'Silent Hill'

Every time a movie based off a game is announced, I have a strange, morbid curiosity to watch. Something that nears the sick, I would say. It's the same curiosity that is in us all, when we see a car crash by the side of the road and are compelled to slow down and absorb in all details of the scene, no matter how horrifying they are. This is me, when a movie based off a game - especially, a game I like - is announced.

I had seen a lot of game-inspired and game-based bullshit in the last few years before 2006. Resident Evil burst its ugly face through the big screen in 2002. As a big fan of Code Veronica, I sorta hoped the movie could be saved by borrowing from it, but... as it turns out, it tried to follow the original games, only without most of the things we liked about them, including Jill Valentine on a lead role. In 2003, it was House of the Dead, whose director oughta be hung upside-down and beaten blue with plastic mallets by creepy clowns. Another instance of Resident Evil came out the following year, and just before the one we care about for this review, in 2005, we had Doom and the most horrible of the lot: Alone in the Dark. Don't believe me? The producer and director is Uwe Boll, who is known for horribly mauling motion pictures. Including BloodRayne (2005), Postal (2007) and the aforementioned House of the Dead.

And so, crow help us, we reach 2006 and Silent Hill's own moment of damnation and disgrace on being adapted to the big screen. Or rather, 2007: we in Portugal waited exactly one fuckin' year for the movie's release on national territory. The first thing I recall doing is checking for whose names were involved. Because if Uwe Boll had been within ten miles of it, I would be going postal myself. Writer Roger Avary had previously worked in Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, though, and director Christophe Gans took care of one strange movie I actually liked watching, Le Pacte des Loups. I thinks to myself that this may not be as bad as it first looked. Not wanting to wait a year to watch it, I actually took to the Internet, and a good friend of mine managed to find me a copy before it hit theaters.

(Let me sneak in this: the picture I posted isn't the real poster for Silent Hill, this is. I hate it. It was most voted on an Internet poll and that's how it came to be the official poster. Of all the good stuff they could've added to a movie poster about this, they picked that piece of crow. Go figure.)

The plotline of the movie follows the original Silent Hill game. Rose da Silva (which would be the female equivalent to the game's Harry Mason) is a woman whose adoptive daughter Sharon (in the game, Cheryl) is having nightmares and begs to be taken to the abandoned resort town of Silent Hill. Desperate for help, Rose promptly drives her daughter to town, only to have her vanish after a car crash on the outskirts of the town. When Rose wakes up, though, the town is packed with monsters and creatures. In order to find her daughter, Rose must now solve the untold story of the town. And as of this paragraph, those who are still waiting to give it a look should be warned of incoming SPOILERS to it.

First and foremost, my favorite part of the film happens within the first 20 minutes. Let me show you exactly why. Check out this helpful piece I found in YouTube.



... see what I mean? The intro scene is reproduced almost to perfection, like the first-person shooter scene in Doom. From here on, however, we're gonna have a few problems with keeping up with the game. Gans started well, but he didn't keep it up. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for a complete live-action version of the game. But frankly, there are a few pointers on the plotline that were changed, possibly to provide a better understanding of the whole story of the town (which would only become clear towards the third game of the franchise) and also to cater to more sensible audiences but... I don't think they are such good changes, and most of them have only made the story more complicated than it needed to be for the non-gamers.

For starters, the whole idea of a cult to a local God disappeared. Whatever is wrong in the town of Silent Hill happened because a local cult was trying to give their God a physical form. The leader of the cult, Dahlia Gillespie, offered her own daughter Alessa to be a host who would birth the God. The preparations for the birthing involved scorching the girl alive so that she would know pain and suffering. The more pain she met, the more powerful the God's physical form would be. In the movie, Dahlia Gillespie is not the leader of the cult: her sister, Christabella, is. I don't know why this was done; possibly the fact they thought it too shocking for a mother to burn her own daughter alive, or an attempt to make a reference to the name Christabella, which only appears on the comic book Silent Hill: Dying Inside. Whatever it was, it shifted the focus from the parallel made in the game: Dahlia the parent who mistreats her child, and Harry (or Rose) the parent who goes to great lenghts to save his child. It also defeated the purpose of the cult itself: in the movie, they don't care for a local God. They burn Alessa because they think she's a witch. So I'll risk saying it's a plain Dark Ages version of the Catholic church.

Like in the game, it is hinted that Alessa has a special feat of her own. ESP maybe, like it was hinted in Silent Hill: 0rigins. That power, heightened by the dormant God inside her, created the alternative town. When her power was completely unleashed, the dark version was created. In the movie, however, the God comes to Alessa after she's been burned, for no apparent reason. Now it may just be me, but I think this is overcomplicating the plot, and leaving no explanation as to why the local God came for Alessa.

Another issue that was in great discussion in forums about the movie was the presence of Pyramid Head, by far the most treasured monster of the franchise. In the second game, Pyramid Head came to punish James Sunderland for the murder of his wife, which he had repressed until he came to town. The monsters only exists in relation to Sunderland, and once Sunderland accepts what he's done, Pyramid Head ceases to have a point and disappears. If there's no James Sunderland in the movie and, as we've seen, this follows the story of the first game, why did they put him in there?

Well, because he is by far the most treasured monsters of the franchise. Fans expected to see a cameo of him somewhere, like they expected to see monsters they'd recognize from the game: Lying Figure / Straightjacket makes a cameo, the Nurses are classical and common to all games but the fourth, the bugs were also popular for the first two games, Grey Children... they did manage to make his presence logical, though. He is punishing the people locked inside alternative Silent Hill, and trying to make them accept they have scorched an innocent child. For as long as they deny it, he will chase after them. So his presence isn't all that farfetched. And I don't think, as was discussed in several forums, his presence is tied in with the bugs. In the movie, we see Pyramid Head first emerging from a swarm of insects, dragging a recently dead figure whose symbolism is lost (all of Pyramid Head's deaths are symbolic for Sunderland in the game). But that doesn't mean he control them, or that he only shows up when they do...

Either if you have played the games or not, you will love two things about this movie: soundrack and sound in general (except for Johnny Cash' Ring of Fire, everything was taken directly from the games, including the mechanical sounds you hear in dark Silent Hill, a trademark of the franchise) and special effects. This is why I was happy Gans was directing the movie: he doesn't rely too much on CGI. Of course the bugs are made via computer, the final scene of the movie featuring Alessa / God is mostly CGI, as is the scenery of dark Silent Hill, there weren't a lot of ways around that. However, the rest of the monsters are actors in costume. Pyramid Head, Janitor and Straightjacket included. I particularly liked the nurse scene: Rose comes across a corridor that is blocked out by some twenty nurses. As is demonstrated, monsters in Silent Hill react to the light, so Rose does what many of us have tried to do during the games: try to Solid Snake her way past the nurses. I like the fact Gans didn't cheap out on the scene by placing four or five real nurses, and multiplying them via computer. All nurses were real actresses, and did a wonderful job at playing monster nurse, I might add.

Finally, I also would like to address the cryptic ending of the movie, in which Rose and Sharon return home, but are nowhere to be found by Rose's husband... who happens to be sitting right next to them on the couch. Technically, the God took a hold of Sharon after the massacre, so Rose and Sharon got locked inside alternative Silent Hill forever. I find the explanation provided by getting the Bad ending in the first game much more reliable, seeing as they managed to leave the town. In this ending, the whole game was a pre-death hallucination: Harry Mason died in the crash at the beginning of the game, much like what happens in the movie Jacob's Ladder (1991). Rose and Sharon also died in the crash. Only their spirits have returned home, and of course, Rose's husband can't find them.

Overall, Gans made a good job on the conversion, even with all the plot changes, it's a movie gamers can be proud of and one of the best adaptations out there. And if you don't know the franchise, you are likely to enjoy the movie even more than someone who does. It's worth a view either way, so if you're not willing to rent or download, do a search for it on YouTube, in high definition, sit back with a bag of chips and enjoy yourself.

Weekly Log - 16 through 22

Monday Feb 16

Grandma's lost her marbles. Nobody wants to say it, I've typed it.

Auntie was here... and she saw it firsthand. She and Grandma had one long talk, and from what Auntie told me later, it made no sense. The zen moment of it was Grandma saying that a man dressed like a cowboy (?), who was the King of Spain (!) wanted to talk to Auntie's husband (dead for some five or six years now) to tell him cigarettes were bad and that there was a brand of smokes cheaper for horses who were trying to quit. The old lady's lost it.

Mum says it's dementia. No cure for that. Or Alzheimer's. No cure for that either.

