I will preface this by saying that I enjoyed and own all previous three M:I movies on DVD, though I only saw MI2 (the one directed by John Woo) in the theatre.

If you are a fan of the M:I franchise, you will enjoy MIGP. Brad Bird proves he can totally handle live action, and lively action as well. There are some great action set-pieces, some wonderful fight scenes, and a couple of outstanding visuals. This is a movie that should be seen on the big screen. I will still be getting it and watching it on our widescreen at home, but this movie was undoubtedly built for the theatre.

The team assembled – which of course includes Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, but also includes Jeremy “mother-fuckin’ Hawkeye, bitches!” Renner, Simon “how many more awesome movies can I be in?” Pegg, and Paula “I have no idea who she is but she’s hot and kicks ass, so welcome!” Patton. As you may have already surmised from the trailers, the IMF has been shut down, the team are acting without support, and the Jeremy Renner character may, in fact, be the Avenger known as Hawkeye.

That last one is totally untrue, but the character isn’t exactly what he says he is, so there’s that tension as well.

Everyone delivers solid performances. As my wife and I agreed, Tom Cruise may be a total nutjob, but he can really deliver in the right role. We also recently saw him in Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, in which he also totally delivered the goods.

There’s really nothing negative to say about the movie. I’m sure there are plot holes, but the action was moving along so nicely, I wasn’t tuned in to note them. There’s nothing ground-breaking in this movie. It’s not going to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards (but, then again, the average vote for prom queen is less fraught with social dynamics than the Oscars), but it is a really great actioner.

I’ll say it again, if you dig on M:I, Ghost Protocol will likely feed you what you crave. I give it 4.5 self-destructing messages out of 5.

Find more info on the movie at it’s IMDB Page or at Wikipedia.

The first is a series of books by Daisy Meadows, which Wikipedia reliably informs me is a pseudonym for a cadre of writers. My complaint with these “Rainbow Magic” books is the craft. Not the plotting or the characters – both of which are properly measured for my daughter’s age – but the actual technical craft. Surely, some will say, if it is written for children, craft is not important. To which I reply: but we learn how to speak and how to write based on what we read. If what we read is faulty, we will learn faulty grammar and diction. Now, the books are not particularly poorly written, but I do cringe each time I must read them. This, I know, is the writer in me, the one who has problems not critiquing even material I am reading for enjoyment.

I will say that I have a small complaint regarding the villains, which are seen in the kind of stark black terms Tolkien reserves for orcs. The goblin bad-guys are not evil per se, more mischievous, but seem totally unrepentant and – as a race – lacking in redeeming qualities. It’d be nice to see the main villain, Jack Frost, finally atone for his misdeeds, join the fairy king and queen (Oberon and Titania, no less) and bring a new villain onto the stage. I still dig Tolkien though, so I’m muting that complaint.

Given these complaints, I will continue to buy these books as long as my daughters continue to request them. The two main characters – young girls – are independent, resourceful and willing to take risks. While they sometimes fail, they finally succeed, and they do so because they persevere. They act not out of self-interest, but in order to help the innocent—the fairies – who have been victimized. The girls profit nothing save by gaining friendship, adventure, and experience. These are lessons I want my daughters to internalize. I want my daughters to emulate these characters, sans the fairies.

In contrast, Disney’s Disney Fairies Storybook Collection has a couple of stories in it that make my blood run cold. While the technical skill is far better than in the Rainbow Magic series, the message of the Disney Fairies seems to be “you are born into a role which you can never, and should never escape.” Tinker Bell, in these stories, is mechanically apt, which I was very excited when introduced to the stories (mechanical aptitude is something else I hope my daughter’s will emulate which daddy absolutely does not have). However, when Tinker Bell decides she wants to do something else, she not only cannot succeed at the other “talents” (think of “bending” from Avatar: the Last Air Bender, as each fairy has a particular talent, some with water, or tinkering, or animals, or even light). In the end, she learns to be happy in her place, as a tinker talent.

This reminds me far too much of the Medieval Catholic church – if you are born a peasant, that is what God intended, and it is a sin to strive for more. Do not upset the great chain of being, or chaos will ensue.

You know what? Screw you, Disney. Your damnable princess stories have messed my girls up enough with the constant drumbeat of “you are useless until you find the right man.” Even when you try to be more inclusive, you’re telling them to mind their place and stay under the stairs less the better quality of people be affrighted by their presence.

My hate is hot enough to thaw Walt’s head and then melt it like Todt in Raider’s of the Lost Ark.

