What’s the Beastmster?
Directed by Don Coscarelli of Illusion fame and starring Marc Singer, Tanya Roberts, John Amos, and Rip Torn, the story of The Beastmaster includes Dar, a warrior who can talk with animals, searching for revenge for his murdered tribe. The search for vengeance leads Dar (Marc Singer), and his animal companions to satisfy Kiri (Tanya Roberts) and Seth (John Amos) as he hunts the evil wizard Maax (Rip Torn). Loosely based mostly on Alice “Andre” Norton’s 1959 novel, The Beast Grasp, the flicks take little or no from that novel, largely the power to speak with animals. For a B-movie, the director and forged had been extra notable than a lot of their contemporaries within the sword-and-sorcery craze of the Eighties.
If you happen to partook within the slew of Conan-xploitation, fantasy motion pictures from that decade, you knew of The Beastmaster. The movie had a modest field workplace, but it grew to become a gamer staple, which begs the query, why was this film well-known? Within the Eighties, two American tv channels had been recognized by mocking monikers: HBO’s letters had been joked to face for “Hey, Beastmaster’s On” whereas TBS signified “The Beastmaster Station”. In different phrases, The Beastmaster performed on these channels so typically you’d assume that the broadcasters acquired paid each time they ran the film as a substitute of the reverse. The fixed re-runs offered the movie with a cult following.
Together with Conan the Barbarian and Roger Corman’s entries, The Beastmaster fashioned the inspiration of the Eighties modest-budget, sword-and-sorcery subgenre. The Beastmaster had two sequels: 1991’s Beastmaster 2: By way of the Portal of Time and 1996’s NBC TV-movie, Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus, plus a 3-season TV collection and Richard A. Knaak (Dragonlance: The Legend of Huma and Dragonlance: Kaz the Minotaur) and Sylvio Tabet’s (Producer of The Beastmaster and Director of Beastmaster 2) 2009 sequel novel titled Beastmaster Delusion. In 2020, director Don Coscarelli and screenwriter Paul Pepperman reclaimed the copyright to their authentic The Beastmaster screenplay. All of that’s to say, there’s loads of The Beastmaster to the touch on, but no tabletop RPG. Contemplating its decade of notoriety coinciding with Superior Dungeons & Dragons First Version, why aren’t followers enjoying characters that speak to animals and put on loincloths for armor… er, extra like The Beastmaster-specific variations of these character sorts?
Extra In regards to the Beastmaster
For those who haven’t seen The Beastmaster, Vinegar Syndrome, distributor of Don Coscarelli’s most up-to-date version of the unique movie, offers this synopsis:
“When he was a child, Dar (Marc Singer, In The Chilly Of The Night time, TV’s ‘V’) and his royal household had been cursed by an omnipotent wizard named Maax (Rip Torn, Males in Black) to forestall him from rightfully ascending because the chief of his folks. Stolen from his mother and father and about to be sacrificed, Dar is rescued by a form villager who raises him as his personal. Whereas coaching together with his adopted father, Dar realizes the curse has left him with a singular reward: the power to telepathically talk with all types of animal life. Years later, Maax returns with the assistance of a violent band of marauders referred to as the Jun to all however wipe out Dar’s tribe, leaving him to fend for himself. Accompanied by his animal and human buddies, Dar units out on a quest of vengeance to destroy Maax and the Jun, and return peace to the land earlier than it is too late.”
Need a number of opinions from players? Then take a look at Alex Wolfe’s collection on The Beastmaster:
“I will Do It Myself!”
There isn’t an official adaptation, however does The Beastmaster want its personal sport? Couldn’t one other system cowl the necessities?
“INSERT GAME already has the entire guidelines that you simply’d have to play INSERT FRANCHISE” was a standard dialogue in the course of the Kickstarter marketing campaign for the Altered Carbon RPG. Earlier than and after the Altered Carbon Kickstarter, some players argued that Eclipse Section may cowl every thing Altered Carbon’s mythology required. The identical proscription was cited when debating the necessity for The Terminator RPG. In idea, the simulation may very well be detailed utilizing most cyberpunk or superhero RPGs. Regardless of the talk, these initiatives discovered backers by means of crowdfunding and turned a revenue. How? As a result of a unified, targeted sport has inherent benefits over hacking an current system. By specializing in every property’s core parts, The Terminator RPG and Altered Carbon RPG eradicated narrative outliers, rule discrepancies, and GM homebrewing that might consequence from bending a generalized ruleset to work with an current property. As well as, the artwork within the rulebooks match the texture of the world, which is a large plus.
That mentioned, concerning The Beastmaster, there’s an argument for an current system over a singular system. Why? As a result of D&D debuted in 1974 and The Beastmaster in 1982. D&D took time to roll out from its base close to the Nice Lakes to the touch gamers internationally. There’s some alignment with gamers discovering the sport and the film at practically the identical time making the movie a up to date instance of sword-and-sorcery for early D&D fans. That connection implies that many periods of D&D within the mid- to late-80s had a participant that wished to take the function of a beastmaster. Whereas there wasn’t official TSR help for a beastmaster, parts of that class existed within the guidelines and spirit of D&D. Due to this fact, the DM may homebrew some choices and – BAM! – the participant’s character was commanding ferret thieves. This labored till the participant wished one assault for his or her beastmaster, one for his or her panther, one for his or her eagle, and two for the pair of ferrets every spherical. That unbalanced and slowed the encounter, and led to makes an attempt to reign within the OP parts of the homebrew, which resulted in DM and participant frustration on the variety of lifeless ferrets per session.
Alternately, there’s the Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Version (2014) Ranger subclass known as “Beast Grasp.” Within the context of this text that feels like a stand-in, however the subclass comes with a built-in flaw: the broader world of D&D. If you happen to’re enjoying a sport based mostly on The Beastmaster, that’s the main target, the adventures of this Ranger-like Barbarian. In D&D, the main target is the vary of gaming choices: wizards, clerics, dragonborn, and the entire different greater, badder lessons and subclasses that take the highlight off of the setting and premise of The Beastmaster. That’s to say, your 5e model of The Beastmaster is unlikely to really feel just like the supply materials.
For one of the best The Beastmaster expertise, creating or modifying an current system affords detailed, mythology-specific mechanics that can play higher on the desk. For the sake of sport steadiness and narrative purity, placing beastmasters into their very own world is good.
To Be Continued…
We’ll proceed our dialogue within the subsequent article (printed subsequent week), together with what TTRPG to make use of, if such a hypothetical sport may generate profits, and which writer could be the primary to get the license.
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