December 07, 2010 | David

NOTZK writer & director Rick Robinson talks about the challenges of making a TV show about a tabletop rpg.

The creators of GOLD: Night of the Zombie King play the game. Not once or twice to get a feel for it, but as much as we can given the pressures of life, fatherhood, careers, second careers, etc. So when it was time for us to tell a story of a group of friends who come together to game, it wasn’t going to be Mazes & Monsters.

But given our experience, you’d think it be easy to tell that story - a good roleplaying session is packed with all kinds of life-or-death drama: traps, combat, keeps, bugbears, etc. all rear their ugly heads as the heroes (or anti-heroes) rise to the occasion (or get TPK’d, which is dramatic in a everything-ends-badly, Coen-brothers kind of way). But as David, Andrew, Frederick and I discovered, there are hurdles:

• The physical action of the game is inert. Sure, the implied action is active, but the actual onscreen characters playing the game really are just sitting there. Occasionally, they roll dice. Or eat BBQ chips. Or wander to bathroom. But mostly, they sit at the table. And long sessions of people talking at a table can be death.
• The actual events of the campaign can be hard to follow. It’s difficult to set the scene of a treacherous dungeon crawl or climactic battle without copious exposition. And copious exposition can be death in an indie TV series. Or a regular TV series. Or a movie. Or a play. I think only Greek theater gets away with it, and we’re probably just turning a blind eye because it’s super old.
• The stakes for the onscreen characters, the players, can be low. The stakes in the actual game are usually quite high - life and death-by-Neo-Otyugh high. But the stakes for the players around the table are at risk of being quite low. It sucks to lose a character you’re fond of, but you can re-roll. If the whole party buys it, it’s on to a new campaign and a fresh start. The world they’re trying to save, whether it’s Faerun or Eberron or Madeuponia, isn’t real.

Overcoming those hurdles was in the front of our brains every minute as we wrote the scripts, planned our shots, and directed the show. Here’s what we did:

Making it active
One thing we wanted more of in Night of the Zombie King (as opposed to GOLD) was actual gaming - more combat, more arguing about strategy, more inserts of dice rolling. In GOLD, we’d bounce from the characters’ personal travails to short snippets of gaming. GOLD is a big ensemble show, a serio-comic tapestry, and David and Andrew (I was only an actor in that one) bounced from hikes in the wilderness to G&G training sessions, so outside the prologue, there weren’t any prolonged scenes of guys sitting around a table. Zombie King, however, was to be more tightly focused and the scripts featured long scenes of the five characters playing the game. As we’d split the directing duties by episode, we all went off to plan to make these scenes dynamic.

Frederick, the director of episode two, had the first gaming scene and didn’t think trying to shoot a whole webseries over the course of two weekends was hard enough, so he decided to make the make first two pages of gaming a one-shot. We went hand-held for Zombie King (just like GOLD) and Andrew had MacGuyver’d a PVC pipe rig for his T2i to shoot the thing smoothly, despite the Canon’s DSLR’s lack of heft, which made this kind of shot possible. Andrew swept around the actors, catching each one in frame as they drew focus and bounced around from dice to players to DM as they tried to solve their wight problem.

Frederick also blocked this scene actively to accentuate the effect. Players got up out of their chairs to get food, wandered over to look at other players sheets, paced back and forth, and other things to add movement to these first couple of pages. He also hid an edit halfway through in a quick camera pan, so he could use different takes for the two halves of the scenes and limit the window that this ballet of actors, camera and equipment had to be perfect and let the camera move across the table in a way the camera operator could not physically accomplish. That this critical introduction to the gameplay is exciting visually and traverses the entire gaming landscape is of paramount importance - Frederick shows us right off that the game is active and exciting, without anyone having to say it out loud.

In general, all three of us stayed tight on the actors when the stakes of the game were at there highest. This creates a lack of breathing room, of distance for the audience. A shot of the full table and we observe the game from of safe distance. Close-up on Brian, looking just barely to the right of camera, and the audience is in the thick of it, as uncomfortable as Jaz.

In the end, we relied on camera movement, both subtle and dramatic, as well as the talent of our actors to hold our interest while simply sitting around a table.

Telling the story of the campaign
The one’s tough. There is an obvious solution, one that works for other folks telling RPG stories in the indie space - dramatize the action on film with the actors playing their characters. At it’s best, it can be absurdly funny, like when Boba Fett, level 1 thief rises from his bedding with his elven boots to sex up one of his fellow party members (if you haven’t seen this - go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhmUj9QJ9RM). But it wasn’t really the tone we were after. It’s also difficult to go everywhere you need to go using this device because budget constraints are too tight for most of us. Outdoor journeys and fights with highwaymen, sure. Underground fights with umberhulks? Not so much. GOLD didn’t need to tell the story of an overall campaign because in its world each game, each single crawl was an individual test, like a single basketball game. To generate tension, we didn’t need to know the big picture, just the immediate facts. Zombie King had to feel like it was part of larger campaign because it was the continuation of a long-running game from many years before.

We couldn’t tell the whole story of the adventure, obviously. Too much exposition. But the party’s biggest decisions needed context, and we needed to associate each player with his character. The minis became extremely important in this and we were lucky to have had them painted by James Paul Xavier, (Art Direction/Sam St. Croix in GOLD) because they looked great, even close up. David (who directed episode 1) tried to marry character to figure with his shot where he follows Martin around the table, setting each figure in front of its player. When the map is shown later, we have some idea who’s piece is surrounded by little metal skeletons. Martin says the character’s names a lot, followed by a shot of the player to reinforce. By the end of Episode 2, the audience should know Jaz’s character name is Melchor. If you don’t, we’re in trouble going into episodes 3-6.

Even though we couldn’t tell you the whole story of this campaign (I’m sure David will oblige you, at some point, in this space) we needed a few important details, like the setting, the main objective, the principal big bad, and important details of the character’s history in the Realm of Terror. Jaz is a fallen paladin. This isn’t their first dance with Darkmoon the dracolich. And while Martin gives us the setting in episode one, the rest of these details come out over time, so that the history and the story is revealed gradually and that many of these details come out in active moments of conflict. We want you to feel like there’s a rich history and story without anyone sitting there telling you ‘so here’s what came before...’.

Making the stakes high
GOLD never had to force high stakes, because the conceit of the world is that Goblins and Gold is a competitive sport and that each match, won or lost for the team has a dramatic impact on the players’ lives, both personally and professionally. Their careers are at stake, in addition to their sense of self-worth.

