I recently bought the original trilogy on Blu-Ray myself.  I’d grown up on the films, a VHS with copies recorded from HBO sometime in the 80s, but I hadn’t sat down and watched them, start to finish, since I’d seen the Special Edition release in theaters back in high school.  I vaguely remembered being horrified by some of the changes, but I figured those would pale in light of the Anakin switcheroo at the end of Jedi that I knew would be there.

As it turns out, most of the changes were tolerable, til Jedi.  Weirdly, the thing that offended me the most?  The Sarlacc Pit.  What a weird thing to mess with – or care about, really – but I yelled at the screen for a good five minutes about that one.

And it got me thinking.  Everyone seems to love the Star Wars films, right?  At least, mostly.  Well, at least some of them.  Okay, fine, it would amazing if only… 

How do we add and change the Star Wars universe?  Let me count the ways…

Bonus Material

I’ll be honest, I can’t tell you exactly what’s canon and what’s not.  Back when my sister took a class on Star Wars in 1992 or so, novelizations of the three original films were required reading, as well as a fourth (Heir to the Empire).  I remember being told, “It counts as a real sequel because it’s been approved!” and that was my introduction into the concept of canon.  If you can believe it, I assumed that was the only other Star Wars novel until I got to high school.  Foolish mortal.

There are books – many books.  Comics.  The aforementioned video games.  The Clone Wars series.  So, so much more.  All of these bring added depth to the universe as well as the actual events of the films.

If you became a fan of Star Wars, you didn’t have to move on and find a new passion – your imagination could run wild, going deeper and deeper, until maybe the films themselves begin to look a little shallow.  No problem!  Surely they could be improved – with just a few tweaks…

A Twirl Here, a Yank There

For years, it seemed the original trilogy was pretty much left alone.  Then, as we waited eagerly for the long-awaited prequels, we got the Special Edition.  The Special Edition probably happened because the filmmakers wanted a more seamless transition from the new to the old films – and a lot had happened in the last 20 years of special effects, much of it by Industrial Light & Magic themselves.  Sure, there would be screaming from fans, but at the time it probably seemed like a good way to improve the overall viewing experience.

Episode I introduced something new: the most-hated character in the galaxy, the one that many would like to literally blot from existence – Jar Jar Binks.  Soon  it wasn’t hard to find a “specially-edited” copy of Episode I (like, say, The Phantom Edit) at your neighborhood friendly convention that removed Jar Jar as much as humanly possible.  This, coupled with the age-old question of “When we show this to the kids, what order do we go in?” had led us to think of Stars Wars as a series of components that are okay as they are now, but undoubtedly could be reconfigured into something better.

Two fantastic examples are fairly recent.  If you’re a Star Wars fan and you haven’t read about the Machete Order, do yourself a favor and do so as soon as possible.  The author makes a compelling case for inserting the prequels right before Return of the Jedi – and actually omitting Phantom Menace altogether.  Perhaps a bit radical for some, but should I ever get around to watching the prequels again it will be like this – I’m especially intrigued by how it affects the viewing of Jedi.

Last week the internet was abuzz with news that Topher Grace edited the prequels into one movie.  Thanks to obvious reasons of legality we’ll probably never get to see it ourselves, but that won’t stop a new wave of budding filmmakers (or those who want to sell bootleg “Topher” copies at conventions) from trying their own hand at it.  Because the reviews of Grace’s edit prove what fans have been thinking and saying for years: the source material is great, but it might benefit from a more objective perspective.

The Logical Conclusion

So we’ve got some source material that is beloved, but not perfect.  It’s a little dated, a little bloated.  Most of original actors will probably never be involved with the franchise again (in an acting capacity).  But it’s got some solid elements of good storytelling and a universe that seems to light a fire in everyone’s imagination.

…You know where I’m going with this, right?

So see where it goes with someone else’s vision.  Breathe new life and new writing into it.  Make a film where you’re not worried about it mixing, aesthetically, with the others.  Write an entire plot out all at once.

…Do a reboot.

What about you?  Would you watch a rebooted Star Wars or are you yelling “Blasphemy!” at the screen even as you read?  Share your thoughts! 

But when I was in elementary and middle school, I was wildly infatuated with two book series that no one else seemed to have heard of.  You might be familiar with one: The Vampire Diaries.  The other was written by the same author, LJ Smith, and it was called The Secret Circle.  Like its vampire sibling, The Secret Circle has now been made into a TV show for the CW.

I had mixed feelings when I heard this.  I’ve only ever seen one episode of The Vampire Diaries TV show; the differences were just too hard to stomach for a long-time fan like me.  Imagine if someone made a TV show about Harry Potter, but they changed the name of the school from Hogwarts to Starry Hollow High, and Harry had blond hair and a friend named Hillary.  Those are the kind of changes frequently made in adaptations.  It’s not a big deal when it’s a best-selling thriller you read as an adult and barely remember; but when it’s something you read as a child, where every last detail has been burned into your brain, it’s a little harder to swallow.

On the other hand, I just couldn’t resist checking out The Secret Circle.  As a kid, I liked the two book series for very different reasons: The Vampire Diaries had a great bad boy and a steamy love triangle.  It felt gritty, messy.  The Secret Circle, about witches, was literally more magical, even as it dealt with murder and bullying.  It had a love triangle, too, but infinitely more interesting was the relationship between the three female main characters.

Yes, three female principals – and the rest of the scale was bigger too, more epic.  The Circle was comprised of 12 teen witches (some characters more memorable than others) and the massive cast helped create an immersive experience.  When a fantasy is set in modern times, there might not be as much world-building going on, but The Secret Circle manages regardless.

So I watched the first few episodes of the new series.  First of all, for those who were once fans of the books, there are massive changes, but I can understand the reasoning behind them (more on that in a bit).  The first two episodes move a little slowly.  By the end of the fourth, however, I found myself looking forward to next week, because I don’t know what’s going to happen – it’s managing to follow the books more or less in mythology, but not in the antagonists, adding a fresh twist for someone like me.

Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty about this new show.

