The Treasure In The Mentzer Basic D&D Rulebook Adventure

The Treasure In The Mentzer Basic D&D Rulebook Adventure 

It was the Tom Moldvay Basic Dungeons & Dragons rulebook that got me into the game. Though I owned some of the advanced books, I never moved beyond basic. To me, the simplistic nature of those rules was all me and the group I played with needed.

I think the Moldvay book was a better Basic book to work with than the Frank Mentzer version. I always respected that Frank took it all the way from Basic to Immortal. Five boxed sets, and I own them all. There's another thing I liked about Frank's version.

To teach new people how to play the game, Frank actually had them rolling up a character and adventuring in a solo quest that he created in the book. You were playing before you knew the rules. As it unfolded, you learned things about the statistics and about the game itself. That was brilliant, in my opinion.

With the cleric Aleena and the wizard Bargle, we had a couple of characters to draw our attention. Aleena taught us about the value of a cleric and got us to care about her. Bargle gave us a bad guy to hate. 

Both characters were immortalized when Bargle ultimately killed Aleena. This is the way Frank meant it to be, although other people at TSR brought Aleena back. With her death came the Kill Bargle meme.

There's another thing that interested me about the little solo adventure. There was the treasure. Let's not kid ourselves. There might be a quest that leads our characters into the dungeon, but we're looking to grab the loot. Beyond Aleena and Bargle was something else of interest to me.

When I first did this adventure, I discovered the treasure chest room from the secret door. You could peer through the crack and see the treasure chest, but you couldn't enter. That moment made me wonder. What was in that treasure chest? Were there any magic items?

I don't think I ever got an answer to the treasure chest question, and that was enough to inspire my imagination. If you come at it from the other way, you do get to the treasure, but there are other issues to deal with. There's a trap.

You learn very quickly that there's a lethality to this game. A trap can take you out in one fell swoop. In this case, it's a blade. Frank gives you an out. If you have the healing potion, you can drink it.

There's another issue you're going to deal with here. It's that pesky rust monster. To get to the treasure chest, you have to get past that annoying creature. You may just lose your weapon and your armor in that encounter.

If you survive the trap and get the treasure chest, you find that you get enough money to buy yourself better equipment. The problem is you have to drag that treasure chest past the rust monster. 

You find out that even though the pest isn't a threat to your safety, it is a threat to your loot. It will disintegrate the treasure chest and all the coins within it. 

Frank manages to introduce you to some of the different dangers you will see in a game. He also teaches you about other skill sets. You're playing a fighter, but you learn where a cleric or even a thief might come in handy.

The Frank Mentzer solo adventure in that rule book captured our imaginations. I thought he did a good job with basic as well as all the books that followed. Throughout the '80s, I enjoyed the game before life took me another directions.

I'm glad I got to meet Frank at Gencon in 2007. He's a genuinely good guy and was an important part of TSR back in those days. In all honesty, they could have used a guy like Frank to introduce people to the newer version of the game. They've never quite done basic rules like they did back then. At least not in the last 25 years or so. 

 

 Mentzer Basic D&D Rules

In Appreciation Of Ghostbusters

In Appreciation Of Ghostbusters

In recent years, I've written about Ghostbusters 2016. I liked that movie, though I intentionally avoided it when it first came out. I admit that I felt like it was sort of disrespectful to the franchise that they made it an all-woman cast, rather than trying to go back to the original cast and continue their storyline in some way. That situation was rectified with Ghostbuster Afterlife.

That controversy doesn't need to be included in this column. The fact is, if we didn't have Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2, we wouldn't be talking about anything that followed. The second movie gets a little bit of disrespect, but I find that I enjoyed it just as much as the first movie. The movies were a fresh take on ghost movies, and I liked them.

Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis wrote the script, and there was a lot in there. By now, we've heard all of the bits of interesting trivia. There's the controversy of Huey Lewis and The News being asked to do the theme song of the first movie but being unavailable. Then, we have the theme song, written by Ray Parker Jr, which became very popular. It sounds eerily like I Want A New Drug by Huey Lewis and The News, and of course there was the legal fallout there.

Originally, John Belushi was going to star in this movie as Dr. Peter Venkman. He and Aykroyd had a few movie projects planned, but John's death put an end to that. Bill Murray came in and did a good job, but I think his love/hate relationship with this franchise is why we didn't get the third movie that we should have gotten. He and Ramis had a parting of the ways, unfortunately. I'm glad that they were able to reconnect before Harold died.

One of the people set to star in this movie was Eddie Murphy. They were definitely going for name recognition. Unfortunately, Eddie was a bit busy. It is said that the script for Winston Zeddemore was reduced just a little bit as Ernie Hudson was brought in to play the role. I feel Ernie did a good job as the "everyman" character who reacts to all of this stuff. I like his line in there about if they pay him enough, he'll believe anything. 

You've got Ray, Egon and Peter, and Winston comes in as the fourth Ghostbuster. The three scientists come up with a way to detect ghosts, but also a way to remove them from the premises. I don't think we'd seen much of this concept expressed in entertainment.

 

There was a Sunday morning kids show of the same name before this franchise became a thing, and that's why the cartoon based on this movie went with the name The Real Ghostbusters. They went ahead and tied up the legal issues before they became a problem.

So, the three scientists realize that they can go into business removing ghosts from wherever they are haunting and make the place safe. The fun comes when they realize there is a bigger reason for all of the hauntings, and it goes back to something that happened in the past. I think the reason this movie was such a hit was because nobody had seen anything quite like it. This excited moviegoers, and we all had to be there to see it in the theater. 

