(This article has been updated with links to this author’s articles.)

Woo-hoo, and welcome to Codex Anathema. My name is Gonzalo and it’s the first time I’m hosting the RPG Blog Carnival, which has a permanent house in «Of Dice & Dragons». March is the month the movie awards season ends, and that made me think about all the different ways movies have inspired my games and my characters, which is the reason I set my topic into what movies brought to our tables: I decided to link movies and RPGs in terms of mutual inspiration and archetypes.

Welcome to “Gamemaster’s Cut”.

Please join me by posting an entry in your own blog about any of the following:

• any adventure, campaign or RPG element inspired by a movie
• some musings about how a movie’s main characters seem to be an adventuring party
• recommendations about movie soundtracks for our own gaming sessions
• narrative techniques or GM tips to achieve cinematographic action
• praise and/or critics on past D&D movies
• dream suggestions for the upcoming one!
• or anything you’d want to about D&D and the seventh art!

Of course, most movies are inspired by other works, being novels and comics the most popular sources, but I’ll ask you to focus on the elements a movie is different to its original source for the purpose of your entry.

Don’t forget to post a link to your article here. I’ll not only read it, but also summarize and award it at the end of the month for the Carnival round-up. Yes, I’ll read every single entry here and I’ll award the best contributions with special appreciation badges you can show off in your own website. You all are encouraged to use the ‘official’ logo when posting content related to the carnival. You can find it in the RPG Blog Carnival Archive.

I’m planning three articles of my own (and I hope I’ll have the time to finish them! and I was able to finish them!). They will be about:

1. a campaign I created, which started as the crazy suggestion by one of my players about getting some nice pirate action. I’m talking about «Pirates of the Lhazaar Sea».
2. what the synopsis and cast would I like to be for an Eberron movie (let me dream!)
3. «To the Infinity and Beyond»: how can we use some ideas for our own campaign from what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has implemented to movies in its ten years of existence.

The featured image for this entry comes straight from Ed McGuinness’ variant cover for Black Vortex Alpha, which is a crossover between the Guardians of the Galaxy and the X-Men. In one of the frames, we can see the Guardians around a table with miniatures, polyhedral dice, pencils and some sheets. Can you tell what are they playing?