Here endeth the lesson.

Wikipedia informs me about Daisy Meadows here.

Encounter the Rainbow Magic for yourself, here.

I refuse to link to Disney. I will, however, link to head melties.

This is an amazingly entertaining movie. It is not a great movie. Nope. But it delivers. Boy, does it deliver. It is a fun movie, an exciting movie, and absolutely the best Punisher movie yet made. This movie seems to get it. This is a comic book movie about a comic book vigilante and it has comic book sensibilities.

It’s also gritty. Frank Castle’s world is dirty and depressing. It is always night and wet. It is also incredibly well shot for what is basically an homage to B-movies wrapped in a violent comic adaptation.

And Ray Stevenson: this man needs much more work. Much. More. Listen, I have a soft spot for him and Kevin McKidd due to HBO’s Rome. Stevenson was outstanding in that. But he’s been outstanding in everything I’ve seen him in, whether he’s supporting—as in Book of Eli—or starring—as in Outpost, which I’ve also reviewed. This is Frank Castle—massive, intimidating, beefy but not pretty-boy cut. And the costume is great, just enough of the comic influence while providing something that looks like it could protect one from a 9mm.

If you like the Punisher comic, found the Dolph Lundgren vehicle appalling, but weren’t totally enthralled by Thomas Jane’s turn, give War Zone a shot. I wish there were a sequel with the same cast and crew coming out way, but that doesn’t look likely.

More information on this movie can be found here.

The Punisher: War Zone episode of How Did This Get Made is here.

My review of Outpost can be found here.

I watched the Limey on the wonderful TV Ontario “Saturday Night at the Movies.” I own the DVD, but the presentation began with interviews of some of the principals, including Peter Fonda. It was interesting and informative.

My wife asked me, as we watched, if that’s what I would do if someone hurt one of our daughters. I would love to say yes. I would love to believe that, like Wilson, I would basically surrender my life to the quest for revenge. Of course, unlike Wilson, I would have another daughter and a wife to think about. I also don’t have his skill set. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t go into a warehouse with a 9 mil and execute ever last motherfuckin’ one of ‘em (yes, quote from another movie—doesn’t matter, is apt).

This movie is both artistically adept and tense. It also has some insanely good performances, especially from its lead, Terence Stamp. The man is phenomenal. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who likes movies. This means you.

You can find information on the Limey here.

You can find TVO’s Saturday Night at the Movies here.

You can find Terence “God Among Men” Stamp’s IMDB listing here.

Ironclad

The positives of this movie include most of the actors, the fighting, the style of film, and the period.

James Purefoy, the hero of the movie, is consistently awesome in everything in which I have seen him. Having him as the brooding Templar with the dark past is of course going to win. The dude is built for that kind of role. I totally believed he could physically handle himself in the manner displayed on the screen. Kate Mara as the love interest was suitably attractive and delivered her lines with sincerity. Derek Jacobi is Derek Fucking Jacobi and Brian Cox is Brian Motherfucking Cox, so of course they were brilliant as the simpering and warlike barons respectively. I’m always happy to see Jason Flemyng, and he doesn’t disappoint. Paul Giamatti is another actor who dominates any scene he is in, and I think it was a masterstroke to have him portray a bitter and angry King John, spouting both saliva and divine right rhetoric. And it’s got Vladimir Kulich—that’s right, Buliwyf from the 13th Warrior—as the oddly named Danish mercenary captain Tiberius.

The fighting, while it used the god-awful shakey-cam technique that I absolutely fucking hate, pulled back often enough to get the feel for the tempo and flow of the battle. Seriously, though, how much does it cost to get a half-decent fight choreographer on set? Probably less than craft services, so please do it more often. If they can do it in South Korea, they should be able to do it in England and Hollywood.

The concept of the team of individuals with individual specialties protecting a focal point from the attack of an overwhelming force is a favourite of mine. I mean, the movie that I might consider one of my top picks for best movie ever is the Seven Samurai. My go-to Dungeons & Dragons movie is the 13th Warrior. Are you seeing a pattern? I love this particular style of movie, so I bought into this early.

And it’s a medieval actioner, set in the early 13th century, no less. Of course I’m in! Bring it on.

But then there is the extreme illogic, the occasional stupid character moment, and the ignorance of history that is set out as fundamental to the story.