Chance Harbor? Books vs TV

Before I look at the show itself, first let’s address the major changes that made me protest when I first heard about them: the Circle has been downsized from twelve to six.  The usual suspects are there: Cassie, Diana, Faye, Adam, Nick, and… Melissa?  No, you’re not misremembering – that last wasn’t an actual character in the book, nor does she particularly resemble any of the slashed characters.  Personally, I can’t stand this chick and I’m hoping she’s been created to get killed off, only to be replaced by a secret witch they didn’t know about… a Henderson twin, perhaps?  I even have a hope that they’ll uncover the whole Circle, one by one, like… Sailor Moon maybe, or The Beginning of Rainbowland (shut up, I spent my teen years wearing black and I will be shamed for my love of color no longer).

No longer are they living in New Salem, an island town off the coast of Massachusetts. Now they’re in Chance Harbor, Washington.  I think in theory the same Puritan-witchy history applies, but I guess they fled to… Washington state?  In the 1600s?  Now on the one hand, I totally understand why they’d want to change the name of the town; New Salem does sound a little kitsch.  On the other, I wish they’d changed the name but kept the general location.

It’s far more believable that the same families have been there for hundreds of years, that old houses have secret hiding places, etc, on the East Coast.  And while I like the boating atmosphere the series has come up with, again, it would fit just as easily in Massachusetts or, better yet, Maine.  And finally – Washington state is pretty, yes, but the color palate, the music, it all screams Twilight to me.

Cassie is a full-on blonde and Diana has dark hair.  The Cassie thing doesn’t bother me, actually; the actress has the wide-eyed but tough thing down pat, and she’s likeable.  Her face even reminds me of the Cassie on the cover of my 90s copies of the books.  Diana, on the other hand, is wrong, all wrong.  For one thing, she has dark hair, and so does Faye, and so does Melissa.  And they all wear it long and around their face – maybe the Kardashians are really big in Chance Harbor?

For another, the hair thing was supposed to be important in that Diana and Faye were light and dark, sun and moon, purity and temptation.  On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that they’re not reduced to caricatures on the show – we don’t need yet another Madonna/whore cliche.  There has been some added dimension – the Faye character, in particular, is far more interesting now, and more believable.  On the other hand, Diana is flat-out boring.  I don’t get a sense of ‘goodness’ from her – I get prissiness, like a hall monitor.  Her hair color is just another indication, to me, that the writers don’t have a clear vision for her, that the character is muddled and pointless.  Hopefully Diana develops more as time goes on.

Forget the nostalgia: is the show worth it?

Well, that depends.  Are you the sort of person who enjoys shows featuring teenagers and the supernatural?  I’m reminded a little of both Charmed and Buffy, the Vampire Slayer when I watch The Secret Circle – not incredibly surprising, I suppose, since those are WB shows, and CW was once the WB.  But unlike those shows, I don’t think you’ll see an underlying theme of “I just want to live a normal life!” here; these kids are proud of their difference, and eager to revel in it – perhaps to their detriment. I do think that similar to those shows, we’ll eventually have an incredibly involved mythology – the show has already introduced concepts that aren’t even hinted at in the source material.

The acting isn’t bad.  The actresses playing Cassie and Faye, Britt Robertson and Phoebe Tonkin, are incredibly compelling.  Tonkin’s pretty much the sole source of humor at this point, and it’s much-appreciated every time.  The other leads are less interesting, but I think that’s a problem with the script, not the actors – hopefully they’ll get to stretch as time goes on.  I suspect there’s great potential with the character of Nick, in particular.

Will the show ultimately prove to be as popular as The Vampire Diaries?  Unclear – vampires always seem to be more popular than witches, a certain spectacled wizard notwithstanding.  I know this much, though – I’ll be tuning in to The Secret Circle, though I remain immune to TVD’s charms.  And vampires have had almost ten years of the spotlight in fiction; how much longer can they last?

Ultimately, it’s a pretty good teeny-bopper show, based on a pretty good teeny-bopper book – with all the fun and guilty pleasure associated with it.

What about you?  Have you seen The Secret Circle?  Will you be watching?  And what books or series would you like to see adapted for the small screen?  

What?! you may be saying to yourself.  I don’t know anything about babies!  The last time I held a baby was when I… no wait, I’ve never held a baby.  And the last time I was around a pregnant person they were talking about WEARING it and I am clearly out of the loop.  What am I supposed to give a baby?  

You’re in luck, because Aunt J is here to the rescue.  Growing up, I had my much-younger-sister to help with; when I got older, I got some awesome nieces and nephews.  I am very near an expert on buying things for other people’s children.  There are major perks to this, trust me.

For one thing, because you’re not the parent, you’re automatically more fun, and anything you buy carries bonus points.  For another, you can slowly turn the child into a full-fledged geekling – because let me tell you, there are all sorts of crazy cool toys available now, for all ages and geek flavors.  Just find the category that applies to the geekling in question!

For the Crunchy Baby

No, I don’t mean baby that tastes good with ranch dressing or dipped in a Frosty; there are words that I could be throwing around here like “Montessori” but really I mean the baby whose parents have guidelines such as, no licensed characters, or no plastic, loud, flashy toys.  If you hear that chances are your mind will go blank and you’ll think But all I ever played with was loud, flashy, plastic toys!  But it’s easy, I promise.  The key word here is wood.  Anything wood is probably golden.  Er, wooden.  Here are a few options:

Young Mad Scientist Alphabet Blocks – They’re as educational as any normal set of wooden blocks, but incredibly detailed and awesome illustrations (‘D’ is for ‘Dirigible’).  And the fact that there’s only five blocks means the parents won’t get uptight about overwhelming overstimulation.

Melissa & Doug Wooden Sushi – Almost all parents – not just the crunchy ones – seem to really love this Melissa & Doug stuff.  This sushi set is made of wood and velcro, so the toddler can roll their own sushi and then chop through the velcro with the included wooden cleaver.  There’s just something hilarious about babies and sushi, but there’s a fruit set in case the parents are vegan too, sheesh.

For the Hipster Baby

This baby has hipster parents.  You figure a PBR shirt is a little inappropriate – or is it?  Irony is the name of the game here.

Cuter Than Baby Jesus Onesie - The parents will think it’s funny, and not-so-deep-down they’ll probably believe it.  If you don’t want to be THAT edgy, any onesie with a mustache on it will do.  Why yes, I know I’ve done posts with mustache merch before.  I never said I wasn’t a little bit hipster.

