Attack Of The Gryphon (2007)

Attack Of The Gryphon - or just Gryphon, as it is known in some quarters - is an American TV movie about two feuding kingdoms in the Land of Vallon that discover they need to work together to overcome a common foe.

Buffy's Amber Benson is Amelia of Lockland, a rugged, tom-boyish princess in the Joan of Arc mould, who has to team up with Prince Seth of Delphi (played by Jonathan LaPaglia, the younger brother of familiar TV face Anthony LaPaglia).

They are on quest to bring down the traitorous sorcerer Armand (Larry Drake, another familiar face - probably best remembered as L.A. Law's Benny Stulwicz), former counsellor to the King of Lockland, who has taken control of the kingdom's magical protector (a gryphon) and is using it to bring both warring kingdoms under his power.

If you can look past the feeble CGI used to give life to the gryphon, the bewildering array of accents and acting talents of the numerous performers and the obvious debt the film owes to such better known movies as Lord Of The Rings, it actually isn't that bad.

The script makes a half-decent effort at putting a fresh gloss on old clichés and while it doesn't always succeed, Benson's spunky Amelia and LaPaglia's rugged Seth are charismatic enough leads to carry the audience along... if they are willing to go on the journey.

While physically Benson is a surprising match for the role, initially it appears as though she is auditioning for a school play with her over-earnest line deliveries, but once out on the quest she settles better into the role.

Evil Armand, assisted by his two bizarrely-attired 'brides', uses more actual magic in this short film than Gandalf does in the entire Lord of The Rings trilogy and I suspect his 'magical slap' spell is employed using some kind of Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition 'at will' power, because he uses it a lot to smack our heroes and their sidekicks around in the climactic confrontation.

There's some romance, magical duels, an animated statue (obviously an actor painted grey) and even an actual, genuine, underground dungeon crawl sequence - with traps and treasure - that made the whole enterprise shine in my eyes.

Sadly, the treasure at the end of this dungeon crawl, the blade of the legendary Draconian Pike, looks very plastic - almost like one of those cheap kid's swords you find in pound stores - which rather undermines the gravitas of the moment.

Attack Of The Gryphon is only 90 minutes long and while not the 'epic' the DVD packaging proclaims, it's still a lot better than a vast swathe of the fantasy fodder that came out in the wake of Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings.

For the fantasy roleplaying gamesmaster looking for an inspirational 'pick-me-up', it's a worthy investment of an hour and a half of your time.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Different Worlds

Forget your White Dwarf and your Dragon, for me the only role-playing magazine during the 1980s was Different Worlds (originally published by Chaosium, the Call of Cthulhu people).

Different Worlds was the first gaming magazine that really understood the fun of the hobby, emphasising wild ideas and story over the technical details.

Sure, it ran its fair share of house rules, character class suggestions, magical variants etc, although nothing that compared to, say, White Dwarf's Monster Mark grading system - the dread precursor of the whole "balanced encounter" nonsense that dominates modern, corporate-led gaming products.

Does anyone else remember the Monster Mark system? It was some scientific formula to grade and compare monsters, based on their statistics, that would have make Stephen Hawkin's head spin!

Of course, White Dwarf has survived as the monthly catalogue of Games Workshop - ditching its roleplaying content - and The Dragon survived for a while as the organ of Wizards of The Coast's Third Edition/d20 empire, packed to the gills with power combos and winning strategies like a video game magazine; so I guess there's an object lesson there...

Did it see 4th and 5th edition? Honestly, I can't remember.

However, Different Worlds wasn't about the crunch, it was about the story - and if needs be the rules needed to add a little narrative sparkle to your game: for instance one issue I picked up from eBay had an article on using HP Lovecraft himself as a character in your Call of Cthulhu game!

Early issues ran a semi-regular feature called My Life And Role-Playing where industry folk (gentleman hobbyists all, not number crunchers) would recount how they had gotten into the business, often with interesting insights and stories from their own games and campaigns.

As well as Runequest and Cthulhu - Chaosium's own systems - the magazine ran articles on games which are now quite obscure, but still fondly remembered by us "old timers", such as Arduin, Tunnels & Trolls, Villains & Vigilantes and Bunnies & Burrows.

Looking back at my modest collection, there is an innocence and enthusiasm about Different Worlds that made it stand out from the crowd.

The only magazine I can recall that came close to capturing the same spirit was Arcane, the short-lived British publication which vanished from the shelves an issue after I finally decided to subscribe to it!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Before The Tuesday Knights

After my aneurysm and stroke, I was looking for ways to keep myself entertained and so Nick, Pete and I started our Formula Dé League, playing monthly motor races and eating a lot of very hot curry.

As the Tunbridge Wells Formula De League we would race little plastic cars around boards representing a variety of Grand Prix circuits from across the globe.

The game uses the very clever mechanic of having the vehicle's different gears represented by different polyhedral dice. 

A moment of high drama during the Chinese Grand Prix

As with our current gaming we didn't always stick to the monthly schedule that we had drawn up in advance, but we still managed to rack up enough races for a couple of years (2006/2007) to give our league a sense of verisimilitude.

We each controlled a stable of two racers, competing for both individual and team glory.

Pete was Team Clover (Paddy O'Doors & Muhat Mecoate), I was Team Zerro (Damien Dash & Brian 'Whitey' Whitehouse) and Nick was Team Flamer (Antonio Wasp & Nick Nastily). Nick's Nick Nastily retired during the '06 season and was replaced by Jock Saway.

Press coverage of Nastily's retirement

During 2007, Steve joined us as Team Classic Rock for one race.

As well as creating newspaper clippings of key race-related stories, we even held "prize giving" ceremonies at the end of each year in local restaurants, handing out trophies and wooden spoons to the winners and losers.

A third year's racing was scheduled for 2008, but a resurgence of interest in roleplaying games led to the creation of the Tuesday Knights and that overtook our toy car racing exploits.

The TWFDL: Pete, Nick & I

The release of the Hollow Earth Expedition pulp adventure system had reignited Nick's enthusiasm for roleplaying games and he ran a short and sadly unfinished Edwardian campaign for Clare and I.

But it was the publicity around the publication of the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons that got me thinking about starting our own broader gaming group, replacing our board game nights (we also played the collaborative Lord Of The Rings games) with regular roleplaying sessions.

And so was born The Tuesday Knights. In the end we didn't play Fourth Edition, opting for the more old school Castles & Crusades, which was then replaced by Labyrinth Lord, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Regular board game meet-ups resumed in 2023, with the launch of Monopoly Club, where Pete gets to show off his ever-expanding collection of themed Monopoly boards for Clare, Rachel, and I.