Madame Web held so much promise. Instead, it felt… uneven.
Continue readingMonthly Archives: July 2024
Spectaculars, lightweight superhero fun
Spectaculars is a superhero RPG with a simple roll-under percentile die system. There are no cumbersome lists of modifiers, and the math required at the table should be accessible to precocious eight or nine year-olds. The game is clearly a love-letter to superhero comics, right down to players’ ability to invent backstory and create connections at the drop of a hat by spending “Continuity Tokens” to make up past issues with a relevant story detail. The game could also easily mimic the feel of superhero cartoons like Batman: The Animated Series, or any other episodic story where inventing background is expected or would be useful. Whatever your inspirations are, Spectaculars shines brightest when you’re playing episodic adventures in the context of a larger narrative arc. This is especially true if you’re more excited about your game’s larger story than you are about the gritty details of how a specific power works, or quantifying whose ”Mega Power Blast” is bigger.
Continue readingA travel day, 07/11/24
I’m traveling today, so please enjoy this picture of Alex in all her majesty.
Underdog Sports Movie Showdown, The Boys in the Boat vs The Long Game
I flew this week. On my flight, I watched The Boys in the Boat and The Long Game.
Each movie is a triumphalist underdog sports movie. Each movie is dedicated to a sport that I know little about. I think I’m marginally more fond of or impressed by crew (specifically, eight-person rowing teams) than golf. I like the drama of team sports, and appreciate the skill required to work that smoothly together, even if I have little interest in crew in general. I admire the skill and tenacity of golfers, certainly, but if I had to pick between a movie about golf and a movie about crew, well…
I’d pick the boat.
I’ve heard that you’re supposed to be more prone to enjoying movies that you watch on an airplane. Perhaps that’s because they pull you out of the noisy, cramped tin can soaring through the air at uncomfortable speeds and deposit you (for a limited time) in some other world of dramatic and emotional experience. Regardless of whether what I’ve heard is true, it can’t rescue a movie from simply being worse than its competition.
And “worse than the competition” is a galling and ironic position for a triumphant underdog sports movie to be in, don’t you think?
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Fistful of Wits 