Tuesday Feb 17

Adding up to my "Must Get" list of suvival games. Project Zero is great, but I pretty much know it by heart at this point, I'm stuck in Code: Veronica and I can finish RE2 with a leg behind my neck. I started a new Silent Hill (the very first!) game and realized games made before the 00 year were fucked up. I mean, in comparison to the elder games, today's are for pussies. I can barely get to the last levels of Sonic the Hedgehog without losing either an emerald on my way or all of my lives, and I can do Final Fantasy X without taking much damage. I remember Super Mario Bros. being a walk in the park when I was a kid, now I replay them and I suck!

You don't get many platform games in this day and age. The last one I can recall playing was American McGee's Alice and that yes, was hard... because I suck at it with keyboard and mouse. Just like I suck at FPS with the regular controller. Ask Kid Bro how I play Half Life sometime...

Anyway, Fahrenheit is a do want (a game where the first thing you do is kill a guy and you get to hide evidence too? Count me in.) and on checking Clive Barker's Undying I pity it wasn't adapted for non-Microsoft systems. I also pity, for the first time since it showed up, I don't own an Xbox 360. I'm talking of course about Condemned. Which sorta looks like everything The Suffering would have been if it was less of a shoot-'em-all and more of a horror game. I never thought I'd admit I miss Silent Hill 4: The Room. I mean, it's a decent game as a standalone. It only begins to suck if you wanna think about it as a part of the Silent Hill franchise. I love Konami dearly, but they really fucked that up. What else... I want Forbidden Siren 2 as well. I never played the first Siren up to completion, as a matter of fact all I really played was a demo and a couple of random levels. The scariest thing about that game are controls, brother. Finally, I'm still trying to get a proper copy of Kuon and Persona 3.

Wednesday Feb 18

There was coffee to be had with the guys today. Couldn't go because Mum decided to make an extra shift and someone has to look after Grandma. An extra shift at her job means 16 hours worth of work out of 24. I'm starting to wonder how much longer can she hold on.

My searches for a job remain futile. I've asked, I've pleaded, I've sent so many resumes that if I was to print it, the Amazonian rainforest would lose a few more kilometers. Nah, I bullshit you. According to something I read around, it makes a good impression to print stuff in recycled paper so that's probably what I'd be doing. Recycling is not only politically correct now, it's also very well accepted by most offices. To think a few years ago it made you look like a hippie.

Thursday Feb 19

I had the three most retarded dreams of my life in the same night. On a crow-damned row. That's awesome, Murphy: when I actually manage to get some shut-eye, you do this shit to me. Great.

On the first dream I had woken up (it's one of those "wake up" dreams) in my bedroom... only it wasn't my bedroom. It looked like a sitting room. I went out and everything was different in my place: deco, furniture, the color of the walls, everything. Then a woman walked in who looked like my Mum but wasn't my Mum: hair color was different, she was thinner, dressed in a posh way, looked odd. I asked who she was and she had the same name as my Mum. Then she asked who I was and what I was doing there, I says "I'm your daughter!". Her answer: "No you're not!", and to prove it, she showed me a picture of someone who looked like myself, but wasn't. Again, different clothes, hair and overall characteristics... then she added "You better go away before my husband gets home". I let the old engine tick for a while and yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension in which my Mother didn't marry my Father, but some other guy, and so everything is different! How the fuck do I get home?"

Then I woke up, sat up, and told to myself that was the most retarded thing I had ever dreamed of. And I went to sleep again. Enter dream number two.

I woke up, not in my place, but somewhere I lived before: my grandparents' old house. I walked out of the bedroom and there was a teen in blue shorts watching one of those really old TVs. I said hello, he said hello, and we stared at each other for a while... recalling a photograph where my Uncle is wearing the very same shorts, I said his name, and he agreed that was it. I started to look around (nobody found it odd I was there this time) and notice the weird wallpaper, the hideous deco, a few records atop a record player... one of them was an Elvis album, I think, and another was a Beatles album... I let the old engine tick for a while, telling myself it had to be a dream, and I was sure it was probably a dream, but couldn't convince myself it was. And suddenly I yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension that took me back to the past when my Mum was my current age! How the fuck do I get home?"

I wake up, sit up and tell myself this' gotta stop. Grandma being quiet tonight, I decided to try again, telling myself I really had to keep in mind whatever happened from that point on would be a dream.

This time I woke up in my bedroom... only it doesn't look like it. There's a baby crib on a corner, and a shitload of toys, and everything's very girly-girly. I walk out, my house looks more or less the same (only cleaner) and make my way to the kitchen, all the while trying to convince myself I'm dreaming, but not really buying it. There's a blond woman around my age cooking in the kitchen, I ask who she is, she answers "Don't you remember, I'm your brother's wife." I call her bluff, Kid Bro's sixteen and not even thinking of getting married. So she shows me a picture of someone who kinda looks like my brother, only in his twenties. She further adds, "Don't you remember? You were laid off the company and you've been living with me and the baby while your brother is on tour with the band." I let the old engine tick for a while, still unable to convince myself that this is a dream. And suddenly I yell: "I know what's happened! Somehow I entered an alternate dimension that took me into the future to a time when my brother is my own age! How the fuck do I get home?"

I rose the white flag on waking up from this one. Got out of bed at four in the AM, took a shower, got dressed, made myself a pot of coffee and decided to do some campaign planning, because today was retarded dream day and I was getting tired of doing the same shit over and over.

Friday Feb 20

Grandma's birthday. She's 76, and looks 90. There was some quarrel about a birthday cake today I didn't bother to partake in. From what I picked up, my Uncle wanted Mum to bake a birthday cake and said he would leave some cash for ingredients yesterday, since our food supply has seen better days. Did you leave money for me yesterday? Neither did he. I asked Mum via text message what I was supposed to do, she didn't reply, and as such I went on with my day as usual. Then today she managed to buy a cake for the purpose with money she had put away (Mum's a soft heart) and left it in the kitchen. Instead of assuming that was it, my Uncle asked Grandma, and she told him that cake was for some party Kid Bro was having, so it was left untouched.

Kid Bro isn't having any party and arguments ensued. I turned on my heels and went back to my humble abode at this point. I'm living in a sanatorium, but I don't really need to hang out with the crazies.

Once again, going out with the guys for coffee is the best part of my day. Short-lived because as usual, I'm in charge of the old lady in the morning and she eats at seven.

Weekend Feb 21 - 22

Refugee weekend, ho! I manage to get some decent shut-eye on Saturday and all, after I had been up since before sunrise to look after Grandma. The rest of the time I had a blanket over my head and was scaring myself to crow with some trailers and game runthroughs available on YouTube. Well, not really. I'm a jumpy one sometimes, but I'm hard to really scare.

On my download log, I got Dark Cloud for Mum, which means I'll be playing it as well. I gotta finish it first so I can teach her how to later on. Mum loves RPGs but her English has seen better days and she takes a while to get some things, it's both easier and faster if I play it myself and then provide an explanation. Gave it a try on Sunday -son of a bitch! Remember what I had said earlier this week about old games being harder than recent games? Holy crow! Dark Cloud isn't exactly ancient -it's eight years old -but it could've fooled you. Playstation 2 was one year old back then, and a lot of games still looked like they were made for its predecessor. This is one of them.

I have a copy of Okami on the way, Silent Hill 2 as well (both stopped working on my console for some reason, and unfortunately I have game saves for both), I got another shitload of D&D books and a couple discographies I was missing.

Ten Common Mistakes of the Young DM

#10. What Happens In-Game Stays In-Game
In a game, things don't always go the way players had intended. There are feats which are impossible, and events they cannot stop, because it's out of their reach. If the whole party but one guy is KO'd and he gets killed, you can't do anything about it. You sent them a fiend which isn't overpowered for their rank, and if one there is in the campaign, you have likely made known through NPCs or other forms of warning that this is too much for their current capacities. Still: the character died, and the player becomes upset because, of course, he liked his character and now he has to roll a new one. Sometimes, this is it: the new character enters the game and everything's fine. Sometimes, the player somehow begins believing you killed his character out of spite. The issue extrapolates the game and it's you the player's mad at.

Now hold on there. This is a friendly game. This is not the Europe Cup of Soccer finals, your players aren't hooligans and you're not the referee. There is no reason why the player has to stay mad at you because he is mad at how the events turned out. You don't have to excuse yourself and he doesn't have to be a douchebag over it. Character death happens. More so if you've warned them it might, and they went in anyway. You don't have to pick a fight over it, and neither does he.

