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Supernatural


Steve

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Re: Supernatural

 

I'm enjoying the series. I haven't given a great deal of thought to translating the two main characters into game stats. However by happy chance I had started running a horror campaign about a month before the series debuted so I'm finding the series to be a good source of future adventure ideas.

 

I've got plans for two future story lines inspired by the show. I'll almost certainly be using the "Woman in White" from the pilot episode as a basis for my players' next adventure. And the episode with "Bloody Mary" (just last weeks I believe) will likely prove to be the basis of a ghost with similar abilities, and background for my players to deal with.

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Re: Supernatural

 

It may just be me (btw I am enjoying the show too) but the girl crawling out of the mirror and the way she walked after standing remind me of Sadako from Ringu. A friend who was watching the lake episode thought some of scenes and filming techinques remind him of Japanese horror films.

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Re: Supernatural

 

This is the first I have ever heard of the series. I'll have to see if I can catch it. I hope it is not a serial storyline so I'll know what is going on. Perhaps I can look up the shows website (if it has one) to see what it's about.

 

There are some serial elements, but I don't think it will be that hard to pick up on the story. It's the first season, and they are only about five episodes into things.

 

You can find all the epsidoes out so far on various bit torrent sites, which makes it fairly easy to get caught up on things.

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Re: Supernatural

 

It may just be me (btw I am enjoying the show too) but the girl crawling out of the mirror and the way she walked after standing remind me of Sadako from Ringu. A friend who was watching the lake episode thought some of scenes and filming techinques remind him of Japanese horror films.

 

I thought the same thing. That's probably why I enjoy watching the series because it reminds of horror movies I like.

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Re: Supernatural

 

When they were kids, the two brothers' mother was killed by...something. Daddy woke up, went to check on baby, mommy was on the ceiling, already dead (and slightly contorted), and then burst into flames.

 

Flash forward twenty years or so. Dad has been monster hunting all this time, looking for what killed his wife. He trained both boys very very well--martial arts, weapons, survival tactics, how to work (and get around) the system, etc. Brother #1 followed Dad around. Brother #2 finally backed out and went to college, met a girl, had his whole life in front of him.

 

Brother #1 shows up, says Dad is missing. Brother #2 reluctantly goes to help find him (which they don't, but they did kill a bad evil ghost thingy). Brother #2 comes home late, falls into bed, looks up, and there's his girl, dead on the ceiling, and then she bursts into flames.

 

Sufficiently motivated, Brother #2 joins Brother #1 on a quest to find their missing father, find out what it was that killed Mom all those years ago and girlfriend recently, and to kill bad evil thingies along the way.

 

There, now you're all caught up :)

 

It's an enjoyable show. Not all-consuming, but good escapist horror/thriller entertainment. I like it better than Nightstalker, anyway.

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Re: Supernatural

 

It may just be me (btw I am enjoying the show too) but the girl crawling out of the mirror and the way she walked after standing remind me of Sadako from Ringu. A friend who was watching the lake episode thought some of scenes and filming techinques remind him of Japanese horror films.

 

No I don’t think it’s just you. I know my first thoughts when I saw that scene were how reminiscent it was of both Ringu and the Hollywood remake The Ring.

 

Ringu is the only Japanese horror film I’ve seen so I don’t really have much basis to form an opinion about whether the Lake episode (or any of the episodes) has much in common with Japanese horror films. However, assuming that the creators of Supernatural are using every tool at their disposal to make a quality series, then I wouldn’t find it surprising if they used filming techniques from well made horror films (Japanese or otherwise).

 

I am thus far impressed with some of the internal consistencies. Specifically I like the visual similarities between the two ghost children from the pilot, and the ghost child from the Lake episode. Since they are all the ghosts of drowned children, it makes sense to me that they’d look a bit similar. Also now that this thread has me thinking about it I recall both the ghost’s movement and the camera work during the above mentioned Bloody Mary scene as being similar to the scene from the pilot where the ghost children confront the women in white.

 

On a less visual note I’m also enjoying the main characters copious use of lies, credit fraud, and fake IDs, badges, and credentials to get them access to the target of their investigation. I love even more how temporary the usefulness of their ploys generally proves to be during the course of an episode. In many shows if a protagonist used a fake badge to convince the local police he was a US Marshal, the ploy would either work, or it wouldn’t, and the show wouldn’t deal with the issue again. In Supernatural people are routinely actually checking into things, calling to see if they really are US Marshals, or smart enough to figure out they really aren’t Park Rangers, etc. That is actually something I’m going think about better incorporating next time I run some campaign where the PCs routinely make use of fake ID, or frequently try to bluff their way into places they shouldn’t be.

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Re: Supernatural

 

In all honesty I can't see it lasting must past a season or two anyway. Even then it'll probably get old unless they can keep things interesting. Some Big Bad Plot device would be good. As it is, the "Dad's missing" mcguffin ain't gonna hold me forever. They need to start finding something in the next few episodes, or at least by season's end.

 

In regards to a campaign, that'd be fairly interesting to run, but I think it'd have to be a non-superhero world. It has to be a place where the extraordinary isn't so commonplace, where the supernatural is still something to be afraid of and not something you holler out to the local capes to come fix. Heck, it'd run great as a pulp setting with only a few changes to setting. A couple of related PCs, a couple of shared experiences, and voila! Instant party/team/group!

 

All right, who's GMing this thing, anyway? I'm ready to go. :yes:

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Re: Supernatural

 

All right' date=' who's GMing this thing, anyway? I'm ready to go. :yes:[/quote']

 

I am? I've been running a horror based HERO game (based loosely on the old TV show "Poltergeist: The Legacy") for several years. The heroes (who are all basically norms, built on 165 points) are members of an ancient secret society that combats "all the things people don't know enough about to be scared of".

 

The players seem to enjoy it....

 

And I agree about "Supernatural". In fact, one of my players said that the plots "would make great Legacy scenarios". I told him they WOULD be Legacy scenarios if the players would quit watching the show!

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