Like I said, I love the Seven Samurai style of movie, which this is, but in the Seven Samurai and in the 13th Warrior—unquestionably a far lesser work, yet one of my particular favourites—the deaths of the defenders have impact because they make sense. They are logical. What fucking idiot allows the superior force to reach the top of the wall of the castle one is defending? Especially when they are on ladders and the heroes keep brandishing poles used for pushing ladders away from walls? When you are defending a tight, spiral staircase, why would you surrender that position and move to fight in the open? There were so many moments when the absolute stupidity of the castle defence made me cringe. Of course a small number of men can defend a castle from a large number, that’s what it’s built to do, but you actually need to use the defences if you are going to do that.

Just as a warning, we are getting into spoiler territory here, so if you are worried about that, turn back now. Everything you need to know is in this review’s first paragraph up there.

With that out of the way: the characters also act in ways dictated by what the writer (and/or director and/or producer) wanted to happen rather than by what might happen organically. And, yes, we are 21st century people watching a 13th century story, so we have expectations in regards to how people will react, but this can be done within the confines of the story. No 13th century woman is going to lack understanding of religious vows. No Templar is going to allow someone to get away with saying his vows lack love—Templars were supposed to be what they were based on a love of God and protection of the innocent. Having the woman rail against the vows and having the Templar sorely tempted and succumbing to that temptation doesn’t mean he has to hate the vows he took. It’s actually more tragic if he still believes in his vows and must seek to find amends for his weakness.

And finally, for a movie that purports to be about the sieges of Rochester, it doesn’t seem to know shit about the history of the period. King John wasn’t exacting revenge for Magna Carta, neither side had disarmed or demobilized even after its signing. The war in which the siege of Rochester occurred was actually the war Magna Carta was supposed to avoid. Also—and this is kind of a key point—Rochester fell to King John’s forces, as did all of England after it. And finally, there was no French prince, King John’s son became Henry III, and the Plantagenets ruled England until Henry Bolingbroke deposed Richard II to become Henry IV.

And to all this historical fuming, you might answer: it’s a movie. And I agree, but like Braveheart, if you want to ignore history, don’t make a historical movie. Even the Three Musketeers (at least the novels and Richard Lester’s movies) respect the history in which it is set. If you are going to ignore everything about the history of Rochester, why set the film at Rochester? Why tell the story of the siege of Rochester when you obviously don’t want to tell the story of the siege of Rochester? Why not create a fictional castle, perhaps in King Stephen’s time or during Richard III’s reign, in which to set your story? That’s what Pillars of the Earth did. It ain’t the historical and political aspects on which this movie focuses. It is about ass-kickery, and that can be done at any time in any culture. If you want to make some kind of obscure criticism of rulership or law or whatever, do it with subtlety or just don’t do it.

So there are a lot of negatives, but the actors and the exuberance of the movie make it fun to watch. This could work as a renter. If your gaming group is looking for a movie night, I can only recommend this if you have already watched the Seven Samurai, the Magnificent Seven, and the 13th Warrior. Also, if you are ready for a steep decline in cool and logic.

I give this one 2.5 hand-and-a-half swords out of five.

My other movie history rant, The Dreaded History and Braveheart Rant.

Long version? This is pretty much a paint-by-numbers movie. Nothing in it surprised me. This was a collection of tropes dropped into a movie.

But I can live with that. Here’s what worked: the actors, the action, the visual style.

Jang Dong-gun is a Korean actor from my favourite Korean movie ever: Nowhere to Hide. In it, he played kind of a pretty boy cop, yet still being gritty-rough. In Brotherhood, a Korean war movie about the Korean War, he played a kind of pretty boy soldier, yet still being gritty-rough. This was the first time I’ve seen him as just gritty-rough. He did the Chow Yun Fat in the Replacement Killers, in which an Asian actor famed on the other side of the Pacific says very little in his first Hollywood (or at least American) movie.

The rest of the cast, including the always entertaining Geoffrey Rush and the always attractive Kate Bosworth, gave solid performances, making the cookie cutter dialogue much more palatable. I have to say, that this is the first time I’ve actually considered Kate Bosworth exceptionally hot. I also felt she delivered an excellent performance, at least for a kind of a B-movie actioner.

The fight scenes were fun, and there was no BS shakey-cam, get so close into the action that the viewer can’t tell what the heck is going on. The action, like so much else, was not revelatory. It was not ground breaking. It was just good—and very entertaining.

