Seth Harris

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – The Electric State Part Two

Check out an overview of the system and the introduction to our travelers in the first part here.

Solo play in The Electric State involves several playing card draws to generate details from tables. I won’t be recording every single card draw, focusing on those related to plots.

Wyatt Butler glanced out the driver’s side window to see the rusted smiling face of Victor Volt staring back at him in the early morning sunlight from across the desert brush. The Explorer quickly passed beyond the final resting spot of that long dead metal hulk and past a hand painted sign that read “California City. Pop: 220. Crystal nervously fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket. Wyatt asked if he should stop or keep driving straight through to make it to Bakersfield by midday. Crystal votes for “keep going”, so does Stella from the backseat. Wyatt glimpses the rearview mirror to see Taco, Crystal’s affectionate pitbull, laying across the seventeen year old’s lap as she thumbs through a tattered copy of Sassy she’s been carrying around since the detective met her.

Comic Book Review – Sideways

Sideways: Steppin’ Out (2018)
Reprints Sideways #1-6
Written by Dan DiDio and Justin Jordan
Art by Kenneth Rocafort, Robert Gil, and Carmine di Giandomenico

Sideways: Rifts and Revelations (2019)
Reprints Sideways #7-13, Annual #1
Written by Dan DiDio and Grant Morrison
Art by Kenneth Rocafort, Max Raynor, Trevor Scott, Will Conrad, Cliff Richards, Shane Davis, Michelle Delecki, and Ibraim Roberson

Following the events of DC: Metal, a somewhat ludicrous storyline, DC Comics rolled out a line of comics that clearly attempted to create Marvel knock-offs. That’s nothing new. We’ll see later this month when I review Marvel’s Squadron Supreme that the Big Two have been doing this for decades, a playful series of non-copyright infringing homages that let writers make commentaries on the other company’s characters.

Movie Review – Accattone

Accattone (1961)
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in Bologna, Italy, in 1925. His mother was a primary school teacher, and his father was a lieutenant in the Royal Italian Army. A year later, Pasolini’s father was arrested for gambling debts, and his mother moved in with her family. In time, Pasolini’s father would embrace Italian fascism.

Movie Review – Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Written by Sergio Citti
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

His body was nearly unrecognizable when it was found on a beach in Ostia, near the edges of Rome. Pier Paolo Pasolini had been savagely beaten and run over multiple times with his own car. Additionally, the director had his genitals crushed with a metal bar and had been doused in gasoline and set ablaze. He was 53 years old when his life was taken. He hadn’t started making movies until he was 35, having helped write dialogue for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria. Fellini brought him back for the La Dolce Vita script. Before films, Pasolini was known as a poet & a painter, both finding a potent presence in his cinematic work. His murder appeared to have been part of an extortion attempt by the mafia, stealing reels of Salo and demanding large sums of money in return. There was certainly hate behind it, too.

Comic Book Review – Cat-Eyed Boy

Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition Volume One and Volume Two (2023)
Written & Illustrated by Kazuo Umezz

Kazuo Umezz is one of the most famous Japanese horror manga authors and started his career in the 1950s. Bucking the trends of the time, Umezz incorporated gory & grotesque imagery often associated with Japanese folklore, especially the Yokai – the umbrella term for ghosts, demons, and other nefarious spirits. One of his most well-known series was Cat-Eyed Boy, initially serialized in the pages of Shōnen Gaho, an anthology magazine. Like most manga that prove to be a success, there was an anime series (though it was more like voiceovers and little paper cutouts) as well as a live-action series in the mid-2000s. While the title character does prove to be an important part of each story arc, the stories were more like serialized horror anthology tales, a la American Horror story.

PopCult Podcast – The Substance/Good One

A aging star goes to extreme lengths to become young again. A teenage girl goes on a camping trap with her dad & his friend only to discover the disappointing realities of growing up.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – The Electric State Part One

The Electric State by Free League Press

Purchase this game here.

Swedish painter Simon Stålenhag has become prominent in the last decade because of his evocative retro-science fiction artwork. Tales from the Loop was turned into an Amazon series set in an alternate reality where humanity made significant technological advances. Things From the Flood was an artbook about a world where the water rose and brought strange creatures into the lives of ordinary people. The Labyrinth focuses on an ash-covered world of ruins where the apocalypse ravaged Earth. Like Tales and Things, the Electric State has been turned into a tabletop roleplaying game by Free League Publishing. Included in the core book are solo rules. I haven’t dipped my toes into Free League’s Year Zero system yet, so I thought this one would be a good start.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn: The Victory Academy Part Eight

Read the previous chapter here

Plot Thread: Time Cops on Patrol
[Begin a Session: External factors create new danger, urgency, or importance for a quest]Oracle: Capture Greed

Tempus Wright got a ping on his wristband. He had returned from a meeting with the police commissioner and Aiden Bell a couple hours earlier. Posing as Thomas Wright, a former CIA operative, he’d convinced them to give him access to the Victory Academy and its files. All that mattered was finding exactly where Jude Olmeda/Kismet altered the timeline to become Epoch in the future. This ping seemed problematic, though.

November 2024 Posting Schedule

Film Series
[The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini – Nov 5 through Nov 21]
Salo or 120 Days of Sodom, Accattone, Mamma Roma, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Oedipus Rex, Theorem, Medea, The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and The Arabian Nights

TV Reviews
Nov 10 – Northern Exposure Season Five

Comic Book Reviews
Nov 2 – Cat-Eyed Boy
Nov 9 – Sideways
Nov 16 – Squadron Supreme

Solo Tabletop RPG Reviews & Actual Plays
Nov 3, 10, 17, 24 – The Electric State Solo

Podcast Episodes
Nov 3 -The Substance/Good One
Nov 10 – Last Summer/Green Border
Nov 17 – The Apprentice/Megalopolis

Fall 2024 Digest

Features
[Patron Pick] Quigley – Matt
[Patron Pick] Inside Out– Bekah
[Patron Pick] Saw 3– Matt
[Patron Pick] Babes – Bekah
Book Update – September/October