In Zombie King, it’s a game amongst friends, so we had to find ways to make the in-game action extremely important to out character’s psyche, especially our protagonist. Each character comes to this mini-reunion with an agenda, and it was important to the gaming scenes that much of the score-settling and opening of old wounds took place as direct result of the action on the table. We also tied their own journeys to the stories of their characters. The adventure is a return home to their old keep, a place that’s that become corrupt in their absence. Jaz’ character’s fall from grace matches his own. Little details are sewn in so that when things begin to fall apart for the Goblins & Gold characters, it’s a powerful blow to players. Jaz needs to succeed, not just in killing the Dracolich, but also in bringing his group back together for reasons that go beyond the game. Hicks has held this old campaign in such high esteem for so long that its failure to meet his expectations would damage him.

In Night of the Zombie King, we wanted to create a drama (relax, it’s funny, too) about coming home again. About confronting our past and healing the wounds that time can’t mend. About old flames, and old friends - about playing the games we thought we had left behind in our youth. These aren’t new themes, but this story is about people who play our games. And we wanted to stand out from some of the other stuff in our space by making the players and the game they play grounded and authentic.

Rick Robinson
Writer/Director
GOLD: Night of the Zombie King

December 05, 2010 | David

A week or so ago we promised you an announcement soon. Well, here we go:

For the last year or so, I’ve been working really hard with my friends and creative partners to figure out a way to finish the first GOLD story. The first half of that first story is what we now call GOLD Season 1. The story resolves in GOLD Season 2. Because of the nature of the second half of that story, and the cost of telling it, we’ve been searching for a partner or two to help us make it. We haven’t yet succeeded in that, to my great sadness. Yet, anyway.

But there are many more stories to tell in the GOLD universe. While we continue our quest for Season 2, my friends and I found a story we could tell on our own. We call that story ”Night of the Zombie King,” and tonight I’m proud to announce that NOTZK will premiere on Tuesday, December 14, right here on this site, with new episodes weekly.

Night of the Zombie King is one of the first of what we hope will be many “companion adventures” in the GOLD universe. It’s a self-contained six episode miniseries that centers around Jaz, the leader of the Dangerous Gamers in GOLD Episode 4: Labyrinth of Madness:

After his team fails to qualify for the world RPG Championships, disillusioned captain Jamison “Jaz” Colier travels home to relive the glory days with his old friends for one nostalgic night of gaming. But when he arrives, he finds the ruins of the life he ran away from more than 15 years ago still need to be repaired before he can find peace, in his life and in the game.

NOTZK is written by me, Rick Robinson & Andrew R. Deutsch and directed by me, Rick Robinson & Frederick Snyder. It stars James Ellis Lane, Jonathan Nail, Maxwell Glick, Stephanie Thorpe and Brian Majestic.

Stay tuned for lots of great behind-the-scenes blogs, downloadables, gallery images and much more as we march toward release in a little more than a week. To start, we’ve two great gifts for you:

Posters
At the bottom of this post, take a gander at the three amazing Night of the Zombie King posters created by NOTZK writer and cinematographer Andrew R. Deutsch. They’re sexy as all heck.

Contest
We’re running Facebook and Twitter contests from now until 11:59PM PST on Tuesday, December 14 (launch day). Four fans will win a GOLD prize pack: a signed GOLD Poster, signed GOLD DVD, signed Night of the Zombie King poster, and a handful of GOLD/NOTZK buttons.

To win, visit GOLD facebook page (www.facebook.com/goldtheseries), “like” the page and leave a comment on the NOTZK Contest wall post. Or, follow GOLD on twitter (www.twitter.com/goldtheseries) and tweet the message: “I want to win the @GOLDTheSeries:NOTZK Prize Pack! http://bit.ly/hJmo52”

On December 15th or 16th, we’ll randomly pick two winners from Facebook and two from Twitter. Anyone may enter one time per day on both Twitter and Facebook (additional enteries per day are encouraged, but won’t increase your chances of winning ;-). Good luck!

All right. That’s it for tonight. Enjoy the posters, and we’ll talk more soon.

-David Nett
Creator, GOLD

September 09, 2010 | David

Session 13, in which Blars and Schlomo rescue themselves and the party causes extra strife between the Evil Temples.

The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Fane of St. Toad). This recap is just a summary of what happens during each session, for your amusement, and will be posted irregularly.

Characters:

• Gabriel Lightfoot - Human Paladin 5
  played by Andrew Deutsch (GOLD EP, DP & Director)
• Valen Greymoon - Elvish Ranger 5
  played by Nathan Mobley (Tim Calloway)
• Blars Granitdok - Dwarven Cleric 5
  played by Chad Schnaible (GOLD producer, sound guy)
• Ark Wong - Human Monk 4
  played by Justin Waggle (Peter Foote)
• Shecky Greenblatt - Gnomish Sorcerer 4
  played by Gary Karp (Charles Subar)
• Schlomo Rubenstein - Human Fighter 4
  played by James Xavier (Sam St. Croix)

Gabriel, Valen, Ark & Shecky contemplated what to do while in the SE corner of the room an Earth Elemental threw itself against the door to the room containing Blars & Schlomo, and two additional elementals (SW & NE) patrolled in tight patterns in the room. Valen sent Ulo into the room to see how the elementals would react, given the recent change in their behavior. The nearest elemental zoomed immediately to Ulo, smashing him unconscious. Ark raced in to save the wolf, narrowly escaping the elementals himself.

Unsure what to do, despite the immediate danger the SE elemental posed to Blars & Schlomo (group1), Valen & Gabriel & Ulo (group2) decided to investigate the area around the Earth Temple for clues, while Ark & Shecky (group3) began to try various tactics to distract the SE elemental, all to no avail. Shecky, upon finding a spell scroll in the pile of earth that was the NW elemental before Schlomo killed it, surmised that, if group1 could reach into their elemental and snag the scroll from within it, it, too, might be killed. Group1 soon got its chance, as the SE elemental smashed the door open. Blars and Schlomo both pushed through the elemental, taking extensive damage, but found no scroll inside. They ran to safety, having ultimately saved themselves, barely escaping the elementals, who all gave chase.

Meanwhile, group2 found nothing of great note in the immediate temple area, save that Gabriel, upon concentration on the glowing runes covering another large set of doors (upon which only he and Blars can even gaze), was led to believe that, given some time, he could figure out how to undo the enchantment and unlock those doors. They re-joined to the rest of the weary, broken party, and all decided they need to rest. Shecky led them to a room he’d investigated which appeard to be long disused.