Another version of this mistake is when you take a day to pick on the character of someone you're not in good relations with. Suppose someone you don't like is invited to play, and you accept to DM for him. But in game, this guy is the most likely to step on traps, all foes gang up on him and the NPCs actively dislike him. The minute you agreed to DM for this person, you agreed to provide him with fair chances of success, just like you do with any other player. If you don't like him and don't want to include him in the game, say it out of game. Always make a distinction between you (person) and you (DM), and others (players) and their characters. Keep things from the game in the game, and things outside the game where they belong: outside the game. And believe me, if you can DM for someone you actively dislike properly, you're well on your way to be one of the finest.

#9. When Players Take Over
If you're a DM and you're beginning to assume your role, this is likely to happen. Your players have the freedom to do whatever they want... and sometimes, that sentence means exactly that. Especially if you're a first-timer and your players have more experience than you.

Never forget you are the DM. You are the one who defines what can and cannot happen. Within the game rules and logic boundaries (sometimes, not even that), you control everything but the characters' will. The characters may try with all their might to make something happen, if you've deemed it impossible, it's just not going to happen, and if it does, consequences will arise from it. Just because a player says "I head for the nearest river", you don't need to have a river appear in the vicinity if one wasn't planned already. Just because they say want to be in good relations with a given NPC, it doesn't mean the NPC has to be friendly and aid them from the start. That's what skills like Diplomacy and spells like Charm were created for. This is a world you're building, and unless it's an utopia, people will dislike your characters, be distrustful or even refuse to have anything to do with them. In the same manner, if the nearest river is fourteen miles away from their current location, all you have to do is say "within the first fifteen minutes of your search, you can't find a course of water".

You may want to cater to something you know ahead your players would like. You may plan a possible love interest for a given character because you know ahead its player would like one to exist. Or not. It's your call. But if the character has an interest on a given NPC and the NPC doesn't feel the same, you don't have to change the NPC to cater to the character. Impose boundaries, make impossibilities, don't let your players take over on what you have planned. That's what makes your game realistic: keeping a healthy balance between possibility and impossibility.

#8. Magic Can Solve Everything
You're not absolutely wrong in thinking magic can solve everything. Browse through the spell lists of a few classes, and even you'll start believing it. The problem is when the players begin to solve otherwise difficult tasks with magic, because it's available to them.

Magic is great. But it doesn't come easy. 20th-level casters are rare, and those who would be willing to aid your party for no reason other than "we need" or "it's the right thing to do" are even more rare. Masterwork magical items are hard to come by, even if there are specific merchants and stores where they can be purchased. And needless to say, a Ressurection scroll doesn't show up everyday and on sale, and a caster who can use it doesn't either. Just think about this: if gold alone could buy you both caster and spell, why don't the richest commoners make free use of magic? Commoners aren't all peasants: if the commoners can't buy themselves a few magical effects, then perhaps magic isn't as available as you'd think it is.

I once played a few sessions with a group where magic could do anything, to a point where their caster would freely polymorph himself a new face every hour or so. Because he had an item which enabled him to do it. On another occasion I DM'd a game in which a character, a caster, would overcome even the hardest tasks with a few magical effects, unless there was a No Magic Zone made permanent nearby. Just think about it: whoever made this dungeon, whoever made this trap, didn't they think a caster might be able to overcome it easily? Wouldn't they take measures against it? Spells sometimes can be used in innovative ways too, but sometimes they can't: I can accept the spell Shatter will work on ice, seeing as technically, it is a crystalline surface. I won't accept Shatter to work on common ground. If someone enters a magic item store and asks for a scroll of Remove Curse, it's perfectly doable for a price. If they ask for a scroll of Greater Teleport, the clerk is likely to laugh.

#7. Last Minute Change
Suppose you spent a whole afternoon planning an encounter between a given fiend and your party. Suppose you're feeling confident this will be one of the toughest bastards they ever encounter during the campaign, and are ready to reward them with the corresponding XP. All cool. But when you get down to it, one of the players found a loophole in your strategy, and your big boss becomes a walk in the park for them. Or a series of unbelievable numbers are rolled in a row. You're pissed. You spent a whole afternoon rolling up this guy, after all.

So what now? Of course: you do some last-minute rewriting which is not even on paper, but just came out of your head, and it turns out the party wasn't really fighting your fiend, but an illusion. The real one just cast an image of himself (a spell not mentioned on paper) to see how the party would attempt to beat him, and now knows better how to attack them. Players become frustrated, characters are infuriated, and you're ready to take a second shot at them with this fiend you rolled for five or six hours.

Seriously. Don't do it. One thing is realizing what you did on paper will not work, and take a while to do some re-writing. One thing is having your players take an action you did not predict, and needing to play by ear a little. A very different thing is being a sore loser. A better approach would probably be let them have the victory, learn from the loophole you didn't see, and prepare something bigger for the next session. Character victories always teach you how ranked-up and creative they are. From each battle, you learn a little more about what they can and can't do. Thus, it becomes easier for you to provide greater challenge as battles go. Always keep in mind your function is to keep the game going. The only way in which you're a loser, is if you lose the ability to do so. You're not here to kill them: you're here to provide challenge they can overcome, but may or may not depending on rolls and actions.

#6. Hint Hint, Nudge Nudge
Even the older DMs, people who have been directing games for years, can do this. Sometimes, the players and characters are at loss. Either there is a situation they don't know how to deal with, or a point in the campaign where the next step is not so clear. It is usually at this point they turn to the NPCs for advice: after all, the NPCs are the quickest link to the DM, and if the DM knows what they should do next, the NPCs may give out some sort of clue. This is what's expected, and usually what you deliver. Sometimes, players don't even need to ask, and there's already an NPC saying "I think you should do this and this next." You hint the players, in-game, about the next step. And, of course, this hint is always right and completely trustworthy.

This can turn into a habit, both yours and the players'. Eventually, they'll stop wondering if things can be done differently: they'll turn to the NPCs for advice and do exactly what the NPCs suggest must be done. And you'll never trick them by making the NPCs deliver bad advice, or advice which proves to be less right than they'd expect. This causes players to stop taking initiatives, and instead do exactly what you tell them should be done.

Me, I'm a sadistic DM. Really, I am: I used to belong in the Sindicate and all. I like to keep my players thinking. Some of the advice my NPCs deliver is right on the money. Some is just what it is: a commoner's two cents or the opinion of someone who isn't living through situations firsthand.

#5. Stop Acting Stupid and Go Back to Camp!
Players have all manners of quirk, because people are different, they have different tastes and expect different things from you. Their characters more so. And you need to keep present that no matter how much you plan ahead, your players are likely to do something different than you expect. And believe me, sometimes a bad call from a player can lag out or even ruin an otherwise perfectly decent campaign. One such, is when one of the characters, for some reason you cannot immediately perceive, decides to up and leave.

D&D is a group game, and most agree it goes best when the whole group works together. But "lone wolves" are very popular media characters, likely to be brought to game at a point or another. Or there may be a disagreement, in or out of game, which leads to this one member splitting up and going away. This is a pain in the neck: how are you supposed to provide a campaign for someone who won't be in the group? Your first instinct is to halt the game and tell the correspondent player he's being obnoxious and the game can't progress like this... but there's a better way. It's easier than you think, brother. I made this mistake, and now that I have a lot of campaigns under my belt, I know how I should've dealt with it.

First of all, if the issue happened out of game, see entry number 10. Stop the game and solve it, resume the game once it's solved. If it's in-game, solve it in-game. If the rest of the party doesn't care if he stays or goes, you're on your own. This guy wants to go away mid-campaign, he's a vulnerable target: keep the campaign rolling for him. See how far do they take the wanting to go away. After all, things will get stale for them very soon. And just because they walked away from the party, they didn't walk away from the campaign: they're likely to have encounters with foes related to the campaign just the same. If he ultimately refuses to join, make it simple: end the campaign for him with "and he went back to his hometown and was never heard of again". Then ask if he would be coming back, or if the player wishes to roll another character. If someone wants to play there are basic rules of sociability he must respect. When everything else fails, give him what he wants: going away.

#4. I'm Ready for My Close-up
If you're playing with more than two players, this is likely to happen at some point, especially if someone is playing with a new character and others with old ones, or if someone just joined your gaming group. Most player characters have a personal quest of sorts, very rarely you get characters who come from perfectly balanced families, never had unsolved problems in the past or are looking to reach some sort of goal. If you take in account a character's personal quest, he's likely to see a little more of your attention from time to time. This mistake is about giving a character and his quest more attention than you spare for the rest of your players.

The spotlight of the campaign will stop at a given character sometimes, it's just how it goes. And it's not always your fault: a character who most often takes initiatives, takes all the sidequests, provides good roleplay and who is more social will get the spot more often than one who is quiet and isn't big on taking initiative. Keeping the focus balanced between characters is something difficult to master. If you have a person who's been playing alongside you for years and four you never met before, it'll be hard for you to keep the same focus. Likewise, if you have an experienced and an unexperienced player, focus will fall on the experienced one. Try to keep either a balanced spotlight, or a communal one: make all quests solvable by one answer or goal they can achieve in a group. If you must give preference to a character at a time, make it so that all others have a chance to shine as well. That way everyone will feel satisfied they have leading part in the group and you'll have more opportunities to know the characters in-depth and better foretell their reactions further ahead in the campaign.