Everything didn't have to be a big blockbuster back then. I remember one measuring stick for the success of a movie back in those days was whether they made $100 million. If they did, it was a big hit. This movie was given about a $30 million budget and made nearly $300 million at the box office. With that kind of success, of course there had to be a second movie.

Ivan Reitman returned to be the director and producer, and the whole cast was back. This included Sigourney Weaver as Dana Barrett, Rick Moranis as Lewis Tully and Anne Potts as Janine Meinitz. They had a little bit more money to play with as the budget was estimated between $30 million and $40 million, but this time they made a little less at $215 million. Still, it was another success.

Loaded with special effects, good music and excitement, both of these movies captured the attention of the moviegoers from start to finish. Whether they were defeating Gozer in the first movie or Vigo The Carpithian in the second movie, all while being threatened by the local government, you were on their side.

This isn't your basic movie review. Most of us have already seen this movie. If you haven't, why haven't you? I love them both. They were lots of fun, and I was ready for a third movie. Sequels were becoming a thing in the 1980s, and they got past the stigma of sequels often ruining everything. We started seeing sequels to franchises that weren't so bad. Despite the fact that the second movie here gets a negative rap, it wasn't bad.

However, Murray didn't see any reason to come back to do another movie. Obviously, the cast didn't want to do it without him. Ramis and Aykroyd would occasionally write something with the hopes that they could get everybody back together again. We waited and waited until we got the closest thing we were going to get to a sequel with the Ghostbusters video game in 2009.

The original stars came back to reprise their roles as voice actors in the game that had a story. The four were basically training the new recruit, who would be a part of the team. At various times, you'd be working with one of them, and it had a story that unfolded much like one of the movies. It was actually quite enjoyable. In much the same way as the Back To The Future video game of around that time, many regard it as an unofficial sequel in the franchise.

With the passing of Harold Ramis, the idea was pretty much dropped to make a movie centering around these characters training new ones. The studio opted to give us the all-female cast in 2016, which in my opinion was not a bad movie at all. It's biggest flaw might be that it's seen as a slap in the face to the first two movies, especially in light of some of the jokes that were used. This included having the character played by Bill Murray being skeptical and ultimately flying out the window of a building to his death.

I think that maybe people went a little bit overboard in their hatred of that movie. Some of it comes from the passion of people wanting to see the original cast or something that was a continuation of what had begun with the first two movies. Ultimately, we got that with Ghostbusters Afterlife, which did a little bit better at the box office than 2016. It's seen in some people's eyes as having "saved" the franchise.

To me, art is in the eye of the beholder. A movie is good if the one viewing it thinks it's good. It doesn't matter whether the critics like it or not. If you're sitting there watching a movie and you are entertained by it, then you're not wrong to say you watched a good movie. 

 

I will say that Ghostbusters 1 and 2 were both good movies. I know I'm short on details about the stories, but if you haven't seen the movies, what are you waiting for? Get them and prepare to be entertained.

If Ghostbusters Needs Help With Another Sequel, There's Somebody They Can Call

If Ghostbusters Needs Help With Another Sequel, There's Somebody They Can Call

There's a question about whether Ghostbusters Frozen Empire will do well enough to justify another sequel. It was great seeing so many of the original cast in this movie, but there was so much going on with the movie itself that it lost the attention of the people.

The critics didn't give it a very favorable review, because the movie couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be. Some people have even suggested that they tried to cram a full Ghostbusters series or two or three movies into one, and what they got was unsatisfying to the viewers.

When Jason Reitman directed Ghostbusters Afterlife, he was making a love letter to the first two movies. This was seen as a sequel, but also a slap in the face to fans of Ghostbusters 2016. Ghostbusters 2016 was not a continuation but a reboot, and it did what a Ghostbusters movie should do.

The reality is Ghostbusters 2016 gets so much hate for political reasons. Some will point to the fact that they went all female with the cast as an issue. I felt that way initially but have become a fan of the movie after giving it a chance 2 years after its release. It wasn't the best Ghostbusters movie but it was still not bad.

When you look at comedies, not every joke lands. You hope that more of your jokes land in a comedy than not, but not every joke will make everybody laugh. There were laughs to be had in Ghostbusters 2016, and it offered the things you would expect from this franchise. Because it didn't succeed at the box office, it was seen as a failure.

Some of it could have been avoided had Paul Feig listened to the people who told him what he needed to do. Paul took the movie over budget and relied a little bit too much on improvisation. Therefore, Ghostbusters 2016 didn't appeal to as big a market as they would have liked.

Likewise, Ghostbusters Frozen Empire isn't quite appealing to a big enough market either. If they wish to keep the Ghostbusters franchise intact, they're going to have to right the ship and come up with something that can bring the fans together. There is a controversial option that could be used.

These days, the multiverse has been used in other franchises. When you think about it, the Ghostbusters franchise lends itself much easier to that concept. What if, the prime Ghostbusters universe we know from the first movie somehow crossed paths with the Ghostbusters 2016 universe?

Impossible, you say? Whether you are a fan of that movie or not, finding a way to make it acceptable will get fans of 2016 on board with something new and do a lot to restore good faith. With the proper writing, it can work, because the ladies who were in the 2016 movie are good actresses.

I'm spitballing an idea here, but I would suggest that Ray, played by Dan Aykroyd, and Holtz, played by Kate McKinnon, could somehow connect as both are researching a baddie that is threatening both universes. You can go from there. If you wanted to throw a further link between the two, Holtz could somehow be related to the Egon Spangler from her universe.

Is it perfect? Maybe not. Would this be an idea that they'll entertain? I doubt it. However, I think they could come up with something that would be satisfying to the groups in both camps. Done right, it could be the biggest Ghostbusters hit they've had in years. Come up with a good budget, a good story and stay on target. With marketing, it may just be the hit they need to keep things going.