As the party rested, certain party members heard commotion in the hallway during their watch. Each guard relayed an increasingly confused story to the next (some via charades, thanks to Ark’s vow of silence). Upon waking, they pieced together the following:

- There was great commotion among the Earth temple guards
- lots of angry shouting was heard when the guards (seemingly) discovered the burnt Bugbreas in the rat pit
- lots of angry shouting when the destroyed elemental was discovered
- patrols were increased a great deal during the 8 hour rest
- there was a regular scraping sound indicating the guards were doing something undetermined
- based upon the guards shouts and conversations, it seems they blamed the Fire Temple for the deaths, and were eager to kick some “fire-eater” ass

Upon stealthily peeking out of the room, the party found dark hallways where once they were torchlit. The torches had been removed from their sconces (the scraping sound).

Blars went to his belongings to search for something in the Box of Holding, only to find that it was missing! The party quickly determined Wonnilon must have stole it in the confusion of the battle with the elementals (or sometime before that moment), and took it when he left. There was much cursing.

Noting the apparent increase in patrols, the party decided to stick to unused, dusty hallways and rooms, all wearing their black, fiery-elemental-eye cloaks. They discovered a ramshackle library and sorted through it’s mostly destroyed contents, finding nothing of great note. A room which advertised meditation and future-seeing intrigued the party, but it was decided that discretion was the better part of valor so far as divination in an evil temple was concerned.

A secret door in the back of the divination room led to a large, open room with a high, vailted cieling and many supporting beams. It appeared to have once been a throne room or audience chamber of some kind - a grand stone throne had been hacked to bits, and dust covered everything. The party was quickly attacked by a swarm of filthy, greasy, blood-sucking mosquito-birds the size of hawks (stirges). After trying to fight the incredibly fast flighying beasts for a few rounds (and even killing a few), the party fled back through the secret door, agreeing that flying things are hard as heck to fight in high-ceilinged rooms [adventure lesson].

Scouting ahead in a darkened hallway, Ark heard the approach of a pair of guards on patrol. Using Ark as bait, the party prepared an ambush. The guards were warier this time than in the post-rat-pit instance, and the party had to rush them. They were dispatched quickly, and one saved for questioning. Ark & Valen then scouted ahead, finding two more guards at a closed door on a few hallways away. The immediate area around them was torchlit, unlike most of the tunnels since the recent rest. It was decided they must be guarding something important. The captured guard would not reveal who or what they were protecting, but it was clear it was someone important. They were able to infer that there were lots of guards, and that they might (might) be guarding Romag, who they’d learned is the High Priest of the Earth Temple.

The party snuck to the guarded door and quickly dispatched the two guards. From then on it was push into a room, attack, and move through, blitzkrieg-style. The guards inside, a mix of humans, kobolds and bugbears, put up a fierce fight, but were badly outmatched. Even so, their sheer numbers meant the party suffered extensive damage. As they fough three rooms in, two human figures in full plate mail entered from the far side of the room and began unleashing spells, wreaking hell on the party. As the party turned its attention to the two spellcasters, Valen saw one of the chainmail-clad guards sneak out through a door to the north. They party dispatched the two evil clerics with some difficulty, having been already weakened. One of the clerics (a youngish, tall, sandy-haired man) was captured alive (tho unconscious). The other, only a few years older (perhaps late 20s), was killed. The younger cried out “Romag” when he was killed.

The clerics dispatched, Valen followed the fleeing swordsman north into a lavishly decorated room - clearly Romag’s quarters. The fleeing swordsman was nowhere to be seen. Bloodied and down on spells, the party looted the bodies, while Gabriel and Blars joined Valen in Romag’s chambers.

Where did the swordsman go? And, with Romag and his guards dispatched, has the Earth Temple been destroyed?

Time remaining until the scheduled changing of the Tower Guards: 4 days, 10 hours

--- END OF SESSION 13 --

September 09, 2010 | David

Session 12, in which the party stumbles upon a horrible earthen shrine and learns humility.

The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Fane of St. Toad). This recap is just a summary of what happens during each session, for your amusement, and will be posted irregularly.

Characters:

• Gabriel Lightfoot - Human Paladin 4
  played by Andrew Deutsch (GOLD EP, DP & Director)
• Valen Greymoon - Elvish Ranger 4
  played by Nathan Mobley (Tim Calloway)
• Blars Granitdok - Dwarven Cleric 4
  played by Chad Schnaible (GOLD producer, sound guy)
• Ark Wong - Human Monk 3
  played by Justin Waggle (Peter Foote)
• Shecky Greenblatt - Gnomish Sorcerer 3
  played by Gary Karp (Charles Subar)
• Schlomo Rubenstein - Human Fighter 3
  normally played by James Xavier (Sam St. Croix) - this session played by Frederick Snyder (GOLD director, Santiago Belasco DeValdivia)

The party hunkered down in the Jailer’s quarters, deciding what to do. While some wanted to leave the bugbears Ark had tricked alone, the group decided it was best not to leave any witnesses. A clever ambushed was devised, relying on Wonnilon’s former prisoner status and the bugbears’ belief Ark was an underjailer, and the party dispatched them quickly. While several party members looted the bodies and scouted the area, Blars, Valen and Shecky, against Gabriel’s wishes, crossed the hallway to a room with a large pit, and we promptly caught in a trap which dumped Valen & Shecky into the deep, smooth-walled pit, which was soon filled with a huge swarm (hundreds) of ravenous giant rats. They were rescued after a few rounds of yelling for help, but not before taking a good deal of damage from rat bites. After their rescue, again against Gabriel’s wishes, the party filled the pit, still teeming with rats (eating the bugbear corpses they’d flung in), with oil and lit it, burning hundreds of rats alive - the hallways echoed with their screaming.

The group fanned out to explore more of the immediate area of the dungeon. As they came upon a huge, dark room lit only by phosphorescent mold, they heard approaching footsteps. Once again, Ark took matters into his own hands, leading the patrol of guards who’d come to investigate the noise of the buring rats on a chase, allowing the rest of the party to attack with surprise from the rear. They took all 10 guards, including their leader, in a quick battle, and burnt the bodies as they’d done with the bugbears (again, despite protests from Gabriel). Most notably, Schlomo layed in a great slaughter with Biter (and, upon rolling a nat 20 and doing massive damage, found himself partially healed by the carnage), and Ark defeated the leader single-handedly, managing to avoid death by sword.

