filmreroll

Fifth Element Part 5

A thread I've been playing at for a while now is the notion of what happens to Corbin Dallas if he doesn't meet Leeloo. Scott assumed that since we didn't meet him, he would just be out of the movie, but the fact is that he's always going to be important to the story since he's the guy the military chooses to go on the mission. As long as he says yes to the call of adventure, he's in the movie.

Corbin is a cynical, broken man, who in the film is moved to accept the call because of his b...

Fifth Element Part 4

There's a really interesting challenge in these types of episodes in adding interesting side-content without feeling like I'm guiding the players down a garden path. It's a lot easier in episodes with less clear external objectives, then you can put all manner of shiny objects in the world and the players might get interested or they might not. But this kind of end-of-world-stakes type story, where the objectives are so clear, it can become a challenge to fill the world with interesting mater...

Reroll B-Roll: Rules Paralegaling

We don't actually get all that crunchy with Captain Crunch, Jon Miller!

(Also, just so we don't get anyone confused, I'm gonna spill the beans a little early—the campaign Jon was talking about running is later in our lineup. Next up, whenever we finish Fifth Element, is one of my favorite films of all time: Tremors!)

Fifth Element Part 3

Having hyper powerful characters on your team can make balancing encounters wildly difficult. But don't be afraid to, as long as there are multiple story-telling elements to play with. That's what makes traditional dungeon crawls so much more contingent on the care put into balance; all you've got to play with is often four bare walls and the monsters. There is simply less fun to be had outside of combat. But if the story is your focus, then the challenges of good game balance can be seen as ...

Delayed Drops

Hi everyone!

You may have noticed the lack of eps and B-Roll last month! We’re sorry for the delay and are at work editing to drop the next Fifth Element soon! There were a few sudden life hiccups (which is why we structured our Patreon around drops instead of monthly subscriptions), but we’re back on track for March! Thanks for sticking around and supporting us—it means the world to our lil ole show!!

Bear Hugs!

Fifth Element Part 2

My prep is very much world-building based. I try to completely understand intuitively the circumstances and geography so that I can improvise in the world of the movie. I don't plot events or scenes because I don't know what will be happening when we arrive at a specific moment. Even if I strongly believe a moment will happen, small differences in circumstance lead to enormous differences in how it can play out. So trying to prepare specific beats of a story is a fool's errand. I learned that...

Reroll B-Roll: Home Alone

Keep the change...

And as we said, Film Reroll does not condone homemade fire-works, fire-swords, stealing, prank-calling, smoke-bombs, bear-trapping strangers, or answering work emails during B-Rolls.

The Fifth Element

I've long thought that this was a perfect movie for this show, with its tight adventure plot and its imaginative world, not to mention its iconic visuals that help ground the listener in a very specific landscape. In truth The Fifth Element has some unique challenges. For one, it's pretty on-rails: The heroes need to get the Element Stones from the blue opera singer, and take them back to Egypt without getting caught by the bad guys. Those two things are kind of set in stone before the movie ...

Charlie Brown Christmas

Joz took over doing the writeup for this one:

I wanted to tell some gentle stories, because, believe it or not, I’m not a maniacal maverick in real life, and we need some gentle stories right now.

This year has brought me a lot of challenge and change—on a less life-threatening scale than for so many others—but still there. And I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and the gender binary. Neither end has a great relationship to it: our current and historical stories teach boy...

Reroll B-Roll: Halloween 2

I can't believe I forgot to say HAPPY KRAMPUSNACHT, and hide ya damn brooms!

Also, for my Michiganderanians, if you find the pickle, you can totally gloat about your big win here, I'll cheer for you. And for my Euchre lovers, take dose tricks early!

In fact, let's play a game—what's a holiday tradition you hold near and dear/dread every year?

We're all sorts of mixed up over here at the Reroll, so enjoy this deep dive back into Halloween before we spin you right round baby...

Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

Jumping back into the world of Charlie Brown. No eldritch horrors last time, but I'm not letting my guard down on that account.

I think there's a lot to be learned in playing an RPG of a story that not much really happens in. As a story-telling exercise it's interesting to see how narrative can be generated from anywhere and everywhere. Anywhere that there are characters and those characters want things, story will naturally emerge. This is particularly useful in more traditional RPG ca...

Galaxy Quest Part 5

We did it. We completed this one. No one's a winner here, but no one is really a loser. The ending of this one really left me feeling like I took the juicy steak rather than humanity's future, but sometimes you have to play the character. Isn't it funny how much character growth is sort of assumed in storytelling. I think of so many movies where character growth is implied, but we never really see it happen. It's much more fun to just let the lack of character growth be just that. Live in the...

Reroll B-Roll: Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

Be excellent to each other!

Galaxy Quest (part 4)

I love how strange and meta this whole movie has become. There's a lot of ways of connecting disparate threads in a story, and doing it purely thematically is a valid approach. I never would have had the boldness to stick with the Gwen and Alex storyline. Sure, I'd revisit them occasionally, but the notion of fully exploring the theater company story would never have been my instinct. Or if the aliens found none of them, I would absolutely commit to a story about a run-down theater company, b...

