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Correction to what I wrote: I saw Arnold at the Royal Festival Hall—not Albert Hall.
Rewarding viewing and reading. Thanks @Some_Kind_Of_Hero @Shark_Of_Largo @jake24 and @fire_and_ice
I'm not a rabid collector of bond merchandise. I collect certain niche items - but I do become a completist of those items. I'm also born in the mid seventies and so effectively an eighties kid and just around the time computer games started infiltrating the household - so did roleplaying games. I played dungeons and dragons as well as fighting fantasy book and dice games in my youth. So nothing stands prouder in my collection than my complete collection of James Bond Roleplaying Games.
From 1983 until 1987 Victory Games released eleven James Bond games - Nine adapted from official EON films and two brand new adventures:
Dr No, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Live and Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View To A Kill. With the other two new adventures being Goldfinger 2: The Man With The Midas Touch and You Only Live Twice 2: The Back of Beyond.
This last one (YOLT 2) was significant because it was written by future continuation novelist Raymond Benson and was set in Australia.
To play the game you required the initial Basic set which I got as a box set and included the supplementary booklet 'Thrilling Locations'. This came with dice (a six sided die and a ten sided die) and sheets designed to aid you in creating your own agent. The five central characteristics were strength, dexterity, willpower, perception and intelligence. You would roll dice to determine the level of these characteristics and over time, due to partaking in adventures you could gain experience points and improve these base skills.
What separates the James Bond Roleplaying Game from many other roleplaying games is that money is not an object (unless it's for a mission like in Casino Royale). It's not for personal gain and in fact should be discouraged as not being in the spirit of the game. What is in the spirit of the game is achieving missions with incredible amount of style and fun. It isn't just successfully defeating your foe - but also escaping traps, rescuing allies, discovering plots - all while tasting the finest wine, using the best automobiles and visiting exotic places.
The Gamemaster guides the players through their adventures and being the Gamemaster he or she can alter the story as they deem appropriate. Especially if the player is conquering the challenges too easily or finds the story too predictable. The written games - even though they are based on the films - also sometimes veer off from the established plots, so just because you know the film Goldfinger inside-out - don't think you know exactly where the game's narrative is heading.
I always loved the cover and artwork. Each module comes with a book containing the adventure for the Gamemaster to read out and a wonderful envelope marked 'For Your Eyes Only' - which contains the mission dossier for the agent playing. Inside are photos, maps and pertinent information which the player has to decipher their significance.
One of my favourite adventures was 'Live And Let Die' - because of the voodoo connection and island setting it meant that the Gamemaster could create an unsettling and intriguing atmosphere where - just like Baron Samedi himself - you weren't sure what was real and what was magic. I also loved the mission dossier for that one with tarot cards attached.
Speaking of 'Tarot' - that is the stand-in name for 'Spectre'. Because obviously at this point the spectre legal issues were in full swing and NSNA just released.
There was also released supplementary material to help expand and enrich the gaming experience. These were - The Gamemaster Pack, For Your Information, Thrilling Locations, The Q Manual (for all those gadgets that would be handed to you before you left for the field) and Villains (this is relatively expensive to buy these days so if you get it cheap snap it up).
I bought the basic set, q manual and Dr No and Octopussy adventures when I was a kid and they were first released. I tracked the others down and most are relatively easy to find and not too expensive (the exception to these are For Your Eyes Only and especially the 'villains' supplement and On Her Majesty's Secret Service).
All of the games are fun and On Her Majesty's Secret Service is unique because it is the only one you can play by yourself.
The initial basic set and games like Octopussy and Dr No won gaming awards at the time, were much lauded and sold well.
In 1987 the licence expired as was never renewed. The creators said it was a shame as they had a 'Diamonds Are Forever' game in the developing stage and would have probably done 'The Living Daylights' to tie-in into that year's Bond release.
Except these two - the only films they didn't do were From Russia With Love (this could have been great with some embellishments), Thunderball (probably because of McClory), The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker (perhaps because they were based on Christopher Wood scripts?)
I've searched the internet and I believe some gamers have created their own manuals for some of these. I'm pretty sure a From Russia With Love module created by a fan is available online for free.
Victory Games also released five James Bond 'Action Episode' Games during this period which I have. These are two player mini-board games based around specific episodes from Bond films - Goldfinger ejector seat car chase, You Only Live Twice Little Nellie dogfight, Live and Let Die boat chase, The Man With The Golden Gun Funhouse showdown - which you can play solo and 'Assault' which is effectively the Volcano Lair raid from You Only Live Twice. These are much quicker to play so might be more enticing for beginners.
So my fellow double-Os... If you like colourful box artwork and nice presentation as well as reading through some adventures then track one of these down and see what you think. Better yet - if you have a couple of equally interested Bond fans (or even just roleplaying board game fans) then you could be creating an agent, deciding their name, physical appearance, age, disposition and background. Drop into M's office for a mission briefing, visiting q branch to be scolded and collect some gadgets, jump onto a plane and be whisked off to an exotic location and before you know it you're in a casino, dressed in a tux, sitting across from a femme fatale, with your drink of choice in hand and saying your last name first, first name second and then your last name last.
As you can imagine in Spain the news about Bond were really poor. Sometimes we read about Sharon Stone as Bond girl, Anthony Hopkins as villain, Broccoli selling the films, a TV series... I was completely desperate and all I know is I wanted a Bond film. At last, something came up and Pierce Brosnan was introduced as Bond in 1994.