#3. Delicious Copy-Paste NPC
Some players notice this immediately. Anyone who is not the character has to be played by you: hence why these people are called Non-Player Character, or NPC. From the farmer the party asked directions from once, to the innkeeper they're on first-name basis with, from their antagonists to their allies, this including friends, neighbors, passers-by and love interests, you play all these people. It's a shitload of work, especially if the most of them can be recruited into the party. But then again, nobody said DMing was easy. You will sometimes make NPCs very much like each other, and most of them are very much like you: they like the same things, use similar lingo and act like each other. This makes players feel like no matter who they're talking to, it's the same person: you.

It takes less effort than you think to roleplay several different characters at a time. It's not in the major things you'll fail, but the small ones. Those little distinguishing feats that everyone has. For instance, give one NPC a fear of spiders, another one has a tendency to chew his fingernails, a third always talks too loudly and a fourth may be homossexual -whatever makes him different from the others is great, and tells more about their personality than you think. It's not uncommon for nervous people to chew on their fingernails, just like it's not uncommon for a very outgoing person to talk loudly. Just the same, someone brought up on a middle-class environment is less likely to curse than someone brought up in Hell's Kitchen. They are likely to use different expressions, have different world views.

Most young DMs are afraid to set up too many things on one NPC unless he's going to be a member of the party, for fearing they're creating a regular NPC circus freak. Well, just go out and take a stroll: the real world is a circus. So don't be afraid to innovate and give NPCs unique traits, likes and dislikes.

Another issue: if an NPC is eight years old... he or she is eight years old. Keep in mind it doesn't have the same understanding and language than a young adult or a teenager.

#2. Deus ex Machina
Sometimes it makes sense that your players will be saved from certain death by a cunt hair. An amazing roll can do this. Pre-planned, last-minute aid can do this. You can't do this. Your function is to keep the game going, but if death should befall your characters, they can't be saved from it by uncanny and unexplained godly intervention or sheer luck.

Between you and me, you don't really wish characters to die. After all, you have the front seat to this show, you wanna keep it going and you're rooting for them too. But be serious: if you're gonna save them anyway, what's the point of putting them in mortal peril? Having your characters saved from death too many times or ressurrected often takes the fun out of the game: they're not fearing for their lives anymore, they'll become reckless easy, victories become meaningless and so do losses, because these guys are never going to retreat, even if they're faced with something too big for them. They'll just continue to try, and as long as one of them remains alive, they know they can be ressurected no problem.

While you don't need to actively attempt to kill your characters horribly, you don't need to try to save their butts either. They're grown-up, mostly, they should be able to take care of themselves without DM intervention.

#1. My name is Merlin
This was mentioned as advice for people just starting to play the game in Hero Builder's Guide. Do not name a character after popular, already-existing characters. No Merlins, no Bilbos, no Raistlins, no Drizzts. Likewise, don't give them traits your players are likely to identify immediately. If you have a magician with hourglass-shaped eyes and your players are all familiar with Raistlin Majere, they'll assume it's the same person with the same personality and a different name. They'll treat your NPC just like it was the canon character if it has the same name or characteristics.

You also want to avoid special cameos. Cheers this ain't. You may be playing in a setting where characters like Merlin, Morgaine and King Arthur exist. That doesn't mean your characters need to interact with them or even meet them, like the actors of a given sitcom would interact with and meet a famous baseball player doing himself on the show. This is a world ruled by you, don't be lazy, create your own NPCs. Mentioning them is cool, and your players may even realize they're dealing with similar people to those from legends, shows, fantasy books and cartoons, but from the minute you let them think it's a copy-paste of the same character, they can predict actions and thoughts, or even the demise, of characters they've just met. It takes away the surprise element. It's a bad idea overall.

Weekly Log - 9 through 15

Monday Feb 09

I got down on my knees to fetch my sneakers under the bed this morning and when I was getting up, I didn't. Those who know me probably remember a time when I was walking around with crutches due to a karate injury? Yeah. It came back like a bad sequel. While it's mostly inoffensive, the injury does come back sometimes, it's on my left knee. This morning, I went back to the crutches and limited movement. With some luck, it'll be gone in a matter of days if I get some rest.

"With some luck". Right.

Tuesday Feb 10

The shit about this being in the knee is that walking becomes a challenge. On a regular day, I miss buses and trains and do my way wherever I have to go on foot. Since the elevators are busted in this building, using the stairs is a must. Because my computer is on ground level, getting up from the floor and sitting back down requires some knee work. And whatever I can't do on a crutch needs to be done either with one hand, or standing on just one leg. As a plus, every time I remember I got the injury a week away from the exams for the next belt, I tell myself I should've recognized the presence and influence of Murphy sooner in life.

Mum went to Pops' to take care of some stuff, since she's on leave today. Pops didn't ask about me: she took care of the stuff and came back. Wanna bet he's only gonna call me asking what's wrong when he actually does need? I'm not gonna call him and explain. I didn't get paid for my last month's work, and I don't have a lot of money on my cell. As such, if there is an interest from his part, let him call.

Wednesday Feb 11

Still here, still stranded. The crutch is off, at least for walking around at home. Going outside is still a bit of a strain, and with the elevator being stuck, it is also a pain in the crack. Pops hasn't called yet to ask where I am. Which tells me he is not needing me and very happy he doesn't have to pay for my lunch. I also didn't get paid for January, the bills are piling up.

Thursday Feb 12

Well... this has been an eventful day. I'm not very bored (I admit to being a little bored even today), but I'm sure annoyed. I'm still stranded at home because the knee ain't good. I can walk without the crutches but I'm not supposed to force it for long periods. So much for that: at midday today a man came by saying he was gonna cut the electricity. I told him not to, I'd find a way to make the payment. He was a chum and didn't, telling me if I didn't have the debt done by three o'clock, he would be in trouble and so would I. So I took money from the company's account and stormed out, telling my brother that if he wasn't gonna be home, he better call someone. Anyone. I don't give a fuck, there was a guy at my doorstep saying he was gonna cut off the electricity. Let them call whoever they want, but I was gonna go pay.

I dragged myself to the agency I don't know very well how. Then I dragged myself some fifteen minutes on foot to find an authorized agent for the electricity company. See, funny thing: they don't accept payments at the main agency, I have to go to a payshop or authorized agent for payments. Then the authorized agent (which, by the way, was a bitch to find) couldn't accept payments via ATM, only cash or check. So I dragged myself another ten minutes and back to get the cash. I had the opportunity to review the court of law where my parents' divorce was final.

With the debt taken care of, I dragged myself home. Pissed as crow. I am now rubbing the sore knee, which is a little swollen, and waiting for my father to call asking me where the money is. When he does, I'm gonna ask him where my paycheck is. Working for family is a load of fun, huh?

Friday Feb 13

Ah, crow. Aaah, crow! Somehow it'd be less worrisome to await the 78th coming of Jason Voorhees than the wrath of Murphy.

Woke up today, got out of bed and did what I usually do first thing in the morning: my way to the can. I went in, I came out, and I was gonna go back to bed when a slamming noise from the kitchen, followed by the blubber of water reached my ears. I checked, and there was water up to the kitchen door. It would appear my sink exploded.

My sink exploded. Sometimes I feel like I live in a bad sitcom.

First I shut off the water, then I dried up my kitchen. One of the plastic pipes underneath the sink came out of place, broke on one side, only crow knows how or why. I'm no plumber. But I spent a good deal of my morning and some of my 'noon trying to fit the pipe back in. Of course, because that piece of shit was broken, it wouldn't fit: every time I managed to get it in place with duct tape and turn on the water, it'd leak heavily. I considered using super glue, like I did to repair my sneakers last Tuesday, but the pieces were too small to glue in and stay there. I ended up quitting and placing a bucket under the pipe to catch on the leakage until we can gather up the cash to replace it.

Then I went out to pick some coffee (and to try to move about without the damned crutch). Supermarket was packed full of gypsies who yelled at each other in between aisles. I picked my shit and moved along; returning home, I opened the mail box. Since Pops hasn't paid the credit bills, there is a letter for Mum to get to court soon. I don't even wanna be here when she sees it: left it near the microwave and prayed I was outta here before she got home. My Uncle was in and washing dishes on the sink when I got home. I told him the sink was bust. He asked why didn't I warn him beforehand. Well genius, perhaps because I was out and there's zilch credit in my cell phone. The bucket was filled to the brim. He started complaining about the waste of water and I was a cunt hair away from poiting out the big, white, cubic thing near the window is a dishwasher, and people usually place their dishes inside for it to wash.