My First Bacon Talking Plush – It says “I’m Bacon!” when you squeeze it.  Why?  Dude, if you have to ask…

For (the) Science! (Baby)

Moon in My Room – My family actually owns two of these; my mother purchased the first years ago (I swear it was National Geographic brand back then) to keep in the room for her grandchildren, and I bought the second last winter for my nephews’ own room.  It’s a thin piece of curved molded plastic, like the surface of the moon; a little remote lets you flip through the moon phases and set it on your favorite.  So much better than a nightlight.

LadyBeez Lab Geek BeezLegz – In the last few years, you’ll be happy to learn, trendy patterened legwarmers have all but replaced tights on baby girls.  If this doesn’t fill you with joy, maybe you weren’t jammed into tights as a little girl or, heck, into pantyhose as an adult woman.  Anyway, legwarmers are cute on baby boys, too, not to mention functional, and they don’t get in the way of that whole diaper thing.  This set features beakers and symbols and makes science altogether cozy.

For the (Couch) Tater Tot

Not all parents ban their children from television; in fact, some can’t wait to share the TV and movies they grew up on.  However, it’s important not to stay entirely in the past, so that the kid will be able to relate to others on the playground (the ones who might not have grown up watching The Real Ghostbusters, say).  Thus, here’s a Greatest Hit, as well as the one that’s tearing up the charts today.

Little Star Wars Costumes – Because slapping some Yoda ears or Leia buns on a baby will never get old.

Yo Gabba Gabba Brobee Cuddle Pillow – I have never seen this show beyond clips on The Soup.  I do not pretend to understand it.  But every little kid under the age of 5 seems to agree it’s all kinds of awesome.

What about you?  What are some of your favorite gifts for geeklings?

There was a very funny short story in Dragon Magazine many years back, written by Roger E. Moore (I believe) and dedicated to his wife. It told the tale of a storytelling contest in which various heroes were bragging about which of them was the mightiest. In the end, a woman laughing off to one side is challenged due to her deriding the heroes, and when asked what feat she may have accomplished that could compare to even the least of theirs, she stands up, revealing her awesome treasures, flawless charisma, etc., and calmly states “My husband is the Dungeon Master.” At that, everyone looks to the ceiling, as if expecting bolts from the blue, and when they realize it must be true, they quietly make their excuses and leave.

I always got a laugh from this story, but the truth is that I’ve had this come up. As someone who’s romantically involved with one of my players, I try to keep favoritism out, especially in the LARPs I run, where there are 30+ other players than my husband to think of. If you have a significant other in a game, it’s time to learn to juggle a bit. So let’s look at this thorny little problem, shall we?

Favoritism Running Amok

My hubby Steve and I once played in a Star Wars game together, along with several other players, including a woman whose boyfriend was the GM. After one particularly egregiously high damage role, I asked, “What the heck are you firing?”

“An E-Web blaster rifle,” she proudly proclaimed.

“You do realize,” I asked, raising an eyebrow, “that’s a rifle that has to be set up on a tripod and takes three people to shoot it.”

Both she and the GM looked sheepish. “Oh… I… didn’t realize.”

You get the idea. It’s easy, when one of your players is someone you love, to look the other way…to fudge the dice…to make sure just the right magic item is in there. But it’s your job, as GM, not to play favorites. I’ve killed my husband’s characters. Yes, I have. I don’t go out of my way to do it. I want my husband to enjoy the game, just like I want all my players to enjoy the game, but I also want there to be a hint of danger.

Too Far the Other Way

Sometimes I worry, as I’m trying to very desperately not to show favoritism towards my husband, that I’m going too far…or that it’ll be perceived that I’m going too far. My husband loves to play strikers…specifically, he loves to play melee strikes like monks and barbarians. He realizes he’s playing a glass cannon that makes a lot of people want to attack him. Unfortunately, our party’s defender in the game where he plays a monk hasn’t really gotten the hang of drawing enemies away from his squishier party members yet. So Steve’s monk ends up taking a lot of damage.

Someone watching might think I’m gunning for my hubby, but it just isn’t so. In fact, he’s learning to delay til after the defender goes and then jump in. Yay for learning!

It’s always important to let things that happen Out of Game stay Out of Game, but it can be hard, when you’re dealing with someone with whom there’s so much emotion invested. Have a blow-out with your partner just before a game? It’s going to be really hard if you’re supposed to be running a fun, light-hearted adventure with your S.O. in the limelight. If it’s very bad, it might be time to run a different game, or just play board games.

The Balancing Act

Ideally, you want to treat your S.O. just like all the other players. I’m fortunate in that, at the LARP, there’s lots of other plot people who can target your S.O.’s. If you had nothing to do with the plotline where your S.O. is named the heir to the throne of Umberland, then it can be hard for players to accuse you of showing too much favor.

In my home games, though, I try to make sure that I balance my S.O.’s characters needs with all the other players. Luckily, he’s easy to please, and what the others enjoy, he generally enjoys, too. In fact, having him in the game is a downright boon, because he loves making props to enhance a scene.

How About You?

Anyone ever play a game in which they were the GM, and an S.O. was a player? Or maybe you were a player, and your S.O. was the GM? Was there favoritism? Were there any tricks you played to avoid it? Let me know!

Any Questions?

One of the biggest challenges of writing these articles, actually, is in coming up with topics that others might find interesting. Is there anything folks want to see me tackle? Any gaming advice they’d like to see me explore? Maybe a romantic angle you think I might have insight on? By all means, let me know!

No, the main hindrance in my geek life had nothing to do with the fact that I was a girl; it was hard to be a geek because I was poor.

It’s easy to forget that following a passion takes money, unless you’re in a situation where you have very little to begin with.  So much of geek culture – well, pop culture, really – revolves around what you were doing at a certain time, those shared experiences.  For many of them, you had to have bought a certain product at a certain time.

For example, I didn’t get a Nintendo until I was ten or eleven – and then I got the original console, handed down from a friend who had happily moved on to Sega Genesis.  It was 1994, and I was only just playing Mario 3.  To this day, I occasionally get teased because I’ve never played all that many video games – like the original Zelda, for instance.  That’s because the only games I had access to were the ones handed down.  I played the ever-lovin’ crap out of those games.  But today, can I be a “true” Nintendo fan when my knowledge is limited to maybe seven or eight games?

