Sunday, December 23, 2018

Episode 8: Betrayal at House on the Hill, Charumba, and Cross Dressing

Howdy peeps…in this episode: Betrayal at House on the Hill, Charumba (Shah-rumba), and Cross Dressing. So grab your Omens Counter and your ministerial collar, it’s time for Geekery and Wine:

The Geek Side – Betrayal at House on the Hill

There is a certain dark romance to the haunted house, that classic gothic set piece of horror. Whether it be the abandoned castle on a mountain peak or just “that spooky home at the end of the lane where, legend has it, something horrible happened!” something about just gets the blood pumping.

It was a powerful enough trope to occupy my mind even as I started teaching high school.
I needed a way to teach to my technical theatre students the notion that their art forms can develop mood. The lights, the sound, the set are all things that can be powerful players in a drama. If done well enough, the House itself is a character. And to illustrate the point I showed them the 1963 black and white film The Haunting based on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.

The thing that was most intriguing was that according to IMDB, The Haunting is rated “G.” So, I could say to my students, “I bet I know of a rated G movie that will scare you.”

Today’s bit of geeky goodness, Betrayal at House on the Hill is a tabletop board game first published by Avalon Hill in 2004 and is, in many ways, a hybrid of a board game and a tabletop role-playing game.

I got it on Mass Drop (massdrop.com), a very cool collective purchasing site, wherein people with similar interests bargain with publishers to get great deals on various cool things. There are sections of the site for the stylishly-minded, those that love tools and gadgets, and many others. But the sections that I love most are the Games section and the Audiophile section.

So, I got Betrayal at House on the Hill in a bundle with the Widow’s Walk Expansion, meaning another 50 possible endings to the game and several different variations on the house itself, including a new attic region.

I can absolutely say that this box, with all of the best of intentions, would probably have just languished on the shelves with all the books that “I really should get around to reading because of their tremendous literary value,” were it not for the YouTube Channel Tabletop, hosted by Wil Wheaton (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MINNKyE4fjs) .

Here’s how the game is played.

Everyone begins with a character, just like in a role playing game. They represent archetypes you might find in a horror movie—some with a bit of flavor. A small kid, an athletic bruiser, a mad scientist, a fortune teller…you get the idea. And each has a miniature figure that is their marker on the board.

Each character has four statistics: Speed, Might, Sanity, and Knowledge: two mental and two physical which represent your abilities within the game and tell the player how many dice to roll on any given challenge.

This is a tile-based game, so that means the game board (or haunted house in this case) is in a different configuration every time you play.

Now this could just be an “explore the house” kind of game and that by itself would be fun, but what happens is that by exploring the house the players reveal “omens” that gradually push the game toward The Haunt, which is the “betrayal”
in the aforementioned title.

Now about those dice I mentioned. They seem like regular, six-sided dice one would find in most board games, but instead of having the numbers 1 through 6, they have two blanks, two 1’s and two 2’s. Whenever someone finds an Omen and draws that card the players move the Omen Counter up by one and that player roles 6 of the dice. And so long as the number generated by the dice is below the Omen Counter number, you are golden. But keep in mind, it is possible to roll a ZERO.

“Ah, but it’s so easy. We only have to roll a 1 or a 2 to continue exploring the house,” a player says giving a small chuckle. There is a splash of dice and play moves on.
True. But every time an Omen is revealed, another roll occurs and those chuckles become nervous giggles which slowly become anxious finger-tapping as the number gradually climbs.

Exploring the tiles of the house can give the players Events, Items or Omens. And each of those are wonderful occurrences on their own.  An animated corpse could burst from the ground, or an entire area could be enveloped in a mystical, impermeable silence. It’s also possible to find companions and weapons that can help you as you explore the house. So, it’s not all dire. And many times these are being brought out in quick succession because the characters are all exploring and revealing the house in different directions. It’s a horror game so OF COURSE the characters have to split up so they can “cover more ground.”