Finally, I got out of dodge to drink some coffee with the guys. By far the best thing in my day. Quite possibly, the best thing in my week. In conclusion. I'd like to introduce the second prayer of the Most Serene Church, and no day's more appropriate than today. This is the Hail Ill Luck, which would be an all-purpose prayer for the church. This is how it goes:

Hail Ill Luck, full of despair, Murphy come along thee. Cursed art thou amongst events, and cursed is the fruit of thy work, anguish. Horrid Ill Luck, Murphy's making, leave us the fuck alone and go take a dump in the woods. Ramen.

Weekend Feb 14-15

Left in charge of Grandma all morning on Saturday, she doesn't cut me any slack. She doesn't sleep at night, so she spends it moaning, crying, watching loud TV, coughing, spitting and complaining. She doesn't do it during the day, though. I don't understand this shit. Since my room is right next to hers, sleeping has been a horrible process full of misery and despair since they parked her here. I'm becoming an elf: if I sleep four hours a night without any interruptions, it's a lot. Anyone who complains about my morning mood gets something tossed at them.

February 14 is St Valentine's day, and I wrote the mandatory post. There was also a birthday party I was supposed to be at around lunchtime... of course my aunt only got here by five. Top notch: I went to the party, returned home on foot. Knee complained, but there weren't any buses running at that hour of the night and I didn't really have cash for a cab.

Spent my Sunday planning for the campaign I have ahead. And practicing doing rings of smoke and evil laughter (the first someone taught me yesterday, the later I've known for years, only I suck at it).

Days seem to be stretching apart. I suppose it's due to apathy, detachment and the lack of proper sleep, but on writing about the birthday party yesterday, I feel like it's happened weeks ago. I don't even think I have vivid details of it, and I wasn't by any means drunk. It's like playing an RPG with too many time between saves. By the time you pick it up again, you don't remember all too well what was going on the last time you played it. I read the log for the previous week and it gave me the impression all that shit happened far back in the past. I'm all fucked up.

Mandatory Valentine's Day Post

There is no holiday I hate like Christmas. Christmas makes me spew out some of the worst, blackest, most violent hatred I have ever experienced in my life. And then there are other holidays and events which, while not making me as irritated as Christmas, do contribute to my blood pressure sky-rocketing up the roof and right into my 3rd story neighbor's nostril. One such, is St. Valentine's Day.

Now before I get my regular, annual dose of bullshit from people who think I hate this occasion over not having held a boyfriend or lover for the past seven or so years, let me explain the why I don't like it. First and foremost, let's see what I dislike about it. What do you think of when you think of St. Valentine's Day, other than the lovers part? Doves (which are a feather or so away from being pigeons, those crow-damned airborne rats, nature's inspiration for the human bombardier). Cupid (you do realize this "God of Love" is usually depicted as a baby... yeah. Greeks had a lot of shit like that. With the growing concern over pedophilia, I'm surprise nobody else saw this one yet). Hearts (the only places where I actually like them is on my dish, in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and on a deck of cards). Chocolates (allergic to the best part of them). Greeting cards (impersonal, corporized, I send them to the recycling bin as soon as I read them, fuck Hallmark). Roses (which actually make me laugh because I know a guy who once talked his way into purchasing a whole lot of them for a few cents). Teddy bears (I had a lot of stuffed animals when I was a kid. Half a ton. I even owned a stuffed Gizmo from the movie Gremlins (1984). But I never owned a teddy bear. I actively dislike teddy bears. I can't picture a reason why anyone would like teddy bears. I wish teddy bears would go extinct). Flashy underwear (really? How about no underwear? Wouldn't that be more representative of "Lover's Day"?). The color red (...okay, this one is nice). The color pink (SWEET MUSTAKRAKISH UNLEASHED!!). Now... if I don't care or can't partake of the majority of things associated with it, how can I like the holiday? Bingo.

And now the Wikipedia bit that supposedly explains the origin of this holiday. Most people associate it with two Catholic martyrs (here's yet another reason why I don't celebrate it: it doesn't belong to my religion) called Valentine, but someone decided this was more interesting:

the holiday originates from the story of Saint Valentine, who upon rejection by his mistress was so heartbroken that he took a knife to his chest and sent her his still-beating heart as a token of his undying love for her. Hence, heart-shaped cards are now sent as a tribute to his overwhelming passion and suffering.

... pretty freakin' sweet, huh? Someone is trying to turn the holiday into a scene right out of Edgar Alan Poe! Let me tell you something, if there was a way to prove this was accurately how the holiday came to be (including the part about the heart beating by the time it reached the mistress), I could give a celebration some thought... Van Gogh had nothing on this guy, sending an ear. And what about all the pussies who send heart-shaped cards? You ain't man enough for Saint Valentine! Saint Valentine is the Chuck Norris of the Dark Ages!

St Valentine's Day can also be a major cause of divorce. In my household, it was just one more occasion where Pops would forget to buy a gift and Mum would be pissed. I don't see why, frankly. It's nice, I admit, to get a gift in St Valentine's, just like it's nice to eat great food at Christmas, but I don't think I'd hold it against anyone. Personally, I'm much happier to get flowers on any given day the other part remembered me, even if it's for no reason at all. In my brother's school they do the same as they did on mine: flower sales and a Valentine's Day mail. Ah, Valentine's Day mail. How I loathed that bullshit. Some of the older students would come to our classroom, interrupt the class and deliver cards and letters that had been put in a cardboard box a few days before. Afterwards, the class would never concentrate again and it was Hellish being there. As a plus, I'd always get a letter sent for chuckles. When the laughter began on the back rows of the classroom, I knew I'd better not even read.

In conclusion, here's what I'll be doing on St. Valentine's Day. First, I'm gonna buy me a nice supply of beer or any other alcoholic beverage of my choice. Then, I'm gonna find me a supply of smokes. Then I'll vacuum my bedroom, download a shitload of b-series horror films and watch as many as I can. I'll attend a birthday party. If I have the time afterwards, I'll go do some of those things which I keep postponing. Like browsing my copy of Othello for the lines about the drunk, download Twin Peaks, sort out my earrings, put some order on my D&D books and sources folder, find the number of Gen13 I'm missing or write a comprehensive analysis of the movie Meet the Feebles, or as I like to call it, Muppets on Crack.

YouTube Wednesday with More Queen

I bet nobody ever heard this one. Let Me Entertain You is Queen from 1978, the album is Jazz. The song is sister to some of Queen's most beloved hits: Don't Stop Me Now, Fat Bottomed Girls and Bicycle Race. Finding the right clip for it is a pain in the neck, this is the best I could find: a series of live performances.

Weekly Log - 2 through 8

Monday Jan 02

This is becoming routine. Went to work, asked for money in Mum's name, didn't get any, was sent home packing. Went to every known ATM in this side of town to find one that had any cash, what the eff are banks doing that they don't replenish the machines? Then near midday, someone rang my doorbell. Before answering, I said aloud that if this were Jehova witnesses or someone trying to sell me something, it wouldn't be pretty once I opened the door. As I did, I saw the telephone people going away with some package they intended to sell to me today. Found me in a sweet fuckin' mood for sales. Fortunately for them these were the kind who went off easily - if I was getting those who won't take no for an answer, shit would've become ugly.

Tuesday Jan 03

Mum's on leave today, and she spent the whole morning driving me around, complaining about her job, the family and our finances. Tell me something I don't know. We went to pick up a gas bottle because ours is gone already. As we were coming home, trying to drag that heavy piece of crow, the elevator wasn't coming down. It was stuck on the sixth floor. Now... this ain't the first time it's happened in the past ten or so days, but I was so pissed I dropped the bottle and started climbing the stairs. My intentions? To get myself to the sixth floor as soon as possible and break the arm of whoever was holding the fuckin' thing. As I reached the stairway to the fifth floor, it came down. I tried to get to the ground floor, but of course, I wasn't on time, and Mum didn't hold whoever came out. She later told me it was a little girl, whom I happen to have seen around before. The next flippin' time I see this brat in the elevator, I'm walking her home...

Then the shopping. The guy at the register was getting ready to close down and leave only one line working on my turn. Gave me a glance and decided he could take care of my bill before he closed down the line. I don't get it: the shelves aren't replenished, there's nobody at the registers, what do they pay these guys for? If there's something that grinds my gears, it's having to force other people to do their freakin' job when they're loitering about their workplace! If I was doing this on my previous job, I'd get a talking to from the boss the same minute. You're being paid, even if only a couple euros, fuckin' work! Geez, is this rocket science, or are you really thick?