And so it went for almost everything I liked thereafter.  It takes money to buy an entire band’s catalogue, or to own a giant collection of figures, collect games, buy spinoff novels, construct costumes, and so on.  The Mean Girls in my life didn’t look down on me because of my clothes; they did because I had never read a manga or didn’t have the money to go to a con.  This video makes me want to hurl something through a window, not because the girl looks eerily like Christine Taylor, but because, in my head, that’s what happens when you run into an insufferable Rich Geek, not a Girl Geek.

Granted, the internet (which I didn’t get until 1998) has leveled the playing field in some respects; it’s possible to learn about or pirate quite a bit.  Assuming, of course, that you have the internet, or that it runs at a tolerable speed.  But whether you’re upgrading your computer or buying the latest cute Doctor Who shirt, being a geek takes a certain amount of disposable income – maybe more than some “mainstream” hobbies, because to be a dabbler, a casual fan, is to be a sham.

So the next time you meet a casual fan, be it man or woman, remember the many mitigating circumstances before you scoff.  Maybe they’ve got a newly discovered passion.  Maybe they don’t have the cash to really delve in the way they’d like.  Maybe they’ve been focusing on getting their Master’s degree.  Most importantly, it’s not really any of your business.  Maybe you should be glad that you’ve met anyone else who’s willing to discuss The X-Files.

It’s a delicate balancing act. You want to have fun, and you want to be as engaged as a player as you wish your own players would be. But you don’t want to grand-stand. You want to try and avoid completely stealing the spotlight. You want to help the GM, but you want to avoid being perceived as trying to run the game yourself. In this article, I’ll give some advice based on my own experiences when I close the GM’s Guide and open the Player’s Handbook.

Volunteer to Help

I’ve just finished running a Star Wars campaign, so I know the rules pretty darned well. Rather than have a lot of the other players bother Steve, I’ve told him it’s fine to have them direct questions to me. That way, Steve can keep the smooth flow going on, and I can be helpful looking up rules, giving my own interpretations of the rules when Steve asks, and so on.

There’s a fine line for this, as you need to be just as impartial with rulings as you would be in your own game. It’s too easy to Rules Lawyer your way into advantages for your character or your party, especially if the GM has a lot of respect for your opinions. When I help in this way, I try to be as factual as possible…to lay out the rules and let Steve make a ruling based on his own interpretations and to only offer the way I would rule it if he asks. It can be hard, especially if I disagree with something, but it’s all about being fair.

You can help in other ways, too. You can move figures as directed by the GM, keep track of initiative, keep track of damage done in combat, and so on. In my D&D game, I have an achievements system that we use to add a little levity to the game. Steve has made a similar system for his Star Wars game. Since I know it’s a lot of work to run the game and try to keep track of this at the same time, I volunteered to keep track of achievements for Steve. Anything that can help your GM run the game more smoothly is likely to be appreciated.

Take Your Turn, But Don’t Hog the Spotlight

When I’m playing, I want my character to be cool. I want to do things in combat that seem awesome, make people laugh, or generally add to the story of the game. At the same time, I don’t want to dominate the game and have it become a story about my character that also happens to have the other player characters in it. This is the balancing act in all games, but it can be even more difficult if you’re usually the GM. You may have really creative ideas about where things could go, and you certainly have as much right to a good time as the next player, but you need to be even more of a cooperative player, because you’re often the GM for the group.

As an example, my character in Steve’s game is a pilot, which means that he’s a fair hand at flying pretty much anything, including podracers. We have another player in the game who’s a podracer, and he and I have occasionally bantered about whether being able to fly a podracer is cool or not (my character doesn’t think so.) Our current story revolves around a podrace, and I expected that character to jump on an opportunity to get into the race. Only after he said he wasn’t planning on joining the race did I let my character brag to the other that, even though he’d never flown one, he was sure he could, because flying a podracer was no big deal. This led to my character getting involved in the qualifying race, which might mean that the other player and I could end up competing down the road if he does get involved. But I wanted the other player to have a chance to get involved first, since podracing was specific to his character background.

Lead By Example

This can be the most slippery slope, since you want to encourage the other players in their actions but not to dominate the game. The GM might have an idea of how he wants the game to go, and you can help by playing in the style he’s mentioned, thus giving the other players some idea of what the GM wants. This can be especially helpful if you’ve got newer players in the group.

In our group, one of the players has never played Star Wars before, although he’s relatively familiar with D&D 4E, which is very similar. We’ve talked before about using the environment in a fight, but he hasn’t really seen that kind of gaming in action.

Now, I live for that kind of game. I know I have powers, maneuvers, and other combat options, but I also look for environment features to take advantage of. Are there buildings to climb on and jump from rooftop to rooftop? Is there a flaming bearskin I can kick in the ogre’s face? Can I swing on a line of advertising banners, land on a big animal, and kick its flanks to make it trample opponents? That’s the kind of battlefield I like to provide to my players, and the kind I like to find myself in. If there’s something I can take cover behind, climb on, or drop on the monsters, then I’m a happy camper.

So during combat, if I’m a player, I try to be very cinematic and descriptive. I know Steve loves to build interesting environments, and he wants players to take advantage of them. So when combat ensued this evening, I tried to lead by example and use those terrain features to make combat more than just a series of “To hit” and damage calls. I did indeed use a banner of ads to swing down onto the back of a big riding beast, which I then used to trample enemies. And it helped. People began to take advantage of cover and one other player jumped on the back of a riding animal and used it to attack others.

How Do You Do It?

Have you ever made the switch from GM to player? How do you handle the change? Do you have any rules you set for yourself, in order to try and keep things going evenly? Let me know.

Sir Bedivere throws Excalibur into the Lake and finds King Arthur has sailed to Avalon. Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. Robin Hood fires an arrow to show where he should be buried. The Ring is cast into Mt. Doom. Ripley jettisons the Alien out an air lock.

Good stories…truly good stories…have fantastic endings. Without the promise of the Battle of Camlann, the Battle of Yavin, or Frodo’s Passion on Mt. Doom, the epic tales they end would not have the full emotional impact.

Role-playing games campaigns…truly good campaigns…have an ending. That ending may have the promise of future adventures or stories, especially if the GM is just bringing the story to an end for now and plans to pick it up later, but an ending will definitely cement a campaign in your players’ minds as a great one.