This is one of the best trailers ever. In the History of Cinema. A series with 30 years that some believed was dead was going to be reintroduced with irony, with a blink to the new times, and with ellegance... Bond was back.
I really jumped on the seat the first time I saw that on the cinema, because you didn't know what trailers you were going to see. At least, I went to the cinema to see Pocahontas?, Rob Roy?... just to see that trailer again . Absolutely marvellous!
After that, a new wave of Bondmania arrived and, fortunately, in Spain we started to pay attention to Bond with new books and magazines. I bought, literally, all of them and I keep them like jewels... and that keeps going on until today.
:D
Now, you asked for videos, don't you?
This is funny:
And this is really good... and fast!:
In our Annual Conventions of Archivo 007, David Acín makes our videos. Although it is in Spanish you have to see this:
And this, from this year with English subtitles:
Yep, we have fun in Archivo 007
=D> :D
Lastly, I want to wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A BONDIAN 2017 with a postcard (not mine):
and a video. My favourite Bond video is probably the 50th anniversary from Kees van Dijkhuizen jr. that has been already posted, so I want to add this from Angus Cook. It is 15 minutes long but it's really good, fast and with an amazing use of music and scenes. Enjoy:
=D> =D> =D>
And likewise, @Gustav_Graves, it doesn't get much better than that OHMSS poster. They don't make 'em like that anymore!
I think Dragonpol is next, but I bet he is either still sleeping or having breakfast. ;)
Remaining days: 24th, 27th, 28th, 30th :)
December 19th: @Dragonpol
December 20th: @PropertyOfALady
December 21st: @Shark_0f_Largo
December 22nd: @CraigMooreOHMSS
December 23rd: @0BradyM0Bondfanatic7
December 24th:
December 25th: @TR007
December 26th: @BeatlesSansEarmuffs
December 27th:
December 28th:
December 29th: @MajorDSmythe
December 30th:
New Year's Eve: @BondJasonBond006
Link: http://www.john-gardner.com/content/story-christmas
A STORY AT CHRISTMAS
Happy Christmas to all our visitors. JEG was a huge fan of Christmas and no one knew that better than a dear friend of his, Simon Daryl Wood. The Gardner family have known Simon for a very long time indeed and recently Simon has had his own work of fiction published (Fairy Story available at Amazon), something I know John would have loved to have seen. I hope over the coming year that Simon will be able to contribute his thoughts on JG to this site. To start with here is how they first met.
Simon Wood:
In 1966 I was the most ordinary of young men. I was twenty-one years of age, finding my way in life and working at the time for Cogswell & Harrison, gunmakers, 168 Piccadilly, London.
London in the 1960s was an exciting place to be. There was Carnaby Street, The Beatles and Rolling Stones. It was the time of James Bond, The Man From Uncle, Harry Palmer or any other secret agent you care to name . . .
There was a bell above our shop door.
One day it rang. I didn't know it at the time, but it rang for me.
My life was about to change irrevocably.
Bruce, our ruddy-faced master-gunmaker, came down the stairs to where I was eating lunch and said, "There's an odd geezer up in the shop. I'm busy. See what he wants."
I duly abandoned my sandwich.
Our customer was a tall, lean, well-tanned man, aged about forty. He wore an impeccable suit, shirt and tie, over which was casually draped a Burberry raincoat.
"May I help you, Sir?" I asked tentatively.
"Yes," he said, reaching into his jacket. "I need a shoulder-holster for this."
The customer produced a chromium-plated cigarette lighter in the form of a .22 Beretta automatic pistol. On the grips in self-adhesive letters were the initials B.O.
Being at the time an aficionado of spy movies, I immediately put two and two together, for only the previous evening I had been to the London Pavilion cinema to see The Liquidator.
Knowing that guns held strange fascinations for people and, of course, being so worldy-wise at my tender age, I said to him, "Ah! Playing at being Boysie Oakes, are we, Sir?"
"No," he said, treating me to a withering smile, "I am Boysie Oakes."
And so began my forty-year friendship with John Gardner.
I cannot begin to list the gifts John brought into my life. He taught me an appreciation of art, literature and music, even getting me [who was at the time an ardent fan of The Shadows] to like Mahler and Wagner. He taught me irony and understatement, told me the most disgusting jokes, and never let go of his schoolboy sense of humour. Nothing made him collapse into uncontrollable laughter like the sound of a good rip-snorter. God [John was never certain] bless him. Nothing was taboo. Nothing ever escaped his acerbic wit and sublime sense of the absurd.
We were pals. John introduced me to a feast of experiences—people and places I would otherwise never have encountered—and has left me with a treasure-house of memories.
The name's Gardner—John Gardner. Nobody does it better.
I owe him more than I can ever repay, and I miss him.
Simon Daryl Wood
http://www.simondarylwood.com/
[Simon Gardner Dec 2011]
Copied from http://www.john-gardner.com/ - a great John Gardner resource and his official website. Visit it this Christmas!
Thank you, @ggl007. Glad you found that interesting. I was lucky enough to correspond by email with Mr Gardner in the 2000s and ask him a bit about the Bond novels. I like to contribute research to the more overlooked areas of the James Bond franchise.