The Game” for real. What’s even more mysterious (and somewhat disturbing) is that these individuals find one another and form actual leagues. But it takes all types to make the world go ‘round, neh?

But since we’re not here to perform film criticism or pass judgment on people’s pastimes, let’s see what there is to steal from The Blood of Heroes for use in my inevitable Gamma World game, shall we?

The short answer is, unfortunately, “Not a lot.” The thrust of the movie concerns “The Game” and its associated rules, regulations, and emotional baggage—which is to be expected from a sports drama. I am a referee who likes games within my games, but “The Game” just doesn’t do it for me. If I’m going to cram a post-apocalyptic sport diversion into my game, I’m either going to Thunderdome/maze from Spacehunter route or bring back Aztec handball. Hyped-up football just isn’t my bag.

The subterranean Nine Cities has some charm, especially the fact that they seem to be located so deep under the earth that it’s considered de rigueur to catch a nap while waiting for the elevator to reach bottom. The strict class system of the cities is predictable, but always makes for good role-playing opportunities. The movie’s take on hotels after Armageddon is entertaining and good for campaign color, making it an interesting if not required tidbit to steal.

The Blood of Heroes simply doesn’t lend much of itself to my vision of Gamma World, but that’s largely due to the fact that it’s an example of sports drama at heart and not a post-apocalyptic one. The trappings all scream post-Armageddon, but the real meat of the tale has more in common with The Bad News Bears than Bartertown, making it less than ideal for my purposes. That doesn’t mean it can’t continue to serve as a guilty pleasure on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Next time on Radioactive Theatre: We’ll either get Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome out of the way or take a quick trip over to New Zealand to listen in on The Quiet Earth. Until then, here’s hoping your rad count stays low.

When Humor Passes its Freshness Date

I found this comic in the back pages of issue #2 of Gryphon, a game magazine that I never heard of until I picked up this copy during my distillation of gaming material last month. They say that true humor is timeless, and if that is the case, this comic is most certainly low on the "Ha Ha Funny List of All Time." Lacking a suitable test audience of the appropriate age, I can only imagine the confusion this comic would instill in the mind of anyone who wasn't around to witness a Wisk commerical during the '70s.

Even more unsettling is that, should George Lucas have his continued way with our cutural heritage, even Darth Vader as depicted in the original trilogy may one day be excised from the minds of young Star Wars fans, replaced by Animated Ankin Skywalker.

Countdown to Armageddon: Teenage Cave Man (1958)

With the most influential post-apocalyptic film covered, it is time to move on to the most Gamma World-esque piece of cinematography. Those of you who have never seen the 1958 version of Teenage Cave Man are undoubtedly scratching your heads in confusion, while those who have witnessed the film are nodding sagely. What’s a caveman movie doing here? There are spoilers ahead in the strictest of senses, but since the Big Reveal is actually the promotional blurb on the back of the video jacket, I’m guessing that it wasn’t intended to be a secret of Rosebud proportions. That being said, if you’re the type of person who can’t stand knowing anything about a movie before you watch it (and you intend to watch this film), stop reading now.

To begin, here is the synopsis of Teenage Cave Man:

Robert Vaughn plays the Symbol Maker’s son, who lives with his Stone Age clan in Bronson Caves and wonders why they’re living in a barren wasteland when, just over the river, is a green land filled with stock footage of dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the Word prohibits the clan from going there (because, despite what you’ve heard, the Word is the Law and not The Bird) for that is where the God that Gives Death with its Touch lives. Vaughn, being a teenager, isn’t satisfied with old man logic and decides to take a trip across the river with his friends. There, they encounter my favorite dinosaur battle (an alligator with a dorsal fins glued to its back takes on a water monitor amidst a scale model landscape) before one of the teenagers dies in an oatmeal quicksand pit. This doesn’t sit too well with the elders once Vaughn gets back and he’s shunned until he finishes the rites of manhood. Once a man of the tribe, he remains determined to get the tribe out of the Bat Cave and into the lush land of stock footage dinosaurs. He figures that if he kills the God that Gives Death with its Touch, the tribe will have nothing to taboo about. So, after inventing the bow and arrow, young Bob heads back across the river to take on the God. Of course, the rest of the tribe figures that’ll piss of the local deity and they head after Vaughn to stop his hot-headed plot. A misunderstanding of "Three’s Company" proportions occurs when Vaughn, the God, and the tribe all meet up on the other side of the river, ending with the God dead on the ground and a whole lot of confused caveman. As it turns out, the God that Gives Death with its Touch is actually a spaceman—the last survivor left from before the world was destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. The radiation prolonged his life and turned the local wildlife into dinosaurs. Man returned to the caves and forgot his ancestry. All that remains of civilization is a book that the spaceman formerly known as the God that Gives Death with its Touch carried around. DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!