Now, you may disagree with me. My friend Jon is still running a campaign that he started over 20 years ago, and he has no plans to close it. I can’t imagine the idea of running a game like that. I love my campaigns, but I end up with so many ideas that no one story or setting would ever satisfy them all. I couldn’t run my Seven Kingdoms game in the setting of my Swords of the Amanar game, and my University of Wallachia Mage game wouldn’t work if I tried to run it in it the Forgotten Realms. Ending a story brings a conclusion and frees you up to try something totally new, whether it be a system , a setting, or even just a different character you want to try.

Make It Feel Right for the Campaign

The feel and themes of your campaign should drive the feel and theme of your ending. Has your campaign been swashbuckling, heroic, and over-the-top? Then a quiet ending would be utterly inappropriate. Has your game been very bittersweet and tragic? Then a goofy ending would be ridiculous, while a bittersweet ending will bring the game to a satisfying close.

For example, my Star Wars campaign is coming to a close. The game has been incredibly free-wheeling, with swashbuckling action, bantering dialogue, and exciting twists and turns.  So what’s the ending? Well, it’s the Battle of Endor, and the party is split into three groups: The Armored Bounty Hunter is about to try and infiltrate an AT-AT on a landing platform in order to destroy a squad of TIE Fighters that could spell doom for Han, Leia, and Chewie; the Jedi is about to duel a Dark Jedi he’s faced before, while the Gunfighter and the Scout help him and fight Dark Side Infected Creatures; and the Pilot and his Wookiee companion are trying to rescue the Pilot’s fiancée from the Death Star II, racing against the station’s destruction to get safely out. The players all know what’s happening in the next session (the Endgame) and are stoked to have this crazy three-way action happening.

The Changeling game I remember so fondly had a lot of action, but it also had a lot of sweet, sad moments in it. The story ended with our victory over some rivals in a competition, the death of a friend (although his faerie soul survives inside a magic book of Grimm’s Tales), and our families all moving away from each other, forcing us to split up and say goodbye. The characters have all vowed to seek each other out again once they’re grown, but the sadness of parting was very deep for all of us. If the Storyteller never returns to that game, we’ll all be satisfied with the way it ended, but if he does, it’ll feel like a natural extension of where we left off. Time will have passed, and our characters will get back together as teenagers, perhaps, instead of the children we were.

Go Big…Then Go Home

It’s the end of the campaign. Make sure your players know it. They will act differently, and they will play like you’ve never seen them play before. No one wants to get to the end of a 5 year campaign only to have it blow up in a Total Party Kill. So your players will pull out all the stops, even letting their characters get killed, if it means making sure
the party wins.

The end of my 9 year long D&D 3rd Edition game, Swords of the Amanar, saw two PCs get killed by the Elder Brain Lich ripping their brains out.  Another one died when he broke his Staff of the Magi inside a Force Bubble with the Lich, wounding it horribly. Although those who died were raised, their companion with the staff is gone forever, and they will remember his sacrifice always. It’s a year later, and we often smile and talk about the game and its ending.

The battles my Star Wars group have engaged in to get to where they are have been epic, often with 30-40 combatants. The lead-up to the Death Star rescue sequence in particular sticks out in my mind (maybe because I ran it mere hours ago ). Every round, I was putting more TIE Fighters on the Space Battle Mat. After a few rounds, the players realized that this wasn’t about winning…it was about lasting until they could do something other than fight. And when the players realized that they needed to rescue Lady Juros from the Death Star, they quickly broke away from the main
battle to engage this surprising direction that the story was taking. After the game was over, I could overhear the Pilot’s player saying “Can you believe this? How crazy is it to land on the Death Star, knowing it’s blowing up any minute? This is crazy!” The note of glee in his voice told me just what I wanted to hear: that player is having the time of his life, taking on a larger-than-life scenario and rocking it to the fullest.

Don’t Forget the Denouement

Once the epic ending is over, you should save room for dessert. Err…denouement! As I’m sure you’ll remember from High School Lit, the denouement is the part of the story following the climax. It’s the wrap-up of the story, the sequence where you find out where things go from here. In The Lord of the Rings (the movie version), the climax comes when Frodo and Sam destroy the Ring, Sauron’s armies rout, and the Eagles rescue our heroes before they fall prey to rising lava. The denouement (and there’s a lot of it) is Frodo waking up to realize he’s not dead, the coronation of Aragon and his reunion with Arwen, the Hobbits returning to the Shire, and Frodo’s decision to depart for the Grey Havens.

It’s good to leave time for some denouement, possibly even one or more sessions. In D&D 4E, there’s a built in bit of denouement, at least if you play through Epic Level. The fulfillment of the PCs Destinies and the stories of how they achieve their Immortality, make for excellent denouement. Does one of the PCs marry a character they’ve been
romantically linked with? Does one of them retire to become a grand-master of swordsmanship? Does one of them ascend to Godhood? All good fodder for a denouement sequence.

In my Amanar game, the denouement came after the PCs returned home from the Underdark to deliver news that the Elder Brain Lich was dead. There was mourning for their fallen friend and celebration of their victory. Then I read my players a little section that suggested how things had ultimately ended for their characters, or what their legacies were, even showing far in the future, where pieces of their iconic gear and a battle-standard they’d designed inspired heroes of future generations.

Not With a Whimper…At Least Not Always

In Highlander, the Kurgen makes the observation that it’s better to burn out than to fade away. Of course, Neil Young said that, too, but still… In terms of gaming, it’s better, generally, to go out with a big, exciting ending than to let the campaign slowly fall apart, eroding all the memorable parts of the game. When that happens, all anyone will really remember is that the campaign stopped. Maybe they’ll be glad of it, or maybe they’ll be bummed and wish the campaign had kept going. But if you just let the game trail off to nothing, it’s extremely unlikely to make anyone’s Top Ten Games of All Time lists.

Now, I’d advocated in other articles that it’s sometimes better to let a game go gently into that good night, and I stand by that. If you’re not having fun, it’s often better to save your creative energies for better use later on. But better still, assuming you care about the story, characters, setting, or anything else, is to bring the campaign to a conclusion of some sort before closing the book on it. For example, I mentioned a Deadlands game I was running in my article “Rigging the Dice in Your Favor.”  I had utterly stopped having fun with the game, and I decided to end it. After some thought, I decided that my dislike of what was happening in the game, in terms of some of the out-of-game weirdness between a few of the players, out-weighed my desire to bring the game to even a perfunctory ending. So I just let it end. At that point, I didn’t much care as to how people would think of the campaign in the future. We’d only played a handful of sessions, I and a number of the players were uncomfortable, and I just let the game stop rather than push things into a potentially even more awkward and un-enjoyable situation.