The guard leader was kept alive for interrogation. The party got little information from him, apart from knowledge that he worked for the Earth temple, that the party dare not defile the temple itself, and that all adventurers who enter the temple have been killed by him and his guards. More telling was the conflict between Gabriel and Schlomo (who kept poking the prisoner with Biter) and Gabriel and Blars when, at the conclusion of question, Blars bashed-in the defensless guard leader’s head, killing him. After an angry confrontation between Gabriel and Blars, the party proceeded to the Earth temple.

At the NW doorway to the massive Earth temple and it’s central, packed-earth pyramid, the party paused to decide what to do. Unsurprisingly, while they discussed, Ark slipped into the room, slinking along the wall, in an attempt to cross to the far NE door. Wonnilon followed. Gabriel begrudgingly followed as protection (group1). Schlomo, Valen, Shecky and Blars stepped only a few feet into the room and waited (group2).

Once group1 was about 30ft into the room, four huge earth elementals rose up out of the thick soil, one near each corner of the room. The elemental in the NE corner of the room was very near group1. The elemental in the NW corner was very near group2. Ark charged-up his staff and threw it at the NE elemental (and missed), he then bolted out of the room to the NE exit. Gabriel, without the movement to exit the room, sprinted to the pyramid to retrieve the bronze box there (obviously a part of some ritual). Wonnilon also ran toward the pyramid, but was struck by the NE elemental and knocked unconscious with one blow. In the NW corner, Schlomo engaged the elemental to provide cover for group2. Blars surrounded the elemental with a wind wall, hoping to confine the thing with an opposing element. Shecky retreated to the NW hallway, as did Blars. Valen and Ulo crept stealthily along the W wall heading south to another door.

Then everything went pear-shaped. Valen, who was apparently not stealthy enough to fool an Elemental, was crushed in just a few hits from the SW elemental. Gabriel rescued Wonnilon and got him (and the bronze box, which contained a bronze hammer, a small bowl and a bronze knife) to Blars, who healed the gnome. Ark retrieved his staff and, racing at top speed, investigated the two small rooms in the south wall. Ulo dragged Valen to safety while Gabriel distracted the SW elemental - Gabriel was crushed by the beast in the process. Schlomo continued to battle the NW elemental using the bronze hammer found in the bronze box, with little effect.

Blars healed Gabriel, and the party was about to retreat when Ark and Shecky discovered that blood dripped atop the pyramid caused the Elementals to stiffen to attention. This changed the game to a fast-paced game of cat & mouse: Ark, Shecky and Valen racing between the pyramid and the doors, exploring the room, Schlomo hammering away at the semi-defenseless NW Elemental with the bronze hammer and doing massive damage with each blow, thanks to the hammer’s assumed enchantment, and Gabriel leading the remainder of the party across to the NE door and into the hallway, all the while doing their best to avoid the thus-far slow-moving Elementals. Just as Schlomo destroyed the NW elemental single-handedly (not a single other player had caused damage, tho Blars’ spell had contained the beast), and celebration began, Valen (still badly wounded) went one last time to the top of the pyramid. At this point, about 1 minute of combat had passed. As he squeezed blood from his palm, all three remaining elemntals sunk rapidly into the earth, zoomed to the base of the pyramid, huge, racing mounds of earth showing their passage, and rose up at the perimiter of the pyramid, rippling arms reaching toward the pyramid top. Valen scrambled back to the NE exit.

The party regrouped in the NE hallway. The elementals remained ringed around the pyramid. The group argued - Schlomo, Valen and Ark argued that, now that they presumably knew the Elementals’ weekness for blood, they could (and should, given their geas) kill the remaining three. Gabriel and Blars argued against risking it - they were down on spells, and this new movement from the elementals to the pyramid was very disturbing. Shecky, in the meantime, peeked around the corner just a bit investigating the new hallway.

Ultimately, the party decided not to try and take on the remaining elementals. Still, Schlomo and Ark were very keen to see what happened when the bronze hammer was used against the incredibly dense, weighty stone Ark had found in the SE storage room filled with different kinds of earth and strange pebbles. Despite Gabriel’s vehement opposition, Schlomo decided to risk it, and raced across the big room at full speed. Schlomo easily reached the room. He smashed the bronze hammer down on the stone with all his might ... shattering the hammer. Still, Schlomo could not help but believe the stone was important, so he hefted the 8 inch diameter, 250lb stone and began to carry it slowly back to the party. But as soon as he set foot on the deep soil, the SE elemental charged, lightning fast. Schlomo dropped the stone, which sunk deep into the earth, and ran, but did not have the speed - the elemental caught him and, with a crushing blow, rendered him unconscious.

Unwilling to leave Schlomo to die, Blars raced into the room, chased by the NE elemental. He reached Schlomo. With help from Ark, he healed Schlomo. Ark raced back to the NE hallway to save himself. As all three elementals closed in, it was all Blars could do to pull Schlomo, barely conscious, into the SE room and throw the thick ironwood door shut.

Gabriel, Valen, Shecky, Ulo and Ark, all wounded and nearly out of spells, crouched in the NE hallway, while two Earth Elementals resumed their patrols of their areas (NE and SW corners, respectively), and the SE elemental crashed angrily against the wall and SE door. Blars and Schlomo, each badly injured, huddled in the tiny room filled with earth and pebbles.

Time remaining until the scheduled changing of the tower guards: 5 days, 14 hours

--- END OF SESSION 12 ---

September 09, 2010 | David

Session 11, in which the party enters the Temple proper through a secret passageway.

The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Fane of St. Toad). This recap is just a summary of what happens during each session, for your amusement, and will be posted irregularly.

Characters:

• Gabriel Lightfoot - Human Paladin 4
  normally played by Andrew Deutsch (GOLD EP, DP & Director) - this session played by Rick Robinson (Richard Wright)
• Valen Greymoon - Elvish Ranger 4
  played by Nathan Mobley (Tim Calloway)
• Blars Granitdok - Dwarven Cleric 4
  played by Chad Schnaible (GOLD producer, sound guy)
• Ark Wong - Human Monk 3
  played by Justin Waggle (Peter Foote)
• Shecky Greenblatt - Gnomish Sorcerer 3
  played by Gary Karp (Charles Subar)
• Schlomo Rubenstein - Human Fighter 3
  normally played by James Xavier (Sam St. Croix) - this session played by Derek Housman (Webseries writer, producer, man-about-town)

The party stood around the trap door in the tower barracks, contemplating their next move. Valen and Gabriel interrogated the prisoner - a scrawny, underfed human who quickly gave up all he knew. The party learned that:

1) The guards changed posts only once every 7 or 8 days, and this guard platoon had been in the tower for only a day
2) The guards were swapped-out (along with provisions) over land, through the front door. They used to use the tunnel, but can’t anymore since the tunnel collapsed.
3) The temple was comprised of five separate churches (fire, water, earth and air - who did not get along well and squabbled and fought for position - and a neutral “temple” faction, who worshipped “the Lady” but took no part in the squabbles of the other churches).

