Hey gang, if you want to join up with the sites at Crossroads Alpha, here’s what we’re looking for!

Muse Hack
Muse Hack is the blog of Geek Applied – career-building, skill-learning, and community-creation. We’re looking for motivated, engaged authors that want to write on people putting their passions to use; career, education, conventions, fan charities, technology, and more. If you want to write on people getting things done, contact us.

We’re specifically looking for:

• A person willing to put together a weekly roundup of relevant news.
• Coverage of the convention beat, especially conventions with a heavy career and/or charity presence.
• Coverage of training, skills, and development.

Contact Steve Savage

Psycho Drive-In
Psycho Drive-In strives to be the home for intelligent reviews and commentary on television and movies on the fringe of mainstream.

We are always on the lookout for great new writers and prefer distinct individual voices with something to say rather than someone just looking to recap the latest episode of whatever you happen to be watching.

We are looking for reviewers of weekly television programs that veer toward the horror/sci-fi genre, but also includes the best that TV has to offer, as well as people interested in reviewing films that are currently playing in theaters and/or new release home videos. Each writer should ideally maintain a presence on Facebook and/or Twitter – at least – to help spread the word when new items are updated on the site.

We are specifically looking for:
* A person willing to put together a weekly roundup of relevant news.
* Writers interested in launching quality ongoing columns analyzing or surveying specific film or TV works/genres/creators with an eye toward future publication as ebooks – either independently or under the PDI banner.

Contact Paul Brian McCoy

Seventh Sanctum
Seventh Sanctum, the site of random generators, is looking for creative people to share their advice and their secrets! The site supports a legion of random tools for ideas, and now hosts The Codex, an online section for advice for creative people. Be it writing, art, or role-playing games, we’re looking for you to share what you know to help out others.

We’re specifically looking for:

• People who can write on art and visual creativity.
• People who can provide serious, hard advice on writing such as editing, publishing, and more.
• Someone willing to do a weekly roundup of news, interesting links, and of course crazy inspiring stuff.

Contact Steve Savage

Indie Haven
Indie Haven, the site for all the news you’d ever want about Indie Games, is looking for folks eager to delve into the world of games journalism. We have a solid reputation among Indie Developers and this is a close-knit group of writers and editors that will help you get better.

What we’re looking for:

• Reliable reviewers that can turn around a game review in a short amount of time.
• Journalists willing to put together feature stories for the website.
• Livestreamers willing to play some games on our Twitch TV channel.

Contact Jose

Before I get into the review, I want to go through a quick bit on how I decide what to review.  The past few weeks, I’ve gone to see movies in the theatres that were based on or a continuation of an original work.  Other times, I pick up a movie on DVD that looks like it would be interesting to review, good or bad.  Then there’s how I chose The Mechanic; I picked up a DVD to watch for just entertainment and discover that it’s a remake of an earlier movie or based on a novel or short story.  There are many movies throughout the history of Hollywood that were based on novels, short stories, and plays, and the output of film studios over the course of a hundred years means that I may not recognize a title as a remake.  The discovery that a movie I’m watching is an adaptations means that my normal approach to reviews needs to take into account that I didn’t experience the original first.  There’s a chance that the new order could skew the review.

The Mechanic, also known as The Killer of Killers, was released in 1972.  Charles Bronson was known for his tough guy roles in movies like The Dirty Dozen, The Magnificent Seven, and Death Wish before starring in this movie.  Playing Arthur Bishop, the titular hit man, the movie shows him going through two kills, the latter being his old friend, Harry McKenna.  The McKenna’s son Steve, played by Jan Michael Vincent, seeks out Bishop to learn the trade.  Bishop accepts Steve under his wing and starts teaching him not only his methods but his philosophy.  However, the people who pay Bishop decide that this departure of the rules needs to be punished, setting up a conflict between mentor and teacher.