By contrast, the furry 1st edition D&D game I mentioned in the same article was an enjoyable game, but many of the original players were gone, and I wasn’t enjoying the direction the story had taken. I brought the story to a logical conclusion – the PCs were sailing off to a distant land to help one of them return home – and then said we’d go on hiatus for a while. It wasn’t an epic ending, but it brought closure to the game, and I still have fond memories of it.

In Closing, Closure

One of the main reasons to end a game is to bring closure to the story, the players, and yourself. By the time Amanar ended, 4E was out, and I was chomping at the bit to run it. We’d all been invested n the Amanar story for so long, however, that I wanted to see that story conclude, and so did my players. I knew that, until I finished it, I wouldn’t want to start another huge campaign. And so, even though I had other things I wanted to run and/or play, I followed the story to its end. I feel that doing so brought me closure. I often have clear ideas about the ending of a campaign when I start, and I want to see those scenes play out as I’ve been imagining for years. I had seen so many elements of the game’s ending in my mind’s eye since I’d started working on the campaign in 2000…the army of Githzerai teleporting into the Mind Flayer city…the revelation of the Mind Flayers as being from the future, returned to conquer a younger, more vital world…the revelation of the origins of the Drow as the true race of elves…the battle with the Elder Brain Lich… If I’d abandoned the campaign before the end, I wouldn’t have felt the satisfaction that Amanar’s ending brought me. I’d always be wondering if I’d squandered a great story just to go on to something else.

Instead, I finished reading the campaign closing, then shut the lid on my campaign binder. I looked up, smiled at my players, and said “The End”.

They burst into applause. Literally.

Now that’s an ending.

I’m Done; It’s Your Turn

Have you ever brought a campaign to a particularly satisfying conclusion? Do you prefer to have a game continue with no planned ending? Let us know about it.

Their master, Depa Billaba, shook her head sadly. “I’ve told you Mirak,” she sighed. “I cannot teach you. There is too much anger in you.”

“It’s alright, Master,” Mirak said, drawing two lightsabers. “I have a new master now.”

He ignited his sabers, and they sprang forth with red blades. Then, in the darkness behind him, a third blade ignited, bringing into view a tall form in black. As he strode forward, I described that he was accompanied by a strange, mechanical hissing sound, eerie and inhuman.

I then played a sound effect of Darth Vader’s breathing, three times in a row. Around the table, my players’ faces fell into a mixture of disbelief and horror.

And then I told them that I thought that seemed like a good cliff-hanger ending for the session, causing curses, howls of frustration, and a flurry as everyone pulled out their date-books to determine when our next game would be.

Now, there are two lessons anyone running a tabletop RPG can pull from this. Yes, ending a game on a cliff-hanger that’ll have your players biting their nails is a great idea. But that cliff-hanger wouldn’t have been a cliff-hanger at all if one of my players had said, “Maybe I’m not getting this…who is it?”

Dark Vader is an icon of the Star Wars setting. So much so that it’s his image that graces the front cover of the Star Wars Saga Edition rulebook. Why did I decide to include him? Was it to give my players a big challenge? No, not at all. In fact, he mostly ignored the players, who fought Mirak and a number of re-programmed training droids. Instead, Vader tried to tempt them to the Dark Side with words, while simultaneously dueling Depa Billaba. So why did I include him? Simply because he *is* an icon of the Star Wars setting.

Don’t Be Afraid of Icons

I know a lot of GMs who say things like, “Well, I run a game set in the Forgotten Realms, but I don’t use the iconic characters or settings.” When I hear that, I always say, “What’s the point?” If you’re going to divorce the game from these iconic elements, why bother setting it in the Forgotten Realms, or the Star Wars universe, or the DC Comics universe, or what have you? Just run a homebrewed game and be done with it. If your players seemed enthusiastic to play a game set in one of those locales, odds are, they were excited thinking about their wizard striking against the Red Wizards of Thay, or their scoundrel trying to make a reputation to rival that of Han Solo, or their superhero to fight Lex Luthor or the Joker.

As you may have guessed, I’m a big fan of using the iconic elements in my stories. My Star Wars characters are part of the Rebellion, and they’ve met Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie, Darth Vader, Jabba the Hutt, and others over the course of the game. We’ve had adventures on Hoth, on Tatooine, on Kashyyyk, and the climax of the game is coming up on the Forest Moon of Endor, and in the huge space battle above it. I have some hardcore Star Wars geeks, too, so when I drop a minor character in like Ponda Baba, Tyber Zann, or Charal, a lot of my players grin slyly. Heck, they battled my own version of Darth Traya, an aged and bitter Asajj Ventress from the time period of the Clone Wars.

It’s all about taking what you love from the setting, winnowing out the awfulness, and running a great game.

For example, per continuity, Depa Billaba, an actual character from the Clone Wars time period, was officially “missing, presumed dead” following the Jedi Purge. I took the character, complete with her background as Mace Windu’s student and having fallen to the Dark Side once, and moved her into a new place in the continuity. To the players who recognized the character, it was a cool moment. When she later gave her PC padawan a purple –bladed lightsaber and said, “This used to belong to my Master,” everyone at the table got a little shiver of awe. If I had used a generic Jedi mentor, it wouldn’t have meant as much.

If your game is set in the real world, then you’ve got tons of icons to choose from. One of my Call of Cthulhu games was set in October of 1926, and the death of Harry Houdini, friend and patron to the player characters, was an important event in the story, as was the secret story about Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle’s friendship…one they had to mask in false enmity for years to protect one another.

Pick and Choose Your Icons

Let’s face it; there are some things in the settings we love that we don’t love. I don’t love the three prequel movies…not at all. But they expanded the Star Wars universe, giving new history, new locales, new aliens, and yes, new icons to exploit. I actually used the icon of Jar Jar Binks, not by having Jar Jar show up in my story, but by introducing a very serious young gungan named Anakin Binks. Ani said that his father had named him after a close friend, and he acted like he had a lot to make up for. He wasn’t a major part of my campaign, but discussion of the NPC outside of the game showed that my players liked the idea a lot.