Granted, Teenage Cave Man is not a great movie by any stretch. A product of Roger Corman “The Employer,” a man whose autobiography is entitled How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood And Never Lost a Dime, Teenage Cave Man was shot on a typical shoestring Corman budget (the bear that attacks the hunters looks suspiciously like a bathroom rug strapped to Beach Dickerson—who plays four roles in the film and dies three times). Originally called Prehistoric World, the film was renamed by the studio, allowing Corman to claim—truthfully—that he never made a movie called Teenage Cave Man. Robert Vaughn was quoted as calling it the worst movie ever made. But that’s when the movie is weighed against concerns like “quality,” “good acting,” and “plot.” If we limited ourselves to those categories, the post-apocalyptic genre would be a slim one.

Luckily, I’m looking at it as a Gamma World referee and I say the movie is the closest a film gets to what I consider to be the standard theme of the game: The grossly uninformed and ill-equipped take on things they don’t understand and hope for the best.

This default reading of the Gamma World setting is due to the sample adventure introduction from the 1st edition of the game. For those of you unlucky enough to have never read it, I’ve reproduced it below:

You are the inhabitants of a small village of about 200 that is situated just inside the border of the great forest. You have grown up listening to the legends of the Ancients and of the Shadow Years, but since those years were long before your time, you consider them just that—legends. You are much more concerned with hunting for meat to supplement the meager living you scratch out of the soil, and with avoiding the dangerous creatures which prowl the area. It is now the time of the year, however, for your coming-of-age and for the “Trials,” in which you will be judged by the village leaders and elders as worthy (or unworthy) of membership in the adult society of the village. Part of the “Trials” involves venturing forth into the wild lands just outside and proving yourself to be proficient hunters and fighters.

The sachem, the chief elder and leader of the village, possesses a device of Ancient technology (incomprehensible to you, other than its effects) that can kill at a great distance. You have seen this device used against a villager who attempted to steal it for his own. The sachem touched the device in some strange manner and a brilliant beam of light was projected, striking the villager and searing a small hole through his chest. He died almost instantly and the sachem warned the villagers about attempting any similar theft in the future.

There is an old tale, however, that the sachem returned from his own “Trials” with that very device. It is by means of the power which this device gives him that he was able to elevate himself to his present position. It is said that the sachem had come back from his “Trials” from the west—a taboo area. It is said that only the gods can walk in the taboo area and live. The only thing the sachem ever said about his “Trials” is that the strange device had come from one of the houses of the Ancient Gods.

This year’s “Trials” are to be different. The sachem has decreed that any who desire to be an elder or to sit on the Council of Leaders must go to the taboo lands in the west. To prove you have done so, you must bring back a stone from one of the houses of the Ancient Goods.

Therefore, at dawn you leave with your allowed weapons, a bow and six arrows, your knife, and food and water for one week. You have little choice; if you desire to rule, you must go west into unknown danger. But the thought occurs to you, it would be nice to have a device like the sachem’s…

I can’t even begin to count how many times I read that intro as a kid. Whatever the count was, its depiction settled down into my bones and became the scenario against which all Gamma World campaigns shall be measured. That Omar (the fictional referee in the chapter) is one hard ass. “Here’s you starting equipment: a bow, six arrows, a knife, and a week’s worth of rations. Now get out there and go kill a Death Machine or something.” That is how every Gamma World game should begin. None of this beginning in higher level Tech centers like later versions allow. You’re a goddamn cave man!