But once The Haunt is triggered by a failed Omen roll, the game changes.

Two booklets are brought out. A Betrayer is revealed! It seems that one of the characters has lured the others to this house in order to kill them off.

The booklets reveal the situation that has come to pass. Whom “The Betrayer” is and how each side can either win or simply survive.

The Betrayer could be luring the others to the house to be sacrificed to a Pazuzu-like demon.

Or…

The Betrayer is in actuality a Renfield-type toadie bringing the characters back to be vampire kibble.

And dozens or more other possibilities with the expansion.

And the cool part of it is that you have no idea who the betrayer is until The Haunt is triggered. It could even be you!

So, early on one of the players finds an enchanted dagger that makes them into a combat badass and you think “Sweet! That will be handy against the Big Evil later on.”

Then later the same player is revealed to be The Betrayer and now you think, “My God, we are all dead meat.”

The ratcheting tension and the whiplash turn of events make this game incredible. And this is a board game.

Because of the random nature of the tiles and the multitude of outcomes and endgames, it is wonderfully replayable.

Although I have found one inexplicable element of repetition within the game.
I’ve played Betrayal at House on the Hill many times with my kids and it seems that my eldest daughter, anytime she is playing the game, inexplicably almost always ends up being The Betrayer!

And she will, invariably, let out the cry of the long-suffering and put upon:
“Aw, c’mon!”

The upside though is The Betrayer gets to run ALL the bad guys, too. The summoned demon horde, the pack of hungry werewolves, the ghosts of the coven of witches –all were are her armies to command. And she found that kinda groovy.

One of the latest iterations of Betrayal was Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate released in October of 2017, which shifts the action from a haunted house to a city in the Forgotten Realms plane of the game Dungeons & Dragons. I played this with my Thursday Night role-playing group and it was epic. Instead of horror movie archetypes, we were a party of D&D characters: paladins, warlocks, rogues, clerics, all with their own character powers, fighting some cool classic D&D monsters.

Dungeons & Dragons meets Betrayal at House on the Hill – a veritable Reese’s peanut butter cup of gaming fun!

And yet most recently, another iteration has come out – Betrayal Legacy, which endeavors to tell the story of the house through the generations. I can’t wait to try it out.

The Wine Side – (Sha Rumba) Charumba

What with our last episode flying us off to Spain, you can imagine that this episode, featuring a Portuguese red blend, will have us drinking wine in a pretty exotic locale…and you’d be right.

Imagine the seasonal decorations…and the folding tables…and…the instructions about how to properly wash your hands, and know you’re A B C’s ????
“Wait, huh?”

I was introduced to Charumba while drinking wine at a preschool.

Well, pre-school wasn’t in session when we were there, obviously. But it was where Aurora Parks and Recreation had their monthly wine tasting. And, we’d brought two (count ‘em two!) appetizer dishes to share! Additionally, each person had eight wine glasses set in a slight curve in front of them.

You see, each class sampled 8 wines and let’s say among those wines there are two that you really liked. If you go to the class every month it’s offered (in our case, I think 9 months out of the year) you sampled 72 wines and loved, probably, 18 of them. For beginners, that means that when you walked into the wine shop there would be at least 18 wines on those shelves that you are not only familiar with, but also like very much. But here’s the kicker…you MUST write this stuff down! You might think you’ll remember a wine from 9 months ago just from its very distinctive label…but the winemakers periodically change those suckers and the wines themselves will be slightly different from year-to-year. But at least you start to have the framework of what you like.

Now about those appetizer dishes…some of them are appetizers in only the broadest sense. They could also be small desserts. The idea was to have something to pair with the wine because wine is generally not consumed in isolation. It’s with a meal or something knosh-able. And finding out that some of the pairings are pure magic while others are the culinary equivalent of toothpaste and orange juice is part of the fun—unless you get that toothpaste pairing…bleh.