Finally, the visual style, being that so much of this movie is very obviously green-screened, was very arresting. Rather than attempt to hide the nature of the backgrounds, the movie revels in it, providing scenes and settings that grab you by the eyeballs. I really enjoyed it. Frankly, I never forgot  that the setting was mostly green-screened, but I don’t know if I was meant to, because I actually loved the distance that put between me and the movie. It’s almost like the director, Lee Seung-moo, didn’t take the movie seriously, maybe knowing exactly the kind of movie he was making. It just seemed like a licence to enjoy the movie on its merits rather than worry too much about its failings.

Or maybe I just liked it because it looked cool.

In the end, if you aren’t expecting too much, I think there’s lots to enjoy here.

For more about the Warrior’s Way, go here.

Nowhere to Hide is my favourite Korean movie, but be prepared, it’s basically a bunch of cool scenes stitched together with minimal actual story.

Brotherhood was considered Korea’s Saving Private Ryan.

I’ve been hearing great things about this series . . . miniseries? Maxiseries? What does one call it? In any case, everyone whose judgment I trust and who had seen Deadwood spoke highly of it. Now, there are a couple of possibilities in such a situation. One such possibility is that I would not be in synchronicity with all those others, that I would watch this series and wonder why so many loved it so much. It’s happened before—books, movies, TV series that others have highly recommended have failed to make an impact on me.

Not so with Deadwood. I imagine I was predisposed to enjoying it. Like Rome, it comes from HBO, is historical, and while it plays with history, delivers the proper sense, the proper atmosphere—it makes one believe in the experience. Also like Rome, it has gripping characters. Even the characters you hate, you want to see more of, learn more of. You sympathize, or perhaps empathize with even the darkest of characters.

Almost all of the characters are villains of some sort or another, with a few exceptions. Those exceptions are, of course, the point of view characters. We all see ourselves as the good guys, yes? None of us wants to believe we are Al Swearengen, or Dan Dority, or E. B. Farnum. No, we all want to be Seth Bollock, or at least Sol Star.

Me, I’m more of a Charlie Utter. I digress.

I enjoy a good western. I can’t say that I’m a fan or follow them closely, but I count Silverado,  Tombstone and Wild Bill among my favourite movies. And wouldn’t you know it, both Wyatt Earp (haven’t seen him yet) and Wild Bill Hickock (saw him) make appearances. And Keith Carradine, who plays Wild Bill in Deadwood played Buffalo Bill Cody in Wild Bill. Connections, connections.

But, listen, all that aside, Deadwood delivers on everything I want. It’s got a grim sense of corruption, it’s got a stoic hero, it’s got great writing, three –dimensional characters, absolutely stellar acting—it’s addictively good.

Tomorrow night, I’ll likely be up late again, and be drinking hefty amounts of coffee during the day because I can’t just sit down and watch one episode, I’ve got to keep going until I’m ready to drop. I’m totally hooked, totally addicted. I’m almost through Season 1

Now I have to go find Season 2.

If you’ve seen Dog Soldiers, you’ve got the basic premise. If you haven’t, it’s soldiers vs. monsters. It’s a different monster than Dog Soldiers, and there’s a Nazi connection—which is always good for story-telling—but the general storyline is the same. Leading the cast is Ray Stevenson. That, curiosity, and the plot’s similarity to Dog Soldiers got me onboard.

Fair warning: I am not a horror movie fan. I actually very rarely watch horror movies. Given that, some of my opinions and impressions might be far off from someone more versed in horror movies.

In general, it’s fun. The acting isn’t bad—not Oscar calibre, certainly, but absolutely passable. Stevenson does a good job, but then I’m biased. I think he was channelling a little bit of Pullo and a little bit of Vorenus—and if you don’t get the Rome mini-series reference, you simply fail . . . go watch Rome then come back.

I wasn’t terribly surprised by the plot, nor its culmination. I have to admit that the tense moments left me tense, that there were scenes that gave me chills, and that I simply had to watch the movie to its conclusion. For me, this movie was entertaining. It’s worth the price of a rental. Heck, if I found it in a sale bin, I’d buy it, because I think it has re-watch value.

There were certainly problems with it—they didn’t get the military characters right, and there were at least a couple of “idiot moments”—but it did its job. Frankly, it gave me more than I expected.

And let me tell you, there is plenty of fodder for GMs out there. I’m already formulating my take on it. Gen Con 2008, I ran “Qalashar Dogs,” which was my riff on Dog Soldiers. I’m thinking “Outpost Dogs” isn’t far behind.

Who’s in?

In summary: this is an entertaining horror movie in the vein of Dog Soldiers. It delivered a solid horror experience through tension with only a few gory moments. I would recommend this movie and give it 3.5 sprays-n-prays out of 5.