The remake of 2011 sees Jason Statham take on the Bronson role, with Ben Foster as the student Steve.  The plot remains the same; Statham’s Bishop kills the father of Foster’s Steve and takes the kid under his wing.  The difference comes in pacing.  Bronson’s Mechanic is very much a character study of Arthur Bishop, a look into what makes a paid assassin tick, how he approaches his life.  The 1972 movie is very much related to the earlier spaghetti westerns and samurai movies; Bronson’s Bishop has rules, both his own personal set and the set imposed by his employers, that he follows and is punished for breaking.  The movie builds up suspense and drama, and takes its time showing who Arthur Bishop is.  Statham’s Mechanic, however, is very much an action movie, and moves the focus from being a character study of Bishop to the mentor-student relationship between Bishop and Steve.  The pace is faster; in the time it takes to get Bronson’s version to receive the order to kill Harry McKenna, Statham’s version has started Steve’s training.  Both, however, keep the same ending for Steve.

As an adaptation, the 2011 remake changed the feel from the original.  This is not necessarily a bad thing; as previously mentioned, a shot-for-shot remake will just have audiences wondering why they just didn’t watch the original.  Changing to an action movie could draw in a larger audience, one that isn’t as used to the slower pace of the original.  The focus on the relationship allowed the remake to explore a different aspect; instead of a samurai, Statham was more workman-like, professional, but doing a job instead of adopting a full lifestyle.  Ultimately, it will come down to what a viewer wants, a character study of a hit man or an action movie involving the teaching of a specialized skill to a protege.

Next week, Muppets Most Wanted.

It often happens that the most interesting RPG locations are in fact quite ordinary and well-known, even if not commonly used in official adventures for various systems. Because of their absence in such sources, and therefore no imprint on the medium, we game masters tend to overlook them as well. And this is not good, as they often provide fabulous opportunities for plots. One such place is a train — be it a luxury passenger transport or a plain line of coal trucks.

To be frank, train as an adventure location hasn’t been completely forgotten by creators, which is best illustrated by the spectacular Call of Cthulhu campaign Horror in Orient Express. However, horror is hardly the only convention that can make use of trains; they also do very well in action, crime, drama or even erotic sessions. In this article we will look at trains primarily in the 20^th century context (like the abovementioned Call of Cthulhu game), but it can also be adapted to many other typical RPG settings, focused on past (steampunk) or future (futuristic subways, transportation of resources on Mars — railroad transport is economical and can withstand harsh conditions) or even pure fantasy (ghost train to the afterlife!). So let’s have a look at this particular environment and determine some ways of using it.

1. Movement

Being non-stationary is the most obvious feature of a train: it is not bound to one place, instead it moves along a fixed, sometimes very long path. This feature was used in the Call of Cthulhu campaign I referred to before, as it made the train its chief form of transportation, which served to move the party not just between locations but also between crucial plot nodes. Even if railroad travel is not that important in our adventure, it cannot be ignored that it sets the landscape behind the window in a constant shift, which allows us to begin lunch on one side of the mountains and finish it on the other. Needless to say, at the very least it enables the game master to try some new descriptions, and possibly even plot points.

Plot-wise, the most important feature of a railroad is impossibility to deviate from the path. This means that hijacking a train will not enable the perpetrators to escape to Sri Lanka; all they will be able to do is maintain speed, and most likely be eventually overcome by the police. On the other hand, such a mindless race can be a source of danger, if the rails are broken or if a bridge collapses… Leaving a train can also be problematic, if it won’t or can’t stop. See paragraph 4 of this article for more on railroad-related dangers.

2. Structure

By structure I mean the actual, physical outline of a train. Although it’s a vehicle, it is in many ways more like a building: it has rooms and other facilities; mostly stores, but bedrooms, kitchens and restaurants can be found there as well. You can walk around it, sit in random places, and like with any other building, even find yourself lost in it (albeit briefly).

What’s more, every carriage and compartment can differ from the others or be made special because of the passengers that travel in it. This is particularly important in high society sessions and in fantastic settings of clashing cultures. This enables the game master to create a small, isolated environment, divided into distinct zones of influence that can be used in many ways. The most trivial use would be to place some sort of opponent in the middle of the train (An old enemy? An evil prince? An SS officer? A monster?) who would be very hard to avoid if the party wants to get past them. Other ideas are a diplomatic scenario with multiple factions (preferably ones that vehemently refuse to talk to each other despite physical vicinity, thus placing the players in the role of mediators), an erotic session where every compartment features a different person/group to interact with, and so on.