The dishes people brought fell into three categories:
a) “I just picked this up from the King Soopers deli on the way over to class” (aka Dude, we’re busy!) 

Category b) “I spent the better part of an afternoon tracking down exotic ingredients to impress you and then cook them in an amazing way because, by God, I WILL WIN WINE CLASS!” 

And c) I found some stuff at the grocery store and assembled and heated it, it’s not homemade, and that’s totally fine. I don’t hang my head, but neither am I asking for a Michelin star”…yeah, that was me most months, option C.

Next, you’d grab a plate of your crunchings and munchings and sit and pair them with the 8 wines in front of you.

Let’s talk about those glasses. These are for tasting! Not for drinking…obvs Is drinking eight glasses of wine or slightly more than a bottle a good idea?

No. That would be irresponsible, dangerous and insane! You taste. Drinking the wine is done later…at home. Some people even do the spit thing, where they wash the wine around their mouth and then spit it into a bucket. I can’t do that.

But remember, there will be some wines you absolutely cannot stand. Por exemplo, my wife took a sip of a particular red, declared, “Cough syrup,” pushed it to the edge of the ring of glasses and that was that.

Another reason to not diminish one faculties is that immediately after every wine class my wife and I would go to Chambers Wine and Liquor to find the one or two bottles we liked the best. Alas, the wine shop elves were not always aware of what direction the wine expert Will was going and we ended up referring to our class notes quite a lot while trying to find the bottle we loved. To make matters more challenging, sometimes Will would put things on the tasting menu that he hadn’t decided to stock in the store yet. We were his presale focus group.

And that focus group is pretty eclectic.

You will meet a group of nurses or teachers that are there to blow off some steam.

Yeah, I’ve been there…

And delightful couples like Tina and Tim and who absolutely had me in stitches. You see, Tim is a self-described beer-guy. But month by month, he got into wine. There are the people who are total wine snobs and complete neophytes and everything in between. There’s a little bit of magic there. I hope you have the same experience!

Back in Massachusetts, I ended up finding Charumba down the street at Craven’s Package store for about $7.99 dollars a bottle. I used to buy it at Chambers Wine and Liquor for about that same amount and for those who are following “The George Rule” from a previous episode (it comes in at less than $10 a bottle)

Whoa, Whoa WHOA!!!!

Hold your horses, right there!

So this little clip that I am inserting in this episode of Geekery and Wine is to fix an oversight.

Normally I write the episode.

I voice the episode.

And then I edit and mix in the sound effects and such. And this happens over the course of a few days.

Well, thing is, in the intervening time, I think about the episode and then compose the next section. Or ponder the way I want to record it as I drive.

But in this case…I was driving down a tree-lined road in North Central Massachusetts when it occurred to me…in telling all the great stories surrounding Charumba…I completely forgot to talk about how the wine tastes! AAAAh-Hahaha!

So, here goes, this wine comes on strong! With the potency of between 13 to 14% alcohol depending on vintage… but it also quickly overwhelms the taste buds and then smooths out.

What was a really beefy red I would set next to any Cabernet starts to resemble a fruity Spanish Grenache/Tempranillo blend by the second glass. For me, it makes it incredibly versatile at the dinner table. It stands up to a steak no problem but also complements a pizza that has red sauce, too.

Yup, that’s it. Okay, horsey…you may go…

Audio Goodness – Cross Dressing

The novel Cross Dressing was my second narration for author Bill Fitzhugh. But here’s the thing, at the time I was really hesitant to do it. My best friend Eric had given me Pest Control to read and it was hilarious! There were hitmen, and bugs and funny references to classic songs. What would this new one be like? I emailed Bill a few times and had even spoken to him on the phone. I found him to be really cool and funny, but I was intimidated. He lives in Hollywood and has a lot of experience working with publishers. Would it be like my experience with Alex’s agent where I ended up feeling defeated? 

In case you missed it...