They gagged the guard again and talked over what they’d learned. Given that the guards weren’t due for a change for 6 or 7 more days, it might be possible they could rest and make an assault on the Temple from the tower here. The talk of the collapsed tunnel unnerved them, though. If the tunnel he was talking about was through that trapdoor, Captain Samton may not have escaped at all, but may simply be lurking in the collapsed tunnel below. No one could agree on whether that was better or worse. Finally, given Shecky’s state and their general lack of all spells and other firepower (save swords), they decided to use the rest of their healing ability, set double watch and rest. Gabriel and Schlomo took first watch.

Less than two hours into the first watch, Gabriel heard a soft scraping from below the trapdoor. Upon listening, it sounded like someone shovelling dirt. He woke the party, who decided that, since it was only one man, it couldn’t hurt to investigate. They opened the trap door and stared down into the darkness. No sound came from below. They dropped a torch into the hole. It landed 30 feet below and stayed lit, illuminating a portion of a dirt-floored room. Ark decided to head down the ladder first, stealthily. After clearing the first ten feet, the ladder separated from the wall (it’s moorings having been dug out), and, as Ark began to fall, the trap door (which had been rigged with a close-rope no one noticed) was pulled shut. Above, Gabriel and Schlomo saw Ark land on the ground, mostly rolling to avoid injury, just as the trapdoor slammed closed. Immediately, Gabriel and Schlomo were joined by Valen, who began pulling on the trapdoor, which had been somehow fastened shut.

Below, Ark heard a scraping sound of rope on metal, and then a sharp intake of air. He turned just as Capt. Samton emerged from the shadows, moving with uncanny speed, and swinging a huge dark blade which shimmered and seemed almost to disappear in the shadows. The blade gouged into Ark’s side, causing massive damage, and rendering Ark immediately unconscious.

Above, Valen, Gabriela and Schlomo succeeded together in wrenching the trapdoor open, just in time to see Ark’s legs as his limp body was dragged out of sight through a pool of blood, and the torch they’d thrown down was extinguished. With the ladder dislodged there was no easy way down into the dark. Valen began anchoring a rope to lower himself down. Garbriel, instead, simply lept into the hole, rolling as best he could with the damage as he crashed, prone, onto the ground. Shecky, looking to add light into the hole and distract the assailant, cast a light spell upon their prisoner’s belt, and Schlomo threw him into the hole as well. The terrified guard’s back snapped as he landed on Gabriel, but he lit the room brightly.

Captain Samton shot out of the shadows again and jammed his wicked black blade between Gabriel’s shoulders as Gabe struggled to regain his feet, again causing massive damage, which he barely survived. He rose to face off against Samton. As Valen lowered himself carefully into the pit (followed by Shecky), Schlomo climbed down the ladder to where it broke and flung himself at Samton. Between them, they managed to kill Samton, who appeared to have been jacked-up on a speed potion. Schlomo took Samton’s dark-hued bastard sword (which whispered it’s name to him - “biter"), and Gabriel took Schlomo’s old +1 longsword. Other items were found on the captain’s body, including a Mithril Shirt, which Valen claimed.

When the battle was over, the party found that Ark was not merely unconscious, but completely dead. After a brief debate, they gathered Ark’s body and rushed back to Nulb, in hopes that Y’dey could resurrect him. They reached Nulb and found that Y’dey was willing to do so, for the greater part of their wealth, and only if they agreed to be geased into a quest to defeat the evil elements brewing at the temple or die trying. The party agreed, and after a long night of prayer and magic, Ark was revived, though there appear to be a handful of side-effects of the resurrection.

The party returned to the temple grounds to find the tower much as they’d left it (they’d been gone about 24 hours). With 5 days left before the guards were to be changed, they excavated the collapsed tunnel under Blars’ direction, creating a passage through the rubble which led to a long tunnel. They followed it, and at the end emerged into a complex of tunnels below the Temple. Valen, Ulo, Ark and Shecky scouted ahead in the tunnels until they heard the cries of someone being tortured. At Gabriel’s insistence, they followed the screams to a torture chamber, where a human and a bugbear were torturing a human prisoner on a rack, with two human females and two orc prisoners awaiting the same fate in separate cells. When diplomacy failed, the party attacked, making swift work of the torturers. However, the battle was not over. As Gabriel worked to free the prisoner from the rack, and Schlomo freed and subsequently hit-on the captured females (who returned his affection with grateful kisses), Blars rushed to the orc cage, broke the lock with his mace and, despite their being unarmored, attacked them! Despite Valen and Shecky’s attampts to hold him back, he killed one prisoner in cold blood. Gabriel and Schlomo stepped into the fray. Ultimately, Blars was calmed only after Gabriel punched him repeatedly in the face. The orc was calmed as well, and agreed to escort the humans out of the dungeon, but before he left, he vowed revenge on Blars for the murder of his brother. Ark watched them all escape into the maze of tunnels, while Gabriel berated Blars, Shecky looted the bodies, Valen fed Ulo from the corpses and Schlomo regaled the group with stories of his (moments before) sexual conquests. The party decided they should don the cloaks they’d taken from the Moathouse - black, emblazoned with a fiery elemental eye. The cloaks, having been kept in the Box of Holding, smelled faintly, unpleasantly of meat.

The party then struck out again into the maze, stumbling upon a group of prison cells. Most were unoccupied, but in one they found and rescued an outgoing, charismatic gnomish adventurer called Wonnilon, who offered to join the party. Ark armed him with his short sword +1 (for which Wonnilon was very grateful), and they continued their exploration.

The party then came upon a room where they heard bugbear voices. Ark motioned for the party to wait while he entered. Through sheer force of personality and clever revealing of his scarred features (and the stupidity of the bugbear guards), he silently convinced the bugbears he was the new assistant to the torturer/head jailer. He passed through the chamber and into the jailer’s private quarters unmolested. Inside, he found a secret door (which allowed him to let the rest of the party in), as well as a stash of the jailer’s possessions, including Wonnilon’s lost adventuring gear.