3. Isolation

When speaking of isolation in regard to a train setting, one is likely to think of the Wild West, where a steel horse runs across limitless prairies, or perhaps of the trans-Siberian railroad. However, if you think about it, even a contemporary Town A — Town B train is quite efficiently cut off from the surrounding world. If a terrorist attack, sudden epidemic or alien invasion happens in a building or any other fixed place, then of course it is still a problem for the locals, but at least some sort of counter-strike can always be organized; try doing the same in against a high-speed train though. Such a vehicle can of course be easily destroyed (by disabling tracks or a number of other means), but if the train or its cargo must be saved, then one’s options are quickly reduced to scratching their head in hope that something extraordinary happens (for example, that a group of player characters on board will solve the problem).

4. Danger

Travelling by train is choke full of elements that guarantee quick and sudden death, such as speed, embankments at least 10 m high and bridges over chasms at least 100 m deep (after J. Wittlin, author of the classical and spectacular Scribbler’s Vademecum, which takes great pleasure ridiculing common tropes in fiction books). Velocity, breakneck jumps, hijackings and breakdowns — these are all quite common in movies, which means that they are thoroughly tested and stimulate imagination well. Why not use them in an RPG session, where they can still pass for a novelty? Action scenarios are bound to pick up the pace if fights happen on the roofs of speeding carriages, and if a valid way of eliminating a foe is to position their head on the path of an incoming concrete pillar. Besides, the element of danger can easily be used as a time limiter: if we don’t stop the train within 30 minutes, we will all die in a precipice!

5. Control

Whoever controls the engine, controls the entire train. What’s more, the locomotive is normally located at the very front of the entire thing, which makes it easy to defend by any faction which succeeds in securing it. If all you want is to get off, you just need to separate your carriage (and everything behind it) from the train’s front, but if you want to stop the entire train, you must seize control of the engine. This motif was used many times in action films, so there is no need to elaborate on it much.

If you want, you can also make the players ask the question: is there even a driver on board? Emotions guaranteed.

6. Where to steal from

Finally, let me give you a short list of possible inspirations for railroad-related scenarios. I hope they will provide your players with a healthy dose of stress, and yourself — with diabolical satisfaction.

Films:

Runaway Train

Fantômas Returns (Fantômas se déchaîne)

North by Northwest

Liberator II

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Firefly episode: The Train Job

Games:

Soldier of Fortune (level with the nuclear warhead)

Star Wars: Jedi Academy (mission on Corellia)

Railroad Tycoon/Transport Tycoon Deluxe and similar (because theory never hurts)

Have fun!

Well, what’s up?

• First you probably saw the Action Animal Generator.  That’s a way to keep my mojo going as I cope with rounds of business, illness, work, etc.  Q1 was not the calmest quarter.  Also this was fun -and there’s a kinda-related-inspired generator I want to do that is more useful.  I think I think I will have to block out time to do those more complex writing generators I wanted though.  Then again this quarter really ambushed me.
• One of the reasons I was so busy was . . . a rewrite of my first book!  Now there’s Fan To Pro’s Second Edition.  I updated my career guide with lots of new information, reorganized it, and more.  I learned a lot over the years and wanted to get that done – and that also was a larger drain on my time than expected – especially formatting.  If you do a print book self-published, get ready to spend time or money to format it right . . . (If you want any advice, email me).
• I haven’t sensed a lot of enthusiasm for the mailing list so I left that by the wayside for awhile, but am considering it and other social options.  Also, again, being darned busy.
• We’ve got more posts coming from me and Solar Scortch, and I’ll be diving deep into religious worldbuilding!

– Steven Savage

[Way With Worlds appears at Seventh Sanctum, MuseHack, and Ongoing Worlds]

(As noted in my past columns, this discussion of religion is focusing on the with some metaphysical or theological elements).

When I worldbuild, I confess building religions and so on are some of my favorite things to do. This of course is part of my own inclinations and interests in people, psychology, culture, and religious experiences. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm.

Fortunately, as I have such enthusiasm, I’ve got plenty of advice to share. Here’s a few things I’ve found help in doing religious world building. (more…)