I have never run a game set in the DC Universe, but I’m sure I will someday, especially now that Green Ronin has put out a DCU RPG I would actually want to run. When I do, I’m sure I won’t be setting my story during the time of the Detroit-based Justice League. Oh, no. My League will be the big names, headquartered on the Watchtower, a team to be proud of. The players will likely be rubbing elbows with heroes, villains, and civilians from the comics. Maybe not the big ones at first. Maybe they’ll get a burger at Bibbo’s, or catch an episode of Jack Ryder’s “You Are Wrong!” that focuses on them, or tangle with a villain like Queen Bee and the Hive. But they’ll slowly build up to gain the notice of the big names, both for good and for bad.

That’s one thing that the DCU MMORPG handles well, but differently. You jump right in and fight Brainiac drones, Gorilla Grodd’s minions, and Circe’s bestiamorphs. You feel heroic right off the bar, but where do go once you’ve fought alongside Superman?

Don’t Overuse the Icons

Now, this is important. Don’t go crazy with this idea. If your game is nothing *but* icons, then your players will get bored, and the impact won’t be as high. The trick is to use them sparingly, or to make them part of the background. Luke, Han, and Leia aren’t important parts of my story. They’re just people who’re off having their own adventures, intersecting the players’ lives now and then back at whatever dump of a planet the Rebellion is using as a base at the moment.

Likewise, when I play Lord of the Rings online, I’m glad I’m not constantly tripping over the Fellowship all the time. They’re there, and I know I’m helping their cause, but I’m not checking in with them all over the place. I also like that the game has developed into some areas that weren’t specifically important to the Fellowship’s quest, like Angmar, Evendim, Forochel, and Enedwaith. These areas are barely touched on in the books, other than a hint of background. This means that the legends forged in these regions are uniquely mine. Well…as unique as possible when you know hundreds of other players who have also recovered the legendary lost ring Narchuil, almost captured Gollum in the Trollshaws, and slain the terrible turtle Nornegil.

Icons of Your Own

You may be reading this thinking, well, I run a homebrew campaign. I guess this article isn’t for me.

Well, you’d be dead wrong, pally!

I run a homebrew D&D game myself. My game is centered around a town called Seowyn’s Crossing, named for the famous general Seowyn Greenfields who led his armies across the Silver Falls river near where the town was built, thus coming to the aid of the elves of Faerinwold, and…oh, well…you get the point. The players come from a town named for him, the local baron is named Greenfields and is a direct descendent, and there’s a statue of him on the town green. So do you think this fellow’s an icon of my campaign? You betcha. When the players found his tomb, a real sense of reverence came up, and people seemed really awed at the find. They’d touched an icon, and one that really is uniquely theirs and mine.

Share Your Iconic Experiences

Have you ever met an NPC in a campaign and thought, “Aw man! I always wanted to meet this guy”? Or been playing game and came to a locale and thought, “Oh, how cool! I love this place”? Or had some similar experience? Or if you’re a GM, have you used an icon particularly well in your campaigns? Share your story, and maybe you’ll inspire someone else to do the same.

Yep, Family Guy.  I don’t quite know how it happened; I wouldn’t call Family Guy a guilty pleasure, but maybe an unlikely one.  I’ve always been the “mature one,” and I’m pretty quiet and shy in person (for the first few minutes, anyway).  But with Family Guy I embrace the most juvenile aspects of myself; the clever jokes are funny, but I howl with laughter during the explosive vomiting scenes.

Since I was raised on Star Wars and I love Family Guy, you can imagine I was keen to see the entire Laugh It Up, Fuzzball trilogy – the parody movies of the original Star Wars trilogy.  Are you a Star Wars fan uncertain whether you’ll be lost in the Family Guy world, or vice versa?  Here are my reviews of each film.

Blue Harvest

Blue Harvest is the parody version of A New Hope.  “Wait, wait,” the Star Wars experts are saying.  “Isn’t that a reference to Return of the Jedi?” Yep, it was – the writers didn’t anticipate making the entire trilogy, so they used the obscure reference right away.

You might say that’s something of a theme for Blue Harvest.  The parody is clearly a labor of love, and you can almost feel the energy and excitement that must have been poured into it.  Not only does it have the best title, it has most of the best material as well.

My favorite jokes in this trilogy are what I like to call the “I know, right?” jokes.  They’re the ones that specifically point out something you always notice about the original movie – like the fact that the Cantina Band apparently knows only one song, or that the scene where Luke stares at Tatooine is pretty much there to showcase John Williams’ beautiful score.

Blue Harvest is chock-full of those moments.  They also take the original dialogue and tweak it in such memorable ways that I think I can now quote the parody better than A New Hope, while still mostly keeping in the spirit of the original.  The response they wrote for Leia’s “Aren’t you a little short to be a stormtrooper?” line might as well have been in the original – undoubtedly it’s rung through the minds of countless viewers over the years.

For Family Guy fans, sure, there’s an extra layer of funny context in the casting of the various roles, but it’s honestly just fine if you’re only familiar with Star Wars. I highly recommend this to any Star Wars fan, even the most casual – it’s just good, funny material.

Something, Something, Something, Dark Side

The sequel, a parody of The Empire Strikes Back, gamely attempts to take on the best-loved film of the original trilogy.  Maybe the production team was feeling pressure from the success of the first film; maybe the looming Writer’s Strike added extra pressure too, but this one feels just a little more formulaic to me.

For one thing, there aren’t as many “I know, right?” moments.  The moments it does have are absolutely dead-on, and don’t get me wrong, the entire film is still funny.  However, the jokes are more funny for their own sake, instead of as many funny observations about the original film.

Dark Side features some of the most bizarre humor of the three films – a scene where Luke trains in the Dagobah system particularly stands out.  It’s also probably the film with the most “inside jokes” for Family Guy viewers.  A Star Wars fan unfamiliar with Family Guy would probably still enjoy this, but it would be better if they’ve seen Blue Harvest first.

It’s a Trap!

If I had to pick one word to sum up It’s a Trap!, it would probably be ‘exhaustion’.  The word was probably planted in my brain from the opening crawl:

We were thinking of not even doing this one. Fox made us do it.  When we did “Blue Harvest”, they said, “Oh, you guys are crazy.”  They tried to talk us out of it, and it ended up making a ton of money.  By then we were just finishing “Empire”, and we were absolutely exhausted.  But Fox suddenly had dollar signs in their eyes [...]  Look, just do me a huge favor and lower your expectations, okay?  Just this one time.  I promise I’ll make it up to you.  I mean, “Star Wars”, fine.  “Empire”  - still not bad.  But on this one we ran out of gas.

