I finished the first season.
Wow.
I know I just wrote about Prodigy last week, but I have to weigh in again.
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Henry
Star Trek: Prodigy, season one
As someone who grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Prodigy didn’t quite feel like a Star Trek show until episode six. That might be a good thing. As much as I love TNG’s broad focus on an ensemble cast with highly episodic story telling, Prodigy’s early adventure-focused plots with clear continuity from one episode to another gives us a narrative throughline that TNG sometimes lacks.
That narrative throughline and dramatic adventure feels a little like Star Trek: Discovery. Discovery felt a little off to me in its first couple seasons, due to its fixation on a single overarching narrative and its exploration of Michael Burnham’s character to the detriment of the broader ensemble cast. It wore the trappings of Star Trek, but felt more like a Star Trek movie turned into a miniseries instead of a Trek TV show. Unlike Discovery, Prodigy bridges the gap from overarching-narrative to interspersed episodic and big-narrative episodes and makes a smooth landing in that Star Trek sweet spot with episodes six and seven. It starts without the Star Trek trappings, but ultimately feels more Trek to me than the first season of Discovery ever did.
Admittedly, I haven’t yet watched much further (I think I’m on episode twelve of season one). I’m not sure that matters. Even with continued exploration of the slightly-more-main characters, the show would have to veer sharply into main-character-ism to lose what it has already established. I think the tonal shift happened at the right time too. The dramatic narrative of the show’s opening episodes feels right for a space adventure, and the transformation into a Star Trek show happens as the crew finally gels and discovers that—despite their disparate backgrounds and disagreements—they share a moral core that is increasingly influenced by the ideals of Starfleet and the Federation.
That transformation feels deeply satisfying. The crew’s growing recognition of their shared moral core feels deeply satisfying too. There’s something funny about that to me; when I started watching Prodigy I wasn’t sure I’d be able to love the show. The first couple episodes felt so strongly like a kids’ show—without the idealistic themes I love and identify with Star Trek—that I feared I’d be stuck enjoying it on only one level as decent children’s fiction. The show’s growth as it moved beyond the opening episodes proved those fears wrong.
If you appreciate good children’s literature (yes, I’m using that to describe a TV show), or if you love Star Trek, then you should do yourself a favor and watch this show. My friends who recommended it to me were totally right. Prodigy takes a couple episodes to really get into gear, but it’s a delight.
Building Consent (in RPGs)
Consent is vitally important to RPGs (especially horror RPGs), yet is often taken for granted. Often, consent’s building blocks—trust, plus shared social expectations, desires, and goals—are only analyzed after something has gone wrong and the illusion of agreement is broken. I don’t think anyone needs to constantly check for consent at every new moment in their games, but you can save yourself some anguish if you establish those building blocks before playing.
Why do I think consent is so important in RPGs?
Continue readingThe Social Skills of Storytelling
I write a lot on this blog about the social skills involved in being a storyteller, because I think many of our RPG books ignore the topic. What’s more, many RPG-related blogs and YouTube channels that I admire share advice about the mechanics and structure of RPG systems… but don’t cover the social dynamics. It seems like a collective blindspot. We assume that people will know what they’re doing, or that they’ll muddle along well enough.
Some of this has changed since I started running TTRPGs about 30 years ago. Many RPG books now include the basics of safety mechanics like lines and veils, the X-card, etc. But there isn’t much on how to find consensus or foster buy-in amongst your players. You have to learn the tricky art of building agreement and engagement in your own gaming group with few pointers and little advice.
On the one hand, I get it. I think the arguments run something like the following:
There’s so much variation in social expectations between gaming groups that no system could truly be one-size-fits-all. Those interpersonal connections are outside the scope of a roleplaying game. People should figure out what works for them, and do that.
But on the other hand, those arguments are an avoidant pile of crap.
Continue readingThe Joy of Recommending Books
There’s something magical about recommending books to people.
I think the same magic can be found with recommending TV shows or movies or what have you, but there’s something weirdly distinct about books. Reading books requires us to be active. Unlike with a TV show or movie, and unlike with a comic book, books expect us to provide the vistas ourselves. We have to conjure up our own vision of the story and setting, and every reader will engage just a little (or very) differently with the text. Everyone creates their own version of the book, even more so than with a more visual medium.
Those differences each reader creates for themselves, and the similarities that remain, are where the magic lies.
Continue readingWorldbuilding: Theft, Inspiration, & Homage
Culturally, we put a lot of emphasis and value on originality. An undue emphasis, as far as I can tell. I believe art (and yes, worldbuilding is art) is founded more on sharing and mixing and reinventing than it is on truly novel ideas. I think we should embrace that.
For context: this follows directly from last week’s post on worldbuilding. Last week I mentioned stealing inspiration and using pieces of other stories, but I focused on embracing inconsistency. I should have also referenced my old post about leaving blank spaces. This week we’ll focus on the stealing, sampling, and paying homage side of things.
Continue readingWorld Building: Starting Skills
I was talking with a friend of mine recently about worldbuilding and how to teach the skill, and I realized that I’m not sure where to start.
I think my perspective is warped. I’ve been making up worlds for stories and games for so long, the whole process has become second nature. I haven’t consciously examined the process of worldbuilding in a long time.
Given that I’m planning to run a class for people who want to be DMs (or GMs, or storytellers, or whatever the hell you want to call the person running your roleplaying game), I think I need a clearer approach. I do have some ideas.
Continue readingMegamind (2010)
I’ve now seen this movie a second time. I liked it the first time I saw it, and had fond memories of the movie. I don’t remember where I was the first time I watched it, though I don’t think I saw it in theaters. Regardless, it was years ago.
I just watched it again this last week with my niblings. I’m unsettled.
Megamind is a good, fun movie. Mostly. It’s so painfully close to just being a good fun movie, and it still can be if I only empathize with the main character Megamind. That’s probably what I did the first time I watched this.
This time around, I saw things from Roxanne Ritchi’s perspective. In so doing, I realized that Megamind is a horror movie. Now I can’t un-see it.
Is that a bad thing? Well…
Continue readingDeadpool & Wolverine (2024)
It’s not a good sign for a movie’s longevity when my biggest takeaway from a film is that I really enjoyed some of the other films that it referenced.
After watching Deadpool, I was tempted to watch it again. Watching this movie, all I could think of was how I might want to go back and watch Logan, or maybe X-Men: First Class. I would even enjoy watching some of the other X-Men movies.
Previous Deadpool movies have managed to simultaneously deliver snarky commentary, cheeky references, large quantities of superhero movie violence, and plots that feel emotionally grounded enough and central enough to give me a sense of continuity and investment. This movie…
Continue readingAt camp, 8/8/24
I’m away at camp! No big post from me today. I hope you’re all doing well, and I’ll be back next week.
Fistful of Wits 