Reroll B-Roll: Alien (actual video attached!)

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!

There's a warm light of a warm quality that suffuses everything with warmth in the cairochamber.

I adore Andy, don't you?

(Will y'all let me know if it's better to post the video through this pathway?)

Reroll B-Roll: Alien

There’s a warm light of a warm quality that suffuses everything with warmth in the cairochamber.

I adore Andy, don’t you?

UPDATE: Sorry everybody! I tried uploading directly to Patreon since I know some people have been struggling with the previous set-up, but something got goofed! I will drop the video in another post in a moment!

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

Hey all! Joz here! Sorry this isn’t Hocus Pocus, but we had a last-minute hiccup that meant changing gears FAST to still get you a Halloween-themed Reroll. I’m actually really proud of what I churned out in two days, at a time when I am and have been working 60-70 hours a week. But that’s a horror story for another time.

As Paulo and I were kicking around ideas, I randomly threw out It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and then realized I really wanted to run it. I love these a...

Galaxy Quest Part 3

I feel like we're all having a lot of fun with this one. An aspect of the movie which I hadn't considered, is that a lot of the main characters are kind of terrible people to start with. Particularly my character (Jason) who is a raging narcissist, who hides his lack of empathy with a sort of cheap charm. That kind of a character (in a comedy) is kind of a ton of fun to play. But I'd sort of forgotten how slimy he is at the beginning of this movie because he has growth in the film. The events...

Reroll B-Roll: GM... DM...

We stole Lisa from DnD, tee hee! Come hang with us as we chat about it! 

Galaxy Quest (Part 2)

Another Galaxy Quest. Having a ton of fun with this one. I love playing characters who have none of the skills they need for the situation they're presented with. And in my case for Galaxy Quest, due to a crit-fail, I don't even understand the situation correctly. There's something freeing about having absolutely no chance. Treated as gameplay it might seem difficult, but as a storytelling exercise it is tremendously fun.

I authentically have no idea where this is going, so I'm not spoi...

Galaxy Quest (Part 1)

I really should get the DM to do these write-ups, but I never think to until I’m writing them up.

Galaxy Quest has felt really good. Really back to basics after a series of mostly really complex eps with a lot of moving pieces. In a sense it‘s a really natural Reroll, but in another it’s kind of a difficult one in that what the main characters want is not always completely clear: the characters are very much passengers; prisoners of circumstance that the story drives along fr...

Rogue 2 Part 8

Longest movie we've done so far. There's part of me that wants to get back to shorter movies like in the early days, but part of me enjoys the storytelling possibilities of a longer format. The right answer is probably somewhere in between. Mix of shorter stuff and longer campaigns.

Rogue Two really has been an epic. I'm incredibly pleased with how it turned out. I can't believe we managed to finish it, it was a beast. I was quite proud of the idea of splitting up the teams so that play...

Reroll B-Roll: Improv

Thelma takes another bite of the candy bar.

Rogue Two Part 7

How hard should things be, really? I find this question comes back to me often in making this show. I'll be honest, I'm not someone who carefully balances the difficulty of a game to maximize the fun, make it challenging but not impossible. And I'm also not someone who crafts challenges around the skillsets of their players. I write character sheets entirely on instinct of what feels appropriate for the character I saw in the movie, or for the new character I'm imagining. And I create challen...

Rogue 2 Part 6

My lord, I thought I was smart when I divided up the movie into groups. It made narrative sense, it would reduce clutter, and make scheduling a little easier. But here at the end with everyone intersecting and dividing, nearby but not necessarily directly interacting, but not necessarily not directly interacting, this became a logistical headache like no other.

Sometimes I need to resist my most expansive impulses. But I can't of course. I love this story and I wouldn't have done it any...

Reroll B-Roll: ET

One word: BARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reroll B-Roll - O, Brother

Well, we finally managed to get the "O, Brother" crew together for the B-Roll this month, but that was it, sadly. We will return next month with the next "Rogue 2" installment, back on our usual schedule of two eps a month! Thanks for your patience as we work around many people booking things (yay!) and also this larger cast (yay, but woah!)

Here is the link for Connecticon tickets!

2023-07-01 05:37:37 +0000 UTC View Post

Connecticon Details!

We have the Connecticon schedule and here’s a link for a 10% ticket discount:

https://purchase.growtix.com/e/ConnectiCon_XX?promo=FilmReroll23XX10

Rogue Two (Part 5)

My favorite moments in Film Reroll are moments that we find that are there, in the movie, hidden, but that I had never noticed. Spoilers for this episode:

The confrontation in the council chamber, with Luke finding out who his father was in front of everyone, happened organically in the moment. I didn't foresee it, but when Luke pointed out that his father fought alongside Kenobi, it felt natural that Mon Mothma would ask who his father was, and that the...

Reroll B-Roll:(not so?)Funny Business

We're off our schedule again but that means we get to do a special with everyone's favorite jokester, Kara! We attempted to discuss comedy, but of course there were tangents galore, so instead you get a crash course on Twitch streaming, the sad truth of being funny, how to be a good ally, and a chance to watch me apologize for not realizing what I'd actually said several years ago. 

We will be back next month with O, Brother!