But I love this store, really. When my brother and I were here by ourselves for those months (if you'll recall, in the middle of February it'll have happened a year ago) we use to come shopping here every week. A clerk would follow us around, peeping over the shelves, because my brother wore black from head to toe and I carried a messenger bag and a jacket with wide pockets. They probably thought we were gonna steal something. Which really isn't saying much from me. If I was gonna steal something, I'd go steal it at a store where they sold national products, instead of blank labels and Spanish brands nobody knows. At least on turning to crime I could also try to injure a few national chain supermarkets.

Wednesday Jan 04

An emergency kept me home. Grandma fainted and my Aunt was about to climb up the walls. If these people were ever in a fire, they'd die there. They can't react to shit. No survival instinct whatsoever. She said my Uncle was on his way there, and wanted me to call him so he'd hurry up. I humored her and called, but in five minutes, Grandma was back and the issue was solved. In ten minutes, my Uncle was here, so why in the name of crow did I call him anyway? Plus, what was he going to do? If the situation got serious, we should be calling an ambulance, not him...

My brother's band (one of the three where he's playing the drums) is going to concert next Sunday, at 10 in the AM. I was already recruited to carry them drums to the place where the concert will happen. Of course I won't be doing this on foot, I assume my task would be to dismantle the thing, place it on the car, be driven by someone else because I don't have a license, and reassemble everything at the spot. He told me they were looking forward to a full house, so I'm calling, mailing and talking to everyone I know.

Thursday Jan 05

We're planning a birthday party next Sunday to surprise everyone who's had a birthday lately. Three people, in all. I have no idea what I'm going to contribute with. Asked around, but it seems nobody else knows, either. I ended up going by what I usually bring: the booze. Tried to ask Pops when he's going to pay me, but before I was done with the sentence he started hollering he had taxes to pay this month. So I went home at lunch time on my own, before he started suggesting I should. very cute, working for your family, isn't it?

Friday Jan 06

Murphy, in His most inspired, mind-fucking glory, got up this morning and looked at the calendar. He saw it was Friday and this He said, "I'm gonna do overtime".

I got up, took a shower and left for the daily joke I call my job. Why do I even call it a job, it's punishment anyway. The elevators are still screwed, so I'm happy I live on the second floor. First floor was packed with dead cockroaches, so I assume another visit from the bug-killing people is scheduled already. It was kinda cloudy when I left the house, but by the time I got midway through my walk to the train, it was pouring. Cursing heavily, I took the train to Pops', so he could tell me I didn't really need to come today. I decided to take the hint, turn on my heels and go home again. Why in crow's name did I even get up?

So I went home, called some job agencies, subscribed to the newsletter of a few more and printed out a few resumés to deliver to anyone requesting help on the stores downtown. The printer, which usually doesn't work, decided to print half the resume and then give me the finger again. The people from the Internet provider called, asking why I didn't pay for the bill. I told them that I didn't pay the bill because they're assholes, and didn't mail it to me, and as such it gt delayed, and I can't pay for two months in a row, so until I can, it's gonna remain delayed. Went out to take care of the previous month's bill anyway: ATM had a line that reached the end of the sidewalk. When it finally got to my turn, I discovered the 7 key was busted. Now, guess it. Come on, guess it. Guess what the third number was at the reference I had for payment. Oh yeah.

Went back home, called the elevator, it was stuck on the seventh floor. Each step of my way to the second floor was worth a curse. I got home and my Uncle was mad about me leaving Grandma unattended. I sat at the computer, no Internet. Had to mess around with the modems for a while until it came back. If it hadn't, some poor soul at the provider's call center would have to listen to a few unpleasant words. Mum got home mad, so I decided to stay down and keep a low profile. This house is becoming a war zone.

There was an invitation for coffee tonight, which I didn't see. It was sent as a text message to my cellphone. The fuckin' thing has been off for a while now, since the battery charger was busted too. The only one that works is my mother's, and she took it to work. At the end of the day I contemplated the possibility of finding a new prayer for my church, one we can say outside Unholy Mondays, because if I didn't know better, I'd say this was one.

Weekend Jan 7-8

Boring Saturday, nothing to report from it. Sunday was sure eventful. I got up at 7h30 in the AM with two hours worth of sleep and a pain building up in my crack, and went to the concert site. Now, we call know how concerts are. Shit never gets done on time. And we were some of the first people to ge there.

What I didn't know was, Kid Bro's band was invited to close down an audition for a music school demo. We actually did have to watch the demo before listening to them play. So this was the gist of it: fourteen kids mauling and murdering their guitars, some of which have over a year's practice on it. Kid Bro and a guy I know learned on their own and play better than any given person in that room. The only one worth listening to was a guy who made a short solo, hands down to him, because that was cool. Then two of them decided last-minute they wanted to show the public "an original composition" made by both. As they began playing the first chords of Fade to Black, I rubbed my face in despair and laughed. An original composition, alright, but by James Hetfield in 1984 for Metallica. Hurling chairs never sounded like such a pleasant idea, but I kept my peace. Then the teacher and a sax player did two popular songs, So Far Away by Dire Straits (or rather, they throat-raped So Far Away by Dire Straits. A sax playing this song, really? A sax?!) and something by Elvis (while the sax wasn't so misplaced as with the previous, it was nice to see it drown the guitars. At least the sax was in tune with the original song, because everyone else was playing a different tempo).

Then Kid Bro's band went in. Very cool guitars, awesome drums, but the vocals... I think there was some problem with the mics: the lead singer could hardly be heard and the guitarist, who sang one of the songs, kinda sounded like he was singing through his nose. Still, by far the best thing that played today.

Then I was off to pick some beer and head for the party. Things got kinda complicated at the last minute, since two of them got here at the same time and we thought the surprise may be ruined. Things went smoothly, though, everything worked like a charm. We did so much shit inside them four walls... midway through it the lights went out on the whole of the neighborhood. When they came back we shut them off anyway since it was being fun. I also got saved from going home to feed Grandma, so I stayed around for longer than usual. It was cool, I had fun. Glad we're doing this more often than usual.

'Hellblazer'

I remember the first time I picked up a Hellblazer comic. That image on the left? That was the cover. Hellblazer # 25, in Brazilian, at an age where I had never heard of John Constantine and for me, DC comics was all about Captain America. It was a time where every two or three days, I'd leave school, hit the store and try to find something to read during Chemistry (that was always lost from day one anyway). It usually takes me about an hour to go through six or seven comic books, so you see, one every two days was a mastery in self-control.

There were a lot of comics with the usual heroes clad in spandex and with awesome powers. And then there was this. Possibly some of the creepier shit allowed to go on a comic book cover back in the day. I picked it up, went through a couple of pages, and brought it home with me. After I read it once, I re-read it until I knew it by heart, and from then on, began scanning the shelves for it. Even after Pops gave away my whole comic book collection without my permission, this number got saved. When I finally found the time and availability to download the English version of the comic, you have no idea how happy I was to finally read this as the writers had intended it to be.

Hellblazer is all about John Constantine -detective, exorcist, regular English badass... and not Keanu Reeves. If the name doesn't ring a bell to you, try going to the club and picking up the movie Constantine, which is an adaptation of Hellblazer to the big screen. Like most adaptations from comic books, it sucks on toes if you're familiar with the original. Constantine is a chain-smoking guy caught between several layers of Hell on Earth, who solves cases and problems related to the paranormal because he can see paranormal shit. We're hinted from some sources that this is not something that he alone does, but that his lineage has been doing for centuries. In a number of Sandman, an ancestor of Constantine was contacted by Morpheus to recover his son's head during the French Revolution (the comic book would be Sandman: Distant Mirrors - Thermidor and the ancestor's name was Johanna Constantine -tell me you didn't see that coming...) All manners or weird shit happen in his comic book. I absolutely adore it.

Several good people already had Constantine on their hands. He first showed up on Swamp Thing, and from then on, he's been picked up by Gaiman (from Sandman), Grant Morrison (The New X-Men), Garth Ennis (Punisher) and countless others. His comic books never fail to impress. Strangely well-written, they regularly feature something most comics only pick during highly dramatic moments: a very good narratorial voice, which often not only describes what is going on in the panels, it also offers insight on thoughts and feelings of the involved parties in a fashion reminiscent of post-modern English literature. You know T. S. Elliot? His Wasteland was written using a similar manner of narrator. The art was very nice, the coloring made in strong tones and little variety, much like those comics meant to be in black and white that later are inked. I could argue DC comics are cheap bastards, but then again, they're still publishing in the original templates. Plastic paper pages and heavy coloring is Marvel's department. I should at this point mention I liked Vertigo comics very much (especially the compilations), which belonged to DC and among other good things, published Hellblazer.

