RPG Items with real-life components

I once sat in on a session of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign where the Dungeon Master had created an innovative way to get his players into the game. When he gave some of his player characters magical items, he gave the players a real-life item that corresponded with the in-game item. The one that I thought was especially clever was a chess set that, in game, one of the characters was playing against a ghost. The character would move a piece, and then the ghost would move a piece. In real life, the DM used a small magnetic chess set to represent the magical chessboard. The DM would make the ghost's moves, and the player would make his character's moves.

Another item in this campaign was a magical deck of cards, and each card did something different. This is similar to the famous D&D item, the Deck of Many Things. In this particular version, the deck was for a D&D card game, but other DMs may want to experiment with tarot decks, 52-card playing card decks, and any other decks they may have.

This inspired me to try my hand at creating some D&D items that could have real-life components. This seems like a great way to get the player into character, while also offering a unique memento of the RPG campaign. The idea is to come up with something that any DM can make without having to be an artist or spend a lot of money.

The Dune Sequels - Safe to Skip

***This review has spoilers for Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune.***

When I was in high school, I read two of the great works of SF: The Lord of the Rings and Dune. I recently re-read The Lord of the Rings and Dune, so I decided to continue on with the sequels to Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. I loved Dune: the characters, the setting, the mix of technology and superstition. I had heard that the sequels were not as good as the original, and that the books after the first three got really weird. Plus, there were books written by Frank Herbert's son Brian and coauthored by Kevin J. Anderson. Based on their reputation, it sounds like Brian Herbert totally pulled a Christopher Tolkien, if you know what I mean.

Thor: This movie, I like it! ANOTHER!

Thor is more than just the latest Marvel superhero movie. It may not be X-Men or Spider-Man or Iron Man, but it doesn't waste its time trying to be. Instead, it focuses on a likable hero, an engaging plot, a compelling villain, and of course setting up The Avengers, but more on that later.

I didn't know much about Thor when I went into the theater. I knew that he was an Avenger, and that he wielded Mjolnir and had storm-based powers, but I was mostly familiar with other incarnations of him: Ultimate Thor, Thor in 1602, Thor in the Ultimate Alliance video game. I had never actually read a "regular" Thor comic. I hadn't even planned on seeing it in theaters, but I heard a lot of good things, both from friends and from Rotten Tomatoes, so I thought, why not?

Priest Movie Review

When you go to see a movie like Priest, you know what you're going to get. In the tradition of films like Underworld and Daybreakers, Priest exists only to deliver over-the-top supernatural action. But does it do a good job of it?

Gladstone's School for World Conquerors, Issue 1

Click here for a followup to this post covering the first arc of the series

The new comic book series "Gladstone's School for World Conquerors" is about a school for superpowered kids, and I'm a sucker for stories like that. The X-Men, with Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, is the most well-known example. There was also the live-action Disney movie "Sky High," the comic book series PS-238 by Aaron Williams (the guy behind Nodwick), and no doubt countless others. I even wrote a superhero school novel for my first National Novel Writing Month novel. I'm also a big fan of the Teen Titans cartoon, which is not about a school, but it has the same wild energy of "Gladstone's School."

Movie Review: Summer Wars

Summer Wars is a film that fits a lot into two hours: there's action, romance, humor, tragedy, and wisdom. The film tells the story of a young man, Kenji, who agrees to accompany his classmate Natsuki to her grandmother's estate. When he gets there, he discovers that Natsuki plans on passing Kenji off as her fiancee for her grandmother's 90th birthday party. Natsuki's grandmother is a formidable woman who is proud of her samurai ancestry, so poor Kenji will have his work cut out for him if he is to impress her. But after the initial shock of being introduced to Natsuki's large family wears off, he realizes that he's never been part of such a vibrant and charming family before.

This sounds like the setup to a charming, light romantic comedy, and it sort of is, but there's something more to it: Kenji is a math whiz who works on Oz, a sort of mix between Google, World of Warcraft, and AT&T. While he's staying at Natsuki's grandmother's, Kenji receives a mysterious message that was sent to his cell phone asking him to solve a math problem. Kenji solves the problem in a night, then learns in the morning that Oz's supposedly unhackable security system has been compromised. As the intruder takes over more and more of Oz, it becomes a race against time for Kenji to undo the damage and restore Oz before the communications chaos causes permanent harm.

Book Review: Bitter Seeds, by Ian Tregillis

Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis is a novel that takes place during the Second World War and features the struggle of the British Secret Service against a new threat: a Nazi experiment to give a group of teenagers superpowers. Faced with a power they cannot hope to oppose, the Secret Service calls in a group of British warlocks for assistance.