Seth Harris

31 Days of Character Creation #11 – The Wildsea

The Wildsea is one of the more unique and interesting tabletop RPGs to have come out in recent years. It borrows mechanics from several other systems, most notably Blades in the Dark. It’s world is one unlike any else, here’s the description from the official website:

Some three hundred years ago the empires of the world were toppled by a wave of fast growing greenery, a tide of rampant growth spilling from the West known as the Verdancy. Now chainsaw-driven ships cut their way across dense treetop waves, their engines powered by oilfruit, rope-golems, honey and pride.

31 Days of Character Creation #10 – Star Trek Adventures 2e

As you might guess from the title of this system, it’s a Star Trek tabletop role playing game. Here’s the description from the official website:

From the 21st through to the 32nd century, join Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Star Empire, and countless other civilizations, and journey across the Star Trek universe with your crew. Explore strange new worlds, encounter fantastical alien life-forms, and engage in dramatic adventures in a detailed and immersive Galaxy.

Tell your stories and unravel the mysteries of the unknown!

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Starforged: Messiahs Part Four

Read the previous part here

I had hoped to get this finished in 2024, but it took me a little longer. Hope you enjoy this final, extra long (nearly 7,000 words) final part to Messiahs.

[Begin a Session: Flashback reveals an aspect of another character, place, or faction]

One of the first things Gerard Linnaeus saw that made him want to go running from Dakhnour was watching a soldier from his house beat a frail al-Raml man to death for stealing a bowl of grain meal. The heir to the corporate house of Celadon felt a rage grow in him that had been there since he was a child. Now in his twenties, as he was being prepped to lead the House by his father, Gerard felt even more disgusted getting to see the Enclave treatment of the natives.

Movie Review – Hana-bi

Hana-bi (1997)
Written and directed by Takeshi Kitano

One of my favorite things as a film fan is coming across a filmmaker doing something all their own. No film exists in a vacuum, so you’ll always see influences from others. But how that filmmaker mixes their ingredients makes all the difference. Takeshi Kitano started his media career as a comedian and TV host in the early 1970s. It was Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, in 1983, where Kitano made his feature film debut. It was a non-comedic role as a Japanese soldier who brutalized Allied prisoners. In 1989, he made his directorial debut with Violent Cop, a neo-noir film. And then it was this movie, translated into English as “Fireworks,” that won Kitano the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, only the third Japanese director after Akira Kurosawa and Hiroshi Inagaki to win the honor.

31 Days of Character Creation #9 – Cabal

Cabal is a game where the character is the evil corporation you create. Employees are assets the company moves around to work towards its nefarious agenda. Essentially, if you want to play a mix of Succession with horror elements, you have found the game for you. Here’s how Cabal is described on its Kickstarter page:

Cabal is an RPG that works in reverse to the way tabletop RPGs usually function. Instead of each player creating their own character, you create a single character between you. This character is an organisation with its own secret plan and goals. It might be a conspiracy, a corporation, an activist group, an occult society of magicians or even a collection of hidden alien refugees. The size, influence, resources and pawns of the group depend entirely on what attributes the players choose between them for the organisation.

Movie Review – Winter Light

Winter Light (1963)
Written and directed by Ingmar Bergman

It didn’t take me very long while watching Winter Light to realize what contemporary film was essentially a remake of it, Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. Schraeder certainly localizes the story to upstate New York and removes or alters certain details, but narratively & thematically they share so much. Both are films where I can’t imagine them being set in any season other than winter. The cold, the snow, the silence. They are all significant parts of setting the atmosphere for this story of spiritual doubt and crisis. Ingmar Bergman was a person always in some type of spiritual introspection and with Winter Light he’s wondering about those who seem certain about the existence of a God who cares about humanity.

31 Days of Character Creation #8 – Pirate Borg

I’m fairly familiar with Borg subset of tabletop RPGs. They are bursting with personality and fantastic art. Of the many that exist I’ve played Mork Borg (with the excellent solo supplement Solitary Defilement), CY_Borg solo, and Corp Borg in co-op play with Ariana. Here’s the description of Pirate Borg from its official website:

A scurvy-ridden, rules light, art heavy tabletop RPG.

Inspired by history, fantasy, horror and rum. Your cutlass & flintlock won’t save you from the hordes of skeletons, the Kraken, or even your own crew. PIRATE BORG is a complete game based on and compatible with the award -winning MÖRK BORG RPG. But it’s also a tool kit. Most of the tables can be hacked and used with any tabletop RPG.

31 Days of Character Creation #7 – Traveller 2022 Edition

I have heard about the complexity of the Traveller character creation system for years, particularly that your character can die as you are rolling up their lifepath. After going through it, it is quite an experience. I really love systems where character creation is a game unto itself, like Heinrich’s Call of Cthluhu Guide to Character Creation. I had zero idea of who my character would be going into this, but by the end I really understood her much better.

Movie Review – Ikiru

Ikiru (1952)
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni
Directed by Akira Kurosawa

After watching a little over half a dozen Kurosawa films in my life, I have concluded that I prefer his modern films more than his historical ones. That isn’t to say films like Seven Samurai or HIdden Fortress are bad. It’s more that I have difficulty emotionally connecting with that era of Japan. It’s certainly entertaining, but I don’t get invested. Perhaps that’s why I’ve gravitated towards Yasujirō Ozu’s films; they are contemporary to the period they are made in and focus on people living their lives with little melodrama. Ikiru is like if Kurosawa tried his hand at an Ozu picture. It has some thematic similarities, but tonally, this is pure Kurosawa. You can see him shaping the minds of audience members who would go on to become prolific filmmakers in their own right, mimicking the techniques of a master they first observed here.

31 Days of Character Creation #6 – Silent Legions

I plan to crack open at least one of designer Kevin Crawford’s tabletop RPG books and use it’s incredible tools this year. Before I do that, I thought I’d create a character in his cosmic horror RPG, Silent Legions. Here’s the description of this game from its official website:

The world is broken in hidden ways. The truth is concealed for the sake of mortal minds. The unendurable reality that boils behind the stars is veiled by the pleasant blindness that human sanity requires. Yet every comforting shroud must fall in time, and for these investigators, that time is now.