You can find out more about Outpost here.

So, I started out with a game based on Yojimbo. A war has just ended and order has not yet returned to the Dragon Kingdom (alt-Korea). The characters enter a town ruled by two gangs. Both gangs approach them, and then the local magistrate—sidelined since the war and the arrival of the second gang—makes the crew an offer they can’t refuse. The second session took a sharp left turn and zombie entered the mix.

Old School Hack (OSH) provides mechanical niche protection by allowing only one of each class at the game table. There are seven classes including fighter, cleric, magic user, thief, elf, dwarf and goblin. We had a fighter, a thief, and a magic user in the PC group. I like this aspect of niche protection and I like the “talents” to which each class has access—those talents being a kind of melding of the d20 Feat with the 4E Power. OSH does the class balance trick the same way 4E does it—by making spells Talents, just like the Talents provided all the other classes.

I find the use of Talents, and the Talents themselves, a simple, elegant mechanic that makes both Feats and Powers look clunky.

Of course, that’s the entire game right there. It makes everything look clunky. Is now a good time to tell you that the actual rules—sans FAQ and classes—run seven pages? That’s right, an RPG in seven pages. And it’s complete. Very complete.

Along with the Talents, each class has an inherent—which is basically a class feature—and a limitation—which is more narrative than mechanic, but is a nice touch. The characters have Attributes, which are both stats and skills. Rather than Strength and Dexterity et al, OSH has Brawn, Cunning, Daring, Commitment, Charm, and Awareness. It took me a while to get it through my thick d20 head that these did two duties, and therefore there was no need for a skill system.

Nice.

These Attributes are rated as modifiers, kind of how True 20 does it, though they are random—one rolls on a table. Definitely harkening back to the OD&D/1E days.

Choice of weapon is simple, because it’s a choice between light, reach, ranged, heavy, and very heavy. Each weapon group has an “arena” in which it shines and gains a bonus. Everything does basically the same damage, except for the heavy and very heavy weapons, which provide more damage at the cost of weight.

And weight is important, while remaining simple. The character’s Brawn modifier is the number of heavy things the character can carry. Simple.

Armour is the same. There is none, light, heavy and very heavy, and each has a respective Armour Class. Nothing else modifies the AC. Magic Users and Clerics can wear any armour, but wearing none gets a character free Awesome Points after a fight, and a character can reuse limited Talents using said points, so there is a huge incentive for the two classes to wear no armour.

And Awesome Points are truly awesome. It is important to note that players hand out Awesome Points to other players, rather than the GM. And that characters progress to another level once every character in the party spends 10 Awesome Points. It is expected that the Awesome Points will flow fast and furious.

Listen, I’m not going to explain anything more about the game. Go download it. It’s free. With everything included (even cover) it’s 26 pages. The majority of those 26 pages are not rules. Go get it and read it.

Here’s my experience and thoughts.

First off, I love the system and intend to run it again. This is going to be my straight-up adventure/sword & sorcery game. I have a couple of other games for specific genres (like the two games I’m developing myself!), but I will not be running 4E, 3.5E or even the d20 Conan RPG. Whatever I would run with that, I can run with OSH, and it’ll be more fun.

Second, I got a little frustrated in the first session because the fights didn’t seem fun enough. It was “I attack”—roll—hit?—next—rinse—repeat. I didn’t use enough Awesome Points myself, so the bowl didn’t get replenished fast enough. I tried to create more interesting combat by putting incentives on describing actions.

All of this was my fault. I wasn’t familiar with the game, and I was expecting something from it, its rules alone could not deliver.

The second session the fighting seemed more fun. That was because I got into it more. I started describing the combat, and I started having more fun with it. I honestly can’t tell you if everyone joined in or my perception was that everyone joined in because I was having so much fun, but the fights went a lot faster, smoother, and with more drama.

I got the NPCs using Awesome Points like crazy. That bowl stayed full. I was using Awesome Points for everything a PC would use them for—like having an item handy. Even if it was a story element, I paid for it. Also, in combat, the NPCs used them more, both for soaking up damage and for dealing a little more.

In the end, we talked about the experience and the perceptions of the system. The biggest complaint was that combat acumen did not scale. There was very limited means to get better at fighting. We also decided this could be easily addressed by creating more Talents.

And I think that is the key to continued use of OSH. More Talents. That’s implicit in the Basic Game. To move forward, the classes will need more Talents. And we even decided how we could use Talents to allow players who wanted their characters to fight real well to advance their fighting skills.