PREVIOUSLY ON GEEKERY AND WINE

In our last couple of episodes, I had had a bit of a traumatic experience producing my last two audiobooks. I’d gone in unprepared (for Sandstone) and uneducated (for Nimbus) and had promptly been metaphorically bopped on the nose. I was gun shy.
But while we were talking, Bill mentioned that he was also currently writing a sequel to Pest Control! I could go back and play those characters that I loved so much. He was finishing the book sending it off to the publisher and, after checking with them, we’d be able to plan a course of action.

And then I waited.

I talked to Bill a while later and found out that Busted Flush Press, the publisher for the sequel to be called The Exterminators had ceased operations, so now the book was in limbo.

Footnote: While writing this audioblog I found out that part of the reason Busted Flush stopped publications is that one of the co-founders had died suddenly. I’d always thought of publishing houses as being these giant monolithic entities, it never occurred to me that the smaller mom-and-pop houses might not survive the death of either mom or pop. End Footnote.

But Bill asked, “Would I like to do a different book while the situation settles?”

Yes, yes I would.

“So, would we be doing The Organ Grinders next?” I asked. It was the next published book. It had come out in 1998.

Bill said simply, “Ya know, if I had it to do over again I would put out Cross Dressing first.” And that was enough for me.

I started working on Cross Dressing and found it was really cool. The protagonist, a morally dubious sales guys named Dan Steele tries to help his identical twin brother, a destitute and ill missionary priest, by giving him his insurance information so he can get medical care. Except the priest dies as Dan, so now Dan has to take on his brother’s ministerial identity or go to jail for fraud. And as they say…much hilarity ensues. But with Bill’s books it’s always so much more than that. There are elements about religion, world events, Big Medical and even sales that show this amazing dramatic collision between worlds and their costs to normal human beings. That and the characters are deep and motivated and reeeeeeally fun to play.

And while I was recording Cross Dressing, good news and bad news hit. The good news, Bill found a new home The Exterminators! The bad news, despite speaking to the new company, Poisoned Pen Press, on my behalf (he said, “I got this great guy who did the first book and has mad skillz”) they said that they had their own audio team that they worked with and it wasn’t going to be me.

(Sigh) I’m going to let you inside my brain a bit here.

I was sad.

I was disappointed.

I was hurt and angry.

There were probably a few other stages of grief in there, too. Some bargaining, probably.

And then I thought about it…

I was a narrator with only six titles under my belt. I’d never been to an industry event. I wasn’t in the SAG AFTRA union. I had never been reviewed in an industry or major press publication and no one even knew who I was.

So…I kinda got it. But it still stung. And there were moments of immaturity.

Moments where I said, “God, why…even…bother?!?”

“I found this author and started making his books into audio!”

“Now somebody wants to sweep in and replace ME?”

“I am NEVER doing another of THIS AUTHOR’S books AGAIN!”

Insert temper tantrum here. Think Godzilla destroying Tokyo only instead of real Godzilla it’s just some off-brand monster being played by a child in a rubber suit and instead of Tokyo, it’s a little collection of Lego and cardboard boxes made to look like a city.

But, c’mon…I really needed to get a grip.

The book publication deal was contingent on using their resources to do the other aspects…like audio.

Did I really expect him to say, “Nope! No deal! If Colby does do the audiobook…I walk.”

Well, that’s just silly.

And later Bill sent me this great email saying I was free to do any of his other work and one line in particular stuck out at me.

“You are my audiobook guy.”

And that was pretty darned sweet.

Find Cross Dressing at Audible.com, iTunes or Amazon. 

To check out all my audiobooks go to Lastwordaudio.com, and be sure to never miss a release by signing up for Monkey Missives.

Next Time on Geekery and Wine: My Boyfriend the Bear, Florence, Angosto tinto, and Batman Unauthorized.

Until then…
My Geeks
My Nerds
My dear, dear friends…
Adieu