Of course, the movie Constantine (2005) couldn't hold a candle to it. Like many lately, it's a decent, even pretty good movie, unless you're familiar with the real John Constantine. Like Silent Hill (2007) for those who never played Silent Hill, and the American The Grudge (2004) for those who never saw the original Japanese Ju-On (and as a punchline, it's the same director on both languages). And let me tell you, they went all out with the movie. It's the whole of mankind on the line in the movie. Usually the comic manages to afflict little more than a whole city. But hey, I cut them some slack: the city of Los Angeles has enough shit as is, to be cursed by demons on its own. Terminator 2 (1991) was set in Los Angeles, Transformers (2007) was set in Los Angeles, Pulp Fiction (1994) was in Los Angeles and so were half the sitcoms I liked to watch. Damn, it's one cool city. (on a related note, I just imagined Terminator bursting inside the Cheers! pub and killing everyone there, except for Maria de Medeiros who gets saved by Bumblebee).

I do resent a little that Keanu Reeves was picked for the part. I never liked the man a lot both for his face and as an actor, but since The Matrix he's never been without a job. I also resent Peter Stormare being picked for the part of Satan. Not that he's a bad actor, on the contrary. I liked him in The Big Lebowski and Birth, and saw him in a shitload TV series including Prison Break, he's a very decent actor, he has a cool voice, but I think he wasn't very well picked as Satan. When I think of the Price of Darkness, that's usually not what comes to mind. I expected someone not as old and a little more charisma. I did understand why he was picked, however: Lucifer was an angel after all, and I think production was trying to make their Infernal Majesty something that we could believe had been an angel, only he's spent the last thousands of years in the slammer. On that view, they did a good job. Loved Tilda Swinton as the archangel Gabriel (you probably remember her as the White Witch in Chronicles of Narnia), and yes, it is a woman. Awesome job make-up did on making her look genderless. Very well-picked and very well worked with.

Overall, I like the comic better. It's definately worth a look, if you have nothing better to do.

Weekly Log - 26 through 1

Monday Jan 26

Here's the Oh Murphy, which is the first official prayer for the Most Serene Church. Recite it every Unholy Monday as soon as the first bullshit arises.

"Oh Murphy who art wherever the fuck You art. A curse upon Thy neck. Thy bad luck spread, bring forth Thy mad, I'm not afraid because I've lost my mind already. Give us today our daily problem, and forgive those who ignore You, for they don't know what they have coming. Surely You lead us not into solutions, but onto the ultimate boredom. Ramen."

Tuesday Jan 27

I'm late on my 1000 words writing quota. Weekly logs don't count and I have to make for it on blog articles and creative writing. I took up the writing quota some three years ago, and creative writing is a big part of it. Poetry used to help too, but every time I finish two lines and read them again, they sound so bad I end up tossing the whole thing away. I took up the quota because I don't wanna stop writing, and as things are, I've stopped a lot of habits I used to have and enjoyed. Like reading, hardly done any reading lately. There's a book I wanna finish, but something always seems to get in the way. The thing that irritates me the most is sitting down with a book to read, and being called over some shit I can't solve anyway, but that they bug me with all the same. And while I'm riding the train, I can read at will, but on the part of my way home done on foot, it's impossible. Incoming traffic and streets full of dog shit don't allow it. Whenever I start getting involved in the story at home, something tends to pull me away, be it Grandma calling, the phone, chores, errands to run, the works...

But back to the writing quota. It's 1000 words a day and the logs don't count. It tends to get delayed over week days, so I usually make up for it on weekends. Unless I manage to do 5000 words by the end of this week, I'm really freakin' late.

Wednesday Jan 28

Stayed home today. I'm tired like you wouldn't believe. Some mornings it's really not worth crawling out of bed to find Murphy grinning at you just outside the covers. Plus, I don't really sleep anymore. When I do, I have these crazy-ass dreams... just last night I dreamed I was working in baby abduction and re-sale. My job was to prepare the abducted children to be shipped to their new families. I stamped them on the left cheek with a red insignia marked "Quasar", put them inside baskets with a clean diaper, a red blanket and a pacifier, then placed them on a rolling mat into a big truck, where someone else was in charge of loading them. I wore a dark gray uniform and the whole place looked like a car assembly line, but I was the only one working there. I also remember having a clear notion I wasn't paid enough. I'm sure Freud would find something sexual about this, I frankly don't see it.

Thursday Jan 29

Home again. What's the point in even having this job? Pops sends me home 'cause there's nothing for me to do there! On the other hand, what's the point of staying home, given the way things are here? I searched around for a job among agencies with websites, with little result. Every time I call my own agency they tell me they're booked.

You know what I wish I could do? Find me a job that paid at least a clear 5 grand. It's not much, I know, but it'd hold things here a little, and maybe I could set a little something aside, even if not much, to find a way outta dodge.

Friday Jan 30

Can you guess? Yeah. Home. Didn't even go today. Mum keeps hollering she needs money, but she won't ask. She wants me to do it, so Pops can do his usual speech to me instead of her. It's like the divorce all over again, alright.

Lately, I'm getting a feeling that I want to yell back. Wouldn't that be a pretty sight, the both of us screaming at each other from the top of our lungs? I really want to start snapping answers back at her, really. That maybe if she hadn't messed up making credits, we wouldn't be in this situation, and that things at home are only escalating because she's scared to tell her own father to go fuck himself if he doesn't help. I never yelled at my Mother over anything.

Thank crow for Friday. I went out and had coffee with the guys. Well, not coffee, because Starbucks (yeah, they opened one in the local mall, and while I hate malls, I figured it worth a try) didn't sell me coffee. They sold me a toffee bar in liquid state: coffee, caramel, milk and vanilla. In a huge fuckin' mug. I spent a good while there, but ultimately, had to return home: I'm in charge of Grandma in the morning.

Weekend Jan 31-Feb 01

Someone please get me out of here. I think everyone is cracking up, and I'm at the head of the bull. Mum either yells, sobs or grunts whenever I talk to her. She keeps saying her depression is coming back and that's she's falling apart, which loosely translated means shit is heading for the fan. Why the fuck does she say this to me? Why not to the rest of this group of blood-related wankers that supposedly are my family? On Saturday Mum did quite a bit of yelling at me because I didn't pick up the laundry (it was raining when I got up anyway, so I didn't bother) and didn't go out to buy bread (didn't have any cash). Drank heavily on Sunday and pretended I wasn't home, so that went away well.

Ten Signs You're Playing Too Much D&D

#10. You laughed at (and edited) the Wikipedia article on D&D.
Maybe while browsing for book torrents or game forums, you've stumbled upon the Wikipedia entry for "D&D". Maybe you even went as far as logging onto WikiHow and check what they have on the game. And once the browser in front of you displayed the contents of these websites on this particular subject, your reaction varied. You laughed first, then you cried, likely you facepalmed, and then you created an account just so you could edit that shit and make it look proper. You probably were tempted to add a note about the Catholic Church being a bunch of stuck-up assholes on the paragraph that mentioned it insurging against the game during the 70's. Maybe you even went to the trouble of adding something or another to Gary Gygax's biography while you were at it, as well as make connections to words like "RPG", "d20", "dragon", "dungeon", "DM" and so on.

On the same line of subject, you belong to several forums about the game, where you go to discuss how lousy the 4th Edition is on some points and how to properly roll a kender to annoy your DM or players. If you didn't get jack of what I just typed, you're in the clear. The most addicted of us likely created the effin' forum. You have also entertained the thought of playing with people from other countries or bringing the game out into the light, so you joined or created a Yahoo! Group to form a roleplay circle. If you belong in the annals of fangirl/boyism, you wrote about or made art for your characters and NPCs, and posted them on a site of the specialty.

You likely also complained during the movie Dungeons and Dragons, and said whoever wrote that script didn't know shit about the game and would make for a lousy DM. My point is: a good deal of your web surfing is done about the game, and you won't have wrongful information posted about it. Over your dead body (and mine too!)