I suspect but cannot prove that Jim Ward and Gary Jaquet might have been familiar with Teenage Cave Man when designing the game or when Ward was writing Metamorphosis Alpha, although the possible connection there pales in comparison to Aldiss’ Non Stop influence (published coincidently in the same year as Teenage Cave Man). Nevertheless, even if it wasn’t an influence, it should be one on any referee setting out to run a classic scenario game of Gamma World.

From the point of view of a referee, there’s not much to directly steal from the movie for use in the campaign. There’s a couple of good names (the Forbidden River, the Burning Plains, and of course the God that Gives Death with its Touch) but the referee should really look at it as a template for starting off a campaign. The Rite of Passage scenario appears in at least two commercially produced modules (Famine at Fargo and "Part VI Rite of Passage" from the 2nd edition Gamma World Adventure Booklet). There’s no reason to not use the same to launch one’s own campaign. It’s just too good of an kick off.

If you feel you can’t survive a straight viewing of Teenage Cave Man, track down a copy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 315 and watch Joel and ‘bots take it on. Oh, and if anyone can point out to me where the original appearance of the alligator vs. water monitor battle was, I’d appreciate it because my Google Fu has failed me so far.

Next time on Radioactive Theatre: the only post-apocalyptic sports drama ever.

Countdown to Armageddon: The Road Warrior

What follows is the first of several evaluations (or in some cases, re-evaluations) of films from the post-apocalyptic genre. These are not movie reviews or scholarly treatises on the art of film-making. They are simply a role-playing referee evaluating movies for ideas to enrich, use, or avoid in a post-apocalyptic campaign of Gamma World. Some of the “factual” information presented here might be completely wrong due to shoddy research or referee misinterpretation, but that’s the price you pay for using unpaid sources on the internet for reference. Caveat emptor and try not to take these things too seriously.

The Road Warrior, as it was released as in the United States, or Mad Max 2 as it was titled everywhere else, is not the first post-apocalyptic film, but it might as well be from the influence it has had on the genre. The costume design alone is responsible for the accepted fact that, after the apocalypse, all fashion sense goes out the window and it becomes perfectly acceptable to wear footballs pads with a ballet tutu. Shot against the wide open spaces of the desolate Australian Outback, The Road Warrior made it a requirement for all post-apocalyptic movies to occur in locales without a speck of greenery present, making them easy to shoot just outside of L.A. Without this requirement, the low-budget post-apocalyptic boom that followed The Road Warrior’s release in 1981 would probably never have happened. Luckily for the film makers’ responsible for such gems as Raiders of the Sun, Hell Comes to Frogtown, Cherry 2000, or Steel Dawn, the apocalypse looks surprisingly like Vasquez Rocks.

I’m assuming that all of my readers know the plot of The Road Warrior, but here’s a brief summary:

Since we last saw “Mad” Max Rockatansky avenging the death of his family and friends at the hands (and wheels) of the Toe Cutter’s gang of motorcycle outlaws, the world has really gone downhill. In the aftermath of a nuclear exchange followed by the breakdown of oil pipelines and refineries, society has collapsed and become a place where “only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage would survive.” Max has become a loner in the world, driving the highways in “the last of the V8 Interceptors” with his unnamed dog on a constant hunt for “gazzahleen” to stay mobile. After he turns the tables on an ambushing Gyro Captain (played by Bruce Spence in a manner that I cannot picture him as anything else to this day), Max discovers that there is one last community still pumping and refining oil. This settlement is under constant siege by that Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rolla, The Humungous (a disfigured giant with a colander on his face) and his cadre of “Smegma crazies and gayboy berserkers”. Although initially just looking to get some fuel from the refiners and disappear back into the wasteland, events conspire against Max to drag him into the conflict. He ultimately redeems himself by becoming the unwitting patsy in the refiners’ escape from the wasteland.