Inside the jailer’s quarters, the party paused. They had some time until the slaughtered tower guards would be found, and perhaps less time until the killed jailer and his assistant were recovered. What to do next?

Time remaining until the scheduled changing of the tower guards: 5 days, 16 hours

-- END OF SESSION 11—

September 09, 2010 | David

Sessions 9 and 10, in which the party decides to take on the quest and heads to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

The GOLD Gamer Recap: I (David, creator of GOLD, the Series) am currently running a Pathfinder game with six of the GOLD cast & crew. I’m taking them through a Pathfinder converted version of the classic D&D super-module T1-4, “The Temple of Elemental Evil,” thoroughly grounded in the original, but with lots of customization (including the incorporation of Michael Curtis’s Fane of St. Toad). This recap is just a summary of what happens during each session, for your amusement, and will be posted irregularly.

Characters:

• Gabriel Lightfoot - Human Paladin 4
  played by Andrew Deutsch (GOLD EP, DP & Director)
• Valen Greymoon - Elvish Ranger 4
  played by Nathan Mobley (Tim Calloway)
• Blars Granitdok - Dwarven Cleric 4
  played by Chad Schnaible (GOLD producer, sound guy)
• Ark Wong - Human Monk 3
  played by Justin Waggle (Peter Foote)
• Shecky Greenblatt - Gnomish Sorcerer 3
  played by Gary Karp (Charles Subar)
• Schlomo Rubenstein - Human Fighter 3
  played by James Xavier (Sam St. Croix)

The next morning you all convened in Gabriel’s room, as agreed. You discussed the quest and a little of what you’d learned during the previous day. Shecky shared some knowledge he’d gained about the three supernatural beings associated with the temple: Zuggtmoy, Iuz and Lolth. Blars and Schlomo each commented on the fact that the Church seemed to be building a giant armory more befitting of a castle than a church, but neither the castellan nor the smith knew why. Valen was curious as to why them and not more powerful heroes. Gabriel explained that Terjon had told him that Furyondy and Veluna were quietly marshalling their knights and heroes to the border with Iuz in advance of a likely war, and that in any case knights and heroes were bad fits for a small recon / search and destroy mission. The party seemed to agree that they were good at that sort of thing. They met with the Small Counsel, and accepted the quest. They geared-up and departed after dark, so as not to attract any attention from the town.

Halfway to Nulb, in the dark of night, the party was ambushed on the High Road by a group of twenty or so brigands, many wearing the armor of Hommlet town guards. During the encounter, the party allowed themselves to be separated into three groups: Blars, Schlomo and Gabriel in the rear, Valen, Ulo the Wolf & Shecky near the front, and Ark by himself in the fray. Despite the large numbers of opponents and the separation of the party members, the battle went well, with the party driving-off or slaying all the bandits save one, which Ark cleverly knocked unconscious for questioning. The defeated brigand revealed his group’s camp and their numbers, and further admitted that his group had ambushed and killed Lt. Paul and his men a few days prior. The party found spoils of Lt. Paul’s previous raids, and the discarded bodies of the dead men to confirm this. There was some argument as to what to do with the questioned bandit - most of the party wanted simply to slit his throat, but in the end Gabriel prevailed and he was set free. The party then continued to Nulb, riding through the night.

Not yet narrated sections (sorry)
--> The party arrives in Nulb, where they meet Y’dey and are stalked by a group of cutthroats
--> The party steals a barge and crosses the river, learning that piloting a barge is a skill not quickly attained
--> The party travels south to the temple
--> the party investigates a ruined building & cellar, avoiding giant rats with Ulo’s help
--> the party investigates what appears to be a damages, half-fallen tower and, after fighting giant crows, leaves it alone.

Finding nothing in the tower save giant, angry ravens, the party crossed the twisted underbrush and tall, sickly grass to the temple itself. They found the gigantic temple intact - squat, ugly and sprawling, covered in carved relief of demons, torture, and depravity. On close examination of the carven figures cavorting across the facade of the temple the party felt a shiver of revulsion. The hands that formed these figures had undoubtedly performed acts of great evil. Even the most hardened warrior must quail at the scenes of base depravity depicted in such loving detail. The sense of evil was all-pervasive, a bottomless well of horror from which there seemed no escape.

The party moved to the south end of the temple, where the main entrance and two side doors awaited. The main entrance was a pair of huge bronze doors, held fast by gigantic iron chains, and all cracks filled and sealed with soft iron. Graven upon each door were magical runes which glowed with a silvery radiance. Upon looking on these runes, all party members felt a roiling in their stomachs and beating aches in their heads. While Blars and Gabriel were able to continue to gaze upon the doors, the rest of the party found themselves involuntarily retreating from the doors, and Schlomo and Ark were reduced to retching in the grass until the nausea passed. Ulo would not even look at the doors to begin with. The two side doors, curiously, appeared un-barred, but no one approached to see if they were open.

After the nausea passed, the group decided to scout in the tall grass and bushes around the temple before nightfall (which was nearing). Between Valen’s keen ears and eyes and Ulo’s sense of smell, they quickly encountered a pair of scouts in black cloaks, who fled back toward the broken tower. The party gave chase and killed one guard and captured the other, but not before taking several crossbow bolts from the arrow slits around the tower. The party coerced information out of the captured guard, including how many guards were in the tower (about 2 dozen) and how to open the cleverly locked doors (using a special key both guards had on their belts). The party returned to the front of the tower, braced themselves, forming ranks, and threw open the tower doors.

Inside, they saw darkness. With light behind them, and darkness inside the tower, the party found it difficult unable to see what was within. What was within could see them well, however. A dozen archers and a handful of spearmen launched spears, arrows and crossbow bolts, many skewering Schlomo and Gabriel, who stood in front. As their eyes adjusted, the party saw a room full of several dozen guards in ranks - spearmen with shields in front, bowmen in back. A couple of captains, marked by much better armor, stood off to the sides with bows as well. To the left of the entrance, high up on the semi-collapsed stairs, a guard leader barked orders at the guards, who readied another volley.