#9. Normal RPG games just don't cut it anymore.
Whenever you pick up a Final Fantasy, or replay an RPG you already finished, you tend to feel unsatisfied. The story goes as it's programed to go, and no matter how often you play it, it will go the same way. Leveling up tends to get boring because... you're just roaming around dropping monsters for loot or XP, no novelty, nothing different from the other fourteen times you did it. You can't surprise the unexisting DM with a move you pulled only crow knows from where, but which worked like a charm, like casting shatter on the walls of the Ice Cave and pray that your next Reflex check proves true and you manage to get the Hell outta dodge in time. You can't drop a line that sends the whole party, PC and players, on hysterical laughter for several minutes. You can't attempt to fool the merchant you're selling loot to by casting charm, or decide to pickpocket you way into buying that awesome armor because your Sleight of Hand skill is the best asset on your rogue. If you're sick and tired of that NPC on your party (Tidus from FFX, Vaan from FFXII, I'm looking at you both) you can't send him on his merry way, in fact, you need to put up with him for the whole of the game. And if this particular mission for the campaign is being a bore, you can't find alternative ways around it. And you can't change the alignment of your character (unless you're playing, let's say, Fable), you'll have to play with what's given to you. Overall, you dislike the fact you have little control on things beyond the four buttons and analogs. You'd rather play a game where, if you plan your moves right, the DM will be forced to play by ear with you, and where you're sitting around with a group of friends eating junk food and contemplating what the answer may be to the riddle that opens the door to the lich's den. Which, by the way, you can't go to Gamefaqs for.

#8. You carry a set of dice around... just in case.
In your bag, there's a small plastic box with a set of the basic dice. Those who are greatly afflicted also carry an extra d20 in their pocket for good measure. Wherever you are, if they hand you a pen and paper, you're ready to go. After all, nothing's easier to roll than this or that character, the basic mods and feats are imprinted in your head and you can actually aid people who never heard of the game to do it without even taking a glance at the book.

People who don't know you can't tell, by the contents of your backpack, if you'll be playing today or not. There are always dice in there. In fact, you suspect they're beginning to mate and multiply, because on more than one occasion, you've found dice in there you don't recall purchasing. The most afflicted of us can even tell them apart, even if they're the same shape, size and color (I'll slowly raise my hand on this one) or owns a set of dice for every character and another, huge load of them, only used when DMing. Maybe you carry dice you don't even use, but which remain with you as a reminder of rolls past. Maybe you've found yourself (and I'll raise my hand again) saying to someone, "This was my first d10. Look at those round edges. I must've made thousands of rolls with it. I still carry it for luck... in fact I remember this one time when..."

#7. You have references to the game on you, permanent or not.
Sure, we've all seen the t-shirts. "I am not a geek, I am a 15-level paladin", or "Rogues Do It From Behind" (by the way, did you know there is a series of porn short films called World of Whorecraft, and this is the name of the first? Yeah. It's on the Internet somewhere, look it up), but you're beyond that. In fact, t-shirts with game references are for pussies on your book.

You wear a dice around your neck, on a silver chain, which you sometimes grab just before you need your luck the most. You've devised earrings from old dice you can't use anymore. There's an imprint on your bag or jacket and it was taken directly from Complete Warrior. You have tattoos in elven (Tolkien), dwarven runes or the magi speech (Weis). You have a piercing with (again) dice, and your mp3 is playing power metal, which is aimed directly at the D&D people.

I have once seen one crazy guy who tattooed two huge d20 in his forearm. My dream is a little more modest. I just want one d20. In flames. On my back.

#6. You know the rolls for nearly anything in game. Anything.
It's not in PHb, but you know how to seduce that elven princess. The DM doesn't even need to say how, you already know. And you also know what rolls you need to make if you get the chance for sex with said princess, but you couldn't pick up a real woman to save your life. The DM doesn't need to tell you anything. In fact, he sometimes comes to you for advice. Even the most obscure rule for the most obscure action in-game, you know how to roll it. You do, in fact, roll them even before announcing them, and often describe how it goes based off the numbers you get. And if someone doubts this move is possible, you can direct them to the right book, the right chapter and even tell the page where it is by illustrations alone.

People tend to have in-depth knowledge about the things they love. You have in-depth knowledge on how to make this game work. You may even have a few campaign sets memorized, and thus are able to run a campaign on command. It doesn't matter you didn't have the time to do any writing: you can lift this campaign off the ground in this session, and do the writing from there.

Even if you lack knowledge of something, you have the specific book for it. Going back to the previous example, you likely have Book of Erotic Fantasy or Guide to Unlawful Carnal Knowledge sitting somewhere in your hard drive or on your shelf. The most afflicted of us are regular encyclopedias. Want to test your addiction? Name me six monsters that can send fear chewing at your spine whose names won't start with T, D or B. You've made it? Then I have news for you...

#5. Not playing for a while brings out the worse in you.
If you checked for this one, congratulations: you're a junkie. The most of us probably play every weekend or so. If you could, you'd do it everyday. In fact, if you're mid-campaign, you ring your pals in the middle of the week saying you're bored at home, you can be there in 20 minutes, are they up for an hour or two of follow-up? If you're not playing, you're rolling characters for fun, or you're planning a campaign you don't know when is gonna run, or if it's gonna run, but you're doing it.

When you begin to grow tired of these patches and you haven't played for three weeks, the signs start to show. You roll dice at random because your wrist is twitchy. Your job, school, family and pets are beginning to annoy the Hell out of you. You can't sleep with the thought of another weekend not playing. You sweat. You can't stand another healthy meal. You're irritable. The ones among us with worse lives consider suicide.

#4. Your PC has a more active lifestyle than you.
It's not hard at all that your PC has a more active lifestyle than you. After all, you're playing a ranger who left his village on horseback to hunt down the tribe of orcs that's rampaging through the area. And in real life, you sit and try to sell bullshit to people over the phone, armed with constant, annoying, repetitive pre-designed speech. Your PC has to hunt for his meals. You get yours on a tray or from an iron and plastic box which tends to heat stuff up. He fights off threats every two or three hours, sometimes for long periods of time. The biggest threat you have to fight off is traffic and your aunt's dog. He sleeps under the stars, with one eye open for thieves or beasts. You go to sleep at three in the AM after several hours of Internet or TV.

But when your PC has way more friends, acquaintances, lovers and stuff to do on any given day that you, we have a teensy-weensy problem. Your PC knows half the people of the village, you don't know half the people who live in the same story as you. He's on first-name basis with the innkeeper, you don't know the name of the clerk at your local grocery store. He has enough charisma to pick up any barmaid, any adventurer (or, if he's feeling frisky, any female rogue of the local guild) that happens to cross his eye. And you... go to sleep at three in the AM after several hours of Internet or...

Crow. I'm depressed now.

#3. Usage of game terminology in real life.
You ever sit down and say that you were raised mainly Lawful Good, but drifted off to True Neutral as age piled up? You ever trip and nearly fall on the stairs, and say that was one lucky Balance check? Is "disgusting, filthy troll" a proper insult for someone bigger than you? Can you ask where the bathroom is in elven? You ever lie on someone's face and then turn to your friend and say nobody can beat your Bluff? Have you started adressing to Garl Glittergold instead of God? There you have it.

#2. There's but a thin line between you and your PC.
I observed many times that my characters always have some connection to me, although I play essentially male characters. My current character has hair the same color as mine, more or less the same lenght, the same temper before the morning coffee, he smokes, is a whisker short of being an alcoholic and we share the same vocabulary... especially the cursive, if you get my drift. The one I played before this? Also smoked, same taste for bad puns, pretty tall, same taste for setting fire to stuff (he's a caster specialized in the fire element, I love a bonfire), the sarcasm... well the rest is pretty much opposite, actually. He's a middle-aged islander male, I'm a younger continental female.

But more serious than this is when the character and you begin being one. You find yourself saying "I" instead of "[enter PC name]". In talking out of game, people have a hard time telling when you means you and when you means the character. If you say "I'm hungry", you can mean you are, or your PC is, and usually, you mean both, because as he orders a meal, you take a bite on your sammich. And if an argument arises between friends or at work, you're likely to begin roleplaying your character out of habit, as a reaction. When I'm gaming and my characters light up, I usually do too. Damn, what could be a more sure sign you've done one session too many?

#1. You, player, get physical reactions to in-game situations.
When you react to what's going on in game, instinctively, you know you're in deep. You incorporated the persona you've created to new heights. This is when the DM says a small army is running towards the party, and you, player, show all signs of fight or flight. Your palms become so sweaty or shaky you have trouble rolling dice. Your mouth goes dry. You blink faster. Your heart rate goes up. This is when you roll for iniciative and you're ready for a fight yourself. This is when the DM is rolling for damage, and you begin feeling pain or soreness yourself.

During a session I was DMing, a small child died, consequence of a failure to roll above 10 for several turns in a row, from my players. As they picked up the child's corpse and went to give their condolences to the family, I took a glance at one of the players, the one whose PC was carrying the body. And imagine my amazement when I saw him discreetly rub his eyes in heartfelt sorrow. This is how deep in they were. And if you are too, you probably just smiled at this story, and then thought to yourself, like I did, "crow... we need to get out more."