Like many kids in the ‘80s, this film became the baseline for me against which all post-apocalyptic films would be measured. This is largely due to the fact that it is not only an excellent movie in its own right, but because the film loomed large in our imaginations before we even saw it. Being an adolescent in the ‘80s was to live in the shadow of the Bomb. A dim shadow perhaps when compared to those who experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis, but a noticeable one in any regard. Some days it almost seemed as if World War III was inevitable and we were just passing time until the sirens went off.

I remember hearing about The Road Warrior around the lunch table long before I actually saw it. Some of my friends had either seen it on cable or VHS, and those of us who hadn’t due to having parents who actually paid attention to movie ratings listened in amazement to their recitations of the film’s plot and events. By the time I actually saw the movie for myself, I had already built up quite a preconceived notion as to what the film would be. It’s a sign of the movie’s quality that, although it didn’t match what I had envisioned, it still was an impressive film-viewing experience.

The Road Warrior has had a constant albeit subtle influence on me over the years, affecting everything from playing with action figures to fashion choice during my punk rock years to scenarios for role-playing games. I remember my brother and I playing with our Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures in a game we called “Warriors of the Wasteland,” wherein the figures prowled the concrete floor of our basement searching out fuel in the form of Lite-Brite pegs and dealing with a mutated cockroach named “Cookie” who ran the only remaining diner left on the wasted Earth. Later years saw me using the same plot and events from The Road Warrior in a Star Frontiers game when the PC’s ship had to ditch on the charred cinder of a world.

Now that I’m creating a radioactive sandbox, it’s time to see what I can use from the film for that purpose. The most obvious choice would be the idea of fuel as wealth, but there’s a slight problem with that in Gamma World. As you might know, the usual power sources on Gamma Terra are various energy cells left over from the Shadow Years. These aren’t the type of thing a wasteland community is going to be able to produce on their own, although it might be possible for them to be in possession of a stockpile of energy cells somehow. However, the idea of the Red Death encamped outside the walls and demanding the villagers “give up the cells” just doesn’t do it for me. It must be gazzahleen or nothing. (Sorry, but do to the pronunciation of “gasoline” with an Aussie twang in The Road Warrior, the fuel of Gamma World has officially become gazzahleen.)

Further reading of the Gamma World rulebook indicates this isn’t as unthinkable as it would appear. Under the descriptions for the Civilian Ground Car and Military Ground Car, both are alcohol-powered rather than cell-powered. I’ll assume that’s a matter of convenience rather than design, having those vehicles converted over to alcohol power after gazzahleen became extremely rare. I suspect that with a little tinkering I might be able to bolt the rules for gas and alcohol powered vehicles from Twilight 2000 into a Gamma World-friendly format, opening up the possibility of trading gaz for all sorts of supplies and using it as intended to outrace mutants in the badlands.

Less obvious but still cool to steal concepts would include the razor-edged boomerang employed by the Feral Kid, the wrist crossbow used by Wez, and explosive booby traps and knives hidden under particularly choice vehicles. And what would the apocalypse be without an evil leader known by an adjective. Perhaps the PCs will cross vibroblades with The Ferocious?

Of the Mad Max trilogy, The Road Warrior remains my favorite. I readily admit that it lacks the depth of Mad Max, but it does a good job of recasting Max in the role of the Western drifter hero and giving the viewer a films powered by a potent mix of gasoline, nitrous oxide, and testosterone. A much better job than the sequel, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome does, a film that proves the film law which states if you want to screw up a successful film franchise, just add children to the cast (I’m looking at you guys, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, The Mummy Returns, and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) at any length.

In revisiting the film for inspiration, I admit that the movie has lost some of its impact, but if this is due to familiarity with the film or simply a maturation of taste, I’m not 100% sure. The plot did seem more straightforward than I remembered it to be, for instance, and I’m certain that if it was done nowadays, we’d see an even more emotionally detached Max to begin with so as to make his ultimate re-humanization that more poignant. The film does deliver in one regard by reminding us how much fun it was to have Mel Gibson star in a movie before he began engaging in his recent objectionable antics.