Gabriel and Schlomo rushed a few steps forward, finding the unforgiving points of the spears. Another volley of arrows followed. The party hastily retreated back outside, using the doors for cover. The spearmen followed, laying more damage into the party. More arrows flew. Once the party was set, there was a moment of stand-off. Then the leader barked an order and the spearmen began to file out, one by one, to face the group. Schlomo, Ark and Gabriel made quick work of them, taking only a few scrapes. It seemed a foolish tactic, but each round that a guard sacrificed himself, another volley of arrows flew. Most thunked into the doors, but a few found homes in Schlomo and Gabriel. Blars, knowing Gabriel had taken a serious beating, cast a spell which allowed him to share Gabe’s damage. The party stood their ground and fought back the spearmen and then the captains, all as the arrows flew. Finally, with only a single captain and the bowmen left, the leader called for his men to fall back, and he then fled into the dark recesses of the tower. The party rushed in after the bowmen, closing quarters and cutting them down. The archers were lightly armored, and no match for the party, though several more arrows did find homes in their flesh.

As Gabriel and Schlomo finished-off the archers on the floor, Blars guarded the door, and Shecky, Valen and Ulo took the archers on the stairs, Ark headed into the recesses of the tower, hoping to catch the guard leader before he could somehow escape. He found a door in the corner, next to the pile of rubble. Assuming the leader had gone through it, he braced himself against the door and readied himself. Just as he was ready to push through, the guard leader erupted from where he’d hidden himself in the rubble, slicing with a wicked-looking black bastard sword. One blow sliced Ark open, and he collapsed into unconsciousness, The leader then did flee through the door Ark was investigating, closing it behind him.

Blars, Gabriel and Schlomo rushed to tend to Ark, while Valen and the intimdating Ulo captured the one last archer. As Valen trussed-up the prisoner and Bars tended to Ark, healing him back to consciousness, Gabriel and Schlomo searched the barracks, looking for the leader’s escape route and finding nothing. In the meantime, Shecky wandered to the next room, finding a lavish chamber which clearly belonged to the leader. He spied a locked chest and, in his attempt to pick it, was poisoned by an undetected needle trap. He collapsed on the ground, muscles seizing, unable to breathe, let alone cry-out. His life began to trickle away.

Back in the barracks, Valen located the secret trap door out which the leader had escaped. The group peered down into the darkness and the metal ladder that descended into it. Blars was able to tell them that the ladder descended about 30 feet and ended on a dirt floor. After some debate, they decided they were too injured to try to follow. They closed the trap door and shoved a chest on top of it. Then Ark noticed that Shecky was not with them. He raced to the other room and, finding a foaming, unconscious Shecky on the floor, scooped him up and raced back to Blars who, through the use of his remaining healing spells, managed to keep Shecky alive long enough for the poison to run its course. Shecky regained consciousness, but he was very weak.

Once Shecky and Ark were both healed, Blars, with Schlomo’s help, dragged the dead guards into the tower and closed the doors. After a little searching, they found the mechanism which controlled the false-locks on the outside of the the door and maneuvered them back in place, and barred the doors shut. After doing so, they rifled through the bodies, finding the following the list of goods below, while Ulo ate from the corpses. After this search, Blars, Ulo and Schlomo joined the rest of the party in the barracks.

In the barracks, the party parked the bound-and-gagged prisoner on a bunk. They stood and looked at each other. Bloodied, beaten and low on spells, with two party members recovering from near-death, they knew they needed rest. But the tower guard leader had escaped into the tunnel, going who knows where. They had a terrified prisoner tied to a bunk. Night was falling outside. Would more guards come calling on the tower, looking for their fallen comrades? What happens on the Temple grounds at night? And, now that they’d taken the tower, how to proceed on to the Temple?

-- End of Session 10—

September 02, 2010 | David

The community we have been calling "webseries" is struggling with identity. I have some thoughts.

“Stop f#@king making derivative bullsh#t… Stop making short TV or short films and putting it online and calling it online entertainment. You’re not making online entertainment. You’re making short TV and short films that’s cheap to produce and it looks cheap. There’s a better competitor in that marketplace. It’s called regular TV...”
- Barrett Garese (see the full video here: www.twitvid.com/ZMY9B

Barrett’s webseries tip-of-the-day ( www.twitvid.com/ZMY9B - which went live way back in May) has been causing significant controversy recently in the webseries/online creator community. I want to start by saying this is good - Barrett’s a thought leader (ugh - did I just write that phrase?), and it’s his job to challenge all of us to push ourselves and our work to be the best it can be. And I think it’s largely because we all acknowledge that Barrett’s smart and insightful that this video has stirred us up so; if we didn’t all respect him so much, none of us would care what he thought.

But is he right? Should we all be racing to take his advice? Well, yes and no. Before you dismiss this as a wishy-washy response, let me clarify:

Barrett’s statement assumes that his listener/viewer is someone who is desirous to create “online entertainment”; that being a producer of quality online entertainment is that viewer’s goal. I think, for that viewer, Barrett is right. If a creator’s ultimate goal is to be a pioneer of online entertainment, then it is important to do something, well, pioneering. I’m not certain what Barrett’s vision of “online entertainment” is, but it’s clear that in his mind, the best of it will be something that could only be possible online, both in form and content.

And that last clause, “both in form and content” is key. If you look at the webseries world (or webTV or webisodes or online indieTV or INDTV or whatever you want to call it), you’ll see a lot of shows which, because of their content, would probably not exist (or at least never be distributed) were it not for the internet. GOLD, my satire sports soap opera about professional role playing gamers, fits solidly in that category. In that sense, my little TV show is only possible online - it seems highly, highly unlikely that any traditional studio or production company would have produced such a niche show, much less distributed it. The target market would be perceived to be too small. Thus, that content is probably only possible thanks to the internet.

But, after a successful first season online, GOLD is now available on DVD. This is only because the form is very much in-line traditional television. It can be shown offline in many formats - on DVD, for instance, or in a movie theater. So GOLD does not fit Barrett’s challenge of true online entertainment because, while the content probably doesn’t get made without the internet, the form is very traditional.

Where Barrett is wrong, in my opinion, is in the underlying assumption in his tip: that we want to be pioneers in online entertainment.

For most of us currently making indieTV and distributing it online (most, but not all), what we really want to do is make movies and/or television. Our underlying drive is to be writers or actors or directors of movies or television. And so, thanks to the level playing field that is the internet, we make our movies and television and distribute it in a way we never could until just a few years ago. Some of those shows, like GOLD, would have no likely home in the traditional TV market, despite having found a robust, engaged audience online. Others, like, say, the Bannen Way ( www.crackle.com/c/The_Bannen_Way ), would fit perfectly in the traditional TV market (and soon will be reborn there as a traditional TV show), but the creators were untried and the web was their perfect proving ground. I firmly believe that a lot of what we’re seeing right now is not a new form of online entertainment - it is simply the a growing independent television movement. If we can find value in the independent film culture, in the short film culture, can we not see value in an independent television culture?