When I first watched the opening crawl, I was hoping it was just a joke to throw the viewer off, especially since I already thought Dark Side was a little phoned in.  Alas, they weren’t really that far off.

They exhausted the jokes: whether it was an “I know, right?” moment or not, there were very few burst-out-laughing moments for me.  One, an extended scene involving the execution ceremony and the Saarlac, is essentially a redo of a joke from Dark Side involving the Tauntaun.   Another, involving a bag of cookies, doesn’t have anything to do with anything.

They exhausted the characters: early in the movie, they acknowledge they’ve run out of regular Family Guy characters to serve as ‘actors’; some roles are played by characters from American Dad! and The Cleveland Show.  While I realize that they didn’t literally run out of characters seen in Family Guy, and they probably intentionally included the other characters, it doesn’t add anything to the film; now the casual viewer is expected to be familiar with three shows instead of one.

I don’t want to completely bash It’s a Trap! After all, it’s a Family Guy episode, and not even a bad one.  When viewed as just another Family Guy episode, it ranks somewhere in the middle; compared to Blue Harvest, however, it’s hard not to be harsh.

Essentially, it’s a movie I will probably re-watch from time to time for completion’s sake, or maybe to mix it up, but it’s not a very good stand-alone film.

Oh hey, just like Return of the Jedi.  If only I could believe that was the intended joke.

In short, if you’re a fan of Star Wars or Family Guy, Blue Harvest is a must-see.  I’ll leave the others to your discretion, based on how the first parody is received.

I have to wonder if the sequels would have been better if they hadn’t been churned out on a set schedule.  And while I have no interest in seeing the Star Wars prequel trilogy parodied, Blue Harvest was so good I’m interested in seeing a different movie parodied.  Raiders of the Lost Ark, anyone?

What do you think?  Am I way off base, biased against Ewoks and American Dad?   What’s your favorite Fuzzball film?

I will admit, my house was not the most typical Norman Rockwell house growing up. I’m pretty sure other kids’ Christmas traditions involved repeated viewings of A Pinky and the Brain Christmas Special, or airlifting Baby Jesus into the manger while making helicopter noises. But if there is one thing my mother knew, it was TV Christmas specials. Charlie Brown, Pinky and the Brain, the Biker Mice From Mars.

Of course, there’s always the old claymation standbys – Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, The Little Drummer Boy. My family even threw the 1985 French short animated film The Snowman into the mix.

And as I got older,  there were the Hallmark and Lifetime movies – like Deck The Halls, which stars Steve Bacic (better known as Rhade from Andromeda or Camulus from Stargate SG-1) as a Hawaiian shirt-wearing, cowboy-hat-rocking scruffy Santa, or Santa’s Slay, in which pro-wrestler Goldberg plays Santa, a demon released from his thousand-year curse to be nice to good little boys and girls and out to destroy and kill in various Christmas-themed ways. And for fans of musical theatre, there’s AD/BC: A Rock Opera, Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade’s hilarious Nativity send-up of Jesus Christ Superstar.

But for the true geeks among us, there are two Christmas specials that you just can’t afford to miss.

The Star Wars Holiday Special

You have to see this. Period. If you can manage it. It aired on television in 1978 and was so horrendously awful that it has never been re-aired or officially released on video. Ever. This is like taking all the most beloved characters from a profitable franchise and sticking them into an two-hour variety show directed by someone who had nothing to do with the original franchise.

Oh wait. That’s exactly what they did.

The story is – loosely – the tale of Chewbacca trying to reunite with his family for Generic Outer Space Holiday Day, and the various hijinks and roadblocks that occur in the meantime. Luke, Leia, the droids, and even poor cartoon Boba Fett are dragged into it – and Bea Arthur! Yes, Bea Arthur makes an appearance and for that alone you must watch. The story is cut up with musical numbers and “flashbacks” to (read: stock footage from) the events of the original Star Wars. There’s singing, there’s dancing, there’s cartoons, there’s Bea Arthur, there’s Wookies, there’s Jefferson Starship, what more do you want from your Christmas specials?

Oh yeah, and there’s some kind of message about peace and family and some crap like that.

Christmas Comes to Eternia: The He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special

I’m just going to give you a second to let that sink in.

Alright, ready?

This animated gem was first aired in 1985, but luckily for you it was released on video not once, not twice, but three times! Okay, well, the last two were on DVD. In fact, the most recent version of it hit stores in October. Bringing you all the best of the eighties in one Yuletide bundle, the story kicks off when Orko accidentally highjacks a spy shuttle and crash-lands it on Earth. He kidnaps – I mean, meets two racially diverse children named Miguel and Alisha and they all truck back to Eternia where the kids teach the good guys all about the magic of Christmas. Meanwhile, back at Castle Greyskull, Horde Prime is afraid that Christmas spirit will be his undoing and sends out Hordak and Skeletor to capture the children before they feed everyone fruitcake or something. Fight fight fight, She-Ra rides a pretty horse, the Manchines show up (seriously, what were we smoking in the 80s? Manchines?), and Skeletor saves the day! No, really, he saves the kids. Because of the spirit of Christmas.

If there is one thing that Christmas specials teach us, deep down inside all an evil villain needs to turn into a good guy is some holly and some mistletoe. Why, turning from bad to good is as easy as taking your first step.

But really. This is just the heartwarming tale of two kids trying to make it home for Christmas Eve, and sharing the joy and love of the holiday with their friends. Who are mostly muscle-bound superheroes who live on a distant planet. Or Manchines. Don’t forget the Manchines.

Okay. Christmas specials aren’t usually great TV. Especially when they’re coming from an established franchise (like, say, Biker Mice From Mars: Chill Zone, wherein the villain Limburger tries to steal the world’s ice and instead his headquarters becomes the new home for the orphans). But they’re generally full of good cheer and an uplifting message, and there’s no other time of year grown adults can watch as many cartoons as they like without being made fun of for it.

So to all my readers, on this festive occasion, I say in the words of Prince Adam, “Though we celebrate it and get presents, Christmas is about caring, sharing and goodwill and its spirit is within all of us.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to curl up with some hot cocoa and It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown, and try to put a jingle bell collar on the cat.

What movies are on your Christmas list this year? Which videos were worn out when you were a kid?