Stay tuned, when I write that up, I’ll be sure to share it with you. However, the basics were allowing characters to take Armour of Scars and Weapon of Choice multiple times. We were looking at something else to also allow damage to increase. It’s all about the Talents.

We recorded some actual play, and I’ll put that up some time. Keep your eyes (and ears) open and I’ll let you know when it drops.

The conclusion to this very, very long article is that OSH is an excellent game. You need to try it. It’s not going to scratch everyone’s itch, but it does everything I need it to do. And it’s free! Seriously, how can you match that?

You can find Old School Hack here.

You can read about Yojimbo here.

I played a Githzerai Runepriest (both from the Player’s Handbook Three). We started at 6th level, which meant, for a complete newb like me, character creation took the better part of an hour. So many choices, and so many things different than in 3E, it really did feel like a different game.

I recall all the hype about how broken 3E was, and how 4E was going to fix all that. Maybe it did, I don’t know about grapple, but with so many powers and so many situational modifiers and prerequisites for using them, it’s confusing in its own particular way. Likely—as with 3E/d20—regular play would smooth out these difficulties.

And while 4E does try to cover every possible option with a rule, this happened in 3E as well. This is unfortunate, as it tends to straightjacket player choice and stifle creativity. It’s one reason why I’ve been moving to more and simpler systems recently. It’s why I enjoyed Old School Hack, which has 7 pages of rules, and adequately covers everything I need it to in those 7 pages.

So, I found 4E mechanically a very large step away from 3E, yet philosophically close to 1 and 2E. I’m not about to become a 4E disciple, but by the same token, I don’t buy a lot of the hyperbolic denunciations of it.

But would I request this game? Would I ever run a 4E game? Would I ever buy any of it?

No to all three.

I also recently played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying, third edition, and if I’m going to go crunch heavy, that’s the game I’d play. Yes, Chris wins.

Walking in to a WFRPG 3E game as a newb was pretty easy. I did not build my character from scratch, but I would imagine there would have been a time outlay on the same level as 4E. For those who regularly play WFRPG, I’m sure they can build a character relatively quick, but for a newb, there’s a lot to consider there. The big difference comes in the ease of play and the entertainment multiplier of the WFRPG components.

I did not spend a lot of time considering my actions and deciding on tactics with WFRPG. In 4E, a lot of the powers seemed relatively similar, with very specific—and it often seemed minute—differences in effect. With WFRPG, the different powers seemed much easier to differentiate, and therefore choice seemed easier. With the effects so different, choice became easy based on situation. It’s kind of like a multiple choice question in which two or three answers all sound very similar and correct, with each having only one word different. You can spend a lot of time answering that question, even if you have the required knowledge, while you could answer a similar question with four very clear, very different answers quite quickly.

There’s also a lot to be said for the cards, tokens, markers, and different kinds of dice in WFRG. Everything seemed to be at my fingertips while I played—no referring back to manuals for this power or that attack. The interplay of different kinds of dice for different kind of actions—success vs. banes and boons, stuff like that—seemed both more interesting and—in an odd way—more exciting. It also seemed really intuitive to me, dividing the success of an action from the beneficial or baleful repercussions of that action.

So, 4E? Interesting. It’s fun for an RPG with rules focusing on tactical combat, and it has some very interesting races and classes. It is not visionary enough to be exciting, nor does its mechanics address the kinds of narratives and actions I like to run. It’s not going to be a buy for me, nor would I ever request it. If someone wanted to run a game and asked me to play, I’d certainly join a game. It’s just really not what excites me for RPGs.

One example can illustrate this: the group was getting its ass handed to it by some uber-psionic using dude. We were on the balcony, he was on the ground floor, and the stairs had collapsed. My character jumped down, then tried to catch the floor of the balcony, and swing under, smashing into the foe. I would have expected to get some kind of mechanical recognition for bringing the cool to the game—and everyone, including the DM, agreed this was cool—or at least not be penalized for doing so. Of course, 4E isn’t geared for this, and I got actively penalized for trying to do something different. My Githzerai, of course, failed his acrobatics and then his athletics checks, so he landed on his ass and took damage for the fall.

I want a game that rewards people for characters doing cool things. Action point, awesome point, some kind of bonus, extra dice, something. I want that because it signals to players “this is what we want, bring the awesome!” What incentive do I now have for acting outside of the strictures of my powers? Heck, I could have used a couple of move actions to get to the ground and back into the action, but I was thinking cinematic action while 4E is built for tactical considerations.

I prefer cinematic action, thanks.