When I look at the webseries world, this is what I see. The best of us are making great television, we’re just showing it online. We’re giving underserved audiences shows that couldn’t be made otherwise, and we’re proving ourselves as writers and directors and actors and showrunners in a scrappy, independent marketplace. We’re indie, and we’re TV.

Of course traditional television is stiff competition for us - overwhelming competition, in most ways - how could it be otherwise? But that’s no reason to stop pursuing the storytelling form we find compelling. Telling an indie TV creator to start making, well, whatever form this online entertainment beast will become, just because the traditional TV competition is too steep, seems out of line. I don’t want to make [insert name for the new form here] right now, any more than I want to write video games or bake cakes or paint murals. I want to make TV. Until I can do that in a grander way, I’ll make TV indie-style, scraping for the funds indie-style, and distributing it indie-style. Hell, even if I manage to claw my way into my desired career, I’ll probably still make indieTV, using the ideas whose content does not fit that more traditional model. Maybe I’ll make [new thing] someday. But right now I’m interested in film and TV.

Rather than whipping ourselves into a frenzy over Barrett’s perfectly sound advice, I believe a creator should ask him or herself plainly, “what am I trying to make? Am I trying to make a TV show, and the web is the best current distribution option for my show?” If the answer is yes, then in my opinion Barrett’s advice simply doesn’t apply.

But if you are a creator out there saying to yourself, “I want to make something amazing - I want to harness the power of the internet to create a storytelling experience simply not possible prior to right now,” then Barrett is right. Don’t waste your time making indieTV. Make whatever that other thing is.

I, for one, am excited to see it.

-David
Creator, GOLD

September 02, 2010 | David

GOLD is a finalist for the 2010 Parsec Award for Video Storytelling!

To celebrate, we’re screening all of Gold Season 1 after the award ceremony: Sat, Sept 4, 11:30PM, Hilton Crystal Ballroom

- All seven GOLD Season 1 Episodes!
- Additional screening delights!
- Q&A with David Nett (creator/Jon Drake) and Rick Robinson (Richard Wright)
- Sneak peek at the upcoming GOLD miniseries, Night of the Zombie King
- Giveaways!

This is the first time GOLD Season 1 will be screened in its entirety. If you’re at Dragon*Con, don’t miss this great opportunity to see GOLD on the big screen and meet some of the folks who make the show.

May 25, 2010 | David

Two amazing announcements today, May 25: the GOLD Season 1 DVD is available and NOTZK is in production!

GOLD Season 1 Special Edition DVD: On Sale Now!

Thanks to our generous GOLD DVD Club members and the tireless efforts of the GOLD team members, GOLD Season 1 is now available on a Special Edition DVD, which includes:

- All seven episodes of GOLD Season 1 with re-mastered color and sound
- One of 12 different DVD covers
- Cast/crew and creator commentaries for every episode
- Interview with the cast & crew by GirlGamer’s Cricket Lee
- Special thank-you shout-out to the GOLD DVD Club
- Independent TV preview featuring a host of great current and upcoming shows from around the webseries world
- Randomly selected behind-the-scenes photo and a GOLD CCG Character card
- Exclusive minisode not available anywhere else: “The Palace of the Silver Princess”

All this for only $20 (+shipping). And the best part: all profits from the sale of every DVD go toward the production of GOLD Season 2. Visit www.goldtheseries.com/store to buy yours today.

In conjunction with the DVD launch, we’ve also released a beautiful 11x17 poster of the Gallery DVD cover, featuring all 11 main characters from GOLD. You can get that at www.goldtheseries.com/store as well.

GOLD: Night of the Zombie King is in Production!

While we’re still searching for the right partners to help us make the complex, sprawling beast that is GOLD Season 2, the GOLD team is sick of not having any new episodes to put out on the interwebs. So, we’ve written and are in the process of shooting a 6-part miniseries: “Night of the Zombie King.” NOTZK takes place between seasons 1 and 2 of GOLD, and centers around a character a lot of fans have told us they want to see more of: Jaz, the big, tough leader of the Dangerous Gamers Jonathan visits in GOLD Episode 4.

Set over the course of one night in the lives of five grown-up gamers, NOTZK is a story about RPGs, friendship, growing-up, and the difficulty of reconciling the people we thought we were as kids with the adults we’ve become. In short, it’s “The Big Chill” for nerds. More or less.

NOTZK features James Ellis Lane, Jonathan Nail, Stephanie Thorpe, Maxwell Glick and Brian Majestic. It is in production right now, and we anticipate it will be released in late Summer 2010. For breaking news about GOLD: Night of the Zombie King, keep your eye on the website (www.goldtheseries.com), our facebook page (www.facebook.com/goldtheseries) and follow us on twitter (@GoldtheSeries).

May all your crits be confirmed,

David

May 07, 2010 | David

Pretty soon it's gonna be hard not to talk about our newest GOLD adventure.

No, this isn’t the post letting you know the GOLD DVD is ready for sale. It’s at the manufacturer right now, and we’ll let you know as soon as it is ready. And it’s not about GOLD Season 2, sadly - we’re still looking for a partner to help us get that made.

But, you see, not making more television set in the GOLD world has been killing us. So, Andrew (GOLD Co-Exec, Goldy). Rick (Richard Wright) and I got together and wrote a new GOLD adventure. GOLD Season 2’s sweeping story, multiple locations and dozens of characters makes it expensive and time-consuming to shoot (which is why we need a partner or two), so we wanted to write a parallel series that would compliment the main GOLD storyline, but be smaller and more self-contained - something we could produce while worked on scaring-up the resources for GS2. 

The result: “GOLD: Night of the Zombie King.” It takes place shortly after the events in GOLD Season 1, and centers around a character a lot of fans have told us they want to see more of: Jaz, the big, tough leader of the Dangerous Gamers Jonathan visits in GOLD Episode 4. It takes place over the course of one night, and I’ve been explaining the story to folks as, “The Big Chill” for rpg nerds.

We begin shooting Night of the Zombie King (NOTZK) at the end of May, and I couldn’t be more excited to be back working with the GOLD team. I just wanted to let you all know about it now, so we could excitedly tweet about it during production, post pictures from the set, etc. As we go along, we’ll be posting more info about the plot, characters, etc.

And, yes, the DVD of Season 1 will be available soon. Very soon. I promise.

-David